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Until recently, my impression was de-orphaning can sometimes be beneficial (I did a bit when I was starting to edit) but, in most cases, isn't hugely significant because decent search engines are widespread. Additionally, many orphans cover naturally obscure topics which just aren't going to get many readers or improvements even if they were linked elsewhere.
However, I've been coming across cases where de-orphaning has actually made things worse, generally by giving too much weight to a subject we might not even want to have an article on in the first place. For example, I recently cleaned out a large number of dubiously-notable companies whose establishments were listed as nationally prominent events on pages like 2000 in the United States because of systematic de-orphaning.
It's become increasingly unclear to me whether de-orphaning efforts, as currently practised, are doing more good than harm. But this is based on my impressions, not detailed analysis. So I'm interested to hear others' thoughts.
It probably depends on exactly what is meant by deorphaning. Adding links to relevant articles is good, in that it provides readers a path to find new information. Search cannot help someone find something they don't know they are looking for. The 2017 and 2019 discussions however make a good point that deorphaning as an end in itself is obsolete.Stepping back slightly, is there more information on what the de-orphaning efforts as currently practised are? The adding of links where they are not beneficial is not great, but how much of it is a problem, and is it a systemic issue or a relatively occasional occurrence? CMD (talk) 06:54, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The issue with de-orphaning is that it tends to be rather black-and-white. WikiProject Orphanage has the singular objective of reducing the backlog of orphaned articles, which can result in articles that may not meet GNG being given undue weight. Something like the introduction of an 'Orphan-Notability' template, alongside the 'Orphan' template, might help. When de-orphaning a particular article, the option of replacing the 'Orphan' template with 'Orphan-Notability' would create two lists: one for orphaned articles and another for orphaned articles requiring a notability check before they are de-orphaned. Svampesky (talk) 09:15, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've seen good things happen from good links. If an article has no inbound article links it gets very few page views, and thus very few edits. With meaningful links from other articles it is now being seen by readers interested in related topics, and someone reading an article on one topic is probably just the person to make good edits to a related article they click through to. It's true that low-quality links, like linking to a dubiously notable company in a large city article because the company is based there, tend to lower the quality of the established article. Cluttering it up without adding useful information for readers.
I think if meaningful, good article links can't be created to an article, that's a strong sign that the article subject is not notable. It's not a criteria for deletion of course, just an indication that a topic might not be encyclopedic, if no other encyclopedia articles should even mention it. Here2rewrite (talk) 11:29, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
+1 for I think if meaningful, good article links can't be created to an article, that's a strong sign that the article subject is not notable.. CapitalSasha ~ talk11:33, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As an "Orphanologist" working on oldest orphan articles (beginning with 2014 backlog articles), I have seen much progress. At one point the backlog was over 120,000 articles and now about 55,000. And millions more of non-orphan articles. Prior to my involvement, the consensus is to make orphan tag "invisible" after two months. My suggestion would be to show all orphan tags. Regards, JoeNMLC (talk) 13:11, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It always seems odd to me if an article can't reasonably be linked to other articles. This could of course mean that those other articles are missing rather than that our orphan is not notable. As for whether we use visible or invisible tags, it rather depends on whether we think the task is something we want to invite our readers to do. In its early days, yes I assume most new orphans can easily be linked into the project. After some time it ceases to be a newbie task and it requires a bit more experience of the project - does this link improve the pedia or is it visual clutter? I'm not sure whether two months is the right time and if not whether it should be increased to three or more or reduced to one. But if we were going to change the interval I'd like it done with some data as to the relative ease of deorphaning articles after one, two or three months. Ideally the link should become invisible at the point where deorphaning becomes a task we don't want to promote to newbies. ϢereSpielChequers13:33, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't find this odd at all, and being an orphan isn't the end of the world. Of course some articles are crying out to be linked to (creators of new articles are often very poor at looking for links to add). I'm strongly against WP:UNDUE adding the name and a link just for the sake of de-orphaning. Johnbod (talk) 15:08, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
When this was discussed in 2017, I left rather lengthy comment. Although I no longer de-orphan to the same extent that I once did, I still think the tag is valuable as a diagnostic that signals that an article should be looked at. As I said back then, I have found plenty of instances where investigating why something is tagged as orphaned has helped me improve Wikipedia - merging duplicate articles, upmerging stubs to parent articles, creating new articles in a taxonomic chain, fixing broken links, and initiating the deletion of junk that no one has laid eyes on in years. Issues can arise when people focus more on the idea of removing the tag at all costs rather than figuring out what to do with the article, but that can happen with any maintenance backlog. Think of someone who mass-redirects unsourced articles rather than improving sourcing. Is the problem the tag, or the behavior? Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater if we can solve the crap-links problem by dealing with whoever is doing it. ♠PMC♠ (talk)08:00, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. Even if someone deorphans by mechanically adding a See also link to a more prominent article, the watchers of that more prominent article will then be alerted to the lesser article and it then has an opportunity to be improved. ~Kvng (talk) 14:20, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As is often the case when editing WP, de-orphaning requires a degree of editorial judgement. The problems almost always occur when people edit without discernment - adding links just for the sake of linking. The reality is that some de-orphaning links are very beneficial, while others are not. Blueboar (talk) 14:44, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The relevant policy/guideline is actually already there:
It may be the case that some articles currently just cannot be de-orphaned. If this is the case then please do not try to 'force-fit' by adding unrelated links to articles where they don't belong just for the sake of de-orphaning. Always keep in mind that our primary goal is to improve the reader's experience, not satisfy the editor's indulgence in statistical achievements. Your priority when adding links should be to maintain article quality by adding relevant and useful links wherever possible — WP:CANTDEORPHAN
So, unnecessary links can always be removed. But it's not always bad, and the inclusion or non-inclusion criteria of certain articles in general articles such as "X year" may not be straightforward; what "degree" of notability (if a person has an article on Wikipedia that person is already notable) a person has to have to be included in "Births"?
Companies can be included in some lists by location or something else. What to put in "See also" is also covered by a guideline.
But do some articles even need to exist? I somewhat agree with other users regarding the (probable) lack of notability (though it may require changes in some notability policies). The other important thing here is the size of the article. Members of the state legislatures are presumed notable, but what if the fact that a person was a member is almost the only thing we know about them? Example. Named natural features are often notable, provided information beyond statistics and coordinates is known to exist. But for some very small streams, this "information beyond" is the etymology and what bodies of water they flow into (sometimes another small stream). Example, Example. The same doubts arise regarding small unidentified villages (that may not even exist), very small neighbourhoods or just "areas".
Finally, there are some interesting guidelines about orphans: Editors may also remove the tag from any article if they believe that de-orphaning is unlikely to be successful, or if they have attempted to provide incoming links-//-However, if you are certain the article is unlikely to ever be de-orphaned then simply remove the tag. Can this also be the answer sometimes? It can also be elaborated. For example, after some time and/or a number of attempts an article may be declared "hopeless" and the tag may be removed.
The reality is that some de-orphaning links are very beneficial, while others are not. A lot of those that "are not" are not harmful either. Oloddin (talk) 05:53, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Let's go a bit deeper here. So far, a fair few editors have said something along the lines of "well, sometimes de-orphaning is beneficial and sometimes not", with varying emphasis on "sometimes beneficial" and "sometimes not". But what proportion of de-orphaning, in practice, is beneficial? Is it 90% beneficial, 10% not so much? 70–30? 40–60? 20–80? And where is the threshold for "this benefits Wikipedia on net"? – Teratix₵02:59, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To go a bit broader, I would estimate that 90% of good-faith edits are beneficial. The deorphaning edits I have reviewed have about the same level of quality as the other edits I review on my watchlist. ~Kvng (talk) 13:42, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"De-orphaning" is not some special process; it's simply connecting an orphan with the other articles by creating links to the orphan. This is beneficial unless these links don't fit into the articles where an editor is trying to put them in. It's hard to estimate how often that happens (not least because, again, whether the link belongs or not is often subjective), but I would say not too often (I agree with Kvng on that). In general, the appropriateness of a link, of some text that includes a link, or of the element in the list (or list-type article) is not dependent on whether it was an attempt to de-orphan or not. Oloddin (talk) 22:36, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Teratix, I suspect that the benefit depends on the subject. De-orphaning a sports or film actor bio probably has a ≥90% benefit: the athlete should be named in some list of the people on their notable team(s), and the actor should be named in the articles about the films they appeared in. De-orphaning a business probably has a 10% benefit. You might occasionally want a sentence like "Bob's Big Business has been the biggest employer in Smallville since 2005", but there are currently about 15,000 places to eat in London, and even if only 0.5% of them are notable, London#Leisure and entertainment doesn't need 75 restaurants named in it. It doesn't even need all six of its Michelin 3-star restaurants listed. However, when something like List of award-winning pubs in London is available, then that's an opportunity to de-orphan these pubs without unbalancing London. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:17, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What is the policy for maintaining access to Wikipedia's library?
It took me six months of steady editing to gain access to the library and for months now, I haven't been able to clip articles at Newspapers.com because I access it through an Ancestry account. Needless to say, this has slowed my editing significantly. How many edits do I have to complete in what sort of timeframe to maintain access? Not being able to clip articles for citations for so long has really sapped my enthusiam but I don't want to lose access to the library after working to gain it in the first place. Oona Wikiwalker (talk) 01:27, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Note that there are known issues with Newspapers.com through TWL right now, not sure what the status on fixing them is though. ― novov(tc)01:39, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you so much. I did try the steps, but Firefox was spitting up errors so I shut the window and walked away from it for a few days. Difficulties with Newspapers.com is really a pity because it's often a necessary source, but I'm so grateful to have it when it works! Oona Wikiwalker (talk) 06:12, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Starting a compilation of Wikipedia policies
I took long hours to condense core content policies into one document. By my calculations, I can retain at least 95% of the meaning of the policies, including most of their intricacies and details, by using only about a third of space that the policies and guidelines, scattered among multiple pages, now take (I estimated from raw text that the policies and guidelines I summarised have about 530 KB of raw text but under the compilation have just 173 KB - still a lot but much better).
It was a hard task and appears about as hard as working in one person to recompile the Constitution of Alabama - a ridiculously long document running at 373K words - 420K words before 2022 (for comparison, War and Peace is 587K words, and there's a good reason they publish it in volumes), but I think it is more than worth it, as people will have a unified set of policies that will be easier to read for people because there's gonna be much less of that but reflecting the same meaning. The overabundance of policies is one reason we have few new editors - there are too many rules, and then folks just randomly throw WP or MOS shortcuts not immediately obvious to the bystander, and suddenly nobody wants to join a project with United States Code-long rules and obscure jargon.
I will appreciate all feedback from you - positive or negative - and preferably some help into condensing further policies and guidelines, such as those about conduct, legal, editing etc. into one page where everything belongs.
I wish you well in your endeavour, but am worried that it will fail in the end because everyone thinks that "their" sub-sub-clause is vitally important. I admit that I rarely look at policies or guidelines now, but find a few basic ideas, along with common sense, to work. Phil Bridger (talk) 12:14, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That works for me as well (I normally look into the rules on an ad hoc basis), but then you wouldn't need all those volumes of tiny rules covering, like, 99% of cases, and yet here we are. Also, admins themselves need a clear set of rules for proper enforcement (even if you catch the gist that the persob is just NOTHERE - an essay btw - you still kinda need a more concrete reason that just "that's my hunch")
It's like with RL: pretty common-sense that you shouldn't kill or rob anyone, or what appears common-sense like not using the army or the government to finance/securre your own reelection campaign, and yet these are codified lest anyone have an idea to bend the rules. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 17:29, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This exists WP:Nutshell and I think your effort is noble but better focused on improving accessible language and navigation of existing guidelines for newcomers. Twinkle has feature to welcome new users for example. WP:Mentor finds ways to automate assisting newbies. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 12:47, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just to pick one example. There's no policy that an article must have (any) sources, let alone one. Yet we consistently advise new users to create articles with multiple sources. Save the edge cases and careful readings of guidelines/policies for advanced users who want to push the margins or change consensus. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 12:49, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Actually there very much are two policies that prohibit articles without sources:
Verifiability says that you should only add content that you can check against a reliable source, and that you can remove any unsourced content
No original research says you just can't make stuff up. The only way you can have some sort of content is if it can be supported by a reliable source. Technically just have to demonstrate that the source for the passage is somewhere but if you don't provide it in the article, you can totally expect it to be removed and it's gonna be your problem.
No, policy prohibits unverifiable articles, not unsourced articles. Sources are required for BLPs and anything that is likely to be challenged should include a source (but this doesn't have to be inline). An article List of uncontroversial statements of fact consisting of things like "The sky is blue", "Many people are Catholics", "The 1970s happened before the 1980s", etc could be completely fine (it would be deleted, but for reasons completely unrelated to not having sources). Thryduulf (talk) 17:28, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Look, I'm not making this up:
Any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports[b] the material may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source
Which de facto means that if you are adding unsourced content, you are wasting your time as any editor may come by and just remove what you wrote, tell you "lacks an inline citation, I don't care why, pics or it didn't happen" and you are gonna still default to having to add a source (and then again giving time to fix it is a courtesy you needn't, though probably should, extend; though if you have the means to fix it yourself, you should do it)
So there's no obligation to source an article only in the most literal reading of policies. Anyone can enforce this policy provision. WP:SKYISBLUE is just an essay, although one with a pretty large following (and which totally makes sense for me, which is why there is a footnote to that effect) Szmenderowiecki (talk) 17:47, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
... any editor may come by and just remove what you wrote ...: the operative word is may. The reality is there's loads of unsourced text on WP, much of which will take years for it to be challenged, if ever. —Bagumba (talk) 18:29, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It has been tried before. Take a look at Wikipedia:Attribution, an attempt 18 years ago to consolidate some policies. Some very active and well regarded Wikipedians put a lot of time and effort into that proposal, but it was rejected by the community. Consensus can change, but I suspect the community remains just as resistant to change as it was then. Donald Albury20:07, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So I did read the poll, and a lot of stuff that was probably relevant here doesn't apply:
Users were complaining about lack of participation/that proposal being forced down their throats as policy - not an issue here (yet)
Merger of NOR, V, RS didn't appeal to people - not abolishing them, just giving sections to these concepts, not a problem.
Users complained about one massive page, or that they preferred separate policies rather than a massive policy code - well that is an issue to discuss but again it's not something that should extinguish all debate before it even starts.
Disgusted that truth is deprioritised - kinda not applicable here, because I'm not changing the framing of policy, just condensing it.
Change is unnecessary - again, debatable but let's have that debate in the first place
WP-links - well, you will have them all you like. Again, something to be discussed.
Assessment of any changes and their impact on disputes - to be discussed, again. This is how rulemaking process should work.
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" - my whole point is that it is, in fact, broke, so needs fixing.
And again, you can say "meh, we tried eons ago and it didn't work, why bother anymore" but that's gonna be a catch-22, because nothing will change without discussion, which you don't want to hold anyway.
I believe the attitude should be "OK, let's see what you did there and if it makes any sense". It would be another thing if you told me why what I did was bullshit, which is fine. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 18:45, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I know, but that's not the point of the compilation. What you are pointing to has a different purpose.
Nutshell, WP:5P etc. is a post hoc summary of policies and guidelines that summarise the main goals in slogans. Just like a company saying "we want to increase the market share; we want good treatment of workers" but not saying how.
WP:SIMPLE is a very high-level summary of policies and guidelines. It's the company analogue of saying: Good treatment of workers means paying more than the minimum wage, giving them extra breaks, paid leave and some other perks, without telling much specifics.
The body of the policies and guidelines is like all internal company directives about pay grades, conditions of getting worker benefits, levels of compensation, powers of HR/executives etc. This page intends to clean up all this body of policies and codify them in a couple of places, grouped by category, so that we remove unnecessary bloat, as in too many redundancies and passages repeated across different policy pages, extraneous comments etc.
@Szmenderowiecki, I don't feel like you're hearing what people are telling you, so l'm going to try a completely different, un-Wikipedian way of explaining this, because the previous efforts haven't worked, and maybe this will get your attention. Here's my new way:
Hi, Szmenderowiecki, and welcome to Wikipedia! I see you've been editing for just four and a half years, and that you've made a few hundred edits at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard, which I really appreciate. I don't know if you knew this, but you're in the top half a percent of contributors for all time. I also notice that you've never edited a single policy, and you have only made one small, uncontroversial edit to a guideline.
Just so you know, most of the people who have responded to you in this discussion have been editing for 15 to 20 years, and have made between 50,000 and 170,000 edits. Also, relevantly, we've been much more active in developing Wikipedia's policy and guideline ecosystem. If you'd like to see an incomplete overview of my own policy-related work, then you can start at User:WhatamIdoing#Policies and guidelines you can ask me about.
Now that you understand who's at the table for this discussion, I want to point out that there is an English saying that fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Every person in this discussion has more experience than you, and every single one of them thinks that, even though your goal is laudable and praiseworthy and at least partially shared by everyone here, your approach is not likely to be successful. It is, of course, possible that you know better than any of us and that rushing ahead is a great idea, but I suggest to you that it is unlikely that all of us are wrong in urging caution and small steps.
If you think you could slow down and get some more experience, and if you're willing to consider doing this over the space of years, then I think we could help set you up for success. For example, if we implemented this idea, that would get about 300 words out of a policy. The next step is to write a good RFC question. If you're interested in this, you could get some practical experience by helping out. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:26, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if you realise it, and I guess you didn't mean it, but the comment has a very strong patronising "you are too young to understand" vibe which I have a hard time shaking off rn.
I asked you for specific input in opinion and help, and I just think the folks who suggested Nutshell etc. misunderstood my intentions. I apologise if I wasn't clear. My intent is to retain the same scope and level of detail but in fewer words.
If what you meant is to do it in increments, fine, that's an option, still I'd love some feedback if I fucked up with the text in the first place. That is valuable. I'm open to discuss it one-by-one. I will hear input from people who actually drafted policies. That was what I intended to do anyway. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 23:30, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You've dropped things, rearranged things, and changed things, and I suspect you have done this without knowing what effects any of that will have.
For example, you've added the word secondary to the WP:GNG, and swapped in a description for the WP:SIGCOV language:
Original: "A topic is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list when it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject."
Yours: A topic generally may have a stand-alone article or list when several reliablesecondary sources that are independent of the subject address the topic directly and in detail, so that editors do not have to resort to original research.
I've been trying to get a definition of SIGCOV for years (and years), and failing repeatedly because nobody wants to admit how long (or, perhaps more precisely, how low) "in detail" actually is, for fear that some "unworthy" subject might deliberately seek a qualifying level of independent media coverage. The NOR line in the GNG is basically worthless, and AFAICT removing it would have no effect whatsoever on AFD outcomes, but the fear of making changes to such a high-visibility sentence will likely prevent us from fixing that. Your [e] footnote requires a huge amount of work (e.g., primary sources aren't always about events, sources don't have to adhere to the neutral point of view, a smaller number of high-quality sources is not automatically less indicative of notability than a large number of worse sources).
At the time we started leaning on secondary sources (about 15 years ago), we had a lot of editors who thought that secondary was a fancy way to spell independent. You have added a requirement for secondary sources that does not actually appear in the GNG statement (though it is in the explanations). The GNG offers a conditional rebuttable presumption, which you have turned into a statement of permission (may/are allowed to have...). The GNG says that multiple sources are only "generally expected", rather than required, and you have changed that. Oh, and "several" is often interpreted, at least in American English, as meaning "four" (a=one, a couple=two, a few=three, several=four), whereas the GNG is usually looking for "two".
Among the things you haven't resolved is whether the sources for an article must be considered in isolation. For example:
If I have ten brief independent secondary sources, is that multiple+independent+secondary+SIGCOV, or just multiple+independent+secondary and no SIGCOV?
If I have SIGCOV in a very lengthy, extremely detailed independent primary source, and I have a non-SIGCOV secondary source, does that add up to multiple+independent+SIGCOV+secondary and therefore notability overall, or do I have to get all three key qualities (independent+secondary+SIGCOV) in each source separately?
@Szmenderowiecki, just so you know, I'm always going to be interested in this. If you want to talk about how to improve our written policies and guidelines, then feel free to drop by User talk:WhatamIdoing and tell me about your ideas. It doesn't matter to me if that's that's next month, or next year, or next decade – I'd be happy to hear your ideas whenever you want to share them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:19, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If anything, the project would benefit from more "fresh eyes"—editors with enough experience to speak somewhat intelligently about these issues, but without so much experience that they are heavily invested in the status quo. There is a strong, almost indisputable case that current PAGs are far too convoluted and complex for the project's good. As a practical matter, the core problem is that the self-selected self-governance model, which created the problem, is incapable of addressing it. Resistance is futile; hence my semi-retirement after about ten years of futile resistance. ―Mandruss☎02:54, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would add that it's useful to hear from editors who still remember their first few edits, because a sentence that makes sense to the "old hands" isn't necessarily any good for the majority of editors. An actual majority of editors has made five or fewer edits, total, ever. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:02, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It might be "useful" in supporting the position that current PAGs are far too convoluted and complex for the project's good (but I think that's self-evident). As for fixing the problem, not so much. Incremental change is never going to be enough; what's needed is massive overhaul, and that's just not going to happen under the current model. Meanwhile, the current model is sacrosanct. ―Mandruss☎04:45, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll confess that I rarely look at the written policies & guidelines, & mostly use them as a citation when I need to emphasize a point to another editor. I consider what they say is basic common sense, but I've been around so long that I've probably internalized all of the important points. (This is not to say that the original poster is wasting their time. The written policies & guidelines have been considered a mess for countless years.) -- llywrch (talk) 01:49, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly as title. The checkbox states that it would last a year, yet sometimes I would find myself not logged in even though I am using the same device, same browser, etc. It is just a mild annoyance, but can someone give me pointers on how to fix this? Thanks in advance. —Mint Keyphase (Did I mess up?What have I done?) 01:26, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Anything that clears or blocks your local storage (cookies) can invalidate your saved logon. Some browser or browser extension updates can cause this. — xaosfluxTalk15:10, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW I was logged out unexpectedly under similar circumstances on the day this was posted as well. I use Windows primarily with Chrome; if you also have a similar configuration, that *could* be an explanation. Graham87 (talk) 04:26, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Mint Keyphase: Do you use uBlock Origin like me? That's the only thing I think we could have in common. But even that would be a pretty common combination .... it could've just been bad luck. I suspect a lot of people wouldn't report being unexpectedly logged out, because it's a relatively minor inconvenience; I certainly didn't think to. Graham87 (talk) 12:10, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How often does this happen? Every time you close the browser? Shut down the computer? Can you log in to other websites with the same browser and they persist just fine? Nardog (talk) 15:59, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Does your device have any kind of storage problem; if there is cookies are likely to be auto-deleted. Vestrian24Bio (TALK) 04:48, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I’ve been noticing a similar thing. Most of the time I get auto logged back in the moment I hit log in, but sometimes I get fully logged out. I use WIN11+Brave and IOS+Safari. Lordseriouspig04:32, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If it's as infrequent as once every couple of weeks (and I'm guessing you use Wikipedia considerably more frequently than that), then I'm going with you either logged out on another device or you logged out from some other Wikimedia website. For most web services, your session is tied to your browser or browser instance, but on Wikimedia, when you logout from any Wikimedia session on any browser instance or any computer, you will be logged out on all instances. Fabrickator (talk) 04:52, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm having the same issue; Sometimes I am logged out and a message comes up saying "You're Centrally Logged In" and I'm logged in automatically; Sometimes I am logged out and logged back in when I press the log in button; Sometimes I have to re-enter my log in credentials again to log in. Vestrian24Bio (TALK) 06:24, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As I recall, I was seeing that business of being logged out and a message came up saying "You're Centrally logged in" and then I would be logged in automatically a few weeks ago, but not lately. Editing only from a chromebook. Donald Albury15:43, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Being logged out when you visit a new wiki but becoming logged in when you reload the page, or when you click login (but without actually having to submit a login form) is sort of normal on Safari and Brave, as these browsers limit cross-domain state transfer for privacy reasons. AIUI it shouldn't happen on Chrome though, at least not with default settings. Tgr (WMF) (talk) 00:03, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I was opening pages on other language wikis around that time, but I don't remember if the message was tied to that. Definitely using Chrome browser on the chromebook. I do have Grammarly, Acrobat Extension, Malwarebytes, Wayback Machine, Who Wrote That and RSS Feed Reader loaded, all with access to the WP tabs. Donald Albury01:50, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But, it's not only happening while visiting a new wiki; it's happening on en-wiki recurrently. Vestrian24Bio (TALK) 03:31, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds like maybe your browser has trouble saving cookies for enwiki (en.wikipedia.org and .wikipedia.org)? You could try deleting the existing cookies and see if it helps. (In theory MediaWiki automatically deletes invalid cookies to prevent such issues, but maybe that doesn't work for some reason.) Tgr (WMF) (talk) 21:49, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Tgr (WMF): I encountered the problem again on en-wiki a while ago; and used the DevTools to figure out what went wrong, and I got this message, One or more websites are allowed to bypass user settings to set third-party cookies on this page. Microsoft Edge no longer supports third-party cookies and web developers should take steps to remove these sets without disrupting user experience. Also this page on Google for Developers site says that Third-party cookies are being deprecated in chromium browsers. Vestrian24Bio (TALK) 12:19, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I thought it was just a small problem on my end that wouldn't be too hard to fix, but seeing how this is going, I am fairly certain that this isn't the case... Guess I'll have to watch that upper right corner carefully before I edit. —Mint Keyphase (Did I mess up?What have I done?) 11:19, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I want to see if we can implement category editnotices here. Other improvements I have made to this module include page ID-specific editnotices, useful because it allows the page to move around without having to move the editnotice around to match the title. There is probably some cleanup that can be done with this module, for example using Lua functions instead of preprocessing {{replace}}, but I think it is a good start. AwesomeAasim20:19, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Because it doesn't require much compute, and because it stays with tables of the database, that we are already accessing while parsing anyways. Things are only marked as expensive if they cause potential exponential increases of load. Crossing from parsing one article to parsing many articles or dependencies of the article is such a case, as this creates a spiderweb of parsing dependencies that have to be accessed. Accessing a blob of text we already have in memory is much less expensive. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:29, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
More specifically, my thinking back when I was working on Scribunto was that getContent() is the same thing from a data-loading perspective as transcluding a page (and, IIRC, it uses the same underlying data-fetching functions), and since transcluding a page isn't considered an expensive operation so getContent() shouldn't be either. On the other hand, most other parser functions that have to make a separate database query to load some data are considered expensive, and so Scribunto functions that make database queries are marked as expensive for that reason. Whoever implemented the new feature likely followed the same reasoning. Anomie⚔19:05, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is transcluding a page that contains a dozen or a hundred expensive parser functions considered an expensive operation? Is it possible to get the raw wikicode without interpreting it? (I need that for something else.) That should be inexpensive regardless, right? Mathglot (talk) 22:49, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Transclusion isn't expensive but it results in an increase in the post expand include limit size. Something I was running into that made parsing to see categories impractical. AwesomeAasim20:02, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Valid point about PEIS, but that's a separate concen, isn't it, and doesn't really address the question I raised about transcluding a page full of expensive functions, so I hope someone comments on that. It seems to me that an "expensive parser function" is well-defined and quantifiable, but "transclusion isn't expensive" is not. I would say it depends on what's being transcluded. Mathglot (talk) 20:36, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed it does. If a page uses expensive parser functions then it adds to the expensive parser function count. But otherwise transclusion does not add to this count, and only adds to the post expand include limit. AwesomeAasim00:45, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're agreeing, but I can't quite tell what you mean by that. Concrete example: after your comment was published, this page had 41 expensive functions. Now, after this comment, it has 51. The increase of ten comes from transcluding User:Mathglot/sandbox/Templates/ten expensive calls in this comment. I think you would agree that transclusion not only adds to the PEIS but also to the expensive count, by the number of expensive functions it transcludes (after full expansion). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mathglot (talk • contribs) 01:17, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am 90% there on the Scribunto rewrite of the editnotice loader on testwiki:Module:Editnotice load. Because of the sheer volume of links I decided to put all of the links in a collapsible before the editnotice. I want to make the bullet horizontal like an hlist, do you know which styling needs to be applied to do this? AwesomeAasim01:43, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No favicon on Google
I know this is probably out of our remit, but does anyone have any idea why Google currently shows a placeholder instead of the "W" as the favicon for en.wikpiedia.org (example)? It seems to be occurring only for some subdomains (en, fr, la, nn, no). Is there anything WMF can do about it? Nardog (talk) 05:27, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am no longer actively maintaining my user scripts (which were never fully intended for public consumption anyway, especially forks of other user's scripts). To the best of my memory, I stopped using any version of copySectionLink a long time ago. If there is some reason you need to use my version rather than Bility's or other alternative mentioned above, I can try to find some time to look into it over the weekend. --SoledadKabocha (talk) 17:55, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi! I'm wondering if it is possible to create a clean-up list of articles by Wikiprojects that are assessed as a stub, but don't have a stub template in the bottom of the article? In such cases either wikiproject assessment is outdated, or a proper stub template is missing. My main interest in this matter is WP:Estonia. (And are there any other tools that can help to find higher than stub quality articles that are still assessed as a stub? My guess is Wikipedia has 5-10% more quality than the statistics show) Pelmeen10 (talk) 13:01, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Coming soon: A new sub-referencing feature – try it!
Hello. For many years, community members have requested an easy way to re-use references with different details. Now, a MediaWiki solution is coming: The new sub-referencing feature will work for wikitext and Visual Editor and will enhance the existing reference system. You can continue to use different ways of referencing, but you will probably encounter sub-references in articles written by other users. More information on the project page.
We want your feedback to make sure this feature works well for you:
Sign up here to get updates and/or invites to participate in user research activities.
We are aware that enwiki and other projects already use workarounds like {{sfn}} for referencing a source multiple times with different details. The new sub-referencing feature doesn’t change anything about existing approaches to referencing, so you can still use sfn. We have created sub-referencing, because existing workarounds don’t work well with Visual Editor and ReferencePreviews. We are looking forward to your feedback on how our solution compares to your existing methods of re-using references with different details.
Wikimedia Deutschland’s Technical Wishes team is planning to bring this feature to Wikimedia wikis later this year. We will reach out to creators/maintainers of tools and templates related to references beforehand.
This is a very important task to work on, but I am not sure how this proposal is an improvement for those of us who do not use the VisualEditor.
Compare:
<refname="Samer M. Ali">Samer M. Ali, 'Medieval Court Poetry', in ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Women'', ed. by Natana J. Delong-Bas, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), I 651-54.</ref>{{r|Samer M. Ali|p=653}}
or:
<refname="Samer M. Ali"/>{{rp|653}}
with:
<refname="Samer M. Ali">Samer M. Ali, 'Medieval Court Poetry', in ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Women'', ed. by Natana J. Delong-Bas, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), I 651-54.</ref><refextends="Samer M. Ali"name="Samer M. Ali, p. 653">p. 653</ref>
existing workarounds don’t work well with Visual Editor and ReferencePreviews OK, then VE and ReferencePreviews need to be fixed so that they work well with the existing ways of referencing.
Adding another competing standard (obligatory XKCD) is not very useful unless you want to disallow the others which will probably make people very mad (see WP:CITEVAR) and is not necessarily an improvement.
There is no reason why VE or RP would require a new standard, they could just as easily support one of the existing ones (and ideally all of em).
Sfn is routinely out of sync with its parent and requires the use of third party scripts to detect that it is so. Extended references do not i.e. the Cite extension will issue a warning when you have an extension without a parent.
And Rp is objectively subjectively ugly. Presenting it as a potential option is offensive. :)
In <refextends="Samer M. Ali"name="Samer M. Ali, p. 653">p. 653</ref>, a name for the subreference is not required (<refextends="Samer M. Ali">p. 653</ref> will be typical I suppose), and even when it is you can abbreviate since you know what the parent is (e.g. <refextends="Samer M. Ali"name="SMA653">p. 653</ref>).
Some other benefits:
Reference extensions work with reference previews to display the extension directly with the primary citation.
The extensions are grouped with the primary citation in the reference lists.
And the third, which you brushed aside: VE works well with reference extensions.
And as for OK, then VE and ReferencePreviews need to be fixed so that they work well with the existing ways of referencing., MediaWiki systems try to be agnostic about the specific things that wikis do around X or Y or Z. As a general design principle this helps to avoid maintaining systems that only some wikis use, and leaves the burden of localization and each wiki's design preferences to those wikis. Rp additionally has nothing to work with in regard to VE and ref previews. Izno (talk) 16:06, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Izno: Thank you. Gotta sell these things a bit, you know?
Is this style of referencing intended to replace all others? If its better, then lets just abandon all other variants.
The extends keyword is familiar to codemonkeys but perhaps not the most userfriendly for others. I am not sure why it would be harder to show an error when someone writes <refname="nonexistant"/>{{rp|653}} than when someone writes <refextends="nonexistant">p. 653</ref> but in theory this new system could auto-repair references (has that been considered?) Category:Pages_with_broken_reference_names contains 1300+ pages.
I agree with Izno—I'd rather have a syntax that integrates with the <ref>...</ref> syntax, rather than relying on templates, which mixes in a different syntax, and are wiki-specific. isaacl (talk) 16:28, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If you control the parser you can make any string do anything you want so the currently chosen syntax is, in itself, no advantage or disadvantage. Polygnotus (talk) 16:31, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You provided the wikitext for two examples and asked if one seemed to be an improvement, so I responded that in my opinion, the syntax of the sub-referencing feature under development is conceptually more cohesive to an editor than one where wikitext surrounded in braces follows the <ref.../> code, or uses solely wikitext surrounded by braces. Sure, any strings can be turned into any other strings, but there are still advantages of some input strings over others. I also prefer the resulting output of the reference list. isaacl (talk) 16:45, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, but I assume that things are not set in stone yet. I don't mind the difference between [1]:635 and [1.1] or what exact wikicode is used. So I am trying to think about functionality (e.g. automatically repairing broken refs/automatically merging refs instead of how things get displayed/which wikicode is used). Polygnotus (talk) 16:47, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I apologize as your first post seemed to be concerned about the wikitext markup being used by users of the wikitext editor. From a functionality perspective, I think as Izno alludes to, it will be easier to implement features such as detecting hanging references and merging them together with a syntax that is within the <ref> element, rather than relying on detecting templates and associating them with <ref> elements. That would require the MediaWiki software to treat some wikitext in double braces specially. (It would be easier if the extended information were flagged using triple braces, since it would avoid clashing with the extensible template system, but I don't see any advantages to that over extending the <ref> syntax.) isaacl (talk) 17:09, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Please don't apologize to me (even if there would be a reason to do so, which there isn't), I am a very confused and confusing person and I understand myself roughly 4% of the time (and the world around me far less often than that). Polygnotus (talk) 17:14, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Good to see this moving forward. My main interest was how it would look on the hover, rather than in the References section. I thought the ref extends might 'fill in' variable fields into the general ref, but it seems instead that it just created a new line below. How flexible is this below line, will it display any wikitext? Could we for example add chapters and quotes? (Which will need manual formatting I assume.) CMD (talk) 16:53, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What parameters should be sub-referenced? It should be limited to page numbers, and quotes. Not, for example, multiple works, authors, volumes, issues, IDs, dates of publication, ISBN numbers, etc..
How is data in a sub-ref added? If it's free-form text, it's a step backwards from CS1|2's uniform |page=42 to a free-form text like "Page 42" or "(p) 42" or whatever free-form text people choose. Bots and tools need to be able to parse the page number(s). Free form text is not semantic. Templated text is semantic. Anything that moves from semantic to non-semnatic is bad design.
Before this is set loose, there must be consensus about how it should be used. It opens an entirely new dimension to citations that is going to impact every user, citation template, bot, bot library (PyWikiBot etc), tool, etc.. -- GreenC17:00, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah its also a bit weird to ask for feedback and then already have a proof of concept and say is planning to bring this feature to Wikimedia wikis later this year. You must ask for feedback before code is written and before any timeline exists. Polygnotus (talk) 17:05, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
At a minimum, it should not be added until there are clear guidelines for usage. More specifically, it should have a feature that issues a red error message if the sub-ref does not contain a special template for displaying page numbers and/or quotes ie. anything else in the sub-ref is disallowed. Then new parameters can be added once consensus is determined. We should have the ability to opt-in parameters, instead of retroactively playing cleanup removing disallowed parameters. -- GreenC17:18, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@GreenC: So then you would get something like this, right?
<refextends="Samer M. Ali"page=""chapter=""quote=""anchor=""><refextends="Samer M. Ali">{{subref|page=""|chapter=""|quote=""|anchor=""}}</ref>
And then a form in VE where people can fill it in.
The former was deliberately not chosen during design work as being too inflexible for all the things one might want to make an extending reference. Izno (talk) 19:33, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"All the things", which below you said was only page numbers, chapters and quotes. What else do you have in mind? -- GreenC20:04, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There have been previous requests for support in CS1 for subsections of chapters of works. But that's beside the point: we don't need to lock this down out of some misbegotten idea of chaos. YAGNI. Izno (talk) 20:45, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It will be chaos as currently proposed, though I never said "lock this down". Johannes asked for feedback. The two main issues I raised, Johannes already said, these are known issues. He said, make a guideline. So I suggested at a minimum, let's make a guideline. You and Johannes don't seem to be on the same page about that. You hinted that were part of the development team, is that correct? -- GreenC23:09, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, I am a volunteer interested in this work since when it was first discussed at WMDE Tech Wishes and/or the community wishlist and have been following it accordingly, working on a decade ago now.
Guidelines are descriptive also. "We usually use it for this, but there may be exceptions." is reasonable guideline text. "You are required to use it only for this." is another reason it's not going to fly. Izno (talk) 16:06, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's a shame, the former was precisely what I imagined and was excited for when I first read about the idea. CMD (talk) 02:36, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@GreenC We don't do that with regular references. There's nothing in the software that produces a red error message if I do <ref>My cousin's roommate's friend told me</ref>, so why should subrefs be enforcing that? --Ahecht (TALK PAGE)19:37, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Polygnotus: This has been being discussed for many years now. m:WMDE Technical Wishes/Sub-referencing was created in 2018, and even then the idea had already been being discussed for a while. phab:T15127 was created in 2008. It's not odd that they're finally at the stage of having an implementation (or if it is, it's that it took so long to get here). Anomie⚔21:45, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You should probably assume that's the situation for any MediaWiki change. A few years back, some user script authors were mad because a code change had been throwing error messages at them for "only" seven years(!), which was obviously too short a time frame for them to notice that anything needed to be adjusted. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:06, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I actually totally disagree and think you're making a mountain out of a molehill. My anticipation is that most people will use it for the obvious (page numbers). In some cases they may use chapters (a single long text with a single author or even for anthologies). Rarely do I anticipate them using anything else, but I think they should have the luxury of putting whatever they want in the reference.
As regards mandating some use like templates, that's not how it works, though I can imagine some sort of {{Cs1 subref}}... which is probably basically {{harvnb}} and some others.
One thing however that is sure not to occur is to have subreferences of subreferences. This should prevent the vast majority of pathological cases. Izno (talk) 19:32, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Uh, yeah. People have successfully used our current mechanisms for extending a parent reference in many many ways which notably don't fit what you want. Izno (talk) 20:44, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
/me looks back 20+ years… sure is a good thing we wrote all those guidelines before making a wiki that was to become the most popular encyclopedia……. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 07:20, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No one's stopping you from writing some guidelines. There might not even be any opposition if you put sensible things in it. But as Izno says, the guidelines would be advisory rather than prescriptive. – SD0001 (talk) 14:03, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
When a document has a nested structure, e.g., chapters within sections, it is natural for an editor to want citations that match that structure. I would expect nested citations to include arbitrary combinations of author, editor, page, quote, title and URL, depending on the type of document. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 22:15, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Does "will work for wikitext and Visual Editor" cover the list-defined references examples on the demo page? I'm testing right now and the Visual Editor still seems to have the same problems with list-defined references that have existed for some time.[2] Will this update fix any of those issues? Rjjiii (talk) 02:28, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, thanks for your feedback, questions and interest in sub-referencing! Given the large number of comments, I’ll try to provide answers to all of them at once:
replacing other referencing styles: We don’t intend to replace other citation styles. We are fulfilling an old community wish, creating a MediaWiki solution for citing a source multiple times with different details. Citation styles are a community matter and per WP:CITEVAR you can continue to use your preferred way of referencing. If the community wants certain referencing templates to be replaced by sub-referencing, they are of course free to do so, but that’s up to you.
Reference Previews are going to display both main- and sub-reference in one reference pop-up, showing the sub-reference’s details below the main information (example). There are still a couple of details going to be fixed in the next couple of months.
ReferenceTooltips (the gadget enabled by default at enwiki) will need an update. It currently only displays the sub-reference’s information (example), similar to the behavior with sfn (example). But different to sfn (example) it currently doesn’t show a pop-up on top of the first pop-up for the main information. Given that gadgets are community-owned, we won’t interfere with that, but we’ll try to assist communities in updating the gadget.
Yes it will be possible to display any wikitext in sub-references, just like it is possible to do so using normal references (without any templates). We’ve intentionally allowed this, because local communities prefer different citation styles (and even within communities users have different preferences), therefore our solution shouldn’t limit any of those. Citing sources with different book pages will probably be the main reason to use sub-referencing, but it’s also possible to use it for chapters, quotes or other details.
You’ll need to do the formatting (e.g. writing details in italic) yourself, except if the community creates a template for sub-references
List-defined references in VE: We are aware of the issues mentioned in phab:T356471, many of those also affect sub-references. As we are still defining some VE workflows (currently we’ve mostly worked on the citation dialog) we haven’t found a solution yet, but we might be able to resolve at least some of those issues while continuing our work on sub-referencing in Visual Editor.
As already mentioned on meta this should be up to local communities, given the many different referencing styles. It should also be up to them to decide if they want to use templates for sub-referencing or not. We’ve reached out to communities much in advance, so you should have enough time working out some guidelines if your community wants that.
But as Ahecht said: Users can already use references for all kinds of unintended stuff, sub-referencing is not different to that. It’s necessary to technically allow all kinds of details in sub-references, due to the many different citation styles within one community and across different communities.
From our user research we expect most people using sub-referencing for book pages. There will be a tracking category (example) which could be used to check if there is unintended usage of sub-referencing
Adding another referencing style isn’t really useful: We are fulfilling a wish which is more than 15 years old and has been requested many times in the past years. Existing template-based solutions for citing references with different details only work on those wikis who maintain such local templates – and most of those have issues with Visual Editor. That’s why a global MediaWiki solution was necessary. You can always continue to use your preferred citation style per WP:CITEVAR.
Doesn’t look like an improvement for Wikitext: If you compare it with template-based solutions like {{rp}} you are correct that those allow for simpler wikitext. But if you’re editing in multiple Wikimedia projects, your preferred template from one project might not exist on the other one. That’s why a MediaWiki solution will be beneficial to all users. And most current template-based solutions have the already mentioned disadvantages for Visual Editor users. Also readers will benefit from a more organized reference list by having all sub-references grouped below the main reference.
The attribute “extends” doesn’t seem user friendly for non-technical users: We’ve done several consultations with the global community and a lot of user testing in past years where we asked for feedback and ideas on the attribute name. One takeaway is that the name is less important for many users than we initially thought, as long as they can remember it. And our user tests showed a surprisingly large number of Wikitext users switching to VE in order to use the citation dialog (for referencing in general, not just for sub-referencing) – if you do that, you don’t need to deal with the attribute name at all. We didn’t see any major issues with “extends” for people exclusively using Wikitext in our user tests. But so far there is no final decision on the attribute name, so if you have any ideas let us know (we’ll make a final decision soon).
You should have asked for feedback earlier: We’ve been working on this feature (on and off) for almost 8 years and had a lot of community consultations (e.g. at Wikimania, WikiCite, discussions on metawiki where we invited communities via Mass Message) and many rounds of user testings – always with the involvement of enwiki users. And we are doing this big announcement now in order to make sure that really everyone knows in advance and can provide further feedback while we are finalizing our feature.
Perhaps it would be wise, in future, to make a list of predictable reactions/questions and incorporate the responses to those in the announcement. Highlighting the advantages of a change/addition, USPs if any, why decisions were made and perhaps even a short timeline can make the reception much warmer. Some people here (e.g. Polygnotus) don't know the 15 years worth of background information. The good news is that I think that it is an improvement (although it could be a bigger improvement). I assume others have also mentioned things like ensuring refs don't break and automatically merging refs (but I do not want to dig through 15 years of history to figure out why it wasn't implemented) and this is/was an opportunity to make something superior to the existing methods that could replace them. The OrphanReferenceFixer of AnomieBOT will need to be updated. Polygnotus (talk) 17:04, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's always difficult to write such announcements in a way that they answer the most important questions while also being short an concise so that people actually read the them ;) Some of the questions raised in this section have already been answered in meta:WMDE Technical Wishes/Sub-referencing#FAQ and we'll continue to add more frequently asked questions there, if we notice (e.g. in this village pump discussion) that certain questions come up again and again. Johannes Richter (WMDE) (talk) 17:16, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, it is super difficult to strike the right balance. And even if you do, some will still be grumpy. But its also very important. Polygnotus (talk) 17:20, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the detailed response and the included screenshots. I was a bit glum following my comment above but I think I have a better grasp of the underlying concept now. If we are able to use citation templates in the sub-reference field, that may provide a way to fix at least some of the potential issues raised above. Is there a place to track changes to the reference pop-up (File:Sub-referencing refpreview.png)? My first impression is that's perhaps not a necessary large white space but I'm curious to read more discussion on the matter. CMD (talk) 17:25, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@CMD depends on what you mean by "place to track changes"? There are several phabricator tags which might serve this purpose (although we've collected a lot of user feedback which is still under discussion and therefore not filed as a task yet). We want to use meta:WMDE Technical Wishes/Sub-referencing#Recent changes and next steps to document important changes on the current prototype and can certainly document further changes to Reference Previews for sub-referencing in this section as well, if that's what you imagined? Johannes Richter (WMDE) (talk) 15:43, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the lengthy reply! Can a template tell if it's being used in an extended reference?
If there is any probability of this all working in the Visual Editor, we should also aim to make templates that work in the Visual Editor. That would mean a template that slots inside of an extended reference, rather than a template that invokes one (the way that {{r}} or {{sfn}} work). There is already some discussion at Help talk:Citation Style 1 about building a template for consistency between the main named reference and the extended sub-references. I considered making a proof of concept template that would only handle pages, quotations, and so on, but folks have already mentioned citing named sections in a larger work and other broader ideas.
For a template to plug into this, I've checked the parameters currently available in major templates that cite locations within a longer work. If I've missed anything feel free to update this table:
In-source location parameters in existing templates
Also, regarding formatting, CS1 and sfn are based (to an extent) on APA and Harvard citation styles.
Also(B), regarding LDR, one of the issues with list-defined references in the Visual Editor is that removing all usage of a reference from an article's body text makes the reference become invisible in the VE and emits this error message on the rendered page, "Cite error: A list-defined reference named "Bloggs-1974" is not used in the content (see the help page)." To have an un-called reference isn't exactly an error, though. Editors move citations from the bibliography and standard references down to other sections (Further reading, External links, and so on); some articles still have general references at the bottom. Is there a way to push un-called references down to the bottom of the list and treat them as a maintenance issue rather than an outright error, like the below example with citations borrowed from Template:Cite book/doc(11-02-2024)
Can a template tell if it's being used in an extended reference? No, not currently. Lua experts feel free to correct me if I am wrong. Polygnotus (talk) 02:57, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
push un-called references down to the bottom of the list and treat them as a maintenance issue it isn't even a maintenance issue; it is useful if people name refs so that those names can be used later to refer to those refs. But if no one refers to em that is fine. Polygnotus (talk) 03:01, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed to best of our knowledge templates currently cannot tell if they are being used in a sub-reference. But it should be possible to make such changes. As templates are community-owned, we cannot do that ourselves, but we'll try to assist communities (e.g. by providing documentation or some examples) with the necessary changes to citation tools and templates. Johannes Richter (WMDE) (talk) 15:47, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, additional parameters might be needed on <ref>...</ref> and on citation templates to designate main and sub-references.
LDRs that are named but not cited are most definitley treated as errors; that doesn't mean that they should be treated as errors. There are other markup languages where uncited references are treated as legitimate. Admiitedly {{Refideas}} is a workaround, but it would be nice if {{Reflist}} could include incited references and if the LDRs were listed first. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:20, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Page continually crashes on mobile
When I view large milkweed bug on my iphone without logging in (just default skin for anon users) using Safari browser, the page repeatedly crashes with the message "A problem repeatedly occured on [the url]." The page partially loads and then crashes. The page loads just fine on my laptop.
I have a hunch that it might be related to the multiple videos embedded on the page. 1) Is there anything to fix this on the page? and/or 2) Is there anything I can do when this happens on my phone? I suppose I could try logging in, but I almost never edit with my phone and only use it to look things up, so would prefer to use anonymously to avoid distractions and overhead related to logging in (e.g., notifications and other stuff). older ≠ wiser17:47, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Eyeballing Phabricator, it looks like videos don't work on versions of Safari much older than that but there are no issues otherwise with Safari + video. This may possibly be phab:T242895 instead, but you're having the issue logged out, and CentralNotice doesn't show up as often for logged out users I think. So maybe a new bug? Izno (talk) 19:47, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I just loaded the page logged out in Safari on an iPhone 12 mini with iOS 17.6.1 and am having the same issue. Switching to Chrome generates a similar error, "Can't open this page." Home Lander (talk) 22:52, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Two months ago, an updated Zotero translator for the Bangkok Post (by Matthewmayer) was merged to the Zotero repository. What else needs to be done to have it working in Citoid? The instructions at MW say to create a Phabricator ticket, but also to check some tests first which I can't make sense of. --Paul_012 (talk) 08:00, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Then I'd say there are two tasks to make, one to help with the documentation and one to update our local installation. ;) Izno (talk) 16:03, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How does a bot know when a page is added to a category?
You could of course get the entire category every x minutes or hours and check if anything has changed and if so, what. Because some categories are rather big this could take a bunch of API calls. But there must be a more elegant solution, right? I found Wikipedia:IRC#Channels_for_specific_tasks but there was no channel for "pages added to a category". I also found https://stream.wikimedia.org/v2/stream/recentchange which is somewhat similar to what i want but filtered to "added to category X"-events. Polygnotus (talk) 02:06, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What would be the best way to replace all usages of a file?
Hello, I'm am currently doing a massive overhaul of Slovakia city flags, included in this is replacing old raster flags with their svg counterparts.
What would be the most efficient way replace all uses of "flag_x.jpg" with "flag_x.svg" across all Wiki projects for multiple flags? EnzoTC (talk) 06:26, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is it possible to make this viewable in mobile desktop mode, much like this? The categories script is viewable only when I rotate the mobile sideways. Pinging the creator Alex 21 if he can do something. Considering how less desktop time I'm getting of late and the need for using this script more often, I hope something can be done. Kailash29792(talk)12:38, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Me having attempted a few FAs, a common comment in them was the request to sort categories alphabetically. I agreed with them as it makes for easier searching. Kailash29792(talk)08:37, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have an opinion on if categories should be sorted by importance or alphabetically. I just saw a request to make a minor modification to a script so I posted a modified version. Then I happened to read a bit of a guideline so I quoted it because it might be of interest. Polygnotus (talk) 14:13, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Audio generated with Score extension is inaudibly quiet
I was trying to listen to some audio found on the page for Lydian mode, but none of the audio was playing. Then I downloaded one of the generated MP3s, and saw that the volume level was extremely low, you can't hear anything at all. Had to use a Normalize feature just to hear the music.
I am using Firefox on Windows 10. But the problem is not only seen in the browser. I can save the generated mp3 to my PC, then load it into a sound editor. GoldWave sees the maximum amplitude level as 0.0385 (on a scale between 0 and 1). I also tested Mp3Gain on this file. After running Mp3Gain, I instead see a more reasonable maximum amplitude level of 0.3960, which is about 10 times louder than the original. Dwedit (talk) 23:26, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I downloaded the file from the first audio player on Lydian mode (rightclick-save audio as) and I ran ffmpeg -i ~/Desktop/a.mp3 -filter:a loudnorm=print_format=json -f null - and the output was:
In regards to {{Lang}} and subtemplates like {{Lang-xx}}
I'm sorry for not making the title more informational, but if I did try to explain it, it would just be the entire post.
I have a very specific issue; so specific that I don't really know whether or not this is the right place to ask here, so apologies if I should have placed this somewhere else. This doesn't exactly relate to Wikipedia itself, but because my issue uses templates and modules that comes from Wikipedia I feel this is the best place to ask.
To cut it short, on another wiki, we use the likes of {{Lang}} and its counterparts, Lang-xx (ex: lang-zh) in the same capacity that Wikipedia uses. When using Lang-xx correctly: ex: German: Deutschland, the 'link' to the page obviously uses the standard Wikipedia style of [[ ]] to create a link to the German language article.
The problem is that because this wiki is not actually on Wikipedia, when the page 'links' the article, it does not link to Wikipedia, it links to a non-existent article on the wiki that then either has to be filled with a redirect already to Wikipedia or not created at all. I'd like to replace the (apparent) [[ ]] markup with a [[Wikipedia: ]] markup so that these pages on the site link to Wikipedia rather than to these nonexistent pages. I know how to do that, I just don't know where in the world to look for it. I've combed through nearly every module I can find for Lang and I haven't found anything. TheodoresTomfooleries (talk) 19:51, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure if this is the place for this since this straddles Wikipedia and Commons. For the map used in 2023–2024 mpox epidemic, I added diagonal hatching (stripes) to certain countries. This renders correctly on my SVG editing tool (Inkscape), when viewing the raw SVG file in my browser (Firefox), and when exporting to a PNG. However, within Wikipedia's and Commons' viewer, the stripes don't show up. I'm somewhat new to editing SVGs, but it seems like I did this correctly (or correctly enough), and so I'm a bit lost. TheTechnician27(Talk page)20:32, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If I go to the file description page, and try some of the links after "Other resolutions", I find that the 2,560 × 1,315 pixels and 2,921 × 1,500 pixels sizes both show the stripes, whereas 1,280 × 657 pixels doesn't - and nor do the smaller ones. So, when you export to a PNG, what resolution do you use? Have you tried making the stripes wider? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:46, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Redrose64: So this is interesting: when I adjust the resolution on Wikipedia to 2300px, it only shows some of the countries, namely the ones where I used 0.400 for the pattern scale in Inkscape. However, when I export to a 2300px PNG locally, it still displays all of the lines just fine. Scaling down to 600px export from Inkscape, it still "shows" the lines, although by that point it's too bit-crushed to distinctly make them out as lines. Thus, this appears to be some sort of failure on MediaWiki's end. Edit: Even the highest-resolution default PNG on Commons fails to display Taiwan, Portugal, and the Philippines.TheTechnician27(Talk page)22:24, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
MediaWiki feature for broken section links
Since July there's been two different kinds of notices when trying to open a wikilink with a broken section (either because it was archived or just broken/refactored). They are the following texts on English Wikipedia:
This topic could not be found. It might have been deleted, moved or renamed.
This topic could not be found on this page, but it does exist on the following page: Example
Traceback (most recent call last): File "/data/project/afdstats/pyvenv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pymysql/connections.py", line 644, in connect sock = socket.create_connection( File "/usr/lib/python3.9/socket.py", line 822, in create_connection for res in getaddrinfo(host, port, 0, SOCK_STREAM): File "/usr/lib/python3.9/socket.py", line 953, in getaddrinfo for res in _socket.getaddrinfo(host, port, family, type, proto, flags): socket.gaierror: [Errno -3] Temporary failure in name resolution During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/data/project/afdstats/public_html/afdstats.py", line 112, in main db = pymysql.connect( File "/data/project/afdstats/pyvenv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pymysql/connections.py", line 358, in __init__ self.connect() File "/data/project/afdstats/pyvenv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pymysql/connections.py", line 711, in connect raise exc pymysql.err.OperationalError: (2003, "Can't connect to MySQL server on 'enwiki.web.db.svc.wikimedia.cloud' ([Errno -3] Temporary failure in name resolution)") None
Fatal error.
@Polygnotus if you are referring to afdstats, this is an external tool; the maintainers are listed at that bottom of that page, with links to where bugs can be reported. Those are the only people that can help with this. — xaosfluxTalk12:42, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Xaosflux: I have no experience with this kinda stuff but I figured that since Enterprisey and Σ are inactive, and Enterprisey listed 0xDeadbeef on their talkpage as a maintainer of apersonbot, which also runs on Toolforge, that 0xDeadbeef may have the required access to fix the tool as well. Can you explain a bit more? It would be bad if each tool had a bus factor of 1. Enterprisey's talkpage contains Time to finally touch some grass. May be back someday. You can consider my projects "unmaintained"; I would be happy to help anyone looking to take on maintenance of any of them. In particular, Legoktm and 0xDeadbeef are the two other maintainers of apersonbot on Toolforge and should thus be your first point of contact for any of those projects. People seem to inherit or adopt Toolforge tools from others when someone becomes inactive. Polygnotus (talk) 12:52, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Polygnotus "AFD stats" isn't part of the English Wikipedia; so our volunteers can't do anything about it. Most anyone can run tools on toolforge, each tool is managed only by the specific owners of that tool. If all the owners of a tool quit, there is a process where the toolforge admins can let someone else become the maintainer. "apersonbot" and "AFD stats" have nothing to do with eachother. "AFD stats" has a maintainer, Σ who is still around - so their talk page is where to bring up problems with their tool. Note, they have a notice on their talk page that if you want them to look at something, you should also email them. — xaosfluxTalk13:03, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Ahecht: sorry, that was an oversight. I've added you to the GitLab repository as an owner. Let me know if there's any other access you're missing. Legoktm (talk) 06:50, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Maile66 et al: I have no idea what the problem was, but restarting the webservice seems to have fixed it. Feel free to ping me if you're seeing other errors. --Ahecht (TALK PAGE)19:54, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Legoktm Not sure it would help in this case, as the webserver was serving pages correctly but afdstats.py couldn't communicate with the SQL server, but still a good idea. --Ahecht (TALK PAGE)13:32, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Gadget to display a user's rights
I used to have a gadget enabled that showed a user's rights, with little icons next to their username that showed whether they were an admin, oversighter, arbcom member, etc. Those are no longer displaying, so I don't know if the gadget is no longer working or if I somehow disabled it. Unfortunately, I don't remember this gadget's name, so I can't look more into it myself. Does anyone else know what I'm referring to? Jauerbackdude?/dude.15:23, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Redrose64: i didn't see any form... When i clicked the link, the words Report an issue with dark mode changed to something like Issue has been reported or Report submitted... i forget the exact words. But you say a form is supposed to appear? In the same browser window or a new window? or a new tab? or a pop-up within the tab, like some websites' chat function? --173.67.42.107 (talk) 12:25, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The form (which is really just the edit form for a talk page on mediawikiwiki:) opens in a new tab. Confusingly, the menu says "Report received!" immediately upon clicking the link. But unless you click "Publish changes" on the edit form, no report is actually submitted. The message could be adjusted by asking an interface admin to edit MediaWiki:vector-night-mode-issue-reporting-link-notification, but I'm not convinced it's worth the effort. Rummskartoffel11:06, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Users without accounts can only click the problem button, it isn't a very good UX and they can't provide any details. This has been brought up to the devs already and may get improved in phab:T371499. — xaosfluxTalk11:57, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Can't close tab via Javascript when syntax highlighting (CodeMirror) is enabled?
Because the nerds are here. My people. I am no Javascript expert, and I am unsure why CodeMirror seems to block window.close() and how it does that and how to get around that if possible. As you can see on Special:Version, CodeMirror is installed here on en.wikipedia.org. Polygnotus (talk) 09:05, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hm, I see window.addEventListener( 'beforeunload' in CodeMirror/resources/ext.CodeMirror.WikiEditor.js on line ~368. I don't see a CSP that could prevent window.close() in the code (but that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't there in the rendered version. Polygnotus (talk) 09:30, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Does it have to do with CodeMirror? Closing is prevented (by the module mediawiki.confirmCloseWindow) as long as the content of the textbox is different from when the page was opened. Nardog (talk) 09:43, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, but the script only closes the window when no typos can be fixed (so the content of the textbox has not changed). In any case I have "Warn me when I leave an edit page with unsaved changes" unchecked. I think the beforeunload eventlistener is the source of the problem. But I found a workaround, I just repeatedly attempt to close the window until it lets me. That works fine. Polygnotus (talk) 09:48, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
True, but programming languages are a very dangerous rabbit hole for me. So for once I am going to use self-control. A simple workaround and a happy wife is better than an elegant solution and a divorce. Polygnotus (talk) 10:18, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How can I convert Google Books urls to neutral format?
Object: For a citation, I want to include the url for the Google Books page. (It's in Preview mode.)
Problem: I live outside the U.S., so the url I get here is country-specific. Furthermore, the url I get includes irrelevant data, like the search term I used to find it in the first place.
Question: How do I convert the url to the country-neutral, approved short form?
Thank you, although that will give me the book, but not the page. Also, it won't work for older books since there was no ISBN then, Ttocserp11:44, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, not yet. @Ttocserp: nothing on this planet is easy. There are currently 198 articles with one or more links to the German version of Google Books. And there are many languages other than German and English. Working on it. Polygnotus (talk) 12:50, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So, this simple request led to a lot of todoes:
MediaWiki doesn't appear to have a way to filter Special:LinkSearch by namespace. many Phabricator tickets, T37758 dates back to 2012... But the functionality already exists in NewPagesPager.php so it shouldn't be too hard to make something similar.
I couldn't find a userscript that allows the user to filter Special:LinkSearch by namespace. User:Polygnotus/namespace.js does it, exceptionally poorly (it does not make API requests it just filters whatever is displayed on the page).
If there are no other scripts that do this task better then something like this should be improved and added to the list.
You might find this and variant searches useful: insource:"books.google" insource:/\/\/books\.google\.(de|fr|es|nl|pt|it)/. That search finds about 1480 articles.
The search looks for that pattern in the wikitext of pages. Linksearch looks for links in its rendered output. Consider templates like {{geoSource}}, which can produce links to google books from wikitext like {{geoSource|DE|AHL|42}}. (Or even the Template:GeoSource page itself, which has many links to google books despite that url not appearing in its wikitext at all, through its transclusion of Template:GeoSource/doc.) —Cryptic14:54, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Since a bot can only edit URLs that literally exist in the wikitext, insource is more accurate for that purpose. Unless the bot is programmed for those special templates, which most are not since there are thousands, each with their own syntax that can change on a whim. -- GreenC13:14, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And because it is only looking for six of the who-knows-how-many languages google books supports. And because the search is constrained to mainspace.
Probably the best task to look at is phab:T12593, which is specifically about Special:LinkSearch. It's not as simple as you seem to think, the SQL query would be too inefficient. NewPagesPager and some others have different enough table structure that efficient queries can be written. Anomie⚔16:33, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
asyncfunctionfetchGoogleBooksLinks(languageTLD){constapi=newmw.Api();letparams={action:'query',format:'json',list:'exturlusage',euquery:`books.google.${languageTLD}`,eunamespace:0,eulimit:'max'};lettitles=[];letcontinueToken;do{if(continueToken){paramseucontinue=continueToken;}console.log(`Fetching for ${languageTLD}`)constdata=awaitapi.get(params);constexturls=data.query.exturlusage;exturls.forEach((exturl)=>{titles.push(exturl.title);});continueToken=datacontinue?data.continue.eucontinue:null;}while(continueToken);returntitles;}asyncfunctionfetchAllGoogleBooksLinks(){consttlds=['de','fr','es','nl','pt','it'];letallTitles=[];for(consttldoftlds){consttitles=awaitfetchGoogleBooksLinks(tld);allTitles=allTitles.concat(titles);}console.log("* [["+allTitles.join("]]\n* [[")+"]]")}fetchAllGoogleBooksLinks();
Thank you! I know this cool little trick where I can take any piece of code and double it in size... by converting it to Java. Let me tell you, bigger is not always better. Polygnotus (talk) 12:35, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Guidelines concerning presentation of HDR images in Wikipedia?
Sometimes in articles concerning HDR technologies there is a need to present an HDR image.
I want to create a (public domain) rendition of ITU-R Rec. BT.2111 (an HDR&WCG color bars test signal image) to be used in article SMPTE_color_bars. It has to be presented with full PQ HDR and BT.2020 WCG to be able to illustrate properly.
I am considering AVIF since it seems to have better support and overall easier to understand if you know ffmpeg well.
But considering that not all devices support HDR and/or WCG, do I need to also create a SDR version? maybe also a SDR & sRGB version?
For what it's worth, this test signal can be seen in some recent large scale high end television broadcasts (& the studios they are produced in) like the Paris Olympics. Hym3242 (talk) 12:24, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The table at List of cities in Ivory Coast has the class "wikitable center sortable", none of the columns have the "unsortable" class yet the table is not sortable. I've tried (without saving) various changes (e.g. changing the class to "wikitable sortable", standardising the newline syntax) but nothing made any difference. Thryduulf (talk) 22:08, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Doing... It's because there are no header cells. The things that look like header cells are actually data cells styled to look like header cells (except for the background colour). I'll fix it. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:13, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'd rather not rely on an external program for this, since I could just uninstall it (and it wouldn't apply to mobile without a different program). But that code works great, thank you! :] Suntooooth, it/he (talk/contribs) 09:39, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Only one coordinate allowed per article, but what if article about two places combined
I was making a draft for a temple complex which consists of two temples 200m apart (I am not creating separate articles for them for reasons). So I tried to give each one their coordinates in infobox. But this coordiates are automatically linked to article's coordinates, and so in the second temple's infobox it says {{#coordinates:}}: cannot have more than one primary tag per page. What could be done for this? ExclusiveEditorNotify Me!14:14, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Give the article separate coordinates template for the 'complex', and in the infobox use display inline (non primary) coordinates for the specific sites. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:28, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
it seems to me that allmovie broke their url schema (again) without providing redirects. Not sure if there is a way to fix this. couldn't find anything. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:39, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sometimes it is useful to see what other articles link to an article directly, as opposed to from templates. For example, this would help when considering the impact of a page move, or considering changing links to the page title into links to a redirect to a section in the page.
When I click on "What links here" I get a list that by default shows all links. It lets me check a box "Hide transclusions", which removes transclusions from the article itself and its talk page, but leaves links from all the pages that transclude a template containing the link. Is there any way to remove links from the transcluded templates? Aymatth2 (talk) 15:55, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One more for the list. On a more serious note, @Cryptic:, shouldn't the WMF be fixing all these phabricator tickets? And if they aren't, why not riot or strike until they are forced to? Volunteers waste a lot of time working around imperfections that should just get fixed. Polygnotus (talk) 17:44, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Normally you'd be preaching to the choir - why pay people to fix decades-old bugs when we could have them redesign the default skin again? - but this one is legitimately difficult. Like, if someone writes {{tl|uw-vandalism1}} → {{uw-vandalism1}} on a page, should that count as a link to Template:uw-vandalism1? If so - and in my opinion it should - then how do you distinguish it from uses of {{Multi notice links}}? —Cryptic17:56, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am not smart enough to even pretend to be smart enough to be able to fix many of these problems. But I am (barely) smart enough to run in to them. We should riot and strike until they hire enough brains to make a serious dent in these old phabricator tickets. If we don't succeed then at least we had fun. Polygnotus (talk) 18:08, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps the early request was ignored because it seemed debatable. Templated links are real links, and it could be useful to see how many of these links lead to a given article. I would phrase it as adding a new option to WhatLinksHere, maybe called "Source links only", that would display results from an insource: search for the current page name. If someone on this side could write the search in a convenient format (not me!) that would make it easy for them. Aymatth2 (talk) 19:08, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds like a recipe for a bot run to triage everything as Won't fix, followed by devs manually reactivating assigned tickets they actually plan to work on. Folly Mox (talk) 11:06, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I’d support this! I wish it would show {{tl|Main}} as an example of “source link” though because that’s not meant to be transcluded a hundred times the way a link in a Navigation box template might. If it’s integrated in MediaWiki:Linkshere it would be worthwhile examining some edge cases ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 12:28, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the point on {{main}}, and would add disambiguation and redirection hatnote templates such as {{for}}. I suspect there are other cases like this, where a template is used to format a link to a related page, as opposed to linking to all the pages in a group that have something in common. Perhaps the tool could optionally look for template instances that have the page name as an argument: {{foo|bah|searchterm|abc}}.This may be getting far too elaborate. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:13, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wait, are we disappearing people now? Do we have the user class "Unperson"?
I'm bringing this here because it seems to be something coded into the software.
When I write [[User:BrownHairedGirl|BrownHairedGirl]]
This is done by the software. I gather that the slash obliterates her name because she is blocked with a term of "indefinite" (altho that is subject to appeal of course).
If it's a policy to now put a scarlet "A" on editors who have met the displeasure of the authorities, where was this discussed and enacted, and by whom, and why? I don't believe that this was done in former times (but even if it was that doesn't make it right). The editor in question is #2 on the list of most prolific editors by edit count. I don't know what she did, and it shouldn't matter. Maybe it was something indescribably horrible, or maybe it was insulting the wrong person or accidentally referring to someone by "xe" instead of "they". Who knows? Even assuming that she absolutely should have been permablocked, so. It doesn't uncreate her contributions. I mean even Benedict Arnold has a monument at Saratoga.
Since this is done automatically, it must be in the code and it looks like I can't override it per WP:IAR or the principle of "Don't be a jerk". That's why I'm bringing it here. If it's per some rule that was enacted, OK we can start there, and my first question would be "what is the purpose of this code"? If it's to inform the reader that the linked-to editor is no longer active, that'd have some use, but then you'd use it for all inactive editors and not call out just the ones that the authorities are mad at. If it's just to shame the editor, is this what we have become now.
If we're going to have a special mark automatically applied to user signatures, I can think of more important things to tell the reader if we must tell just one thing. "This user is an admin" would be quite useful for instance, or there are other things.
Sounds like you installed a script. To me, there is no difference between that name and yours and mine (except the different letters of course). Polygnotus (talk) 17:48, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Huh. You're correct. Seems odd because it's only started happening recently, and I didn't enable it at least not intentionally, and it's not the sort of thing I would enable. But my hand must have slipped or something. Nevermind, sorry, and thanks. Herostratus (talk) 18:24, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, yes I see, thank you. Well, the world is so full of a number of things, I think that we all should be happy as kings. Well, sorry about going off half-cocked, but that's me all over. Thanks again. Herostratus (talk) 18:29, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As the Efn contained only a citation, I removed the Efn container, leaving the <ref>citation</ref>. I also fixed the Sfn error. Sfn does not work properly with a long citation in the Further reading section. Moved long citation to a new Sources section. Donald Albury02:02, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just because User:Trappist the monk/HarvErrors.js emits an error message does not mean that Sfn does not work properly with a long citation in the Further reading section. {{sfn}} can and does link to long-form citations in §Further reading so {{sfn}} works correctly. The Harv error: linked from CITEREFAECOM2013 error message means that the long form citation is in the wrong section. Do not assign blame to {{sfn}} when the real blame belongs to the editor who placed (or left) the long-form citation in the wrong section.
@Shushugah: The fundamental problem here is that the Further reading section contains something that isn't "further reading". At the time of your post it was this:
*According to the Master Plan, Vizhinjam Port has a natural depth that minimizes or eliminates the need for dredging.{{efn|<ref>{{Cite web|title=|url=https://vizhinjamport.in/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Addendum-to-Final-MPR_23052013-FINAL-REPORT.pdf|title=Addendum to Final MPR, Vizhinjam International Seaport|year=2023}}</ref>}}
which has since been simplified to this:
*According to the Master Plan, Vizhinjam Port has a natural depth that minimizes or eliminates the need for dredging.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://vizhinjamport.in/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Addendum-to-Final-MPR_23052013-FINAL-REPORT.pdf|title=Addendum to Final MPR, Vizhinjam International Seaport|year=2023}}</ref>
Does the community still want moved pages to be unreviewed
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Back in 2017, the community decided in this RfC that moved pages should be unpatrolled. The feature was stuck in Phabricator purgatory and was never actually implemented.
I'm really surprised so many people supported that: it would create a substantial added burden for patrollers in exchange for maybe making a very rare problem slightly easier to detect. (Redirects from page moves already go into the queue, and even if they're retargeted elsewhere, a good reviewer should notice the suspicious history.) Unless this is a much larger-scale issue than I'm aware of, I don't think that proposal should be implemented. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 08:00, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have seen cases (e.g. recently at AT CBS This Morning) where a long-standing patrolled page becomes unpatrolled because a non-autopatrolled user moved the page - like from vandalism being reverted like CBS This Morning, or from requested moves like (709487) 2013 BL76. There can be quite a lot of these cases. Is this scenario also part of this discussion? thanks. Aszx5000 (talk) 09:36, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Aszx5000 That specific behavior is part of a bug that started happening recently and will be probably reverted. It's being tracked in T370593. The default behaviour is to not unpatrol page that are moved. Sohom (talk) 10:00, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think the RfC should be respected. Yes, WP:CCC but we really shouldn't overturn an RfC without an new RfC. Besides, this will help with detecting move vandalism in some cases so it is a useful change. Nickps (talk) 12:32, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: If the RfC hasn't been implemented in 7 years, and it was only recently implemented by accident, it makes sense to revisit the discussion instead of implementing it by surprise so much later on in time. As one of the more active patrollers, I absolutely hate the idea of adding to the workload / massive backlog by adding pages to the queue just for being renamed. Really we'd want to just mark it as patrolled 99% of the time anyways. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:49, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, I attempted to figure out how much moving and patrolling actually goes on so I could see if making it necessary to re-patrol moves would indeed add a significant workload. I came up with 916 moves and 1225 patrols yesterday. My SQL is weak (and my understanding of the MediaWiki schema even weaker) so I don't know if these numbers are accurate or not. If they are, then it looks like this would almost double the patrolling workload. RoySmith(talk)15:33, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Though, as usual, raw statistics are misleading. Neither of our queries, for instance, try not to count page moves by autopatrolled users, or pages moved out of the main namespace without leaving a redirect or where the redirect was later deleted. I can at least compensate for the small sample size by showing stats for all of July up to now, which are better: 7068 page moves starting in mainspace, 13519 mainspace page curations. —Cryptic16:55, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I don't see much of a point in implementing this as it would unnecessarily double the workload of the NPP team. Redirects left behind from moves are already placed in the redirect queue (except for users in the page mover, autopatrolled, and redirect autopatrolled groups, including administrators). DannyS712 bot then automatically reviews a portion of them if the changes fit certain criteria, and the rest are reviewed manually. I feel like this system works just fine; it's not like we have a runaway page-move vandalism issue on our hands. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 17:50, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. To quote myself from 2017: Oppose pending more information. I'm concerned about rushing into something that will potentially hugely increase the load at the already hugely-backlogged WP:NPP. How many pages are moved per day? How many more reviewers would we need to handle the extra load? What's the scale of this problem? Are there other solutions we could explore (e.g. marking pages that have {{disambig}} removed as unpatrolled)? We have the answers to some of those questions above, and it's not looking good. Doing this would double the NPP workload in order to close a loophole that is apparently so small that nobody noticed it had been accidentally left open for the last seven years. Really bad idea. – Joe (talk) 21:35, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: the proposal as it developed in the 2017 RfC was not for all article moves but for those by non-EC users which I think was 40 a day at the time. Cenarium's comment is not clear to me but search for "40" (not pinging them because they have not edited since April). Pinging @Ivanvector: who initiated the proposal for their comments. We don't know if this is still a concern or if other mechanisms were put in place. S0091 (talk) 19:39, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
not for all article moves but for those by non-EC users which I think was 40 a day at the time. This somehow ended up not reflected in the 2017 RFC close and not reflected in the 2017 Phabricator ticket. We could go off on a tangent about whether that RFC was closed correctly or not, but I think it's a non-issue because we'll get a fresh consensus in this RFC that will override any lack of clarity about the previous close. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:58, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
??? I don't know that area that well because that not normally where I do my NPP work but I thought this was already happening. For example Extracorporeal procedure was in the cue. The community really needs for fix some things to help with the disaster at NPP but worrying about easy stuff like this really isn't it. North8000 (talk) 20:28, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: Unnecessary. They will almost always be marked as reviewed immediately, so this just adds a pointless burden to the NPP queue. CFA💬22:15, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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.
Currently if a user clicks "Add a topic" on an article talk page, a box appears which prompts them for a "Subject" and a "Description".
"Description" is somewhat cryptic in that context, and seems like a placeholder string that was never reassessed. A talk page message or question isn't really a description of anything. In some contexts (like Talk:ChatGPT and Talk:Google, talk pages which ended up locked in response to so many people mistaking "Add a topic" for a direct query to those services) asking for a "Description" may, to some users, look more like a prompt to communicate privately with a generative AI or web service, rather than the start of a human conversation with Wikipedia editors.
I raised the suggestion more broadly at the idea lab earlier in the year and was told that, regarding a change to this specific interface message, altering these strings will affect all pages. This change has to be very carefully considered. So here's a concrete proposal to change it. Will "Your talk page comment" make sense in all contexts where this string is displayed, and would we agree that it was an improvement on "Description"? Belbury (talk) 14:06, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We can certainly improve on "description", and "Your talk page comment" would be such an improvement although I am not immediately certain it is the best we can do - especially if this appears anywhere other than talk pages? Perhaps something as simple as "Your message" would work? Thryduulf (talk) 14:13, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think our motivation behind keeping it so aggressively-generic was that we weren't sure what places were using the "new section" form that this takes over, and we wanted to avoid something like "start a new discussion thread" as being too specific to only talk-page workflows. (The thing to watch out for is places outside the talk namespaces, that use __NEWSECTIONLINK__ to get that behavior...) DLynch (WMF) (talk) 17:12, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thryduulf, oops, looks like the URL contained NEWSECTIONLINK, which caused it to be parsed as the prop and not as a URL. I've edited it to add "deletethis" — follow the link and delete those words and then it'll work, or just use Anomie's better method below. Sdkbtalk02:20, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know how to use the API or run db queries, but the special page worked. I've not got time right now to look in detail, but that reports there are a lot more uses in non-talk namespaces than I expected:
Many of these are going to be appropriate (e.g. on this page, the portal page titles suggest they are nomination spaces) but I wonder especially about the articles. Thryduulf (talk) 02:17, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect the articles will turn out to be either vandals being weird or people not knowing what stuff does and throwing a bunch of magic words on the page trying to get Google to index a new article. Of the handful I spot-checked, I saw one that seems like the former and a bunch that seem like the latter. Anomie⚔02:36, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There were 9 remaining in article space, all redirects. I have removed them, along with other code. It seems it was often added with other magic words in a group (eg.), so perhaps your second theory, although I wonder where the collection of magic words is found. CMD (talk) 20:49, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is a smart suggestion; thanks for raising, Belbury! I'm inclined to support "Your message" for conciseness and to be on the safe side given Thryduulf's concern that it might be used outside of talk pages. Sdkbtalk15:15, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the idea, but would be inclined to suggest "Your comment", given that "Your message" might still be mistaken for a ChatGPT/Google/etc. prompt query. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:06, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Your comment". Just based on widespread, almost universal Wikipedia terminology. Messages are for emails and texts—things that are sent, not posted. ―Mandruss☎18:22, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the ping, @Sdkb. And thank you, @Belbury for prompting us to reconsider this message.
Generic enough to be helpful in the range of contexts it will ultimately appear
With the above in mind, what do you all think about starting with something a bit more specific like, Topic description and seeing if/how that proves effective? From there, we can consider whether further iteration is needed.
Meta: I feel moved to say: it's a delight to work on a project with folks like you all who consistently pay close attention to details of this sort in service of improving peoples' experiences contributing to our mission. Thank you to @NAyoub (WMF) for reminding the Editing Team of this point when discussing this offline earlier today ^ _ ^ PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 17:56, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I like the idea, we can start with this! I still fear Topic description might still be a bit too abstract in a way, as it doesn't really indicate that the "description" corresponds to the message that will be posted on the page. Nonetheless, definitely an improvement over what we currently have. And yes, fully agree that details like this are much more important than people realize, happy to see the WMF team on board with this too! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:03, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with ChaoticEnby about being too abstract. To me, "description" is meta; it's about something but isn't the thing itself. Your message or Your comment or even Your post are less confusing. Schazjmd(talk)18:17, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Schazjmd that "description" is meta; it's about something but isn't the thing itself. - it's a better fit for the edit summary than the main substance. An exception might be if it was paired with "Title" but then I'd be expecting a third box in which to post the details. Thryduulf (talk) 18:34, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the response! The range of contexts where the message appears is definitely key to any decision here, so it would be good to establish for sure what that range is. The Special:Pageswithprop search above shows that the __NEWSECTIONLINK__ magic word (which causes the "Add topic" tab to appear, creating a Subject/Description box when clicked) is being used across various different types of non-talk page, which seem to break down into:
Pages of sequential, titled conversations which are effectively functioning as talk pages (like Wikipedia:SVG help, Help:Books/Feedback), where a string of "your comment/message" would still work.
There's also some unusual niche usage of the magic word to, I assume, create a handy shortcut for starting a new section on a log-type user page (User:Fabrickator/questionable edits).
Should the second and third cases be something to bear in mind when crafting a message, or can they be regarded as misuse of the __NEWSECTIONLINK__ magic word, and not something to worry about?
And are there any other places in Wikipedia where the discussiontools-replywidget-placeholder-newtopic "Description" string would appear, unrelated to __NEWSECTIONLINK__ magic word? Belbury (talk) 18:53, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Those second/third cases are definitely the sort that we were concerned about when introducing the tool -- we thought that if we came in and took over the existing section=new behavior, we'd wind up stepping on the toes of people who had built up workflows around it (or at least, would be surprised by us auto-signing things). To that end we have a bunch of checks that determine when we actually take over from the old tool...
Summarizing here from the code that spells out whether following the ?section=new link on a page should open the new topic tool:
It must be an edit page (action=edit or veaction=edit) with section=new
It must either not be using any preloads (editintro, preload, etc) or have opted in via adding the `dtpreload` parameter to the URL
It mustn't be trying to preview / switch from some external tool via having posted a field named `wpTextbox1`
Then the new topic tool must be enabled for that page in general, meaning the URL has `dtenable=1` as a parameter OR
It's a wikitext content-model page (but not liquid threads)
It doesn't have the NOTALK or ARCHIVEDTALK magic words
It's in a namespage that wants signatures (any talk namespace, or $wgExtraSignatureNamespaces), or it has the NEWSECTIONLINK magic word
Finally, it must be available to the user, which is a combination of "turned on for that wiki" and the user actually having it turned on in preferences (Editing > Enable quick topic adding).
So! All that adds up to the challenging-to-search for part: pages in wants-signature namespaces that don't have NEWSECTIONLINK (we can probably assume that anything in an actual talk namespace is either really talk or won't be too offended if someone assumed it was), but which are somehow linking to the section=new tool as part of some on-page flow, perhaps even using the preload parameters so the user can fill out a form-template. Here on enwiki the extra signature namespaces are just Wikipedia (NS_PROJECT) and Help (NS_HELP) -- the question's much trickier if we were talking about some discussion/coordination focused wikis (mediawiki.org, metawiki, etc) which have their main namespace as an extra signature namespace.
For instance, if you follow this link to AfD with the right url parameters you'll get the new topic form, even though it doesn't have NEWSECTIONLINK. This is obviously not the way to interact with AfD specifically, but you can imagine some other process-page that does work this way...
That said, I think there's a fair extent to which "how should these process pages and magic words work?" is a community question. Our default message choices were kinda based around not wanting to cut off options / break existing processes, particularly since they had to fit more than just a single wiki, and I think (not having talked to Product about it) that we wouldn't want to drift too far away from that for the default... but a particular wiki wanting to tighten it up seems fine, so long as you're aware of the trade-offs. DLynch (WMF) (talk) 20:13, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, separately from the question of exactly how talk-specific it should be, I agree that we might want to tweak the generic-default over to something a little more indicative of "this is the body-text of a message"... DLynch (WMF) (talk) 20:30, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It will need a fine-toothed comb to find any "existing processes" that are deliberately using __NEWSECTIONLINK__ in a way that would conflict with a change to referring to the text as a "comment". But from a superficial look through the Wikipedia and User namespace usages (where the pages aren't structured as any kind of signed log or conversation), the existing processes that I can find do just appear to be using the magic word in error, for whatever reason - none of the pages appear to need or use their "Add a topic" tab to create new, sequential non-talk sections.
Making those already-non-standard pages a little more cryptic seems a very small trade-off for the benefit of every talk page on Wikipedia clearer to new users. Belbury (talk) 13:23, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Deploying Edit Check on this wiki
While attending Wikimania this year, Selena Deckelmann (User:SDeckelmann-WMF) demonstrated a new feature for Visual Editor, Edit Check in a session. Edit check introduces additional prompts in Visual Editor when an editor tries to insert a blacklisted URL as reference and also when they try to publish a revision without inserting a reference. This greatly helps with encouraging editors inserting references in their edits. If I recall correctly, the percentage of editors inserting references increased from 11% to 40% in their tests (do correct me if I am wrong as I am going off on my recollection).see #What's next? for corrected stats
There is certainly some benefits in enabling this, primarily on improving the verifiability and reliability of content that's on English Wikipedia. Most of the sister projects have already been deployed with this feature. English Wikipedia does not have this feature enabled yet. The only thing that is holding back this feature is that Visual Editor is not set as the default editor for anonymous and new editors.
Therefore, I would like to propose that:
Visual Editor be the default editor for anonymous and new editors.
The last time I checked, new editors are presented with a pop-up box that asks them to choose which editor they'd like to use, with the solid blue button pushing them a bit toward the VisualEditor.
This thread is rather underdeveloped. For a proposal of this magnitude, I think we should figure out relevant factual questions (like what the current default is) and then draw up a more formal survey that could be CENT-listed, etc. Sdkbtalk19:05, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Another question is how does it work with edits that don't need references adding (e.g. creating redirects, adding links on disambiguation pages, fixing spellings, etc)? Thryduulf (talk) 19:08, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In theory, this sounds like a great idea. I'm eager to try it out, but I think a first step would be to make it available as an opt-in on enwiki. Then after people have got some experience with it, let's come back and talk about making it the default. RoySmith(talk)20:09, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There's a simpler option for userscripts that should work: window.MWVE_FORCE_EDIT_CHECK_ENABLED=true;
So long as that's there before VE loads, it should force you to have edit check. Either method also bypasses the account restrictions on edit check, so you're not quite getting the pure experience that people would if we just turned it on for enwiki. By default it only shows up for new users (defined as under 100 edits), and someone might want to edit the configuration on-wiki for that. DLynch (WMF) (talk) 21:26, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The add-reference check is very conservative currently. You need to be a user with less than 100 edits who has added a whole new paragraph of at least 50 characters (configurable per-wiki) that contains no references before it'll pop up. This can all be loosened up in the future, whether by default or through community configuration, but we figured that those criteria had pretty low odds of being a false positive to start with.
It's quite interesting that this boosts the percentages so much, because I honestly thought that complete new-editors would be doing far more minor edits. But no, major new blocks of text are pretty popular.
It's actually turned on with the reference check everywhere but 8 of the wikipedias (bn, de, en, hi, id, nl, pl, ru), so it's pretty easy to try it out on another wiki if you don't want to jump through userscript hoops here. DLynch (WMF) (talk) 21:34, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure where ReplyTool will put this, but nothing I'm seeing in the documentation requires VE to be the default editing interface in order to deploy the new tool. So deployment doesn't seem contingent upon answering the larger question of whether VE should be default. Folly Mox (talk) 22:17, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Unless things have changed in the last year, it doesn't need it to be the default, but editor does need to be in the visual editor, and that's somewhat more likely to happen (especially for the editor's first edit) when the visual editor is the default. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:29, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The functionality is targeted towards new editors and anonymous editors, therefore the need for Visual Editor to be the default before the deployment of the functionality is considered complete. Also there are on wiki configuration options that we may want to adjust. As stated by Dlynch (WMF) above, the tool is configured by default for an user with less than 100 edits and making revisions of more than 50 characters. – robertsky (talk) 04:15, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Minor quibble: enwiki has already got the prompts about blacklisted URLs for references/links. We rolled those out everywhere on the logic that any edits involving them were going to get blocked-on-save anyway so it wasn't going to disrupt any workflows. :D
It's a bit fuzzy because we called the project "Edit check", and we're developing a specific system called edit check (of which the "add reference" check is the first example), but we're also doing smaller edit-enhancement features along the way that colloquially get called checks just because of the project.
Conduct a thorough analysis of the potential consequences of setting Visual Editor as the default for anonymous and new users. Consider factors such as user experience, editor retention, and overall editing patterns. If making Visual Editor the default is not feasible, investigate other strategies to increase Edit Check adoption. This could include targeted outreach to experienced editors, promoting the feature through in-editor messages, or developing incentives for reference usage. Regardless of the chosen approach, it's essential to closely monitor the impact of Edit Check on reference usage and article quality. This data will be crucial for refining the feature and measuring its overall effectiveness.
I'd support making Visual Editor the default, as long as they also leave wikitext editing as an option (which I'm sure they will). VE is much better nowadays than when it was first released. As a WYSIWYG editor, I suspect it is much more new editor friendly. It is unarguably better at things such as automatic citation generation and table editing (adding and removing columns and rows, moving columns and rows around). And for the few things it is bad at (such as complicated template syntax), power users can just switch to wikitext editing. Any logged in user can select their default at Special:Preferences (under "Editing mode"). –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:47, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I totally agree that VE should be the default for new users. I use VE every day, and it's just fine for most stuff, and getting better incrementally. Folks who think VE should not be the default should go to edit-a-thons and try teaching new users. 20 years ago, wiki-markup was the new hotness and was miles ahead of editing raw HTML. Today it's just a barrier to entry for potential new editors. RoySmith(talk)12:24, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
When I first edited English Wikipedia as an IP editor, I found WikiText editing very difficult to understand. I’m sure that most new IP editors face this issue. I strongly support making the Visual Editor the default. New IP editors are often unfamiliar with Wikipedia and may not know how to cite a reference using the WikiText editor. They may also not know how to switch to Visual Editing. Frankly, I still have to check the preview before publishing edits using the WikiText editor because I sometimes make mistakes. GrabUp - Talk11:08, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Potentially minor bugbear alert: The visual editor reference creator still hasn't figured out the basic functionality of allowing for an easily accessed and obvious use of an |author= field, instead forcing all authors into |last and |first. It's not a groundbreaking issue, but it's really disappointing that it's still around after so long, especially given the many words given over the years about attracting more diverse perspectives etc. The default reference tool that we are going to create a pop up asking all new editors to use should allow for sources from authors whose names don't fit into the common European name format. It may be hidden behind an additional field button, but at least the wikitext reference creator has the option. CMD (talk) 12:10, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My biggest bugbear is the lack of ability to set a reference name. For example in this edit I switched from visual to source editing so I could reuse citations between prose and infobox. Although admittedly this is not something a brand new editor wants to do, being able to set a name other than ":0", ":1", etc would be rather handy. Thryduulf (talk) 12:28, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is naming references a policy? Or is it something you consider useful? I don't edit the code. I just reuse citations when I need them, directly from the citation insertion menu. Very convinient. 37.169.50.102 (talk) 12:52, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I mostly work in VE; I'm not personally bothered by the opaque names (i.e. ":0") that VE invents because I never see them. But many people work in wikitext, where having human-friendly names is important. So, I agree that improving support for reference naming should be a high priority. RoySmith(talk)12:57, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I just went looking, and I don't see a Phab ticket for this. I was a bit surprised there was no ticket, but then I thought about it a bit more. It's probably hard to come up with a wiki-agnostic way to generate good citation names. You'd have to program it with something very enwiki specific to get it to read our unique citation templates then extract the author last name and year from them. User:Nardog/RefRenamer is a good workaround though. –Novem Linguae (talk) 13:14, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I thought we were talking about auto-generating good names. Those tickets are for something else. Maybe I am misreading this subsection though. Apologies if we are not actually talking about auto-generating good reference names. –Novem Linguae (talk) 13:20, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
When copy pasting named references to another page, you get false matches that are not obvious. If automatic named references were more unique (slugified title) this false collision would happen less often. I am all for hiding/abstract workflows where needed. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 13:03, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
All programmers should read Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names, and then re-read it every few years to refresh their memory. People who design database schemas should re-read it every time they start a new project. I agree that it's not a showstopper for our purposes, but it is a surprising lack of cultural sensitivity from an organization which is so into i18n.
For me, the biggest bugbear is that there's no good way to convert a {{cite web}} into another template without basically starting from scratch. It really should be smart enough to figure out that if {{cite web}} has a "first=" field, it can safely map that into {{cite news}}'s "first=" and so on. It won't be perfect, but it'll get you most of the way there. RoySmith(talk)12:57, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Chipmunkdavis @RoySmith Visual editor follows the definition of the template parameters at Template:Cite web#TemplateData (and so on for other cite templates). I think the developers would also wish that you didn't require the name to be split into two fields; it's a chore to fill it out this way. If you think this can be changed, please edit it there. Matma Rextalk13:58, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Matma Rex you are entirely correct that VE gets its field definitions from the templates. The first part of my comment about first_name/last_name ethnocentricity applies equally well to template writers.
But, the part about being able to convert one type of citation to another really is a VE issue. The "automatic" feature of the VE template editor is very handy, but it often can't intuit the proper type of template (that's not VE's fault) and falls back to using {{cite web}}. It would be really handy if you could say, "Please make that into {{cite news}}, and do the best job you can converting the fields". RoySmith(talk)14:38, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
|author= is already present in the existing template parameters, even if just as an alias of |last. Not presenting the alias in VE is a choice of VE, the buck should not just be passed to blindly following a particular table. CMD (talk) 14:56, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It might be controlled by the WP:TEMPLATEDATA in something like Template:Cite/doc. I think VE reads the template data to determine the parameters it displays. If a parameter is omitted or set as hidden, perhaps it is not displayed. Not 100% sure but that is probably worth checking. –Novem Linguae (talk) 15:08, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Assuming it is, then it would be really useful to have some statistics of how often VE (I know, I should really be saying Citoid or Zotero, or something else, but I'll just keep saying VE because that's what the end user sees) gets it wrong. I'm not entirely sure how we would define "gets it wrong", but a first pass might be "VE initially calls it {{cite web}} which is later corrected to a different {{cite xxx}} variant". Some of that might require instrumentation inside VE to detect when the user abandons a constructed citation before saving it. Some of it might require analyzing revisions to the page to see when template types are corrected after the fact. But let's assume one way or another, we could build a log of incorrect categorizations.
Then what we would do is take the full log of these reports, group them by top-level domain, and sort by frequency. If it came out that "bxtimes.com" was the most frequently domain which got mis-categorized, then it would be the highest priority for a human to go figure out how to fix and add that knowledge to the VE (Citoid? zotero?) database. After enough iterations of fixing the highest priority ones, we'd end up with a better system. If (total SWAG here) we could find the 100 top problems that accounted for 50% of the total errors, with a very small amount of human work to fix them, we could have a major win.
It sounds like a reasonable stab at the misassignment-of-citation-templates issue.
Caveat up front: I'm a developer, but I've never actually touched the internals of Citoid+Zotero, so I might be wrong about details here. That said, I believe you're right that the classification part happens entirely in Zotero, and further that if you want to teach Zotero about how to classify a new site there's some guidelines we have for that over on mediawiki.org. This coming from Zotero is also why we have vastly more classifications than we actually use on-wiki -- check out the mapping for that.
It's possible that some of the incorrect template-usage you see could be at the level of those mappings, as well -- I note that the `statute` type is just hooked up to the generic `Citation` rather than to {{Cite_act}}, for instance, though that's probably far from the most common one to need.
As for the specifics of working that list-of-sources out...
We do have some instrumentation inside VE already that could probably be looked at to work out how often someone gets all the way to the "presented with a citation-template" step and then abandons it, which would give us an okay up-front guess at the rate where something is wrong with the generated citation. Ignoring the question of other types of failure for now, the next problem is that our VE usage-instrumentation is carefully ignorant of content for privacy reasons, so it doesn't know anything about what URL was looked up when that happened. Looking for revisions which consist of just a citation template being replaced with a different citation template sounds doable, albeit slow.
I wonder if we could approach it another way. Assuming that Zotero has some internal logging of the translator it used when we make a request to it, or that it can be persuaded to tell Citoid this, we could perhaps add some logging for requests that fall back to the default-translator for unknown pages. That's not a perfect match for the misclassifications, but it's much easier to find. It does leave out cases where the translator exists but is getting it wrong, of course. DLynch (WMF) (talk) 01:46, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
it doesn't know anything about what URL was looked up when that happened does it know/track what type of template it chose? If so we can possibly work out what proportion of e.g. cite-news vs cite-web generations were abandoned? I don't think, ottomh, there would be any privacy issues with that? Thryduulf (talk) 01:53, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately not. All it tracks is that a citoid request happened, and then either that the "insert" button was chosen or that something was done to move away from the citoid results list. It doesn't even track what type was chosen if you go to the "manual" tab and explicitly pick one of the templates listed there.
I do agree it seems very unlikely to be a privacy issue. I mostly mentioned that was the guiding principle to explain why the case for so many questions like this turns out to be "we never needed this actually-very-innocuous content-related data before, so we weren't collecting it". DLynch (WMF) (talk) 02:09, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Superb Owl has been maintaining a table of domain names where mw:Citoid has trouble producing a correct citation at User:Superb Owl/Community Wishlist § Automatic Citation Tool. As I understand it, Citoid's problems are partially due to how it scrapes target pages, and if domains are not putting all the information we need in <meta> tags then our only recourse is to improve Zotero translators directly.However, Citoid is understandably geared towards internationalisation and extension to all Wikimedia projects. En.wp has a considerably more complicated / sophisticated / mature citation framework than probably anywhere else. Little things like an automated citation using {{cite web}} instead of {{cite news}} or {{cite periodical}} don't bother me: User:Citation bot converts these, and the only template type it really struggles with is conversion to {{cite book}}, which has a pretty different parameter set.What does bother me about the automated citations output by the Visual Editor (apart from all the <ref name=":0">) is how often it just dumps out obviously incorrect information with no message to the user. Things like |last=B.C. |first=Sima, Qian, approximately 145 B.C.-approximately 86 (1); |last=Company |first=Rand McNally and (2); |last=Feb. 1 |first=the Office of Communications on |last2=2019 |last3=P.m |first3=3:06 (3); |last=à 00h00 |first=Par Le 2 avril 2008 (4); |first=Government of Canada National Research Council|last=Canada (5), etc, etc, etc, bonus consequence.A few days ago, I floated the idea to add a layer of error-checking into the VE citation generation interface. That's really all we need, I think. It shouldn't be the responsibility of WMF staff to ensure that every citation generated by their tools somehow makes sense for our project. But if there could just be one extra step for editors using the interface, where they could see the errors their automated citations are causing our community-maintained modules to throw, maybe they'd take the steps necessary to compare the output against the source and correct the problems before publishing.This won't fix every problem, obviously: algorithmically generated citations are only perfect when they draw on structured metadata that maps properly and completely onto our template parameters. But being able to get feedback during the edit should help editors in the VE environment clean up some of their own messes before they hit mainspace, unreviewed at the bottom of the article. Folly Mox (talk) 12:37, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@RoySmith, @DLynch (WMF), @Folly Mox, speaking from experience from creating Zotero translators for a couple websites that I frequently use for citations, errors like this are more often than not a byproduct of missing specific Zotero translator rather than anything else. The default translator will interpret og:type = article as itemType = 'webpage', therefore citiod will use {{Cite web}}. This is unfortunate as even in the default translator's own test cases, vox.com is expected to return as 'webpage' for itemType. However, I would agree with this output, as in Open Graph Protocol, the last object type specified is 'article', and I am assuming that that's the fallback for Facebook as Facebook would use the embedded preview for articles if there's no og:type in the header (i.e. Facebook debugger on wikimedia.sg).
Therefore, what's needed to be done is to either have another translation layer on citiod to map generated citations from identified websites to use {{Cite news}} instead of {{Cite web}}, or write a specific translator for bxmedia.com, or investigate if the default translator in Zotero can be extended further so that the rework for specific websites can be minimal. – robertsky (talk) 18:16, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, passing Citoid's output directly to Citation bot before returning it to the editing interface – one specific implementation of another translation layer – sounds like a minimally effortful solution using tools already deployed and currently maintained. Citation bot doesn't fix everything (and breaks some things) but it usually does a good job in selecting which template type to apply to a citation, and in mapping data to appropriate parameters. Folly Mox (talk) 18:35, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. I have it enabled as an user script. It just won the Coolest Tool Award for improving the quality of edits. While I appreciate the work there, I also wish there is an easy way to translate the JSON files to Zotero translator format so that the work can be enjoyed by those who cannot use it out of the box on Wikipedia and everyone else who is using Zotero in general. – robertsky (talk) 08:36, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
65, I had heard of that tool, but wasn't previously aware of its functionality. It looks like a great idea, but for the fact that it is presented as an option to Citoid's output rather than a replacement of it (community generated translators for domains Citoid struggles with should – by definition – always be superior).I'm not interested in apportioning blame for Citoid's output: generalised parsing of html meta elements across the entire set of domains is a hard problem and a big task, with a lot of people involved in every step. But it remains true that for a significant portion of domains lacking structured metadata, Citoid's output ranges from suboptimal to unusable.Any additional translation layer that can be configured by the community would be superior to none, and that functionality should exist in Visual Editor so as to improve the quality of citations generated and reduce the maintenance burden shouldered by script maintainers and experienced editors on this project. Folly Mox (talk) 11:29, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Please post corresponding Phabricator tickets for all mentioned "bugbears". 1) Having tickets for these things and 2) making noise in them is the best way to move these fixes forward. –Novem Linguae (talk) 14:31, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks all who have participated in the discussion above. I wil admit that this is my first time opening a proposal. Apologies if it is lacking in some details. While early, it seems that at this juncture, there a large support among the participants to have Edit Check deployed and/or Visual Editor be set as the default editor, keeping in mind that there are still some bugbears, or wishes to have some citations related issues resolved (honestly, I think belongs to another thread, but I appreciate the discussion nonetheless). I would like help in bringing this proposal to the next step of having it as a CENT discussion, be it by opening another thread/discussion here or elseswhere, or reformating the current one.
Impact report
In the opening, I presented a wrong statistics from the test that the product team conducted. Upon further check, I found the impact report on reference checks. Short of reproducing the whole report, these are the key numbers:
The number of constructive edits from newcomers increased from 19% to 42% (2.2 times more. As defined by newcomers with less than 100 edits and not reverted within 48 hours).
Breaking down the above number, this is consistent across all wikis with the test on. And on mobile, the increase was 4.2 times more.
Contributors that are shown Reference Check and successfully save a non-reverted edit are 16 percent more likely to return to make a non-reverted edit in their second month (31-60 days after).
10% decrease in edit completion rate for edits where Reference Check was shown
1.8% false nagative
6.6% false positive
From the report, we can see that Edit Check, in particular the Reference Check functionality, helps with improving the content contribution of newcomers and helps to improve the retention of newcomers as well. The 6.6% false postive rate may be a concern, but in my opinion, a minor one. Details from the report indicates that some of the dismissal is essentially WP:SKYISBLUE. Additionally, further finetuning of the configuration for the Reference Check may be made as well to attempt to reduce the false postive rate.
Questions asked
The following are some questions and answers summarised from above (feel free to add more):
Qn: Is Visual Editor is the default editor for newcomers on enwiki?
No. Newcomers are presented with an option to use Visual Editor upon first edit. Declining it will let editors to use source editors instead.
Qn: how does it work with edits that don't need references adding (e.g. creating redirects, adding links on disambiguation pages, fixing spellings, etc)?
The default configuration of needing 50 characters or more before the Reference Check kicks in means that most of the edits asked in the question will not have the Reference Check triggered. Further more, it is for newcomers with <100 edits, therefore it won't be presented to a majority of registered editors.
Qn: Must Visual Editor be the default editor for this to be deployed?
While the functionality is available through a JavaScript switch or through a query parameter, Edit Check is meant for newcomers. If it is not set as default editor, the effacies of Edit Check will definitely be reduced.
Having the user pick whether they want to use visual editor or wikitext editor their first time editing a page (the status quo) seems reasonable and it wouldn't hurt to leave that alone. Perhaps we should just RFC deploying edit check, and leave the visual editor issue alone? The two issues don't seem as strongly linked as I first thought. –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:16, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If Edit Check can be deployed without changing the default or not status of VE, it would probably sail through any approval process. If it works, then later someone will be able to pull up stats saying "New editors using VE put references in 80% of their edits but those using wikitext only put them in 15%" or similar to inform that second issue. CMD (talk) 06:45, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I should also add that the other target audience is anonymous editors. Right now the experience is as screenshot. This may be a subpar outcome for Edit Check if the primary CTA button is 'Start editing', and the anon/new editors continue to edit in source editor.
As for the statistics of how many new editors are using Visual Editor now, this is one which Foundation staff can help to answer since we do not have the access to user data. – robertsky (talk) 09:54, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That information could be gleaned from an appropriate query, since Visual Editor tags its edits. quarry:query/84486 has the first edit for accounts registered in the first half of 2024; something similar and significantly less complicated could probably check for the "Visual Edit" tag. It would be a bit more difficult to include unregistered editors, but a basic usage ratio should be possible to estimate using public data. Folly Mox (talk) 10:32, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@DLynch (WMF), I believe these stats are on a Superset dashboard. Can you pull them? If memory serves, there's one query for the first five edits and another for the first 100, but I don't know if one is set up for the first edit alone. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:40, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Edit check will work the same way for VE editors whether or not VE is default. Either way, any usage stats will be within VE users. The message given to anonymous editors who click edit, and the default or not use of VE, do not affect Edit check outside of absolute usage numbers. Generally for new features we have adopted small trials rather than immediate maximal pushses, so in that respect the current VE setup is more a benefit than an issue. CMD (talk) 11:42, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Chipmunkdavis, if the community thinks that an intermediate step to trial out this among the newcomers who enable Visual Editor first is required, we should explore the idea. This may simply mean that window.MWVE_FORCE_EDIT_CHECK_ENABLED=true; or the query parameter should be set in MediaWiki:Common.js (and maybe MediaWiki:Mobile.js as well), of course with account restriction criteria being set to limit the force enablement to newcomers of <100 edits.
letuserEC=mw.config.values.wgUserEditCount// wgUserEditCount: null for anon editors and non null value for registered editorsif(userEC===null||(userEC!==null&&userEC<100){window.MWVE_FORCE_EDIT_CHECK_ENABLED=true;}
I don't see how enabling edit check is an intermediate step, unless the plan is to later expand it to <500 or <1000 edits? CMD (talk) 03:42, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It is intermediate step to see if Edit Check on enwiki does encourage an uplift in new/anon editors who are using VE adding content with references. Dependent on the result, we then can determine if it is beneficial to have VE to be the default editor with respect to Edit Check. – robertsky (talk) 05:30, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Robertsky: respectfully, I understand you've personally operationalized Edit Check deployment as involving making VE the default (which it may be recalled I thought was already the case), but these are two separate things. Linking them muddies the proposal and gives the impression of an agenda.I'd love for Edit Check to be enabled on this project, not necessarily for the initial check of adding a reference to a chunk of sufficiently long text (which sounds like a fuzzy test), but for all the stretch goals we could add to it for giving immediate feedback about identified categories of problem edits.Very little opposition should be expected if you disentangle all the Visual Editor stuff from this proposal, and if you wait until more kinds of checks are implemented – the kinds that save experienced editors from making the same kinds of corrections to newbie mistakes over and over – I think you'll see strong support for making Visual Editor the default when that separate question is revisited sometime down the line. Folly Mox (talk) 10:47, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Folly Mox you are mistaken that I am involved in the operationalizing of Edit Check with VE. I simply come across the feature and think that it is a good idea to have it enabled. Of course, there is also a strong desire to set VE as the default, but I am pragmatic. The immediate personal aim is to have Edit Check enabled and then we see if it is really beneficial for the English community. – robertsky (talk) 14:21, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I must not know how to use the word operationalized correctly, which is actually something of a relief 🙃 I was trying to describe a comment of yours above where you explained the need for Visual Editor to be the default before the deployment of the functionality is considered complete. Anyway, glad you're embracing the stepwise pragmatism. Should be an easy pass for the simpler "enable Edit Check" proposal. Often mistaken, Folly Mox (talk) 17:58, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The likelihood that newcomers will include a reference the next time they add new content
And while we are confident that enabling the visual editor by default for people who are new will have a net positive impact on volunteers across experience levels, the idea @RoySmith, @FollyMox, and @Whatamidoing raised about decoupling the decisions to enable the Reference Check and VE for newcomers and people who are logged out seems wise. [i][ii]
Reason being: doing so, as I think @CMDput well, seems like a relatively lightweight and low-risk way for us to work together to:
Further, as @CMD, @Thryduulf, @RoySmith, @Novem Linguae, @Shushugah, @Folly Mox have mentioned [iv][v][vi][vii][viii][ix], it sounds like there are some facets of the reference experience that would be worth us talking together in more detail about.
The Link Check evaluates all external domains people attempt to link to against the globally-defined meta:Spam_blacklist and the locally defined, en:MediaWiki:BlockedExternalDomains.json and MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist lists.
The Reference Reliability Checks evaluates the references people attempt to cite against the same local and global lists mentioned above.
Zooming out, I think you all are in the best position to decide what you think the most effective deployment sequence here is. And please know: the Editing Team is ready to support you in what you decide.
Alright, I think this is a good place for me to pause.
Please ping me as new questions about Edit Check and/or VE emerge so that I, or another member of the Editing Team, can try to help.
In the meantime, we're going to continue following this conversation and will chime in when we think there is helpful information we can offer.
iii. We'll be able to filter Special:RecentChanges for edits made with Reference Check. You can see this in action at wikis like fr.wiki, es.wiki, and ar.wiki where Edit Check is already enabled.
x. Please boldly add tickets/issues as you see fit
xi. There is an open task the Editing Team will soon address to ensure each time the Link and Reference Reliability Checks are activated, a log entry is recorded in Special:Log/spamblacklistPPelberg (WMF) (talk) 21:11, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Robertsky, hi – would it be accurate for me to understand you as asking the following questions?
What steps would we (volunteers) need to take to activate the Reference Check at en.wiki?
How might we (volunteers) go about configuring the Reference Check? E.g. whose edits has the potential to activate Edit Check, where references are placed (before/after periods), the sections Reference Check should ignore edits to, etc.
Assuming the above are accurate, to activate reference check at en.wiki you all would need to:
Ask us to turn it on
Adjust the configuration on-wiki to reflect your preferences (e.g. example of frwiki’s ignoreSections)
And the Editing Team would need to then deploy a configuration-change patch to enable Reference Check on en.wiki.
Call me wary for a number of reasons. First off is the false claim (also posted at the linked Mediawiki page) that Visual Editor must be the default to deploy this, or the later made implication that it makes no sense to deploy this without making VE the default. If these are coupled in this way, with the bigger change used as a prerequisite for the smaller one, then it is a hard no.
Then there is my last (in a long line) experience with a tool that had been tested or even deployed elsewhere, and worked oh so well (makes me thing of Flow, may it rest in peace). A year ago, we were asked to help with a new tool for the Android App[7]. We were told that "During initial evaluation of the model, it was preferred more than 50% of the time over human generated article descriptions. Additionally, Descartes held a 91.3% accuracy rate in testing." and that it had been succesfully been tested in 15 languages already. When we actually tested, it turned out to be very, very buggy and not usable at all. The result was that in August they posted "We’ve officially received grades for all languages and are now finalizing analysis. We will share the outcomes in next month’s update as well as our recommendations for next steps based on the experiment." and then crickets. So from an A/B tested in 15 languages, successful tool with 91.3% accuracy rate to an abandoned project after one short test by enwiki.
And then I tried to test this new tool here. I added a paragraph of text without a source, published, and got the "add reference" pop-up. Choose "yes", got presented with the automatic reference option by adding a title, typed "Lord of the Rings", no luck, so tried "manual". Click on "Book", and get "thank you for adding a citation!" even though no citation is added. Same result if I manually try to add a website or anything. Perhaps it works in real life, perhaps not, but this certainly doesn't give much confidence. Fram (talk) 13:39, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Fram You may see it as a false claim, but it may simply that for the end goal of Edit Check to encourage better content submissions among all anon and newly registered editors can be met by having VE be the default editor.
Your experience in testing out new tools certainly tempers one's expectations on the viability of tools on the platform. With respect to using AI to generated short description, I would also have similar reservations (my cautious approach to/use of AI is known), and still I have to say that it is an unfair comparison given that we are not expecting 91.3% of the new editors to give references. The A/B test in the impact report shows a more modest uplift of ~x2 inputs. Of course, further detailed analysis on a roll-out (in whatever form) on a trial basis can be made if we can tap on the existing tags (i.e. possible unreferenced addition to BLP) or edit filters or even sorting through the raw data.
With respect to the patchdemo wiki, maybe a more updated wiki mirrors better the current real world setup? The demo was generated back in June 2023, more than a year ago. I would have expected bugs and issues between then and now. Furthermore, it might be a patchdemo for limited use? i.e. to show partially the progress of the work? When testing directly on here in enwiki (until before publishing the edit), the reference are being added as a citation be it automatic or manual mode. – robertsky (talk) 19:05, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If you insist that statements that VE must be made the default for this isn't a false claim, then I think we're done discussing this. And I see no reason to trust the WMF on any test results, considering that coincidentally just now they posted the results of that other software thing I mentioned above:
" By the time most of you provided feedback the experiment was already completed, and we already received support from some of your fellow experienced editors of English Wikipedia ". Yeah, right, like you posted in the "January update" which you posted in, er, August. And which is completely unverifiable, is based on a very small number of edits apparently by unknown "experienced" editors. They claim on that page that "If users that see the treatment do not select a suggestion more than 50% of the time after viewing the suggestions, we will not expand the feature". Let's see:
How often were Machine Suggestions Accepted, Modified or Rejected?
Edit type
% of Total Machine Edits
Machine suggestion accepted
23.49%
Machine suggestion modified
14.49%
Machine suggestion rejected
62.02%
So why do they plan to continue with the feature anyway? Same as always, I guess, features aren't abandonded no matter how bad, no matter which promises were made, until after (usually) enwiki or dewiki find out how bad they really are, and even then only after an unnecessary, unwanted clash with WMF has been had and mutual distrust gets cemented for another 10 years. So yes, I don't trust WMF test results, I don't trust WMF promises, I don't trust WMF false claims and those defending them, and I don't support a rollout of such features without much better, verifiable (by us) testing or with added "requirements" which aren't needed but pushed by the WMF anyway. Fram (talk) 08:41, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't support a rollout of such features without much better, verifiable (by us) testing sure. let's test Edit Check out, as what I have said in my previous replies to others. – robertsky (talk) 16:43, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Let's test it by first providing us with a correct test environment. Sending editors to a test environment which doesn't reflect the actual environment is useless. Step 1: test if it is technically working. This should happen on a testwiki, not a live wiki. This is not an unnecessary step, there have been too many rollouts of supposedly ready new software addons which turned out to be very, very buggy and were not at the beta-stage but at some pre-alpha stage. Step 2: after approval from enwiki, do a limited test on enwiki completely reviewable by editors here, not a test where we just have to believe the results in good faith, and automatically shut down the test afterwards. Step 3: after approval, do a further rollout (larger test or full rollout). For this, we are not at step 1 yet. Fram (talk) 11:13, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I’ve always been disappointed that Wikipedia doesn’t offer this feature and would love for it to be put in to Wikipedia. Since we have AI around, we can easily create quiz questions on a larger scale for the most popular articles. We could start by implementing quizzes on the main page and going from there. I understand that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, but the question I came here to answer is that is it just an encyclopedia or is it more than an encyclopedia that includes features that are not just for encyclopedias as a general learning site. Britannica has something similar and I think it would be great not to copy everything it does, but have it as inspiration for creating quizzes. I would like to discuss if Wikipedia should have extra features that make the website more enjoyable rather than just reading and editing. I hope you will consider this suggestion. Interstellarity (talk) 21:33, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The NY Times runs a weekly quiz, with questions about the previous week's news stories. It's kind of fun (even if I rarely score above 50%). My guess is if you pitched this to WP:SIGNPOST they'd be happy to run it. On the other hand, there's absolutely nothing stopping you from doing it in your own userspace and announcing it on WP:VP. If people like it, they'll vote with their mouse clicks.
I'm not too on board with including quizzes and other gadgets like this, that are a pretty heavy weight to maintain (especially with having to review all the AI-generated quiz questions), while not really being encyclopedic and probably being an uncomfortable distraction for a lot of readers (including me). However, having them on the Signpost would be cool, although I don't think them being AI-generated is a good thing. On a larger scale, I'm afraid of "feature bloat" where the core thing (here, the encyclopedia) gets buried under layers of gimmicks, ultimately making it much less convenient and not necessarily more enjoyable. Adding more for the sake of adding more isn't necessarily a good thing. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 22:43, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The idea of quizzes was discussed in June 2022 and by you in March 2022. As I said in those discussions, anyone should feel free to start quizzes on a project page to establish a track record of being able to produce them regularly, and to figure out what audience exists for this feature. isaacl (talk) 04:03, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Heh, I just looked up the March 2022 discussion (which I had long since forgotten about) and discovered that I said almost exactly what I said here :-) RoySmith(talk)14:45, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't get why we need things like extensions and AI to run quizzes. Quizzes existed long before Mediawiki and AI. Just take a couple of minutes to ask a few questions each day/week/month in your user space and advertise it on one of the village pumps and/or Signpost. If the feature is popular then it can be formalised to the main page etc. Nothing will happen unless someone (most likely you) volunteers to do it. Phil Bridger (talk) 08:40, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia already has loads of extra features that make it more enjoyable, most of which are dramaboards 😉 The true "extra feature" that makes Wikipedia so great is how lightweight and on-mission it is. Even on a bad connection, on a slow device with an old browser, I can navigate to a Wikipedia article, and it will load the whole thing for me to read (certain restrictions apply).I don't have to stop the page loading before stylesheets are applied because it can't reach an advertising partner, I don't have to leave the tab open two minutes and go do something else while my phone wearily executes javascript routines, I just open the page and read the page, like how the internet used to be before it became total capitalism garbage.Any extra interactive features added to the default experience reduce our availability and usability for people on the lower end of computing resource / network infrastructure privilege. It feels important to preserve that equity.So I guess my position is: no, Wikipedia isn't just an encyclopaedia— it's also an online community; but also no, Wikipedia isn't a general pedagogical resource— it's pretty much just an encyclopaedia with an active editing community. Folly Mox (talk) 13:27, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For sure! I probably could have done a better job in selecting a qualifier than the term "general" in general pedagogical resource, or maybe should have chosen different words altogether. I was attempting to communicate my personal opinion on the OP's question on whether Wikipedia is just an encyclopedia or is it more than an encyclopedia that includes features that are not just for encyclopedias as a general learning site.Folly Mox (talk) 09:47, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, why not! It's an education website. This is something many loose track of, we are in the business of a non-profit education resource. The best way to do this is start a Project and run the quizzes in project space. Once it has a following and support, which might take years and press exposure, then consider something on the front page. -- GreenC20:37, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - this is an encyclopedia, not Facebook or TikTok. We do not need to degrade ourselves by turning ourselves into a host for social media games. --Orange Mike | Talk20:58, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi everyone, sorry for responding so late. I don't check Wikipedia as often as I used to. Unfortunately, I don't have all the time in the world to be dedicating to making the quizzes all by myself. I'd be open to suggesting ideas that will help make the quizzes better. I feel that if I had help with the quizzes rather than alone (not saying I won't contribute, but I don't to put a heavy load on my editing and my personal life), I think it would be helpful to increase the chances of it being a successful feature on the site. Interstellarity (talk) 22:50, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's not necessary for you to do all the work, if there are other interested contributors. As the one who seems most interested in the idea, though, you are a good candidate to co-ordinate the work, or even to just create some quizzes on whatever schedule is convenient for you to try to figure out what might be a sustainable way of working. isaacl (talk) 17:32, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
...and the best way to find out who could be involved is for you to start with a few questions. I'm sure you will get people saying "I wouldn't have asked that" so you can ask them what they would have asked instead, and the second quiz will already be written. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:23, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Proposal: An intermediary civility board
It would surprise most outsiders viewing our non-article space, as well as new editors, that civility is a required as a matter of policy, and is so theoretically important that it is one of the project's Five Pillars. The section on civility in the Five Pillars has an almost quaint sound to it, like something preached in church that no one actually observes. In certain project areas, a kind of "toxic workplace" atmosphere exists, in which low levels of hostility are the norm, are taken for granted, and as a practical matter are not subject to sanction.
We used to have an informal sounding board to deal with civility, WP:Wikiquette assistance. When WQA was shut down in 2012 in a discussion on this board, the community found that WQA "did more harm than good," but there was "also a consensus that there needs to be an intermediary process between the talkpage and ANI, now that WQA is closed." No such intermediary board was ever created, and as far as I can see, perhaps I missed it, but searching through the archives of this board I see no discussion of creating such a board since 2012. I think we need to revisit the topic and create an intermediary civility board. Perhaps just simply revive WQA. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 13:43, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I very much agree that something is needed to avoid the toxic workplace atmosphere while not having to drag people to ANI for every civility issue (which often creates even more drama, on top of needing a pretty high bar for some remedy to actually be enacted). Not sure whether WQA itself is the best, but we definitely need to have an intermediate process for that matter. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 13:58, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I just wanted to add (EC) that while the "more harm than good" verdict may have been correct in 2012 (personally I think it was a mistake) it would not be true today, and that an intermediary board is urgently needed if WP:CIVIL is to be taken seriously. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 14:01, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There have been discussions over the years on venues to discuss editor behaviour (such as a noticeboard focused on civility, or a return of the request for comment process for user behaviour). The most recent one I could find is Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 167 § A page to report violations of WP:Civility policy. The key question is can a process be created that avoids the pitfalls of the past processes and the incidents' noticeboard, while also being more effective. Many of those who weigh in on this matter want a process that has a feedback process without automatically enacting a sanction, but that only works when the person in question is receptive, and when unfounded inquiries can be swiftly filtered out. English Wikipedia's consensus-based decision-making traditions aren't very good for analyzing behavioural issues in a sympathetic manner: large public, unmoderated group conversations are the opposite of how most organizations provide feedback to its members. Until the English Wikipedia community is willing to look at other decision-making methods in this situation, the root problem can't be addressed. isaacl (talk) 14:57, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe we could have a group of users elected by the community to provide feedback on these issues? A sort of mini-ArbCom, but without the gravitas, that will still make the discussions more manageable. We could adopt a format similar to moderated discussion for resolving such issues. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 15:05, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Historically, the editors who like to weigh on these matters have been wary of delegating decision-making to a sub-group. An election process is additional overhead, and its results are decided by a self-selected sampling of interested editors. Editors are thus concerned that the sub-group won't adequately represent the community (and from a partisan perspective, that their viewpoint won't be adequately enforced). Personally, I think there will have to be some form of hierarchy introduced to be able to sustain a community of this size (though I think it would better to focus on managing content-related decisions more effectively, which would in turn forestall many behavioural issues, as they become losing strategies for influencing content). But it's not clear to me when the community might reach this conclusion. Moderated discussion might be a form of hierarchy to which the community is more receptive, but at present, it's still more concerned about moderation unduly restricting editors from saying whatever they want. isaacl (talk) 15:34, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Somehow" is the wildcard. Right now, a small number of vocal editors can stop actions from occurring, because the community genuinely seeks approaches that satisfy as many people as possible, in accordance with consensus. Such editors could be considering themselves as holding the line against a devolution into more biased editing, where sheer numbers of editors with an agenda are swamping a given page or topic area, or they could be the ones trying to give an outsized amount of weight to a minority view. If we can find a way to pull the content-decision out of the fray, with a result that remains in force until there are specific reasons to revisit it (*), then we can avoid re-litigating the decision endlessly, and thus remove incentive to be stubborn, aggressive, and repetitive.
But we're not talking about actions, but rather an area where the broader community can make input into specific alleged violations of WP:CIVILITY. The worst that can happen is what currently happens, which is nothing. However it gives a complainant the ability to vent their concerns about the behavior of specific editors or groups of editors. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 16:44, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It seems like this proposal, along with another proposal by Bon courage to shut down WP:DRN as ineffective and Kovcszaln6's comments in that thread, point to a need for an infernal internal forum where disputes are referred to for input by uninvolved editors with the goal of either a) quickly defusing the situation with relevant policy/guideline advice or b) referring it to a more appropriate forum or process. signed, Rosguilltalk19:37, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I used "actions" generically to mean anything that the community agrees upon. With English Wikipedia's consensus-based decision-making traditions, many editors don't want to reach an agreement on something that they know several people disagree with. Editors will even try to make accommodations for a single editor objecting.
Regarding a venue to vent, I disagree that this should be a goal of a new noticeboard. There are plenty of places for venting. The community needs effective discussion. isaacl (talk) 20:51, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Vent" was not meant to mean "venting" in the sense of "getting stuff off your chest." "Express" would have been more precise. Yes I agree that we want a mechanism that will do more than give people a place to blow off steam.
I agree with the comments above re an informal forum. I had forgotten about DRN even though I guess I used to participate, as a DRN userbox is on my user page. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 21:25, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The preceding comments seem to be about an internal forum, not an informal one. The dispute resolution noticeboard, as it states at the top, was created to resolve small disputes and help redirect to more appropriate forums. I'm not clear how a new forum with the same purpose would be more effective. isaacl (talk) 02:14, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Recreating the dispute resolution noticeboard under a different name isn't a productive use of the community's time. Ultimately, the self-selected set of editors who like to discuss behavioural issues aren't able to reach a consensus agreement on some of the situations that are raised. Moving the discussion from one central forum to another doesn't change this. Determining questions by consensus scales poorly as a group grows larger in size, and it reaches that point very quickly. Further, the way it's done on English Wikipedia, the outcome is highly dependent on who happens to participate in discussion, and so results are inconsistent. isaacl (talk) 15:36, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies; I did forget this. I do appreciate that due to there being different people willing to discuss content disputes vs behavioural disputes, a separate noticeboard would be desirable. Nonetheless, it's not clear how to avoid the ineffectiveness of the previous venues as long as the same decision-making processes are in place. isaacl (talk) 20:34, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A few thoughts:
Ask four editors to define civility, and you'll get at least five mutually incompatible answers.
The Robustness principle gets applied backwards. What it says is: Ignore the fact that the other guy is dumping profanity on you, but don't ever use profanity yourself. What we see on wiki is: "I'm allowed to use profanity, and you're not allowed to be upset about it!"
Anyone who thinks this is easy has never thought about this.
In particular, anyone who has never considered how to get two people, both upset, to agree on how to treat each other during a hot-button dispute that is important to both of them, when one of them is from a hierarchical face-saving culture and the other is from an egalitarian guilt/sin culture, probably has no idea how impossible it is. The latter person is probably insulting the first person left and right without even realizing it. Now toss in English as a second or third language (anyone else remember the Indian students trying to be friendly by saying "Hi, buddy"?).
We could impose a default culture (which actually will end up being the manners of US white-person middle-class males, no matter what anyone says or wants), but supporting and including all the cultures equally is really, really, really hard. Like "mediator charges US$1,000 an hour" hard, not "we'll all have to think nice thoughts" hard.
I have frequently seen civility arguments improperly introduced either as distraction or defense of some other impropriety, that might explain admin reluctance as well. Do you have any statistics on how many cases are not being properly pursued? Selfstudier (talk) 12:36, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If there is no incivility, an uninvolved volunteer can point that out to the complainant. That's the advantage of having a forum in which editors with no knowledge of the topic area can weigh in. The motive of the complainant is immaterial. Civility is required. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 12:43, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think the nature and motive of the complainant can be material, despite being essentially unverifiable. The complainant can, for example, be a person who uses deception via sockpuppetry to evade a block or ban, then exploits sampling bias to select instances of past incivility to target a perceived political opponent. And this is not a hypothetical. It's something you can observe from time to time. In certain topic areas, when thinking about Wikipedia's homeostatic systems, it is probably worth asking "How would a person willing to use deception exploit this system for their mission?", because that will definitely happen. Employing deception is relatively common in Wikipedia, the protections against it are relatively weak, it is one of the drivers of incivility and people employing deception are immune from all sanctions, including those related to civility of course. So, the way I see it is that civility requirements are nice, but right now, they only apply to honest editors. For editors willing to use disposable accounts, there is zero cost for incivility, and it is another tool that can be used to manipulate a community that will almost always prioritize compliance with WP:CIVIL over compliance with WP:SOCK (and other mandatory policies), probably in part because it is much easier, and people pay attention to drama. Sean.hoyland (talk) 15:13, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is all kinds of rotten stuff that goes on in many topic areas. Somebody in this discussion mentioned tag-teaming in response to civility complaints. There has been canvassing proven time and again that has come up on AE. That is beyond the scope of any Wikipedia forum short of AE or Arbcom. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 15:50, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A good thing about a WP:3O or WP:RfC for civility is that it'd put more focus on wikiquette (probably) in new editors' minds. Currently, there are a lot of avenues for dispute resolution regarding content, which creates a lot of focus on work. The work of building an encyclopaedia is of course important. But if editors are driven off due to incivility, who is left to build it? Aspets (talk) 14:35, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In a real-life workplace that relies on collaboration, if somebody has reached the point of swearing, sniping, or snarking at their colleagues, they are probably beyond the point of no return and about to enter a one-way HR process, assuming they aren't fired on the spot. Real-life workplaces have the luxury of enforcing strong filters at the interview stage, which are usually highly effective at enforcing the kind of culture the workplace wants to have. Since we don't have that luxury, perhaps we could consider another popular tool that real-life workplaces use: training.
Wikipedia is a deeply weird workplace. Remote-only text-only collaboration (ROTOC) does not come naturally to human beings. There are some people who find it perfectly obvious, but that's only due to years of training through doing computer-mediated work. To be clear, you don't have to be a computer person to work here, but it helps. The group of people with the most extensive ROTOC training happens to be a group that skews white, middle-class and male.
I'm sure many of us have rolled many an eye through extremely dull and patronising computer-based-training courses that teach us how to suck eggs, but that eye-rolling is a privilege afforded to those who are expert egg-suckers already. I think if we want to improve standards of collaboration, a new/revived form of disciplinary process would be the worst approach, because it would be an inherently negative experience. Explicit training in ROTOC skills has the potential to be a positive experience for the victim.
I was thinking about how maybe we should be thinking in terms of "proactive public health" rather than "remedial process". Remsense ‥ 诉11:07, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Remote-only text-only collaboration (ROTOC) does not come naturally to human beings. There are some people who find it perfectly obvious, but that's only due to years of training through doing computer-mediated work. Does in-person collaboration come naturally either, though? Or is it just that neurotypical humans usually pick it up through years of training as young children (with the details varying by culture)? Anomie⚔11:54, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Totally unsolicited, slightly overcooked reflections here: without really thinking of natural or otherwise—writing is just comparably discrete (though not discreet) in what it communicates; given the additional social context provided by face-to-face speech and general cues of colocation. You often have to try harder such that you get everything you want across and nothing more, and it can feel alienating, as if anyone you're trying to get on the same page with dissolves into the aether save for the instant where they reply. That is to say, consensus-building sometimes feels less like a directed process you're invested in with others and a bit more like trying to craft the right magic spell to use on your interlocutor, with substantially less clue to what degree they're "getting" what's already been said. Remsense ‥ 诉12:32, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As I've discussed elsewhere, unmoderated online conversations are prone to overly verbose, repetitive discussions. In face-to-face conversations, listeners can provide visual cues or well-timed interruptions to mitigate this. There is already a lot of advice pages on English Wikipedia regarding desired behaviour (see Wikipedia:Essays in a nutshell/Civility and Template:Wikipedia essays for many links). I've also discussed elsewhere (though I can't recall exactly where) that although it is desirable to have guidance that outlines expectations that are specific to the English Wikipedia environment, it's too onerous to try to provide training on all aspects of interpersonal communication. We rely on editors having picked up these skills in their lives outside of Wikipedia. isaacl (talk) 15:37, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
it's too onerous to try to provide training on all aspects of interpersonal communication It's more like training in interapersonal communication that is needed. I don't think we should launch a primary school, but maybe something like a finishing school. Well, not really a school. Just some good guidance on the differences between collaborating with people in person, and collaborating with people in our weird environment. Essays like Wikipedia:Expectations_and_norms_of_the_Wikipedia_community are good, but they are buried in the vastness of project space. I think the "training" form factor for this kind of information could reach people in a way that essays don't and post-incident interventions definitely don't. The medium is the message...
To make this idea concrete, it could be as simple as offering a kind of interactive quiz, with each question being a collaboration scenario, and then some multiple-choice answers for what the best approach would be. The answer-reveal can explain why one of the answers is best, and what the possible bad outcomes of the other answers were. Basic stuff, but perhaps only basic because we've been steeped in it for a long time.
If it's just me creating a curriculum, then sure, I could assemble something. But odds are you have a different idea of what should be covered and emphasized, and editor X wants to add another scenario, and editor Y thinks the structure is entirely wrong, and so forth. Our help pages sprawl because it's really hard to get any agreement on modifying them, so editors just create more of them. And there are endless variations that different people think are vitally important to cover. isaacl (talk) 21:01, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also, I'm not sure if this approach will reach the target audience. A lot of Wikipedia guidance ends up being just link targets that editors brandish, as getting people to read and follow documentation is hard. isaacl (talk) 21:08, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In a real-life workplace that relies on collaboration, if somebody has reached the point of swearing, sniping, or snarking at their colleagues, they are probably beyond the point of no return and about to enter a one-way HR process, assuming they aren't fired on the spot. This comment astounds me, Barnards.tar.gz. You and I must have worked in deeply different sorts of workplaces. I can't deny what you said must be true for the kinds of places you've worked, but that type of hardline, attitude-based termination culture seems to me like it might be restricted to a subset of workplaces that exhibit high profitability, staffing, and turnover.I've been in and seen others be in face-to-face meetings over attitude issues, but all the terminations I've seen were based in either exposing the company to legal liability, unreasonable theft of company property, or absenteeism.I'm not arguing we can't do better in showing people the door than all the places I've been employed, but we are talking cultural differences, and my astonishment at the above moved me to chime in with a counterexperience. Folly Mox (talk) 17:01, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, the successful workplaces I have experienced do not have a termination culture at all, and HR incidents are extremely rare, because the input filter is so strong. Any workplace that had as many "admin interventions" as we do here would be a circus of dysfunction. What I'm trying to say is that we don't want to have to resort to interviewing prospective editors to ensure "good fit" or "team player" or equivalent, but we could perhaps learn from other ways that workplaces manage their culture without resorting to disciplinary proceedings. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 18:00, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm all for that. I have no disagreement: merely divergent lived experience. I don't believe I've ever worked anywhere with a particularly selective interview process, so that probably has something to do with it. All the best, Folly Mox (talk) 18:10, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Folly Mox, in the US, in most white-collar jobs, "swearing, sniping, or snarking at their colleagues" is going to look like a hostile work environment to HR and therefore exactly a case of "exposing the company to legal liability". Whether the swearing or the sniping or the snarking is more likely to attract a performance improvement plan likely depends on the industry (e.g., the construction industry may accept swearing, or the fashion industry may accept snark) and the target (swearing at inanimate objects is usually more accepted than running down your colleagues), but there's a risk. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:15, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Way back in the day, I was a regular at WQA. WQA was non-binding, and explicitly not a place to request that another user be sanctioned in any way. I thought it was a good thing to have a page to discuss civility issues without the threat of a block. I don't agree that it "did more harm than good" but I would admit that it was very often innefective. Somewhere between half and two-thirds of cases filed there moved on to ANI after a day or two, while other suffered from one or more of the parties simply ignoring it. In the end the fact that it could not lead to sanctions is probably what doomed it. Like the also-deprecated WP:MEDCOM or the moribund backwater that is WP:AARV, completely voluntary processes with no "teeth" have proven largely innefective. I think that's a shame but there it is. Just Step Sidewaysfrom this world ..... today18:38, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In the I/P area an admin, ScottishFinnishRadish kindly allows his talk page to be used as a very informal sounding board on issues relating to that area. It a good thing to have. Matters are not always resolved but it is a good way for people in that area to ascertain if behavior they see in that area is undesirable or not, and if undesirable, if potentially sanctionable. Perhaps in the eyes of an objective admin it's not worth pursuing. So OK, the editor may not like that, but that is an objective judgment.
People I think should lower their expectations. Having something is better than nothing. Having an admin generously allow his user page to be utilized in this fashion is certainly a lot better than nothing at all. Having an intermediary board on civility of some kind (for which there was a consensus in 2012) is better than nothing. How to structure such a board is another matter. But let's not just throw up our hands because civility is sometimes subjective. Personally I don't think it is as subjective as some here have argued. It is difficult to measure "success," and perhaps we are too hung up on that and not on having a kind of "peace process," pardon the expression. Going back to the point I raised at the beginning, editors who perceive an ongoing low-level civility issue, a toxic workplace of sorts, at the current time have, for all intents and purposes, nothing. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 18:56, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think the old Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct process was more useful than WQA, but it still fundamentally relied on people voluntarily responding to the feedback. In particular, it was useful for the sort of WP:IDHT cases in which getting people to "vote", all on the same page, that they disliked your behavior might convince you that all of the previous complaints weren't just random individuals with weird standards, and that The Community™ actually didn't approve. But I don't think it was wildly successful; I think it was just occasionally helpful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:10, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I feel editors got tired of the something just being a dead end that took up time before taking up the issue at a different noticeboard. A redundant noticeboard isn't better than not having it. On the other hand, I can see how something more like Wikipedia:Administrative action review, with a no-fault review of a given scenario, could be useful in separating the evaluation of behaviour from the determination of any restrictions. But the problem of a lack of consensus in the community (at least among the subset that discusses these matters) regarding accepted behaviour remains. isaacl (talk) 20:34, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I keep hearing people saying that WQA was a waste of time, a dead end and so on. I beg to differ. I participated in it myself as a volunteer, and just checked the archives to confirm that I was actually pretty active for a time. I found my participation to be interesting and rewarding. I feel that I helped people. While I was fairly new to the project at the time, it wasn't hard. WP:CIVIL wasn't and isn't rocket science. While a good deal about Wikipedia was complicated, civility was not. It didn't, and doesn't, take a law degree to figure out what's civil and what isn't. I wish people would be more positive on the WQA. It was better than I think it is being characterized, and I certainly don't feel that it was such a snake pit or horror show at all. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 21:26, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Common sense is often enough, especially when the disputants come from the same culture. However, common sense isn't enough when Alice, who thinks in black-and-white terms, feels justice is only served by clearly and directly stating that Bob's actions were wrong, and Bob, coming from a culture that values indirectness, deeply feels that clearly and directly stating that anyone's actions were wrong is inherently, appallingly rude and that doing so is a loud, firm message from the community that they want him to stop editing entirely. If you don't have a lot of information about different cultures, you'll probably think that Bob flounced off. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:24, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This seems exaggerated to me. There are going to be some differences in what people consider "uncivil" both across and within cultures. But I've only ever seen one instance of "this isn't a problem in my culture", and it was shut down immediately because it was a direct attack on people with mental illness. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:44, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's not really exaggerated IMO. Seldom does anyone actually say "this isn't a problem in my culture" though. In my experience off Wikipedia, it's more likely that Bob would make a complaint about Alice to HR, then HR will spout some BS about making a "safe space for everyone" and threaten to fire Alice over it while ignoring how they're making an unsafe space for her. On Wikipedia, more likely is that Bob would feel chased off and nothing much else happen. But something like WP:FRAMGATE is also a possibility, particularly once the UCoC committee gets running. Anomie⚔22:30, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Some years back, we had at least two editors claiming to be Australian and insisting that using profanity was a core cultural value for All True Australians™. We had 800K registered editors last year. Finding a few people whose truthfulness you doubt a bit is to be expected.
(If you are interested in mental health conditions among editors, then you might be interested in the back-of-the-envelope estimate at User:WhatamIdoing/Editors are people. NB I left out autism – an obvious source of tension between "face-saving" and "plain speaking" disputes – because we have far more Autistic editors than average, so the usual calculations don't hold.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:59, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We're focusing quite a bit in this discussion on "results." Skimming through my own contributions there (I don't believe I ever came in as a complainant or respondent) I see that true, sometimes the discussions that I participated in did not bear fruit. But people would come and I'd look at their problems and I'd say, "well this is uncivil and this isn't." Is that a bad result? We can't always box-score these things, folks. I was surprised when I learned, afterwards, that WQA had been closed. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 21:31, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In your original post, you expressed concern about there being an uncivil environment on English Wikipedia. Thus I think it's reasonable to consider if a proposed change would help address this concern. What barriers are there now that keeps the community from looking at discussions and thinking, well, this is uncivil and this isn't? Is bringing back an old venue an effective way to remove these barriers? Is it worth the opportunity cost? isaacl (talk) 07:10, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, and I appreciate your "reality check" comments. But as I go back to the archives and look at my participation in WQA as a volunteer (which I had pretty much forgotten as it was a 13+ years ago) I remember positive aspects that hadn't previously occurred to me, and which are at variance with how WQA is sometimes portrayed. I don't recall even once being flummoxed as to what was civil or what was not. Obviously the complainants and respondents had their own view, or it wouldn't have come to WQA. But as a volunteer, even a relative newcomer, it was always a slam dunk one way or the other.
Another point that I think needs to be made, which didn't previously occur to me, is this. Let's say Editor X is editing in an environment in which other editors WP:OWN the topic area or seek to do so. They engage in sarcasm, personalize discussions or otherwise contribute in a deleterious way. While WQA or something like it can't resolve the issue, it can certainly help with a subsequent resolution if a volunteer uninvolved in the topic area says "yes this is uncivil" or "no, this is not uncivil." It helps Editor X if he wishes to make a fuss going forward, or may discourage him from doing so. This kind of input is difficult to quantify. The volunteers are just ordinary editors with no stake in the matter under discussion, but their perspective matters. The fact they're not admins with the ability to block or topic ban does not detract from their impact. Such input may well make the subject area less toxic and more civil, easier for everyone, even if it does not resolve the underlying dispute. Making things more civil should not be underrated.
Incidentally we're not talking about resuscitating WQA, necessarily. The consensus back then, which of course does not bind us, is to create some kind of "intermediary" forum. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 12:15, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, I just went with the concrete proposal you made in your original post. Like it or not, there was a consensus about the shortcomings of the previous noticeboard. I don't think you'll be able to overcome those views just by saying you disagree with them. A new proposal needs to identify a goal, which could be qualitative in nature, and demonstrate the value and effectiveness of the proposal in achieving it.
In practice, we don't get a volunteer saying "this is/isn't civil", and everyone saying, ah, OK. We get some uninvolved volunteers saying the behaviour is civil, and other uninvolved volunteers saying that it isisn't. We get editors disagreeing with the assessment and thus seeking broader and broader input, consuming more and more community time. A proposal for a new process would have to find a spot where it could add value without just becoming another cycle in this spiral. I'm not sure how to bypass this roundabout, other than my thoughts on fostering collaborative behaviour and thus making poor behaviour a losing strategy. isaacl (talk) 14:45, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that you don't recall even once being flummoxed as to what was civil or what was not either says something about WQA attracting only simple complaints (e.g., most reports were mere tattling about obvious misconduct), or your lack of awareness about the complexities involved in intercultural communication. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:29, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, I don't recall being flummoxed. Not once. Not a single time. Ever. The behavior complained about ("tattled" as you inappropriately put it) was always either civil or uncivil. The policy is simple and editors of any background or culture can go to WP:CIVIL and absorb what is there.
The purpose of an intermediary board, as I see it, is to provide a third opinion on these matters. the 30 suggestion below is not a bad idea. For the umpteenth time, I'm not suggesting we resuscitate the old WQA board but figure out in good faith a possible intermediary board as was the consensus in 2012. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 12:21, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As you know (as I assume you saw my ping there), ScottishFinnishRadish's talk page serves as an intermediary step in the I/P area that allows people to come to him rather than AE. There are plenty of "rules and guidelines" dealing with contentious topic areas but still it helps having his talk page as an intermediate, informal step short of AE. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 12:34, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and an admin has the power to engage in topic bans and worse. An intermediary board is just a fellow editor weighing in on civility alone. Nothing else. It's a nonpunitive way of an uninvolved editor telling another editor that he's either not being civil or that his incivility complaint is without merit. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 12:45, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You mentioned above that civility complaints are often brought without merit. An intermediary board volunteer can make that same point in a non-punitive way. I know because that is what I did when I was a volunteer on WQA. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 12:47, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sympathetic to the idea of a new (or revived) method of dealing with incivility. But most solutions are going to run into the same problem that we see at ANI, in that it's ultimately cultural instead of procedural. If we want to fix this, we need to make cultural changes:
Crack down on victim blaming and "get a thicker skin" comments.
Abandon the toxic "more heat than light" philosophy. When this refrain or some variation of it is invoked, it tells the people affected that we either aren't able to help them or that we don't care enough to help them. It says that we'd rather let it be someone else's problem, even if it means kicking the can down the road and letting it get worse (which makes the eventual boiling point even more chaotic).
Challenge incivility tag-teaming. User A is frequently uncivil and eventually gets taken to ANI. They're causing harm everywhere they go and are a serious threat to editor retention. They've been given dozens of chances and a ban should have been implemented years ago. But then Users B, C, and D all show up and oppose any sanctions for whatever reason they come up with. Maybe they ignore the context and say that this interaction isn't sanctionable, or maybe they pick one mistake the reporter made and make it all about that. Their filibuster gets it closed without action. The next month, User B is brought to ANI for incivility. Users A, C, and D then show up to complain about "civility police" and ask that the discussion be closed as a frivolous report. And so on.
Unless someone has any creative ideas to fix this, the only solution is for everyone who's tired of Wikipedia's toxic culture to call out incivility when they see it and make their voice heard at ANI. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:40, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've been here a while and I don't find it toxic. Get a thicker skin is sometimes appropriate and there are different ways to say that. Maybe a bit cut and thrust time to time, at the end of the day it's just words not bullets. OK sometimes they can hurt too and egregious cases need to be dealt with as does persistently bad behavior. There's a lot worse places to be than WP. Selfstudier (talk) 22:03, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Getting a thicker skin is not something people can do on command, though, which makes it inappropriate.
Sure, but it isn't necessarily only about the present moment. Surely a constructive, civil observation about someone's conduct can factor into their future self-reflection and ultimately help them out? That's often how these things seem to work. Remsense ‥ 诉11:21, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm probably from the wrong culture to be offended / hurt on Wikipedia. I deeply value kindness and consideration towards others, but I also feel like if I make a lot of mistakes and generate a lot of work for others, I should be called out on it, and told why what I'm doing is a problem. Any cultural corrections we attempt to implement to improve our atmosphere also need to take into account that we're working on a project together, and the quality of our output does matter. We also need to take into account weaponization of civility policy used for removing frustrated / escalated opponents from content disputes. Folly Mox (talk) 11:15, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think the whole "culture" issue is a red herring. We have no way of knowing what "culture" an editor is from, and editors are obliged to follow Wikipedia policies regardless of background. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 12:27, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That would make more sense if this were a content policy and not a conduct one. The concept of civility is mediated by culture, if explicated considerably in the policy body. Remsense ‥ 诉12:32, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We sometimes used to get editors saying they were on the spectrum as a reason they were behaving contrary to policy. Usually the best approach was for fellow editors to calmly point out to them what the standards are. Likewise, if somehow one's claimed culture results in incivility, then the best approach is for a uninvolved volunteer to calmly point out what our civility policy says, rather than an administrator to impose sanctions or a formal warning. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 12:39, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's why an intervention by an ordinary editor is helpful if an editor gets carried away or has an emotional issue or is genuinely on the spectrum. If an editor is using incivivility as a tactic in a larger "battlefield" campaign, then obviously nothing short of a block or topic ban will deal with it. But if the civility aspect of a problematic editor is addressed by an uninvolved editor, and they reject that counsel, it establishes a record for future action if necessary. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 13:04, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Having an "ordinary editor" intervene is only going to helpful if that editor knows what he's doing. Imagine that you have an editor who is trying to fix something and unintentionally breaking something else in the process. It's generating a lot of work for other editors, and we need to do something to stop that problem.
However, the correct "something" depends on the editor's perception of what constitutes civil behavior. Here are three different ways to say the same thing:
For someone like Folly Mox, you might take a direct, informal approach: "Hey, you probably didn't realize it, but when you frob the widget, it breaks the glorkanfangle. I fixed one of them for you like this so you can see how to fix it. Ping me if you've got any questions."
For someone from a face-saving culture, you would make more of an effort to affirm the value of their efforts and your humble request: "Hello, and thank you for your helpful contributions to fix the widget. I appreciate you noticing and fixing that problem. When you are making those edits, would you please consider fixing both the widget and the glorkanfangle at the same time? It would save the community a lot of effort, because the glorkanfangle's operation depends on the widget's settings. Here is a combined diff that shows how to fix both at the same time. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help you."
For someone who is autistic, your message should be direct, detailed, and comprehensive: "You have made many edits to articles containing the widget. Unfortunately, the changes you have made to the widget are interfering with the glorkanfangle on those pages. Please stop making edits that break the glorkanfangle. According to the template's documentation page, if you need to fix the widget, then you must also adjust the glorkanfangle settings. You should do this either in the same edit or immediately afterwards. If you don't do this, then the page will be in violation of the Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility guideline, the readers will see a misformatted infobox, and your edits may be reverted without warning by any editor who sees them. Here is a diff showing the correct way to adjust the widget and the glorkanfangle at the same time, and here are pages showing what the pages look like before and after adjusting the glorkanfangle. When you make these changes, be sure that widget remains above the glorkanfangle in the wikitext code. As soon as possible, you should either self-revert all of your edits to the widgets, or go back and fix the broken glorkanfangles on all of those pages."
All three of these communicate the same three main points to their specific audience:
Stop breaking pages.
Here's the information you need to achieve your goal without breaking pages.
Go clean up your mess.
But:
For the first two, "Stop breaking pages" and "Go clean up your mess" are implied, rather than directly stated. For the last, everything is plain and clear. You don't need to guess what the message-writer might be thinking about your edits. You don't need to guess what might have been left unsaid. You only need to follow the written instructions.
For the middle one, the message emphasizes the editor's positive contributions and downplays the problems created. We are not saying that the editor did anything truly wrong, because that would be offensive. We are instead only making a humble request that the valuable editor make even better contributions. We are trusting that the face-saving editor will be able to infer from the information provided that their edits screwed things up and that we want them to fix it.
If you go to a face-saving person with the autistic-oriented message, the person is likely to feel like it is an offensively direct public rebuke. They will not feel like it is a civil message. But the face-saving message will confuse and stress some people on the autism spectrum, because it's so vague: Is this an optional extra? Do they want something specific from me? Is this just an interesting fact to know? They didn't tell me to take any action about this, so I didn't – why are they mad at me now?! The end result is that they will not feel like it is the kind of message that supports and builds up the community – which, depending on how you define civility, means they will not feel like it is a civil message.
When we look at human interactions, there are a few universals (e.g., condemnation of unprovoked murder), some commonalities (e.g., table manners exist everywhere, though they look different in different places), and some differences (e.g., approach to punctuality). Especially for ordinary communication, what's considered civil depends on the culture. That's true regardless of whether the humans are interacting in person or online. The end result is that what counts as "civil" to people from one culture is very obviously "uncivil" to people from another culture. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:10, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with your points, and as an irrelevant aside, I actually respond best to being shamed and guilt-tripped, which – perhaps relevantly – I don't regard as incivil. (Nor do I practice those, nor recommend for the general case). I've been too well trained by toxic supervisors and partners. So I'm probably a bad example. Folly Mox (talk) 16:57, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In terms of process, I feel like a step we could take would be expanding / forking WP:3O to include behavioural concerns alongside content disputes. Dropping a quick template transclusion in a conversation where you're looking for an uninvolved opinion on civility feels like a much more lightweight process, without all the visibility and unstructured commentary a noticeboard is likely to generate.Of course, any process without the power to impose sanctions is unable to deal with genuine problem actors, but if it's a case where someone is being inappropriate but willing to listen to a voice outside the immediate dispute, calling in a single busybody to have a look at the exchange might have some positive outcome. Folly Mox (talk) 11:07, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Having a third person provide an opinion works best when both sides are receptive to feedback. With a behavioural dispute, though, if both persons recognize there is a dispute regarding behaviour yet fail to agree on ways to mitigate the behaviour, then they're unlikely to be receptive to a third person weighing in. (If they were, it's likely they would have found a way forward on their own.) In the case of an unrecognized clash in cultures, a third person could help provide context, but that would depend on the two parties recognizing there is a clash, and that third person being able to recognize this as well and subtly learn through discussion with the two parties about their cultures to isolate the clash. isaacl (talk) 20:17, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Could you elaborate regarding point #2? I've never heard that idiom before, but after looking it up (neat!) I'm only a shade more sure what behavior was being characterized as such. Apologies in advance! Remsense ‥ 诉11:14, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"More heat than light" usually used to mean "this comment is expressing the emotion of anger, instead of objective facts". The idea that expressing emotions is unhelpful or inappropriate is fairly common in Western culture, particularly in English-speaking or northern European cultures. It is odd and uncomfortable to people from cultures that are less fearful/more accepting of emotional expression. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:13, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just to clarify, I'm referring to entire discussions getting shut down per this reasoning. My argument is that sweeping problems under the rug is dismissive to the people trying to bring attention to them, and it entrenches long-term issues to make things marginally easier in the short-term. And I'm not concerned by whether someone is from a given culture or not; civility isn't a matter of never saying anything imperfect ever, it's about being able to communicate these things and walk away with a mutual understanding. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:53, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The analogy is with a light bulb, where the intended purpose is to provide light to an area, and the side effect is to generate heat. (If the reverse is intended, then you'd call it a heating element.) Ideally you want as much energy as possible emitted as light rather than heat, to be more efficient. A conversation generating more heat than light isn't providing enough additional insight into the topic to make it worthwhile. isaacl (talk) 20:24, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the really vicious stuff done to other editors is not covered by wp:civility, in fact weaponizing wp:civility is a common way to "get" other editors. Most people would rather have us stop people from civilly sticking the knife into their ribs than stopping people from using swear words. North8000 (talk) 20:25, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Although I imagine there could be cases where it would help, as I discussed earlier, I think it would more often be disregarded as just one other person's opinion. In situations where two people have failed to find a way forward on their own regarding behaviour, I'm hard-pressed to think of cases where one uninvolved person joining the conversation has resolved the dispute. isaacl (talk) 12:13, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Honestly, while I think that WP:CIVIL is extremely important, it's also probably the easiest of our conduct policies to enforce. When someone is persistently uncivil it tends to produce easy, obvious diffs that can be thrown up on WP:ANI, WP:AE, or even in an ArbCom and which will eventually get them sanctioned. I don't think we need elaborate mechanisms to encourage and enforce it. It's the opposite problem, WP:CIVILPOV, that is difficult to enforce, because it's something that has to be inferred from someone's extended edit history rather than producing easy at-a-glance diffs that can be used to show what someone is doing wrong in a few clicks, compounded by the fact that most CIVILPOV accusations involve multiple editors accusing each other of it while framing themselves as the selfless defenders of the wiki, in situations that tend to look like simple content disputes from the outside (and often just are.) But for CIVIL cases it's not hard to figure out which editor in a dispute is throwing around insult and aspersions, which is why we end up with situations like eg. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Antisemitism in Poland, where a case premised on serious accusations of intentional distortions of the facts resulted in editors being sanctioned mostly for saying mean things to each other; even ArbCom couldn't untangle the underlying accusations (and to be fair to ArbCom, most of the editors didn't even try to make those accusations during the case, probably because they knew how hard it is to prove compared to pointing out obvious incivility.) If you think there are areas where incivility isn't being sanctioned, though, IMHO all you have to do is take it to ANI or AE - incivility tends to be easy to enforce when someone actually pulls it into the light. --Aquillion (talk) 17:38, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the "easy, obvious" problems are easy to spot and obvious when seen. But I don't think that all cases of incivility are easy to spot, and I don't think that all accusations are true. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:17, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There's no question that in instances in which civility is part of a long list of editor behavior issues, and in which a cohort of editors effectively reject WP:CIVIL entirely or abuse it, AE and Arbcom are called for. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 15:34, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Creating a use -ise spellings template
One thing I like to do occasionally is to use AutoWikiBrowser to make spellings on articles consistent with their English vareity (for example changing "favorite" to "favourite" in British English articles). A mistake I made once was changing "-ize" spellings to "-ise" spellings in British English articles, when both are correct in British English. We have Template:Use Oxford spelling to say "this articles uses the -ize suffix" but we do not have one for -ise spellings. I propose creating a template for that, and I have already created it and the documentation in my sandbox.
To be clear, this proposed template is not for English varities that only use the -ise suffix (such as New Zealand English). It is only for British English (and to a lesser extent, Canadian English) which allows both -ize and -ise. ―Panamitsu(talk)07:59, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This seems like a rather narrow justification for taking up an entire additional line at the top of articles. It seems far more practical just to be more discriminate with your AWB gnoming, unfortunately. Remsense ‥ 诉08:08, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why is any of this needed? From what I am reading at {{Use Oxford spelling}} and at Oxford spelling, "-ize" is Oxford spelling, and "-ise" is part of normal British spelling. If the article you are checking uses "-ize", you can presumably add the Oxford spelling template; otherwise, leave the British spelling template and leave the -ise endings alone. What am I missing? – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:27, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As a Wikipedia convention I would support this, however if this does not reflect real world understanding of spelling variation, then we need a more precise term/spelling instructions. I was previously under the impression that British English was always -ise unless specified as Oxford English, but learned something new today. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 22:11, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Respectfully, I really do not think we need more precise spelling instructions. This isn't a big deal, and is only an issue because of automated tools making assumptions that result in disruptive swaps between equally correct forms. Remsense ‥ 诉23:13, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it is only useful for automated tools because editors have to figure out whether to use -ise/-ize when adding content. A tag saying which to use is just like how we already have the tags saying which engvar to use. ―Panamitsu(talk)00:09, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But it's not a big deal for generalized gnoming. One single orthographical difference simply does not require a different ENGVAR to be specified, whether as a subtype or otherwise. Remsense ‥ 诉01:49, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't require it to be specified, but it in the same way that it doesn't require any ENGVAR to be specified. That doesn't mean it's not beneficial to specify - especially as it will (in at least some cases) reduce the work needed later on. Thryduulf (talk) 10:01, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's worth zooming out to note there are quite a few WP:VAR things we don't tag articles with, in my mind likely because the undue bureaucracy plus undue clutter outweigh the time saved and clarity achieved. It seems like the potential disruption from editors "making it more clear" with campaigns of various size changing EngvarB → EngvarB-ise makes this worth opposing. Remsense ‥ 诉10:37, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's four more characters, I don't see it as adding too much clutter or bureaucracy compared to the clarity it adds. Also, why would changing EngvarB to clarify "ise" if the article already uses "ise" be a disruption? Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 12:25, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Getting Current With Cultural Trends
To keep up with recent trend to keep relationships defined as per their choice, there are partnerships such as Civil Partnership, Platonic Relationships, or just Girlfriend and Boyfriend etc... please change spouse to partner or any culturally relevant term thar reflects the current state of preferences on bio pages of individuals. DhawanMohan13 (talk) 16:33, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
DhawanMohan13, why change "spouse" to "partner" in the majority of cases where it is correct? I am married. I have a wife (gender-neutral term "spouse") and she has a husband (gender-neutral term also "spouse"). Many people that I know have partners or boyfriends or girlfriends. We should describe everyone, incuding those who have a spouse, accurately. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:18, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The definition of spouse is (written) your husband or wife, I doubt it acknowledges people who are in a relationship they dont want to label. For example just boyfriend girlfriend, civil partnership, etc... DhawanMohan13 (talk) 05:03, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think what Phil is saying is that if someone is married, there is no reason not to use the word 'spouse' accurately. Otherwise, 'partner' is fine. – Joe (talk) 05:06, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Or is the concern in the opposite direction?
@DhawanMohan13, it's not clear which problem concerns you:
"Mrs. Married" is legally married, but you think we should write "her partner" instead of "her spouse", to sound current and trendy.
"Miss Girlfriend" is not married, but you have found a Wikipedia article that talks about "her spouse", when it ought to say "her partner" or "her boyfriend".
Of course the article about Miss Girlfriend should be corrected, but we should leave Mrs Married as is, unless we have sources saying that she prefers not to use the term. Phil Bridger (talk) 07:14, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If there is no legally defined relationship, there is no reason to list the person. We don't list every girlfriend/boyfriend, we list people who are joined in a marriage or civil partnership. For those relationships the terms are "spouse" and "partner". --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:54, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia follows; it does not lead. The onus is on you to show that any such "trend" has become predominant in reliable sources; you have not even attempted to do so. I fervently oppose cultural activism at Wikipedia (repeal the "mankind" ban until such time as the word is widely considered archaic, etc.). ―Mandruss☎19:53, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Improve readability of hyperlinks in Dark Mode
The current dark blue color of hyperlinks in Wikipedia's Dark Mode can be difficult to read, especially for users with visual impairments. I propose changing the color of hyperlinks in Dark Mode to a brighter, more readable color, such as yellow.
This change would improve the overall usability and accessibility of Wikipedia for users who prefer Dark Mode. A brighter hyperlink color would provide sufficient contrast with the dark background, making it easier for users to navigate and read articles both on the website and the app.
Rationale:
Improved readability and accessibility for users with visual impairments
Enhanced user experience for Dark Mode users
Consistency with web accessibility guidelines, which recommend sufficient contrast between text and background colors
Implementation:
Change the color of hyperlinks in Dark Mode to a brighter color, such as yellow (#FFFF00)
Ensure the new color is consistent across all devices and browsers
Discussion:
I welcome feedback and discussion on this proposal. Please share your thoughts on the proposed change and suggest alternative solutions if you have any. Galilean-moons (talk) 14:53, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If there is a standard colour for links in website dark modes we should use that (for the same reason we use blue as the standard link colour on light mode). I'm not a regular user of dark mode meaning I have little direct experience, so I looked for examples. Of about 20 websites with dark modes that were highlighted as good by various discussion forum contributors, only 3 were primarily text-based, had links of a different colour to the body text when not mousing over the link and had a dark mode that I could easily find and activate. Two of them used a pale blue (#3ebcf4 and #9eb1ff) and 1 used purple (#a667e4). A couple of git hub results were people commenting/complaining that yellow is not an intuitive colour for hyperlinks. Thryduulf (talk) 19:19, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Further, it would probably be best if the color is set in same place where the light-mode link colors are set rather than us overriding them locally. That would likely be in the skin. Anomie⚔21:31, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Light blue is good, although cyan could also be an option. It is visually brighter than blue at similar HSL lightness levels, while a light blue (higher lightness level, i.e. adding white) isn't visually as sharp, especially if we want to make it visually distinct from purple. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 23:03, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I use dark mode and am (slightly) vision impaired. The difficulty for me is less the blue hyperlinks and more the difference between blue and purple (non-visited/visited). Gnomingstuff (talk) 18:47, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Gnomingstuff Yeah, unfortunately I don't expect much improvement there, especially considering how many websites style away visited link coloring entirely, forcing them to the same color as unvisited links. (Something that will always earn them a UserStyle in my browser, restoring the difference, because WTH is it with site authors just deciding that a useful browser feature isn't necessary on their site?) So I guess we should be happy there's any color difference at all.
I know at least for the light-mode skin, in the last round of design updates not too long ago, the decision was made to slightly lighten the unvisited blue, and massively lighten the visited purple. The focus was on increasing their contrast relative to the black body text (for some reason), though I pointed out that it came at the cost of decreasing their contrast with the background color, particularly in infoboxes and other non-white sections of the page, but the whole contrast-with-unlinked-text thing was a big priority for some reason. It was an unfortunate additional side effect that the change also brought the two colors much closer to each other, but I suppose contrast in particular is always a balancing act. FeRDNYC (talk) 15:00, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A new color might be useful, but yellow seems to me to be a pretty poor choice, as it's quite an aggressive color. I think another shade of blue would be optimal, as up to now people have made things with yellow backgrounds but not with blue ones, and yellow-on-yellow situations would violate MOS:CONTRAST. — Alien333 ( what I did why I did it wrong ) 20:20, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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.
Hello, I'm a new user and was wondering if we can have our username start with a small letter. Almost every website I use has my username as "brishtibheja" but only here it becomes "Brishtibheja". Brishtibheja (talk) 20:53, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are ways to make your username appear as brishtibheja in your signatures and on your user page and user talk page, etc. For help with that, I suggest WP:HD; it would be a misuse of this page. No proposal is in order. ―Mandruss☎21:04, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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.
Sarbajeet Mohanty & Pooja Vijay's Article
Wondering why there are no articles on Sarbajeet Mohanty and Pooja Vijay? They have been a notable paranormal investigators for the last many years and are currently featuring on MTV India's Paranormal reality show, Dark Scroll as Paranormal Experts, streaming on a notable streaming platform Jio Cinema. Scareguy123 (talk) 19:32, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't looked at this particular case, but the usual reasons for a missing article are either that the subject is not notable or that they are notable but nobody has volunteered to write the article yet. The latter is particularly common for subjects based outside the Western Anglophone world. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:53, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In the case of this ABC News, there are hundreds of articles with broken links, such as LGBT rights in Afghanistan.
It is even more common for it to omit a link to the "work", either displaying it in plain Wikitext or not at all. This excludes important contextual information, and goes against MOS:UL which says that proper names that are likely to be unfamiliar to readers, which would include news sources as few have global recognition, should be linked.
In the case of this ABC News, there are thousands of articles with missing links, such as Joel Reddy.
Following a discussion with Robertsky, I proposed a bot that would be able to rectify one or both of these issues, as well as add additional information to the citation template that can be determined from the URL or other content already in the template, such as the publisher or publication location.
To minimize impact on watchlists, it can be configured so that only some errors or omissions will trigger an edit, with the rest being done only if the article is already being edited.
I am raising this in the community now to determine whether the community believes that this task is worth completing.
In addition, the bot uses a configuration file that I would need the communities help to expand. Currently, it addresses issues with the following sources:
Please provide details for the other sources that you wish to see corrected by leaving a comment on the configuration talk page, or if you are sufficiently familiar with JSON to understand the configuration file by editing it directly. BilledMammal (talk) 09:02, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overall, I support more frequently linking publication names. For an article that doesn't use them, though, it should be kept consistent. Sdkbtalk22:41, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I’ve already touched on this, with the above reference to WP:UL, but to address it in a little more depth in regards to consistency:
First, I don’t think we want to follow the pattern of the majority of the article, as in most cases they will be unlinked solely because RefToolbar doesn’t add links rather than because of any deliberate editor choice.
Second, a sufficiently expansive configuration file will be able to switch from unlinked majority to linked majority.
However, I would be able to alter the program to not include links under certain circumstances if that is what the community would prefer. BilledMammal (talk) 23:19, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
add additional information [...] such as the publisher or publication location. If that's done, it should be VERY selective, erring on the side of omission. Cites for The New York Times do NOT need to show that the publisher is A. G. Sulzberger or that the publication location is New York City. Et cetera. Bots should reduce work for human editors, not create work for them; we have too much of the latter already. ―Mandruss☎22:44, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
New York Times is actually a very convenient example, as it is already in the configuration file.
Not only will it not add the publisher or publisher location, it will actually remove them if it is already editing a page, in accordance with the specifications at {{cite news}}BilledMammal (talk) 23:09, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Bot to block Proxy/VPN IPs (ST47ProxyBot replacement)
Hey folks, I'd like to get some thoughts on an adminbot that monitors RecentChanges and reactively blocks VPN/open proxy IPs it encounters. We used to have ST47ProxyBot which preemptively blocked such IPs, however the bot's operator, ST47, has indicated that they are no longer interested in running this bot. Long story short, there is a plethora of VPN/open proxies on the internet with new operators coming online every day; it has become technically unfeasible to identify and block all of these. Bad actors have been attacking our admin noticeboards with these VPNs/open proxies which has resulted in them being semi-protected for extended durations of time. That said, I'm interested in building an adminbot that monitors RecentChanges (or just the administrator noticeboards) for edits from VPN/open proxy IPs and blocks them (can optionally revert the most recent edit made by these IPs too). Noting for the record that some discussion on this has occurred here (permalink). Courtesy ping for @Robertsky. -Fastily21:25, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don’t have strong feelings against this one way or another. I share the concerns of others that, especially with developments in internet infrastructure over the past decade or two, it is much less simple to block open proxies now. But if an admin bot can accurately evaluate (with a sufficient level of accuracy) and block/revert, so what if it only catches 1% of the actual open proxies? I also think this should be evaluated as a “continuation” of the prior adminbot - even if it has slightly different code, from what I can see there was consensus for this type of adminbot before so absent significant new concerns about the stability/false positives now, should be fine for Fastily or another admin to take over the *task* even if doing it with different code. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me!21:35, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thus far the disruptive IP addresses that have been blocked on the admin boards has proxy-like behaviours stated in the user information tool (that can be seen on the Contributions page). That can be a likely reliable signal/condition to revert and block such IP addresses if they touch on the admin boards. – robertsky (talk) 10:52, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Berchanhimez that this task doesn't seem like it should require a second consensus for approval, but if it does I support it. Folly Mox (talk) 11:28, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A bot that monitors recent changes and reactively blocks VPN/open proxy IPs rather than preemptively may be a useful compromise. We already have a bot that monitors recent changes and logs VPNs/proxies at WP:OPD; it seems to log very many but perhaps not all, that will be dependent on the database. As an aside, I’ve never see so many blocked 'anonymizers' on that log, which is almost entirely due to the current disruption.
The current disruption is using a very particular anonymizing network so perhaps a focus on blocking that one preemptively would be helpful in the short term. -- Malcolmxl5 (talk) 18:38, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think we may need to look at some possible ways to fix WP:OR. Apparently, one editor thinks it means you can't use any news media coverage for articles. i think their point is maybe that you can only use peer-reviewed articles to cover current events, since those are published findings? i think.
this whole thing kind of doesn't make a whole lot of sense, to me. anyway, I am trying to decide what to add to WP:OR. i have a few possible drafts, but i wanted to get this section started now. i hope to work on some possible drafts, and then post them soon. However, please feel free to comment now. Sm8900 (talk) 14:01, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If the issue is just one editor misunderstanding the existing content then the solution is to explain to them what it actually means. If they cannot or will not understand that then the solution is to take action against that user to prevent their misunderstanding disrupting the encyclopaedia. Only if the misunderstanding is widespread is a rewrite of WP:OR likely to be needed. Thryduulf (talk) 14:09, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Thryduulf, that sounds pretty good. i could use a little heelp, actually. would you be willing to please add some input? you can find the article talk page easily, in my contribs history today. Sm8900 (talk) 14:52, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If we want a misinterpretation that's so wide-spread it has been written into the policy, how about we get rid of most of Wikipedia:No original research#Primary, secondary and tertiary sources? As far as I've ever seen, the distinction between "primary" and "secondary" is often unclear and seldom actually useful versus the nutshell of WP:OR itself, Articles must not contain any new analysis or synthesis of published material that reaches or implies a conclusion not clearly stated by the sources themselves. Even much of what's said in the PSTS section is just as true if you only read "source", ignoring the adjectives. Mostly the section seems a vehicle for people to reject a source for being "primary" (i.e. the opposite of the essay Wikipedia:Primary does not mean bad) instead of having a harder discussion about WP:RS and WP:DUE and the other parts of WP:OR. But I doubt this will go anywhere, too many people value exactly that vehicle. Anomie⚔15:02, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Anomie I agree too. I've lost count of the times that I've had to argue that for objective facts primary sources are often the most reliable sources. Thryduulf (talk) 16:06, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree too. Secondary sources are fine when we have them, but the current wording seems to disfavour primary ones more than they deserve. Gawaon (talk) 16:45, 9 August 2024 (UTC
here is the kind of comment i have to deal with in opposiition to using perfectly good factual data, from perfectly reliable good sources from newspapers: The text that would be added makes no coherent case or argument. It has no clear theme, thesis or point. It does not show an analysis. This would require secondary sources - preferably of good quality. That would then be encyclopedic content. Research is the analysis of primary material. Drawing together the data is the first step in research. The added text alludes to a thesis, which, if stated, would be OR (where the thesis does not exist in sources). But without this, the text lacks the cohesion and substance that would make it encyclopedic. If the thesis is not presented in sources, it probably isn't noteworthy - or perhaps it hasn't been found. Either way, the addition as made isn't supported.
so this comment is saying that absolutely no data can be gleaned from primary sources such as newspaper accounts, firsthand accounts, etc. really!! this is unbelievable!! is there anything we can do???!!! Sm8900 (talk) 01:59, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
so by this logic, even a published book would not be able to serve as valid source for self-efident objective facts, such as the book plot etc!!! this doesnt seem reasonable!!! Sm8900 (talk) 02:01, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Without more context, that's a discussion that probably needs to happen on the page where it's happening rather than here. "The text that would be added makes no coherent case or argument" is something one cannot judge without knowing the text in question. Gawaon (talk) 06:39, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Gawaon, the talk page is at Talk:Iraq War. they are simply refusing to let me use newspaper articls that clearly show that major national leaders expressed opposition to the war years later. the question of whether that topic is needed is not the focus of the comment above; they are literally rejecting any use of newspaper articles, as clearly shown in the comment above. Sm8900 (talk) 11:12, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Instead of "getting rid of" PSTS, I suggested splitting it to its own policy page a while ago (1, 2, 3, probably others). It did not go well. We had really fundamental I-can't-believe-we-are-all-native-English-speakers-here levels of failure in communication. The most frustrating was trying to convince people that if we put the PSTS ==section== on a different page ►with a {{policy}} tag at the top, it would still be a policy. Editors thought that giving PSTS its very own {{policy}} page would be a demotion that would somehow make it stop being a policy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:13, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, yeah. Looks like you had two people there who had things absolutely backwards, seemingly convinced that whether a source is "primary" or "secondary" is critical to determining whether something is WP:OR or not rather than that WP:OR#PSTS is a (somewhat poor) heuristic for "source that will probably have the kind of analysis we need for a good article". Anomie⚔01:42, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
really fundamental I-can't-believe-we-are-all-native-English-speakers-here levels of failure in communication
I believe that news sources are good for basic facts, but their use should mostly end there. It's not that you should never use news articles as sources, but at a practical level the key is contemporary versus retrospective coverage. Real time contemporary sources definitely shouldn't be used to determine notability, provide analysis, explain effects or significance, etc. They lack the scope and context to make that possible. To avoid bogging down discussions every time this comes up, I wrote my full thoughts at User:Thebiguglyalien/Avoid contemporary sources. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 07:31, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
by this logic, you would never be able to write articles about opinions of major public figures at all. you would not be able to use a newspaper article to glean a public figure's opinions on anything, and you would need to someohow search for some complex thesis article when writing even about the most minor issues. Sm8900 (talk) 11:20, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, that's kinda the point? If no one else has ever written about the views of some major public figure on some topic in e.g. a book about the topic or the public figure, and the only place we can find that information is in some contemporary news article, then it's probably not important enough to include in an encyclopaedia article. Folly Mox (talk) 13:28, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
on the contrary, most historical statements get completely missed by secondary soruces. this is wikipedia. the historical coverage here is ten times more broad and more complete than any other reference works that are published. Sm8900 (talk) 23:10, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Your impression of our historical coverage is roughly the reciprocal of my impression, ± a few orders of magnitude. And I'd posit that most historical statements are deliberately unmentioned by secondary sources, not "missed" during the research phase. Folly Mox (talk) 09:29, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
ok, so then wikipedia is the repository for such statements, which most historical works and journal articles would otherwise miss entirely. Sm8900 (talk) 14:36, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what Wikipedia is and is WP:NOT. In all these years, has no one ever nudged you in the right direction and told you that you're supposed to be summarizing information from reliable secondary sources, proportional to how it appears in these sources? That you can't string together primary sources to support an argument? The historical works and journal articles have already decided what's significant enough to cover. We don't get to act like we know better than them; that would be original research and it would deviate from a neutral point of view. Surely at some point your work has seen scrutiny through a process like GAN or PR where a problem like this should have been noticed? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:20, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
ok sorry, i truly don't understand. so if a natural disaster, or an election, or a major coup, or a major government appointment occured within the last week or so, what sources should be used, other than newspaper articles? could you please clarify?
I think this discussion will go much better if we are simply open to asking questions, or expressing constructive ideas and opinions, and getting useful information. ok, so please feel free to clarify. thanks. Sm8900 (talk) 15:28, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If a simple fact needs updating like who holds a government office, then yes, a news article is fine to verify that. News articles might also be useful for basic facts, like if one mentions someone's date of birth for example. It's not that primary sources can never be used. It's that they don't dictate content. Like I said under section break 2, WP:PROPORTION lays it out plainly. An event or an opinion simply appearing in the news on its own isn't enough to say it needs to be in an article (let alone have its own article); millions of things appear in the news. But if a subject matter expert includes it in a journal, a book, or any sort of analysis, that's an indication that it might be WP:DUE. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:53, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
ok. thats a valid reply. but then, why do we have articles on elections , coups, natural disasters, new laws, changes in government, etc? if no secondary soruces exist for such event when they are only two or three weeks in the past, then how can such articles exist? Sm8900 (talk) 16:12, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Political stuff like elections and coups get analyzed pretty much right away. There's already extensive analysis of the upcoming U.S. elections, and those are still months away. But in my opinion, people often jump the gun on creating articles about events like disasters or crimes, and they often have to get deleted eventually. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:18, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
ok, so now wait a second friend. the title of this is maybe we need to fix wp:or, remember? so now maybe we are finally coming around to the actual topic here. ok, so you vote in the column for not using newspapers as sources too often. ok, fair enough. now can we discuss the fact that we already do use them, and then maybe consider what would be some logical constraints or ideas, for how to actually do so properly? Sm8900 (talk) 16:28, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would actually say that they are often secondary. Sometimes they are primary sources, like if you wanted to source an editorial for someone's opinion. Loki (talk) 17:06, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Gawaon This is a common misconception, but it makes a huge difference when it comes to OR and NPOV. When we're considering newly reported content like we are here, they are primary sources. This is the case both in academic historiography and on Wikipedia. Per WP:RSBREAKING: All breaking news stories, without exception, are primary sources, and must be treated with caution. WP:PRIMARYNEWS also gives a little explainer. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:19, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
ok, but "breaking news stories" are totally different from articles pblished in an actual print newspaper. "breaking news" refers to stories that can only exist online, as they would need appear immediately after the event. and also, to quote that page: Just because most newspaper articles are primary sources does not mean that these articles are not reliable and often highly desirable independent sources.Sm8900 (talk) 17:44, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Breaking news comes out of radio and television: they would "break into" normal programming (e.g., interrupt a soap opera) to make an announcement. The older equivalent is a Newspaper extra (if you have enough to fill a page) or just a last-second article added at press time (or after it, in the case of a stop press order). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:40, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Folly Mox, if the only place we can find that information is in some contemporary news article, then thats why we would use the news article as the source for that, actually. Sm8900 (talk) 21:18, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sm8900, I took a Quick Look at the text you would like to add, and immediately saw why other editors are saying that it violates WP:OR. The text starts with a sweeping statement about the world’s view of the war and then attempts to support that statement by giving examples of politicians sharing that view. The examples are individually (and appropriately) supported by citing news sources, but… what is missing is a source that sums up these examples to reach the initial sweeping statement (a conclusion, even though it is written first).
This is classic original research. We can not take examples A+B+C and state conclusion D … unless we have a source that explicitly states A+B+C=D. This is precisely why WP:PSTS warns that primary sources must be used with caution. It is very easy to misuse them to inappropriately support original research. Blueboar (talk) 12:45, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That does not resolve the Original research… the problem is that you (a Wikipedia editor) are the one combining these individual statements by various politicians to form a conclusion. What you need is a reliable secondary source that combines the statements by various politicians to reach some form of conclusion.
Weasle wording “some” also introduces DUE WEIGHT issues: why were the statements by these specific politicians chosen? Do they represent the majority view or are they cherry-picked outliers? Are there politicians who have contrary views?
Again… what you need to look for is a secondary source that notes what various politicians have said about the war, puts what they said into context and sums it up. Doing it yourself (even hedged by weasel wording) is where you engage in the original part of NOR. Blueboar (talk) 13:40, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Those kinds of secondary sources don't always exist, depending on the topic. And when reporting politicians positions and views, then published news articles seem totally acceptable as sources. Sm8900 (talk) 22:35, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's the point. If those secondary sources don't exist, then it should not be in the article. To quote WP:PROPORTION from the NPOV policy: An article should not give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject. For example, a description of isolated events, quotes, criticisms, or news reports related to one subject may be verifiable and impartial, but still disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic. This is a concern especially for recent events that may be in the news.Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:50, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds vastly exaggerated and non-proportional. Especially for recent events, it'll take years, if not decades, until they (maybe) get reliable coverage in secondary (later insertion: academic) ssources. Academics don't work so fast. Plus many films, series etc. may well get next to no coverage in secondary sources at all, despite meeting our notability criteria. If there are secondary sources, it's best to chiefly rely on them. If not, primary and tertiary sources may well come to the rescue, and that's a good thing. Gawaon (talk) 06:58, 11 August 2024 (UTC), edited 07:25, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If there's next to no coverage in secondary sources at all, then it is not notable. Per WP:GNG: "Sources" should be secondary sources, as those provide the most objective evidence of notability. There is no fixed number of sources required since sources vary in quality and depth of coverage, but multiple sources are generally expected. If you think that means Wikipedia would have to ignore most current events, then you're correct. Wikipedia doesn't exist to document news. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 07:08, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I got confused a little bit. Generally I tend to think of secondary sources as academic sources, and I'd say those are indeed among the best sources we have. But I had somehow mentally classified newspaper coverage and such as tertiary sources. However, it seems they are generally considered secondary too. WP:NOR#Reliable sources even says that "magazines, journals ... published by respected publishing houses" as well as "mainstream newspapers" are among "the most reliable sources". So sure, a topic needs sufficient coverage in secondary sources, newspapers included, to get its own article, per WP:GNG. I absolutely agree on that. But note that the GNG is about whether a topic gets its own article, it's not about the article content at all. See WP:NNC. Here we're mostly talking about content, so the GNG doesn't apply. Gawaon (talk) 07:42, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Secondary sources don't have to be academic. An analysis published in a newspaper is a secondary source for example and these are not uncommon. Traumnovelle (talk) 08:30, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
While some changes might be needed, I think I would be against "getting rid of most of Wikipedia:No original research#Primary, secondary and tertiary sources." In editing historical topics, I have found WP:PRIMARY useful. Users have, for example, tried to argue that Nathan Bedford Forrest wasn't actually racist or involved with the KKK, tried to argue that Mehmed II committed rape on the floor of the Hagia Sophia, etc., using primary sources. If accounts like these (memoirs, diaries, travel literature, ancient histories, etc.) aren't reinforced or repeated by scholars, they usually don't belong in there. I am definitely not arguing for a blanket ban on journalistic sources; the user you're telling about was clearly misinterpreting it. I am just saying how it has been useful for me.--MattMauler (talk) 14:24, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@MattMauler, thats very useful input. your statement here is very useful: I am definitely not arguing for a blanket ban on journalistic sources; the user you're telling about was clearly misinterpreting it.Sm8900 (talk) 23:09, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would make two points. Firstly many editors seem to think that the distinction between primary and secondary sources is something that was made up by Wikipedians. It was not. It has long been used by historians and rather more recently by scientists. And secondly I get the impression that there is a generational divide here between us oldies, who grew up in the days before Wikipedia (and even the World Wide Web) existed, and remember encyclopedias that existed before Wikipedia supplanted them and that were nothing like newspapers, and the youngsters who seem to think that every web site has to be up-to-the-minute with breaking news. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:01, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm finding it completely baffling to understand the objection to secondary sources. where is the secondary, non-journalistic source to tell you who is the Secretary of Agriculture? who is the governor of Maine? who is the director of budget for the city of Norfolk, Virginia? what is the current status of the Iraqi government? what is the current nature of the Q train in Brooklyn, New York? what are current plans for the BQE expressway in New York?
furthermore, if an article is decribing any recent current event, then what source would they use other than news articles? there are dozens of examples, obviously. for example, if the article is covering the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, or the 2024 US presidential election, or the accession of King Charles of the UK, what sources would exist at all, other than news articles? I'm truly baffled by this. Sm8900 (talk) 03:37, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
we already have an article on the recent tragic plane crash in brazil. i don't want to detail it too much in this venue, out of respect for the human tragedy here. however, there would not be any source to use for details on this, other than newspapers. Sm8900 (talk) 04:52, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The relevant guideline is WP:PRIMARY. Generally speaking a primary source trumps a secondary when it is authoritative. In other words, the Secretary of Agriculture is whoever the Department of Agriculture says it is. When it comes to news sources, they can be primary sources and sometimes not. For current events, news sources may be the only sources available. However... primary sources must always be used with great care. It is fine to use them for facts, but you cannot draw conclusions from them. (WP:No original research) For this, secondary sources are required. Hawkeye7(discuss)05:13, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Hawkeye7, I Agree !! please note, my key point of agreement is with this statement of yours. please note, I'm saying this with sincere assent, as your statement on this seems fully valid to me!! For current events, news sources may be the only sources available. ....primary sources must always be used with great care. It is fine to use them for facts... [etc]Sm8900 (talk) 15:51, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Last night I was reading Death in Yellowstone and the author talked about the dilemma of using newspapers: Newspapers, as every historian knows, must be used with care, most often as a supplement to more reliable sources. Unfortunately, with all of their potential inaccuracies, caused by deadlines, distance, and other factors, newspapers are sometimes our only sources for fleeting bits of history, pieces that get too easily lost in the forward march of time, and pieces of strictly local history that get published nowhere else. It caught my attention because of this ongoing discussion. Schazjmd(talk)13:16, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
can we make a rule against excluding newspapers as sources??!!
there seems to be some contradictory rhetoric going on, above on this page. we Wikipedia has articles such as 2024_United_Kingdom_riots#10_August, yet we have people in the section above stating outright that newspapers should not be used as sources. can we simply make it clear there is no basis for excluding newspapers as sources? this simply seems ridiculous. --Sm8900 (talk) 20:25, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Newspapers need to satisfy WP:RS requirements and be weighted accordingly with the claim made. There is extensive and nuanced discussion in WP:RSN to resolve disputes over reliability of said newspapers. Happy verifying! ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 20:29, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
further example(s) below, of articles requiring newspapers as sources. this whole issue seems self-evident to me.
I think we can make a blanket rule that no source should be excluded based solely on what type of source it is. Sometimes using a newspaper is appropriate, sometimes using a newspaper is in appropriate - but in neither case is that because it's a newspaper it's because of the combination of the context of the Wikipedia article and the context of the specific source article. Indeed WP:MEDPOP explicitly says the quality of press coverage of medicine ranges from excellent to irresponsible. An excellent newspaper article about a treatment that explains it in appropriate context without oversimplification etc might be the best available for the topic, conversely articles in peer review journals get retracted and those should not be used (other than for WP:ABOUTSELF and similar purposes).
One I've seen a few times is editors rejecting a youtube video as a source because it's a youtube video. Some youtube videos are top quality reliable sources, some are active disinformation. Thryduulf (talk) 00:16, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
yes, I agree with @Thryduulf on their comments on this, as stated above.
I think we can make a blanket rule that no source should be excluded based solely on what type of source it is.
One [problem] I've seen a few times is editors rejecting a youtube video as a source because it's a youtube video. Some youtube videos are top quality reliable sources, some are active disinformation.
I agree that we can not (and should not) “ban” citing news media… however, I do think that we often cite news sources inappropriately. There is a more nuanced discussion that needs to take place: When is it appropriate to cite news media, and (perhaps more importantly) when is it inappropriate to do so?Blueboar (talk) 15:07, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Blueboar, awesome insight and idea. i'm hoping discussion can proceed, and address the possible refinement that you have helpfully added and expressed above. thanks!!! Sm8900 (talk) 15:10, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think we really need any more rules about newspaper sources. We already have WP:PRIMARYNEWS, which qualifies when newspapers should be treated as primary sources, and WP:MEDRS, which state that newspapers aren't usually appropriate for medical topics. It really depends on the context and the reliability of each specific source though. Even generally high quality sources like the NYT may not be reliable for high-level scientific discussion, whereas a local newspapers that gets all the facts right can sometimes be used as a source for a complex topic. Epicgenius (talk) 23:52, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
this is a helpful reply by @Epicgenius. and in general this whole discussion has been very informative. i think this discussion has brought up a lot of points that were helpful, and which helped me increase my knowledge. i will give this some thought, and review the policies again with the points above in mind. I will comment if I think of any actual changes that I would like to propose. Sm8900 (talk) 02:41, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
OR is working well and as intended, actually
This discussion wasn't making much sense to me until I read Talk:Iraq War#suggest we need a section on "political impact", and then everything fell into place. Sm8900 is trying to add a section on the war's political impact which synthesises quotes he's selected from various American politicians into sweeping statements like By 2016, the public consensus in both major parties of the United States was that the Iraq War was based on invalid reasons, did not accomplish anything positive, and was highly detrimental. Other editors are correctly pushing back on this because this is a conclusion he has drawn himself rather than a conclusion drawn from a source. This is good. There is no problem here. – Teratix₵06:37, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
it is not good, and your dismissal of this topic shows your approach.
and there is absolutely nothing wrong with adding a section to describe politicians' opinions on any particular policy issue, using newspaper accounts and articles as sources. it is entirely possible that my own draft on that specific topic needs to be changed or improved, or perhaps discarded if it does not have consensus. that does not change the larger issue here.
your obvious goal is to cause some degree of personal upset here. by the way, @Teratix, all that's needed for WP:Civil to be needed here, is for one of us to state that the other one is acting discourteously. that is it. I will be glad to show you basic courtesy, and ask only the same thing in return. Sm8900 (talk) 14:41, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
re the public consensus on the Iraq War, when Jeb Bush did not express strong opposition to the Iraq War during the 2016 campaign, he was widely criticized, both by major candidates and also by major media outlets, so in the end he did need to reverse his approach.
and newspaper articles which provide broad overviews of a major societal consensus or reaction, are indeed valid sources in this regard. maybe we need to open a section to address the larger issues here? oh wait, thats right, that's precisely what this section is. Sm8900 (talk) 14:44, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
in short, your objections above may indeed be valid re my own proposed text for that specific article. with that said, the topics of this discussion here at village pump are entirely different. editors here are entirely free to agree or disagree with my ideas here on the topic of WP:OR, as they see fit.
however i think it is obvious that any editor would find it somewhat demeaning to see their own ideas on one article brought into the discussion as an absolutely non-relevant tangent, in a page section which relates to other issues entirely. i am trying to indeed grant the validity of anyone's views who may wish to disagree with my approach for the proposal at that specific article as you cite above. Sm8900 (talk) 14:59, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
any editor would find it somewhat demeaning to see their own ideas on one article brought into the discussion as an absolutely non-relevant tangent. By your own account, the pushback you received from other editors regarding your proposed addition on Talk:Iraq War was the impetus for starting this discussion in the first place. You, yourself, have quoted and mentioned the discussion in the above sections. Why would you do that if you didn't think it to be relevant?
there is absolutely nothing wrong with adding a section to describe politicians' opinions on any particular policy issue, using newspaper accounts and articles as sources There is a problem when you draw conclusions that the sources do not reach themselves, when the section gives certain perspectives undue weight or when there are higher-quality sources available that could be used instead. These problems were why your proposed Iraq War section was rejected.
that does not change the larger issue here. The point is, despite what you think, there is no larger issue here. Editors applied the policy exactly how they are supposed to, they got the right result, Wikipedia is better off than it would have been. Changing the policy would make things worse.
I'm not out to upset you. I just think your ideas about how Wikipedia works, and how it ought to work, are badly, badly wrong. It's not personal. – Teratix₵15:55, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You, yourself, have quoted and mentioned the discussion in the above sections. Why would you do that if you didn't think it to be relevant? correct, i mentioned the specific views on the question of what sources can be used, since thats the topic of this section here at village pump. i did not belittle any of the replies that disagreed with me on the specific proposal for that specific article.
There is a problem when you draw conclusions that the sources do not reach themselves, when the section gives certain perspectives undue weight .. these problems were why your proposed Iraq War section was rejected. i'm completely ok that there may be flaws or problems with my proposed text for that article, and that the community may choose to disagree or indeed reject the proposed text for that article, if it chooses.
The point is, despite what you think, there is no larger issue here. Editors applied the policy exactly how they are supposed to, they got the right result, with respect, pelase read the mutilple replies i have received above, that agree with my views on the larger issue here. thats the whole point of opening this question for wider discussion here, where the community can comment.
I'm not out to upset you..... It's not personal. ok, noted. I'm fully willing to accept your reply on that, as helpful, and as constructive, and as responsive to my concerns. i do appreciate your reply, on that note. thanks.
Sm8900… WP:NOR is less about which sources we use than it is about how we use them. Wikipedia is a tertiary source. Our job is to summarize what others have said, and not to say original things. When we give examples to support a conclusion, we need to show that at least one reliable source reaches the same conclusion using those same examples. Otherwise, we are stating something original. Teratix is correct in saying that the policy is working as intended. Blueboar (talk) 16:47, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Like was pointed out above, newspapers usually are secondary sources. The issue here is that you're using them to cite something they don't technically say.
My suggestion is to just be very precise in your phrasing. To draw a sweeping conclusion you need a direct source for that, but you can definitely source "Many prominent politicians regarded the war as ..., such as X, Y, and Z" with sources quoting X, Y, and Z. Loki (talk) 17:11, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think news articles are usually primary sources. Most news articles, if you actually pick up a paper copy and count them up, are very short and say little more than "An event has been planned" or "Someone got arrested for drunk driving" or "A routine government meeting happened". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:45, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What's more important here is to say that newspapers are usually reliable sources – they're just not appropriate for picking random quotes out of (or cherry-picking quotes that support a preferred POV). As WP:RS says, " Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content." An appropriate source for the views of various countries or groups for a war that started more than 20 years ago is going to be a book or a scholarly work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:49, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A book or scholarly work is usually going to be more appropriate. That's very different to a different type of source always being inappropriate. It depends on the specific claim that the source is being used to support. Thryduulf (talk) 21:23, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Again… The NOR policy is not about whether we can use newspapers (or any other type of source), but about how we use them. A source can be used appropriately in one context, but be used inappropriately (in a way that violates this policy) in a different context. Blueboar (talk) 17:52, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
if you mean my proposal for that specific article is flawed and needs some work, point taken, and no argument there. thanks! Sm8900 (talk) 17:07, 13 August 2024 UTC)
Thank you, User:Teratix, for the clarification. Having read the Talk:Iraq War discussion I couldn't understand the reactions of the other participants in this Village Pump discussion. Even after Sm8900 basically told on themselves. Schierbecker (talk) 20:17, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
possible new subsection for ideas, options, conclusions
A long discussion like this one might benefit from a new subsection, for ideas or conclusions from those who agree on the need to refine our approach to wp:OR in order to allow greater openness to usage of reliable newspaper articles as sources. Also, if they wish, the commenter could indicate their position separately on whether wp:OR needs actual revisions or not. By the way, I am glad to also note and mull over the comments above against my ideas as well. however my main thought here is to compile ideas and options for any positive changes desired. any such proposed ideas would still be fully open for discussion.
Obviously i have no basis for making rules on any comments here, no matter what the topic may be. It's just a thought on how the subsection might be set up. I may set up this new subsection, once some time has elapsed for further comments in the existing discussions above.thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 13:55, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
ok, I am going to conclude my own comments on this pretty soon. anyone is welcome to add views if they wish.
just a small note, in the future, i may review some of the highly informative views above,and formulate some proposal for changing WP:OR, and post it here for comment in a new post, at a later date. I do appreciate all the views above. i have learned a lot, and i hope to use the resources cited above, to add to my knowledge about this. thanks. Sm8900 (talk) 14:02, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Content assessment tweaks
Since Content assessment was decoupled from individual WikiProjects, I'd like to develop an idea regarding how it can be tweaked. Currently assessments for Stub-class to B-class can be placed on a talk page by any editor, but the manner in which reassessment is done can be a little tricky. If an editor wants to have their article reassessed (such as moved up from Start to C class), where to do this is currently a little convolluted.
This can be asked on the article talk page, but most talk pages on Wikipedia are will not yield a result, as they are either empty or inactive or both. Or it can be asked on a WikiProject page, which is still not a guarantee of getting it answered (also, might defeat the point of unlinking content assessment from WikiProjects in the first place). Or it can be asked on Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedia/Assessment – which doesn't make sense technically. Surely WikiProject Wikipedia/Assessment should be about articles relating to Wikipedia, instead of acting as a general catch-all page as it currently does.
My question is – how could this be optimised? For example, should assessment requests be moved to one centralised location? If so, where? Hope village pump can help me here DimensionalFusion(talk)15:44, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Other than promotion to GA or FA status, very few editors pay attention to article assessments… so we don’t actually need clear cut criteria or a process for assessment. We can rely on editorial judgement.
If you think an article should be assessed as being in a certain “class”, feel free to mark it so. If someone else disagrees, discuss it on the article’s talk page. Blueboar (talk) 16:11, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and marking an assessment totally independently, without any input from others is and would remain a valid way to assess an article. However, some people may not wish to do this and may want to have an uninvolved editor look at the page. This is the problem I would like to address DimensionalFusion(talk)16:17, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) If there is benefit in an editor being able to request someone else take a look at an article and seeing whether they think the quality assessment is correct then I can think of two approaches that might work:
A central location in which to ask.
A template that can put on an article talk page that populates a category.
In both cases WikiProject article alerts should be generated to aid discoverability by editors interested in the relevant topic area.
Whether there is benefit in such a system is a different question, but I think the answer is yes. Even if it's optional in most cases, someone who was heavily involved in rewriting the article or who has a COI with regard to the subject or who is a declared paid editor may want to (in the latter two cases probably should) ask for another editor's opinion. Thryduulf (talk) 16:20, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If I come across an assessment that is clearly wrong on an article I am involved with, I simply edit out the assessment. By means that are completely mysterious to me someone eventually comes along and (re)assesses it. Thincat (talk) 10:17, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@DimensionalFusion I think @Thincat is saying that if an article they are involved with is rated as e.g. start class but they believe that is clearly wrong they will simply remove the assessment rank, meaning the formerly start class article is now unassessed class. In their experience these articles then get a new rating (that presumably more closely matches their opinion) from somebody else without any additional input from them (i.e. they make no requests anywhere). They don't know how the people who do the new assessment become aware that this needs doing (although my guess is that they're patrolling e.g. Category:Unassessed United Kingdom articles). Thryduulf (talk) 10:39, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In my experience that doesn’t tend to lead to articles being reviewed, either because it is a broad topic (leading to a huge backlog) or because it has a very inactive wikiproject DimensionalFusion(talk)10:51, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
DimensionalFusion, content assessment between "stub" and "GA" is meaningless. No one is likely to respond to a request to reassess article quality unless you're taking it through a formalised peer review process, and editors interested enough in the topic would likely respond better at any centralised venue to a generic hey I just created / expanded Topic; improvements welcome than to a request for reassessment.If you're not comfortable changing the assessment rating yourself on articles you've significantly contributed to, turn on WP:Rater in Special:Preferences, and use whatever it suggests with the default edit summary. If you want other editors to take a serious look at your work, take it through WP:GA. Folly Mox (talk) 14:52, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If content assessment between "stub" and "GA" is meaningless then why does it exist at all?
Anyway, for people who know that an article does not meet GA standards but want it to be looked at/rated by another editor, if only for 15 seconds, would create a massive waste of time in taking it to GAN as you suggest, which already has a massive backlog. One of the ways to reduce that backlog would be to improve the process for content assessment, no?
As someone mentioned below, they're mostly an historical artefact, leftovers from the days when WikiProjects roamed still. I don't know why we still have them. My apologies if it seemed like I was recommending taking a known sub–GA-quality article through GA. I miscommunicate sometimes. What I meant is that other editors are not likely to invest significant time reviewing work that the primary contributors have not already invested significant time into.We might not be seeing eye to eye on this because I'm experiencing disagreement with your problem statement. To me, reassessment has never felt tricky: if I've improved an article and notice its rating feeling out of sync, I'll update it. Also the notion of a venue where someone might be guaranteed a response doesn't feel in alignment with the state or ethos of the project.I suppose you could just remove the rating on articles you've recently improved, which should lead to someone else assessing them eventually. Folly Mox (talk) 18:29, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How soon will eventually be though? As far as I'm aware, the Citation needed category for example hasn't led to many articles having citations added
Recent backlog drives at WikiProject Unreferenced articles and WikiProject Reliability have used maintenance categories to improve the project, but it really does seem like that kind of organised effort is what it takes to budge the needle even a little bit on highly populated maintenance categories.At some point last year WikiProject Stub improvement was reactivated to expand stub-class articles, which didn't last long since there were an overabundance of false stubs. I blame myself for rating some of these upwards out of the stub categories without significant expansion.I don't have good anecdata for routes to GA, but I don't think I've ever heard of anyone taking an article there on the basis that it was already B-class. I have seen B-class used in guidance once or twice, like at H:YFA, where newcomers modeling their first article on existing examples are advised to make sure their model is at least B-class.As to my eventually above, that's difficult to predict, and I don't have time at the moment to look into how long articles remain unassessed, nor even how to formulate a method of checking. Late for work, Folly Mox (talk) 11:34, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Given the amount of outrage declared paid editors doing anything that could be seen as advancing the interests of their employer (regardless of whether this aligns with Wikipedia's interests) causes among some sections of the community, I think some method of requesting an independent assessment is warranted. Personally I don't see them doing this as an issue at all, but I recognise my views regarding paid editing are a lot more relaxed than the average. Thryduulf (talk) 12:05, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If a paid editor has contributed significantly to an article, should they be allowed to change the rating of that article themselves? As I say I don't have a problem with that (as long as it's not to GA/A/FA, but that applies to everyone) but given how controversial paid editing is I suspect some people will have a problem with it. Thryduulf (talk) 12:48, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Given that there is absolutely NO BENEFIT to be gained from changing an article assessment from “Start” to “C” (or even “B”)… why would it matter if the changer was paid to do so? Blueboar (talk) 13:19, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Blueboar If there is "absolutely no benefit" why do we have three different ratings? Is telling a client you improved their article from "C" to "B" not a benefit?
@Gawaon neither paid editing or content assessment is a "problem", I think you're misunderstanding this discussion. The question being asked in this discussion is "Should there be some central location or other method for editors to request a different editor re-assess the quality of a given article?" This cannot be answered without answering the question "Is there a reason and/or benefit to requesting another editor do this rather than just doing it themself?". My view is that the answer to the second question is "yes", giving a paid editor as one example scenario of when it would/might be better for another editor to do it. Paid editing is controversial (imo way more controversial than it should be, but that's beside the point) but it is not, in and of itself, a problem. Content assessment is not a problem, but an individual editor reassessing the quality of their own work might be a problem in some circumstances. Given that such circumstances exist, I see benefit in their being a way to avoid the problem. Thryduulf (talk) 13:33, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's like Blueboar says: Ratings are a hint to other editors, our readers will in general neither see nor care about them, and the payer probably won't either. Gawaon (talk) 13:44, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thryduulf- To be blunt, we don’t need all these ratings. The original intent was to help wikiprojects figure out which articles needed the most collaboration (we would focus on high “importance”, low “quality” assessments first).
However, as more and more wikiprojects became moribund, the ratings system became increasingly irrelevant. They are now little more than an ego boost (it’s nice to think that you improved an article to a “higher” level). Blueboar (talk) 15:00, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don’t care enough either way but if I could; I would simplify assessments to Stubs, Start, GA, FA. I have never ever used B, C, A classes. If an article can be improved, then do it! These debates about their classes could be better spent on improving the content however much or little. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 15:40, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Folly, thanks for the link. I note that the 2021 discussion focused on GA and FA… while this discussion seems focused on the lower assessments (Mostly “c” and “b” class). Blueboar (talk) 16:25, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Only big and active WikiProjects like MILHIST use class A. IMO it's good that B-class exists as it has actual, tighter criteria, and the banners always give tick marks for which specific criteria need improvement. I do agree that there need not be a centralized, stringent discussion forum for these ratings. They are not supposed to be formal, and I agree with Blueboar. The assessments are working as they should. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:20, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that assessments in their current form are not working as they should. Rating an article as GA or FA gets that article more recognition as they get a topicon, and can be featured in DYK or today's featured article.
Rating an article as A-Class, B, C, Start, or Stub does... nothing. Originally they alerted WikiProjects as to how much an article needs improving but since WikiProjects are no longer giving out ratings this seems irrelevant. Which leads to the obvious question – what is the point of content assessment? But that discussion is most likely out of the scope of this idea lab.
The ratings provide the exact same information regarding article quality to Wikiprojects as they did before. The change to a single rating did not affect their Wikiproject functionality, all the categories etc. still work. CMD (talk) 16:44, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The big question is – does content assessment, through wikiprojects or otherwise, help improve Wikipedia? Because from personal experience, lots of wikiprojects seem to not actually undertake coordinated efforts to improve articles, much less using content assessment to do so.
It certainly helps at the upper end (GA and FA)… I don’t think the lower end (from Start through B class) is of much use. However, it doesn’t harm anything to have these levels… so… meh. Blueboar (talk) 17:17, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Right, it's not a big question as we know the answer already. They're there if someone wants to use them; if they don't want to use them, no harm done. CMD (talk) 17:19, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We have a single long-standing set of criteria defining each assessment rank that has been pretty consistent over time. Editors apply these based on their best interpretation, up to and more or less also including GA. CMD (talk) 17:49, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For the people who don't know about our content assessment processes:
The most important level is B class This is implicitly the minimum requirement for DYK and ITN.
GA is B class with a review It is, like Start, C and B, a low level. Since the review is conducted by only one editor, YMMV.
Our highest level is A class This involves reviews by multiple editors from a project.
FA is similar to A class, but reviewers are drawn from all projects. However, unlike all the other levels, there are limits on the articles that can be submitted.
DYK requires Start-class (because their minimum length exceeds a stub).
@Folly Mox (and others), these ratings are primarily for the WP:1.0 team, which uses them for offline/curated releases. The difference between Stub and GA is important to their algorithm. They consider factors like popularity, centrality (=incoming links), and WikiProject ratings (i.e., to identify articles that humans say are important but that otherwise might be skipped). All else being equal, an article with higher ratings in terms of either quality or importance/priority is more likely to make the cutoff. Most of that group's work is coordinated off wiki these days, but AIUI they are still active.
Most of the time, anything well-cited is gonna be B-class, though it could be C-class or start-class if it's short. While ITN doesn't have this criterion, DYK's length criterion means it's usually B-class. Aaron Liu (talk) 01:18, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Only 1,500 character are needed, so that's actually most relevant to the B-class criteria DYK is likely to miss (The article reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain obvious omissions or inaccuracies). DYK articles are expected to be well cited though, and being well-written comes from the attention, so most of the other B-class criteria are met in some way. CMD (talk) 14:51, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Naming convention for Uzbek names
Although thirty years have passed since the government of Uzbekistan decided to switch to the Latin script, the use of Cyrillic remains widespread, and the Latin script in use is widely considered inadequate to say the least. There's growing pressure to change it, particularly the letters Oʻ/oʻ and Gʻ/gʻ which are particularly problematic. However, so far no political will has materialized.
On Wikipedia, Uzbek names present many challenges, which I discuss in some detail below. Maybe this discussion will lead to a naming convention, which would be quite helpful. I can't start drafting one yet, as I don't have all the answers. Maybe after discussing the issue here, a task force could be put together to start drafting a proposal.
Distinct characters
Google's Uzbek keyboard uses U+02BB ʻ / U+02BC ʼ
The letters Oʻ/oʻ and Gʻ/gʻ (and the tutuq belgisi ʼ denoting a glottal stop or a long vowel) are a nightmare (See Uzbek alphabet#Distinct_characters). Basically, while it's clear that the straight English apostrophe should not be used, there is no official guidance on whether U+02BBʻMODIFIER LETTER TURNED COMMA / U+02BCʼMODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE or U+2018‘LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK / U+2019’RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK should be used to properly render these two letters and the tutuq belgisi.Unicode.org states the former should be used. The Uzbek Wikipedia also favors U+02BB/U+02BC, and Google's Uzbek keyboard uses these characters.
However, Uzbek sources often use both—sometimes within the same text—and some do not distinguish between the modifier letter turned comma and the modifier letter apostrophe, instead opting for the straight English apostrophe, which is incorrect. Here's an example of an unfortunate Uzbek name that contains both problematic characters:
The question is: should we, like on the Uzbek Wikipedia, formally agree on which pair of characters to use in Uzbek words? I've been using U+02BB ʻ / U+02BC ʼ, but other editors might be using, or may have already used, U+2018 ‘ / U+2019 ’ instead.
On a related note, when a new page is created here on enwiki, the U+02BB/U+02BC pair poses no challenges. However, if the article is misspelled, as in the case of Yodgor Sa'diyev, moving it becomes impossible. "Yodgor Sa'diyev" is clearly wrong: reliable Uzbek sources use both U+02BC (Kknew, Zamin; Ministry of Internal Affairs) and U+2019 (Daryo, RFE/RL's Uzbek Service, Xabar), but not the English apostrophe. The handful of English sources that I could find on Yodgor Saʼdiyev use the Romanization of his name in Russian (Yodgor Sagdiev: Uz Daily) or a mix of his Uzbek + Romanized Russian name (Yodgor Sagdiyev: President.uz)! Since there is no single variant used in English sources, I decided to move the article to the Uzbek Latin spelling. (Although, as mentioned above, there isn't one standard Uzbek spelling, but this still seemed the best option.). However, when I tried to move the page to Yodgor Sa’diyev (with U+02BC), the following error popped up:
The page "Yodgor Sa'diyev" cannot be moved to "Yodgor Saʼdiyev" because the title "Yodgor Saʼdiyev" matches an entry (?!(User|Wikipedia)( talk)?:|Talk:)\P{L}*\p{Latin}.*[^\p{Latin}\P{L}ʻ].* <moveonly> # Latin + non-Latin on the local or global blacklists. If you believe that this move is valid, please consider requesting the move first.
When I tried to move it to Yodgor Sa’diyev (with U+2019), I got the following error:
The page title that you have attempted to create contains a right single quotation mark (’) Unicode character. Per MOS:STRAIGHT, such characters should not normally be used in page titles. Please replace it with a standard apostrophe, or a modifier letter turned comma (ʻ) or modifier letter apostrophe (ʼ) character if appropriate, and try again. If you got here by clicking on a red link in an article, you should go back and fix the link first.
Talk about a Catch-22! When there are no English sources and it's appropriate to use the Uzbek spelling, what should I do if I cannot move a misspelled page name due to the technical issues mentioned above? Should I request a name change every time I encounter an Uzbek word wrongly spelled with the English apostrophe, or can we make an exception for Uzbek names to facilitate moving articles?
As a page mover, I should be able to move over the title blacklist, so asking at WP:RM/TR could be an option. However, I notice the page has already been moved in the past, so maybe it is best to discuss it first. On that note, if you end up having a lot of them to request and consensus is that they should indeed be moved to the modifier letters turned commas/apostrophe, asking for the page mover right yourself could also be an option. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 20:00, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Romanization through Russian
Since Soviet times, Uzbek names have tended to be crudely transliterated into Russian, especially in official documents such as passports. As you can see in the table above, Йўлдош Аъзамов (Yoʻldosh Aʼzamov in the modern Latin script) was written as Юлдаш Агзамов in Russian, and English sources relying on Russian transliterate it as Yuldash Agzamov (see the table above for sources).
Per WP:COMMONNAME, we should generally use the most commonly used English spelling ("as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable, English-language sources"). Are sources in broken English, like the ones mentioned above, sufficient for this purpose? While the current policy states "When there is no single, obvious name that is demonstrably the most frequently used for the topic by these sources, editors should reach a consensus as to which title is best by considering these criteria directly", it would be helpful to have a general policy for such cases, as most Uzbeks have multiple names, and the Romanization of Uzbek names through Russian is unlikely to stop any time soon.
Listing all the different spelling variants
When a given entity has many different names, it's helpful to list them in the relevant entry. Over the years, I've variously formulated the existence of different spellings while creating content here on enwiki. For instance, in Yoʻldosh Aʼzamov, I wrote:
Yoʻldosh Aʼzamov (sometimes spelled Yuldash Agzamov in English) (Uzbek: Yoʻldosh Aʼzamov, Йўлдош Аъзамов; Russian: Юлдаш Агзамов; May 10, 1909 – June 16, 1985) was...
In the recent entry on Olim Xoʻjayev, I added the following footnote:
Uzbek Cyrillic: Олим Хўжаев; Russian: Алим Ходжаев, romanized Alim Khodzhaev.
There are also Uzbeks like Hamza Hakimzade Niyazi who almost exclusively wrote their name in the Arabic script, and there are many reliable sources that use his name in the Arabic script. This complicates things even further. Is it best to specify all the various spellings in the lead section, or is it better to list them in a footnote? Either way, how should I word it so that it doesn't get too clunky but at the same time lets the reader know that multiple spelling variants exist? It would be really helpful to have some sort of rule of thumb for such cases.
P.S. I create redirects from all the known spellings to the main entry whenever I can. While I haven't encountered any issues on this, a future naming convention should probably have some guidance on redirects as well. Nataevtalk19:18, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Central hub for WikiProjects
I think there should be a central hub for WikiProjects which would provide a space for editors to collaborate on all topics (yes vanilla wikipedia is a collaborative project but note that some editors are more open to collaboration whilst others prefer to work independently, this taps into the former). At the moment WPs are isolated from one another, and collaboration is often limited to within a single WP, when most articles have multiple WP banners and scopes overlap. This central hub could be called something like WP:WikiProject Hub and incorporate the directory (unsure whether WP:WikiProject Council would be best kept technically separate). It could have a resource that people could submit articles to that they would like to collaborate on (eg. most recent at the top, off the list after 2 weeks) and users could filter out/in WikiProjects technically based on the WP banners. I'm sure there's lots of other resources and uses it could provide that I can't think of right now Kowal2701 (talk) 20:08, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would suggest you could call it "WikiProject Cafe." that's a word which easily lends itself to this use, and yet has not been used for actual items here, so far. Sm8900 (talk) 20:19, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It'd be like an actual WikiProject, and other WikiProjects would sort of be sub projects of it. I don't know whether WP:WikiProject Council would be best kept separate as a sort of regulator and help hub while this would strictly be for collaboration on articles etc. Kowal2701 (talk) 20:25, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
oh. well ok, but sorry that sounds overly broad. i don't really see a role for that. sorry.if you want to see why an overly generalized wikiproject might not work, please look at WikiProject History. let me know what you think, if you want. Sm8900 (talk) 20:27, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
all WP:HIST needs is taskforces for different regions and periods. I really think the lack of collaboration between projects hurts wikipedia and there's a lot of potential here Kowal2701 (talk) 20:31, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be happy to, although not sure about the best approach and I'm wary of wasting people's time. Do we immediately ping people to a discussion about taskforces with minimal initial comment or do we make a fleshed out proposal and then ping everyone? Kowal2701 (talk) 20:36, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
in general, it's neither. you simply create the task force with like-minded editors, in areas that you yourself would be interested in editing. that's not an official rule or method, in any way; it is simply my own personal opinion. Sm8900 (talk) 21:07, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
there're already taskforces for each continent, is it not just about reviving those and maybe merging WP:WikiProject European history into a taskforce? If people support it, we should probably discuss it with the people at WP Council, they've expressed similar ideas Kowal2701 (talk) 21:12, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's got over 300 members, if it were to be reorganised all could be pinged to a post which lists the taskforces, and hopefully enough would engage with them to keep them all sustainable Kowal2701 (talk) 21:30, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Kowal2701, sorry but there is no practical benefit to doing so. editors generaly edit whatever topics inteest them at the moment. there is little to be gained by organizing a whole lot of task forces which no one is already showing an interest in, actually. Sm8900 (talk) 21:32, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree, editors often have narrower interests than just history, which makes WP:HIST too broad like you said. If there was a push to organise the project around taskforces I think enough people might be inclined to engage with them especially considering only a small proportion of the large membership would be needed. I think it's worth a go rather than leaving it semi-active/inactive Kowal2701 (talk) 21:42, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I’d assume 150, but with the taskforces that don’t get off the ground we could just message contributors. Idk, it entirely depends on whether there’s appetite for it Kowal2701 (talk) 06:42, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Kowal2701, can you describe your idea in concrete terms, with examples?
I can't tell if this is "I want one group of editors to be in charge of all the other groups of editors" (a WP:WikiProject is a group of editors) or if this is "I want a multidisciplinary group of editors". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:24, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No this is nothing to do with authority or even a group of editors necessarily. It's a restructuring of the wikiproject system. Think of a tree diagram where you have
To serve as a central place for collaboration on Wikipedia. Where people can collaborate on topics without a WikiProject. A place where WikiProjects can collaborate with one another. To macro manage WP’s coverage. Where WikiProjects can notify people of initiatives etc. To foster collaboration and make a healthier culture. I’m sure there are other uses. I think the resource mentioned in the initial post might be a good core idea. Kowal2701 (talk) 06:36, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are basically no topics that don't fall within the scope of an existing WikiProject.
If "macro manage" means "tell people that we need more articles about X or fewer about Y", then it's doomed because we're WP:VOLUNTEERS, but the Village pumps serve that purpose. The Village pumps are also where groups can notify others of their initiatives; WP:VPM is usually the most popular for routine announcements.
Creating yet another forum for communication is not usually helpful. See https://xkcd.com/1810/ ("Chat systems") and think about the problem of walled gardens (a handful of pages/people end up isolated from everyone else, leading to drift) and local consensus (e.g., we declare our group to be the One True™ group for deciding whether Our™ articles get an infobox, and we make sure that nobody else gets notified about or invited to participate in these conversations, because Those Other Editors might disagree with us). WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:57, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That makes sense, I think there’s some merit to it but there’s too many ways it could fail and it’d take a lot of community resources and time which might not be worthwhile. Tbh with you I just really like the resource mentioned in the initial post, if that could be incorporated into an existing page I’d be satisfied. People really like serendipity and this could provide that, and bypass the isolation of WPs. It is also entirely voluntary, people can submit articles they’re working on that they’d like more input in and others can choose anything that intrigues them. It sort of serves to direct people I guess Kowal2701 (talk) 07:09, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That’s really great. Maybe another list/page with a list could be added which didn’t have nominations so anyone can add an article regardless of importance or page views and it stays on the list for a month and people can filter by WP banners? Kowal2701 (talk) 07:36, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WikiProjects are groups of people, and you probably don't want to filter by "WhatamIdoing and her wiki-friends". If you'd like to be able to filter by topic area, then the WMF did some research a few years back, and found that articles could almost always be classified into a couple dozen categories under four main headings of Culture (includes biographies), Geography, History/Society, and STEM. See mw:ORES/Articletopic#Taxonomy for the full list.
It’s more you filter by topic area, so you if you’re interested in say 5 topics, you just filter for them, it’s not necessarily about collaborating with those WikiProjects but with people on the articles for improvement page. Those groups are good, but I imagine it’d be a lot easier technically to use WP banners as identifiers for which topics the article is a part of Kowal2701 (talk) 15:28, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It would be nice if there were a way to surface articletopic at the article itself, or its talkpage, rather than only being visible through CirrusSearch and the Suggested Edits pane. Folly Mox (talk) 18:00, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Merging mass-created village stubs into district articles
Initial ideas, village stubs
There are a lot of mostly formulaic (though that's not necessarily bad) stubs of villages with 60-100 people that will probably never be significantly expanded, at least beyond one or two events happening there. I know that under the the guideline on geographical features all inhabited places are considered to be notable, but what if very small villages were by default merged into district articles? I'm thinking of a section "Villages" or something similar with a subheading for each village and a few sentences with the population/location (what's already in the leads). Villages that had enough coverage to need their own article would be split; it could be done based on the categories "Rural localities in X district" that already exist.
For example, Basovo and Timonovo in Valuysky District, Russia. The second has 1 event happening there, and the 1st none listed; both are very small towns with a couple hundred people. It's possible Timonovo could be expanded with a description of the event, but that would be rather WP:1E-style and deserve its own article.
I'm posting this here because I don't know the history & policy details sufficiently to put it into proposals (or the 300-vote discussions), but I wanted to see what people thought and if this had been proposed before. Mrfoogles (talk) 04:00, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It depends on what the guidelines are agreed to. I'd say if a location only cites census tables and maps (gonna use Hashemabad, Kerman as an example), they should be merged with the above-class subdivision. All these location articles only have maps and census tables, could possibly violate geographic feature Notability. Roasted (talk) 04:22, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would cautiously support this as long as it was done carefully so no information was lost, was explicitly without prejudice to later expansion and excluded places with significantly more extensive articles on another language wiki. Of the three places here, only Timonovo has more information elsewhere (ru:Тимоново (Белгородская область)) but that is borderline. My ballpark suggestion would be that any article with circa two paragraphs of prose of non-census information excluding a description of it's geographical location on any language edition of Wikipedia should not be merged in without an individual discussion. I'd also say that before any merge takes place there needs to be a list of all the merges proposed laid out in a fashion easy for humans to check (separate lists or separate sections for each destination article would probably work well). Thryduulf (talk) 10:25, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Section break 1, village stubs
I support the concept… Wikipedia should continue to cover all noteworthy geo locations, but we can be more flexible in how we cover them. Not all locations require a stand alone article to be included. Blueboar (talk) 11:49, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The ru.wiki versions of the villages are not much longer unfortunately, and the length of the longer one comes from quite generic information that would likely apply to the district. Your method of merging to the district article sounds like one in which no information would be lost, although I would leave room for a bit more than what is currently in the leads. CMD (talk) 12:00, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I doubt anyone will stop you but I think it's a waste of time. For some reason some editors have strong feelings about the existence of stubs vs. redirects to entries in lists but, from the reader's perspective, they're pretty much the same. I can't tell anyone how to use their time but if all the collective hours we've wasted on merging or talking about merging stubs were instead put into expanding them, the encyclopaedia would certainly be better off. – Joe (talk) 07:13, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There's the rest of what I wrote, and if your counter-proposal is to treat the nav boxes as great article content then I don't think that's very helpful to the reader either. CMD (talk) 12:31, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I might come to the same conclusion ("As a reader, they are not the same") but in the opposite direction: Hunting through a merged-up page to try to glean which info is relevant and which is about other villages takes up time. With a stub like Timonovo (five sentences, 75 words, five sources, plus the infobox), you know that all the information is what you're looking for, and you know that's all there is. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:19, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
List articles don't have to be tabular data with no prose, nor do they have to be internally consistent as to whether or not the list items they contain are bluelinks or not. The GA Infrastructure of the Brill Tramway is basically a list article that contextualises borderline notable information beautifully.I should disclose that I'm strongly in favour of contextualising stubs into their container topics wherever possible. Folly Mox (talk) 16:18, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Somehow I doubt the result it this will be a load of GA-level lists. It'll be the existing stubs, pasted in one after the other. – Joe (talk) 05:49, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the implementation of contextualisation is likely to resemble pure concatenation, and would prefer that outcome to the status quo. JMO. Folly Mox (talk) 15:59, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I was more thinking of a policy allowing people to merge such things if they felt like it: because there are so many village articles it's never worth it for any one person to start a discussion about merging the villages of one district, because who cares about this one random district in particular. And no one has the hours and hours you refer to to just go do it for all of them. With a pre-consensus it could ideally happen piece by piece? If there was a policy on this I might merge the villages of that district just because I ran across them, but I wasn't planning to spend 900 hrs on trying to do all of them.
As for expanding them: 60 people live in most of these village, and it's unlikely someone's written a book about most of them. Not going to say it's not a little bit of a waste of time, but having a list of villages in a district in its article seems useful: it was helpful to me finding some village list in district articles on the German Wikipedia I think when I was trying to figure something out. I think name+whatever small details exist could be somewhat helpful, if not the most important task. Mrfoogles (talk) 18:54, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@BilledMammal put together a sample of 10,000 articles so we could try to find out some basic information about what the community's actual practices are – the revealed preference, if you would like to use that language, rather than the aspirational goals. So far, we're finding facts like these:
90% of articles have between 2 and 95 sentences, heavily skewed towards shorter articles. The most common number of sentences in an article is two. Half of articles have 13 or fewer sentences. A quarter of them have 5 or fewer.
If you define a stub as having ≤10 sentences, then 43% of Wikipedia's articles are stubs. If you define is as ≤250 words, then 41% of articles are stubs.
Half of all articles have 4 or fewer (detectable) inline citations. A quarter have 2 or fewer. Only 21% have more than 10. Having more than 20 (about 10% of them) is a statistical outlier.
Compared to longer articles, stubs tend to have about twice as many citations per sentence.
The reason I bring this up is because when we compare articles against our ideals, it's very easy to think "What garbage. It 'only' has five sentences. It 'only' has five sources. It 'only' has 75 words." We ought to be thinking "Huh, that has more sentences than 25% of our articles. It has more refs than 60% of our articles. It has more words than 16% of our articles. Maybe it's not too different from normal, actually." WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:40, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I recently ran a new scan, of 100,000 pages, where the talk page categories are also provided. I’m not sure how to upload it yet - it’s a far larger dataset than all the others I’ve uploaded put together - but it should be helpful as it will allow us to determine which topic areas have abnormal articles.
I suspect that the size of places will vary by location. Most US census places have longer than median articles (e.g., Mulberry, Kansas has 25 refs and almost 1,000 words) but were largely written by bot/script.
I totally support the idea to reduce village stubs. here is one possible way to do so; make articles consistently named "villages in ___ County", or "Villages in ___ Oblast," or "Villages in ____ Arrodinsement," and so on, and make these into list articles.
I think that the fact that these articles are close to the status quo doesn't necessarily mean they wouldn't be improved by merging them, though. The point is that they have very low potential (only have 50-200 people or so), which is not true of all stubs. Mrfoogles (talk) 17:20, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Use of "former" to describe occupations
I continuously see the word "former" before describing occupations in biographical articles. For example, Tiffany van Soest's article describes her as a "retired American Muay Thai kickboxer who competed in the bantamweight division". This feels redundant, as the past tense is also found in the word "competed".
I only find it helpful in cases when the person has other current jobs, such as in Ben Carson, which says "retired neurosurgeon" as he went into politics.
I say the use of the word "former", "retired" or others versions be banned to describe occupations, except for cases such as Carson's. Roasted (talk) 23:13, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's much less confusing than "was a kickboxer", which sounds like one died (knock on wood). If we make it "is an American Muay Thai kickboxer who competed in the bantamweight division", that sounds like they used to compete there but then moved on to other places. I don't see how this adjective can possibly be harmful. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:31, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Aaron Liu, "former", "retired" and similar are usually unambiguous accurate descriptions that are clearer than omitting them. There might be exceptions in individual cases, but as a general rule they are more good than harmful. Thryduulf (talk) 00:25, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The use of former is often used to push a POV in BLPs such as: "Jayle was is a convicted fraudster and former businesswoman". These things are arguably true, but a more neutral way to state it is "Jaylee is a businesswoman who was convicted of fraud". It avoids the name calling, "fraudster"; and makes no crystal ball guess what the future might hold for Jaylee, who might continue to have a career in business, after she serves 10 years in jail. The use of "former" is a dig over her downfall. So yeah I would agree that "former" can be a loaded term and is usually unnecessary. Another hypothetical example: "91-year old Jaylee is a former skydiver, former book author, former model, former Olympic swimmer and currently a painter." Ugh. Please no. -- GreenC01:07, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see any problems with your last example except for the fact that some of these formers are probably way more important than others, for which we already have existing guidelines that say that only the most notable occupations should be included. I also don't see how one could be a former businesswoman. Aaron Liu (talk) 02:38, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You can stop running a business, just like you can quit any other career. Some people might interpret "is a businesswoman" as meaning that she's running a business right now, which, in the specific case of "a convicted fraudster" might not be compatible with their legal situation. If the BLP in question has been barred from certain business activities (e.g., being a director or officer of a publicly traded company) under the Sarbanes–Oxley Act or similar legislation in the relevant country, they might even consider it harmful to be described as a current businessperson. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:48, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) I don't think the former reads that way in your first example, I wouldn't assume someone with a conviction can't do business. The fraudster use is a separate issue, "former businesswoman convicted of fraud" uses both. ("Businesswoman" is a bit vague I suppose, which makes the example tricky.) CMD (talk) 02:47, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ultimately, what we ought to do is describe subjects the way the sources describe them. If sources generally describe someone as a "former XYZ" then we should to. That said, the lead does also have some degree of leeway to paraphrase and summarize (since it's trying to summarize the entire article); in some situations it's fairly uncontroversial to describe someone's previous roles in the past tense, especially when the ending is unambiguous - for example, former elected / appointed officials. Even then I think it's more commonly worded as eg. "was the secretary of whatsit under whosit" but I wouldn't support a hard-and-fast ban on "former"; it has to be decided on a case-by-case basis, like most things. --Aquillion (talk) 03:02, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Past tense is not used in many areas of Wikipedia, such as TV programmes that are no longer made where the word "was" gives the reader straight away that it is no longer made, but the MOS says we cannot use it. I think "former" is acceptable in my eyes, as it what the "normal" world outside of Wikipedia would use, however common sense and this place doesn't always meet. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 05:16, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, if we understand how to, and if repairing them there for our project doesn't break them for other projects. I've never tracked an error to Wikidata that I was able to repair myself. Sure, I'm pretty incompetent technically, but so are most of us, and Wikidata is inscrutable and seems poorly documented to those of us who interact with it only infrequently. Folly Mox (talk) 16:07, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WikiData can only support one such style. So if you fix Wikidata to match Article A, you break Article B. If you fix Wikidata to match article B, you break article A.
Headbomb {t · c · p · b}23:47, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As said at Template:Cite Q#Workflow, that seems like an easy fix: Wikidata already has an easy way for dealing with this through the "object named as" property.
Which is the most convoluted asinine process that defeats the purpose of "universal references". Use {{cite xxx}}, provide DOIs/ISBNs, let User:Citation bot expand the references, and then review the output for uniformity. You'll see directly in the edit window all the information provided, and can standardize everything in one go. Everyone gets to see things are uniform, and no one has to deal with the abyss that is {{Cite Q}}. Headbomb {t · c · p · b}03:30, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How is it convoluted or purpose-defeating? You just add a "object named as" property to Wikidata, bam. It's just one step. If you really wanted to go all fancy, you could query the author names for the part that is the family name. Aaron Liu (talk) 04:13, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You can use the "object named as" property to cause the reference to appear different ways on different articles? CMD (talk) 05:55, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion seems like people are confusing data with presentation. If different articles really are needing different ordering of the name-parts or different formats/precision of dates, ideally the template should handle reformatting the data instead of trying to do it all in the data layer. Anomie⚔11:26, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wikidata items exist for DOI database entries, but not other sources. DOIs are well structured data in comparison to a web link, where either multiple urls point to same data, or the same url points to different data depending on when it's archived, along with all other issues of link rot etc.. Meta:Community Wishlist/Wishes/Shared Citations is a proposal to make a Wikibase just for shared citations.
The presentation (maybe one article wants to list first 5 authors and not more, while another also wants to expand all authors, their presentation format, their publisher cities etc...) but either way the presentation should be customizeable per citation and or page wide, as is done with dates already. {{Use DMY}} will change presentation of dates in references for example while the data stays same regardless of whether it's fully typed out like February 28, 2024 or enclosed as 2024-02-28.
The risk of harm from Citations being edited is akin to widely transcluded templates being vandalized. So any interface should have additional safeguards whether permission levels, or or edit-restrictions depending on number of transclusions. Same for merging data objects. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 13:07, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe, in theory, if we take an infrastructure similar to Google Images and then do something complicated that does image recognition involving wikidata. But it hardly seems worth the effort. Cremastra (talk) 19:17, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Rename and/or Combine Content Assessment classes
Currently Content Assessment is named arbitrarily at Featured, A, Good, B, C, Start, Stub. Looking for ideas as to what A, B, and C classes should be renamed? And if B and C classes were combined into one, what would that be named?
I would merge B, C and Start together and call them all "start". Anything checking criteria of article like DYK would not solely rely on WikiProject content assessment anyways. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 21:51, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I’d definitely be opposed to lumping B and Start into the same bucket, the resulting rating would cover a really wide range in quality. There is a difference between “often not used and superfluous in many cases” and “totally unnecessary”. ― novov(tc)01:57, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The names aren't really arbitrary. They're basically American letter grades, plus two existing review processes (FA and GA), the separate {{stub}} system, and a squeamishness about rating anything with a "bad grade". C is a relatively recent innovation; back in the day, it was realistically Stub–Start–B, and anything else required extra effort. In 2008, editors basically decided to divide the Start class into two groups (C and Start).
As a first approximation, we started with:
Stub: Less than ~10 sentences.
Start: More than 10 sentences but not yet B-class.
B class: Meets all six specified criteria.
and we decided to have:
Stub: Less than ~10 sentences.
Start: More than 10 sentences but still kind of short and not B-class.
I would consider using something other than the A-B-C convention. I noticed that an inordinate number of editors were adding A class to India articles. Apparently people think it's like self-grading a homework assignment. I think A-class should either become a universal process like GAR or FAR, or go away entirely. That I know about, only WP:MILHIST, WP:USROADS and WP:HIGHWAYS have a process to review A-class articles. WP:WikiProject Biography and Wikiproject Cyclones had a process, but the latter turned out articles that in no way represented the best of Wikipedia. Schierbecker (talk) 02:40, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah I agree. Given how few WikiProjects actually have a process for reviewing A-Class articles and how difficult it would be to create them given how many of them are small and/or semi-inactive. Standardising it to a universal process or eliminating it would probably be better. Although there is always the idea that "it's there if people need it" DimensionalFusion(talk)09:04, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What's A class? Why does it even exist? I always thought there's B class, better than that is Good Article, and the very best is Featured Article. A class seems to have no good place in this scheme of things. Gawaon (talk) 11:23, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A class exists because there is a broad gap between GA (B class with a review by a single editor - a low grade) and FA (A class with a comprehensive review by at least three editors - a high grade). B class is the minimum acceptable standard, which is why it would be destructive to merge with lower classes. Starts and stubs are unacceptable quality. FA is not generally available. Our very best is A class (comprehensive review by at least three editors from the project). Hawkeye7(discuss)11:16, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A class (comprehensive review by at least three editors from the project) isn't necessarily correct. The majority of WikiProjects don't have any specific assessment criteria for A-Class articles, and WP:Content assessment just lists some generic criteria. In contrast, GA gives much more solid criteria.
It may be because GA is a site-wide standard but A-Class criteria is handled by WikiProjects, though this is a bit confusing given the majority of articles have multiple WikiProjects. Am I missing something here? DimensionalFusion(talk)21:49, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The majority of WikiProjects don't use A-class at all, so of course they haven't wasted their time setting up a process and criteria for using it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:19, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There definitely isn't a pressing problem here, but I do agree that we're being overly precise with content assessments, both in terms of the capacity of WikiProjects to review and re-review them (way, way down from 2008) and what they're actually used for (does the difference between C and start and B actually change anything, anywhere?) That the current situation works okay shouldn't stop us trying to refine it.
I like the simplicity of Stub > Start > GA > FA. A stub is a potential article, that might still end up being merged or redirected. GA and FA are well-defined standards with dedicated review processes. The GA criteria in particular are way lower than most people think: we could aim for most articles being GAs one day, and a lot of things that are being rated B or A are already there. I don't see the point in differentiating the mass in the middle---articles that have established themselves but that nobody has really whipped into shape---perhaps just call them something like "satisfactory" or "average" instead of "start" (which implies some deficiency). – Joe (talk) 07:29, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I see a big difference between articles like for example Mode conversion (start) and Atom (B). Start class articles are short articles that probably cover the basics but there is a lot more they could say and improvements to writing style, referencing, etc are almost certainly possible. B class articles are (mostly) comprehensive and generally well written but haven't been through any formal processes. Whether there is a need to differentiate B and C is the only question in my mind, but retaining the distinction between them and start is useful.
When looking for examples though I did find MXenes which is tagged as start class but is clearly higher quality than that, especially if someone who understands the subject expands the lead. Thryduulf (talk) 10:28, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is absolutely a difference between Start articles and B-rated articles in the abstract, but the goal remains the same with either article; keep improving them. And at the same time, there are a ton of improperly classified articles, because editors are either too stringent or self conscious and either way, the energy should be focused on improving them. Heck, editors are reluctant to downgrade a B article to a Start article and prefer to fix issues (which is probably the right spirit), but makes the ratings exaggerated in their helpfulness across our 6 million articles here. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 00:36, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The goal remains the same but the implied method is different. A Start article implies great adding work is needed, a B-class article implies curating and refinement is needed. This difference is why you don't really go from a B to a Start, as it's rare that much content leaves articles. CMD (talk) 04:19, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
> does the difference between C and start and B actually change anything, anywhere?
Is it possible to have links offered when any page is created in mainspace (or moved from say draftspace). So if Grand Poobah Association is created, as part of the creation in mainspace, it brings up a list of article (and clips of the article) containing the phrase "Grand Poobah Association" unlinked. Basically, I am trying to somehow staple https://edwardbetts.com/find_link/ to the end of the creation/move to mainspace process. Absolutely fine if this is optional.Naraht (talk) 18:55, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If someone's computer crashes or for some another reason they close the tab, their changes while editing will be lost. I think we can have a 'save changes' button so that the changes can be saved without finishing the edit halfway. Please provide your inputs. Anonymous1261 (talk) 14:36, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Articles on computers and software frequently display fields labeled by bit number in, e.g. instructions, registers. Tables are a convenient means to do this, but involve a good deal of manual editing to consistently align field descriptions with bit labels. It would be helpful to have tools that automated the creation of such tables.
As an example, the IBM 7094 registers table might be generated from the templates
Pardon my pragmatism, but it doesn't seem viable unless you can do it yourself. Even with community consensus, you're not likely to find a template-qualified editor willing to spend the necessary time without a personal interest in the product. Many far smaller proposals have failed for that reason.If such an editor exists, they can Just Do It™ as normal bold editing; prior community consensus is not required.Re "personal interest in the product", it doesn't get much more arcane. I say this as a retired system software developer very familiar with the S/370 PSW and its descendants. Sadly, I'm not template-qualified. ―Mandruss☎01:55, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Easier-to-read Article Font when Editing
When editing a page in Wikipedia it can be difficult to read the actual article because of the code, i.e. brackets, urls, citations, references etc. My suggestion is for all code to be in either a different font colour, theme (e.g. Times Roman) or style (e.g. bold), with the published words, numbers etc., clearly legible and distinct from the code, such that what the reader will see on the published page will be seen on the editing page. Protestnt (talk) 08:34, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
VisualEditor's primary design characteristic is not displaying wikicode, so it's not an ideal solution for this user story. As mentioned, the Syntax highlighter gadget at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets under "Editing" is probably a good start, or the 2017 wikitext editor. Those will handle the colour changes (well, not in Minerva, but it looks like Protestnt edits in desktop view). Font family changes could likely be handled with custom CSS.I feel like User:Alexis Jazz/Factotum might have rich enough and configurable enough syntax highlighting to be a one-stop option here, but I only used it for a brief time around a year ago (too much javascript for my phone) and I can't remember all the options in that package. Courtesy ping Alexis Jazz. Folly Mox (talk) 16:32, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think it might be a great answer to this User story. If the problem is "it can be difficult to read the actual article because of the code, i.e. brackets, urls, citations, references etc.", then "get that visual clutter out of sight" is a great solution. A lot of FAs get copyedited in the visual editor precisely because it's easier to "read the actual article" without brackets and templates in the way.
One of our most important tools, Earwig's Copyvio Detector, depends on access to Google. According to the tool's creator and operator, The Earwig, the WMF has kindly been paying for this Google access. Unfortunately, we've been hampered by a strict limit on the number of searches allowed per day. The Earwig mentioned that there might be a way to work out a special arrangement with Google to increase the cap. Would someone at the WMF be able to pursue this?
In case it helps, this is a vital tool to a number of English Wikipedia processes, and it would surprise me to learn that the sister projects aren't using it as well. We use the tool routinely as part of our new page patrol, articles for creation, contributor copyright investigations, did you know, good article, and featured article processes. Historically, the WMF has taken a special interest in supporting volunteer work that focuses on our legal responsibilities, of which compliance with copyright law is an obvious example. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 01:34, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My understanding is that Google has a hard daily limit of 10,000 API accesses per day for absolutely everyone across the board, without exception. User:Novem Linguae/Essays/Copyvio detectors#Earwig copyvio detector. My impression is that an exception wasn't possible because Google doesn't provide an exception to anyone. Earwig would know best though.
Earwig didn't ask me to do anything on his behalf. He mentioned that "the WMF pays for it, but Google's API terms limit our usage without some kind of special arrangement that I have been unable to get." This was at a discussion at his user talk. I wasn't sure who might be able to negotiate a special arrangement, and I'm not sure it's a possibility, but this was the best place I could think to ask. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:26, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A bit odd that Earwig isn't doing the advocating himself, but on the linked user talk page, it does sound like he's asking for some help with this. Would The Earwig be willing to share his contacts at WMF that have helped with this in the past? Sounds like WMF pays for the tool, so there's some accounting/finance/grants contact that knows a little about it. And we also have partnerships people like NPerry (WMF) that I believe has worked with Google before. –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:43, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
From what I've heard, the WMF contact that Earwig had has since left the Foundation and wouldn't be able to help in this case. You are correct that WMF pays for the tool. I had mentioned this at the Hackathon with staff and it seems there's some resistance in getting the cost of extra tokens funded, although I'm unsure of exactly how the WMF's budgeting process works, so no clue on the impact it has in this situation (considering we don't have a Google liaison to begin with). Chlod (say hi!) 05:20, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Even the name of a former WMF employee contact would be helpful. Let's get all this documented so we can start figuring out what WMF departments/teams have assisted in the past. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:26, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi all. Firefangledfeathers, thanks for starting the discussion. Novem, sorry if this thread came up a bit strangely. In truth, I struggle a little with motivation these days, so I really appreciate others' help getting the ball rolling. I am still here, though—it comes in waves. (It's also good to involve the community in the tool so the institutional knowledge isn't stuck with me.)
BTW, I am working on more effectively managing automated/excessive tool usage and will soon require OAuth to run searches (see this active thread on my talk). Right now the tool really doesn't have any usage guards or a way to limit individual users' activity, which isn't good when our resources are so limited. It's possible doing that will free up our resources a lot if a substantial fraction of our current usage is coming from malicious crawlers, despite Chlod and I's attempts at blocking them (the tool has been running for over a decade and it's never been this bad, though I have a theory what this is about). Even so, finding a way to increase our search quota will enable us to support some requested features that are current nonstarters, even if the tool's entire current quota could be devoted to it, like checking all new pages.
My main point of contact with the WMF in the past was Kaldari. The last time we spoke about the tool was 2020; since then, the situation has been unclear. (MusikAnimal, do you remember if we've spoken about this?) Last year Runab WMF and DTankersley (WMF) reached out to me to discuss the tool in the context of WMF efforts "to find ways to reduce single points of failure for tools that require a third party API", but after an initial conversation I haven't heard back aside from being told that Deb was moved to another project, so I'm not sure what happened with those efforts.
Frequently we've discussed adding an alternate search backend aside from Google. While Google is really the gold standard for breadth of search coverage, as far as I'm aware—and this is really what the copyvio detector needs, not necessarily quality/intelligence; people have suggested services like DuckDuckGo, but they're really unsuitable because they just republish raw results from Bing with some additional flair that is basically useless for us—something like Bing itself might work as an (automatic) fallback if we exhaust our Google credits for the day. I believe Bing has roughly equivalent pricing/usage limits as Google, but it's been a while since I've looked into it. And we/the WMF would need to establish a relationship with Bing for that to work; I don't know if that's a better idea than attempting to negotiate our Google limits. There are also other options like Yandex (which the tool did use one dark time in the past before the Google relationship and after Yahoo ended their free service... it wasn't great, at least for English results, but it's something that could be looked into for some other language projects, perhaps). Finally, there was a discussion on my talk earlier this year with Samwalton9 (WMF) about adding The Wikipedia Library as another search backend, and I did correspond briefly with someone at EBSCO about this, but again, I haven't heard from either of them about this in several months. — The Earwig (talk) 06:51, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So the Google API proxy and the Google account it runs on are wholly part of Community Tech's budget. Kaldari was the contact in the past when they were my manager on CommTech. So the good news is Community Tech is still here, and we are actively maintaining this proxy (I just migrated it to a newer Debian a few days ago). The part that hasn't changed is our quota from Google, and sadly I doubt it will change. We are already paying hefty fines for the quota we have now, but I believe it is also correct that 10K is a strict limit from Google. I can see from the graphs in the API console that we almost always hit that limit within the first 12 hours of each day.
I am working on more effectively managing automated/excessive tool usage and will soon require OAuth to run searches … – that is most certainly the best immediate recourse for addressing this problem. From my years of shielding XTools from web crawlers, I can say with confidence that putting up a login wall by itself should make a big difference. I also think mitigating excessive and automated use is something that would probably be required before we could consider dishing out more money to Google. However again, I don't think such negotiations would get us anywhere anyway :(
As a general note, such "negotiations" are typically done these days via the Partnerships team. I went though them recently when we solidified our partnership with Turnitin. Speaking of which… do others find the "Use Turnitin" option of Copyvios at all useful? Because that's using the old Turnitin account (the new one can't be used outside CopyPatrol), and the last I checked there were still a few million credits left. — MusikAnimaltalk20:52, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The Google API Proxy (docs at wikitech:Nova Resource:Google-api-proxy) exists solely to anonymize requests to the Google APIs, should they be used in a fashion that sends personal data such as your IP or user agent. As far as I know, Copyvios has always accessed Google APIs through this proxy.
I'm not aware of any sort of sliding scale as far as pricing goes, and my use of the word "hefty" was relative to my team. However since I made my reply above, I have been informed that the budget is actually not solely from Community Tech, as it was in the past (but we do still maintain the proxy). I don't have any details about internal accounting, I'm afraid. My apologies for any confusion caused. — MusikAnimaltalk19:48, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wouldn't the Toolforge tool itself serve as an anonymizing proxy as long as the Google API requests are being sent via a backend rather than via browser JavaScript? But that's a bit of a tangent :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:18, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm willing to entertain alternate methods for anonymous users to access the tool. I do need some way to attribute usage to a human, though. Any suggestions? I might present a challenge page where you have to answer some question (essentially a CAPTCHA, but one that works without JS). Or I can require anonymous users request a token (that would be saved as a cookie so does not need to be entered with each request). — The Earwig (talk) 00:00, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's a good question, but I can't tell from the documentation whether temporary accounts are able to use OAuth. I would need to test it. (And we may need some other solution in the meantime, before that's deployed.) — The Earwig (talk) 14:25, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I know nothing about what the "modern" methods are of telling bots and humans apart these days (besides knowing that CAPTCHAs are apparently broken: e.g. Table 3 in [8]), so I probably won't be able to provide many helpful suggestions. If we need to request a token from you, I for one would be okay with that if it's a one-time process, but would that be handled by an automatic system or by asking you for one manually—and if the latter, is there any indication how many anonymous editors (legitimately) use the tool so you won't be potentially flooded with hundreds of requests?
Another idea I had is making sure the requesting IP address' /64 range (if IPv6, or the address alone if IPv4) has made at least one edit to the Wikimedia site the Earwig request is for. I could easily be assuming wrong, but I would think there wouldn't be many cases where an anonymous user would want to check for copyright violations on a site they've never even edited before. This would admittedly require anonymous users to be on the same device they edit from to use the tool, but so would requiring a browser token. ...however, I don't know how technically feasible that is, and obviously someone malicious could just manually change their IP address (but would someone running hundreds of web crawlers go to that effort for every single one of them?). 2603:8001:4542:28FB:9566:5D77:1AC4:CB78 (talk) 18:47, 12 August 2024 (UTC) (Actual talk)[reply]
@The Earwig: OAuth is not available for temporary accounts. The T&S Product Team aims to make the experience with temporary accounts very similar to what IPs have now, which includes not having access to OAuth or user groups. @2603:*: For IPs, we don't have access to IP addresses on Toolforge, so we can't check on wikis if a specific Toolforge visitor's IP has made an edit on the wikis. Requesting a special token, as you've mentioned, is probably a better option to go for if we want to have anonymous editors keep their access. Since there aren't that many editors who do all of their edits on an IP, we shouldn't get too many requests for this. What should be decided is the minimum requirements for giving this access, and the criteria for revoking it (should we find out that an editor has been using a token maliciously). Chlod (say hi!) 05:44, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Given IP addresses (and thus contributions) can't be measured by Toolforge, what prerequisites could even be measured? Or would the token-giving occur on a different site?
In terms of revoking, my knee-jerk thought is more than M requests in a minute or N requests in a day could cause the token to get revoked until the anonymous user interacts with a human to request it back. But A. I don't know if that's how things work with tokens and Toolforge, and B. I'd be curious to know what the already-established practice and limits for e.g. the Wikipedia API and whatnot are, to have some sort of a benchmark. 2603:8001:4542:28FB:C10F:60AC:578A:3F8 (talk) 22:48, 13 August 2024 (UTC) (Actual talk)[reply]
more than M requests in a minute ... could cause the token to get revoked You need to be careful with that. When I'm checking DYK queues, I check a whole set at a time, which means opening nine (or more) Earwig windows in a few seconds. RoySmith(talk)23:25, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Feature updates from the Tech News: Stewards can now globally block accounts; Wikimedia site users can now submit account vanishing requests via GlobalVanishRequest; and interface of FlaggedRevs (also known as “Pending Changes”) is improved.
This month’s Wikimedia Research Showcase highlighted the impact machine translation has on both content and readers of Wikipedia and provided interesting insights on how to overcome related challenges. Watch the recording.
The Charts project officially kicked off. The goal of this new initiative is to restore basic data visualization capabilities to the wikis. Check out the project page and follow our progress on Phabricator.
The CampaignEvents extension is now available on Meta-wiki, Arabic Wikipedia, Igbo Wikipedia, and Swahili Wikipedia, and can be requested on other wikis. This extension helps manage and make events more visible. Learn about how to request this extension.
The Campaigns Product & Programs teams have launched a consultation on WikiProjects and other forms of collaboration on the wikis. They want to understand why they work (or don’t work) for some Wikimedia communities, and they want to learn what can be done to improve the experience. Everyone is encouraged to share their feedback.
The Board of Trustees selection pre-onboarding and campaign period is open from July 25 to August 26.
Foundation Trustee Dariusz Jemelniak was appointed to the Governing Board of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, established as part of the EU’s key funding program for research and innovation.
I am an occasional user of SWViewer, a vandalism patrolling tool that is (in my understanding) partly maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation. I generall like its interface and design, and I have found it to be a useful tool.
I do have one item that I would like to discuss though: I think it would be wise to add a checkbox for whether or not to mark an edit as minor. Currently, the interface allows users to tick a box for "Use undo" when rolling back an edit with a summary. This is good, but it only allows users to revert edits in a way that is marked as minor. I understand that certain wikis, such as the English Wikipedia, have a very narrow understanding of what constitutes a minor edit, and there are times when I want to undo an edit but it is not technically a minor edit. This makes me have to manually go to the English Wikipedia and click the "undo" button there rather than keeping all of this in the SWViewer interface.
Is there a way that the WMF could either:
Not automatically mark edits made while "Use undo" is ticked as minor (i.e. submit them to non-minor edits); or
Allow users to select whether or not their actions are considered to be minor edits (via a tick box)?
Hi, I'm not WMF staff (although I am the Wikimedian of the Year) but I noticed something I thought should have wider community input. Please keep in mind that as far as I'm aware this is in very early stages and there is no guarantee that it will actually be implemented. Also, please be nice. I anticipate that some people will be surprised by what it was being proposed here so I felt like this was an important reminder. Anyways: mw:Wikimedia Apps/Team/iOS/Fundraising Experiment in the iOS App. There is a feedback section towards the end of you wish to give it. I have already commented there. Clovermoss🍀(talk)17:47, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is an example of what is being proposed. Essentially, there would be a donation button near the top right of an article and these would kind of be like Reddit trophies. I think this needs way more visibility than being buried in the depths of mediawiki which is why I'm posting here. Clovermoss🍀(talk)18:52, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Clovermoss, it’s Haley from the Mobile Apps team! You’re correct that the project is in very early stages. We just recently published the project page and had planned to start outreach after Wikimania—that’s why folks might not have heard about it yet. In short, the idea is that we want to try out other ways of fundraising beyond just banners – hopefully ways that make readers and editors feel more connected to each other. But we know that fundraising ideas have to be considered carefully, which is why our goal right now is just to be in conversation with the community on high level concepts. We hope people will join the discussion on the project page. P.S. Congratulations on Wikimedian of the Year! HNordeen (WMF) (talk) 16:01, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This should have been mentioned at the fundraising brainstorming page as soon as it was published. I object to the "gamification" aspect of giving money to people. I'm not sure how "donating from an article" is an improvement over just having a discrete "donate" button, which we already have. In conclusion: I think this is unnecessary.
Also here – is it THAT HARD to say "introduce", which is a long-standing, universally recognized word, rather than "onboarding" which is today's #1 corporatese-jargon? These things always make the WMF look bad, bureaucratic, corporate, and out of touch. Cremastra (talk) 17:06, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@HNordeen (WMF): This is what I meant when I said at the page itself that this is likely to cause a public relations disaster. Imagine a thousand comments like this. Please understand that I really don't think this is a good idea and I don't say this because I wish you to fail but I wish to see everyone suceed. Clovermoss🍀(talk)17:13, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll also note that the phrase "Microinteraction and confirmation snackbar." was used without apparent embarrassment to mean "a notification/confirmation box". The thing is, phrases like this are inaccessible, and make these pages harder to understand. Cremastra (talk) 17:17, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
While "microinteraction" definitely should've been left out, that's not a "box". "Confirmation box" sounds like a dialog for you to confirm. A snackbar can only be a small message that pops up from the bottom to tell you that the operation has been a success (sometimes with an ündo" button to the right). Aaron Liu (talk) 18:17, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, what I meant by confirmation box was a box confirming that the operation worked. That is, it's sending you a confirmation, not the other way around. Cremastra (talk) 18:19, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's an important distinction for developers, but I think if the page is targeted to the general public, "notification bar" should suffice. Cremastra (talk) 18:46, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't mean to sound like a complete crank, but this is, I think, part of the reason some or many editors react badly to WMF pages like this: they're sometimes hard to understand and come off as a bit condescending. I've WP:BOLDly toned down the language so that it's easier to understand for non-developers. Cremastra (talk) 18:12, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate that my comment prompted you to reflect and tone things down a little. [9] I also know that your heart is in the right place too and that a lot of the time these comments are caused by a series of frustrating events and not feeling like one has been listened to. Feel free to tell me if I'm putting words in your mouth, Cremastra. I just know that HNordeen (WMF) is relatively new to the foundation and I don't want her to feel like all of this was directed at her personally. Clovermoss🍀(talk)18:19, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I guess I can put this here: I feel like calling this "mobile fundraising" is a little bit misleading. Do not misunderstand me: I sincerely appreciate Clovermoss bringing this here, regardless of the title. But this is not really about fundraising on mobile. That always has happened, and I doubt anyone will have feedback on that. This is about allowing people to donate to "support"/"champion"/"appreciate" a particular article. Would "allowing people to donate in appreciation of a particular article" be a neutral way to phrase what is being suggested? Best, HouseBlaster (talk · he/they) 18:32, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I said mobile fundraising because I wasn't sure what else I could put without making it sound like I was canvassing and steering the discussion a certain way. Between here and CENT, I'm sure this will get enough eyes instead of being buried at mediawiki. If someone does change the title, I'd suggest that it's as clear and concise as possible. Clovermoss🍀(talk)18:42, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@HouseBlaster: What would you think if we added "experiment" to the end of the current text? It'd make it more clear that what is being proposed is a bit different compared to a normal mobile fundraising. Clovermoss🍀(talk)21:01, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm largely indifferent to the idea of mobile fundraising in general, and was surprised it wasn't already well established. I'm also mostly indifferent to the idea of donations tied to articles. What I have a quite strong opinion about is what happens when someone donates "to" an article. To the point: there should be no direct connection between donations and the appearance of a Wikipedia article for anyone other than the donor. No matter how it's framed (badges, stickers, sponsors, endorsements, pictures, text, etc.), if there's any way to affect the appearance of the article with money, there will emerge metacommunicative/signalling strategies to manipulate the system in unacceptable ways. On some level, I like the idea of audiences being better able to communicate appreciation to contributors, but it has to be divorced from money. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 18:59, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To the point: there should be no direct connection between donations and the appearance of a Wikipedia article for anyone other than the donor.
Agreed. I also see that the WMF recognises at least some of issues this could cause, saying Safeguards should be added to prevent inappropriate usage of the feature on sensitive articles, but I don’t think they’ve thought through the complexity of accurately classifying articles as sensitive.
Alternatively, if they have already succeeded in doing so in a robust manner, can they please release the tool, as it will be very helpful in general? BilledMammal (talk) 00:23, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think the safeguards comment was in regards to the concerns that I and other people expressed at the page itself on why you wouldn't want something like this on controversial articles. As far as I'm aware, this is just an idea and nothing has actually been implemented. That would mean that there isn't a way to filter this content out yet either. Clovermoss🍀(talk)00:41, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I encourage people to leave their feedback on the mediawiki page itself (see my initial comments at the top of the thread) so it isn't scattered across pages and projects. Clovermoss🍀(talk)00:45, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you to everyone who has spoken up here - I'll echo @Clovermoss's request to please leave thoughts and ideas on the mediawiki project page. The mediawiki page has been edited to make it more clear (thank you for suggestions on how to do that!) and in hopes to communicate that this is at an early stage, and we are not limited to this first idea that is on the page. I've also expanded the page to include risks that have been brought up so far. Thanks to everyone who has contributed, we have the capacity to try a new format of fundraising within the iOS app this year, and we're excited to work together with you to identify what form it could take. HNordeen (WMF) (talk) 21:04, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Clovermoss, it's meant to communicate that we want to change direction to pursue alternate ideas in response to feedback and suggestions we receive. We want to work together with you to figure out ways of recognizing existing donors and creating pathways for potential donors, and we only want to proceed with ideas that we can all feel good about experimenting with. HNordeen (WMF) (talk) 16:16, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wikimedia Foundation banner fundraising campaign in India postponed to start on the 27th of August
Dear all,
As mentioned previously, the WMF is running its annual banner fundraising campaign for non logged in users in India. Initially, we planned the campaign to start tomorrow and run until the 10th of September. We have had some issues with our local payment provider in India and due to this we are postponing the campaign by a couple of weeks. Our new campaign dates are the 27th of August to the 24th of September.
You can find more information around the campaign, see example banners, and leave any questions or suggestions you might have, on the community collaboration page.
Generally, before and during the campaign, you can contact us:
The Open Conversation with the Trustees at Wikimania hosted breakout discussions about the Movement Charter, affiliate strategy and hubs, the proposal for a Global Resource Distribution Committee (hybrid table--had streaming and is available to watch back online), the Product/Tech Advisory Council & Product/Tech priorities, building a sustainable revenue strategy for the movement: online fundraising, Wikimedia Enterprise and the Wikimedia Endowment, and responding to emerging threats to free knowledge: litigation, censorship, disinformation, and trust in an election year.
How do you determine the "size" of a list (or merging / splitting purposes)?
Ok, this may be a silly and redundant question. So, WP:SIZERULE gives good guidelines for when articles should be trimmed or merged. However, WP:SIZE states that readable prose size only includes "the amount of viewable text in the main sections of the article, not including tables, lists, or footer sections." For the purpose of merging lists, and with the removal of the kb limits (which I had previously used to judge list size) on WP:SIZEhow do you determine the size of a list (as related to existing guidelines stated on WP:SIZERULE) if you wish to merge or split a page? Historyday01 (talk) 13:17, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The kb limits on WP:SIZE also applied only to readable prose, nothing has changed in that respect. List splits likely come down to editorial judgement, what best helps a reader. Some lists do still end up breaking other limits like WP:PEIS, but that's not common. CMD (talk) 01:25, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The Wikipedia:Prosesize gadget can't count words in bulleted lists, so I found that the most effective way to count the words was to copy/paste the contents to a tool (e.g., the word count tool in your favorite word processor). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:25, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
making plans to edit articles again
Hey, everyone...
so, uh, I've been making random edits here and there when I see something that bugs me, but haven't edited Wikipedia *in earnest*, regularly, since, ah, ... *checks* idk, it trails off gradually, but since early 2007 or so? and really my heyday was before that. my user page is old enough to drink now.
... Anyway, I find myself interested in coming back and doing some Editing — by this I mean specifically working to improve the intelligibility of the information that is already present in some articles. Are there any good Wikiprojects that I should be looking at which might be a good match for this goal?
So the Open Knowledge Association pays people to write on Wikipedia [10]. On their Meta wiki page they encourage/explain how their paid editors should translate articles: by using AI and letting unpaid volunteers clean up the rest of the work: [11].
I've seen OKA articles pass AfC with completely untranslated sentences, references that have been translated/untranslated causing them to be incorrect, non-English article titles, and non-English section titles.
What change would you like to see? From what you wrote, one thing may be to have AFC reviewers do a better job to not approve submissions with untranslated sentences and such, but that might be better discussed at WT:AFC rather than here since the reviewers are more likely to be over there. Anomie⚔22:37, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think making AfC reviewers spend more time reviewing an article than someone spent 'creating' an article is fair and would just create bigger issues with a backlog. The problem is how quickly one can create these translations versus how long it takes to review them. I had to rewrite an entire article translated by OKA due to issues and I would've just been better off creating a brand new article. Traumnovelle (talk) 22:42, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Our policy is quite conservative. "Unedited" WP:MACHINETRANSLATION is not acceptable, but there is no consensus on what it takes to be considered edited. If there are a lot of issues from a single editor this is more likely to result in action, but that won't change the general policy. You could argue WP:TNT for a new article at AfD, but I'm not sure how successful that is for prose issues. CMD (talk) 02:57, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Would that be a valid deletion rationale in an AfD? I could also report the editor in question but it isn't limited to just his work and I imagine plenty of other people would be willing to do the exact same thing. The problem is that people are financially incentivised to produce these quick translations and rarely stick around to fix it once it's passed AfC. Traumnovelle (talk) 03:01, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It can be a valid rationale, but it's one of those rationales where you very much have to make the case and convince others. If they're not up to a standard you'd consider 'edited', that would likely help the argument. CMD (talk) 03:20, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, there are plenty of unpaid editors who create poor articles and do not stick around to fix them. One might even say it is part of the culture. (Sigh!) Donald Albury12:51, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sign up for the language community meeting on August 30th, 15:00 UTC
Hi all,
The next language community meeting is scheduled in a few weeks—on August 30th at 15:00 UTC. If you're interested in joining, you can sign up on this wiki page.
This participant-driven meeting will focus on sharing language-specific updates related to various projects, discussing technical issues related to language wikis, and working together to find possible solutions. For example, in the last meeting, topics included the Language Converter, the state of language research, updates on the Incubator conversations, and technical challenges around external links not working with special characters on Bengali sites.
Do you have any ideas for topics to share technical updates or discuss challenges? Please add agenda items to the document here and reach out to ssethi(__AT__)wikimedia.org. We look forward to your participation!
I wanted to make a navbox for the different articles about phobias (such as fear of bees). Normally I'd just make it, but Template:Phobias was deleted at Templates for Discussion in 2007 and 2009. I can't imagine it will be an issue to create it since it would be the same as any other navbox, but for the sake of procedure I'm asking the community first, especially since I'd be adding it to roughly 100 articles. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:21, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why are less images being uploaded today? It wasn't like that from 2006 to 2009, many images were uploaded at that time period. Is there a reason why the image uploads declined after that period of time? MJGTMKME123 (talk) 21:49, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is nothing preventing appropriate and policy-compliant images from being uploaded. As to when it is appropriate to replace an existing image with a new one, that will depend on the specifics: newer isn't necessarily better. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:57, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If someone finds it worth uploading in each particular instance? I have very little clue what sort of general rule you'd expect there to be. Remsense ‥ 论22:03, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is no general answer to this line of questioning. Improved media are uploaded if editors discover or create them; what constitutes an improvement depends entirely on the media in question. Remsense ‥ 论22:18, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@MJGTMKME123, what do you mean by "less images being uploaded today"?
Do you mean specifically what's being uploaded today, as in Sunday, the 25th of August? (If so, please go to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) and sound the alarm, because a sudden downturn is probably technical in nature.) Or do you mean "in recent years"?
How much less? Is this like a long-term leveling off? Are you talking about uploads directly to the English Wikipedia, or at Commons? How are you counting the number of uploads? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:20, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We have made efforts to direct uploaders Wikimedia Commons whenever appropriate, so having less uploads here could be a good thing. — xaosfluxTalk22:32, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Are you thinking about any images in particular? Again, we can't really answer your question because it's way too broad. Remsense ‥ 论22:38, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm just asking about the trend of fewer image uploads in the recent years, but I understand if it's too broad. I was wondering if there are any topics where image uploads have noticeably declined. MJGTMKME123 (talk) 22:43, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't actually use a tool. I just noticed that most images were made around that time period by just analyzing the date of random images. MJGTMKME123 (talk) 22:59, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@MJGTMKME123, I suggest looking at c:Commons:Statistics of uploads vs deletions, which gives the number of annual uploads from 2003 through 2022, and which does not support your hypothesis that there has been a multi-year decline in uploads.
If you know anything about SQL, you can run queries like this and get whatever numbers you want. I use the "check 10 pages in Special:Random" method a lot, but you've got to remember that it's really quite a crude estimate, and if your random images weren't actually random (e.g., they were images used in Wikipedia articles), then you'd be looking at a crude estimate of a biased sample, which is basically worthless. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:07, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's way more useful data than what I found just below. So uploads to Commons have risen steadily if non-monotonically, and there is no year for which the number of files uploaded was less than any all of the three previous years. Folly Mox (talk) 23:19, 25 August 2024 (UTC)edited 10:16, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This wouldn't account for which images are actually being used in articles (plenty of Commons images aren't), but I'd be very surprised if those are mostly pre-2009. ― novov(tc)10:10, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]