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WP:NEXIST with regard to sources only mentioned in Primary Sources
This is coming off of anAFD discussion for the cyclistDavid Gillow, and the Keep side is arguing that because Gillow's personal website does feature background images of newspaper clippings. However, the nature of the website is to advertise Gillow's personal business.
I wanted to bring this up directly at VPP since I think that this is a gray area that imho should be resolved: does NEXIST still apply if the only mention of a potential source is from a promotional, self-published, non-independent or unreliable source, especially in cases where the source cannot be located otherwise? Or an alternative way to phrase this - if only a subject's personal website or non-independent source shows newspaper clippings but there is no verifiable evidence on where such newspapers came from, and searches performed for the headline show no results, is there NEXIST grounds?InvadingInvader (userpage,talk)17:17, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
It seems likely to me that cases will be rare and are likely to vary, and possibly this should be dealt with on a case by case basis.Wehwalt (talk)17:47, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
I agree with Wehwalt, there is always going to be far too much individual context to give an answer that is always correct. However as general principles, what matters is the reliability and independence of the actual sources, not the reliability or independence of the discovery method. For example it is far from uncommon to learn about the existence of reliable sources due to mentions in unreliable ones (e.g. books and newspaper articles quoted in internet forum discussions). It's also worth remembering that independent secondary sources are only required to demonstrate notability, primary sources and non-independent sources can be fine for verifiability (indeed in some cases primary sources are more reliable than secondary ones).Thryduulf (talk)18:11, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
what matters is the reliability and independence of the actual sources, not the reliability or independence of the discovery method. I agree with this as a general matter forWP:NEXIST and other verifiability and notability standards. "Discovery" is a critical piece here.WP:NEXIST points toWikipedia:Published. If an unusable source mentions or identifies a source that would be usable per the applicable P&G but then no one is able to confirm the existence or content of said source, then it fails verifiability. A similar issue arises withLLMs "hallucinating" plausible sounding but bogus citations. --MYCETEAE 🍄🟫—talk18:40, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
If I were asked to close an AfD where this was an issue, I would be creative and state: “No Determination… AFD ispaused… editors have 1 month to look into the potential sources further and report back.”Blueboar (talk)19:02, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
[if] no one is able to confirm the existence or content of said source, then it fails verifiability. generally yes, although there is a distinction to be made between "we've looked high and low and can confirm with very high confidence that the source doesn't exist" (this is likely to be the case for at least most LLM hallucinations) and "we've looked as hard as we can, but we still can't say whether the source exists or not" (say something claimed to be published in 1940 inFrench West Africa). In the first case it's a clearWP:V fail, in the second that's a much harder call.Thryduulf (talk)19:51, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
I agree it requires more care, and I agree with @Blueboar that in the right circumstance it is appropriate to allow more time. I would further distinguish between "we have a plausible title, author, publisher, publication date, and location and we have not been able to get ahold of it" vs. "we have a grainy photo on a personal website where only newspaper headlines are legible, with hard-to-decipher handwritten dates and no other publication information". --MYCETEAE 🍄🟫—talk20:21, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
Is there any reason that, with the necessary legwork, the sources given in the primary source can be found and used instead?Masem (t)19:17, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
I tried to see the extent to which national newspaper archives exist for Zimbabwe--there is one potentially promising archive with offices in Harare and Bulawayo[1], that charges a fee for access in person. There don't appear to be any digitial archives for pre-21st century Zimbabwean newspapers, regrettably. Another possible route would be to try to contact Gillow himself, since he would appear to have had the snippets on hand when putting together his website, and may be able to provide additional bibliographic information and/or text of the snippets themselves.signed,Rosguilltalk19:25, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
I have suggested asking the various WikiProjects tagged in the article andWikipedia:Reference desk. Unfortunately, the website doesn't identify the sources. It's a poor-quality image of a stack of old newspaper clippings, where only the headlines are legible, with no names or dates of publication. --MYCETEAE 🍄🟫—talk19:44, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
Yes, I did see the hand written dates on two of these. One plausibly says "3/7/78". I find them both pretty illegible. --MYCETEAE 🍄🟫—talk19:55, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
If we can't even verify the basic info needed to verify those sources (due to unclear images), much less access then, I would be very wary of using a primary source here.Masem (t)20:42, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
As a general rule, you should assume that sources aren't actively lying to you, and that unless you have a specific reason to believe that the specific website actually is lying to you (e.g., it's a satire site, it's about a subject who has been accused in other sources of lying). Therefore, when a "promotional, self-published, non-independent" website claims that various news sources exist, you should assume that those news sources exist.
Of course, you can'tuse the sources until you can read them yourself. You have toWP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT, and that means you can't write "The actor's performance was praised by Unread Critic inUnarchived Newspaper", citing the review you haven't read, just because the actor's website says "Dear Unread praised my performance in his review for the Unarchived Newspaper the next morning...". But you should assume that this review exists – or, perhaps more to the point, that itexisted. At some point,Wikipedia:Verifiability#Accessibility of a source is a requirement. It's not necessary foryou to be able to access the source, butsomeone has to be able to do so. In case of doubt, an AFD might be suspended to allow time for a search. Particularly determined editors might even broadcast pleas for help through relevant Wikimedia affiliates or social media. But it's also valid to close an AFD with asoft delete and a note saying that we're pretty sure that sources existed, though can't access them, and if anyone is able to get the sources in the future, then aWP:REFUND will be cheerfully granted.WhatamIdoing (talk)17:14, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
As a historical note, theWP:BFAQ used to recommend that businesses that wanted a volunteer to write an article about them create a "News" section on their websites, listing/linking to news stories about the business. Having a handy list of sources can be a great timesaver for volunteers. So it would be very ironic if we now say "Oh, those terrible self-promotional people: How dare they do exactly what we recommended, by making a handy list of sources that show they qualify for aWikipedia:Separate, stand-alone article!"
Also, remember that, despite all our complaining about "promotionalism", business articles are among the most popular subjects with our readers. We don't want advertisements – seeWikipedia:Identifying blatant advertising – but we do want accurate information, including information thataccurately presents the subject only in a positive light (because not every subject has had negative information published about them).WhatamIdoing (talk)17:48, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
I think thatWP:SELFSOURCE guides us in another direction on anything that might be considered boastful ("unduly self-serving"). And this would actually hold more true today than in this older item we're looking for, as some people are AIing their bios. --Nat Gertler (talk)20:24, 17 July 2025 (UTC)
Is using selective transclusion to remove citations ever an acceptable way to reduce page size or overcome template maximums
A few weeks ago I came across a development over at thelist of common misconceptions, one of our most famous articles: it is now displayed to readers without references. There was consensus some time ago tosplit the large listinto three pages. In the course of those discussions, an idea emerged that the three could be transcluded to reconstruct a slimmer version of the original (some of the support was indeed predicated on such a plan), leading us to the current version without references.
The citations still exist, but in order to see them you have to find the link to the subject-specific page and click it. According to pageviews for the last 30 days, the main article received 141,198 pageviews. The other threecombine for 3,917. In other words, almost nobody clicks through to where the citations are. While it's true that citations take up a lot of space, they're also quite important where big claims are made (like X is a common misconception, Y is how it really is).
I thought about opening an RfC on the article talk page, but -- with apologies to the regular contributors there -- it seems like the underlying concept is something that could really use more centralized discussion:is using selective transclusion to remove citations ever an acceptable way to reduce page size ^or overcome template maximums? —Rhododendritestalk \\ 14:46, 13 July 2025 (UTC)Expanded on request —Rhododendritestalk \\00:42, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
Talk page discussions don't override community expectations on referencing for articles. I've tagged the page as unreferenced.Nigel Ish (talk)16:09, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
I'm undecided so far on the issue at question, but your edit seemspointy to me. I'd recommend you self-revert, allowing this discussion to reach a conclusion and that conclusion to be implemented.Anomie⚔16:26, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
My edit has been reverted, so that point is now moot. I couldn't find any discussion where consensus was obtained for removing all references from the page (there was a discussion on splitting it, but that isn't the same thing at all.Nigel Ish (talk)16:48, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
I don't think we should be using transclusions for content at all - this is effectively presenting the casual user with an unreferenced article where they cannot edit the contents and someone has to watchlist all of the subpages to check for vandalism. This is a bad idea.Nigel Ish (talk)17:54, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
Normally, transclusions do carry standard inline references over, but the split was done as to wrap the refs in a manner that they were excluded from the transclusion.Masem (t)18:07, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
Let me correct myself, the references were already wrapped in the #invoke magic word which prevents reference expansion from triggering the "too many templates" limit on pages, which made sense given how many items and references were used. But when the split happened, the #invokes were kept, so the references do not get transcluded.
Obviously, it would be a problem if the transcluded split pages replaced the #invoke with normal ref calling (the full list would still be a problem).
We're still left with a page that appears to have no references. What should have happened is gradual splitting of the larger sections of the pages, leaving only main/seealso calls to those lists and not transclusions, as to still direct readers to those lists with references still all in place in the main and sublists.Masem (t)19:15, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
The#invoke hack does not "prevent" reference expansion from triggering the "too many templates" limit on pages. It merely makes it possible to cram a few more things in there before theWP:PEIS limit is hit. Think of it as a compression system for a big suitcase: it lets you put some more clothes in, but it doesn't let you put an infinite number of clothes in the suitcase.WhatamIdoing (talk)22:00, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
Ah, so the refs are just not there on the big page due to the template limit still being hit when all the transclusions, invoke or not, are included. That would make sense.Masem (t)23:00, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
The issue is that since every entry is a short summary that is carefully cited, the character count of the references is quite large in comparison to the actual text of the article. To keep the article size to a manageable level, <noinclude> tags were placed around the references so that they appear in the sub-articles but not the main article.
The #invoke directives were a stop-gap solution that bought a bit more time and predated the split by several months, but as the article grew there was concern that it was not sustainable, hence the split.Mr. Swordfish (talk)14:18, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
Why it was done is not relevant. What matters is the outcome: we an article that is uncited, which is explicitly contrary to one of Wikipedia's core policies.Thryduulf (talk)15:01, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
Its never acceptable. Pages have to be comprehensive as standalone articles so pushing the citations elsewhere is not acceptable.Masem (t)17:22, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
I just figured out what happened in that inthis diff, the list was replaced with several transclusions to the subpages. The subpages have the references but were implemented in a way so that they do not get transcluded into the full list. This just doesn't work again that every page should be standalone and references must be there on that page. The split should have literally just split off major sections to subpages without worrying about transclusions, so that the sourcing remains in place as normal for all articles.Masem (t)17:33, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
That was a BAD idea. Thanks to the way theWP:PEIS limit is calculated, all those citations would now double their contribution to the limit (their size gets added once when transcluded on the original page, and then thanks to a quirk in the software, gets counted a second time whenthat page is transcluded).--Ahecht (TALK PAGE)18:02, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
No. I don't care why the current setup exists, all that matters is that article content should always be supported by references to reliable sources and the references should always be on the same page as the content they support.Thryduulf (talk)21:48, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
On a technical level, there is a hard cap about the number of templates that can display on one page. And I expect you're thinking, "What?" I know I did when I first came across this. Why is there a hard cap on the number of templates that will display? Well, it's necessary to protect the servers from certain kinds of sophisticated vandalism that amount to attacks. A clever vandal could set up templates that called each other recursively, so you end up with very large numbers of templates proliferating and absorbing our resources. There are good security reasons why we wouldn't want to change the cap. And the cap is set at such a high level that it almost never comes up (which is why it's confusing).How does the hard cap affect this article? Well, all our references are in templates (and they rightly should be). So, around November 2024, we'd made this article unexpandable: wecould not add further references. For a while now, editors had been using a workaround by adding special code into the references, but that too was on the point of failure.That is a policy disaster. From a WP:V perspective, we could not possibly allow an article to exist that we couldn't add further citations to.WhatamIdoing arranged an RFC. She advocated splitting the article into subarticles, but editors insisted on having a version of the article that displayed on one page. So after a truly enormous amount of discussion, we implemented a split intoList of common misconceptions about arts and culture,List of common misconceptions about history, andList of common misconceptions about science, technology, and mathematics. Each of those articles can be expanded, can have citations added to it, and is not the policy disaster we were previously faced with.Then, in obedience to a talk page consensus, we created a version that transcluded the split articles. But the version that displays on one pageis not the article. It's a single page that transcludes the three articles without the citations; but with a link to the subarticle with citations very prominently displayed.You can of course reach consensus to change this at this discussion, but I do think it's important that you fully understand what you're doing before you !vote.—S MarshallT/C21:57, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
Thanks for this explanation, S Marshall. The template limit is interesting indeed. But I think the crux isbut editors insisted on having a version of the article that displayed on one page - "Split the page but treat the split pages as templates to transclude without references where the list once was" is simply not a valid option for a split proposal, so IMO should've just been disregarded upon closure. At the end of the day, we cannot have an article (and whichever page the reader is on when they're reading the textis the article) without references. —Rhododendritestalk \\22:01, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
I'd have written "butsome editors insisted..."; otherwise, I think S Marshall's description is fair.
...and WAID was thorough. The split proposal RfCwas advertised and crosslinked on this page (Village pump policy), on Village pump technical, on FTN, and on WikiProject Lists. This wasn't some halfassed local consensus.—S MarshallT/C22:26, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
Many of the reasons to maintain one single list (even with the transclusions) are very weak ("its a popular article"), in comparative weight to the core need to have comprehensive pages with everything appropriate sourced, even with the use of summary style splits. It would be far better to just have a notice box on the article page to explain that the topic is too large for a single page and thus split for readability and usability.Masem (t)22:27, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
Equally, a decision that involved multiple sitewide RfCs doesn't get overturned on the basis of one discussion on VPP.—S MarshallT/C22:39, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
Thesplit proposal was advertised and crosslinked. The "how many to split into" discussion was likewise advertised. Butneither of those produced a consensus to create a transclusion zombie article. In fact, the first says explicitlyThere is not, however, a consensus whether to split the article in 2, split it into 3, or to do some wizardry using templates and transclusion to somehow be even more creative. The "How to split" discussion linked above was not advertised, and involves only five people. Nobody is suggesting to overturn either of the RfCs. What I am suggesting is that the basis for thesubsequent decision of creating a high-teaffic unreferenced article is concerning, and that, in general, we should not remove references from the actual user-read versions of articles to save space. —Rhododendritestalk \\22:57, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
Yes, the decision to split, and how to split, seems both well advertised, decided fairly by an RFC. Its this last minute of "but lets keep one big article using transclusions" that doesn't have that support, and that's what is breaking policy requirements.Masem (t)23:01, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
I invite you to re-read the RfCs, paying careful attention to the sequence in which these ideas were introduced to the community. It is profoundly unfair to call that proposal "last minute". In fact, the idea was discussed and agonized over for weeks. The community didn't love it. But it thought the alternatives were worse.—S MarshallT/C23:14, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
You've misunderstood my comments, they were never in support of removing all citations. Maybe I should have made that clearer at the time. --LCUActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°12:09, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
The entire split discussion seemed predicated on the fact that while the full list was fully sourced, even with #invoke, the template limit was reached and the citations appeared "removed" in the rendered code (not in wikitext), which is why some type of split was required.Masem (t)12:24, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
@Rhododendrites, I'm not sure from your comments whether you're more interested in aWikipedia:Close challenge or finding out whether there is currently a consensus for this arrangement. If the latter, then it doesn't really matter what the previous discussions did/didn't say.WhatamIdoing (talk)23:34, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
My question is still the one in the heading. I was responding there to S Marshall arguing that a discussion here would not take precedence over well attended discussions at the article. My point is, there was no strong consensus for creating an unreferenced list -- only to split, and then to split in 3. So, on one hand, there's no closure to challenge. On the other, I'm looking to gauge opinions on the general concept. —Rhododendritestalk \\23:39, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
At this rate we'll need a list of common misconceptions about the list of common misconceptions.If there hadn't been a one-page version option, then the split proposal failed and we're back to one merged list.—S MarshallT/C00:02, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
I'm not sure that's true, but I think the more important question is "What do we want today?", not "Exactly how would you interpret comments made last year?"WhatamIdoing (talk)01:04, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
No, this is a terrible idea. And now the current version just had a permanent template at the top? It looks awful. Just make gosh darn separate sub pages, like we do with so many other primary high level topics. Transclusion in this manner is a non-starter.SilverserenC23:18, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
The article was approaching 600kb, sosomething had to be done. I do not agree with this particular solution, but once page sizes get that large slowdowns occur, especially on weaker systems and when opening source editor. A potential solution could be turning it into a pseudo-disambiguation page pointing to the other subpages as we do atList of Nazis. But I tend to agree that presenting without citations should be avoided.Curbon7 (talk)23:20, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
I'll say what I said on the talk page in question:For a list that is meant to combat misinformation, it would really help to be able tosee the citations whenever necessary; just looking at the page gives the sense that things are made up, and then I have to click on another page just to see where the information came from. Given that a fair few of these are related to actual political controversies (such as the vaccines and autism one, or the tariffs one that was recently added), I think that saying "these are false" would fall within the "likely to be challenged" part ofWP:V and thus need citation here. CompareLists of unusual deaths, which was also recently split into a list of lists. Also note that tags like{{Better source needed}} and{{Citation needed}} are not excluded from the combined list. -BRAINULATOR9 (TALK)23:44, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
Indeed, woo, but an example of how the politicization of science is now in a world where both the left and right wings are departing from the consensus reality-based community into the world ofalternative facts. Wikipedia should not do that, though, Wikipedia should firmly treat this as a question of science, not politics.Andre🚐00:23, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
Exactly. I fully believe the science here, but in terms of the doubt being thrown around by ppl in high government positions, we as a neutral work should absolutely still be sourcing (using the good medical sources that disprove there is any connection, of course, in addition to those that identify that there's a misconception). These need to be with the text, not shuffled away in in a sub-list article, which, given we're always going to be limited by template inclusion limits, means that the main transclusion list is broken in light of WP:V and other core content policies.Masem (t)01:00, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
"All content likely to be challenged" per policy requiresonline inline citations. It is very hard to see how any of this isn't going to be challenged, even if the challenges are poor. --LCUActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°11:57, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
I closed the first discussion with there being a consensus to split; as Rhododendrites notes, I didn't see a consensus of how to split. I do have some slight reservations about hiding references but as WAID has noted, most people do not check them anyway, and as S Marshall notes the split compromise allows the existence of 3 full split articles and a merged form for convenience. I see this as a valid use of templates and a valid, well-advertised, local consensus.Andre🚐00:28, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
WP:BURDEN "material the verifiability of which is likely to be challenged" given the content of this article this can not be a valid format. And a local consensus, no matter how well advertised, can not over turn a policy. --LCUActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°12:00, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
I agree with what S Marshall writes below. The citations are there, they are simply indirected slightly.Andre🚐02:05, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
I believe we may have a differing opinion on indirection, the concept of being "inline", and the relation between the two.Alpha3031 (t •c)11:42, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
There aretechnical issues and there areeditorial issues; although there is an argument to be made that a long articles like this should be broken up for readability, this issue arose from atechnical problem: since the entries are all short summaries that are carefully cited, the citations are much larger than the actual text of the article, making the page load hit some internal limits.Since this is atechnical problem, we should seek atechnical solution that preserves the editorial decisions as much as possible. The current transclusion approach that suppresses the cites is one; I understand the arguments being made against it.Is there another, better, technical solution? If I were writing the article on my own I would look to some JSON/Ajax solution that does partial rendering and only loads what the reader clicks on. I'm not aware of anything like this that is available, but perhaps someone knows something.Mr. Swordfish (talk)14:39, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
IMO it makes sense to explore other technical options on the article talk page -- all I want to establish with this discussion is that any solution that removes references from view of the reader is not something we want. —Rhododendritestalk \\14:49, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
Given the RFCs on splitting, the only reason I see mentioned for trying to maintain some version of a single page version is along the lines of ITSUSEFUL which seems like a very weak rational to try to force a technical solution for what is basicly a non problem if a normal page split was done. It really doesn't make sense to try to justify trying to maintain one master list page for minimal returns for the purposes of being an encyclopediaMasem (t)14:58, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
Mr. Swordfish isone of the top editors to that page, and within the limits ofWP:OWN, I think that his assessment of what works (or doesn't) should be respected. That said, he made arguments along these lines throughout the prior discussions, and I mostly felt like they boiled down to (a) Change is bad [it is! I agree with him!] and (b) a genuine inability to believe that anyone would want to split up this list for editorial reasons, even though I have personally told him more than once that I really do want to split this list up for editorial reasons [specifically, the unreasonable amount of time that it would take someone to read the whole page because of theWP:SIZE of the readable prose] and would want to do this even if the technical issues hadn't made it urgent.WhatamIdoing (talk)19:12, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
Was there significant consideration given to converting the main page into a more formalWikipedia:Lists of lists rather than trying to preserve the single list? That technical contortions are needed to avoid PEIS seems to be a strong signal that the topic itself is incredibly diffuse and likelyWP:TOOBROAD.CMD (talk)15:00, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
The list isWP:TOOBROAD by definition; a misconception has to be commonamong a group, it cannot be common in and of itself. A misconception common in America is not common in the world. There's a common misconception in Texas that pickingbluebonnets is illegal: is that acommon misconception?Rollinginhisgrave (talk |contributions)15:17, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
Yeah, make a list of lists. What's the point of doing a SIZESPLIT and then just smushing the whole thing together again?Alpha3031 (t •c)15:28, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
No. Citations should never be cut from an article to "reduce page size". Citations arethe most important thing in an article. Displaying this list without citations is a disservice to our readers.JackFromWisconsin (talk |contribs)17:00, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
@S Marshall, I read and understood fully, kept my comment brief, but I will explain further. Yes I understand technically the citations are available in a separate page. However, this list uses a non-intuitive way of citing material that as far as I'm aware is the sole time its used on wikipedia. We already have ways to deal with long articles (clean cuts into separate articles), which don't include surgically transcluding the readable text back into a main article. The matter of fact is most readers will not reach the sub pages. The main page has 2100 views on July 14, whereas the Arts and Culture subpage had 50 views. History, had 55 views also. Science and tech had 38 views, again just on July 14. So all together, the subpages have 7% of the viewership of the main article. This is a problem.JackFromWisconsin (talk |contribs)03:13, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Why is that a problem? Don't most readers not bother clicking on citations anyway? We insist on citations for various reasons, but as far as readers go we stop at making them available and most don't avail themselves of them. If you want to pursue this view-count based argument, you'd need to do more to establish that readers really aren't finding the citations they want to find. As it is, those numbers seem well in line with readers who care about cites finding their way to the sub articles.Anomie⚔11:59, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
My "problem" is the fact that this article is unique and very different in how it handles citations. It is very inconvenient to have to navigate to a sub page, do ctrl-f and find where you were reading, just to find the citation. Wikipedia, for like 24 years, has inline citations next to every claim that needs one. The fact that this article should be treated any differently is absurd and will confuse readers.
I'm not going to argue how many readers actually care about citations, because thats probably fairly low. Most of the trust of Wikipedia is seeing the cite (and lack of [cn] tags) and trusting the process. If a reader doesn't see a cite, they will get the idea this isn't a checked page and there could be misinfo.
The point is that the servers haveTemplate limits, and when you exceed them, then it does its best, but eventually it stops showing thecontent of the template, and instead just shows thename of the template.
That means that although you would usuallyexpect to find the refs the looking something like this:
References
Brown, Rebecca (2006). "Size of the Moon",Scientific American, 51 (78).
Miller, Edward (2005).The Sun. Academic Press.
and so forth, through hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of refs, it will insteadactually display something like this:
Why bring in all the talk about only 7% of readers viewing the sublists if that's not relevant to what your actual problem is? The way you wrote it, it seemed like you were saying that it being only 7%is the problem.Anomie⚔12:11, 17 July 2025 (UTC)
My thoughts: Splitting the original list article into sub-articles was the correct resolution to the technical issues.However, re-merging (transcluding) the information back into a main article (without the citations) was a serious mistake. As others have noted, citations are needed inevery article on which “likely to be challenged” information appears. “But it’s cited over in the other article” is never acceptable. This can be resolved by making the original page into an index or “list of lists”.Blueboar (talk)21:05, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
A version of an article stripped of citations is fundamentally flawed in its failure to comply with the letter or spirit ofWP:V. In the case at hand, I support replacing the uncited merged list with an index or list of lists.--Trystan (talk)21:28, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
No, that shouldn't be done. If the page is too large, split it up into several smaller pages. This applies to any page large enough where removing citations can be considered. --cheesewhisk3rs ≽^•⩊•^≼ ∫ (pester)22:10, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
In this discussion: First, Rhododendrites asks whether selective transclusion is an acceptable way to reduce page size; then I explain that the purpose of the selective transclusion isn't about the page size, but is to overcome template display limits; then substantial numbers of editors come along and !vote on the original, erroneous framing of the question.Rhododendrites, may I fix the question and the header, or would you prefer to do that yourself?—S MarshallT/C00:28, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
It seems to have evolved (or I have been corrected). I have amended the heading/question. Is anyone really going to revise their statement to say "no, we should not toss aside basic wikipolicy for page size, but for template maximums yes"? —Rhododendritestalk \\00:34, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
Again: That is not a fair framing of what happened. Please: be fair.Nobody has tossed aside basic wikipolicy. Everything that's challenged or likely to be challenged is supported by an inline citation to a reliable source. The issue is that that source is one click away. You're framing that as a policy violation, but WP:Vdoes not say what you think it says. It was written before transclusion was commonplace and before new features like LST were implemented, and on the question of whether the references can be a click away from the thing they're citing, it is silent. Because we knew this was novel, WhatamIdoing asked on WT:V about ithere.WAID wasscrupulous about asking the community about this before we did it and she got very little response. Now we're getting a big lot of responses, but they're responses to the wrong question. You've framed this as "using selective transclusion to remove citations", which would be outrageous behaviour, so of course it's getting the response it is. The citations have not been removed. They're in place, one click away, with prominent links to help readers find them. It's been done after a great deal of thought and discussion, with the utmost transparency. But when WAID asked this, she framed the question accurately, and therefore got much less engagement and drama.—S MarshallT/C01:58, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
A citation on a different page that the overwhelming majority of readers will never even see is not an inline citation.which would be outrageous behaviour - Yes, it is (an outrageous decision, that is -- I don't think there's a behavioral issue here). That you can try to justify it as a well-meaning kludge doesn't change that it strips away references from the only version of the article most readers will ever see. —Rhododendritestalk \\02:24, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
I'm not "justifying it as a well-meaning kludge". I'm telling you it's a thing we did openly, transparently and after a substantial amount of policy consultation in the appropriate places. And I'm telling you that it doesn't violate the black letter of policy. If the community thinks citations absolutely must be on the same rendered page as the claim, and it might think that, although we did ask---if that's the community's view then that needs to be added to policy, because the policy doesn't say so, and it never has.—S MarshallT/C02:50, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
Where content is referenced on article A, the community has never accepted a link from article B to article A as an acceptable reference for content on article B. That is hasn't explicitly said that the specific transclusion method used here is unacceptable previously is not relevant when the situation has never come up previously.
Please can you link to these consultations about not including references on the page, because while the "should we split?" and "into how many should we split?" questions were widely consulted on, the fundamental question here "is it OK if the combined page is unreferenced?" doesn't seem to have been.Thryduulf (talk)03:02, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
It doesn't matter how we got there, we have a page that waspurposely designed to not include references, which violates content and cannot be overridden by local consensus. We know the citations exist elsewhere, but that's absolutely not an acceptable solution, so it doesn't make sense to dwell on the how we got to this situation and instead how to resolve the situation, of which there is a KISS solution (remove the transclusions, and simply make it a list-of-list page).Masem (t)03:34, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
And that's not true either. The page waspurposely designed to show that there are references, and to make sure people can find them.—S MarshallT/C08:27, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
But it was still by design not made to include those referecens, which is a minimum requirement for sourcing. It doesn't matter that you have a big arrow pointing "Refs are this page", even though that may seem like a way to show the reader where the refs cite. Pages have to be fully comprehensive even if viewed offline, so a page that says the references are elsewhere is fails that.Masem (t)12:11, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
A citation on another page is not inline to the statement on the page it was transcluded on. Therefore, it cannot be considered a inline citation for the purposes ofWP:MINREF on that transcluded page any more than a bibliographicWP:GENREF would be, even if it was used as an inline citation on another page that the reader can get to.Alpha3031 (t •c)11:36, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
I understand why it was done this way. It's a novel attempt at a solution. But I'm not sure why the other two solutions commonly used - either splitting alphabetically or by field (such as by sciences, math, arts, etc) - into multiple articles that could be linked from a template on each other wouldn't have worked. In fact, it looks like there's three good separations into separate pages on that page already, which are being used for these transclusions. This page can be turned into a disambiguation page that just links to those three other pages, and the three pages can have see also or similar added to their top. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez |me |talk to me!00:33, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
The common solutions do work. The 'problem' is that some (a few?) editors really, really,really want all 27,000 words about common misconceptions all on the same page, without having to click between them. This method was suggested as a way to (attempt to) give everyone what they want.WhatamIdoing (talk)03:18, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
No. I understand and appreciate the problem this solved, the work that went into the discussion and implementation, and the frustration editors who worked on this may feel. But every list and article requires references and the very problem that this was designed to solve points to the particular importance of references forList of common misconceptions. The current setup is also a barrier to editing. The fact that most readers don't look at references is not sufficient, nor is the fact that motivated readers can click through to check references and edit the real lists. --MYCETEAE 🍄🟫—talk03:04, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
About "every list and article requires references": Technically, we don't have a policy or guideline requiring a source to be cited in every list or every article. That rule applies only to BLPs, and to articles containingWP:MINREF content (so not, e.g., a list or article that contains purely 'obvious' content, such as "The capital of France is Paris" or "Cancer is a disease"). I have been surprised how little interest the community has in creating such a rule.WhatamIdoing (talk)03:22, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
WP:WHYCITE specifically calls out this situation, "If a section from the wikilinked page is copied or transcluded, sources must still be cited in the sampled section even if the wikilink page already has it cited."Masem (t)03:37, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
Also (emphasis added):In particular,sources are required for material that ischallenged or likely to be challenged. MINREF contains similar statements. By definition,List of common misconceptions requires lots of citations. The P&G rarely use such strong language, often saying what "should" be done or avoided. And in practice, pages with zero references face steep challenges at AFC and AFD. I overstated the breadth of the requirement but the circumstances where references are not required do not apply here. --MYCETEAE 🍄🟫—talk04:45, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
Yes, we know what it says. There's been a lot of unintentional mansplaining to WhatamIdoing in this discussion, so I feel as if I need to stress that she is one of the principal authors of WP:V. Compared to her, I'm a callow newbie on policy pages, but even I have racked up some four-figure number of edits to WT:V over the last sixteen years. Everything we've done is meticulously compliant with the core content policy that we, to a substantial extent, wrote. Wehave set aside a guideline or two -- which we did knowingly, in unusual circumstances, and after copious quantities of discussion.—S MarshallT/C08:41, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
What I'm learning from this discussion is that the community thinks the inline citationsmust appear on the same rendered page as the information they're meant to cite. But that's not actually to be found anywhere in core content policy, and we did ask. We seem to need to add it -- most likely to WP:V, which is where it naturally fits.—S MarshallT/C13:05, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
As noted above there has never been a need to explicitly say it previously, because everybody previously agreed it was the case anyway.Thryduulf (talk)13:09, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
Aninline citation should appearinline to the text that it is meant to support. That is why it's called an inline reference, and not a general reference or a "reference on another page".Alpha3031 (t •c)13:10, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
Huh… We have had multiple discussions through the years about the need for articles to stand on their own in regards to verification and citations. We have repeatedly reached consensus that“but it is cited at the linked article” is not good enough. The idea that we must repeat citations inevery article in which (likely to be challenged) information appears is hardly new.
I am actually rather surprised that two editors with the years of experience and policy involvement of WAID and S Marshall were notalready aware that this was consensus.
That said, S Marshall is correct in saying that this consensusisn’t directly spelled out in policy. And the fact that (despite their years of experience) they apparently didn’t know of this consensus tells me that perhaps it needs to be.Blueboar (talk)15:11, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
As I've noted WHYCITE does express this requirement, but that's also a guideline and not a core content policy. This probably needs to be very clear in WP:V, particularly on citing any material that could be challenged.Masem (t)15:14, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
(edit conflict) @Blueboarthis consensusisn’t directly spelled out in policy [...] perhaps it needs to be. I don't know whether itneeds to be, but I don't think adding it will harm anything. Exactly how and where to add it is probably something best suited to a separate discussion atWikipedia talk:Verifiability rather than here.Thryduulf (talk)15:15, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
We could add an explanatory footnote tomust be accompanied by an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the material... clarifying that "accompanied by" means displayed on the same page as the content, including where the content is transcluded, subject to the narrow exceptions inWP:WHENNOTCITE (DAB pages and most lead content).--Trystan (talk)15:36, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
On this point, Thryduulf is correct. This discussion isn't a sufficient basis to make a substantial edit to a core content policy. There needs to be workshopping on WT:V.—S MarshallT/C15:41, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
I think you mistake or understate the consensus found in policy: it is explicit consensus that you don't need to inline cite in situations where challenge is unlikely, thus we may allow it in limited circumstance like the often broad unconstrovertial overview of a lead, some uncontroversial lists and otherwise . . . but not where challenge is likely (or quotes)in any matter, including lead or list, per policy. --Alanscottwalker (talk)18:07, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
Not having citations in the lede when that information is cited in the body of the article is reasonable, because if the page was being viewed offline or in print, those citations are still present. The problem is when the citation information exists on a completely separate page.Masem (t)12:06, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Do we really need to refer to a committee the task of workshopping a proposal to formally discuss the decision to confirm the fact that inline, does, actually, quite literally, in fact, mean in-line (adj. from in, meaning in; and line meaning line).Alpha3031 (t •c)16:51, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
Perhaps I am easily confused, but I see theinline requirement as already quite clear: WP:V — This page in a nutshell box:... any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by inline citations. WP:V — In the very first sentence, after the TOC:All content must be verifiable. ... it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source .... WP:INLINE — Defines the concept:On Wikipedia, an inline citation is generally a citation in a page's text vs.... a general reference. This is ... often placed at or near the end of an article. Nothing about citations outside the article. wikt:inline —An element that occurs within the flow of the text. wikt:in-line —(writing) Inserted in the flow of a text. Perhaps WP:V is not explicit that an inline citation should be visible, but does it honestly need to say not to hide it? What did I miss? —GhostInTheMachinetalk to me16:34, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
I agree, the standard is clear. I suppose explicit clarification is harmless but I'm not sure it's necessary. --MYCETEAE 🍄🟫—talk18:13, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
I have been hoping for several years that we could get community consensus to add a line to WP:V that says completely unreferenced articles are disallowed. However, the community has so far rejected this (usually for overreach – instead of saying "c'mon, guys, there really ought to besome kind of source in every article", the proposal is usually too close to "You must add an independent secondary source that indisputably provides SIGCOV of the exact subject all by itself, under penalty of instant deletion").
Before this was implemented, I asked about this at WT:V in the full expectation that the community would immediately land on it like a ton of bricks. However, @Blueboar was the only editor who directly opposed it at the time.WhatamIdoing (talk)17:00, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Can you link? I am curious as to what my comments were at that time… what the context was, and whether I have changed my mind?Blueboar (talk)18:08, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Thanks, but not what I was asking for. I was asking for a link to the discussion WAID was referring to (where I apparently opposed his suggestion for needing some kind of source in every article)Blueboar (talk)20:44, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
...and, this is how confusions arise. WAID wrote: "Before this was implemented, I asked about this at WT:V..." By "this", she meant, "the combined/transcluded List of common misconceptions". But that was actually a change of subject; her previous paragraph was about a policy requiring some kind of source in every article. Blueboar, being a little less close to this, didn't see that the subject had changed (and why would he?) He thought WAID was saying he'd !voted against a policy requiring some kind of source in every article. And so we get confusion. Two people reading the same text and understanding completely different things by what they read.That confusion is at the heart of this. A requirement that every controversial claim on Wikipedia is verified by inline citations is written in policy. A requirement that every controversial claim on Wikipedia is verified by inline citationson every mainspace page where the claim appears is not written into policy, and it never has been.All these people who think there's no possible confusion and it's all so blindingly obvious that it doesn't need writing down, were nowhere to be seen when we specifically asked this question. And all the people who think it's absolutely verboten to split up the List of common misconceptions for any reason including technical constraints, are nowhere to be seen now. Got to love consensus.—S MarshallT/C09:15, 17 July 2025 (UTC)
It is natural for even very experienced editors undertaking careful, good-faith interpretations of policy to reach different conclusions about how it applies. That sort of thing happens all the time even in fields when the wording being considered is more formally drafted (like an appellate court overruling a trial judge's interpretation of a statute), and ourWP:PG are not written or intended to be applied in a legalistic way. It's the unfortunate risk of innovation that sometimes, once the thing is actually created, having more eyes on it will escalate issues that for whatever reason didn't attract much attention at the conceptual stage.--Trystan (talk)12:55, 17 July 2025 (UTC)
Ghost… what we don’t explicitly state is that the inline citation has to be repeated inevery article containing the information… saying “but there IS an inline citation over at (linked article)” isn’t good enough.Blueboar (talk)18:19, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Well, to imagine that scenario, rather robs the word "inline" of meaning. An article (or sentence, or phrase) that does not have an inline cite, does not have an inline cite, and that's all there is to it.Alanscottwalker (talk)18:25, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
In the situations I am referring to, everythingis technically supported by inline citations - it’s just that those citations are “inline” at other articles, not at the article being read.
I suppose you could say that problem is lesswhether an inline citation has been provided, and morewhere onehasn’t been provided. That’s why we need something in policy that says… “repeat the inline citation inevery article where the information is stated” (or similar)Blueboar (talk)21:14, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
That seems like a strange use of "technically", rather it seems what you actually are saying is it's not technically inline cited, rather it is inline cited elsewhere, just not here. Which means it is not inline cited where it matters and is required to be.Alanscottwalker (talk)21:24, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Ok, sure … but while currently that requirement is implied, but notexplicitly stated anywhere, and I think it should be made explicit.
FYI - An attempt was just made to add language on this to WP:V, but it was reverted pending conclusion of this discussion.Blueboar (talk)21:50, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Yeah, I know, I was called to explain something on a user talk page about this discussion and that change. I don't see a need for change but if anyone wants to discuss it at the policy page, fine by me.Alanscottwalker (talk)21:55, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
I agree with those saying that an inline citation is, by definition, contained inline within the text that it is supporting, and not in another text passage elsewhere. I appreciate the desire to add more text to guidance whenever someone presents a different interpretation, but I think we should do our best toavoid adding more specialized guidance. Less text is more likely to be read than more text.isaacl (talk)22:27, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
A requirement for challenged or likely to be challenged material to beaccompanied by an inline citation is clearly not met when that material appearsunaccompanied by any citations. It is already quite explicitly stated. I have no objection to making it even more clear, but I see this more as a hyper-specific technical clarification than filling in any sort of gap in the policy.--Trystan (talk)22:04, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
No, and whatever was tried to be done, it does not work, eg. someone going toList of common misconceptions#Judiasm or the following "Sports" section, etc. has no idea what the cites are or how to find them or correct them or dispute them. And by the list's nature, these things are subject to challenge.Alanscottwalker (talk)11:34, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
There is absolutely nothing about this topic that warrants invention of a new type of list article. The topic is perfectly suited to be a list of lists, which is such a common article style that we even havea list of such articles.Zerotalk12:40, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
Moreover, people who claim there is no policy against it are wrong. We have all seen newbies who think that a wikilink to another article removes the need for a citation, and we tell them that Wikipedia is not allowed as a source. That's policy. This newly-invented article style is both unnecesssary and policy-violating.Zerotalk14:12, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
That's a very good point. Even if these are excerpts, the presentation for the casual reader and likely to newer users is the same as an article.CMD (talk)16:04, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Comment. I don't think the transclusion limit will go away just with just wishing it wasn't there and trying to restore the old style of the article. So while the solution is not great, I respect why it was done, but we should still be searching for a technical workaround. Is it possible to have a per-article exemption or extension of the limit? Also, if not, have we considered basically a custom script for the article? For every reference, we'd have the template'd citation in a comment with some magic processing flag. Then we'd run the script and it'd create plain wikitext equivalents of all the references. No substitutions at all, that way, although the page will still be huge. e.g. something like:
<ref name="some-reference"><!-- REF-TEMPLATE: {{cite book |title=Reliable Book |last=Doe |first=John }} -->Doe, John. ''Reliable Book''.</ref>
It'd be a hassle for maintenance since people would have to run the script every so often to replace with the wikitext rollout of the template, but it's doable.SnowFire (talk)18:54, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
I've been giving this some thought, and where I've come down is this: As a general matter, no, we shouldn't do this. An article's citations should be on the article page, and ideally inline when the article is well developed. But forthis specific article, I could see an argument thatWP:IAR applies if there's good reason for the list to be all on one page rather than split into subpages withlist of common misconceptions being a list of lists (although in that case it should probably be renamed tolists of common misconceptions). Is there an IAR argument for that? So far I've seen assertions both ways, but no real reasoning given here.Anomie⚔12:12, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
The primary argument I've seen based on this and the RFCs was that keeping one single article with all of them is a nice thing to have for readers that want to see all this misconceptions in one place. Which to me, is a very very weak argument for evoking IAR on a core content policy (WP:V in relation to sourcing). That might fly at TVTropes, but not Wikipedia.Masem (t)12:20, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Hopefully the people making the argument will come here to make it, instead of letting it be strawmanned and dismissed with a facetious reference to a site that doesn't use sourcing at all.Anomie⚔12:36, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
I would oppose an IAR on this. Consider the situation where a reader has limited access to a computer, and so prints out the article in hard copy.
Normally, that hard copy would include any relevant citations. But in this case it wouldn’t. The article would not stand on its own… in order to know which sources verify the information, the reader wouldalso need to print out all the sub-articles.Blueboar (talk)12:52, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Personally I don't find that very convincing. If that reader cares about the cites in their printed copy, shouldn't they have paid attention to the notices and printed the subarticles instead? You could use the same reasoning to try to claim we should disable the ability for people to print only the pages they care about, without the list of references at the end that come later in the document.Anomie⚔12:18, 17 July 2025 (UTC)
I don't see much of an argument that articulates that it actually makes the encyclopedia better, it appears to have been done because it was 'liked' and there was some technical issue, but the path chosen then ran over 'core policy' -- so 'not better'. --Alanscottwalker (talk)15:13, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
No I have seen nothing in the arguments here that justifies ignoring our policies on verification and citing sources. -Donald Albury15:43, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Several editors have asked above for an explanation or reason why keeping the article as a single page is desirable. I'll re-iterate what I wrote at the time - I don't expect it will change very many opinions, but here it is:
The current article is THE wikipedia list of commmon misconceptions. Once split, what remains is just several articles in a collection of List of misconceptions aboutyada yada yada. That is, it loses its gravitas once it loses its singularity.
By way of analogy, The USAcademy Awards gives out an award forBest Picture. It also gives out "lesser" awards forcategories likeBest International Feature Film,Best Animated Short Film,Best Documentary Feature Film, etc. Imagine if the academy decided to eliminate the Best Picture prize and instead split it up into two or three, with no one film getting "best picture". That would be a major change, and my guess is that it would receive roughly zero support. Splitting this article is roughly analagous to eliminating the best picture category for movies.
I don't think "gravitas" is a good reason to ignore our well established policies on verifiablilty, etc.
It still will be "The List", just split into different pages for technical reasons. No different than a book having multiple pages. I don't follow your analogy, we (as Wikipedia) don't really rank things or proclaim importance on topics. We follow the reliable sources. Making an editorial decision based on "rank" and "gravitas" feels like a misstep.JackFromWisconsin (talk |contribs)21:41, 17 July 2025 (UTC)
We did have theWikipedia:Books namespace that could do precisely this sort of pagination, but it was not really used. However,Wikibooks still exists and could possibly be used to carry out a similar function.CMD (talk)03:58, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
I do not, in general, like the practice of transcluding articles into other articlesat all, even via{{excerpt}} or the like. When a reader sees something on that article, they should be able to edit that article text without going elsewhere. So, I think a solution needs to be found thatdoesn't involve doing that, especially when that also removes references. If that means a split, that means a split; if that means asking about a longer-term solution to the technical limitation from the appropriate people, maybe that can be done as well. Generally, performance/crapflooding limits should be permissive enough that a legitimate user of a site would never run into them or even notice they're present, so that probably indicates a problem in and of itself if that's happening.SeraphimbladeTalk to me04:13, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
Yeah, I don't think the difficulties of such cross-page templates is really appreciated by some. Years ago, I had a devil of a time trying to correct an article, and I gave up for months trying to do it. No idea how to find the template, not aware that it was a template I had to find, etc. etc.Alanscottwalker (talk)10:59, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
Consider the main page The page in question doesn't seem to merit special treatment. But note that there's already a more prominent page of this sort – themain page. This is assembled from transcluded pages and, by convention, does not include any footnotes or citations. It contains numerous facts and many of them are controversial but we are quite used to the idea that readers will have to drill down to verify them.Andrew🐉(talk)14:53, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
The main page is not an article, and I don't think readers expect it to be one. We don't source on non-article pages like Portals and Categories as well. (Welltechnically it's in the article space but you know what I mean.)CMD (talk)15:19, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
We need to determine the consensus for what to replace it is: the current situation is clearly unacceptable but the status quo ante was broken, so a simple revert is not enough. That discussion of course doesn't have to happen here, but if it isn't here there needs to be a clear pointer to where it actually is.Thryduulf (talk)12:58, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
OK… to me the obvious solution is to undo the transclusion, and use the original article title for an index or “list of lists” pointing to the various split articles.
To give an example of at least the direction I would go: see what we did atList of Freemasons… the original list article was deemed too lengthy, and so we split it (alphabetically) … we turned the original page into an index page pointing to the split sub-articles. We created a lead section that is repeated on all of the articles - index and sub-articles (and I think we use transclusion to do that part). I think somethingsimilar would work for the various misconceptions articles.Blueboar (talk)13:15, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
If you go back to the RFCs that started this, there is clearly support for splitting into lists (eg lists of lists). The idea of using transclusion was not a topic addressed in the closure of the RFCs (not that it wasn't rejected, just that only a few editors in those RFCs seemed passionate to want the transclusion approach). So it seems just falling back to a list of lists still meets the end point of the RFC closures while maintaining policy complaince.Masem (t)13:56, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
List of lists is the usual way to do it and nobody has given a good reason why this example is special.Zerotalk14:31, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
List of lists per Zero and others in prior threads. This is a sensible solution to the original problem with page size and to the same-page inline citation issue. --MYCETEAE 🍄🟫—talk19:06, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
Enforce plaintext citations only. Nobody else replied to my idea above but if the problem is the template expansion limit, we can just... not use templates. It's fine. It's an explicitly accepted style. It's something we could write a script on to turn template citations into plain text ones as well, and the templated version can be in invisible comments next to it.SnowFire (talk)06:11, 19 July 2025 (UTC)
This is another sensible solution. Sorry I missed this in long thread. I think there is a view that the list was too long regardless of the technical limitation on template use. I don't have a strong view either way and would defer to others but would accept plaintext refs.(Honestly, I find{{citation}} templates tedious and harder to use but muddle through out of a sense of conformity. It has stopped me from editing on more than one occasion.) --MYCETEAE 🍄🟫—talk15:52, 19 July 2025 (UTC)
Change the parent page to a simple, plainList of lists. This would be normal for a list that has become too large and needs to be split into several lists. Clean out all of thenoinclude tags in the sub-lists and stay with real, maintainable references —GhostInTheMachinetalk to me10:57, 19 July 2025 (UTC)
As several others have noted over the years, the lists should probably be deleted; they are a magnet for bad contributions and most of the entries don't have references that support that they are rebutting misconceptions that are common. Quite a few of the "corrections" are, arguably, as misleading as the supposed misconception. Setting that aside for now, the only solution is a list of lists; that is the approach taken for every other article with this problem. A local consensus of XKCD fans who want a giant, bloated, unsourced "List of common misconceptions" cannot override site policy.217.180.228.155 (talk)12:58, 19 July 2025 (UTC)
Next step should be do take the default action where there have been two RfCs deciding (a) to split, and (b) to split into three articles: create a list of lists. Consensus can change, but alternatives don't need to be discussed at the policy village pump. What's important for here is just a consensus that whatever solution editors on that page come to should ensure references are visible to readers in the place where readers see the text. —Rhododendritestalk \\17:56, 19 July 2025 (UTC)
There appears to be clear consensus that suppressing cites via transclusion is not allowed under wiki policy, and that the obvious solution is to do a "normal" split, with the main article being a list of lists without transcluding the material. This has been implemented, along with a bit of cleanup to remove the transclusion markup. I'd say it's time to close this discussion, with further discussion moved to the talk pages of the four articles affected.Mr. Swordfish (talk)17:47, 20 July 2025 (UTC)
The paragraph's addition wasproposed and discussed on the MOS's talk page. The thread ran for three months, had some strong support, and included a full month's wait to see if anyone objected to a proposed wording before applying it. It didn't occur to me to open an RfC, as a consensus among those watching MOS:IMAGES seemed very clear.
Is the user right to remove this paragraph? If I need to start a new RfC to add the paragraph, how should the broken inbound shortcut be handled during that?Belbury (talk)10:28, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
An RFC is required to create a new policy or guideline page (WP:PROPOSAL), but not for changes (WP:PGCHANGE). The change in question was discussed and clearly had consensus, so there was no reason to proceed with an RFC. The editor objecting to the material should seek consensus to remove it.--Trystan (talk)12:55, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
Hi. I'm currently not allowed to create new articles, because in past I've made extremely short and poorly sources articles. However, I would like to appeal to get the ban removed. How do I do that? Best regards. --Pek (talk)09:01, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
I have just encountered an active user's talk page with animated snowflakes. It was such a severe barrier to accessibility for me (and no doubt for others), that I could not read the page without viewing the source.
I have copied the relevant code toUser:Pigsonthewing/Snowflakes so you can see what that looks like without singling out the individual.
Wikipedia talk:User pages/Archive 19#RfC: allowing editors to opt-out of seeing floating decorative elements arrived at a consensusto wrap "floating" decorative elements that do not otherwise conflict with the user page or talk page guidelines with a CSS class. so that it can be hidden, seeWP:STICKYDECO. That is not directly relevant given the markup used on your snowflakes page (and presumably the page you originally saw it) doesn't keep the object in a fixed position. I would argue however that non-sticky decorative elements that "interfere with communication between editors" meet the spirit of the policy and should at minimum be similarly wrapped.Thryduulf (talk)11:47, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
Which is of little use to logged-out editors; those (including me, before now) who are not aware of this facility; those who lack the technical chops to make use of it; or those who wish to see most other "sticky" elements, but not those which cause accessibility issues.
I now see thatWP:SMI says:"CSS and other formatting codes that disrupt the MediaWiki interface, for example by preventing important links or controls from being easily seen or used, making text on the page hard to read or unreadable ... may be removed or remedied by any user."Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing);Talk to Andy;Andy's edits17:43, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
Logged-out editors spend very little time looking at pages outside the mainspace; you are now aware of this facility (and are welcome to advertise it further); I've never encountered a registered editor whose "technical chops" does not include scrolling to the end of theSpecial:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets-gadget-section-appearance section, ticking the box for the last item, and saving their change to their prefs, but if there are any, then the principle behindWikipedia:Competence is required may be relevant.
If you meant that people who have the "technical chops" to create such CSS elements will not also have the "technical chops" necessary to make them hideable, editors who can do CSS (a group that does not include me) assure me that this will never be true.WhatamIdoing (talk)16:40, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
"I've never encountered a registered editor whose "technical chops" does not include scrolling to..."
Keeping our editors happy by allowing them to customise their user page is usually more helpful for Wikipedia's purpose than policing other people's userspace. Editors who do not like it can opt out or ignore the user pages they dislike. —Kusma (talk)17:03, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
"Keeping our editors happy by allowing them to customise their user page is usually more helpful for Wikipedia's purpose than..."
I can understand why someone might think that; I'd love to see some evidence to back it up (for some value of "keeping happy", if that's what such animations really do).Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing);Talk to Andy;Andy's edits18:20, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
Proposal: Streamlined Good Article → Featured Article Path
The following discussion is closed.Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Currently, the FA nomination process (WP:FAC) is long, intimidating, and often repeats much of the work already done at GA review. Many GAs already meet the majority of FA criteria, but editors are discouraged from nominating them due to the bureaucratic and adversarial nature of FAC.
Key Points of the Proposal
**"Fast-Track FA Review" for GAs**
Create a shortened FA review process for GAs that have been reviewed recently and clearly meet a high standard. The review would focus on fine-tuning rather than repeating all GA checks.
**Reuse GA Review Assessments**
Allow GA reviews to serve as part of the evidence for FA criteria. FAC reviewers would only confirm that GA standards still hold, rather than starting from scratch.
**Encourage Collaborative Upgrades**
WikiProjects could "adopt" existing GAs and work to bring them to FA level with a clearer, less burdensome process.
**Align GA and FA Criteria More Closely**
Consider adjusting GA criteria so that the gap to FA is smaller and less procedural.
Rationale
**Quality over Quantity:** Wikipedia has millions of articles but only a small fraction are FAs (about 0.1%). We should prioritize improving existing content.
**Reduce Bureaucracy:** The current FAC system often discourages nominations for articles that are already close to FA quality.
**Encourage Editors:** A streamlined path would reward editors for improving articles without burning them out on process.
**Better Reader Experience:** More polished and comprehensive articles benefit readers directly.
Questions for the Community
Would you support the creation of a "fast-track" FA process for recently reviewed or high-quality GAs?
Should there be a time limit (e.g., GAs reviewed within the last 12–24 months) for eligibility?
How can we preserve the rigor and prestige of FA while reducing unnecessary duplication?
I welcome thoughts, refinements, or alternatives. Would this help us move toward a true "quality-first" model?
The discussion above is closed.Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Among the various problems arising from ITN and its process, there are some issues about howWP:CONSENSUS is applied there. I'm asking the community to clarify which parts of consensus and other P&G apply to ITN, and what the appropriate action is when those are not followed.
The first problem is head count votes. Votes that are normally subject toWP:DISCARD are included under headcounts. Especially prominent are "I don't like it", "other stuff exists", "crystal ball", and "arbitrary quantity" arguments, where editors support or oppose based on whether they personally find the subject interesting, whether past flawed ITN-consensus resulted in posts, predictions about how a different event could happen (or not happen) in the future that overshadows the one being discussed, or whether there's some arbitrary metric like people dead (which is why you see so many random "people died" posts of questionable notability). I raised this issue last year atWikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive365#Close review: X blocked in Brazil, where it was deemed so bad that it led toWikipedia:Requests for comment/In the news criteria amendments.
The second problem is the rushed and improper closes. I get that the standard one week isn't practical at ITN and shorter discussions are necessary, but it's common for consensus to be decided a few hours after they begin, even when there is disagreement and further discussion is taking place, as admins will castWP:SUPERVOTEs to post or archive a proposed item.
I fear that many of the editors at ITN do not understand how consensus works on Wikipedia, because many of them participate in this area almost exclusively. A few weeks ago I raised my concerns on the talk page of one of the admins who frequents ITN,Stephen, but he disagreed that the standards for closes should apply at ITN.Thebiguglyalien (talk)🛸20:46, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
@Thebiguglyalien, at the most fundamental, basic level, consensus means that editors agree. A lack of consensus means that they don't agree. (BTW, this fact, which occasionally surprises editors, is stated in plain language, in the same section as theWP:DISCARD paragraph, as its second sentence.)
All this stuff about which arguments should be accepted are ways of determining whether the couple of folks in a particular discussion are likely forming an agreement that the broader community will be able to tolerate. And they don't apply in every situation. For example, it's perfectly fine to have your recommendation in aWikipedia:Requests for adminship discussion be "based on personal opinion only". And DISCARD is self-contradictory: It begins by saying not to count votes, and in the middle of the paragraph, saysthe closer is expected to close by judging which view has the predominantnumber of responsible Wikipedians supporting it.One of These Things (Is Not Like the Others), right? I therefore suggest that you put less emphasis on the Official Rules™ of closing a discussion and more on whether most editors, mostly, most of the time, more or less agree.
It's also important to remember that ITN is not a "content" decision (e.g., like whether X source supports Y statement, or whether it'sWP:DUE to say that a notable person was arrested for drunk driving). ITN is a "process" decision (e.g., like whether an article does/doesn't meet theWikipedia:Featured article criteria). Therefore some content-focused rules simply don't apply to ITN. Others (e.g.,Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a crystal ball) might be even more important (e.g., CRYSTAL being a perfectly reasonable argument against including any proposed page that's full of "unverifiable speculation, rumors, or presumption" on the Main Page – though one might suspect that the editors naming it are actually saying that the event'sWikipedia:Subjective importance seems low to them, and that their objection has little to do with the policy at CRYSTAL, which you may find worth reading some time). As you say, some procedural differences are expected. Closing within hours should be expected for ITN, just like closing within hours should be expected atWikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism.Tempus fugit, and some parts of Wikipedia shouldn't sit around chatting for a minimum of 24 hours just for form's sake, especially if the decision is "over my dead body". If we add something to ITN and regret it, we can remove it. And if we reject it quickly and regret that, we can add it later.WhatamIdoing (talk)22:32, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
DISCARD says to discard arguments not rooted in PAGs, and then evaluate which of the remainingvalid arguments has more support among editors. That ITN is a process decision vs. a content decision is irrelevant. Your comparison to FAC is particularly inapt. FAC has a clear set of standards, whereas ITN's standards (if you can call them that) are based on subjective determinations of whether a topic is "important" enough to be on the main page. The idea that an entry can be rejected at ITN because a bunch of ITN regulars (many of whom don't regularly participate in other parts of the encyclopedia, as TBA has noted) don't think something is "important" is absolutely contrary to the praxis of consensus.voorts (talk/contributions)22:52, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
@Voorts, I think you're overlooking the contextual factors. When was the last time you saw an RFA support vote discarded on the grounds that it was "based on personal opinion only" or "not rooted in PAGs"? (Ever?)
Since RFA isn't strictly following the advice given at DISCARD, then only two things are possible:
All of our RFAs are violating the One True™ Rules for closing discussions, or
DISCARD isn't telling us the whole story that applies to every single decision.
The 'crats abide by pretty clear standards when they have to evaluate an RfA in a 'crat chat. RfA is also different because it's about the trust of the community, which can only be measured by editors' opinions.voorts (talk/contributions)14:03, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
I suggest to you that many decisions are about editors' opinions. Shall we tag this page as a policy, guideline, or essay? Editors' opinions are the only thing that matters. Even things that are directly and obviously in the mainspace, such as the RFCs about which of several acceptable images to put in the lead, are ultimately decided by editors' opinions.WhatamIdoing (talk)18:12, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
I agree that editors opinions matter. Those opinions are usually guided by some ground rules that we as a community have adopted. ITN has been resistant to having any such ground rules other than a vague, subjective standard.voorts (talk/contributions)18:32, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
Well, it is a content decision about what goes on the Main Page, but it is basically a mostly unbounded editorial judgement, like an eccentric collective editor-in-chief, who decides what goes on the front page, because . . . and follows some basic content decorum. --Alanscottwalker (talk)23:11, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
That's my impression as well. A decision has to be made, and so editors make a decision. But the decision is based on "mostly unbounded editorial judgement".
There is, frankly, no possibility of finding reliable sources that will provide solid external guidance. We're not going to see "Science proves the English Wikipedia should put more articles about science and fewer articles about deaths in ITN". There's nothing to stop an editor from forming their own ideas about the criteria that they believe – using their own, mostly unbounded editorial judgment – would be best, but they're not going to be able to force others to follow their rules.
Ditto for all the other sections on the Main Page, by the way. TFA is a selection process, and it is not driven by what reliable sources say should be highlighted in the top left corner. DYK is a selection process, and it is not driven by what reliable sources say should be highlighted. TFP is a selection process, and it is not driven by what kind of image reliable sources say we should put on the Main Page. ITN draws more fire, but that might be because of two factors: More demand for the limited space, and being more honest about the selection being made by editorial judgment.WhatamIdoing (talk)02:16, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
At the core, I think a big problem is that ITN still has an identity problem, some editors want to be covering news, others as featuring articles that happen to be in the news, which work to two different ends. I asked that question a handful of years ago, and it was very much a near-even split. Which is why we get these types of debates about what is consensus are not cleanly resolved. And our guidelines that drive how such discussions should go is very much a core of that identity problem because they seem to cover both directions.Masem (t)03:28, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
That reminds me that I haven't seen your name atm:Public consultation about Wikinews, which is "acommunity reevaluation of Wikinews, by Wikinews and other communities" (emphasis in the original), with the possibility that Wikinews will be spun off to a different organization, archived, or whatever else we suggest.WhatamIdoing (talk)04:27, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
Well, I'm not convinced by the no external sources thing, as a deciding issue -- the problem is no internal consensus to further bound the judgement.Alanscottwalker (talk)17:18, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
I think the problem is that, even though there is an internal consensus (after all, the process has been working this way for many years), some editors are surprised to discover that said consensus is "use your judgement" and specificallynot to "follow the sources".WhatamIdoing (talk)18:07, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
I think it might be a values problem: The community has a consensus (i.e., this is how this process works, for pragmatic reasons), but "I" think the community is wrong, because I think the process should be based on our reverence for sources instead.WhatamIdoing (talk)17:06, 29 July 2025 (UTC)
Sure, two sides. But seems overwrought to call it "values". It's a process issue, concerning guidance for judgement making that can be agreed upon or not (here, there being thin guidance or even purpose disagreement within ITN).Alanscottwalker (talk)19:32, 29 July 2025 (UTC)
I think the disagreement is based in a difference of values. ITN has several such, e.g., "I value helping readers find relevant articles, so put that article up now" vs "I value Wikipedia's reputation for quality, so delay that article until it has been improved".
In this case, I think that the traditional dispute over which content to list ("Whatever's most popular with the readers" vs "Ugh, not another article about ____ – we're here to educate, not to mimic the internet's pre-existing systemic biases") has developed a different dimension: "Use common sense and some vague advice" vs "Every decision must be backed by a reliable source, even decisions about which items to put in ITN and for how long". It appears that some editors believe we'll get a better result by following sources instead of common sense. They value sources above judgement. This POV was certainly a small minority back in the day, but I think things have changed. I suspect that most of our younger editors really can't imagine a circumstance in whichWikipedia:Ignore all rules should be invoked.WhatamIdoing (talk)00:36, 30 July 2025 (UTC)
This has come up before. Recently, there was a close it down discussion. My take, you are stuck with a vote there, with some norms followed, except when they are not. --Alanscottwalker (talk)22:45, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
The second problem is the rushed and improper closes. I get that the standard one week isn't practical at ITN and shorter discussions are necessary, but it's common for consensus to be decided a few hours after they begin ...: If you're referring to closes without posting,WP:ITN/A reads:
If there is not consensus to post the item and the nomination has had suitable time to run (generally 24 hours),nominations can be closed.
Personally, I've stopped early ITN closes, not wanting to deal with the occasional passionate editor who insists there's still a chance, while everyone else remains silent. —Bagumba (talk)09:01, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
On that list, each film’s total gross is shown as a range. For example:
₹1,300–1,387 crore
Right now, the Task Force page does not say which number in the range we should use to sort the films.
Here are some ways we could do it:
**Lower bound**: Use the lower number (₹1,300 crore in the example).
**Upper bound**: Use the higher number (₹1,387 crore).
**Middle value**: Use the average of the two numbers.
Which method should we follow when only a range is given? If a rule already exists, please share a link. If not, could these guidelines be added to the Task Force page?
Note: Box office figures reported by many news articles are often inflated or influenced by producers or trade sources for their own benefit.
That's an interesting edge case. It's clearly designed to function as part of the article, and appears to take you back to the article you came from (although I can't test that without finding it in a live article), which is very different to the sorts of external links envisaged byWP:EL. I wonder whether it could be replicated as a lua module or something locally?Thryduulf (talk)03:49, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
I've left a note for the developer,User:Smith609, on their talk page. They make it clear not to expect a speedy response though so if they haven't responded in a few days someone should emila them.Thryduulf (talk)03:53, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
SeeLinkSearch. For example,Chordate has "558 million years ago" with 558 linking tohttps://geoltime.github.io/?Ma=558. The wikitext includes{{ma|558}} from{{ma}} (see{{ma/1}} and{{ma/2}}). I wouldn't worry about a well-implemented and (presumably) useful external link like that. The whole point ofWP:EL is to prevent abuse from minor self-promotion to major spam. This is not any kind of abuse. It would be better if the tool were internal for future maintenance but the basic system set up bySmith609 seems to have been working well since 2008.Johnuniq (talk)06:06, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
At the very least, if it's intended to be integrated with Wikipedia articles, it should be hosted on toolforge or another WMF-owned server. Linking to an external source can expose IP addresses and other identifying information to a third party with a different privacy policy than Wikipedia. It's freely licensed, so we could in theory re-host it on toolforge, but I'd want to giveUser:Smith609 a chance to chime in on that.--Ahecht (TALK PAGE)13:48, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
It's worth noting that this pre-dates toolforge by some years (the predecessor,WP:Toolserver, shut down in 2014 and I don't think it was around much before then but haven't been able to quickly confirm that) and there has probably been an attitude of "if it isn't broken, don't fix it".Thryduulf (talk)14:07, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
Looking at the edit history of{{Ma/1}}, it was created in 2008 using toolserver, updated to wmflabs in 2014, possibly was intermittently broken for a few years, and switched to github in 2022.Andrew Gray (talk)17:37, 1 August 2025 (UTC)
Thanks. I wasn't sure about this and didn't want to start simply deleting them in a boneheaded attempt to implement "policy". Agree that hosting it on a WMF-owned server would be an improvement, but it seems fine as it is.Mr. Swordfish (talk)13:54, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
Are there any MOS guidelines to the appropriate level of nesting for section headers?
Not easy to explain to non-chessplayers, but in chess opening theory there are typically several viable move choices for either side. All have their pluses and minuses and are largely dependent on the player's personal taste and playing style. However in the last 10 years or so computer programs (called"engines") have become incredibly strong and can flatten anyone includingMagnus Carlsen under normal playing condiditions, which has led to a lot of reassessment of opening theory. However, using analysis from chess engines is contrary to the Wikipedia policy againstOriginal Research. We kind of skirt around that by selecting sources that agree with the engines.
Anyway... the article on the opening known as theKing's Gambit, an ancient opening no longer highly regarded but still occasionally played, includes nesting to level 4 in its commentaries on the various options. I personally think it's justified in view of the theory that's developed around it, but recently an editor has split part of it off into a new article entitledKing's Gambit, Classical Variation, saying that the level of nesting makes it difficult to follow.
"Classical Variation" is not a term that would make sense to most chess players; they'd just call the line in question "3...g5" (the notation for Black's third move). He made no attempt to obtain consensus before making such a fundamental change to the structure of the article. Furthermore among the alternative third moves for Black are some that carry similar themes and might lead to the same position (i.e.transpose) by a different move order. Another concern is that this editor (ok let's be honorable and ping him: it'sUser:Dayshade) rarely if ever cites sources. He is an enthusiastic editor who has made a lot of changes to chess opening theory articles in the last couple of months; problem is, I seriously question whether they are changes for the better. Yes those articles can be improved, so can any wikipedia article. But they can be improved by citing sources, not by doing original research or remodeling the article according to one's own personal preferences.MaxBrowne2 (talk)11:26, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
There is a discussion about this going on atTalk:King's Gambit with points on both sides if anyone wants to take a look. I've agreed to leave the 3...g5 section as is unless another consensus forms. I note possible transpositions in my writing, also. And, I'm not recommending lines or anything. Just describing possible lines and frequency and perhaps a notable tactic/bad side line.
Anyway, I've also been discussing the citation issues on a few talk pages. Since I have also learned about these lines in grandmaster videos/recordings, but also use the opening database and Stockfish eval, there is an element of OR but it is more just to verify what I have heard and catch mistakes/any notable omissions. Honestly, maybe Stockfish eval should become non-OR? It's basically like asking someone 1000 elo above Magnus Carlsen how well they regard some moves, that's all. GMs care about engine recommendations greatly. Not putting in anything exact, just if a line seems strong or weak.
Current thought is to just add citations to the videos, but I'd def argue observation of a common line in a database and/or a named line in theory is fair game to note in an article anyway. These lines definitely should be verifiable, so I am also looking for assistance in anything that might come up in physical books I don't have access to. But when it comes to chess openings, theory evolves a lot, and chess books aren't subject to nearly the same level of peer review as e.g. a scientific article, and particularly for openings become outdated quickly. I've had to correct several false claims from outdated books. So, I think we should be using more online sources, but still been trying to figure out what's best and what the guidelines for be (e.g. I don't think it's necessary to give the same citation to a website every single time for introducing the name of a line or an alternative move or a transposition order or a brief description of an obvious tactic etc, but I might be wrong).Dayshade (talk)14:05, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
I think the answer to the question in the section heading is no,MOS:OVERSECTION is the closest we have.
'Classical Variation' is not a term that would make sense to most chess players... - That's not a problem because we aren't writing articles for chess players, were writing articles fornon-chess-players, who will not understand chess notation and won't know what "3...g5" means. "Classical variation" is a perfectly descriptive title for a section talking about the classical version of the King's Gambit.
I'd sayspinning off a sub-article to avoid having too many subsections or subsections that nest too deep is perfectly reasonable. Remember, most of our readers are now on mobile, and the mobile skin has no TOC and collapses level-2 headers. So unless it's a level-2 header, the mobile reader won't see it until they uncollapse the level-2and scroll down. So fewer nesting levels are better, IMO. This is a real problem with Wikipedia btw that the WMF needs to address. With the mobile skin, only level-2 headers can be used for navigation, levels below that are just decorative text elements. To understand what I'm talking about, just take out your phone and go toKing's Gambit and see if you can find the section about the Becker Defense. Was it easy to find? Would it have been easier if there were a level-2 heading called "defenses"? Anyway, whether and how a spin out should be done is squarely a content dispute to be discussed on an article-by-article basis on the article talk page.
I see on mobile that the fifth level headers render as plain text (fourth level as bold text), which seems not so good to me too.Dayshade (talk)17:06, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
As to the problem with engines making some info obsolete, that's why we haveWP:AGEMATTERS. The article should be sourced to more recent high quality secondary sources that will have accounted for recent developments in the field (eg engines). A chess book from 25 or 50 years ago is probably now obsolete.Levivich (talk)14:31, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
In this particular opening, theory really hasn't changed all that much in the last 50 years. It's still regarded as basically inferior, but will catch out amateurs who are unfamiliar with the theory. The chess engines have not significantly changed the assessment of the opening. Even before the chess engines took hold, it was already quite heavily analyzed due to its long history, and was mostly abandonded in the early 20th century.
I don't like arbitrarily ripping the guts out of the article into a name that most chess players won't even be familiar with. I prefer the nesting. And I definitely prefer better sourcing than some database or other, and running some engine or other.MaxBrowne2 (talk)15:06, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
Let's continue this atTalk:King's Gambit, where I have some other points outlined at the bottom. Lots of opening article names are unfamiliar to players. Lots of players are surprisingly unaware of even fairly basic names.Dayshade (talk)16:35, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
Also I feel like there's a bit of an assumption of a perspective where only winning matters. I like the beauty of many KGA lines, and I think they're worth displaying. Helps people get an understanding for why early modern/Romantic players loved it so much.Dayshade (talk)16:40, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
You're kind of exhausting. I came to the village pump to get some second/third opinions, not to have you spam my thread.MaxBrowne2 (talk)04:39, 2 August 2025 (UTC)
Citation Needed Epidemic: Tag Bombing Violates Good Faith and Hurts Wikipedia!
Problem Summary
Current Wikipedia policy already acknowledges problematic tagging practices. The officialWikipedia:Citation needed policy warns editors to "Tag thoughtfully. Avoid 'hit-and-run' or pointed tagging", and the citation needed template documentation acknowledges that "many editors object to what they perceive as overuse of this tag, particularly in what is known as 'drive-by' tagging."
While Wikipedia essays likeWikipedia:Tag bombing describe extreme cases of abuse,the core problem lies in policy implementation. Current policy provides warnings against excessive tagging but lacks enforcement mechanisms or clear consequences for violation. Community discussion archives show ongoing frustration with editors describing citation tags as "frivolous and wrongheaded" and articles being "bombarded by 'citation needed'" tags, indicating widespread recognition that current policy implementation is insufficient.
As far as I can tell from reviewing community discussions, no prior systematic analysis has quantified the scale or validity of citation tagging practices. This appears to be the first statistical study to measure the scope of the problem and provide evidence-based foundations for policy reform.
The core dysfunction is unequal burden: non-expert editors can place tags in seconds, while subject matter experts must spend hours finding sources for content they know to be accurate, creating perverse incentives that favor destruction over construction.
Evidence
Statistical Analysis
Wikipedia carries an estimated1.6 million citation-needed tags[1] across8% of all Wikipedia articles[2], yet evidence suggestsat least 80% of these tags are unnecessary[3] - representing sourceable content that simply lacks formal citations. This estimate likely understates the true burden, as it counts each tag equally regardless of scope. Article-level templates like{{More citations needed}} can justify removing thousands of words requiring dozens of sources, while inline tags typically affect single statements.
Case Examples
Recent cases illustrate where existing policies failed to prevent abuse, demonstrating extreme burden asymmetries:
Case 1:Floppy disk article - On June 5, 2024, an editoradded 27 citation-needed tags in a single edit session (~5 minutes effort). On July 13, 2025, a different editorremoved all 27 tagged statements en masse (~5 minutes effort), while restoration would require a subject expert ~9 hours to find 27 sources.Effort ratio: 108:1 favoring destruction.
Case 2:Conner Peripherals article - One 2016 article-level template (~30 seconds to place) enabled removal of 7,000 bytes containing approximatelyfactual claims in 2025 (~5 minutes to remove). Restoration would require the article's primary contributor to locate approximately 15 reliable sources (~5 hours research).Effort ratio: 600:1 favoring destruction.
Discussion of CN Tag Use
Given this evidence of systematic over-tagging affecting 1.6+ million tags across 8% of Wikipedia's articles, with significant burden asymmetries favoring content destruction over construction:
Is there consensus that Wikipedia's current citation tagging policies need reform to address these documented problems?
If so, I propose a follow-up discussion to collaboratively develop specific policy improvements. If not, I welcome feedback on the evidence presented above.
References:
^Random sampling of 125 articles from tagged population found an average of 2.96 tags per tagged article. Extrapolating across 553,000 articles: 1.63 million total tags (95% confidence interval: 1.18M - 2.09M). Full methodology and code available athttps://github.com/Tom94022/wikipedia-fact-tag-analysis
^553,000 tagged articles ÷ ~6.8 million total Wikipedia articles = 8.1% of articles. This contrasts with the commonly cited "1% of pages" figure, which includes non-encyclopedic content across Wikipedia's ~70 million total pages.
^Systematic study using Citation Hunt tool: 30 randomly generated citation-needed tags analyzed. Results: 24 citations added with little or no change, 4 added with minor revision, 2 removed as unverifiable. Statistical confidence: 99% probability that at least 80% of existing tags are referenceable (28/30 success rate). SeeUser:Tom94022/sandbox/Fact_Tag_Validity.
Please indicateSupport orOppose followed by your reasoning.
Please do not edit comments by other editors. Add new comments below this warning.
If my calculator is correct, a sample of a population of 1.6 million would require a sample size of 385 to provide statistically significant results with +/-5% confidence intervals. And that's assuming that{{cn}} are evenly distributed across subjects/periods of activity/etc., which they almost certainly aren't. As we say in the field, further research is needed.signed,Rosguilltalk18:41, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
User:Rosguill: The population is 553,000 so I think the confidence interval is correct. I thought about more sampling but that won't change the large number of tags that exist, just more work but if you think it will make a difference I can do it.Tom94022 (talk)20:16, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
[E]vidence suggests at least 80% of these tags are unnecessary - representing sourceable content that simply lacks formal citations. I am confused, isn't that one of the main functions of{{citation needed}} tags? We want content to be supported by sources (remember,it's verifiability, not truth), and content that lacks sources but can plausibly be sourced is exactly the kind of content that needs to be tagged (instead of content that is most likely unsupported by sources, which should usually be removed outright).ChaoticEnby (talk ·contribs)19:04, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
I was just going to say the same thing. That's thepoint of citation-needed. This whole thing seems backwards to me. The problem is verifiable-but-unsourced content, not pointing it out.Schazjmd(talk)19:19, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
No, it is always a problem. Text is bullshit until proven otherwise with a citation. Note, a citation includes an articla as citation for its lead, a novel as citation for its plot, an album as citation for its tracklist and all other such things. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions)19:01, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
And yet we have editors claiming that lead material is uncited, plot sections are uncited, track listings are uncited... You apparently see those as being implicitly cited, but not everyone does.WhatamIdoing (talk)20:30, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
This reads like an LLM rewrote it - all thebolding and dramatic terms and so on. Could you please summarise it in a couple of sentences in your own words? I can't quite make sense of what it's actually proposing as a change.Andrew Gray (talk)19:11, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
After reading it over a few more times, Ithink you're concerned that it is easier to remove material than add it (I would agree), and that this is somehow unfair and people should be stopped from removing it (I would disagree). I can't quite see how you stop people doing that, though, without completely guttingWikipedia:Verifiability - which is pretty foundational to the project. Yes, sourcing is hard and time consuming. But it'simportant.Andrew Gray (talk)19:28, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
Thanks for the invite. Pray tell how what I did is a "documented problem." For clarity of those in the discussion, this is likely associated with my revert of OP onConner Peripherals. The page was tagged for nine years as needing citations so Iremoved the unsourced content. I think the bigger documented problem would be therestoring of the content by OP, calling my removal "vandalism." --CNMall41 (talk)19:37, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
That doesn't quite match up to my point. This is self evidently a discussion about policy and resolving a content dispute, which was the point of my comment. I never said that they hadn't disclosed that this was a result of a content dispute, as that would be irrelevant to what I was saying. --LCUActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°17:27, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
If content has been challenged, and subsequently removed, then anyone wanting to re-add the content is underWP:BURDEN. If editors are removing content in bad faith, and it should have instead beenWP:PRESERVED then that's a different question to the being asked here. If editors challenge content it requires referencing, perWP:MINREF. --LCUActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°10:49, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
For those who don’t know what WAID is referring to by “WP:Let the Wookie win”… this is my advice for editors who are in “contested challenges” situations. In short: you have a choice - you can spend hours (even days) in frustrating, endless debate… trying to convince a stubborn challenger (the Wookie) that a citation isn’t actually requiredor you can spend ten minutes locating a source and adding it (even though it isn’t required). My advice is to always go with the latter option. It waists less of your time and does wonders for your blood pressure.Blueboar (talk)12:59, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
Tagging information that requires citation is a feature, not a bug. Yes, it would be great if more editors looked for sources, but at least we know what we need to look for.Blueboar (talk)22:18, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
WP:PRESERVE. I think "citation needed" tags are extremely useful. They indicate at a sentence level exactly what needs to be sourced, helping subsequent editors. They provide a metric for statistical analysis at the sentence level. They usually repeatedly pop up on controversial statements which are subject of edit wars, showing where conflict between editors exists. Most important, they indicate to our readerswhile they are reading exactly which statements are not supported by sources and/or are controversial. I agree tag bombing is a problem, but this could be dealt with by a series of automated warnings on the editor's Talk page. I suspect if only 8% of articles have "citation needed" tags, we are not using them enough.--ChetvornoTALK21:35, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
Question I'm posting here in response to an alert by Tom94022. It is not clear to me what precisely is the problem is (what constitutes "tag bombing", and why it is a problem), and what specific change to policy is being proposed to address it.Nightscream (talk)21:13, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
at least 80% of these tags are unnecessary it's not clear to me that just because a claim is referencable,{{citation needed}} is unnecessary. For example,some types of content require a citation: marking those claims with{{cn}} strikes me as obviously a good thing even if theyare in fact true.Caeciliusinhorto (talk)21:29, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
@Tom94022: Your beef doesn't seem to be with tags but with theWikipedia:Verifiability policy... "In the English Wikipedia, verifiability means that people are able to check that information corresponds to what is stated in a reliable source. Its content is determined by published information rather than editors' beliefs, experiences, or previously unpublished ideas or information. Even if you are sure something is true, it must have been previously published in a reliable source before you can add it." Even if its true its almost always appropriate to add a CN tag to an unsourced statement. The target of your vitriol also seems wrong... Why is the problem the person tagging text as unsourced not the person inserting unsourced text?Horse Eye's Back (talk)21:42, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
Current practice is thateverything beyond "the sky is blue" must be referenced. That 20% of the uncited text is in error or a hoax is very disturbing. Actually, it is appalling. I understand that some newcomers add unsourced material in good faith, but unsourced additions must be removed immediately. Providing references to unreferenced text takes more effort than adding it properly in the first place, and so unsourced additions are much worse than vandalism because they absorb more of our time and hoaxes and misinformation undermines our credibility. So admins have to give dealing with this a higher priority than dealing with vandalism. Taggging should only be used where it is expected that the tagger or another editor will be along to resolve the issue in short order.Hawkeye7(discuss)21:51, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
Unless you have an expansive idea of what's "the sky is blue", then your position is wrong. These days, WP:V requires inline citations in four cases:
WP:LIKELY is the dictionary definition, as in more than 50% chance of someone actually issuing aWP:CHALLENGE to the verifiability of the claim. "Likely" does not mean "conceivably possible that someone might someday, possibly in aWP:POINTY-headed moment, decide to complain about the absence of a citation".
In contrast to your claim thatunsourced additions must be removed immediately, WP:V says the opposite:Whether or how quickly material should be removed for lacking an inline citation to a reliable source depends on the material and the overall state of the article... In other words, sometimes uncited material shouldn't be removed at all, and there definitely isn't a one-size-fits-all rule that it "must be removed immediately".
I also disagree with your assertion thatProviding references to unreferenced text takes more effort than adding it properly in the first place. This will be true sometimes and false other times, and when we are talking about "newcomers" specifically, it's very often going to be less net effort for them to add some content and an experienced editor to find and add a source than for them to figure out how to add the source "properly".WhatamIdoing (talk)22:04, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
It is my understanding that all unsourced content will eventually be removed or sourced. Is that incorrect? If you need to lose on a technicality I can challenge all unsourced content on the wiki in-toto right here, right now. That would mean that all unsourced content on the wiki at that moment has been challenged, can we just assume that or does it need to be done?Horse Eye's Back (talk)22:09, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
That is incorrect.
In fact, statements along the lines of "I challenge all unsourced material from here to infinity" have been given for over a decade as a simple example of uncollegial pointy-headedness that admins might well consider blockworthy.WhatamIdoing (talk)22:42, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
I don't appreciate the veiled threat... What would be your understanding? Is there a significant amount of text which is supposed to go unsourced forever?Horse Eye's Back (talk)00:06, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
Unless we get rid ofWP:LEADCITE, we will always have uncited leads, and if FAs are any indication, those will both constitute "a significant amount of text" and be uncited in a majority of articles in some subject areas (e.g., history).
WP:CONSECUTIVECITE discourages repeating citations when individual facts are repeated within the same article. Depending on the subject, that, too, could constitute a significant amount of text. For example,Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable#Put the easier parts of the article up front recommends adding a paragraph to the top of a technical ==section== that summarizes the content of the section. This can result in an unsourced paragraph, but that doesn't mean that any of the facts are unsourced in the article. Citations are supposed to support facts/claims, not grammatical units/amounts of text.
The community (though if memory serves, not you) generally agrees with theWP:PLOTCITE standard, that straightforward descriptions of a work's plot/contents, if they can be verified by reading the book, watching the film, etc., do not require any citations. I estimate that this means that something on the order of half a million articles about books, films, etc., are allowed by our rules to have one completely uncited, potentially multi-paragraph ==Plot== section, plus potentially other uncited sections containing material about the work (e.g., a list of film actors, since that's visible in the film's end credits; a list of authors who contributed to an anthology, since that's visible in the table of contents, etc.).
In summary, yes: I expect that – unless we change the rules – there will always be an amount of text in Wikipedia that is not required by any policy to have an inline citation, and that amount will seem, at least to some editors, to be "significant".WhatamIdoing (talk)02:00, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
There isn't supposed to be anything in the lead which isn't directly supported by reliable sources in the article. Under CONSECUTIVECITE the text is still fully cited, the citation just isn't repeated but its in the article (this is the same as the lead). I have no problem with the WP:PLOTCITE standard, but thats not a case where there isn't a source... The subject text or media is the source.Horse Eye's Back (talk)03:49, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
Yes, but that's still all an "amount of text which is supposed to go unsourced forever". You asked about an "amount of text", not about "facts in an article"WhatamIdoing (talk)04:20, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
No... Just because something doesn't have a direct inline citation doesn't mean that its unsourced. Your examples are all examples where the text/fact is sourced to a reliable source.Horse Eye's Back (talk)15:30, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
Speaking of uncited content, what is the source that 20% of uncited text is in error or a hoax? Sounds unlikely. --ChetvornoTALK22:06, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
Presumably that came from OP's claim that only 20% of the tags they reviewed required changes to article content beyond adding a citation. --LWGtalk22:15, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
I suspect that it's a very broad estimate, but different people have different ideas about what requires changes. Is it an "error if the article about a company gives an outdated number of employees? Some would say yes, and some would say no.WhatamIdoing (talk)04:24, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
Requiringchanges to article content beyond adding a citation doesn't necessarily mean it's factually wrong, just that based on one user's time and search access, they couldn't verify the claim.Cremastra (talk·contribs)05:36, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
It shouldn't be surprising that in the majority of cases the only action required to resolve a Citation Needed tag is to add the needed citation. That is what the tag is for. If there is reason to seriously doubt whether a particular bit of content is true, you shouldn't tag it Citation Needed, you should tag it with aVerification Needed orDubious - Discuss or similar tag, or simply remove it. Citation Needed is the appropriate tag if you think content should probably remain in the article, but you think it needs better support since readers or other editors might challenge it. --LWGtalk22:22, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
I remember the first time I saw this argument back in 2007 or so. My response was to point out that the number of unsourced articles that had been created in the preceding week had been greater than the number of "citation needed" tags that had been added. I don't think completely unsourced articles are being added now, but I assume that unsourced content is still being added faster that "citation needed" tags are. After all, I don't tag every bit of unsourced content I see added to articles on my watchlist, and I suspect many articles to which unsourced content is added are not watched by anyone who does add the tags. -Donald Albury01:10, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
I was summoned here via a talk page notification. There's a reason this work is volunteer work.WP:V and specificallyWP:BURDEN are community agreed upon policy, these are non-negotiable if we expect society and the world to take our efforts seriously. To think this started because I had the audacity to ask for sources for claims made in two different technology related articles is... baffling, but here we are. In case it's not abundantly obvious, Ioppose the notion that tagging unsourced challenged material is a problem or that removing unsourced material after a reasonable amount of time has passed will somehow bring the project to a grinding halt. But just because you self-identify as an "expert" on a topic doesn't mean you just get to trot outWP:TRUSTMEBRO when someone challenges something youbelieve to be true but that isn't backed up in any reliable sources. —Locke Cole •t •c03:47, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
Tagging should be done thoughtfully. If I am working on an article I will try to locate sources for the content, but if something seems right and I lack the skill to find a proper source, I can add{{cn}}. That's an example of thoughtful tagging. Running around slapping tags on tons of articles without taking any time to try to improve them first is an example of thoughtless tagging. Another problem with tagging is when the tagged isn't specific enough about the problems. Tags should be applied to individual statements when possible, or perhaps a section of an article, and only rarely to the whole article. It's a good idea to leave a talk page message explaining why the tag was applied with an explanation of what the tagger may have done to improve the article, what further work is needed, and what impediment they might have run into. For example, "I tried to fix this article but this section is too technical for me and may require an expert to help identify proper sources." That's useful guidance for the next person. I think the best we can do is to provide people with good guidance and have a culture of making positive contributions whenever we can.JehochmanTalk11:19, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
There is a tradeoff between leaving multiple [citation needed] tags in an unsourced section or article or one big "unsourced" notice at the top. I drop CN tags fairly often, and I also occasionally work to find sources when I see a CN tag. But, I never feel like I have enough time to do everything I think I need to do in WP, and some cases would be particularly time-consuming for me to research, whereas someone else will find it easier to locate sources. I see problems that I don't have time to fix at the moment, so I'll tag them. Maybe I'll come back to them later, or maybe someone will find time to fix them, but if they go untagged, it is less likely they will be fixed eventually.Donald Albury13:00, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
Adding editorial tags where needed is itself a positive contribution and one of the core duties of an editor... We're called editors after all not writers or researchers. Tagging the issue is helping fix the issue. Tagging an article is improving an article.Horse Eye's Back (talk)15:33, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
Indiscriminate 'tag bombing' is poor practice, not least because it does not actually effectively identify unsourced text. When all that is done is tag the ends of paragraphs for example, subsequent removals of tagged text can reduce the average quality of the article. However, that does not make the addition of cn tags a burden. Things should be sourced. I've encountered decades-old unsourced text that has been wrong. No doubt there is more out there. If the thought is that chasing up relatively easily verifiable text is lengthy, that can pale against the hours that can be spent trying to verify a piece of unsourced text that feels right but you can't be sure of.CMD (talk)14:19, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
Mea Culpa
I need to pause this discussion and apologize for letting it drift into citation needed tags in general, which I support. My concern is more specific: analysis of 365 randomly sampled articles shows the median article with fact tags contains only 3 tags total. When an editor adds 27 citation needed tags to a single article in one session without explanation, I think it's reasonable to discuss whether this helps or hurts Wikipedia. I'll return with comprehensive statistics on these mass tagging patterns vs. normal editorial behavior, rather than conflating this with the broader (and legitimate) need for citation work.Tom94022 (talk)23:49, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
My replies wouldn’t change. Sometimes editors become overzealous in enforcing our rules. That is disruptive no matter what the rule being enforced is… but it is a problem with the editor, not a flaw with the rules.Blueboar (talk)00:39, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
We have tags that can be applied to entire articles or entire sections that are largely unsourced, and these should be used rather than adding a large number of cn tags to individual sentences. That's the only problem I see. In particular, the idea that a cn tag is wrong if something is sourceable is wrong wrong wrong. The opposite is true: cn tags are for things that are not sourced, should be sourced, and probably can be sourced. Used wisely, they help article improvement.Zerotalk02:10, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
IMO this is where context is important... The vast majority of the time its going to be appropriate to upgrade the tag to the topic or page level but on really long articles with a real mix of sourced and unsourced content a dozen or more individual CN tags might actually be better because the issues are still relatively minor in the scheme of the topics and page overall. I also see competing demands being placed on the editor... On the one hand we tell them to be as specific as possible when pointing problems out (but we get annoyed at the use of tags that are too involved), and on the other we tell them to be less specific through the use of section and page tags instead of multiple specific ones (but we get annoyed at the use of tags which are overly general). Thats a hard balance to learn for any editor.Horse Eye's Back (talk)15:53, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
Thank you, that is an excellent reason. In that same line there are many editors who are very willing to address a CN tag or two while reading/exploring but wouldn't necessarily have the time, energy, or expertise to review the entire article for sourcing issues and address them. Breaking these big tasks into smaller tasks makes them much more likely to actually get done.Horse Eye's Back (talk)16:03, 29 July 2025 (UTC)
Status Update
I am about to finish what has been a three-calendar day, 18 or so hour exercise to repair an article where one drive-by-editor among other things removed about 13k bytes from an 84k byte article because of tags applied one year earlier by a second drive-by-editor. FWIW, virtually all the material was restored, some with text changes, only two sentences were removed (~30 bytes), about a 0.2% valid tag rate on a byte basis. This editor did other damage based upon his unsupported POV but as he pointed out I couldn't revert all his damage but would have to separate POV from CN.
This is the second time in my experience that one drive-by-editor removed material tagged by another because the tag was stale; in discussion that editor would not accept a revert (Policy trumps Essay}, so the article remains depleted to date. In this current case rather than go to ANI I concluded this was a problem with the policy and it would be a better use of my time to assemble facts that demonstrate it is a problem worth discussing and so I came here.
Unfortunately, the discussion above seems to be more focused on the merits of CN tags and not on whether drive-by-tagging and removal of material because tags are stale are problems that are enabled by current policy and could be fixed by simple and small changes to policy. So I decided to provide this group with a specific example of the damage policy is doing, hence the above described repair project.
I need to work on a project outside of Wikipedia so I won't be able to respond in detail for the next several days but after that I will return with more researched facts to help continue the discussion.Tom94022 (talk)18:51, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
so hour exercise to repair an article where one drive-by-editor among other things removed about 13k bytes from an 84k byte article because of tags applied one year earlier by a second drive-by-editor. SeeWP:BURDEN. There is nothing wrong with this. It's the original editors fault for not citing their sources.Cremastra (talk·contribs)20:23, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
@Cremastra, I don't think that "fault" is the best way to approach this. For example,this edit added some unsourced content toFloppy disk – 21 years ago – that persists in the article today.
At that time, that uncited but verifiable kind of addition was fully compatible with the community's standards. Since people who started editing in the last few years may not have much understanding of just what normal was, here'sa link to the Featured Article for the same day as that edit. That's the exact version that was promoted at FAC. Notice the utter absence of any little blue clicky numbers.
Should we really "fault" editors for doing what was normal, acceptable, encouraged, and rewarded at the time?
IMO when we raised the standards,we were choosing to create a gap between the then-current corpus and our new rules, and thereforewe need to add these sources.WhatamIdoing (talk)17:20, 1 August 2025 (UTC)
That's fair; I suppose "responsibility" would be a better word. However, I don't think the answer is to grandfather in content that was added before our current rules. The point is thatWP:BURDEN allows removal of unsourced content. Obviously that isn't always thebest option, but it's an important tenet ofWP:V.Cremastra (talk·contribs)01:36, 2 August 2025 (UTC)
I don't think the answer is to grandfather in uncited content.
I also don't think the answer is to say "Well, all this uncited content is somebody else's problem, and I can't be bothered to add sources. I mean, ifyou want it, thenyou add the source, because improving articles is none ofmy responsibility."
The following discussion is closed.Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The discussion above is closed.Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Are political userboxes now allowed in Templatespace?
Back in 2006, political userboxes were userfied perWP:Userbox migration as a result of theGreat Userbox War. Since then, it appears that a lot of them have popped up again in the Template namespace. Also, the index page forWP:Userboxes/Politics by country, which had beenuserfied following MfD in 2009, was moved back to Projectspace in 2020 by a now-indeffed user, apparently without discussion. I was would revert the move, but then 16 years is a long time for consensus to possibly have changed, so I thought I'd ask here first:
Is current consensus in favour of allowing political userboxes in the Template namespace? Where is the line drawn for those that should only be in Userspace?
That describes userboxes that are not allowed, period. My question, however, is about userboxes that are only allowed in Userspace and not Templatespace. The relevant guideline is underWP:UBXNS, which is rather vague. The convention was developed way back in 2006 and doesn't appear to have been clearly documented. --Paul_012 (talk)14:22, 23 June 2025 (UTC)
Just curious as to what is sufficiently divisive to be banned.This user has an “anti-UN” user box, in addition to multiple pro-2nd amendment userboxes. They popped up in the anti-AI discussion using a signature saying “Hail Me” and crosses that are similar to the Iron Cross. This was addressed on their talk page; where they disclaim any connection to Nazism, but refuse to remove the crosses.173.177.179.61 (talk)20:46, 23 June 2025 (UTC)
I failed to see why the ✠ have to be connected to Nazi Germany. I failed to see why multiple pro-2nd amendment and anti-UN statements are regarded as supportive to Nazism. I would again claim that I have no love for Hitler and Nazi Germany. I refuse to remove the ✠ from my signature as I didn't think that it is a symbol of Nazism. If you feel that the ✠ are sufficiently divisive to be banned you can go toWP:ANI for that. Have a good day.✠SunDawn ✠Contact me!10:57, 24 June 2025 (UTC)
To clarify, I do not think the anti-UN and pro-2nd amendment userboxes are supportive of Nazism of themselves. But including them, along with several pro-Trump userboxes makes it clear you support fascist causes. Hope that helps clear things up!173.177.179.61 (talk)11:44, 24 June 2025 (UTC)
@Sock-the-guy and IP editor 173... this is the wrong venue for discussion of a specific editor, if you believe action should be taken then make your case, with evidence, at AN or ANI. If you don't believe action should be taken then stop talking about it.Thryduulf (talk)17:26, 24 June 2025 (UTC)
Sure, I’ll restate my original question then. Is a userbox for being “anti UN” sufficiently divisive to be removed?
For clarification, I have only been browsing these boards for a couple weeks. I saw that this user was asked to adjust their signature, but there was no comment about the userboxes, so I was unsure if they were allowed or not.
I don’t know how to file an ANI unfortunately. That said, I’m not really interested in helping out a community that is pro-Trump, so as a queer Canadian, I guess I’m outta here.173.177.179.61 (talk)17:54, 24 June 2025 (UTC)
IfUser:SunDawn wants people to assume that they support fascist causes, then they are quite welcome to keep their signature, as long as they don't complain when people call them out on it.Black Kite (talk)18:42, 24 June 2025 (UTC)
The swastika predates the Nazis, but if you buy it in your signature you will end up having to explain why all the time. In the same way the iron cross predates WW2 but is now heavily associated with the Nazi's use of it, don't be surprised if people are offended by it's use. --LCUActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°12:03, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
I mean the other option for using the Iron Cross is generally to show allegiance to outlaw biker clubs. But this all seems something of a digression from the key question of the thread.Simonm223 (talk)13:47, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
Apologies if this isn’t allowed but I ended up commenting on this thread before & after I registered. So for complete clarity, the IP above (173.177.179.61) is me.ExtantRotations (talk)16:00, 30 June 2025 (UTC)
All Userboxes should be moved out of template space. If you find one, move it.
The unresolved question is whether political Userboxes should be moved out of Wikipedia?
I've never heard of any guidance to that effect. Presumably you don't mean to include Babel boxes? But what about user group userboxes? WikiProject membership userboxes? Legitimate areas of expertise and/or interest? --Paul_012 (talk)14:51, 23 June 2025 (UTC)
(edit conflict)All Userboxes should be moved out of template space. If you find one, move it. is this just your opinion? It's not something I've ever heard before and doesn't seem to match what is written atWP:UBXNS,
That's a historical page that proposes movingsome userboxes to userspace and which explicitly eschews being a policy or guideline, it does not support your statement.Thryduulf (talk)22:43, 23 June 2025 (UTC)
It describes the rationale and the practice, and it still occurs, and is often an MfD result. In my opinion nothing needs fixing, if someone doesn’t like a template space userbox, Userfy it toUser:UBX.SmokeyJoe (talk)03:19, 24 June 2025 (UTC)
For me it's same shit, really. They can be probably deployed as templates, they can be coded, they can be in Template: or User: namespace (not projectspace though, because that IMHO is supposed to be somehow related to Wikipedia's functioning). It's like arguing over whether we want to put our luggage in locker 26 or 38 when they are the same size.The only thing that really matters is the userbox's content.
And I suggest that we consider that option as well.
Also, unwritten conventions like the one described just above me suck. If it is a convention that actually has much influence on outcomes, it ought to be a rule.Szmenderowiecki (talk)22:13, 25 June 2025 (UTC)
Holy shit… I’m going to be real for a second. I’ve been hanging around reading things for a bit still cause I was like “well okay… maybe I jumped off the handle… it’s not like anti-LGBT userboxes exist, right? I mean, that would be crazy offensive.”
OH! Oh wait they do and people have to argue politely and civilily as to why it might be considered upsetting to realize the person editing the same niche article as you disrespects you on afundamental human level.173.177.179.61 (talk)00:01, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
Controversial Userboxes don’t belong in ProjectSpace because that gets read as implying official Wikipedia status. They don’t belong in TemplateSpace because they don’t function as templates, and because template gnomes don’t like them there and are template-deletionists. They do belong in userspace because they are a form of user expression. If they are idiosyncratic, keep them in their creator’s userspace. If they are broadly used, put them underUSER:UBX.
I think a clearer definition is needed for "directly collaborative in nature," as currently stated. Logically, it should be fine for a userbox (even in Templatespace) to say "This user is interested in the history of Nazism," but not "This user identifies as a Nazi." The former identifies the user's area of interest in contributing to Wikipedia; the latter is just plain inflammatory (or a bad joke). Requiring such wording may be a way to draw the line. On the other hand, it might be opening a loophole for people to exploit. Anyone got better ideas? --Paul_012 (talk)06:55, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
1. I would prefer, even if it is a small preference, for project supporting Userboxes to be organised in Projectspace, not Template space. I think many would belong in a WikiProject.
2. I suggest NOT seeking to define a good and proper userbox. This could be constraining on future good ideas. Instead, I suggest that if someone wants to challenge a userbox as not being for the benefit of the project, that they consider migrating it to userspace, to the authors userspace or toUser:UBX. If definitions are wanted, define unacceptable Userboxes. This has already begun.SmokeyJoe (talk)08:13, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
I note the userbox in the MFD linked earlier is already in the author's userspace. But since it touches on an area where we have many people intent on promoting thevictimhood of certain groups, it's getting a lot of delete votes based purely on that activism. Perhaps we really do want to ban userboxes that take positions on divisive social and political issues, but that environment (or any where discussion is going to be dominated by people throwing aroundWP:NONAZIS or its various clones) is not a good place to make a reasoned decision.Anomie⚔12:05, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
I’m sorry, I’m having trouble understanding your argument. Is your claim that LGBT people are “promoting victimhood” by voting to delete a userbox that reads “This user does not support the LGBT ideology” and that the delete votes are therefore insincere? They seem to come from genuine users. I don’t think it makes a difference who is placing the votes so long as they arent breaking rules.173.177.179.61 (talk)16:51, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
No, you're misinterpreting basically everything there. And this isn't the place for a political discussion.Anomie⚔17:10, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
I'll be honest. I deleted all the userboxes from my user page a while back. This was principally because of two reasons: one - they'd got rather multitudinous and some of them were a snapshot of who I was nearly two decades ago more than now and two - the political userboxes never brought me anythingbut grief. I'd be supportive of a blanket elimination of political userboxes from Wikipedia full-stop. Frankly it would probably improve general adherence toWP:AGF even if it meant that we would lose the opportunity to occasionally have a bigot out themselves before they disrupt the encyclopedia meaningfully.Simonm223 (talk)13:50, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
I'd be neutral to deleting all such userboxes. They can be useful to get an idea of someone's interests or possible biases. But I'd oppose deleting only the ones for positions an angry mob opposes while keeping the ones for their side, since the angry mobs seem to have difficulty distinguishing between actually-bad and just-expresses-an-opposing-viewpoint.Anomie⚔16:01, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
I worry that "political" may be conflated to end up supporting the removal of anything queer-related. Could we have assurances in any official thing that that wouldn't happen?Sock-the-guy (talk)17:03, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
I support a total ban on political infoboxes. Addressing your concern, it's one thing to say "This user is queer" in the infobox. I'd question their judgment of posting their sexual orientation on the Internets, but if they really insist, there isn't much we can do. Just like editing under real-name identities - questionable practice but allowed.
It's another to say "This user feels queers are being discriminated against" or even "This user supports LGBT rights". The first is an open invitation to a shitshow; the second is quite innocuous in most Western societies but this is a political statement nevertheless and has nothing to do with editing Wikipedia - and it may be very controversial in, let's say, Pakistan. Also, consider this for comparison: "This user supportsLGB rights", which will inevitably start all sorts of drama over transgender editors. Yeah, just sit back and get some popcorn.
If you are interested in queer topics on Wikipedia, "This user is part of WikiProject LGBTQ+ studies" is a great way to signal your editing preferences.Szmenderowiecki (talk)18:27, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
The ideal solution would be to remove connotation of politics from the rights of people, but that'd be difficult to implement because it isn't only on Wikipedia, this is across society. --cheesewhisk3rs ≽^•⩊•^≼ ∫ (pester)19:37, 3 July 2025 (UTC)
Nudging the question of a total ban of political userboxes
It appears from this discussion that there may be some support for banning political infoboxes (or "political advocacy" infoboxes). Before we proceed to further discussion, if it is ever needed, please tell me, among these userboxes, which kinds of userboxes would you be in favour of disallowing, if any?
I tried to sort them by categories so that it's easier to analyse them.
the A cluster is political. A is "this user supports country X", which would seem to endorse a certain position in the conflict, e.g. Israel-Palestine, Pakistan-India, Armenia-Azerbaijan, Ukraine-Russia etc. A1 just lists party membership, without any further indication of political beliefs. A2 endorses/opposes particular politicians or personalities reasonably connected to politics. A3 lists the user's ideology. A4 indicates user's attitude to a certain political phenomenon. A5 indicates a user's attitude to countries or supranational bodies.
B cluster is social. B is about LBGT issues (note: only in cases like: X should (not) have rights, should (not) serve in the military; it's not about declaring your sexual orientation), B1 is about opinions on marriage, B2 is about abortion, B3 is about censorship
Note that any infobox of the style "This user is part of WikiProject" or "This user is interested in" or "This user is gay" is not in the scope as it either directly refers to Wikipedia activity or else is not a political statement. Also note that it is for now more of a brainstorm to see which formulation of the userbox guideline will be potentially in play.Szmenderowiecki (talk)20:33, 29 June 2025 (UTC)
Discussion (userboxes)
If you ask me, I believeevery single one of these is inappropriate. We don't get toendorse, or not endorse, people's political views or social views with political relevance. This is not our goal. Therefore, we either need to allow them all or ban them all. I totally understand the people's outrage when a guy posts a "this person is a proud Nazi" or "this person believes we have to straighten up the gays" on their userpage based on the notion that "this is clearly disruptive" but the thing is, it is only disruptive if people notice it, and the current guidance simply says "wait and see until a bunch of editors drag you to MfD" instead of just "don't do it". People who post such things are either trolls - a not-so-easy block for less obvious cases - or genuinely believe this and will go like "Wikipedia is biased and libtards rule there". To the fullest extent possible, Wikipedia should be apolitical and this is a way to do it. The benefit to keep these userboxes is minimal; the potential harm and waste of time - pretty big. Imagine a ARBPIA RfC where an editor looks up a userpage and see something like "This person supports Israel". Do you think the pro-Palestinian editor will never think along the lines of "he should not be editing here because he just said he's biased?"Szmenderowiecki (talk)20:57, 29 June 2025 (UTC)
If you want to announce support for human rights, you have plenty of options. Twitter, Bluesky, Blogspot, Wordpress, your local city hall, etc.Thebiguglyalien (talk)🛸21:02, 29 June 2025 (UTC)
This was not meant to be "support all or nothing". You are free to propose which infoboxes are appropriate or inappropriate within a category. In fact, that was the whole point - I need feedback. If we are speaking of B, which I think was one of your key points you mentioned to me, AFAIK LGBT rights is a political issue in quite a large part of the world (the T part is in particular is in the vogue in the Western world, there's even an ArbCom case request about it). My position is clear on this, and because thisis a controversial issue (it shouldn't be, but it is), I could not put it into the C cluster.Szmenderowiecki (talk)21:13, 29 June 2025 (UTC)
If political userboxes such as the ones listed above were banned, what's stopping editors fromwriting political statements on their userpages instead e.g. "This user supports/opposes _____."? Is there really a difference, for example, between having a userbox that says "This user supports Palestine" vs having an image of the Palestinian flag on their userpage with a message saying "I support Palestine"?Some1 (talk)21:20, 29 June 2025 (UTC)
I believe that if we decide that userboxes like these are inappropriate, it would be automatically inappropriate to write their content in plaintext. Arguing that it wouldn't be inappropriate would bewikilawyering. Also seeWP:UP#GOALS ("Extensive personal opinions on matters unrelated to Wikipedia, wiki philosophy, collaboration, free content, the Creative Commons, etc.") andWP:POLEMIC. That said, you make a good point. UpdatingWP:UP is probably a good idea.Szmenderowiecki (talk)21:39, 29 June 2025 (UTC)
I would say allow them all. This isn't (exactly) about free speech; it's legitimate to say "you can say what you want just not here". That said, it's sometimes useful to know where people are coming from. As long as it's a simple statement of position (even a radically unpopular position) and doesn't devolve into disruptive argumentation, I think it should be allowed. --Trovatore (talk)23:03, 29 June 2025 (UTC)
All of these are appropriate if they are written in a straightforward way that is not an attack. They are useful to indicate the bias or worldview of the editor. Perhaps there could be a way to classify the political biases of editors by how they edit. But far more difficult for the casual observer to determine in general. For it to be soapbox material it should be very prominent and the main feature of the user page. Claims of discrimination and violation of human rights by the existence or use of a userbox are unfounded, as boxes do not take away any rights or do anything that discriminates. It is also more useful to have userboxes rather than use of plain text as that would ensure that text used meets our standards for decency, and also make it easy to find who uses that box.Graeme Bartlett (talk)23:29, 29 June 2025 (UTC)
I mean, the existence of pro-discrimination infoboxes does make it clear to the individuals who are being addressed that they are not wanted here. Putting the burden on the targeted individuals to enforce rules will lead to a reduced number of them that stick around.ExtantRotations (talk)01:29, 30 June 2025 (UTC)
At most, it suggests that there aresome people who don't want them here. Which is always going to be true. There will always be some people who don't want you here. --Trovatore (talk)02:36, 30 June 2025 (UTC)
Personally, I decided almost 20 years ago to remove the closest things I had to political user boxes from my userpage[3], so, yeah, I don't think such things should be on a user page, but I am hesitant to make that a hard rule for others. -Donald Albury00:33, 30 June 2025 (UTC)
While I don't use such userboxes, it's certainly far too broad a brush to do anything about these as a broad category. "political userboxes" is essentially and "political opinion" (in a box), and a "political opinion" is just an "opinion" because everything is political. We can't really have a "C groups causes that may appear uncontroversial", as that it an inherent contradiction. If something was uncontroversial, it would not be a "cause". If it's a cluster by cluster whack, there should be care to nix all opinions, even those widely agreed on by the community.CMD (talk)00:53, 30 June 2025 (UTC)
This seems to be escalating way beyond what I expected when originally asking. But what exactly do we mean by banning userboxes anyway? Like Some1 mentioned, it shouldn't stop people from writing the same statements directly on their user page. What about manually formatting them in boxes, without making them into transcludable templates/subpages? If that's allowed, then nothing should be stopping people from copying manually formatted boxes from other people's talk pages either. Deleting the index pages might add an inconvenience and discourage people from using them, but I don't think there's a realistic way to stop people from seeking them out. Maybe that's why the original solution from 2006 was just to userfy them. --Paul_012 (talk)07:05, 30 June 2025 (UTC)
One issue with the userfication solution is that it largely amounted to much ado about nothing, as the userboxes hosted underUser:UBX/Userboxes or anyone's user subpage are still performing the same function. Maybe they (and others that we think should be removed form Templatespace) should all be subst'ed. This would allow more diversity in users' self-expressionand hold them directly accountable for the content they have on their userpage. I don't know if this will cause a significant increase in storage requirements; would appreciate if someone could do the numbers. --Paul_012 (talk)07:44, 30 June 2025 (UTC)
Userspace pages don’t speak for Wikipedia. This is a big thing for controversial Userboxes. Userfying diminishes the pecived problem. Subst’ing would work similarly.SmokeyJoe (talk)08:18, 30 June 2025 (UTC)
In my opinion, “banning userboxes” would mean taking things in line with the username policy, whereby certain items would be eligible for immediate deletion or ban rather than allowing them to hang around until someone challenged them.
For clarity’s sake, I am also the IP further up this debate that asked about specific userboxes. In my opinion, I think “political userboxes” is a bit of an incorrect target. I do not have a problem with “political support” userboxes such as “this user supports Trump”. As much as I disagree with that statement politically, I don’t think it is designed to be inflammatory. But if the point of Wikipedia is to improve collaborative work, then it is counterproductive to allow userboxes that champion arguments Wikipedia itself deems as biased or false.ExtantRotations (talk)15:54, 30 June 2025 (UTC)
Comment most of this discussion, I don't want to touch with a ten foot pole. However in opposition to the maximalist view here, I do think some ideological userboxes are helpful as an easy way for editors to disclose possible sources of bias, which is part ofWP:DGF. --LWGtalk16:47, 30 June 2025 (UTC)
allow them all - although I hadn't expected to be cited as an example, I agree withLWG andWhatamIdoing that they serve as a method of full disclosure. I thus acknowledge my belief systems and my preferences, and fully expect people to take them into account when giving my edits the scrutiny we all deserve. --Orange Mike |Talk17:48, 4 July 2025 (UTC)
Comment Not going to frame it as a !vote (yet), or for any option, but I'm somewhat supportive. It fuels disruption that could've otherwise been prevented, and for little gain. The benefit of disclosure does not seem to me like it outweighs the other costs. Furthermore, if it's so valuable, is a possible conclusion that we must all disclose our political positions on user pages? Surely not. Therefore, this argument doesn't move me very much. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like this type of disclosure only becomes relevant when a problem (such as POV pushing) arises. However, if the problem has been identified, it is superfluous- barring exceptional cases.Dege31 (talk)22:11, 4 July 2025 (UTC)
At one point I put a bunch of political userboxes on my page, then I later removed them, and I think they should be deleted and removed because they are kind of a trap.Andre🚐00:32, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
No change necessary. Imho, your userspace is clearly your userspace, and to the extent that WP is not used for webhosting or copyright violations, you should be free to use your userspace as you see fit.InvadingInvader (userpage,talk)14:11, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
Allow them all. I often find userboxes silly and don't use them, but I still strongly hold to the idea of a user page as a freeform self-identification page. Especially with the Internet how it is now, all smoothed out byCorporate Memphis and CSS frameworks, I love seeinguserpages that remind me of the old days. If a user wants to include inflammatory statements on their userpage, fine by me. If they're really the kind of person that wants to make Wikipedia a soapbox for their cause then they'll surely end up blocked for that in their other activities.Dan Leonard (talk •contribs)18:31, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
No change. Theuserbox wars (just linking to a small part of them) were more damaging to Wikipedia than userboxes ever were. Let's not repeat that. —Kusma (talk)18:44, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
No change User pages are a space for a user to describe themselves, or do whatever within reason. Userboxes help to announce a bias a user may have. For example, I have userboxes realated to both the Halo video game franchise and the Dune franchise, and users have used those to point out that I may be bias towards the frachises in discussions. I wouldn't say being a fan or having a belief is a conflict of interest in of itself, as people wouldn't edit articles they weren't interested in, but userboxes are a fun way to disclose this stuff. Why even have user pages if we can't decorate them and make them fun?GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔)17:09, 20 July 2025 (UTC)
We should do away with userboxes completely. Userboxes have an air of officiality that can make it seem that Wikipedia is expressing support for whatever position is noted by the box. If you want to tell me that you support such and such, or believe such and such, or like something or other, you should be willing to state it simply and clearly in your own words. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions)18:00, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
I don't think the rules need to be that harsh. Also, what would it change to remove the userboxes yet let editors still state their opinions in their own words? It might actually make userboxes more divisive, because there could be less clarity and then that could generate disputes. --cheesewhisk3rs ≽^•⩊•^≼ ∫ (pester)08:11, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
As I said before, a userbox has an air of official endorsement from Wikipedia. Such endorsements arusually not appropriate for the site to be making. This impression could even have the effect of disuading people from editing here.Why would you wish to edit somewhere that apparently supports people you hate or who hate you? I might not mind them so much if they were worded more as personal statement ("I like ____") instead of an official sounding classification ("This user likes ____"). As for being more divisive, if a clear statement of your own likes/beliefs/positions causes problems, then it's probably not something you need to be talkung about here. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions)15:21, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
No change Seconding the points made by @User:GeogSage, userboxes help users determine how to approach a conversation, quickly identify points where they may disagree/conflict with another user, and determine bias. Way better to have people just announce their biases rather than have to sus it out over and over again.LegalSmeagolian (talk)01:23, 4 August 2025 (UTC)
Hi,seeking some clarification due to a confusing contradiction between two guideline pages after I was trying to figure out if I can close theAfD I raised myself or not as a procedural close (I know I could close it as "withdrawn (speedy keep)", but since that's not technically what is the right course, here's the issue:
Thedelection process guidelines instruct to close discussions that are at the wrong venue as a procedural closure, listing examples including a redirect, which is what the discussion changed into -DPR:Venue inappropriate: (e.g., a file hosted on Commons, category or redirect at AFD, or discussions that the chosen venue is unable to address)
The current guideline atWP:NACD only explicitly states that the nominator can close the discussion as "Withdrawn" / "Speedy Keep", but then following the link toWP:SK there it says"If a page is nominated for deletion on the wrong forum (for example, a template on AfD or an article on MfD), the misplaced discussion may be procedurally closed".
So if I follow the logic of NACD pointing to SK, and SK saying that that is a sub-variant of SK, then I'd interpret it as, yes, I could therefore do that underWP:NACD and save some other person the time.
But since theWP:NACD is explicitly contradicting it and explicitly only states "speedy keep" I'm at a loss whether I can infer that since NACD links to SK that they mean that that would also be okay, or not, so hopefully we can ammend the sentence at NACD to either explicitly say that that is also okay to do as a NACD opener, or explicitly say its not. Though personally I think it probably should be okay if it's an obvious case, since I'd rather save someone else the time after I realized the venue was wrong and should go toWP:RM instead due to a scope change as a result of a good point brought up by someone in the AfD page.
It can't "go to RM" if the page was nominated for deletion and the deletion question was resolved within the AfD. Such a situation calls for a close on the merits, and a procedural close is specifically not that. If, in an AfD, an issue of naming is discussed concurrently with deletion, it is possible for the AfD itself to decide on both. There is such a thing as a "keep and move" outcome, based onWP:NOTBURO expediency (various examples exist, such asWikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mowbray House School). And AfD can even run concurrently with an RM as an actually running process, to reach the combined decision on whether to have the article or not, and if yes, on what subject exactly -- meaning, how to name it (example:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shani Louk with the concurrent RM:permalink, closed together). There cannot be a correction of forum by moving an AfD discussion to RM unless it was really some kind of misclick in Twinkle and the nominator who was writing up an RM nomination wasn't aware that they've selected AfD (or similar). If the forum was correct (relevant deletion forum for the given namespace / type of page) at the start of the discussion, i.e., at the time of nomination, then it can't turn into a wrong forum later. The only thing that can be "wrong" is the nomination, i.e., it can fail to lead to the proposed action.
This is a random example of a correct speedy keep:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Program on Forests. In that discussion, participants expressed an interest in starting a merger discussion, but what happened is that the AfD reached a natural conclusion. The deletion question was substantively considered, was clearly answered in the negative, and the outcome was an outcome on the merits of the original issue.
It is interesting how you say that your linked example is an obvious case of something, and how your would-have-been procedural self-close would have been obviously justified, as an illustration for a certain interpretation or change to the guideline -- while at the same time having a wrong idea about that particular close and that "obvious" case being nothing of the sort. No, you could not have closed as "procedural close". So the only thing that example illustrates is that anuninvolved closer is advantageous for procedural closures relative to a self-closer, as long as there has been an actual discussion (if other editors have participated). —Alalch E.08:17, 6 August 2025 (UTC)
You could have closed it yourself as "withdrawn (speedy keep)", since you no longer wanted to pursue an AfD outcome and since everyone else had !voted keep. This is the outcome everyone wants, don't sweat the verbiage.Firefangledfeathers (talk /contribs)12:33, 6 August 2025 (UTC)
I mean I never argued for deletion, so the fact thatWP:BLAR only suggest AfD as the venue was a bit strange to begin with since this wasn’t an article, but a DAB page and my contention at the start was basically that the proposed target was the exclusive primary since the other terms were already discussed there, so maybe really BLAR should have some nuance that if one is saying a dab page is an unnecessary disambiguation it should just go to RM to begin with since people watching RMs are more experienced withWP:DETERMINEPRIMARY questions so it could just be an open RM of “Page -> ?” with the text explaining the proposal and community can decide on whether it gets moved to parenthetical disambiguation or indeed just becomes a primary redirect?Raladic (talk)16:10, 6 August 2025 (UTC)
Fixing the admin inactivity requirements
Wikipedia:Administrator recall/Night Gyr recently generated 66,000 words of divisive debate, ostensibly about Night Gyr, but really about our inactivity requirements. A week after thepetition debate officially closed, it continues on the talk page. Two other recalls (Master Jay andGimmetrow) were also about inactivity. So it seems clear to me we need to revisit the admin activity policy. Perhaps the limits need to be raised. Or maybe we need to have clarity about what constitutes "gaming". Or, maybe we need to state that inactivity is not a validWP:RECALL reason. One way or another, we need to prevent a repeat of the Night Gyr debacle.RoySmith(talk)11:01, 27 July 2025 (UTC)
An edit is not an administrative action requiring "the tools" to perform, covered underWP:ADMINACCT. To put it in other words there are no requirements to actually use "the tools". Most other stuff, including a lot of actions of significant import, any Tom, Dick or Harry can boldly perform as a "non-administrative close". Admins aren't even required to perform any of those, they can just let the non-admins do 90% of the work. –wbm1058 (talk)01:21, 28 July 2025 (UTC)
That is not the same as there being no activity requirements. They are expressed as edits or logged actions because not every admin action is logged. If you want to change that then propose an alternative in the linked idea lab thread.Thryduulf (talk)02:47, 28 July 2025 (UTC)
I have taken admins to task for making unexplained edits to fully-protected material on the main page. i.e.{{DYK}}. If it requires the bit to do,WP:ADMINACCT requires that you explain yourself if asked.RoySmith(talk)10:31, 28 July 2025 (UTC)
Right. An editto a non-fully-protected page is not an administrative action requiring "the tools" to perform, covered underWP:ADMINACCT. An edit to a fully-protected page is an administrative action requiring "the tools" to perform, as is an edit toMediaWiki namespace. None of that is required to keep the tools. You can spend years doing nothing but fixing typos in non-contentious-topic articles, and keep the tools. –wbm1058 (talk)11:49, 28 July 2025 (UTC)
This wasn't a debacle and there's no need to change anything, other than perhaps acceptance of the fact that much of the community wants a lowhard limit on inactivity but considers trivial edits to meet the minimum as gaming. Flexibility is a good thing, not a bad thing. Even if activity requirements were hypothetically increased, the case of an admin making sandbox edits up to the new limit to evade it is still gaming the system, so this would only catch an actually-active but low edit count for some reason admin (e.g. an admin who's switched to the tech side or sister projects).SnowFire (talk)20:27, 30 July 2025 (UTC)
Well, we know thatsome of the community want that, but I think it is obvious other parts of the community disagree.Donald Albury23:54, 30 July 2025 (UTC)
"edit or logged action in every rolling 12 month period, and at least 100 edits in every rolling 5 year period" - this really is too low and should be raised. 1,000 edits in a five-year period and a minimum number of admin actions a year would be more reasonable.Wellington Bay (talk)23:15, 6 August 2025 (UTC)
Reword notice at top ofWP:Copyright and restyle box, as it's not as neat as I liked, and it's not as easy to read. See it in my sandbox:User:Waddie96/sandbox2.
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Excellent improvement, and breaks up the wall of text that currently exsist and should help ensure people actually read it.TiggerJay(talk)20:59, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
Btw! Codex icons just got officially, officially released. So maybe I do this to the Commons Copyrights webpage too? What notices right now are v. important. I'm good at copyediting (I hope).waddie96 ★ (talk)05:55, 8 August 2025 (UTC)
@Mrfoogles: could you remove the newlines before each; in the code? there are currently 4 separate description lists for the FAQ because of this, which obviously should not be the case.91.193.178.220 (talk)23:30, 19 August 2025 (UTC)
@91.193.178.220 I don't understand why you are pinging me? I'm not involved in this. I just left a note because I clicked through initially, not realizing it had already been done.Mrfoogles (talk)01:47, 20 August 2025 (UTC)
Given that wikinews is shutting down, plans should be made to remove the reference to wikinews fromWP:NOTOPINION. Even if it does not fully shut down, I think that at this time we cannot in good faith recommend people to go to wikinews. Maybe there are other places wikinews is referenced that should be reconsidered?Czarking0 (talk)20:59, 29 August 2025 (UTC)
Ok, does that change the policy impact? To me, with the state of wikinews, "we cannot in good faith recommend people to go to wikinews" as a policy of enWiki. Though I recognize that I might be toosoon with this discussion.Czarking0 (talk)19:26, 31 August 2025 (UTC)
Until WMF officially retires Wikinews, we shouldn't touch policy, but once we do, there are several policy and guideline pages that direct people to edit at Wikinews that need to be changed;WP:NOT has several points including NOTNEWS and NOTOPINIONMasem (t)19:32, 31 August 2025 (UTC)
Youpremised this proposal on a factually false statement: "Given that wikinews is shutting down". Wikinews is not shutting down. Therefore, anything that depends on this "given" is irrelevant.
Did you instead mean to say something like "I think Wikinews is lousy, so let's remove all mention of it"? If so, then specifically in the context ofWP:NOTOPINION, I wonder whether you have contemplated the audience and the alternatives. NOTOPINION tells a person who wants to write anopinion piece on Wikipedia to go away, because we don't want opinion pieces, and notes at the end that they can take their opinion pieceand shove it over to Wikinews, where there is at least a non-zero chance that it would be accepted. We've written this not because we're necessarily supportive of Wikinews, but because telling people "wrong page, try X instead" is usually a more effective way to get rid of them/their unwanted content than "wrong page, no alternatives exist, get your own website".WhatamIdoing (talk)20:33, 31 August 2025 (UTC)
Can fan-written sources be used to make statements about fandoms?
To summarize the discussion, my sources for including the statement that the semi-official name of Badeline to refer to one of the characters has been embraced by the fan community are fan wikis and discussion forums. The other side claims the sources failWP:V andWP:RS. However, since the sources are user-generated, and the users are fans of the game, the fact that they use that name implies that the name has been embraced by the community, hence the question. As a side note, the closer of this discussion is one of the people who commented in it, which failsWP:INVOLVED, but that is a minor issue compared to what I wanted to discuss.Nononsense101 (talk)04:16, 1 September 2025 (UTC)
Hi, @Nononsense101. I've pulled the RFC tag, because it was categorized as a request to change a policy or guideline page, but you're asking about adding a few words to a single article. Also, you've got a somewhat confusing question, because "fan-written sources" could mean something like Reddit forums or Wikia Fandom pages, but it could also mean a totally legitimate magazine article that was written by a fan. You probably don't need an RFC on this page, anyway, since it's pretty high traffic, and editors can just answer your question without the extra advertising that an RFC provides.
the fact that they use that name implies that the name has been embraced by the community. This is a premium example of implying a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source, orWP:SYNTHESIS. In layman's terms, "who says?" --ThomasO1989 (talk)06:04, 1 September 2025 (UTC)
In answer to the question asked in the header of this section: Yes,WP:ABOUTSELF allows otherwise-questionable sources to be used to make statements about themselves, and just about any source can be used as a "primary" source for the fact that the source says something. OTOH, you'll find a lot of people around here who'll disagree, because the primary-source paranoia written into policies likeWP:PSTS allows them to say "it's primary so it's bad" instead of having to actually deal withWP:RS andWP:NPOV and so on in discussions.On the other hand, having glanced through the linked discussion, I'd question whether the phrase you want to include passesWP:WEIGHT (who cares if fans have embraced it?) and whether it can really be supported by types of sources you're asking about ("the fandom" is probably bigger than a few forum posts or one or two wikis, you can't reallyextrapolate the whole fandom from that).Anomie⚔11:50, 1 September 2025 (UTC)
Please note sources in peer-reviewed journals that I have sourced in that discussion that specifically call out the name "Badeline". That's the quality of sources you need for that.Masem (t)13:28, 1 September 2025 (UTC)
The main problem is that even if peer-reviewed journals are used, the claim "the name is embraced by fans" is based solely on the fact the paper uses the name "Badeline" at all. There is no explicit quote in any source, reliable or not, that can back up the claim.ThomasO1989 (talk)15:00, 1 September 2025 (UTC)
This article[4] (available w/ Wikimedia Library Card) definitely gets at the intersection of Celeste and fans, discussed Badeline in depth and her meaning. It does not explicitly state "fans embraced the name Badeline" but it does not question that as the name of the character, and discussed both Madeline (the main character) and Badeline and their connection to trans identity that was readily adopted by fans. It may not be right to say "name embraced by fans" but absolutely "name used by the developer and fans" with this source.Masem (t)16:40, 1 September 2025 (UTC)
The general consensus is that if a statement (e.g., "fans embraced it") is going into a Wikipedia article, then you have to have one or moreWikipedia:Reliable sources (e.g., not a user-generated wiki page) thatWikipedia:Directly supports the content (e.g., says fans embraced/love/cherish/prefer it, not just shows an example of fans using it or [possibly grudgingly] accepting it).WhatamIdoing (talk)17:22, 1 September 2025 (UTC)
Statements like, "according to Joe Bloggs, fans often use this name" or "the name is commonly used on fanwebsite" with citations to that specific person/website are fine from a verifiability standpoint. Whether the statement isWP:DUE or not is a different question - it won't always be (possibly most of the time it won't be) but it can only be determined with the full context of the article, statement and source.Thryduulf (talk)17:33, 1 September 2025 (UTC)
That's even a problem, unless the person or site is well recognized as authoritative. For example, if we were talking something about Star Wars or Star Trek, then yes, referencing with attribution toWookieepedia orMemory Alpha would make sense, both of those have long-standing reputations (and even here, I'd have reservations on that if no non-fan-based RS picked up on that). But if we're talking about some random website hosted at fandom.com, that would be far different.Masem (t)17:49, 1 September 2025 (UTC)
You said that you wanted to "have a general consensus on stuff of this nature, not just this." Where else (on Wikipedia articles) do you see this specific issue present? Right now I don't think it is due weight to use a primary source to verify something very tangentially related to the topic at hand, not just "primary-source paranoia" So in response to your statement of wanting to "have a general consensus on stuff of this nature, not just this." I say no. I don't think primary sources should be used to verifyfringely related topics 🇪🇭🇵🇸🇸🇩Easternsahara 🇪🇭🇵🇸🇸🇩16:39, 2 September 2025 (UTC)
Not to assume bad faith, but they don't care about "consensus". They were not happy that they couldn't useWP:BLUE to get around providing any reliable sources to directly support their claim (which they can't because it'sWP:SYNTHESIS), and now they're here trying tofind some other technicality. Even here, editors are in agreement that the statement needs to be verifiable with reliable sources and there are clear doubts as to whether the statement is even worth including at all (WP:DUE). But no, they have since tried to re-insert "the fans use the name too" back into the article without any sourcetwice (1,2) and have received a final warning for disruptive editing.ThomasO1989 (talk)17:10, 2 September 2025 (UTC)
File a complaint in ANI, they seem to be a child. I dont think BITE applies if the newbie is edit warring and editing disruptively. They seem to only have come here to have people take their side, like the comment about the involved close (which using the same essence of SKYBLUE, it was pretty clear that everyone agreed to remove it). 🇪🇭🇵🇸🇸🇩Easternsahara 🇪🇭🇵🇸🇸🇩17:45, 2 September 2025 (UTC)
Their account is almost five years old, so "child" is probably not the right word. (Could be a teenager, though, as we get lots of them.)
Wanting to improve the encyclopedia is admirable and all, but when two groups of experienced editors repeatedly explain why your addition violates multiple Wikipedia policies, then you either change your addition to fit policy oryou don't add it at all. Instead, you opened a discussion here for the sole purpose of undermining the previous consensus and then misinterpreted one- or two-people's responses as a go-ahead to re-add it to the article. That behavior is disruptive, and you need to stop lest you are blocked from editing the article of your favorite video game altogether.ThomasO1989 (talk)19:53, 2 September 2025 (UTC)
The consensus, the general agreement among the editors in the previous discussion, was that the addition should be rejected as is, because you could not provide any reliable sources, your rationale that "the fact they use that name implies that the name has been embraced by the community" was unacceptable, and that "whether fans liking the name or not" doesn't belong in the article at all. You didn't accept that no one there wanted it in the article, and you opened a discussion here to try and change that. That's undermining the consensus and isgaming the system.ThomasO1989 (talk)20:18, 2 September 2025 (UTC)
Charts and colors
There have been several changes wheremw:Extension:graph graphs have been migrated tomw:Extension:Chart graphs. The graph extension is broken, hence the migration. Now, Chart does not allow specific colors, it does not support it. Sometimes, these graphs have legends outside of the graph. I figured it is best to ask before this gets too common. Is it ok to just change the legend to match the chart, or should the graph stay broken?Snævar (talk)19:28, 26 August 2025 (UTC)
It's good advice to fix it, if you know how, but, if this is a regularly occurring problem, you should also notify the developers of this extension. I think they can be foundhere orhere.Phil Bridger (talk)15:39, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
Reflections on Wikipedia Policies
Dear all, I am a Wikipedia reader, not an editor (I’ve just made this account to post this thread). I would like to share some reflections about certain disputes I have observed on Wikipedia, which led me (and I hope may also lead some of you) to consider the possibility of introducing policies that more clearly regulate the behavior of editors with advanced privileges.
Let me start with two disclaimers. First, I am in no way (absolutely not) connected with any of the individuals involved in the discussions I am about to mention. Second, I sincerely appreciate the oversight role played by senior editors is truly valuable and has made Wikipedia into the credible source it is today.
Now, I’m confident that the REFSPAM issue was properly verified and that the citations to this textbook were legitimately removed from Wikipedia. However, I would like to make a few points. The editors seem to take for granted that the person responsible for the REFSPAM is the same as the author of the textbook, and therefore feel free to mock him, also repeatedly citing his full name. Nevertheless, it is not at all certain that this is the case (and I doubt it can be verified), since the internet is full of compulsive posters who spread the same content hundreds of times across different platforms, including Wikipedia. Therefore, the author of the book may well be unrelated to this activity and possibly unaware of the entire discussion involving him (and thus unable to defend himself or respond).
In addition, some editors suggested that the high number of citations of the book might be due to REFSPAM. However, I checked Google Scholar and saw that the citations come from articles in Elsevier, Springer, IEEE, etc. It is hardly credible that scientists publishing in these journals would take citations from Wikipedia. At most, this could happen with undergraduate students writing a thesis. I would only believe such a claim (which I find ridiculous) if someone provided me with a reliable statistical study showing that a large number of Wikipedia citations could have a substantial impact on the number of citations of a scientific paper (but I doubt such a study exists).
Now, I have not read the textbook in question, and I probably would not be able to assess its quality anyway. What troubles me is that the editors involved in the above mentioned discussions are expressing negative judgments on a book with many citations. Senior editors generally do not reveal their real identity (nor are they required to), and their role does not require formal qualifications or academic credentials. As a Wikipedia reader, for all I know, jacobolus could be a student who feels very confident (but may not be skilled to judge a professional scientist), malparti could be a butcher from Liverpool, or worse, a rival scientist trying to discredit a colleague anonymously, and Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction could be a tobacconist from Prague. I do not mean to offend anyone; I only want to highlight that devaluing on Wikipedia the work of an author who is recognized by the REAL Scientific Community undermines Wikipedia’s credibility.
Finally, I am struck by the tone of the discussion. The editors repeatedly disparage, often without revealing their identities, an author who may potentially never even know of the discussion about him. What I see as a reader is a young scientist, appreciated by the scientific community, being mocked by complete strangers (the only exception being @David Eppstein, who uses his real name; though I am still concerned about a scientist criticizing a colleagues’ work in this way on Wikipedia). From my point of view, discussions like this (and some others) mark a bitter page in Wikipedia’s history and damage its credibility.
Apologies for the long discussion. I know many editors will disagree with me, but I hope my reflections can spark a constructive debate on improving Wikipedia’s policies. I am not asking for the above mentioned textbook to be cited (I want to be clear on this to avoid misunderstanding). I simply wish to stress that Wikipedia’s policies could be more specific in clarifying to editors with privileges that, first of all, they should behave respectfully towards people involved in suspected promotional activities (starting with avoiding repeated mentions of their full names), and secondly, they should refrain from making technical judgments they are neither required nor qualified to provide.
Dear Asocial network… thank you for raising your concern. Unfortunately it was a bit TLDR. Could yousummarize what you think needs to be done? Thanks.Blueboar (talk)16:57, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
I think it means "If you believe a textbook is bad, please don't directly say that on the internet (i.e., with the author's name), because it could hurt the author's feelings."
@WhatamIdoing Yes. Like many people familiar with the affair, on a personal level I am convinced that OP is the author of that textbook. I apologize is this was not clear from my message.Malparti (talk)11:12, 6 September 2025 (UTC)
Thank you, @Blueboar. I'm not referring to the specific case (it’s just an example). I believe that Wikipedia policies should include that: (a) a person suspected of self-promotion should not be insulted on Wikipedia, since we cannot be certain that they are responsible for the REFSPAM or even aware of the discussion about them; and (b) editors should not give technical opinions on sources, but rather assess them based only on external accreditation, as it is not guaranteed that they are qualified to make such judgments.Asocial network (talk)10:36, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
@Asocial network To the best of my knowledge, all of the editors you mention are editors, not administrators or otherwise Wikipedia-privileged individuals. The reason what they write is respected by many who have been editing similar articles are their track records. Generally, their contributions to articles and talk pages have been of high quality and that goes a long way when other editors read what they have to say. They are generally polite, but sometimes there is no way to politely indicate that a reference is, well, shall we say, not of quality sufficient for Wikipedia. That is, sometimes one backs up ones statements with facts and sometimes facts are ugly. Sometimes the polite way of saying something doesn't convey the magnitude of how bad a reference is, and sometimes it is necessary to convey that.
You are correct to remind us to strive to be polite. Thank you for that. But please know that sometimes effective communications requires that we get our hands a little dirty. Ideally we'd still be polite as we can be in those circumstances, and I will continue to strive to do exactly that. Thank you —Quantling (talk | contribs)16:59, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
I checked Google Scholar and saw that the citations come from articles in Elsevier, Springer, IEEE, etc. It is hardly credible that scientists publishing in these journals would take citations from Wikipedia.
To the contrary, in the modern publish-or-perish world, scholars are under intense pressure to focus on speed and output volume, and many of those publishing lightly reviewed/edited journal articles or monographs pull from Wikipedia. Sometimes whole sections of Wikipedia articles are closely paraphrased in scholarly sources. Other times scholars mine the Wikipedia reference list for citations. The editor promoting this particular book made a pattern of promoting works by a single author widely across Wikipedia and was insistent to always put them as the first work in the list of sources, even in cases where the work was largely irrelevant to the claim being made. They never made substantial other kinds of edits: the goal seemed to me to be clearly promotion rather than knowledge sharing. During the time that citations to this author's books were the first on Wikipedia, they garneredmany citations, so it was a very effective strategy. Since those have been removed, the rate at which they have been getting additional citations has gone dramatically down. To your point about identity: I believe XOR'Easter is an intentionally pseudonymous physicist(?). Personally, I have made no particular effort to hide my name (you can find it e.g. on Wikimedia Commons on photographs and diagrams I have created). I'm a computer programmer with 2 school-aged kids with a hobby interest in mathematics and especially mathematics education; I wound up as a political science major in college but had approximately an undergraduate degree worth of formal coursework in mathematics. I don't pretend to any special credential or expertise beyond a willingness to read sources and follow my own interests, and a goal of making Wikipedia as helpful as possible to readers. For the record,Asocial network, can you please state what, if any, your own relationship is to Gagniuc? –jacobolus(t)17:05, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
The new editor has saidI am in no way (absolutely not) connected with any of the individuals involved in the discussions I am about to mention. I believe that was meant to include the author of the textbook, though it is a bit ambiguous, since the new editor did not mention Gagniuc by name, and therefore Gagniuc might not be intended to be included in this statement.WhatamIdoing (talk)22:12, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
The reason to ask is that, first, multiple sockpuppets of the primary promotional-booster editor were involved in spamming references to Gagniuc's book and edit warring to prevent removal of those references. The primary booster made statements such as:
The user 37.201.210.166 (WhoIs: Amsterdam) makes an abuse of wikipedia by denigrating various published works to justify the injection of his own book (Van Kampen, WhoIs:Amsterdam). This is not elegant or constructive. The online examples of Gagniuc's book are available for download. [...] Gagniuc's book is an impressive work seen through the eyes of a scientist from which I easily understood "how to". PS: After seeing the book on Wikipedia in 2017, I contacted Dr. Gagniuc for a collaboration proposal on a EU research project, which he kindly accepted. So, I'm personally involved.
Later after they were banned, further IP editors (perhaps also sockpuppets?) showed up with arguments like:
some users abused the system and erased Gagniucs book with no reason. I wish to insert Gagniucs book again, and the main reason is the fact that is the most academically cited book listed on this page. More ... the suspicious reason for wich a top book was erased on no grounds at all except replacement with other unknown sources that have no academic grounds to be cited.
Later, a newly created account (likely also a sockpuppet?) came to complain, one claiming non-involvement,
I wasn’t originally involved in this discussion, but after seeing how much debate there was over one source, I got curious (and grabbed some popcorn)...
followed by a bunch of praise of Gagniuc's book that reads like it was generated by an LLM. That user's only other activity was spamming more references to Gagniuc's work on various pages. Yet another new account showed up with more LLM-like praise of Gagniuc's work, then started formal complaints on various Wikipedia process pages (dispute resolution noticeboard, administrator's noticeboard about how unfair everyone was being, calling removal of references to Gagniuc "Disruptive conduct and personal attacks"). This new complaint closely fits the existing pattern. My running assumption is that these editor(s) are all closely affiliated with Gagniuc. It's hard to come up with an alternative explanation for their behavior. –jacobolus(t)23:04, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
I don't know why, but your description has reminded me of the occasional stories of academics hiring publicity firms (e.g., before tenure or promotion discussions). Maybe it's because a desire to not have negative things turn up in a web search would be consistent with the goals of a publicity campaign.WhatamIdoing (talk)16:37, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
The answer is no, absolutely not. I am in no way connected to that author, I’m not writing from Romania, I’ve never read any of their books, and I work in a completely different field. @Jacobolus, thank you for all the clarifications; now that you’ve explained things, I understand your suspicions, but I am entirely unrelated to the matter, and my comments were meant in a more general sense.Asocial network (talk)10:23, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
Regardingtechnical judgments they are neither required nor qualified to provide - You correctly pointed out that many of the editors you mentioned are anonymous, so their qualifications are unknown. But that does not mean you can positively assert that they are unqualified. And I would suspect that Wikipedia editors interested in editing mathematics pages are much more likely to be qualified to do so than your average Czech tobacconist.Elestrophe (talk)18:37, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
'Thank you,' @Elestrophe. If I want to be sure that an opinion is reliable, it's not enough to simply lack certainty that the person expressing it might be unqualified. I need to have certainty that theyare qualified. If I go to a cardiologist for chest pain, I want to be sure that they are indeed a cardiologist.Asocial network (talk)10:28, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
Ok, but that doesn't change the fact that you rudely called other editors unqualified, despite admitting yourself that you don't have the relevant math background.Elestrophe (talk)11:58, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
Dear @Elestrophe, I absolutely did not mean to be offensive. I only wanted to point out that editors are not required to have formal qualifications, and therefore their level of expertise is not guaranteed. Let me try to clarify what I meant. A good university student in mathematics is certainly capable of making valuable contributions to a Wikipedia article or clearly explaining a concept or proof. However, I'm not sure they are in a position to evaluate the research work of a professional researcher or university professor.
The citations to the book wereobviously due to it being advertised on Wikipedia. Our criticizing a bad book doesn't damage Wikipedia's credibility; our leaving advertisements for it in place would.Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk)21:18, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
I have no idea what this is about. Is there a summary in 240 words or fewer? What is the textbook that may or may not merit inclusion? What are the arguments for that textbook, on its own merits? I cannot see the core dispute for the layers of ad hominem here.Tito Omburo (talk)23:02, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
Quick summary: starting in 2017 various single-purpose accounts inserted references to works by Romanian bioinformatics professor Paul Gagniuc as the first listed source in a number of medium-traffic Wikipedia pages (e.g. to his 2017 book about Markov chains,doi:10.1002/9781119387596). For several years after that, Gagniuc's works garnered academic citations at a decent rate, with nobody working on Wikipedia really paying attention. At some point, when pages were, among routine changes, re-organized or reworked to move or remove citations to Gagniuc's work, those accounts and various IP editors edit warred to preserve the placement of references to Gagniuc's works, which eventually (cf.Streisand effect) led to a closer examination by various established editors of citations to Gagniuc's works across English Wikipedia. After discussion, the general consensus (to be generous) is that Gagniuc's sources are not good enough or historically important enough to prefer them over available alternatives, especially when cited in places where they were only weakly relevant. The references were removed, and the edit warriors were banned. Since then, new single-purpose accounts and IP editors keep appearing to fight for the restoration of Gagniuc references, with as far as I can tell no support from anyone who has a demonstrated history of meaningful Wikipedia contributions. –jacobolus(t)23:20, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
But, jacobolus, he isin no way (absolutely not) connected with any of the individuals involved in the discussions I am about to mention! What a cruel slander you make against the name of genuine, obviously good faith Wikipedia reader Apul Gaucing! --JBL (talk)00:38, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
Thank you all for taking part in the discussion. I understand that someone suspects I may be connected to the author in question. However, that is not the case, and my comments are meant in a more general sense. I am not denying at all that there has been REFSPAM. I’ll try to explain my point with an example. Let’s set aside the Gagniuc case for a moment and consider a hypothetical example (to avoid any conflict of interest). Imagine I’m a journalist (for example, one who appears on TV), and a web user, obsessed with my public image, compulsively writes posts across various platforms (something that happens more often than one might think), including on Wikipedia, saying that I’m the best journalist in the world. If an editor interpreted this as self-promotion and started a discussion aimed at discrediting me, I would not be happy to find a Wikipedia thread about me where people are saying that I can’t write, that I’m biased, or that I’m bad at my job. I would suffer serious reputational damage — unfairly.And this would be made worse by the fact that I might never even become aware of such a discussion. That is the issue I’m trying to raise.Asocial network (talk)10:55, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
Do you have any reason to believe the book is any good? Other than the citation count, which as others already mentioned, was directly caused by the ref-spam incident itself. The fact is that low-quality textbooks are numerous, and there is no reason why editors should be restricted from giving honest opinions on their quality as sources. If the author's feelings are hurt by these opinions, then they should have written a better book.Elestrophe (talk)12:05, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
Dear @Elestrophe, I’m not at all claiming that the book in question is a good reference. I previously suggested (and I suggest again now) that we leave the Gagnuc case out of this discussion. Otherwise, it may seem like I'm insisting on having it reinserted among the references, which is not my intention.
My point is more general and concerns the way sources are evaluated by editors. Let me try to explain my perspective with a purely hypothetical example.
That would lead to an absurd situation where a fundamental reference is removed from Wikipedia, and a famous scientist ends up being mocked on a talk page. I hope this helps clarify my point of view.Asocial network (talk)15:49, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
Well, luckily that has not happened, nor does it seem likely that it will. I don't see a reason why we need to change our policies, especially if it would prevent editors from discussing their own judgment about the suitability of sources.Elestrophe (talk)17:08, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
A source doesn'thave to be bad for its use to be unacceptable promotion. I'll quote the relevant guideline page:
Citation spamming is the illegitimate or improper use of citations, footnotes, or references. Citation spamming is a form of search engine optimization or promotion that typically involves the repeated insertion of a particular citation or reference in multiple articles by a single contributor. Often these are added not to verify article content, but rather to populate numerous articles with a particular citation. Variations of citation spamming include academics and scientists using their editing privileges primarily to add citations to their own work, and people replacing live or dead URLs with links to commercial sites or their own blogs. Citation spamming is a subtle form of spam and should not be confused with legitimate good-faith additions intended to verify article content and help build the encyclopedia.
Note that thisdoesn't say that an expert can't (where appropriate in the course of writing an article) cite their own work. What it says is that citations must be for the purpose of verifying claims in the article, rather than for promotion. To run with your hypothetical example, we might imagine a new editor calleduser:Newman is my homie shows up to English Wikipedia after noticing that Newman's book is only cited one time halfway down the pageGraph theory, and likewise onRandom graph, and doesn't appear at all on articles likeSocial network,Biological network, orLaplacian matrix. This editor "improves" these pages by adding a footnote pointing to Newman's book in the first paragraph of each article, and maybe a few more spots down the page, even in places where the article's content is already well sourced. Nobody else notices, because the book is a legitimate source, and plausibly could be cited in those places. But then, when some of the citations are replaced as part of ordinary editing by other editors, this editor starts an edit war and starts flinging accusations that the other editors involved are doing so for ulterior motives like promoting their own books or tearing down a rival, or that they are incompetent to evaluate citations to Newman's book. Another new editor calleduser:MarkN 4 Lyfe appears to argue the case, agreeing withuser:Newman is my homie and separately adding more Newman citations to additional new articles. Some long-time Wikipedians go read the relevant book chapters, and the citations, and decide that the previously existing scattered citations to Neman's book were fine, but the new ones seem promotional rather than constructive and better sources can be found in those contexts, and remove them. The Newman-booster editors can't get the point, and are banned for edit warring and wasting everyone's time. Finally multiple new editors over the following years, such asuser:I'm completely uninvolved, arrive to argue that what happened is unfair to Newman. None of the folks involved with apparent Newman-related discussion on the pro-Newman side are ever doing anything else on the project: no new articles, no expansion of missing sections, no copyediting, no adding other types of sources, no creation of figures, no flame wars about minor variations of spelling, no arguing about miscellaneous unrelated policies, etc. Without significant offline investigation we obviously can'tguarantee that these new editors had any personal relation to Newman, or possibly even to each-other (the pseudonymity you are concerned about is doing work to protect the spammers), but their behavior seems otherwise inexplicable. If Newman doesn't know any of them himself, but finds the discussion when he decides to take an interest in network-related Wikipedia talk page archives, and is bothered by people speculating that he himself might be one of the spammers, he might at that point want to try to figure out who the spammers are (his student? his second cousin? someone with a secret crush?), and urge them to come clean, apologize for their actions, and promise to do better next time. –jacobolus(t)17:12, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
where the book has an original author (Doyle) and a famous editor/annotator (Baring-Gould)? This particular example (from theSherlock Holmes article) seems wrong, since Doyle wrote more than half the words in the book, yet is not even named in the citation.
This must be a common issue: There are scores of books where famous editors add extensive commentary to books written by another famous author (Dante, Dickens, Conan Doyle, Shakespeare, Carrol, Twain, etc). In the situation where the editor is famous, and the edited/annotated books becomes famous, people typically refer to the book by the editor's name. Which explains how Doyle's book got attributed to Baring-Gould in the example above.
This is not an academic question, I'm trying to figure out how to display a sourceThe Journals Of Captain James Cook where the book is almost always referred to by the editor's name, not Cook's name.
Is there a guideline that says something like: "The named author should be the author of the original work; and the annotator/editor should be described as the editor"? Or is WP silent on this, and it is handled on a case-by-case basis? I looked in the MOS and could not find anything.Noleander (talk)03:59, 20 August 2025 (UTC)
If you are citing the original author's text, you should be using the original work and not the annotated work. If the original text was only ever published in an annotated form, your text should make it clear whether the material is from the annotations or the original text but the actual book would still be cited to the editor/annotator. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions)12:22, 20 August 2025 (UTC)
Thanks for the suggestion. For the source I'm interested in: The Journals Of Captain James Cook was never published (author Cook) as a stand-alone work. The first publication was the edited/annotated version (editor was Beaglehole).Noleander (talk)13:28, 20 August 2025 (UTC)
I disagree with Khajida; if your source is a book containing both the original text and some notes, I see no reason to go find a copy of the original text printed all by itself.WhatamIdoing (talk)20:16, 27 August 2025 (UTC)
I think we have a different conception of what an annotated work is. To me,The Annotated Sherlock Holmes is not one of Doyle's works. It is a work by Baring-Gould that incorporates very large quotes from Doyle. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions)21:18, 29 August 2025 (UTC)
Looking at a couple of scanned pages, it could equally well be described as Doyle's works, with very large comments from Baring-Gould in the margin.WhatamIdoing (talk)22:07, 6 September 2025 (UTC)
No, because Baring-Gould is the one who put it together. The combined thing is his work. The stories it annotates are Doyle's butThe Annotated Sherlock Holmes is Baring-Gould's. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions)17:19, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
I cannot find any support in{{cite book}} for listing both an editor and an author, except in the case of a book where each chapter is written by a different author. In the case where an editor produces an edited version of another author's work,The Chicago Manual of Style, 18th ed., ¶ 14.6, says to give both the editor's name and the author's name, and provides this example (showing both markup an as rendered):
{{Hanging indent|Bonnefoy, Yves. ''New and Selected Poems''. Edited by John Naughton and Anthony Rudolf. University of Chicago Press, 1995.}}
Bonnefoy, Yves.New and Selected Poems. Edited by John Naughton and Anthony Rudolf. University of Chicago Press, 1995.
Slightly confused by this discussion, because {{cite book}} does provide an editor field that works fine, although they are listed after the author:Doyle, Arthur Conan (1967).Baring-Gould, William S. (ed.).The Annotated Sherlock Holmes. New York: Clarkson N. Potter.ISBN0-517-50291-7.. I assume this isn't desirable for some reason, and the use of |others or |contribution is a fine workaround, but when I have editor info this is how I include it. Cheers,Suriname0 (talk)15:25, 27 August 2025 (UTC)
User name policy, well know people and impersonation
There was a time, not so, long ago, when someone called User:JoeExample, editing an article on a person called Joe Example, or editing related pages, or claiming on article talk pages, or noticeboards, to be that person, would be immediately blocked until they had confirmed their identity via VRT (formerly OTRS). The template{{uw-ublock-wellknown}} exists for such cases.
Recently I've had AIV reports about such cases closed with no action, and a suggestion to useWP:COIN instead, even when there has been no breach of CoI policy.
If a username implies that the user is, or is related to, anotable, identifiable or well-known person, the account may beblocked as a precaution against impersonation until the user's proof of identity is provided.
Has there been a policy change, or has the bar just drifted over time?
To make sure that good information doesn't get deleted (example), i would like to change what "Simple Calculations" means. Currently, it limits "Simple Calculations" toFirst grade andSecond grade ("2+2") - which is too restricting. Instead, i would want to re-define "Simple Calculations" as upper end ofSecondary school,Secondary education and lowerTertiary education (e.g. sinuses and cosinuses are 9th grade stuff - and logarithms are 10-11th grade stuff - so all would count as "Simple Calculations" under new definition). --Ejkohojkjkohokjh (talk)14:46, 3 September 2025 (UTC)
Remember that lots of people are frightened when they encounter even simple arithmetic, let alone sines, cosines and logarithms. Many people here in England, and, as far as I know in other English-speaking countries, actually boast of their lack of mathematical knowledge when they would never admit to lack of knowledge about literature or history. I don't suffer from this myself (I have a degree in mathematics) but I know plenty of people who do.Phil Bridger (talk)15:20, 3 September 2025 (UTC)
Currently, it limits "Simple Calculations" toFirst grade andSecond grade This is not true.WP:CALC even specifically statesMathematical literacy may be necessary to follow a "routine" calculation, particularly for articles on mathematics or in the hard sciences. Unfortunately some editors like to make up restrictions because it's easier to exclude something they don't like that way than to discuss more difficult policies and guidelines likeWP:RS,WP:NPOV, andWP:DUE. Whether that applies to your specific case, though, I haven't looked closely enough to determine.Anomie⚔15:42, 3 September 2025 (UTC)
It looks like your example was reverted not because ofWP:CALC but because of a claim ofWP:OR. However, those can be closely related, along with the topic ofWP:SYNTH. I don't think there is a prohibition on doing complex math, however, I think the problem comes into play when someone isdeciding on what calculation to perform (in a way that looks like OR or SYNTH). I don't think anybody is concerned that someone computing the area of a circle as πr^2, but rather when they are selecting a computational method that is not overtly understood for why it was selected. Now in your specific case, I don't think there is much of an issue because it seems like you're simply performing the calculations as found on this page, based on the symbol count for each symbol set. However, because some of your examples were cited, it gives the appearance that you have no citations for the other calculations. Knowing this field, I don't have any overt problems with what you added. But as others have stated, because people have an aversion to math, they often will mistake these sorts of edits, especially when they're made from an IP editor (or even a newer user) -- if this was your edit I would suggest talking to the person who reverted you before readding the information. If that was not YOUR edit, if you can provide some more detail on your specific situation we might be able to handle the hypothetical situation a bit better.TiggerJay(talk)17:01, 3 September 2025 (UTC)
I don't feel that 'first grade or 'second grade' is an accurate summary of my objections to those additions. I was using 2+2 as an example, not a limit. This is a case where a table was being expanded based on no clear criteria, the citations didn't actually cover what was being added, with edit summaries like'Testing my new program'. Even if we were to decide that is a routine calculation, myWP:OR objection would remain. Full discussion is atUser talk:95.167.183.172.MrOllie (talk)12:44, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
One significant difference is that if you tried you could easily find a citation for the claim that the sky is blue.
In many cases I would consider it fine to e.g.:
turn a proof into a proof sketch, or turn a proof sketch into a more careful proof,
invent a new example of a type found in past sources but differing in minor details,
draw a novel diagram geometrically depicting a well-known algebraic relationship,
re-write an algorithm implementation in pseudocode, or depict it graphically as a flow chart,
present an algebraic equation with some straight-forward algebraic manipulation or possibly changes like substituting a repeating expression by a defined variable,
pick a notational formalism found in some sources to be a standard for an article and apply it mechanistically to statements found in other sources in terms of other notations,
etc.
Ultimately though, what kinds of claims count as original synthesis is a matter of judgment and consensus more than any kind of ironclad law. –jacobolus(t)17:56, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
@Chatul, for "why not SYNTH?", SYNTH requires the combination of at least two reliable sources. If you don't have evidence that the person is combining 2+ reliable sources, then it's not SYNTH. It may be OR ("There is no source in the entire world, in any language, that contains this claim"); it is perhaps more likely to be a violation of WP:V's requirement to cite sources forWP:MINREF material. But it could also be perfectly good material.WhatamIdoing (talk)21:59, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
This is not true:Similarly, do not combine different parts of one source to state or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source.173.79.19.248 (talk)11:42, 6 September 2025 (UTC)
Thank you for this clarification; I can see that some people would easily consider (e.g.,) different chapters in the same book to be "one source".WhatamIdoing (talk)22:45, 6 September 2025 (UTC)
While I would agree that there are some issues with many of the edit summaries surrounding this specific page, which is what probably triggered this situation (also not helped by the skepticism that people often have with IP editors, especially those editors that have a high rate of reverting vandalism). I would absolutely disagree with MrOllie regardingWP:CALC beingas defined by our policies are 2+2. If you need to write a program or employ a formula it is not simple, because otherwise there is no need to also statemathematical literacy may be necessary to follow a "routine" calculation, particularly for articles on mathematics or in the hard sciences. To do a calculation that can be performed on a teenager grade level calculator would easily fit into this category, and the simple log equation presented here, is certainly able to be performed on this sort of calculator. There are many situation where CALC is an issue in articles, but this isn't one of them.
With regards to the chart on this article, I do agree the a "collapsed chart" is of minimal value, but the data that lies within isn't an issue. I think the chart should probably (in some form) be reintroduced in a non-collapsed way, but probably with a reduced symbol set -- as an illustration of the applied calculations, instead of attempting to be a comprehensive list. I could agree that having a source for the "symbol set" selected might be helpful, but not entirely necessary. To a degree I would call that the selection of the symbol set "plausible OR", but the calculations performed on that symbol set is not a violation of any policy I can find, as the symbol set is simply counting, and the entropy is simply a rather basic computation, not prone to error or interpretation.TiggerJay(talk)18:26, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
I, too, strongly disagree with MrOllie's inaccurate description of CALC. CALC permits basic arithmetic but does not exclude all other things.
I think that "If I have to use a calculator" is particularly unhelpful, because editors vary significantly in what they can (or will) do without a calculator. 232,244x4,094,209=950,855,474,996 is basic arithmetic, and yet very few of us would like to do that as amental arithmetic exercise.
I would encourage MrOllie to find a more accurate description of the policy. This feels more like aLie-to-children, an exaggeration that is meant to discourage a consensus-oriented discussion about the particulars.WhatamIdoing (talk)22:04, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
as defined by our policies are 2+2. If you need to write a program or employ a formula it is not simple;I don't feel that 'first grade or 'second grade' is an accurate summary of my objections to those additions. I was using 2+2 as an example, not a limit. -MrOllie (talk), and what you do thinkis the limit, then? Or maybe someone else could properly explain what is upper limit of "Simple Calculations"? --Ejkohojkjkohokjh (talk)08:47, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
I noteWP:CALC makes no mention of "simplicity" or "simple calculations", beyond setting a lower bound in saying that "basic arithmetic is almost always permissible". The intention seems to be that the calculation must be correct and must be applicable to the input data, regardless of complexity.Anomie⚔12:20, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
Those charts with password strength? Theywere correct, and theywere applicable to the input data. Complexity of program is actually very low, and they could be done on paper if needed. So what's the problem? --Ejkohojkjkohokjh (talk)12:50, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
Personally I wouldn't consider these tables to be original research, and I think they can be justified underWP:CALC. I'm not convinced they are particularly necessary or helpful to readers though, and I don't find the collapsible tables to be a great format. A couple of brief examples would probably get the same point across just as effectively. –jacobolus(t)18:06, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
I tend to agree, but mostly I think it's something that should be discussed on the article's talk page, with the focus of the discussion being "Is this good for the article?" instead of "Can I think of someWP:UPPERCASE that means I get to revert you?"WhatamIdoing (talk)22:05, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
As a US Supreme Justice once said, "I know it when I see it". They were speaking about how hard it is to write down a definition of hard-core pornography, but I think it applies toWP:CALC as well. If other editors think that the text isoriginal research ora synthesis of ideas that are not synthesized in secondary sources they will speak up. On the other hand, if editors think of the text "yeah, that's obvious enough" then the text is permitted to stay. I think this has to be on a case by case basis. The text is good unless an editor objects, in which case supporters of the text should find quality citations to support the text. —Quantling (talk | contribs)15:42, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
Your link is about someone not liking an article's topic per se; I agree such statements can be discarded/ignored in deletion discussions as not grounded in policy. But I don't think that's directly relevant here. Not liking some part of an article's content is a good feeling to follow up on when making editorial decisions. It's good to figure outwhy you don't like some part of an article, and sometimes "this seems like original research" is a plenty supportable reason, while other times the issue might be that the content is confusing, disorganized, off topic, unsourced, undue emphasis on a minor point, etc. Are you just saying that "this seems unjustified by WP:CALC" seems like an excuse for content removal that doesn't have any good rationale beyond the editor's personal feeling? –jacobolus(t)23:54, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
I would suggest that what really happened in this case was that one user who was clearly doing AIV patrolling saw something they didn't understand, by a IP user, and removed it. But when presented with more information, instead of accepting that it might actually be an accepted fact, handy and useful - and as we see here, pretty much free from OR/SYNTH - they instead doubled-down on their revert, which sent this user into a spin to ask a valid, but hypothetical question which is difficult to answer, per Quantling above. If only people would be able to say --sorry, I overstepped here and misunderstood the situation, this acceptable and my revert was wrong -- and then this whole conversation would be effectively irrelevant because we're discussing a situation where I think the reverter was in error, not because we need to do much more to clarify the policy. I think when confronted with the challenge to the AIV action, it turned into theWP:UPPERCASE situation that WhatamIdoing mentioned.TiggerJay(talk)00:34, 6 September 2025 (UTC)
(e.g. sinuses and cosinuses are 9th grade stuff...) Ummm...They aren't because those aren't math terms. This seems like a boomerang argument. Leave it to the references. --Onorem (talk)15:49, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
Actually, they are doublets of sine and cosine, though uncommon in modern use. Those are also the correct terms in several other languages, so if someone learned math in one of those languages they might use those terms.Elestrophe (talk)01:19, 6 September 2025 (UTC)
Any calculation that cannot beWP:Verified by any editor who comes along needs a source. Since editing itself requires a certain level of mathematical knowledge that sets the bar. But the bar is about verification, not about which grade level.Johnjbarton (talk)00:11, 6 September 2025 (UTC)
There's also the spirit ofdueness in this carve-out. If a statement requires a figure one has to calculate themselves, it's increasingly less likely to be a figure reflecting the general values and emphases treated in the sources themselves, the more convolutions one has to perform during said calculation.Remsense 🌈 论03:00, 6 September 2025 (UTC)
@Johnjbarton: No, that's not at all whatWP:CALC says. That claim is similar to making the false claim that we can only use online, non-paywalled, English-language, non-technical sources here because any editor who comes by needs to be able to access and understand the source.Anomie⚔13:29, 6 September 2025 (UTC)
Sorry, I don't see the similarity.WP:CALC says consensus and that is what I meant by "any editor" (but not every editor). In this wayWP:CALC operates likeWP:Verify: some operation (eg addition or going to the library) that could be done by any editor. To metrigonometry is a form ofWP:EXPERTISE: one needs years of study to understand the correct application of the technology. You can go to the library and look upcosine but you can't appreciate how to apply it without background training. If someone applies cosine, another editor can challenge it, we can discuss it, and come to an agreement. WP:CALC says "don't bother for basic arithmetic because we been around that bush and we agree its ok".Johnjbarton (talk)15:47, 6 September 2025 (UTC)
Johnjbarton wrote "If someone applies cosine, another editor can challenge it, we can discuss it, and come to an agreement." No, if using a cosign actually violated WP:CALC, you couldn't discuss it; it would be original research and it would be unacceptable. But editors can discuss what calculation counts as an original research calculation.
It really is the same in all pages, but in a page that doesn't attract people good at math, the editors may not be able to tell the difference between a routine calculation that everyone proficient in the field would immediately say is obviously correct, compared to something added by aUsenet personality who is pushing their pet theory, or just trolling.Jc3s5h (talk)16:20, 6 September 2025 (UTC)
Multiple versions of Python program for verifying the calculation on page in question is inthat page's talk page. Each version of program works correctly - i came along and tested it. Therefore, any editor who comes along can verify those calculations. --Ejkohojkjkohokjh (talk)10:43, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
For example, for "All printable Unicode symbols, as of version 16.0" (n = 149641) and 1 symbol (l = 1), in all program versions on talk page, result is h = 17.191. That matches the calculations in deleted table. For "Binary" (n = 256) one symbol (l = 1), result is h = 8. That also matches the calculations in deleted table. All programs work correctly; their only difference is size and amount of inputs. --Ejkohojkjkohokjh (talk)11:17, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
WP:CALCS are whatever a consensus of editors agree are simple calculations. For instance, inlist of baryons, we have the lifetimes derived from resonances widths. We note "PDG reports the resonance width (Γ). Here the conversionτ = ħ/Γ is given instead."The uncertainty is calculated by differentiation to getΔτ =ħ/Γ2ΔΓ. Now this is certainly beyond a high school's student math level, but is completely routine to anyone that's ever dealt with uncertainties.WP:PHYS reviewers agreed this is routine calculation, so it's in the article perWP:CALC.Headbomb {t ·c ·p ·b}12:14, 6 September 2025 (UTC)
There's something to be said for the "one level down" rule of thumb here in particular. I would distinguish this instrumental calculation to, say, adding your novel results to relevant mathematics articles, which no one is interested in.Remsense 🌈 论12:20, 6 September 2025 (UTC)
Remsense's 1 level down rule of thumb feels better to me than any hard limit. If every reasonable reader and writer of the article would consider the calculation routine, then it's routine, even if I personally don't understand how you used Fermat's little theorem in the article on the PhD level pure math topic, or the elementary schooler can't follow how you turned a hydrogen ion concentration into a pH.Tazerdadog (talk)02:18, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
I'm withdrawing this proposal, as it clearly needs to be rethought. I don't want to waste the community's time. Thanks to everyone who commented. Discussion will continue at the policy page talk page, and editors are welcome to give advice there. --Tryptofish (talk)22:43, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed.Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Users who are compensated forany publicity efforts related to the subject of their Wikipedia contributions are deemed to be paid editors,regardless of whether they were compensated specifically to edit Wikipedia.
Proposed revision:
Users making promotional edits who are compensated by a subject covered in an article they edit are deemed to be paid editors,regardless of whether they were compensated or instructedspecifically to promote their employer on Wikipedia.
Support, as proposer. This is a relatively modest change, and it does not change the definition of paid editing in any fundamental way, but some editors in the discussion where the idea was workshopped wanted to have a widely publicized RfC, and I'm erring on the side of making sure that there is sufficient consensus before changing a policy page. Basically, the problem this tries to address is that there have been paid editors who try to wikilawyer the existing language by saying things like: "I own the company, but I don't work in the publicity department" or "I work for public relations at that company, but my compensation isn't tied to my Wikipedia editing" or "I work for public relations at that company, but nobody told me to edit Wikipedia, it was my own idea". This proposal should make it more difficult for users to try those gambits. --Tryptofish (talk)20:40, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
Good question, and it's one that we discussed when formulating this. An issue is someone who is a minimum wage employee at a large company, maybe someone working the cash register or a young person working for a fast-food chain. If they make a non-promotional edit, like fixing a spelling error, they don't really meet the spirit of the policy, even though they are "any compensated editor". But if their edits are what we would regard as promotional in nature, then they would be included. Also the existing wording is already about compensatedfor publicity efforts as opposed to being compensated for something else. --Tryptofish (talk)21:04, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
Oppose because it's longer. Really this should be as short and wideranging as possible, and you've added text but I'm still not sure whether you've made it more or less broad. Good day—RetroCosmostalk21:07, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
Oppose: Solution in search of a problem. We already reject thegambits listed above and explain to editors that they're wrong. If you own a company and think the first sentence doesn't apply to you, you either lack reading comprehension or haven't read the policy.voorts (talk/contributions)21:14, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
I disagree with removing the current sentence. I think it's simpler to have a bright line for those who have publicity responsibilities, which inherently includes upper management: all edits related to their conflict of interest are deemed paid contributions. This saves time arguing about whether or not their edits are promotional or part of their official job duties. I'm not that concerned about bad-faith editors who reveal they are employees but hide that they have publicity responsibilities, as it's much simpler for bad-faith editors to deny they're employees. I'm ambivalent about the proposed new sentence. I don't think it changes much with respect to how such edits will be handled by the community as they're already covered by the conflict of interest guidance, and I don't think it will change how the WMF will choose to pursue violations of the terms of use.isaacl (talk)21:36, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
(ec)Oppose, By this wording,Talk:North_Carolina_State_University#Chaning_chancellor is a paid edit. I'm a grad student at the university and get paid to do research in the area of web security, and that's where my duties end, the university couldn't have cared less whether that edit was made or not. Do I have a COI about my univ, yes! Am I paid to edit? No, not in any sane interpretation of the sentence. --Sohom (talk)21:50, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
I think people's threshold of "promotional edit" varies. If the same edit was made by a editor who was being paid to promote NCSU, I'm pretty sure you would have a very different take on it. (Also if the argument is "that edit is not promotional" then would "I fixed our revenue targets to make our company look better based on the latest press release of our company" be considered promotional?)Sohom (talk)22:09, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
If I'm paid by Company A to amplify criticism in the article of its competitor, Company B, that's a publicity effort (as in the current wording), but it's not a promotional edit and very likely isn't a subject covered by the article I'm editing (as in the new wording). I'd be a fool to disclose either way, of course, but we should still forbid such edits. Oppose. —Cryptic22:45, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed.Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The one question I have is: if theonly source to cover this is a social media post… is it DUE for us to cover it? Was it not covered by news media?Blueboar (talk)14:22, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
How wouldWP:DUE apply here? This doesn't seem to be a question of "fairly representing all significant viewpoints". Apparently a provisional schedule was announced in July, and now one item on that schedule was updated.Anomie⚔18:37, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
Until sometime last year, IIRC,WP:BALASP was a subsection ofWP:DUE instead of a subsection ofWP:BALANCE. OTOH, even that seems more focused on avoiding overblown "Criticism" sections than about whether we need multiple news sources to include updated uncontroversial information.Anomie⚔12:13, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
Self-published sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications.
I am not citing WP:DUE… but using “DUE” to talk about “relevance” and “note worthiness” of the information (its “importance”). If the only source for this information is a social media post, it is probably not worth mentioning in an article. At least - notYET. If it gets announced in other venues (newspapers, TV, etc)then we know it is relevant and worth noting.
As for SPS, that is really talking about self publishedscholarship… but if we apply it here, the question becomes:has the organization in question previously published related things in reliable independent sources? Again, I would assume that there are announcements and coverage of Indian motor sports in Indian sports media (newspapers, magazines, TV, etc), so I think it likely that SPS could be stretched to apply… but I don’t know. So I ask.
Seems like an odd argument to make: "We know this information is outdated, but we won't update it because the 'right' sources haven't bothered to talk about it." Sadly you're not the first I've seen make exactly that argument lately.Anomie⚔19:41, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
Request for feedback on proposed policies regarding the use of banners and logos for advocacy purposes
Informed by research conducted earlier this year, I have proposed some draft policies that would affect the procedures communities use to engage in advocacy using banners and logos. The proposals include a new policy on the use of Wikimedia sites for advocacy purposes, as well as additions to the CentralNotice usage guidelines and to the process for requesting wiki configuration changes. You can review the policies and provide feedback through October 9 at Meta-Wiki'sWikimedia Foundation/Legal/Update to banner and logo policies. Thank you!
What is Wikipedia’s official stance on Ai-generated content
What is wikpedia’s stance on showing Ai generated content outside of Examples of Ai generation? Like showing images, text, etc. Also, if oppose, why? And if support, Why?Datawikiperson (talk)17:02, 2 September 2025 (UTC)
We are wrestling with it as we speak (there numerous currently open threads on several policy pages and noticeboards). However, the general consensus seems to be opposed.Blueboar (talk)17:08, 2 September 2025 (UTC)
AI-generated images arealready against policy, except when the image itself is notable, examples of AI generation as you mentioned, and other such edge cases.
AI-generated text is not currently against policy although we desperately need to get our shit together on it, because we have kicked the can down the road about for two and a half year and are now paying the price. It's also something where the general community opinion is at odds with that of the Wikimedia Foundation.Gnomingstuff (talk)17:36, 2 September 2025 (UTC)
I'm not sure that we have yet achieved a single "general community opinion". I'm not sure that we will, at least in the next couple of years.WhatamIdoing (talk)19:21, 2 September 2025 (UTC)
Fair -- I was mostly referring to the overwhelming opposition to the Tone Check, Simple Summaries and Wiki Ed initiatives this year.Gnomingstuff (talk)19:40, 2 September 2025 (UTC)
At its most basic there are two significant viewpoints among editors with regards AI-generated content (by which we almost always mean large-language models (LLMs) that generate textual output and generative Ai models that output images): the first considers all AI-generated content as bad, either because it is AI-generated (the objection is essentially philosophical) or because they believe that AI is incapable of producing content of a sufficient standard. The second viewpoint prefers that all content is evaluated on its own merits with AI-generated bad content treated and dealt with the same way as human-generated bad content, and AI-generated good content treated and dealt with the same way as human-generated good content.
Beyond agreeing that at least some AI-generated content is bad and that adding AI-generated content without any human input is undesirable, there is little common ground between the camps and neither can be said to obviously represent the consensus of the community as a whole. Obviously once you get into any sort of detail it becomes more complicated than this (e.g. even among those that regard all AI-generated content as bad there is disagreement about whether such content that has been reviewed by a human between generation and submission to Wikipedia should be acceptable), indeed one of my bugbears in discussions is a lack of nuance from some (sometimes many) contributors.
It's worth noting though that I am one of the most vocal proponents of the second viewpoint I describe above, while Gnomingstuff's views are closer to the first viewpoint (I don't recall ottomh where they stand with regard human-reviewed AI-generated content).Thryduulf (talk)00:54, 3 September 2025 (UTC)
No, the concern about AI is that it will swamp discussions and overwhelm content checking. The view that an infinite number of gnomes will eventually investigate and fix all AI claims and references is naive. There may be no need to take strong action now, and perhaps there never will be. However, if the concerns of the anti-AI crowd are confirmed, it will become necessary to either surrender Wikipedia to those posting walls of text, or to delete waffle without proving to everyone's satisfaction that the waffle is disruptive.Johnuniq (talk)02:19, 3 September 2025 (UTC)
This is not the place to remake the same fearmongering arguments you've made in every other place. They haven't convinced anybody who doesn't already agree with you there, and they aren't going to do so here. This is simply about outlining what the very basic positions are.Thryduulf (talk)03:29, 3 September 2025 (UTC)
Your statement misrepresented the arguments. I don't think anyone is claiming that AI can never produce something useful.Johnuniq (talk)04:42, 3 September 2025 (UTC)
This is the critical point. One can argue all day that theoretically speaking there is no difference between an LLM and a hypothetical user who happens to make up plausible-looking paragraphs cited to sources that don't support them. But the fact is thatin reality the LLMs generate orders of magnitude more of these paragraphs than humans do, by volume. Wikipedia functions only as long as volunteer editors can handle the work of fact-checking. Strict policies against LLM use are necessary for editors to handle the flood of misinformation as efficiently as possible.Elestrophe (talk)08:56, 8 September 2025 (UTC)
Yup. One ant in my kitchen and ten million ants in my kitchen are two very different problems with very different solutions even if each individual ant is the same as the solo ant. If you see ten million ants in your kitchen, you definitely won't say "well, an ant can be in the house for no particularly concerning reason."CoffeeCrumbs (talk)06:30, 12 September 2025 (UTC)
My personal stance is the second in theory but the first in reality: I don't have a philosophical problem with AI-generated text, but the actual stuff that exists right now is mostly crap.
But my real stance is that I don't care which viewpoint the community settles on as long as we just pick one already, and fast. Really, we needed to pick one 2 years ago, and so now we are not only dealing with 2 years' worth of accumulated, largely undetected AI slop, but sending new editors mixed messages when people go aggro at them over what is currently an essay.Gnomingstuff (talk)04:25, 3 September 2025 (UTC)
I agree that we need to stop reacting aggressively against newbies. Perhaps a general announcement that, by way of establishing priorities, nobody should be screaming louder about AI slop than they do about poop vandalism?
But: Is it better to make the Wrong™ decision today, or the right one next year? Changing a policy or guideline is difficult these days. Once it becomes holy writ that Thou Shalt Not anything, it takes an enormous amount of effort to get that removed.WhatamIdoing (talk)03:05, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
Honestly -- as someone who has complained loudly about undetected vandalism for years -- I think AI slop is now a larger priority than poop vandalism. There's noClueBot for slop, it's more akin tosubtle vandalism.
In many (possibly most, but I don't think all) of the currently ongoing AI-related discussions, doing nothingis the right answer because what is proposed is just a duplication of some existing policy and/or guideline. For example, we can already revert/hat/ignore nonsensical wall-of-text proposals regardless of whether they are AI-generated or not, we don't need anything additional.Thryduulf (talk)00:36, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
We don't need new policies for articlespace either:
If the edit is good without needing to be edited, it's improving the encyclopaedia and we'd be shooting ourselves in the foot to get rid of it. This is how wikis work.
If the edit is good but needs polishing, then polish it or tag it for someone else to polish. This is how wikis work.
If the edit is bad then revert it. This is how wikis work.
If you aren't sure, investigate it, discuss it and/or tag it. This is how wikis work.
About three-quarters of the articles currently tagged as possible AI output were tagged by me. You do not have to explain to me how tagging works.
With LLMs, you do actually need to know the source to get a complete sense of what really needs "polish." A lot of the undetected AI writing we have was actually pretty damn obvious as unedited LLM text when originally added to articles in 2023-2024, but people/bots did some minor copyedits without realizing the reasonwhy those copyedits were necessary. Which means they probably didn't check for hallucinations or mismatched references, since the need to wasn't even on their radar.Gnomingstuff (talk)15:38, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
The problem is as well, people believing that they can just add this stuff because we don't make it clear that they shouldn't or under what conditions they might be able to.Selfstudier (talk)17:55, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
@Gnomingstuff, can you tell me more aboutWith LLMs, you do actually need to know the source to get a complete sense of what really needs "polish"?
If I'm looking at a sentence that says something like"Alice Expert's acclaimed book,The Sun is Very Big, enhanced her significance as an author and gives a fascinating glimpse into the rich history and evolving identity of the Sun, which stands as a vibrant symbol for so many people and cultures around the world[1]", are you saying that I need to read the cited reliable source to figure out what's wrong with the sentence, or are you saying that I need to see the un-copyedited original addition of the sentence?
I'm pretty sure I could cut thatpurple passage down toAlice Expert wrote a book calledThe Sun is Very Big[1] without needing to look at any sources. And the more you personally know about the subject matter, the less you would need to do any research to identify hallucinations.WhatamIdoing (talk)22:43, 6 September 2025 (UTC)
You need to make sure that Alice Expert actually did write a book by that title, but also that the source it's cited to actually exists and has the same author/publication date/ISBN/URL/etc. as the article says it does, and that the source it's cited to actually mentions the fact that Alice wrote the book. All of these are things you can reasonably expect a human writer to have already done if they've added a cited statement, but with an LLM all bets are off. (Edit: Also that the text isn't a copyvio/overly close paraphrase)Gnomingstuff (talk)01:14, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
Can you please stop condescendingly explaining things to me that are obvious?
Obviously all those things need to be done. The tendency, though, is toassume that if a piece of text looks polished and has a citation, then those things already got done. Without an LLM, the only reason a totally fabricated source and nonexistent URL would make it into an article is if the editor was inserting a deliberate hoax.Gnomingstuff (talk)15:53, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
Apparently I do need to remind you how to suck eggs, because your comments keep implying that you have forgotten how. If you don't know the user well enough to trust that they are not vandalising the article then you should be checking all those things anyway. LLM use or otherwise is completely irrelevant.Thryduulf (talk)16:07, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
I tend to agree with Thryduulf: "Did Alice actually write that book?" is something that has to be checked regardless of whether I think the purple prose came from a human or from an LLM.
There are several options:
I happen to already know that Alice wrote this book, so I might not bother checking the source, or even care if there is one. (Source–text integrity is valuable, but readers rarely read the sources, so it's about 300x as important to get the article text right than to worry about the cited source.)
I happen to already know that Alice writes books like these, even though I haven't heard this specific title before, so I might quickly fix the text and decide to skip checking the source because my time is limited, and I believe that it's highly likely that the facts are correct. "She wrote a book titled ___" istechnically an inline citation to the book as a primary source anyway.
I don't know anything about this subject, in which case I'll fix the text and check the source.
I don't know anything about this subject, but I think you are coming from one of the cultures were purple prose is normal, in which case I'll fix the text and probably check the source.
I don't know anything about this subject, but I know and trust you, in which case I'll fix the text, check the source, and report your account as being possiblycompromised, because no Wikipedia editor I trust would actually put that kind of purple prose in a live article.
I tend to disagree with Thryduulf. As Gnomingstuff says, there is an assumption that in a regular article, the claims are verified by real sources – people usually don't go to the trouble of making up references to support their unsourced claims. When sourced text is written by a human, the human isaware of what they're doing, and presuming they're editing in good faith, the claims should be verified by the sources, assuming the editor is at least somewhat competent. When the text is LLM-generated, on the other hand, and blindly pasted into the article, that good-faith-human assumption vanishes, because the text was generated by an LLM that doesn't understand what it's writing in the way that a sentient human does.
"Did Alice actually write that book?" should be checked regardless of the source, yes. But we all have limited time and we can AGF that most editors with a modicum of experience are writing articles correctly, unless we have reasonable suspicion otherwise. (Templates like{{fv}} exist for a reason, after all). But we can't AGF an LLM, and since they hallucinate so much, everything needs to bein practice scrutinized whereas most human text needs to only be theoretically scrutinized. This is why LLM editing is a bad idea, obviously.
I also agree with Gnomingstuff thatThryduulf's hostile tone to other editors in these LLM discussions is a little out of hand. God knows I get testy myself, but I don't think telling editors thatI do need to remind you how to suck eggs, because your comments keep implying that you have forgotten how ([5]) or dismissing other editors' opinions asrabid and then doubling down on the childish insult ([6]) is exemplary conduct, especially from an administrator.Cremastra (talk·contribs)18:13, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
I do try and keep my cool, but when I have to point out the same basic factual errors, assumptions of bad faith, misinformation, reading comprehension failures from the same editors multiple times it gets to the point that it's rather difficult to assume competence from one's fellow editors.Thryduulf (talk)19:00, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
Please try to engage with the discussion. Cremastra's comment is pointing out that there can be no good-faith assumption regarding AI text. Sure, we assume that a naive copy-paste of AI text is done by a good-faith person, but such an action fails the competence test. The real question is whether there are sufficient editors able to spend hours researching AI references.Johnuniq (talk)02:35, 8 September 2025 (UTC)
Repeatedly pointing out how and why your arguments are factually incorrectis engaging with the discussion. AI use is not, on its own, evidence of faith (good or bad) because an AI can be used in good faith and an AI can be used in bad faith. My point in this part of the discussion is that we don't need rules specific to AI when we already have rules that cover both AI and humans (without it mattering which it is). WAID explains it well - if you don't know a user and/or the source well enough to know whether an edit is likely to be correct then you should be checking to see if it is, regardless of what tool they did or did not use to make the edit.Thryduulf (talk)04:03, 8 September 2025 (UTC)
It is not possible to partake in a discussion with people who consistently make arguments that are factually incorrect and present misinformation as truth without describing such arguments as wrong.Thryduulf (talk)09:47, 8 September 2025 (UTC)
I mean, if we're talking about "factually incorrect arguments" and "reading comprehension failures," I never said that people who use AI are automatically editing in bad-faith. Nor do I approach people using AI under the assumption that they're editing in bad faith, because in my experience that usually isn't true.
I don't know what else to say about the res of this that hasn't already been said, repeatedly, by others. Yes, people should be checking every edit. In practice, there areover 1 billion of those. It is not feasible for every editor to check 1 billion diffs; triage must be done. So, it makes sense to prioritize edits made with the assistance of tools that are known to fabricate information or sourcing.
As far as it being more important for a statement to be right than to be correctly attributed to the source, that may be your opinion, but it's the near-exact opposite ofWP:V (and only "near"-exact because they got rid of the "verifiability, not truth" wording).Gnomingstuff (talk)15:46, 8 September 2025 (UTC)
{outdent}It's true,Gnomingstuff, that younever said that people who use AI are automatically editing in bad-faith (as far as I know). But:
(a) you are not the only person who talks about AI users, and some of them seem to be struggling with the concept. So, starting with the first sentence ofWP:AGF, let's analyze this:
Assuming good faith (AGF) means assuming that people are not deliberatelytrying to hurt Wikipedia, even when their actions are harmful.
Does AI use, especially in discussions, hurt Wikipedia? Maybe it does. For example, maybe it's very irritating, so I become reluctant to read discussions. Maybe it is verbose, and long comments (like this one!) get banned. But other things also hurt Wikipedia, like not pointing out a factual error in the article because you're not sure how to explain it in English. Using AI in a discussion might be a lesser-of-two-evils situation.
Does the use of AI mean that the editor isdeliberatelytrying to hurt Wikipedia? No (or at least so rarely that it's probably not worth mentioning). Therefore,using AI is not bad faith.
(b) why are we talking about good-faith editing at all? I think your point abouttriage must be done is the key. Stop worrying about whether it's good faith, bad faith, or agnostic. Start asking yourself: How should I prioritize reading and responding? Mightn't it be more important too look at tools that reduce duplication of effort (ten people check this edit, but nobody checks the next edit)?
Against. There is a fringe of AI supporters and a fringe of knee-jerk reactionaries but most editors are generally against AI's usage and highly skeptical of it.Cremastra (talk·contribs)06:42, 3 September 2025 (UTC)
Well, there isn't one as yet, nor do I think it's a good idea to keep rehashing all the prior discussions in different places, either.Selfstudier (talk)11:47, 3 September 2025 (UTC)
I have a window somewhere with another dozen discussions to add to that table, plus all the ones that happened since then. I'd love it if someone else would work on that.WhatamIdoing (talk)03:07, 4 September 2025 (UTC)
I wish there was an easier way to add things to tables in the project space (using the source editor to do that is a pain imo). Maybe dump the list of links on the talk page and when editors are bored, they can add them.Some1 (talk)18:02, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
Thanks, I didn't realize people could edit the Wikipedia namespace with Visual editor; I only see the "Edit source" (and not the "Edit") button at the top of these Wikipedia:[...] pages. Good to know!Some1 (talk)00:13, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
DownBeat criticCarlo Wolff describes the album as "contemporary chamber music of power and persuasion, that joins its musicians in a quest for serenity".AllMusic critic Thom Jurek referred to it as "sophisticated and spiritually resonant".Jazz Journal critic Simon Adams stated "It's often dangerous to over-praise a set, but in its quiet, understated way, I would call this album faultless. Modern jazz chamber music at its finest."Jazzwise criticJohn Fordham states "Drifting may remind you of a dream, or an embrace, or a preoccupied woodland wander a lot more than a wild bop-blasting night in a jazz club, but that's what the unique Mette Henriette is all about."
Note that Carlo Wolff and John Fordham are wikilinked, while Thom Jurek and Simon Adams are not. This seems odd.
So, I'm wondering if there's been discussion of this, either here or elsewhere, with some consensus.
TheMOS:LINK article doesn't seem to be dispositive, saying that we should wikilinkRelevant connections to the subject of another article that help readers understand the article more fully - I'm unconvinced that linking toAllMusic orCarlo Wolff for example does much to help the reader understand a particular recording. OTOH, it also says to wikilinkProper names that are likely to be unfamiliar to readers. which argues for linking all of the critics' names.Mr. Swordfish (talk)15:33, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
If they have articles they should be linked. If they appear notable but lack an article they may be red linked. If they do not appear notable and lack an article they should not be linked. This is not limited to music critics in any way, just how we generally deal with linking people.Horse Eye's Back (talk)15:41, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
Ok. Thanks. I recently created a page forMichael G. Nastos and was wondering if I should wikilink every mention of his reviews. Your reply indicates that this should be done, however there areten pages of google results that would need to be changed. Is there a script for doing this? I'm not eager to do it all by hand.Mr. Swordfish (talk)16:38, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
I don't know of a script to do it, but it doesn't need to be done immediately or all at once. You could do a few at a time. Better to use aninsource search on wikipedia (results) than google. His name is already wikilinked in a few of the articles.Schazjmd(talk)16:57, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
IMO its aWP:NODEADLINE situation, the thousand edits can either be made by you right here right now (scripte assisted or otherwise) or they can be made one at a time by dozens or hundreds of editors over the coming years or something in between. Any way is good and the important thing for me is that the article was created.Horse Eye's Back (talk)17:01, 13 September 2025 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed.Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
A large amount of Wikipedia users share their full names, images, and places of work and study on their Userpages. I find this unacceptable, not only are you putting yourself in danger you are also putting others at risk if you share info about your affiliates (One user page included a photo of the user's child). It is incredibly easy to target these people and worse when occurring on Wikipedia because of our handy Page History. Please seeWP:AMDB if you need an example as to why this may be harmful. Rules need to be established as to what is allowed to be shared.
The discussion above is closed.Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Amending the global rights policy regarding temporary account IP access
Various global groups, e.g. global rollback, global abuse filter helper, steward, abuse filter maintainer, and ombuds, have the technical ability to view temporary account IP addresses. This is in addition to administrators andtemporary account IP viewers.
I'm here to raise the following question:
Should theglobal rights policy be amended to explicitly allow or prohibit the use of global rights to access temporary account IP addresses?
We should prohibit it. en-wiki's criteria for granting TAIV deviates from the Foundation's requirement because we require a "demonstrated need" for access.voorts (talk/contributions)03:48, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
The holders of these global rights have the need in their work on the global level though. If anything the language in our local policy may be refine to discourage the use unless necessary locally. It is already there but in bits and pieces.– robertsky (talk)04:01, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
Anybody who has it globally already fits the spirit of demonstrated need guidelines. GRs, GSes, Stewards and CUs of other wikis are the typically the ones who have this right and it would be rather short-sighted to assert that they do not have a demonstrated need forWP:TAIV.Sohom (talk)12:57, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
We don't grant the right automatically to editors with equivalent rights on en-wiki. And I disagree every global userright has a demonstrated need on en-wiki. A global sysop, for example, has no need to use any of their tools here, let alone one that provides access to information the WMF has deemed private.voorts (talk/contributions)13:01, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
Cross-wiki LTAs come to mind, if they cannot very the TA is the same IP underlying here, how will they mark a page for deletion? (note not deletion, because they cannot use their rights here)Sohom (talk)13:09, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
It seems like the question is:Should global users, that already have global access to view temporary accounts, be allowed to use this permission here? - in which case, yes - they should. Accounts, including temporary accounts, are global - making these users go through a paperwork exercise to get a local group for this is excessive. —xaosfluxTalk13:08, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
Note, the largest "outside" users here are the global rollbackers and the global temp viewers (which are mostly checkusers/oversighters from other projects). —xaosfluxTalk13:22, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
Those are good examples. Maybe giving concrete examples would help people out. For example:
AWP:Global rollbacker is a person who does anti-vandalism work across wikis. Sometimes that work will require (e.g.,) being able to see the IP address ofWikipedia:Temporary accounts (basically logged-out/IP editors, except with their IP addresses no longer being permanently listed in plain text in the article's history page). If a global rollbacker is undoing a bunch of cross-wiki vandalism by a temp account/IP editor, do we want them to:
have access to the IP information, so they can find and revert vandalism here, too, or
skip the English Wikipedia, because we can do everything ourselves and don't want their help.
We should not limit IP viewing by global rights holders at the moment. IPs are currently open to the world, but the plan is to hide them from many, many people. Let's not overshoot by making cross-wiki vandal fighting harder without actual evidence that the new restrictions are insufficient. —Kusma (talk)20:31, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
Global rights holders should be allowed to view TA IPs if they have the technical ability to do so. Everyone with such a userright has a "demonstrated need". By the way, do any of those groups have "checkuser-temporary-account-auto-reveal"? That userright would make it impossible for us to disallow them from viewing TA IPs without a global RfC/change.Toadspike[Talk]19:49, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
Thanks. In that case this discussion is moot, as there is literally no way we prohibit editors using that tool here other than 1. blocking them from enwiki (though I'm not even surethat would work? I think you can still see RecentChanges when blocked etc.) or 2. amending the userrights to remove autoreveal. We also cannot grant autoreveal via the PERM process, so there's no way for individual global rights holders to "rectify" any discrepancy except by RfA. Anyhow, I stand by my position that their use of these userrights on enwiki is okay without a local perm grant.Toadspike[Talk]13:23, 17 September 2025 (UTC)
WP:V — This page in a nutshell box:
You are invited to join the discussion atWikipedia talk:Speedy deletion § RFC: New CSD for unreviewed LLM content.Catalk to me!17:08, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
Please do not contact the Wikimedia Foundation for permission to reuse article text or images.
When to contact the Wikimedia Foundation
Reusing Wikipedia article text
Reusing images
