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Should WP:Demonstrate good faith include mention of AI-generated comments?

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Using AI to write your comments in a discussion makes it difficult for others to assume that you are discussing in good faith, rather than trying to use AI to argue someone into exhaustion (see example of someone using AI in their replies "Because I don't have time to argue with, in my humble opinion, stupid PHOQUING people"). More fundamentally, WP:AGF can't apply to the AI itself as AI lacks intentionality, and it is difficult for editors to assess how much of an AI-generated comment reflects the training of the AI vs. the actual thoughts of the editor.

Should WP:DGF be addended to include that using AI to generate your replies in a discussion runs counter to demonstrating good faith? Photos of Japan (talk) 00:23, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

100% Yes and sooner rather than later. Machine-generated material is not produced in "good faith" — it inherently wastes the time of actual editors. Having to sort through machine-generated responses is unacceptable and a growing problem. Passing off your a machine-generated response as your own, no matter how obvious or not it is, is not acceptable. :bloodofox: (talk) 00:39, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Update: I have recently had to respond to not one but two different instances of AI-generated slop on our articles and related talk pages (Talk:Herla#AI_Generated_Content & Talk:Böksta_Runestone#Clarification_on_Image_Caption_–_"Possibly_Depicting"_vs._"Showing"). This is a complete waste of my time and the time of any other involved human . I find it outright insulting. We need something done to either stop this or at least reduce and provide consequences for this when it happens. Some kind of disclaimer about not posting AI-generated nonsense to Wikipedia before allowing posting would also help. I did not sign up to Wikipedia around 20 years ago to sort through someone's prompt-generated garbage trained on who knows what (in fact, often trained on Wikipedia itself!). :bloodofox: (talk) 05:27, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. It's only going to become more common, so it's pressingly important that we figure out how to manage it until we have the guidance and the tools to deal with it properly. Technology is moving faster and unless we clarify what the new rules are, people will just assume the WP community is prepared, or worse, take advantage. I believe keeping good faith is part of what makes this place special, and the users are a part of that, but keeping that principal should not come at the cost of driving away everyone that wants to improve the project but aren't sure how to deal with, or identify, bots. Thanks and cheers. DN (talk) 06:15, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that putting a sentence in a "backstage" page is going to do any good. If nothing else, the odds are stacked against it. About 1,000 registered editors (and who knows how many IPs) make their first edit each day. That page gets about 150 page views per day. Even if we assume, to simplifying the math, that every single page view reads the whole thing and every single page view is a newly registered editor, that would still leave 85% of new editors not seeing this rule.

Putting this sentence there, and then expecting it to change people's behavior is like drawing chalk lines across an unlit rural road, and then wondering why the trucks didn't yield to you the middle of the night.

Your first example is irrelevant to this discussion, because it was article content and not discussion. Your second example has other problems: You are assuming it's AI-generated, but the comment accurately quotes the Swedish-language Wikipedia, which is not a typical ability of AI tools, and accurately describes the edits that the new editor made, which is also not a typical ability of AI tools. There are also misspellings, typos, and awkwardnesses ("storys", "sometimes seen as kind of as gods(Skaði)") that AI tools wouldn't produce, but non-native English speakers would. Ergo, I doubt that this is "AI slop" or "AI-generated crap".

More importantly for that second example, the editor says that the uncited caption is phrased overly strongly ("showing a Norse god") and recommends softening it to "possibly depicting a Norse god". You have demanded a source for the softer claim, but you aren't demanding a source for the existing claim. You should be treating the old, uncited caption as having been formally WP:CHALLENGED. Instead, one of you has reverted everything and declared that nobody should be talking to this editor because it's all just AI garbage.

Frankly, I think you're wrong in your guess that AI was used to generate these comments, and I think you and @Skyerise have been rude, and I think the other editor is actually correct that if we don't have a source saying that this old image definitely does show a Norse god on skis, then Wikipedia shouldn't have an uncited caption making that claim. We do have a policy about this, and the policy is that anyone wanting to keep old uncited claims has to add a source for it.

Perhaps the question the rest of us should be asking is: Do we want to have a policy that says editors get to ignore core content policies like WP:CHALLENGE if they instead claim that the editors telling them that they're wrong are using AI? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:54, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is a funny response: You'd know it was AI-generated slop with at most mild adjustment immediately if you were at all familiar with the material. And then there are the usual LLM-generated text give-aways: the structure of the response and lack of references or citations (the fear among LLM-makers of lawsuits is omnipresent, after all). And that's another big problem: Prompt-generated text can be convincing to non-experts like yourself. The text caption matter is a red herring: it is clearly covered by WP:PROVEIT (and I've removed it).

That said, while you made this wall of text defending the use of generative AI-users on the site wasting my time and the time of other editors, you could have been proposing solutions to a rising tide of AI-spew that those of us here contributing to articles increasingly need to mop up. :bloodofox: (talk) 02:27, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No. As with all the other concurrent discussions (how many times do we actually need to discuss the exact same FUD and scaremongering?) the problem is not AI, but rather inappropriate use of AI. What we need to do is to (better) explain what we actually want to see in discussions, not vaguely defined bans of swathes of technology that, used properly, can aid communication. Thryduulf (talk) 01:23, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note that this topic is discussing using AI to generate replies, as opposed to using it as an aid (e.g. asking it to edit for grammar, or conciseness). As the above concurrent discussion demonstrates, users are already using AI to generate their replies in AfD, so it isn't scaremongering but an actual issue.

WP:DGF also does not ban anything ("Showing good faith is not required"), but offers general advice on demonstrating good faith. So it seems like the most relevant place to include mention of the community's concerns regarding AI-generated comments, without outright banning anything. Photos of Japan (talk) 01:32, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And as pointed out, multiple times in those discussions, different people understand different things from the phrase "AI-generated". The community's concern is not AI-generated comments, but comments that do not clearly and constructively contribute to a discussion - some such comments are AI-generated, some are not. This proposal would, just as all the other related ones, cause actual harm when editors falsely accuse others of using AI (and this will happen). Thryduulf (talk) 02:34, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody signed up to argue with bots here. If you're pasting someone else's comment into a prompt and asking the chatbot to argue against that comment and just posting it in here, that's a real problema and absolutely should not be acceptable. :bloodofox: (talk) 03:31, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the assumption of bad faith and demonstrating one of my points about the harm caused. Nobody is forcing you to engage with bad-faith comments, but whether something is or is not bad faith needs to be determined by its content not by its method of generation. Simply using an AI demonstrates neither good faith nor bad faith. Thryduulf (talk) 04:36, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see why we have any particular to reason to suspect a respected and trustworthy editor of using AI. Cremastra (u — c) 14:31, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the replies above look like anyone is automating this discussion using a chat bot. However let's maybe ease off on the "FUD" talk. Frankly when people start trying to sell magic beans, doubt is a good thing. Meanwhile it remains very uncertain what functionality these chat bots will actually be able to develop. And as for fear, I don't think those of us who dislike chatbots being used on Wikipedia are afraid of them. They're just kind of disruptive. Simonm223 (talk) 21:00, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm one of those people who clarified the difference between AI-generated vs. edited, and such a difference could be made explicit with a note. Editors are already accusing others of using AI. Could you clarify how you think addressing AI in WP:DGF would cause actual harm? Photos of Japan (talk) 04:29, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

By encouraging editors to accuse others of using AI, by encouraging editors to dismiss or ignore comments because they suspect that they are AI-generated rather than engaging with them. @Bloodofox has already encouraged others to ignore my arguments in this discussion because they suspect I might be using an LLM and/or be a bot (for the record I'm neither). Thryduulf (talk) 04:33, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think bloodofox's comment was about "you" in the rhetorical sense, not "you" as in Thryduulf. jlwoodwa (talk) 11:06, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Given your relentlessly pro-AI comments here, it seems that you'd be A-OK with just chatting with a group of chatbots here — or leaving the discussion to them. However, most of us clearly are not. In fact, I would immediately tell someone to get lost were it confirmed that indeed that is what is happening. I'm a human being and find the notion of wasting my time with chatbots on Wikipedia to be incredibly insulting and offensive. :bloodofox: (talk) 04:38, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My comments are neither pro-AI nor anti-AI, indeed it seems that you have not understood pretty much anything I'm saying. Thryduulf (talk) 04:43, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Funny, you've done nothing here but argue for more generative AI on the site and now you seem to be arguing to let chatbots run rampant on it while mocking anyone who doesn't want to interface with chatbots on Wikipedia. Hey, why not just sell the site to Meta, am I right? :bloodofox: (talk) 04:53, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't been arguing for more generative AI on the site. I've been arguing against banning it on the grounds that such a ban would be unclear, unenforceable, wouldn't solve any problems (largely because whether something is AI or not is completely irrelevant to the matter at hand) but would instead cause harm. Some of the issues identified are actual problems, but AI is not the cause of them and banning AI won't fix them.

I'm not mocking anybody, nor am I advocating to let chatbots run rampant. I'm utterly confused why you think I might advocate for selling Wikipedia to Meta (or anyone else for that matter)? Are you actually reading anything I'm writing? You clearly are not understanding it. Thryduulf (talk) 05:01, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So we're now in 'everyone else is the problem, not me!' territory now? Perhaps try communicating in a different way because your responses here are looking very much like the typical AI apologetics one can encounter on just about any contemporary LinkedIn thread from your typical FAANG employee. :bloodofox: (talk) 05:13, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, this is not a everyone else is the problem, not me issue because most other people appear to be able to understand my arguments and respond to them appropriately. Not everybody agrees with them, but that's not an issue.

I'm not familiar with Linkedin threads (I don't use that platform) nor what a "FAANG employee" is (I've literally never heard the term before now) so I have no idea whether your characterisation is a compliment or a personal attack, but given your comments towards me and others you disagree with elsewhere I suspect it's closer to the latter.

AI is a tool. Just like any other tool it can be used in good faith or in bad faith, it can be used well and it can be used badly, it can be used in appropriate situations and it can be used in inappropriate situations, the results of using the tool can be good and the results of using the tool can be bad. Banning the tool inevitably bans the good results as well as the bad results but doesn't address the reasons why the results were good or bad and so does not resolve the actual issue that led to the bad outcomes. Thryduulf (talk) 12:09, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In the context of generating comments to other users though, AI is much easier to use for bad faith than for good faith. LLMs don't understand Wikipedia's policies and norms, and so are hard to utilize to generate posts that productively address them. By contrast, bad actors can easily use LLMs to make low quality posts to waste people's time or wear them down.

In the context of generating images, or text for articles, it's easy to see how the vast majority of users using AI for those purposes is acting in good faith as these are generally constructive tasks, and most people making bad faith changes to articles are either obvious vandals who won't bother to use AI because they'll be reverted soon anyways, or trying to be subtle (povpushers) in which case they tend to want to carefully write their own text into the article.

It's true that AI "is just a tool", but when that tool is much easier to use for bad faith purposes (in the context of discussions) then it raises suspicions about why people are using it. Photos of Japan (talk) 22:44, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

LLMs don't understand Wikipedia's policies and norms They're not designed to "understand" them since the policies and norms were designed for human cognition. The fact that AI is used rampantly by people acting in bad faith on Wikipedia does not inherently condemn the AI. To me, it shows that it's too easy for vandals to access and do damage on Wikipedia. Unfortunately, the type of vetting required to prevent that at the source would also potentially require eliminating IP-editing, which won't happen. _{Duly signed,} ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:33, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You mentioned "FUD". That acronym, "fear, uncertainty and doubt," is used in precisely two contexts: pro-AI propagadizing and persuading people who hold memecoin crypto to continue holding it. Since this discussion is not about memecoin crypto that would suggest you are using it in a pro-AI context. I will note, fear, uncertainty and doubt is not my problem with AI. Rather it's anger, aesthetic disgust and feeling disrespected when somebody makes me talk to their chatbot. Simonm223 (talk) 14:15, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That acronym, "fear, uncertainty and doubt," is used in precisely two contexts is simply

FUD both predates AI by many decades (my father introduced me to the term in the context of the phrase "nobody got fired for buying IBM", and the context of that was mainframe computer systems in the 1980s if not earlier. FUD is also used in many, many more contexts that just those two you list, including examples by those opposing the use of AI on Wikipedia in these very discussions. Thryduulf (talk) 14:47, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That acronym, "fear, uncertainty and doubt," is used in precisely two contexts is factually incorrect.

FUD both predates AI by many decades (indeed if you'd bothered to read the fear, uncertainty and doubt article you'd learn that the concept was first recorded in 1693, the exact formulation dates from at least the 1920s and the use of it in technology concepts originated in 1975 in the context of mainframe computer systems. That its use, eve in just AI contexts, is limited to pro-AI advocacy is ludicrous (even ignoring things like Roko's basilisk), examples can be found in these sprawling discussions from those opposing AI use on Wikipedia. Thryduulf (talk) 14:52, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not really – I agree with Thryduulf's arguments on this one. Using AI to help tweak or summarize or "enhance" replies is of course not bad faith – the person is trying hard. Maybe English is their second language. Even for replies 100% AI-generated the user may be an ESL speaker struggling to remember the right words (I always forget 90% of my French vocabulary when writing anything in French, for example). In this case, I don't think we should make a blanket assumption that using AI to generate comments is not showing good faith. Cremastra (u — c) 02:35, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes because generating walls of text is not good faith. People "touching up" their comments is also bad (for starters, if you lack the English competency to write your statements in the first place, you probably lack the competency to tell if your meaning has been preserved or not). Exactly what AGF should say needs work, but something needs to be said, and ~~AGF~~DGF is a good place to do it. XOR'easter (talk) 02:56, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not all walls of text are generated by AI, not all AI generated comments are walls of text. Not everybody who uses AI to touch up their comments lacks the competencies you describe, not everybody who does lack those competencies uses AI. It is not always possible to tell which comments have been generated by AI and which have not. This proposal is not particularly relevant to the problems you describe. Thryduulf (talk) 03:01, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Someone has to ask: Are you generating all of these pro-AI arguments using ChatGPT? It'd explain a lot. If so, I'll happily ignore any and all of your contributions, and I'd advise anyone else to do the same. We're not here to be flooded with LLM-derived responses. :bloodofox: (talk) 03:27, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That you can't tell whether my comments are AI-generated or not is one of the fundamental problems with these proposals. For the record they aren't, nor are they pro-AI - they're simply anti throwing out babies with bathwater. Thryduulf (talk) 04:25, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say it also illustrates the serious danger: We can no longer be sure that we're even talking to other people here, which is probably the most notable shift in the history of Wikipedia. :bloodofox: (talk) 04:34, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How is that a "serious danger"? If a comment makes a good point, why does it matter whether ti was AI generated or not? If it doesn't make a good point, why does it matter if it was AI generated or not? How will these proposals resolve that "danger"? How will they be enforceable? Thryduulf (talk) 04:39, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is made for people, by people, and I like most people will be incredibly offended to find that we're just playing some kind of LLM pong with a chatbot of your choice. You can't be serious. :bloodofox: (talk) 04:40, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You are entitled to that philosophy, but that doesn't actually answer any of my questions. Thryduulf (talk) 04:45, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"why does it matter if it was AI generated or not?"

Because it takes little effort to post a lengthy, low quality AI-generated post, and a lot of effort for human editors to write up replies debunking them.

"How will they be enforceable? "

WP:DGF isn't meant to be enforced. It's meant to explain to people how they can demonstrate good faith. Posting replies to people (who took the time to write them) that are obviously AI-generated harms the ability of those people to assume good faith. Photos of Japan (talk) 05:16, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The linked "example of someone using AI in their replies" appears – to me – to be a non-AI-generated comment. I think I preferred the allegedly AI-generated comments from that user (example). The AI was at least superficially polite. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:27, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously the person screaming in all caps that they use AI because they don't want to waste their time arguing is not using AI for that comment. Their first post calls for the article to be deleted for not "offering new insights or advancing scholarly understanding" and "merely" reiterating what other sources have written.

Yes, after a human had wasted their time explaining all the things wrong with its first post, then the bot was able to write a second post which looks ok. Except it only superficially looks ok, it doesn't actually accurately describe the articles. Photos of Japan (talk) 04:59, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Multiple humans have demonstrated in these discussions that humans are equally capable of writing posts which superficially look OK but don't actually accurately relate to anything they are responding to. Thryduulf (talk) 05:03, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

But I can assume that everyone here is acting in good faith. I can't assume good faith in the globally-locked sock puppet spamming AfD discussions with low effort posts, whose bot is just saying whatever it can to argue for the deletion of political pages the editor doesn't like. Photos of Japan (talk) 05:09, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

True, but I think that has more to do with the "globally-locked sock puppet spamming AfD discussions" part than with the "some of it might be [AI-generated]" part. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:54, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

All of which was discovered because of my suspicions from their inhuman, and meaningless replies. "Reiteration isn't the problem; redundancy is," maybe sounds pithy in a vacuum, but this was written in reply to me stating that we aren't supposed to be doing OR but reiterating what the sources say.

"Your criticism feels overly prescriptive, as though you're evaluating this as an academic essay" also sounds good, until you realize that the bot is actually criticizing its own original post.

The fact that my suspicions about their good faith were ultimately validated only makes it even harder for me to assume good faith in users who sound like ChatGPT. Photos of Japan (talk) 08:33, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if we need some other language here. I can understand feeling like this is a bad interaction. There's no sense that the person cares; there's no feeling like this is a true interaction. A contract lawyer would say that there's no meeting of the minds, and there can't be, because there's no mind in the AI, and the human copying from the AI doesn't seem to be interested in engaging their brain.

But... do you actually think they're doing this for the purpose of intentionally harming Wikipedia? Or could this be explained by other motivations? Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity – or to anxiety, insecurity (will they hate me if I get my grammar wrong?), incompetence, negligence, or any number of other "understandable" (but still something WP:SHUN- and even block-worthy) reasons. WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:49, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The user's talk page has a header at the top asking people not to template them because it is "impersonal and disrespectful", instead requesting "please take a moment to write a comment below in your own words"

Does this look like acting in good faith to you? Requesting other people write personalized responses to them while they respond with an LLM? Because it looks to me like they are trying to waste other people's time. Photos of Japan (talk) 09:35, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Assume good faith means that you assume people aren't deliberately screwing up on purpose. Humans are self-contradictory creatures. I generally do assume that someone who is being hypocritical hasn't noticed their contradictions yet. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:54, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Being hypocritical" in the abstract isn't the problem, it's the fact that asking people to put effort into their comments, while putting in minimal effort into your own comments appears bad faith, especially when said person says they don't want to waste time writing comments to stupid people. The fact you are arguing AGF for this person is both astounding and disappointing. Photos of Japan (talk) 16:08, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It feels like there is a lack of reciprocity in the interaction, even leaving aside the concern that the account is a block-evading sock.

But I wonder if you have read AGF recently. The first sentence is "Assuming good faith (AGF) means assuming that people are not deliberately trying to hurt Wikipedia, even when their actions are harmful."

So we've got some of this (e.g., harmful actions). But do you really believe this person woke up in the morning and decided "My main goal for today is to deliberately hurt Wikipedia. I might not be successful, but I sure am going to try hard to reach my goal"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:17, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Trying to hurt Wikipedia doesn't mean they have to literally think "I am trying to hurt Wikipedia", it can mean a range of things, such as "I am trying to troll Wikipedians". A person who thinks a cabal of editors is guarding an article page, and that they need to harass them off the site, may think they are improving Wikipedia, but at the least I wouldn't say that they are acting in good faith. Photos of Japan (talk) 23:27, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, I'd count that as a case of "trying to hurt Wikipedia-the-community". WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:10, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The issues with AI in discussions is not related to good faith, which is narrowly defined to intent. CMD (talk) 04:45, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In my mind, they are related inasmuch as it is much more difficult for me to ascertain good faith if the words are eminently not written by the person I am speaking to in large part, but instead generated based on an unknown prompt in what is likely a small fraction of the expected time. To be frank, in many situations it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the disparity in effort is being leveraged in something less than good faith. Remsense ‥ 论 05:02, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Assume good faith, don't ascertain! Llm use can be deeply unhelpful for discussions and the potential for mis-use is large, but the most recent discussion I've been involved with where I observed an llm post was responded to by an llm post, I believe both the users were doing this in good faith. CMD (talk) 05:07, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
All I mean to say is it should be licit that unhelpful LLM use should be something that can be mentioned like any other unhelpful rhetorical pattern. Remsense ‥ 论 05:09, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, but WP:DGF doesn't mention any unhelpful rhetorical patterns. CMD (talk) 05:32, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that everyone (myself included) defending "LLM use" says "use" rather than "generated", is a pretty clear sign that no one really wants to communicate with someone using "LLM generated" comments. We can argue about bans (not being proposed here), how to know if someone is using LLM, the nuances of "LLM use", etc., but at the very least we should be able to agree that there are concerns with LLM generated replies, and if we can agree that there are concerns then we should be able to agree that somewhere in policy we should be able to find a place to express those concerns. Photos of Japan (talk) 05:38, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
...or they could be saying "use" because "using LLMs" is shorter and more colloquial than "generating text with LLMs"? Gnomingstuff (talk) 06:19, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Seems unlikely when people justify their use for editing (which I also support), and not for generating replies on their behalf. Photos of Japan (talk) 06:23, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is just semantics.

For instance, I am OK with someone using a LLM to post a productive comment on a talk page. I am also OK with someone generating a reply with a LLM that is a productive comment to post to a talk page. I am not OK with someone generating text with an LLM to include in an article, and also not OK with someone using a LLM to contribute to an article.

The only difference between these four sentences is that two of them are more annoying to type than the other two. Gnomingstuff (talk) 08:08, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Most people already assume good faith in those making productive contributions. In situations where good faith is more difficult to assume, would you trust someone who uses an LLM to generate all of their comments as much as someone who doesn't? Photos of Japan (talk) 09:11, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Given that LLM-use is completely irrelevant to the faith in which a user contributes, yes. Of course what amount that actually is may be anywhere between completely and none. Thryduulf (talk) 11:59, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
LLM-use is relevant as it allows bad faith users to disrupt the encyclopedia with minimal effort. Such a user 21:44, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
LLMs are a tool that can be used by good and bad faith users alike. Using an LLM tells you nothing about whether a user is contributing in good or bad faith. If somebody is trolling they can be, and should be, blocked for trolling regardless of the specifics of how they are trolling. Thryduulf (talk) 21:56, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A can of spray paint, a kitchen knife, etc., are tools that can be used for good or bad, but if you bring them some place where they have few good uses and many bad uses then people will be suspicious about why you brought them. You can't just assume that a tool in any context is equally harmless. Using AI to generate replies to other editors is more suspicious than using it to generate a picture exemplifying a fashion style, or a description of a physics concept. Photos of Japan (talk) 23:09, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't trust anything factual the person would have to say, but I wouldn't assume they were malicious, which is the entire point of WP:AGF. Gnomingstuff (talk) 16:47, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
WP:AGF is not a death pact though. At times you should be suspicious. Do you think that if a user, who you already have suspicions of, is also using an LLM to generate their comments, that that doesn't have any effect on those suspicions? Photos of Japan (talk) 21:44, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So… If you suspect that someone is not arguing in good faith… just stop engaging them. If they are creating walls of text but not making policy based arguments, they can be ignored. Resist the urge to respond to every comment… it isn’t necessary to “have the last word”. Blueboar (talk) 21:57, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As the person just banned at ANI for persistently using LLMs to communicate demonstrates, you can't "just stop engaging them". When they 22:57, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That they've been banned for disruption indicates we can do everything we need to do to deal with bad faith users of LLMs without assuming that everyone using an LLM is doing so in bad faith. Thryduulf (talk) 00:33, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't believe we should assume everyone using an LLM is doing so in bad faith, so I'm glad you think my comment indicates what I believe. Photos of Japan (talk) 01:09, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No -- whatever you think of LLMs, the reason they are so popular is that the people who use them earnestly believe they are useful. Claiming otherwise is divorced from reality. Even people who add hallucinated bullshit to articles are usually well-intentioned (if wrong). Gnomingstuff (talk) 06:17, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I have no opinion on this matter, however, note that we are currently dealing with a real-world application of this at ANI and there's a generalized state of confusion in how to address it. Chetsford (talk) 08:54, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I find it incredibly rude for someone to procedurally generate text and then expect others to engage with it as if they were actually saying something themselves. Simonm223 (talk) 14:34, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, mention that use of an LLM should be disclosed and that failure to do so is like not telling someone you are taping the call. Selfstudier (talk) 14:43, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I could support general advice that if you're using machine translation or an LLM to help you write your comments, it can be helpful to mention this in the message. The tone to take, though, should be "so people won't be mad at you if it screwed up the comment" instead of "because you're an immoral and possibly criminal person if you do this". WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:57, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's rarely productive to get mad at someone on Wikipedia for any reason, but if someone uses an LLM and it screws up their comment they don't get any pass just because the LLM screwed up and not them. You are fully responsible for any LLM content you sign your name under. -- LWG ^talk 05:19, 1 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No. When someone publishes something under their own name, they are incorporating it as their own statement. Plagiarism from an AI or elsewhere is irrelevant to whether they are engaging in good faith. lethargilistic (talk) 17:29, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comment LLMs know a few tricks about logical fallacies and some general ways of arguing (rhetoric), but they are incredibly dumb at understanding the rules of Wikipedia. You can usually tell this because it looks like incredibly slick and professional prose, but somehow it cannot get even the simplest points about the policies and guidelines of Wikipedia. I would indef such users for lacking WP:CIR. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:39, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That guideline states "Sanctions such as blocks and bans are always considered a last resort where all other avenues of correcting problems have been tried and have failed." Gnomingstuff (talk) 19:44, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
WP:CIR isn't a guideline, but an essay. Relevantly though it is being cited at this very moment in an ANI thread concerning a user who can't/won't communicate without an LLM. Photos of Japan (talk) 20:49, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I blocked that user as NOTHERE a few minutes ago after seeing them (using ChatGPT) make suggestions for text to live pagespace while their previous bad behaviors were under discussion. AGF is not a suicide pact. BusterD (talk) 20:56, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

... but somehow it cannot get even the simplest points about the policies and guidelines of Wikipedia: That problem existed with some humans even prior to LLMs. —Bagumba (talk) 02:53, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No - Not a good or bad faith issue. PackMecEng (talk) 21:02, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes Using a 3rd party service to contribute to the Wikipedia on your behalf is clearly bad-faith, analogous to paying someone to write your article. Zaathras (talk) 14:39, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Its a stretch to say that a newbie writing a comment using AI is automatically acting in bad faith and not here to build an encyclopedia. PackMecEng (talk) 16:55, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's true, but this and other comments here show that not a few editors perceive it as bad-faith, rude, etc. I take that as an indication that we should tell people to avoid doing this when they have enough CLUE to read WP:AGF and are making an effort to show they're acting in good faith. Daß Wölf 23:06, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Large language model AI like Chat GPT are in their infancy. The culture hasn't finished its initial reaction to them yet. I suggest that any proposal made here have an automatic expiration/required rediscussion date two years after closing. Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:42, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No – It is a matter of how you use AI. I use Google translate to add trans-title parameters to citations, but I am careful to check for Google's output making for good English as well as reflecting the foreign title when it is a language I somewhat understand. I like to think that I am careful, and I do not pretend to be fluent in a language I am not familiar with, although I usually don't announce the source of such a translation. If an editor uses AI profligately and without understanding the material generated, then that is the sin; not AI itself. Dhtwiki (talk) 05:04, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There's a legal phrase, "when the exception swallows the rule", and I think we might be headed there with the recent LLM/AI discussions.

We start off by saying "Let's completely ban it!" Then in discussion we add "Oh, except for this very reasonable thing... and that reasonable thing... and nobody actually meant this other reasonable thing..."

The end result is that it's "completely banned" ...except for an apparent majority of uses. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:34, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Do you want us to reply to you, because you are a human? Or are you just posting the output of an LLM without bothering to read anything yourself? DS (talk) 06:08, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Most likely you would reply because someone posted a valid comment and you are assuming they are acting in good faith and taking responsibility for what they post. To assume otherwise is kind of weird and not inline with general Wikipedia values. PackMecEng (talk) 15:19, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No The OP seems to misunderstand WP:DGF which is not aimed at weak editors but instead exhorts stronger editors to lead by example. That section already seems to overload the primary point of WP:AGF and adding mention of AI would be quite inappropriate per WP:CREEP. Andrew🐉(talk) 23:11, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No. Reading the current text of the section, adding text about AI would feel out-of-place for what the section is about. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 05:56, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, this is not about good faith. Adumbrativus (talk) 11:14, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. AI use is not a demonstration of bad faith (in any case not every new good-faith editor is familiar with our AI policies), but it is equally not a "demonstration of good faith", which is what the WP:DGF section is about.

It seems some editors are missing the point and !voting as if every edit is either a demonstration of good faith or bad faith. Most interactions are neutral and so is most AI use, but I find it hard to imagine a situation where AI use would point away from unfamiliarity and incompetence (in the CIR sense), and it often (unintentionally) leads to a presumption of laziness and open disinterest. It makes perfect sense to recommend against it. Daß Wölf 22:56, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed most kinds of actions don't inherently demonstrate good or bad. The circumspect and neutral observation that AI use is not a demonstration of bad faith... but it is equally not a "demonstration of good faith", does not justify a proposal to one-sidedly say just half. And among all the actions that don't necessarily demonstrate good faith (and don't necessarily demonstrate bad faith either), it is not the purpose of "demonstrate good faith" and the broader guideline, to single out one kind of action to especially mention negatively. Adumbrativus (talk) 04:40, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Per Dass Wolf, though I would say passing off a completely AI-generated comment as your own anywhere is inherently bad-faith and one doesn't need to know Wiki policies to understand that. JoelleJay (talk) 23:30, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Sure, LLMs may have utility somewhere, and it might be a crutch for people unfamiliar with English, but as I've said above in the other AI RfC, that's a competence issue. This is about comments eating up editor time, energy, about LLMs easily being used to ram through changes and poke at editors in good standing. I don't see a case wherein a prospective editor's command of policy and language is good enough to discuss with other editors while being bad enough to require LLM use. Iseult^Δxtalk to me 01:26, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Good faith is separate from competence. Trying to do good is separate from having skills and knowledge to achieve good results. Adumbrativus (talk) 04:40, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No - anyone using a washing machine to wash their clothes must be evil and inherently lazy. They cannot be trusted. ... Oh, sorry, wrong century. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 01:31, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Using a washing machine still results in washed clothes. Using LLMs results in communication failures because the LLM-using party isn't fully engaging. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 04:50, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And before there's a reply of 'the washing machine-using party isn't fully engaging in washing clothes'—washing clothes is a material process. The clothes get washed whether or not you pay attention to the suds and water. Communication is a social process. Users can't come to a meeting of the minds if some of the users outsource the 'thinking' to word salad-generators that can't think. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 05:00, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No - As long as a person understands (and knows) what they are talking about, we shouldn't discriminate against folks using generative AI tech for grammar fixes or minor flow improvements. Yes, AI can create walls of text, and make arguments not grounded in policy, but we could do that even without resorting to generative AI. Sohom (talk) 11:24, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To expand on my point above. Completely AI generated comments (or articles) are obviously bad, but using AI should be thrown into the same cross-hairs as completely AI generated comments. Sohom (talk) 11:35, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Sohom Datta You mean shouldn't be thrown? I think that would make more sense given the context of your original !vote. _{Duly signed,} ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:08, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No. Don't make any changes. It's not a good faith/bad faith issue. The 'yes' arguments are most unconvincing with very bizarre analogies to make their point. Here, I can make one too: "Don't edit with AI; you wouldn't shoot your neighbor's dog with a BB-gun, would you?" _{Duly signed,} ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:43, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. If I plug another user's comments into an LLM and ask it to generate a response, I am not participating in the project in good faith. By failing to meaningfully engage with the other user by reading their comments and making an effort to articulate myself, I'm treating the other user's time and energy frivolously. We should advise users that refraining from using LLMs is an important step toward demonstrating good faith. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 04:55, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes per Hydrangeans among others. Good faith editing requires engaging collaboratively with your human faculties. Posting an AI comment, on the other hand, strikes me as deeply unfair to those of us who try to engage substantively when there is disagreement. Let's not forget that editor time and energy and enthusiasm are our most important resources. If AI is not meaningfully contributing to our discussions (and I think there is good reason to believe it is not) then it is wasting these limited resources. I would therefore argue that using it is full-on WP:DISRUPTIVE if done persistently enough –– on par with e.g. WP:IDHT or WP:POINT –– but at the very least demonstrates an unwillingness to display good faith engagement. That should be codified in the guideline. Generalrelative (talk) 04:59, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate your concern about the use of AI in discussions. It is important to be mindful of how AI is used, and to ensure that it is used in a way that is respectful of others.

I don't think that WP:DGF should be amended to specifically mention AI. However, I do think that it is important to be aware of the potential for AI to be used in a way that is not in good faith. When using AI, it is important to be transparent about it. Let others know that you are using AI, and explain how you are using it. This will help to build trust and ensure that others understand that you are not trying to deceive them. It is also important to be mindful of the limitations of AI. AI is not a perfect tool, and it can sometimes generate biased or inaccurate results. Be sure to review and edit any AI-generated content before you post it.

Finally, it is important to remember that AI is just a tool. It is up to you to use it in a way that is respectful and ethical. |} It's easy to detect for most, can be pointed out as needed. No need to add an extra policy Jay Cubby

Questions: While I would agree that AI may be used as a tool for good, such leveling the field for those with certain disabilities, might it just as easily be used as a tool for disruption? What evidence exists that shows whether or not AI may be used to circumvent certain processes and requirements that make Wiki a positive collaboration of new ideas as opposed to a toxic competition of trite but effective logical fallacies? Cheers. DN (talk) 05:39, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
AI can be used to engage positively, it can also be used to engage negatively. Simply using AI is therefore not, in and of itself, an indication of good or bad faith. Anyone using AI to circumvent processes and requirements should be dealt with in the exact same way they would be if they circumvented those processes and requirements using any other means. Users who are not circumventing processes and requirements should not be sanctioned or discriminated against for circumventing processes and requirements. Using a tool that others could theoretically use to cause harm or engage in bad faith does not mean that they are causing harm or engaging in bad faith. Thryduulf (talk) 08:05, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well said. Thanks. DN (talk) 08:12, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As Hydrangeans explains above, an auto-answer tool means that the person is not engaging with the discussion. They either cannot or will not think about what others have written, and they are unable or unwilling to reply themselves. I can chat to an app if I want to spend time talking to a chatbot. Johnuniq (talk) 22:49, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And as I and others have repeatedly explained, that is completely irrelevant to this discussion. You can use AI in multiple different ways, some of which are productive contributions to Wikipedia, some of which are not. If someone is disruptively not engaging with discussion then they can already be sanctioned for doing so, what tools they are or are not using to do so could not be less relevant. Thryduulf (talk) 02:51, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This implies a discussion that is entirely between AI chatbots deserves the same attention and thought needed to close it, and can effect a consensus just as well, as one between humans, so long as its arguments are superficially reasonable and not disruptive. It implies that editors should expect and be comfortable with arguing with AI when they enter a discussion, and that they should not expect to engage with anyone who can actually comprehend them... JoelleJay (talk) 01:00, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's a straw man argument, and if you've been following the discussion you should already know that. My comment implied absolutely none of what you claim it does. If you are not prepared to discuss what has actually been written then I am not going to waste more of my time replying to you in detail. Thryduulf (talk) 02:54, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a strawman; it's an example that demonstrates, acutely, the flaws in your premise. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 03:11, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you think that demonstrates a flaw in the premise then you haven't understood the premise at all. Thryduulf (talk) 03:14, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. If you think it doesn't demonstrate a flaw, then you haven't understood the implications of your own position or the purpose of discussion on Wikipedia talk pages. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 03:17, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I refuse to waste any more of my time on you. Thryduulf (talk) 04:31, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Both of the above users are correct. If we have to treat AI-generated posts in good faith the same as human posts, then a conversation of posts between users that is entirely generated by AI would have to be read by a closing admin and their consensus respected provided it didn't overtly defy policy. Photos of Japan (talk) 04:37, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You too have completely misunderstood. If someone is contributing in good faith, we treat their comments as having been left in good faith regardless of how they made them. If someone is contributing in bad faith we treat their comments as having been left in bad faith regardless of how they made them. Simply using AI is not an indication of whether someone is contributing in good or bad faith (it could be either). Thryduulf (talk) 00:17, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But we can't tell if the bot is acting in good or bad faith, because the bot lacks agency, which is the problem with comments that are generated by AI rather than merely assisted by AI. Photos of Japan (talk) 00:31, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But we can't tell if the bot is acting in good or bad faith, because the bot lacks agency exactly. It is the operator who acts in good or bad faith, and simply using a bot is not evidence of good faith or bad faith. What determines good or bad faith is the content not the method. Thryduulf (talk) 11:56, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But the if the bot operator isn't generating their own comments, then their faith doesn't matter, the bot's does. Just like how if I hired someone to edit Wikipedia to me, what would matter is their faith. Photos of Japan (talk) 14:59, 30 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A bot and AI can both be used in good faith and in bad faith. You can only tell which by looking at the contributions in their context, which is exactly the same as contributions made without the use of either. Thryduulf (talk) 23:12, 30 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not to go off topic, but do you object to any requirements on users for disclosure of use of AI generated responses and comments etc...? DN (talk) 02:07, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not in favour of completely unenforceable requirements that would bring no benefits. Thryduulf (talk) 11:38, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is it a demonstration of good faith to copy someone else's (let's say public domain and relevant) argument wholesale and paste it in a discussion with no attribution as if it was your original thoughts?
Or how about passing off a novel mathematical proof generated by AI as if you wrote it by yourself? JoelleJay (talk) 02:51, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Specific examples of good or bad faith contributions are not relevant to this discussion. If you do not understand why this is then you haven't understood the basic premise of this discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 12:00, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If other actions where someone is deceptively appropriating, word-for-word, an entire argument they did not write, are intuitively "not good faith", then why would it be any different in this scenario? JoelleJay (talk) 16:57, 1 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This discussion is explicitly about whether use of AI should be regarded as an indicator of bad faith. Someone deceptively appropriating, word-for-word, an entire argument they did not write is not editing in good faith. It is completely irrelevant whether they do this using AI or not. Nobody is arguing that some uses of AI are bad faith - specific examples are neither relevant nor useful. For simply using AI to be regarded as an indicator of bad faith then all uses of AI must be in bad faith, which they are not (as multiple people have repeatedly explained).

Everybody agrees that some people who edit using mobile phones do so in bad faith, but we don't regard simply using a mobile phone as evidence of editing in bad faith because some people who edit using mobile phones do so in good faith. Listing specific examples of bad faith use of mobile phones is completely irrelevant to a discussion about that. Replace "mobile phones" with "AI" and absolutely nothing changes. Thryduulf (talk) 18:18, 1 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Except the mobile phone user is actually doing the writing. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 19:39, 1 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I know I must be sounding like a stuck record at this point, but there are only so many ways you can describe completely irrelevant things as completely irrelevant before that happens. The AI system is incapable of having faith, good or bad, in the same way that a mobile phone is incapable of having faith, good or bad. The faith comes from the person using the tool not from the tool itself. That faith can be either good or bad, but the tool someone uses does not and cannot tell you anything about that. Thryduulf (talk) 20:07, 1 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That is a really good summary of the situation. Using a widely available and powerful tool does not mean you are acting in bad faith, it is all in how it is used. PackMecEng (talk) 02:00, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A tool merely being widely available and powerful doesn't mean it's suited to the purpose of participating in discussions on Wikipedia. By way of analogy, Infowars is/was widely available and powerful, in the sense of the exercise it influenced over certain Internet audiences, but its very character as a disinformation platform makes it unsuitable for citation on Wikipedia. LLMs are widely available and might be considered 'powerful' in the sense that they can manage a raw output of vaguely plausible-sounding text, but their very character as text prediction models—rather than actual, deliberated communication—make them unsuitable mechanisms for participating in Wikipedia discussions. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 03:16, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Even if we assume your premise is true, that does not indicate that someone using an LLM (which come in a wide range of abilities and are only a subset of AI) is contributing in either good or bad faith. It is completely irrelevant to the faith in which they are contributing. Thryduulf (talk) 04:30, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

But this isn’t about if you think its a useful tool or not. This is about if someone uses one are they automatically acting in bad faith. We can argue the merits and benefits of AI all day, and they certainly have their place, but nothing you said struck at the point of this discussion. PackMecEng (talk) 13:59, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. To echo someone here, no one signed up here to argue with bad AI chat bots. If you're a non native speaker running through your posts through ChatGPT for spelling and grammar that's one thing, but wasting time bickering with AI slop is an insult. Hydronym89 (talk) 16:33, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your comment provides good examples of using AI in good and bad faith, thus demonstrating that simply using AI is not an indication of either. Thryduulf (talk) 00:18, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is that an fair comparison? I disagree that it is. Spelling and grammar checking doesn't seem to be what we are talking about.

The importance of context in which it is being used is, I think, the part that may be perceived as falling through the cracks in relation to AGF or DGF, but I agree there is a legitimate concern for AI being used to game the system in achieving goals that are inconsistent with being WP:HERE.

I think we all agree that time is a valuable commodity that should be respected, but not at the expense of others. Using a bot to fix grammar and punctuation is acceptable because it typically saves more time than it costs. Using AI to enable endless debates, even if both opponents are using it, seems like an awful waste of space, let alone the time it would cost admins that need to sort through it all. DN (talk) 01:16, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Engaging in endless debates that waste the time of other editors is disruptive, but this is completely irrelevant to this discussion for two reasons. Firstly, someone engaging in this behaviour may be doing so in either good or bad faith: someone intentionally doing so is almost certainly WP:NOTHERE, and we regularly deal with such people. Other people sincerely believe that their arguments are improving Wikipedia and/or that the people they are arguing with are trying to harm it. This doesn't make it less disruptive but equally doesn't mean they are contributing in bad faith.

Secondly this behaviour is completely independent of whether someone is using AI or not: some people engaging in this behaviour are using AI some people engaging in this behaviour are not. Some people who use AI engage in this behaviour, some people are not.

For the perfect illustration of this see the people in this discussion who are making extensive arguments in good faith, without using AI, while having not understood the premise of the discussion - despite this being explained to them multiple times. Thryduulf (talk) 12:13, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Would you agree that using something like grammar and spellcheck is not the same as using AI (without informing other users) to produce comments and responses? DN (talk) 22:04, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

They are different uses of AI, but that's not relevant because neither use is, in and of itself, evidence of the faith in which the user is contributing. Thryduulf (talk) 22:14, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You are conflating "evidence" with "proof". Using AI to entirely generate your comments is not "proof" of bad faith, but it definitely provides less "evidence" of good faith than writing out a comment yourself. Photos of Japan (talk) 03:02, 30 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, it provides no evidence of good or bad faith at all. Thryduulf (talk) 12:54, 30 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Does the absence of AI's ability to demonstrate good/bad faith absolve the user of responsibility to some degree in that regard? DN (talk) 23:21, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not quite sure I understand what you are asking, but you are always responsible for everything you post, regardless of how on why you posted it or what tools you did or did not use to write it. This means that someone using AI (in any form) to write a post should be treated and responded to identically with how they should be treated and responded to if they had made an identical post without using AI. Thryduulf (talk) 04:10, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No per WP:CREEP. After reading the current version of the section, it doesn't seem like the right place to say anything about AI. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:05, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, with caveats this discussion seems to be spiraling into a discussion of several separate issues. I agree with Remsense and Simonm223 and others that using an LLM to generate your reply to a discussion is inappropriate on Wikipedia. Wikipedia runs on consensus, which requires communication between humans to arrive at a shared understanding. Putting in the effort to fully understand and respond to the other parties is an essential part of good-faith engagement in the consensus process. If I hired a human ghost writer to use my Wiki account to argue for my desired changes on a wiki article, that would be completely inappropriate, and using an AI to replace that hypothetical ghost writer doesn't make it any more acceptable. With that said, I understand this discussion to be about how to encourage editors to demonstrate good faith. Many of the people here on both sides seem to think we are discussing banning or encouraging LLM use, which is a different conversation. In the context of this discussion demonstrating good faith means disclosing LLM use and never using LLMs to generate replies to any contentious discussion. This is a subset of "articulating your honest motives" (since we can't trust the AI to accurately convey your motives behind your advocacy) and "avoidance of gaming the system" (since using an LLM in a contentious discussion opens up the concern that you might simply be using minimal effort to waste the time of those who disagree with you and win by exhaustion). I think it is appropriate to mention the pitfalls of LLM use in WP:DGF, though I do not at this time support an outright ban on its use. -- LWG ^talk 05:19, 1 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No. For the same reason I oppose blanket statements about bans of using AI elsewhere, it is not only a huge over reach but fundamentally impossible to enforce. I've seen a lot of talk around testing student work to see if it AI, but that is impossible to do reliably. When movable type and the printing press began replacing scribes, the handwriting of scribes began to look like that of a printing press. As AI becomes more prominent, I imagine human writing will begin to look more AI generated. People who use AI for things like helping them translate their native writing into English should not be punished if something leaks through that makes the use obvious. Like anywhere else on the Internet, I foresee any strict rules against the use of AI to quickly be used in bad faith in heated arguments to accuse others of being a bot.

GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 19:12, 2 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hesitantly support. I agree that generative AI and LLMs cause a lot of problems on Wikipedia, and should not be allowed. However, I think that a blanket ban could have a negative impact on both accessibility and the community as a whole. Some people might be using LLMs to help with grammar or spelling, and I'd consider it a net positive because it encourages people with english as a second language to edit wikipedia, which brings diverse perspectives we wouldn't otherwise have. The other issue is that it might encourage people to go on "AI Witch hunts" for lack of a better term. Nobody likes being accused of being an LLM and it negatively impacts the sense of community we have. If there is also a policy against accusing people of using an LLM without evidence, I would likely agree without any issue Mgjertson (talk) 15:53, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We do have a policy against accusing people of using an LLM without evidence: WP:AGF. I don't think we should ban the use of LLMs, but because using an LLM to write your comments can make it harder for others to AGF, LLMs should be used with caution and their use should be disclosed. LLMs should never be used to gain the upper hand in a contentious discussion. -- LWG ^talk 21:17, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@LWG We do have a policy against accusing people of using an LLM without evidence: WP:AGF this proposal would effectively remove that. Thryduulf (talk) 21:42, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The only "evidence" required at the moment is "my personal belief". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:33, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This may be interpreted as a good example for both sides of the argument. Editors have and will always need to make personal judgements that affect how they participate in the topic or project, if at all. If we want to maintain faith in the project and encourage participation the core principles and policies should at least appear strong enough to adapt to AI. Some people don't mind it, others see it as spam, because it's subjective and based on "personal belief". DN (talk) 20:13, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

[tangent] If any of the people who have used LLMs/AI tools would be willing to do me a favor, please see the request at Wikipedia talk:Large language models/Archive 7#For an LLM tester. I think this (splitting a very long page – not an article – by date) is something that will be faster and more accurately done by a script than by a human. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:25, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. The purpose of a discussion forum is for editors to engage with each other; fully AI-generated responses serve no purpose but to flood the zone and waste people's time, meaning they are, by definition, bad faith. Obviously this does not apply to light editing, but that's not what we're actually discussing; this is about fully AI-generated material, not about people using it grammar an spellchecking software to clean up their own words. No one has come up with even the slightest rationale for why anyone would do so in good faith - all they've provided is vague "but it might be useful to someone somewhere, hypothetically" - which is, in fact, false, as their total inability to articulate any such case shows. And the fact that some people are determine to defend it regardless shows why we do in fact need a specific policy making clear that it is inappropriate. --Aquillion (talk) 19:08, 2 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No - AI is simply a tool, whether it's to spellcheck or fully generate a comment. Labeling all AI use as bad faith editing is assuming bad faith. ミラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 07:02, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes unless the user makes it innately clear they are using AI to interact with other editors, per DGF, at least until new policies and guidelines for protecting our human community are in place. Wikipedia's core principals were originally designed around aspects of human nature, experiences and interactions. It was designed for people to collaborate with other people, at a time before AI was so readily available. In it's current state, I don't see any comments explaining how Wikipedia is prepared to handle this tool that likely hasn't realized it's full potential yet. I might agree that whether or not a person chooses to use AI isn't an initial sign of good or bad faith, but that is irrelevant to the core issue of the question as it relates to Wiki's current ability interpret and manage a potentially subversive tool.The sooner the better, before it's use, for better or worse, sways the community's appetite one way or the other. Cheers. DN (talk) 01:01, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No - A carefully curated and reviewed-by-the-poster AI generated statement is not a problem. The AI is being used as a tool to organize thoughts, and just because the exact wording came from an AI does not mean it does not contribute usefully to the discussion. The issue is not the use of the AI, the issue is in non-useful content or discussion, which, yes, can easily happen if the AI statement is not carefully curated and reviewed by the poster. But that's not the fault of the AI, that's the fault of the human operating the AI... and nothing has changed from our normal policy. This reply is not written by AI, but if it had been, it wouldn't have changed the points raised as relevant. And if irrelevant statements are made... heck, humans do that all the time too! Said comments should be dealt with the same way we deal with humans who spout nonsense. Fieari (talk) 06:23, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No - Outside of a few editors here I feel like most of the responses on both sides are missing what WP:DGF is about. First off, it is a postive rule about what editors should do. It is also a short rule. Expanding on this is unlikely to improve the rule. Additionally, beginning to talk about things an editor should not do because they imply a departure from godo faith opens the door to many other things that are not the best editing but are also not really what DGF is about. WP needs better guidleines on AI but this guideline does not need to be modified to encompass AI. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Czarking0 (talk • contribs) 07:30, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes Wikipedia was designed for humans. Until our structures are changed to accomodate AI, there needs to be reasonable safety measures to prevent abuse of a system that was designed for humans only. AI can impact every area of Wikipedia with great potential for distortion and abuse. This proposal is reasonable and needed. -- GreenC 19:51, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes but possibly with included clarification on the distinction between AI generated replies and the use of AI as a tool for spellcheck or translation. But someone who just asks an AI to spit out a list of talking points/generate an entire argument to support their predetermined position is not acting in good faith or seriously engaging in the discussion. I also think it is better to be cautious with this, then amend the rules later if needed, than the reverse. Vsst (talk) 06:22, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No-ish While I can see the possible issues with someone saying to ChatGPT "here's what I want to say, please give me a response that's as convincing as possible" I definitely don't think that this is a clear sign of bad faith. It is not likely to be productive, since ChatGPT isn't likely to be able to make a good policy-based argument here, but I could absolutely see someone doing this who genuinely wants to improve the encyclopedia and thinks the changes they are having ChatGPT argue for really good changes.

Which is to say, if we ban AI-generated comments we definitely shouldn't ban them as an WP:AGF issue. Someone AI-generating their comments doesn't mean they're not acting in good faith. "Good faith" is a very low standard and just means they're not actively WP:NOTHERE, which is why it's what everyone is supposed to assume as a baseline. It's very common to think that someone is acting in good faith but that they're wrong, their arguments are bad, and the changes they want would be harmful. Loki (talk) 22:56, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Weak support. But I'd prefer it to be added in a way that more broadly states that your opinions should be carefully considered, should be based on the responses/views of others (if there are any), and that you should understand your view well enough to be able to debate it civilly with others if they respond with questions or concerns. This isn't limited to LLM generated comments - it would also cover things like deliberately misusing essays, etc. I disagree with others that it's not a clear sign of bad faith. If someone is unable to articulate their view on a topic themselves based on policies, guidelines, or properly used essays, then they are not acting in good faith by contributing to the discussion. This would also not make it "default" bad faith to use a LLM for spell check, or grammar, or similar - because the person using the LLM in that manner would, by definition, be articulating their ideas to the LLM and having them edited in minor ways. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 21:03, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Berchanhimez, this proposal is to add a line to Wikipedia:Assume good faith. At some level, it's a proposal to say "You are a bad person if you use AI on talk pages". I wonder if you'd be more satisfied with a line in Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines that says something like "AI chat bots can be helpful with cleaning up grammar and spelling errors, but don't use them to completely generate a comment on a talk page." WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:11, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, yes, it would be better to do that. But in any case, I don't think people should have to assume good faith of someone who is using an LLM to generate their ideas in the first place. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 22:01, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Why? What is it about LLMs that means we need to throw out one of the most fundamental principles (arguably the most fundamental principle) of interaction? How will this assumption of bad faith regarding something that cannot be proven either way improve the project? Thryduulf (talk) 23:39, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't support any of that, because my support for AGF in general is because what it says is relatively weak. I don't think that the average editor (which includes IP editors) has a fully thought out policy-based justification for the average edit, and I don't think that's a reasonable expectation. I do think that it's reasonable to expect that editors think their edit is good and will make the wiki better, which is what AGF actually means. Loki (talk) 23:57, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't necessarily mean that an editor has to be aware of all policies. But they should at least be understanding of their position enough to be able to understand objections to it that may be based on policies they were unaware of, and be willing to constructively discuss. A user that is using a LLM to generate their arguments, whether the LLM generates "proper" arguments or not, is not going to be able to understand the criticism of their arguments, because they don't understand their arguments in the first place. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 20:08, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A user that is using a LLM to generate their arguments [...] is not going to be able to understand the criticism of their arguments, because they don't understand their arguments in the first place. I don't think this is universally true. It is going to be true for some people but some people are going to understand the arguments (e.g. because they've read and understood the LLM output before posting it, blended the LLM output with their own words, been very careful with their prompting, or some combination). Whichever it is, it gives absolutely no indication of the faith in which the user is contributing. Thryduulf (talk) 20:30, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Berchanhimez, I wonder if you'd take a look at Talk:Böksta Runestone#Clarification on Image Caption – "Possibly Depicting" vs. "Showing". It appears to be a case of a non-native English speaker deciding to "use a LLM for spell check, or grammar, or similar" and getting insulted by editors for using an LLM to translate his own words – and the accusations keep coming, even after he's told them that he's stopped using an LLM for translation and is writing everything himself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:58, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The accusations of LLM use there seem to be based on the format the user chose to present their arguments in, which is comparable to a LLM (breaking points out into individual sections with titles, for example). I would agree with you that, if a LLM was used there, it's not to the point of generating the arguments involved, which should be fine. I believe that editors responding as if it was definitively LLM generated when it is at best unclear can be dealt with through normal civility policies. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 20:05, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The user admitted his response was generated from an LLM, although WhatamIdoing (talk · contribs) attempted to convince us otherwise. None of us signed up here to attempt interface with someone's LLM outputs. :bloodofox: (talk) 20:08, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No that is not what happened. WAID said it wasn't obvious to her that the initial message was LLM-generated - that's not the same as trying to convince you (or anyone else) that it is or is not. Then later the the other editor said they had stopped using LLMs but you refused to believe them. Thryduulf (talk) 20:33, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You're wrong: "I don't think this editor is using WP:LLM tools", "Have you ever seen a chatbot correctly..." — etc. All attempts to convince us that the user wasn't using generative AI. However, as two users, including myself, pointed out, it was obviously LLM-produced text, which the editor admitted. I'm not here to play games with prompt outputs and I'm certainly not litigating the matter with editors like yourself who openly claim that anyone who refuses to interact with prompt outputs is a victim of anti-AI propaganda. :bloodofox: (talk) 20:39, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What is it with proponents of policies that compel them to tell falsehoods? Anybody can read the what was on that page and see that it does not accord with what you are saying here. You are refusing to engage with someone because they previously used a technology you dislike, regardless of everything else, even though they are no longer using that technology while asserting that it is everybody else who is contributing in bad faith. Thryduulf (talk) 20:49, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Translation: "Those darn users who refuse to sift through my prompt-generated AI spew. Darn their FUD!" :bloodofox: (talk) 21:24, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like they used it for translation and grammar/spell. Both recently affirmed as okay to do. I mean your comments and actions are kind of the exact reason we should not carve out an exception to AGF. PackMecEng (talk) 22:43, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would agree that one editor's actions and words shouldn't encapsulate or be used diagnose the entirety of the issue, so it seems best to avoid repeating or following that train of thought. Cheers. DN (talk) 20:43, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I took the invitation to read the page for myself, and I think that accusing people of telling falsehoods is inappropriate here, since what happened on that page is pretty much as described by bloodofox. From what I read bloodofox could have and should have been more civil, but they have not told falsehoods. With that said, bloodofox, I also would suggest that we WP:DROPTHESTICK in that specific case, as the user who was correctly accused of using an LLM has since made what I would consider an very honest good-faith response in which they clarified their use of an LLM and agreed to your request to refrain from using it in that way in the future. When someone receives your criticism humbly and agrees to change their behavior accordingly, the correct response is to welcome and encourage them, not continue to condemn them. -- LWG ^talk 22:57, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that Bloodofox is making a material misstatement when he says his response was generated from an LLM. The user says that the first two (=not all) comments were LLM translated.

Haven't we had multiple conversations in which everyone says that of course LLMs shouldn't create your list of reasons, but it's fine for non-native English speakers to use LLMs to translate their own original thoughts?

And yet here we are, with an editor explicitly saying that he used ChatGPT only to get his English grammar correct, and we have an editor insisting that this is "AI generated". WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:35, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't speak for anyone else here, but even if it's only being used as a translator, it would seem relevant to disclose that information from the start, if for no other reason than transparency in order to avoid miscommunication if the the AI makes a mistake. It could be something as simple as checking a box on the signature control panel. Cheers. DN (talk) 19:33, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Such a requirement would have to come way to make people aware of it before they post for the first time, and would need to come with some assurances that other commenters will not fly off the handle at you for being honest (both for saying you've used AI when you have and for saying you have not used AI when you haven't) - something we currently cannot give. Thryduulf (talk) 19:49, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Are you specifically referring to IP accounts? DN (talk) 19:54, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, and I don't know why I would be. For any such rule or guidance to be of any benefit whatsoever it needs to apply equally to all editors. Thryduulf (talk) 20:08, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Your first sentence was a bit confusing. DN (talk) 20:10, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you want people to type "I used an LLM to translate this" (or "I used Google Translate to translate this") in their comments, then you have to tell them to type that before they post the comment. We don't want:
A: Posts hand-written but machine translated comment.

B: Pitches fit because the comment uses the The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, which they believe is proof of using ChatGPT.

A: Why didn't anyone tell me that machine translation is banned?

B: You were just supposed to magically know that you have to type the secret code 'This is 100% original text from me, and I used ChatGPT to correct my grammar errors' when you post anything that has ever been touched by an LLM.

It does not matter whether User 'A' (or 'B') is logged in. What matters is whether we blame them later for doing something most people think is reasonable, but that we never told them is a problem. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:07, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@WhatamIdoing This is not nearly so bad as you make it out to be. The answer is to insert a line into a guidelines saying that AI-generated text and translation must be disclosed and then for B to not pitch a fit. This is how literally all our guidelines work (except very, very serious ones). Cremastra (talk) 21:18, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Insert a line into a guideline", when we know that Wikipedia:Nobody reads the directions? No. That's a path towards A not having any clue about the desired behavior, and B showing up to pitch a fit about how you are Violating the Holy Guideline™ 😱.

If you want newcomers to do this, you have to put the message where they will see it. That means in the user interface.

An abuse filter that says newcomer + more than 100 words = warn about undisclosed AI use might work most of the time.

A line in the editing environment would probably work approximately as well as the one that says "Content that violates any copyrights will be deleted. Encyclopedic content must be verifiable through citations to reliable sources." (See Wikipedia:Copyright problems and related pages if you want to estimate how well that does/n't work.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:58, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No - The proposal here is not "should we stop people from using AI to generate comments" but "should we modify WP:DGF to address use of AI to generate comments. Those are not the same. There's a very easy answer to the latter: No, that's a section best stated simply, without overcomplicating it with specific cases. The other, underlying question which seems to be the basis for much of the drama and ad hominems in this thread (the second time in as many days I've seen ad hominems from the same people on the same subject). The problem is figuring out where to draw a line amid discussions where so many of the loudest participants seem determined to avoid nuance. Nobody wants users to tell an LLM "give me an argument to keep this article using Wikipedia policies" with no additional information, copy/pasting the output. The problem is, it's hard to figure out where to draw a line that doesn't also preclude or stigmatize, say, using an LLM as a to help them overcome interpersonal/communicative differences ranging from straight translation and fixing typos to softening language or checking logical consistency in the user's own arguments. With all of those, there are valid and inappropriate uses, and I'm yet to see a proposal that adequately takes both into consideration. That doesn't even get into the difficulty with detecting/proving this behavior, meaning the only people who will be punished are the newbies who don't realize how reactive some part of this community is on LLM issues. We fundamentally need loosey-goosey language around this, acknowledging its uses are extremely varied.
Speaking as someone who frequently opposes these blanket rules but is also not a fan of people copy/pasting chatgpt content into talk pages, here's some draft text I could probably get behind (though for WP:TPYES or WP:SEMIAUTO rather than WP:AGF): "LLMs are powerful tools that can assist editing and communication on Wikipedia, but use caution when using them on talk pages. As a collaborative project, talk pages are where contributors converse with one another to determine how to improve an article. Avoid copy-pasting LLM-generated text without justification, and use caution when relying on an LLM to generate ideas, arguments, or evidence in talk page discussions. A pattern of overreliance on LLM-generated content may be viewed as disruptive to the deliberative process." FWIW. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:24, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That proposed text is the most constructive proposal by far that I've seen around LLMs and I could support something like that as guidance somewhere, perhaps with the addition of something around the benefits of concision. As you say WP:AGF is definitely not the right place for it, and I'm not certain WP:SEMIAUTO is either. WP:TPYES is the best of the locations you mention, but maybe we should have a central single page of guidance (not hard and fast rules) about the interaction of LLMs and Wikipedia?. Thryduulf (talk) 19:44, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A central page might be a good idea, but it would be a consensus-building challenge if these discussions are any indication. I know what I suggested above doesn't go far enough for some folks, but maybe it could work as a starting point to move from [no rules at all] to [some rough guidance]. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:52, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I also could get behind this proposal, though I would like to also see something to the effect of "to avoid misunderstanding, it is best to disclose LLM use up front and ideally share the prompts used to generate any LLM text you contribute to a discussion." -- LWG ^talk 19:58, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's not bad, but to the extent I have a concern with LLMs it's very similar to Berchan's, which is to say that I'm not really convinced that someone who has asked an LLM to generate arguments can really respond to counterarguments in the way we'd expect, and I'd ideally like any guideline about it to mention that specifically.

Or I guess more broadly, I think that any guideline about this shouldn't just say that editors should "use caution" with LLMs, it should tell them what to be cautious about. Loki (talk) 20:00, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No. I don't think it would be possible to adequately express the objection, and we would be left with an even bigger problem than the one we had been trying to resolve. I suppose I'm invoking WP:CREEP in a sense. Apart from expressing the general sentiment that everyone should assume and demonstrate good faith, it is not an entity like vandalism (for example) that can easily be identified. We need to treat each case on an individual basis and, perhaps by consensus, decide if that specific action was done in bad faith and if this other specific action was justified. There are so many scare stories about AI, and how it will nuke sites like Wikipedia, that it is easy to assume bad faith where it is involved. As someone said above, AI itself is not the problem—its application is the problem. As with vandalism, that can can only be policed on a case-by-case or person-by-person basis. Spartathenian (talk) 11:55, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes: Much of Wikipedia communication is based on trust, and a key aspect of good faith is asserting things that you claim are the truth to the best of your ability. If you're using chatbots to answer the key points in questions and make arguments for you, you cannot possibly be asserting the truth to the best of your ability, because you have outsourced that determination to a third party that can do more than offer an educated guess. Responses can't possibly be in good faith when using LLMs, because an LLM lacks the inherent ability to act in good or bad faith. All uses of AI that substantively make the arguments for an editor are basically meatpuppeting, but for predictive algorithms rather than people. This is true even if the LLM is 100% correct in the argument. If someone poses as a doctor when they are not, them making accurate diagnoses doesn't provide a good faith basis for their actions. Even if the community prefers a solution is less stringent on LLM use than I would be, undisclosed LLM edits ought to be forbidden. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 17:01, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think such advice would fit better in WP:CIVIL. Most people who use LLMs to talk to us presumably do so because they feel it will enhance what they have to say in some way, i.e. in good faith. What needs to be explained is that others find not expressing yourself in your own words annoying and impolite. – Joe (talk) 17:48, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: Amending ATD-R

[edit]

Should WP:ATD-R be amended as follows:

−

A page can be [[Wikipedia:BLANKANDREDIRECT|blanked and redirected]] if there is a suitable page to redirect to, and if the resulting redirect is not [[Wikipedia:R#DELETE|inappropriate]]. If the change is disputed via a [[Wikipedia:REVERT|reversion]], an attempt should be made to reach a [[Wikipedia:Consensus|consensus]] before blank-and-redirecting again. Suitable venues for doing so include the article's talk page and [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion]].

A page can be [[Wikipedia:BLANKANDREDIRECT|blanked and redirected]] if there is a suitable page to redirect to, and if the resulting redirect is not [[Wikipedia:R#DELETE|inappropriate]]. If the change is disputed, such as by [[Wikipedia:REVERT|reversion]], an attempt should be made to reach a [[Wikipedia:Consensus|consensus]] before blank-and-redirecting again. The preferred venue for doing so is the appropriate [[WP:XFD|deletion discussion venue]] for the pre-redirect content, although sometimes the dispute may be resolved on the page's talk page.

Prior discussion: Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy#Amending ATD-R voorts (talk/contributions) 01:54, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note: Clarified proposed amendment. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:50, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note: Broadened per discussion below. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:37, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Notified: Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion, Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy, Wikipedia talk:Deletion process, Wikipedia talk:Redirect, Wikipedia talk:Redirects for discussion, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Redirect. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:24, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support (Amending ATD-R)

[edit]

As proposer. This reflects existing consensus and current practice. Blanking of article content should be discussed at AfD, not another venue. If someone contests a BLAR, they're contesting the fact that article content was removed, not that a redirect exists. The venue matters because different sets of editors patrol AfD and RfD. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:54, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Summoned by bot. I broadly support this clarification. However, I think it could be made even clearer that, in lieu of an AfD, if a consensus on the talkpage emerges that it should be merged to another article, that suffices and reverting a BLAR doesn't change that consensus without good reason. As written, I worry that the interpretation will be "if it's contested, it must go to AfD". I'd recommend the following: This may be done through either a merge discussion on the talkpage that results in a clear consensus to merge. Alternatively, or if a clear consensus on the talkpage does not form, the article should be submitted through Articles for Deletion for a broader consensus to emerge. That said, I'm not so miffed with the proposed wording to oppose it. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 02:35, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see this proposal as precluding a merge discussion. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:46, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't either, but I see the wording of although sometimes the dispute may be resolved on the article's talk page closer to "if the person who contested/reverted agrees on the talk page, you don't need an AfD" rather than "if a consensus on the talk page is that the revert was wrong, an AfD is not needed". The second is what I see general consensus as, not the first. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 02:53, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I broadly support the idea, an AFD is going to get more eyes than an obscure talkpage, so I suspect it is the better venue in most cases. I'm also unsure how to work this nuance in to the prose, and not suspect the rare cases where another forum would be better, such a forum might emerge anyway. CMD (talk) 03:28, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support per my extensive comments in the prior discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 11:15, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
~~Support~~, although I don't see much difference between the status quo and the proposed wording. Basically, the two options, AfD or the talk page, are just switched around. It doesn't address the concerns that in some cases RfD is or is not a valid option. Perhaps it needs a solid "yes" or "no" on that issue? If RfD is an option, then that should be expressed in the wording. And since according to editors some of these do wind up at RfD when they shouldn't, then maybe that should be made clear here in this policy's wording, as well. Specifically addressing the RfD issue in the wording of this policy might actually lead to positive change. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 17:26, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Moving to oppose. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 17:23, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support the change in wording to state the preference for AFD in the event of a conflict, because AFD is more likely to result in binding consensus than simply more talk. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:04, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support Per Thryduulf's reasoning in the antecedent discussion. Jclemens (talk) 04:45, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support. AfD can handle redirects, merges, DABifies...the gamut. This kind of discussion should be happening out in the open, where editors versed in notability guidelines are looking for discussions, rather than between two opposed editors on an article talk page (where I doubt resolution will be easily found anyways). Toadspike [Talk] 11:48, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support firstly, because by "blank and redirect" you're fundamentally saying that an article shouldn't exist at that title (presumably either because it's not notable, or it is notable but it's best covered at another location). WP:AFD is the best location to discuss this. Secondly, because this has been abused in the past. COVID-19 lab leak theory is one example; and when it finally reached AFD, there was a pretty strong consensus for an article to exist at that title, which settled a dispute that spanned months. There are several other examples; AFD has repeatedly proven to be the best settler of "blank and redirect" situations, and the best at avoiding the "low traffic talk page" issue. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:52, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support, my concerns have been aired and I'm comfortable with using AfD as a primary venue for discussing any pages containing substantial article content. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 22:30, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support - So as I see it, the changes proposed are simply to say that disputes should be handled at AfD in preference over the talk page, which I agree with, and also to acknowledge that a dispute over a BLAR could consist of something other than a reversion, which it can. Sounds like a good wording adjustment to me, and it matches what I understand to be already existing wikipedian practice anyway. I agree that it may be a good idea to expressly state in policy that a BLAR should not be deleted at RfD, ever... a BLAR could be retargetted at RfD, but if a BLAR is proposed for deletion it needs to go to AfD instead... but that's not at issue in this proposal, so it's off topic for now. Fieari (talk) 06:13, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I've made use of ATD-R, but it did occur to me that it is something of a back door option. If a redirect is reverted, that means we have a controversial article which must be brought before wider scrutiny. You can't achieve that on the article talk page, unless the redirect supporter concedes the point, and so it must go to AFD. Having said that, I see no reason to amend the words "via a reversion". Spartathenian (talk) 14:02, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose (Amending ATD-R)

[edit]

Oppose. The status quo reflects the nuances that Chipmunkdavis has vocalized. There are also other venues to consider: if the page is a template, WP:TFD would be better. If this is long-stable as a redirect, RfD is a better venue (as I've argued here, for example). -- Tavix ^(talk) 17:13, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The intent here is to address articles. Obviously TfD is the place to deal with templates and nobody is suggesting otherwise. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:28, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The section in question is about pages, not articles. If the proposed wording is adapted, it would be suggesting that WP:BLAR'd templates go to AfD. As I explained in the previous discussion, that's part of the reason why the proposed wording is problematic and that it was premature for an RfC on the matter. -- Tavix ^(talk) 17:35, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As a bit of workshopping, how about changing doing so to articles? -- Tavix ^(talk) 17:46, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Pinging @Consarn, @Berchanhimez, @Chipmunkdavis, @Thryduulf, @Paine Ellsworth, @Tavix. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:51, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Gentle reminder to editor Voorts: as I'm subscribed to this RfC, there is no need to ping me. That's just an extra unnecessary step. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 22:58, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not everyone subscribes to every discussion. I regularly unsubscribe to RfCs after I !vote. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:59, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't. Just saving you some time and extra work. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 23:03, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

considering the above discussion, my vote hasn't really changed. this does feel incomplete, what with files and templates existing and all that, so that still feels undercooked (and now actively article-centric), hence my suggestion of either naming multiple venues or not naming any consarn _{(speak evil) (see evil)} 23:28, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. I'm beginning to understand those editors who said it was too soon for an RfC on these issues. While I've given this minuscule change my support (and still do), this very short paragraph could definitely be improved with a broader guidance for up and coming generations. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 23:38, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you re-read the RFCBEFORE discussions, the dispute was over what to do with articles that have been BLARed. That's why this was written that way. I think it's obvious that when there's a dispute over a BLARed article, it should go to AfD, not RfD. I proposed this change because apparently some people don't think that's so obvious. Nobody has or is disputing that BLARed templates should go to TfD, files to FfD, or miscellany to MfD. And none of that needs to be spelled out here per WP:CREEP. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:17, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to be fully inclusive, it could say something like "the appropriate deletion venue for the pre-redirect content" or "...the blanked content" or some such. I personally don't think that's necessary, but don't object if others disagree on that score. (To be explicit neither the change that was made, nor a change to along the lines of my first sentence, change my support). Thryduulf (talk) 00:26, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. ~~And my support hasn't changed as well.~~ Goodness, I'm not saying this needs pages and pages of instruction, nor even sentence after sentence. I think us old(er) farts sometimes need to remember that less experienced editors don't necessarily know what we know. I think you've nailed the solution, Thryduulf! The only thing I would add is something short and specific about how RfD is seldom an appropriate venue and why. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 00:35, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Sorry if I came in a bit hot there. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:39, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also, I think something about RfDs generally not being appropriate could replace the current footnote at the end of this paragraph. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:52, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Voorts: That latest change moves me to the "~~strong~~ oppose" category. Again, RfD is the proper venue when the status quo is a redirect. -- Tavix ^(talk) 01:00, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to back down a bit with an emphasis on the word "preferred". I agree that AfD is the preferred venue, but my main concern is if a redirect gets nominated for deletion at RfD and editors make purely jurisdictional arguments that it should go to AfD because there's article content in its history even though it's blatantly obvious the article content should be deleted. -- Tavix ^(talk) 01:22, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
this is a big part of why incident 91724 could become a case study. "has history, needs afd" took priority over the fact that the history had nothing worth keeping, the redirect had been stable as a blar for years, and the ages of the folks at rfd (specifically the admins closing or relisting discussions on blars) having zero issue with blars being nominated and discussed there (with a lot of similar blars nominated around the same time as that one being closed with relatively litte fuss, and blars nominated later being closed with no fuss), and at least three other details i'm missing

as i said before, if a page was blanked relatively recently and someone can argue for there being something worth keeping in it, its own xfd is fine and dandy, but otherwise, it's better to just take it to rfd and leave the headache for them. despite what this may imply, they're no less capable of evaluating article content, be it stashed away in the edit history or proudly displayed in any given redirect's target consarn _{(speak evil) (see evil)} 10:30, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As I've explained time and time again it's primarily not about the capabilities of editors at RfD it's about discoverability. When article content is discussed at AfD there are multiple systems in place that mean everybody interested or potentially interested knows that article content is being discussed, the same is not true when article content is discussed at RfD. Time since the BLAR is completely irrelevant. Thryduulf (talk) 10:39, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
if you want to argue that watchlists, talk page notifs, and people's xfd logs aren't enough, that's fine by me, but i at best support also having delsort categories for rfd (though there might be some issues when bundling multiple redirects together, though that's nothing twinkle or massxfd can't fix), and at worst disagree because, respectfully, i don't have much evidence or hope of quake 2's biggest fans knowing what a strogg is. maybe quake 4, but its list of strogg was deleted with no issue (not even a relisting). see also quackifier, just under that discussion consarn _{(speak evil) (see evil)} 11:03, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would think NOTBURO/IAR would apply in those cases. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:41, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would think that as well, but unfortunately that's not reality far too often. I can see this new wording being more ammo for process wonkery. -- Tavix ^(talk) 02:49, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Would a footnote clarifying that ameliorate your concerns? voorts (talk/contributions) 02:53, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Unless a note about RfD being appropriate in any cases makes it clear that it strictly limited to (a) when the content would be speedily deleted if restored, or (b) there has been explicit consensus the content should not be an article (or template or whatever), then it would move me into a strong oppose. This is not "process wonkery" but the fundamental spirit of the entire deletion process. Thryduulf (talk) 03:35, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
^Voorts, see what I mean? -- Tavix ^(talk) 03:43, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
See what I mean this attitude is exactly why we are here. I've spent literal years explaining why I hold the position I do, and how it aligns with the letter and spirit of pretty much every relevant policy and guideline. It shouldn't even be controversial for blatantly obvious the article content should be deleted to mean "would be speedily deleteable if restored", yet on this again a single digit number of editors have spent years arguing that they know better. Thryduulf (talk) 03:56, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
both sides are on single digits at the time of writing this, we just need 3 more supports to make it 10 lol

ultimately, this has its own caveat(s). namely, with the csd not covering every possible scenario. regardless of whether or not it's intentional, it's not hard to look at something and go "this ain't it, chief". following this "process" to the letter would just add more steps to that, by restoring anything that doesn't explicitly fit a csd and dictating that it has to go to afd so it can get the boot there for the exact same reason consarn _{(speak evil) (see evil)} 10:51, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

~~Thanks. That alleviates my concerns. -- Tavix ^(talk) 23:45, 24 January 2025 (UTC)~~[reply]
oppose, though with the note that i support a different flavor of change. on top of the status quo issue pointed out by tavix (which i think we might need to set a period of time for, like a month or something), there's also the issue of the article content in question. if it's just unsourced, promotional, in-universe, and/or any other kind of fluff or cruft or whatever else, i see no need to worry about the content, as it's not worth keeping anyway (really, it might be better to just create a new article from scratch). if a blar, which has been stable as a redirect, did have sources, and those sources were considered reliable, then i believe restoring and sending to afd would be a viable option (see purple francis for an example). outside of that, i think if the blar is reverted early enough, afd would be the better option, but if not, then it'd be rfd
for this reason, i'd rather have multiple venues named ("Suitable venues include Articles for Deletion, Redirects for Discussion, and Templates for Discussion"), no specific venue at all ("The dispute should be resolved in a fitting discussion venue"), or conditions for each venue (for which i won't suggest a wording because of the aforementioned status quo time issue) consarn _{(speak evil) (see evil)} 17:50, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The proper initial venue for discussing this should be the talk page; only if agreement can't be reached informally there should it proceed to AfD. Espresso Addict (talk) 16:14, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
~~Oppose~~ as written to capture some nuances; there may be a situation where you want a BLAR to remain a redirect, but would rather retarget it. I can't imagine the solution there is to reverse the BLAR and discuss the different redirect-location at AfD. Besides that, I think the intention is otherwise solid, as long as its consistent in practice. Moving forward it would likely lead to many old reversions of 15+ year BLAR'd content, but perhaps that's the intention; maybe only reverse the BLAR if you're seeking deletion of the page, at which point AfD becomes preferable? Article deletion to be left to AfD at that point? Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 20:55, 27 January 2025 (UTC), moving to support, my concerns have been resolved and I'm happy to use AfD as a primary venue for discussing article content. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 22:29, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - the first part of the new wording makes it more vague than before. "If the change is disputed via a reversion" was clear. "If the change is disputed, such as by reversion" is vague. What other ways of dispute other than reversion are there? I am assuming "reversion" here implies reversion to pre-redirect content. If the intent of the change in wording to is incorporate scenarios where an editor prefers a redirect target of "Article B" instead of "Article A", or a dab page, or sees no appropriate target, where it is not a reversion, but a bold edit or an RfD nomination, then the accompanying phrase "before blank-and-redirecting again." does not make sense.

I oppose the second part of the new wording as well. The current wording gave editors an equal choice of forum - talk page vs XfD. Why should XfD be the preferred venue, and the talkpage be the forum only "sometimes". I see what Berchanhimez says. If an editor wants to revert and add a {{mergeto}} as a better alternative to BLAR, and all parties are agreeable to in the talk page, why force them to go to XfD. Although, I won't go as far as Espresso Addict in saying the talk page "should" be the proper initial venue, the current wording of giving equal choice of venu goes better with me, than forcing a preference. If editors do not agree on a talk page, it is understood one of them, or a neutral party will take to AfD/XfD.

I support the third part of the change, courtesy Thryduulf, of "appropriate deletion discussion venue for the pre-redirect content" which resolves Tavix's concern of AfD/TfD/MfD.

Note that I haven't touched upon RfD at all, or the prior heated discussions around it, because I don't see the current or new wordings addressing anything about Rfd. It would require a separate RfC to resolve the RfD concerns.

In summary, retain current wordings for part 1 and part 2. Go ahead with new wordings for part 3. Jay 💬 16:37, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The first part was intended to make clear that if someone doesn't revert, but nonetheless contests the BLAR, they should still bring it to the appropriate non-RfD XfD. The second part doesn't limit anyone from going to talk to discuss things first. It merely makes clear that if something can't be resolved, it should go to the appropriate XfD. voorts (talk/contributions) 19:02, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How can a nomination can be made at the appropriate (non-RfD) XfD without first reverting to the pre-redirect content? To repeat my question from the earlier comment - what other ways of dispute other than reversion are there? One way to contest the BLAR is to go to RfD to state that turning the article to a redirect was not an acceptable ATD, and that the page should be completely deleted. Someone could overwrite the page with new article content, or non-article content (disambiguation, SIA, for example), but that wouldn't be seen as contesting the BLAR, more like overwriting the BLAR.

For the second part, why will editors use the talk page, if policy sets the preference to XfD? Why do you want XfD to become more preferable over the article talk page discussion? What is the basis for that? Jay 💬 13:36, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose per editor Jay above pretty much word for word, an eloquent positional description! I'm slayed and swayed, and that doesn't happen much. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 17:23, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose; while we'd like consistency with the WP:BRD cycle, we'd also like less bureaucracy and less work distracting from building the encyclopedia, so it should be rewritten to explicitly prefer the talk page over XFD. ミラP@Miraclepine 04:19, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose in strongest possible terms. XFD is a process-heavy, red-tape-filled procedure that is used solely for two reasons; first, because deletion is impossible for regular editors to implement or reverse; and second, because the WMF requires that we have a way to remove things from where ordinary editors can see them. A blank-and-redirect meets neither of these criteria - it is inappropriate to send it to XFD. I would in fact support language specifically discouraging taking such disputes to AFD, where they waste time and energy and involve far more bloated red tape than such discussions ought to have, while also creating a bias towards retaining newly-added disputed material that goes against WP:BRD, WP:BURDEN, and WP:ONUS. Making it possible to send a redirect to AFD implies that an editor can add something on which there is no consensus, then respond to any attempts to remove it by demanding a hearing at AFD, leading to it being retained if discussions there fail to reach a consensus; this is inappropriate and against our other practices and policies, which normally result in new additions that fail to obtain a consensus getting removed. If anything we should therefore prohibit sending redirects to AFD in situations where an actual deletion is not being requested, or make it clear that if the article is newly-created and was redirected prior to being sent to AFD, an AFD outcome of no consensus leads to it remaining a redirect, such that editors cannot abuse AFD to turn WP:BURDEN on its head like this. --Aquillion (talk) 12:19, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (Amending ATD-R)

[edit]

~~not entirely sure i should vote, but~~ i should probably mention this discussion in wt:redirect that preceded the one about atd-r, and i do think this rfc should affect that as well, but wouldn't be surprised if it required another one consarn _{(speak evil) (see evil)} 12:38, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I know it's not really in the scope of this discussion but to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure why BLAR is a still a thing. It's a cliche, but it's a hidden mechanism for backdoor deletion that often causes arguments and edit wars. I think AfDs and talk-page merge proposals where consensus-building exists produce much better results. It makes sense for duplicate articles, but that is covered by A10's redirection clause. J 947 ‡ ^edits 03:23, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
BLARs are perfectly fine when uncontroversial, duplicate articles are one example but bold merges are another (which A10 doesn't cover). Thryduulf (talk) 03:29, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is my impression that BLARs often occur without intention of an accompanying merge. J 947 ‡ ^edits 03:35, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes because sometimes there's nothing to merge. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:01, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't say, or intend to imply, that every BLAR is related to a merge. The best ones are generally where the target article covers the topic explicitly, either because content is merged, written or already exists. The worst ones are where the target is of little to no (obvious) relevance, contains no (obviously) relevant content and none is added. Obviously there are also ones that lie between the extremes. Any can be controversial, any can be uncontroversial. Thryduulf (talk) 18:20, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

BLARs are preferable to deletion for content that is simply non-notable and does not run afoul of other G10/11/12-type issues. Jclemens (talk) 04:46, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm happy to align to whatever consensus decides, but I'd like to discuss the implications because that aspect is not too clear to me. Does this mean that any time an redirect contains any history and deletion is sought, it should be restored and go to AfD? Currently there's some far-future redirects with ancient history, how would this amendment affect such titles? Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 09:00, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
see why i wanted that left to editor discretion (status quo, evaluation, chance of an rm or histmerge, etc.)? i trust in editors who aren't that wonk from rfd (cogsan? cornsam?) to see a pile of unsourced cruft tucked away in the history and go "i don't think this would get any keep votes in afd" consarn _{(speak evil) (see evil)} 11:07, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No. This is about contested BLARs, not articles that were long ago BLARed where someone thinks the redirect should be deleted. voorts (talk/contributions) 12:42, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
then it might depend. is its status as a blar the part that is being contested? if the title is being contested (hopefully assuming the pre-blar content is fine), would "move" be a fitting outcome outside of rm? is it being contested solely over meta-procedural stuff, as opposed to actually supporting or opposing its content? why are boots shaped like italy? was it stable as a redirect at the time of contest or not? does this account for its status as a blar being contested in an xfd venue (be it for restoring or blanking again)? it's a lot of questions i feel the current wording doesn't answer, when it very likely should. granted, what i suggested isn't much better, but shh

going back to that one rfd i keep begrudgingly bringing up (i kinda hate it, but it's genuinely really useful), if this wording is interpreted literally, the blar was contested a few years prior and should thus be restored, regardless of the rationales being less than serviceable ("i worked hard on this" one time and... no reason the other), the pre-blar content being complete fancruft, and no one actually supporting the content in rfd consarn _{(speak evil) (see evil)} 13:54, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well that case you keep citing worked out as a NOTBURO situation, which this clraification would not override. There are obviously edge cases that not every policy is going to capture. IAR is a catch-all exception to every single policy on Wikipedia. The reason we have so much scope creep in PAGs is becaude editors insist on every exception being enumerated. voorts (talk/contributions) 14:51, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
if an outcome (blar status is disputed in rfd, is closed as delete anyway) is common enough, i feel the situation goes from "iar good" to "rules not good", at which point i'd rather have the rules adapt. among other things, this is why i want a slightly more concrete time frame to establish a status quo (while i did suggest a month, that could also be too short), so that blars that aren't blatantly worth or not worth restoring after said time frame (for xfd or otherwise) won't be as much of a headache to deal with. of course, in cases where their usefulness or lack thereof isn't blatant, then i believe a discussion in its talk page or an xfd venue that isn't rfd would be the best option consarn _{(speak evil) (see evil)} 17:05, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the idea that that redirect you mentioned had to go to AfD was incorrect. The issue was whether the redirect was appropriate, not whether the old article content should be kept. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:41, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
sure took almost 2 months to get that sorted out lol consarn _{(speak evil) (see evil)} 17:43, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Bad facts make bad law, as attorneys like to say. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:45, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Alright. @Voorts: in that case I think I agree. I.e., if somebody BLAR's a page, the best avenue to discuss merits of inclusion on Wikipedia, would be at a place like AfD, where it is treated as the article it used to be, as the right eyes for content-deletion will be present at AfD. To that end, this clarification is likely a good change to highlight this fact. I think where I might be struggling is the definition of "contesting a BLAR" and what that might look like in practice. To me, "deleting a long-BLAR'd redirect" is basically the same as "contesting the BLAR", I think?

An example I'll go ahead and grab is 1900 Lincoln Blue Tigers football team from cat:raw. This is not a great redirect pointed at Lincoln Blue Tigers from my POV, and I'd like to see it resolved at some venue, if not resolved boldly. This page was BLAR'd in 2024, and I'll go ahead and notify Curb Safe Charmer who BLAR'd it. I think I'm inclined to undo the BLAR, not because I think the 1900 season is particularly notable, but because redirecting the 1900 season to the page about the Lincoln Blue Tigers doesn't really do much for the people who want to read about the 1900 season specifically. (Any other day I would do this boldly, but I want to seek clarification).

But let's say this page was BLAR'd in 2004, as a longstanding redirect for 20 years. I think it's fair to say that as a redirect, this should be deleted. But this page has history as an article. So unless my interpretation is off, wouldn't the act of deleting a historied redirect that was long ago BLAR'd, be equivalent to contesting the BLAR, that turned the page into a redirect in the first place, regardless of the year? Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 20:27, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think so. In 2025, you're contesting that it's a good redirect from 2004, not contesting the removal of article content. If somebody actually thought the article should exist, that's one thing, but procedural objections based on RfD being an improper forum without actually thinking the subject needs an article is the kind of insistence on needless bureaucracy that NOTBURO is designed to address. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:59, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I see, thank you. WP:NOTBURO is absolutely vital to keep the cogs rolling, lol. Very oftentimes at RfD, there will be a "page with history" that holds up the process, all for the discussion to close with "restore and take to AfD". Cutting out the middle, and just restoring article content without bothering with an RfD to say "restore and take to AfD" would make the process and all workflows lot smoother. @Voorts:, from your own point of view, I'm very interested in doing something about 1900 Lincoln Blue Tigers football team, specifically, to remove a redirect from being at this title (I have no opinion as to whether or not an article should exist here instead). Because I want to remove this redirect; do you think I should take it to RfD as the correct venue to get rid of it? (Personally speaking, I think undoing the BLAR is a lot more simple and painless especially so as I don't have a strong opinion on article removal, but if I absolutely didn't want an article here, would RfD still be the venue?) Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 21:10, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would take that to RfD. If the editor who created the article or someone else reversed the BLAR, I'd bring it to AfD. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:16, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Alright. I think we're getting somewhere. I feel like some editors may consider it problematic to delete a recently BLAR'd article at RfD under any circumstance. Like if Person A BLAR's a brand new article, and Person B takes it to RfD because they disagree with the existence of a redirect at the title and it gets deleted, then this could be considered a "bypassal of the AfD process". Whether or not it is or isn't, people have cited NOTBURO for deleting it. I was under the impression this proposal was trying to eliminate this outcome, i.e. to make sure that all pages with articles in its history should be discussed at AfD under its merits as an article instead of anywhere else. I've nommed redirects where people have said "take to AfD", and I've nommed articles where people have said "take to RfD". I've never had an AfD close as "wrong venue", but I've seen countless RfDs close in this way for any amount of history, regardless of the validity of there being a full-blown article at this title, only to be restored and unanimously deleted at AfD. I have a feeling 1900 Lincoln Blue Tigers football team would close in the same way, which is why I ask as it seems to be restoring the article would just cut a lot of tape if the page is going to end up at AfD eventually. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 21:36, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think the paragraph under discussion here doesn't really speak to what should happen in the kind of scenario you're describing. The paragraph talks about "the change" (i.e., the blanking and redirecting) being "disputed", not about what happens when someone thinks a redirect ought not to exist. I agree with you that that's needless formalism/bureaucracy, but I think that changing the appropriate venue for those kinds of redirects would need a separate discussion. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:42, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough, yeah. I'm just looking at the definition of "disputing/contesting a BLAR". For this situation, I think it could be reasoned that I am "disputing" the "conversion of this article into a redirect". Now, I don't really have a strong opinion on whether or not an article should or shouldn't exist, but because I don't think a redirect should be at this title in either situation, I feel like "dispute" of the edit might still be accurate? Even if it's not for a regular reason that most BLARs get disputed 😅. I just don't think BLAR'ing into a page where a particular season is not discussed is a great change. That's what I meant about "saying a redirect ought not to exist" might be equivalent to "disputing/disagreeing with the edit that turned this into a redirect to begin with". And if those things are equivalent, then would that make AfD the right location to discuss the history of this page as an article? That was where I was coming from; hopefully that makes sense lol. If it needs a separate discussion I can totally understand that as well. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 21:57, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In the 1900 Blue Tigers case and others like it where you think that it should not be a redirect but have no opinion about the existence or otherwise of an article then simply restore the article. Making sure it's tagged for any relevant WikiProjects is a bonus but not essential. If someone disputes your action then a talk page discussion or AfD is the correct course of action for them to take. If they think the title should be a red link then AfD is the only correct venue. Thryduulf (talk) 22:08, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, thank you Thryduulf. That was kind of the vibe I was leaning towards as well, as AfD would be able to determine the merits the page's existence as a subject matter. This all comes together because not too long ago I was criticized for restoring a page that contained an article in its history. In this discussion for Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of cultural icons of Canada, I received the following message regarding my BLAR-reversal: For the record, it's really quite silly and unnecessary to revert an ancient redirect from 2011 back into a bad article that existed for all of a day before being redirected, just so that you can force it through an AFD discussion — we also have the RFD process for unnecessary redirects, so why wasn't this just taken there instead of being "restored" into an article that the restorer wants immediately deleted? I feel like this is partially comparable to 1900 Lincoln Blue Tigers football team, as both of these existed for approx a day before the BLAR, but if restoring a 2024 article is necessary per Thryduulf, but restoring a 2011 article is silly per Bearcat, I'm glad that this has the potential to be ironed out via this RfC, possibly. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 22:18, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There are exactly two situations where an AfD is not required to delete article content:

The content meets one or more criteria for speedy deletion
The content is eligible to be PRODed

Bearcat's comment is simply wrong - RfD is not the correct venue for deleting article content, regardless of how old it is. Thryduulf (talk) 22:25, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Understood. I'll keep that in mind for my future editing, and I'll move from the oppose to the support section of this RfC. Thank you for confirmation regarding these situations! Cheers, Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 22:28, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Utopes: Note that is simply Thryduulf's opinion and is not supported by policy (despite his vague waves to the contrary). Any redirect that has consensus to delete at RfD can be deleted. I see that you supported deletion of the redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 September 17#List of Strogg in Quake II. Are you now saying that should have procedurally gone to AfD even though it was blatantly obvious that the article content is not suitable for Wikipedia? -- Tavix ^(talk) 22:36, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm saying that AfD probably would have been the right location to discuss it at. Of course NOTBURO applies and it would've been deleted regardless, really, but if someone could go back in time, bringing that page to AfD instead of RfD seems like it would have been more of an ideal outcome. I would've !voted delete on either venue. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 22:39, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Utopes: Note that Tavix's comments are, despite their assertions to the contrary, only their opinion. It is notable that not once in the literal years of discussions, including this one, have they managed to show any policy that backs up this opinion. Content that is blatantly unsuitable for Wikipedia can be speedily deleted, everything that can't be is not blatantly unsuitable. Thryduulf (talk) 22:52, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

23:22, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Quoting yourself in a discussion about policy doe not show that your opinion is consistent with policy. Taking multiple different bits of policy and multiple separate facts, putting them all in a pot and claiming the result shows your opinion is supported by policy didn't do that in the discussion you quoted and doesn't do so now. You have correctly quoted what CSD is and what RfD is, but what you haven't done is acknowledged that when a BLARed article is nominated for deletion it is article content that will be deleted, and that article content nominated for deletion is discussed at AfD not RfD. Thryduulf (talk) 02:40, 30 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I requested closure at WP:CR, but that was a week ago. Fortunately, I changed the "do not archive" date to two more weeks before the bot does something. Is one closer sufficient? If so, why hasn't the closure been done yet? George Ho (talk) 02:02, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is one closer sufficient? Yes. This discussion is not that complicated. If so, why hasn't the closure been done yet? First, there's a backlog and closers try to close older discussions first. Second, see WP:NORUSH. Third, see WP:VOLUNTEER. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:08, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, we'll agree to disagree then. From what I learned so far, having two or more closers is more efficient and quicker than waiting for just one who usually understands the policies very lot. Usually, a two-person closure is (unofficially) reserved mostly for more complex cases. Nonetheless, I think it would resolve backlogs. But your wishes and decision then. George Ho (talk) 02:42, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I close a lot of discussions. It is much faster to read a discussion and write a close than it is to work on a close, send it to another person for additions/edits, wait for them to send it back, ad nauseam. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:53, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For example, this discussion would probably take me about half an hour to an hour to read, then write a close I'm happy with. If I then had to have a back-and-forth with another editor until we were both happy with the close, things would take much longer. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:54, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Or, if we decided to write it together over google docs or something simultaneously, we'd both have to first read the discussion, schedule a time to chat or post messages back and forth on wiki to determine that we're on the same page (and if we're not, then neither of us should probably close it), and then actually write the close. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:56, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For better understanding, I found one example: this one from 2017, which I requested such closure... well, against initiator's wishes. But the closure was somewhat criticized: Sept 2018. Tried to find other discussions containing such criticisms, but just found 2017 post-RfC discussion and past user talk discussion for better understanding, hopefully. George Ho (talk) 03:04, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We only request two or three closers when:
the result is not obvious to everyone and

the result is going to make some (i.e., a lot of) people very unhappy.

The idea with having multiple closers is that the larger number will silence some complaints (sure, you didn't get what you wanted, but multiple admins said you lost, so complaining's probably a waste of time) and spread out some of the others (each unhappy person yells at a different closer, instead of everyone yelling at a single person).

If you are not expecting drama, you don't need multiple closers. In fact, if the answer is completely obvious, and even the people who are "losing" agree that the consensus is against them, then you don't need any uninvolved closers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:07, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
we're at 11 supports, meaning my throwaway joke about waiting to close until there were 10 has been fulfilled. though i still disagree with how that's written, that's really the one worry i had about closing the discussion consarn _{(prison phone) (crime record)} 10:52, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I take issue with the fundamental position some people are taking, above, that BLAR is some sort of loophole around the AFD process. It's the AFD process that is unusual - our normal way of handling disputed additions is covered by WP:BRD, WP:ONUS and WP:BURDEN. That is to say that if someone creates a new article, and I immediately BLAR it, the default if there is no consensus ought to be that remains a redirect. They boldly added new material, I removed it, now they must demonstrate consensus for it before restoring it. AFD inverts this for complicated reasons that are hard to change; but the idea that even edits that don't require actual AFDs ought to be required to go through that simply to... cause that inversion is absurd. If anything, I would take the opposite tack and forbid BLAR disputes from being sent to AFD. It's a normal content dispute, and should be handled in the normal way - which includes, crucially, the presumption that if there's no consensus for a recently-created article, it must remain a redirect. It's the person who attempts to send it to AFD who is abusing process to force through new material without consensus in violation of WP:ONUS / WP:BURDEN, not the person who objected and redirected it. --Aquillion (talk) 12:25, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
By your logic, as an admin, I should be able to unilaterally delete a new page per ONUS/BURDEN even if it meets none of the CSD criteria and then insist that the editor who created the article satisfy me that it should be undeleted. voorts (talk/contributions) 13:25, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also, what evidence do you have that XFD favors keeping pages. It's been my experience that redirects are often retained at AfD on contested BLARs, but both of our experiences are anecdotal and this is a factual question. voorts (talk/contributions) 13:32, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

admittedly, i think an editor who blars something should have the burden of explanation as well, and the policy could try to cram that in somewhere. granted, it's a burden they can fulfill in edit summaries, talk pages, or, and hear me out because this is something that has never ever been said before ever by anyone ever^{[citation needed]}, rfd, so it's not a hard criterion to fill if it's done in good faith. then again, if an edit war happens over it, i do think a page should be restored to its pre-war diff (which might even not be a redirect), but that's probably besides the point since other policies have that covered consarn _{(prison phone) (crime record)} 13:39, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RFC: Allow for bots (e.g. Citation bot) to remove redundant URLs known to not host a full freely-accessible version.

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Should bots like Citation bot be allowed to remove redundant 'raw' PubMed URLs, and raw OCLC URLs when pmid/oclc identifiers are present. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 09:25, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Details

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Following the last, extremely frustrating discussion about the behaviour of bots wrt to links, the consensus that 'emerged' from it was that Citation bot was to leave urls alone, unless it was replacing them with a free alternative (e.g. |url=https://freetoread.com).

However, there are two corner case I would like to establish consensus for the removal of a link.

Links to PubMed, e.g. |url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/123456, which can be given through the standard parameter |pmid=123456.
Links to OCLC, e.g. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/123456, which can be given through the standard parameter |oclc=123456.

The reason is that those links will never contain free versions of articles, they will link to either the PubMed database, which only contain abstracts (free versions would be hosted at PubMed Central instead), or the OCLC database, which formerly held google book previews (then deemed useful), but no longer does.

This means that these urls make it look like a free version is accessible, when really none are, making readers click through links that lead them to nowhere useful. Note that this isn't a proposal to removal any URL covered by an identifier (e.g. |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/123456 → |jstor=123456) that may or may not be free, only these two, known to never host free versions.

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 09:25, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

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Number of articles with PubMed links: 7.6k
Number of articles with OCLC links: 32.6k

Nobody (talk) 09:39, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

!Vote

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Support as proposer. These link are reader-hostile. They also discourage the addition of free links because it makes it look like there already are such links. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 09:25, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have no particular assessment of PubMed, but I would oppose this for OCLC because a lot of citations to OCLC for articles on books aren't citing the work attached to the OCLC, but the bibliographic data in OCLC itself. Links to it when that is not the case should be removed, but the bot cannot tell those apart. PARAKANYAA (talk) 09:41, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Then that would be a {{cite web}} with an OCLC url, not a {{cite book}} with a url pointing to OCLC. The RFC concerns the latter, not the former. E.g., the bot would cleanup
- Carlisle, Rodney P.; Golson, J. Geoffrey (2007). 659807062.
to
- Carlisle, Rodney P.; Golson, J. Geoffrey (2007). Manifest destiny and the expansion of America. Turning Points in History Series. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO. p. 238. ISBN 978-1-85109-834-7. OCLC 659807062.
Not
- "Manifest destiny and the expansion of America". Worldcat.org.
to
- "Manifest destiny and the expansion of America". Worldcat.org. OCLC 659807062. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:46, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If it can distinguish between the two use cases then I have no opposition. PARAKANYAA (talk) 11:43, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What about the use of {{citation}} template in a similar fashion? Espresso Addict (talk) 23:12, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's just as easy to detect a {{citation}} where |work=Worldcat (or equivalent) than a {{cite web}} with |work=Worldcat (or equivalent). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:33, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Assuming that Headbomb's description of the situation is accurate (it does fit with my knowledge of PubMed and OCLC, but my knowledge esp. of the latter is limited), I support this proposal. Toadspike [Talk] 13:31, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support per nom -- GreenC 19:35, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support per WP:SURPRISE. When we link to a title, readers expect to find the linked reference at the link. No information will be lost because the discussed cases always involve an id containing the same link. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:46, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support utterly reasonable. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 03:33, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support makes sense and the link is still present at the end of the citation. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 05:28, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support title-links give the false impression to readers. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:08, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think this Double-barreled question needs separate answers. If I'm looking at a citation for a book and have a choice between:
- Expert, Alice. The Sun is Really Big. ISBN 978-1234567897. OCLC 1079344976.
- Expert, Alice. 1079344976.
then I don't want the version whose link on the title takes me to https://search.worldcat.org/title/1079344976 But if I'm instead looking at a citation for a WP:PAYWALLED article, and I have a choice between:
- Henderson, Jillian T.; Webber, Elizabeth M.; Weyrich, Meghan S.; Miller, Marykate; Melnikow, Joy (2024-06-11). "Screening for Breast Cancer: Evidence Report and Systematic Review for the US Preventive Services Task Force". JAMA. 331 (22): 1931–1946. doi:38687490.
- Henderson, Jillian T.; Webber, Elizabeth M.; Weyrich, Meghan S.; Miller, Marykate; Melnikow, Joy (2024-06-11). 38687490.
then I'd actually prefer having a link on the title take me to the abstract on PubMed (or at least not object to it). Those of us who are familiar with the literature and our citation conventions know that this is a "duplicate" or "redundant" link, but ordinary people don't know what all those acronyms mean. They expect that clicking the link on the title will take them to some useful place, so it should do that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:10, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support per the discussion and limits per PARAKANYAA Jeepday (talk) 13:49, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

URLs with utm_source=chatgpt.com codes

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Hi, certain articles 19:52, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why do we need a new policy for this? If source A simply republishes or quotes source B, one we determine the reliability based on how reliable source B is. If a source is simply replicating ChatGPT then the replication is exactly as reliable as ChatGPT (which is of wildly inconsistent accuracy, ranging from completely correct in all regards to the exact opposite and everything in between). Replicating an unreliable AI chat bot is no different to replicating an unreliable human source. If what you are talking about is not using ChatGPT as a source but using a third party source suggested by ChatGPT, then ChatGPT is completely irrelevant to the reliability of the source: ChatGPT recommends both sources of the highest reliability and sources that are utter garbage (as well as sources that don't exist). All sources suggested by ChatGPT should be checked for reliability and relevance, but then all sources added to articles should be checked for reliability and relevance. Thryduulf (talk) 20:07, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You have been quite busy doing your best to try and keep Wikipedia from having any kind of policy on generati AI, haven't you? If there's a thread on this, you're there defending generative AI. The reality is that many of us are now dealing with the ramifications of machine-generated text, which is almost always just outright garbage trained on who-knows-what, from editors and we clearly need policies on it. We didn't sign up to sort through someone's prompt-generated misinformation and it is a total waste of every editor's time here to even engage with machine-generated text. :bloodofox: (talk)
I'm not defending generative AI, I'm defending Wikipedia from short-sighted policies that are unnecessarily redundant to existing policies and/or will do more harm than good. If text is garbage it's garbage regardless of the source, if it isn't garbage then it isn't garbage regardless of the source. Thryduulf (talk) 21:59, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any specific instances of disruption through AI that aren't already covered by existing P&G? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 05:03, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The simple answer: The ease of use of this new technology needs new policies to deter its use to disrupt the site and waste the time of human editors. The site is being flooded by machine-generated text which has only recently been a possibility for anyone to produce with ease and Wikipedia editors are now having to deal with it on a daily basis. No doubt we even have new users who don't even realize it's a problem. Making the issue and its ramifications crystal clear would help. :bloodofox: (talk) 23:19, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Making the issue and its ramifications crystal clear would help yet in all the discussions nobody has yet managed to make it clear why existing policies and guidelines are unable to deal with the problems. Lots of people have tried and everybody has failed. Thryduulf (talk) 23:30, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
While I'm sure tech companies like OpenAI appreciate your constant and full-throated defense of all things generative AI on Wikipedia whenever the matter arises, those of us who have to clean up after it don't appreciate it. As anyone even vaguely familiar with the topic knows, machine-generated text takes seconds to produce and a tremendous amount of time to attempt to correct by we human editors. We have no meaningful policies on machine generated text at the moment and anyone watching this page knows it is in part due to your 24/7 attempts at defending the status quo of 'we shouldn't do anything about generative AI on the site' and obfuscating change in the matter. :bloodofox: (talk) 00:14, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As I have explained to you and others in pretty much every discussion we shouldn't do anything about generative AI on the site' is not my position and I really would appreciate it if you would stop repeating the falsehood that it is. My position is that whether text is AI-generated or not is completely irrelevant to and a distraction from the actual problems. If the AI-generated text is a copyvio then the problem is that the text is a copyright violation not that it is AI-generated, and we have existing policies for how to deal with copyright violations that apply regardless of whether the text is AI-generated or human-generated. The exact same is true for every other actual problem anybody has listed. Thryduulf (talk) 02:11, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not buying it. Everything you've said on these threads has been nothing more than a complete and total defense of the use of machine-generated text on the site, a total defense of the matter with zero criticism and absolutely no concern about associated problems. The makers of these companies couldn't have been more full-throated about it than yourself. Let's not play pretend here. :bloodofox: (talk) 02:50, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Either you are not reading what I'm saying, you're not listening to what I am saying, you are so blinding by your point of view that you are ignoring what I am saying, or you have some ulterior motive (although this last seems the least likely the evidence doesn't allow me to rule it out). Regardless of which it is there is clearly nothing I can say that will convince you that when I say "X" I actually do mean "X" and not "Y", ao engaging with you is clearly a waste of everybody's time. Thryduulf (talk) 03:03, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As a debate, you win because anyone can post anything and its source is not relevant. However, that pollyanna approach assumes there is an infinite supply of good editors who are able and willing to spend hours investigating and correcting AI text that was generated and added in a minute. That may be correct at the moment, but the trend of recent months shows that the supply will outpace human editors very soon. A rational discussion of AI in Wikipedia needs to account for the fact that it will drive away good editors. Johnuniq (talk) 04:07, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A rational discussion of AI on Wikipedia needs to confine itself to sober discussion of facts and not hyperbolic FUD. If you want to solve a problem, on Wikipedia or elsewhere, you need to identify the actual problem and implement solutions that address that rather than introducing more problems by focusing on irrelevances. AI-generated text can be both good and bad, bad text can be bother AI-generated or human-generated. The problem is that bad text is bad, not that AI-generated text is AI-generated. What we need is solutions for dealing with bad text regardless of the source. Thryduulf (talk) 04:20, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And now we have this editor referring to anyone who objects to cleaning up masses of AI slop on Wikipedia as 'buying into manipulative anti-AI propaganda'. See Fear, uncertainty, and doubt. For those of you haven't encountered it yet, today you're likely to encounter it in pro-AI and "effective accelerationism" circles where true believers dismiss those who for example 'stand in the way of' "the Singularity" and/or on Tech company blogs and 04:52, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Denialism occurs when trillions of dollars are bet on a technology with adverse consequences. Similar with global warming denial, the most frequently used logical fallacy is the reduction fallacy (which is the argument that because climate has changed naturally in the past, current climate change must also be entirely natural). The same argument presented here (because current policy works for human editors, it also works for bot produced text). AI text is not equivalent to human generated text, it is different enough to create problems. This is very obvious, but then, not everyone has tackled an AI written article. Yet. -- GreenC 06:55, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If text is garbage it's garbage regardless of the source That is not true. Equating problems with AI text as equivalent to human generated text is seriously misguided. -- GreenC 23:28, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I really need a citation on that. How is AI-generated text so categorically different to human generated text that existing policies can't deal with the issues? How does AI-generated text-soup differ from human-generated text soup that means we need a policy for AI-generated text-soup that is different to our policy for all text-soup? Thryduulf (talk) 23:32, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just off the top of my head, potential answers to this question that I have seen offered in previous discussions include:
the ease with which AI slop can be created versus the effort required to vet and assess it.

the tendency of AI text to be very good at mimicking the style of high-quality text (so the normal patterns that provide a cue to low-quality human contributions are harder to spot).

the difficulty in assigning responsibility and assessing intent with AI-text.

the actual current outcomes of AI use (which some have argued are poor).

the argument that Wikipedia's benefit to society lies in its human qualities, and that pasting ChatGPT content into the Wiki doesn't provide a benefit to readers who could have just queried ChatGPT directly if that is what they wanted.

The concern that because Wikipedia is used as a major source of training data for LLMs, the inclusion of LLM-generated content in Wikipedia creates a potentially-pathological loop situation.

I understand that these aren't convincing reasons for you, and I respect your position (I'm somewhat in the middle ground on this issue myself), but let's not pretend that the people opposed to AI use haven't voiced coherent concerns. -- LWG ^talk 23:46, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Everything listed by LWG is correct. Until you encounter one of these animals, and spent days trying to untangle, you probably won't understand. It's not at all like working with human created text. -- GreenC 04:47, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The gist is that it falls in a different place with regard to good faith. AI hallucinations often aren't like human errors and aren't the kind of thing that humans would make up in good faith.

For instance, someone might make a typo and write that the dotcom bust in March 2020 put Pets.com out of business, rather than March 2000. But there's not really a plausible way that a well-meaning human would write a detailed paragraph analyzing how the COVID-19 pandemic, which happened in March 2020, resulted in Pets.com going out of business, unless that person was deliberately creating a hoax. But a well-meaning human might use ChatGPT and have that output be generated and be none the wiser. Or with regard to ChatGPT-generated URLs, LLMs often just make up an article title or URL that doesn't exist, which is not something a human is going to do in good faith. All this affects how the edit should be treated -- someone creating a hoax is vandalizing the encyclopedia and knows it, someone producing a comparable AI hallucination is likely just misguided.

I still think an edit filter is better than a policy, to just stop this stuff at the root, though. Gnomingstuff (talk) 20:01, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand how any of that is any indication of the faith that the person prompting the LLM is acting in? Someone using an LLM to create a hoax is acting in bad faith by creating a hoax, not by using an LLM. Someone posting LLM content that they believe improves an article is acting in good faith, even if the content is riddled with errors. Someone posting LLM content with the goal of introducing misinformation is acting in bad faith, even if the content doesn't contain errors. Thryduulf (talk) 20:14, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Right, exactly, that's my point. If someone posts a made-up article title and URL there are basically only two ways that can happen:

1) They're deliberately inserting a fake citation

2) They're using a LLM that hallucinated a fake citation

Both of these result in the same fake citation getting added to an article, but editor #1 is obviously not acting in good faith, while editor #2 likely is. Moreover, editor #1 knew what they were doing, while editor #2 probably didn't. So while the fake citation should be still removed either way, editor #2 probably shouldn't face the same consequences that editor #1 would. This is technically covered under WP:VANDALISM already but I don't think it's a bad idea to add a specific note about LLM-generated misinformation there. (or, better yet, just filter them out) Gnomingstuff (talk) 03:45, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, absolutely. Wikipedia is now plagued with machine-generated text that the few human editors here have to contend with. Recently I have had to deal with two of such instances full of misinformation and other nonsense. Without action this problem is only going to spread and get worse. We need policies on this yesterday: we're well on our way to becoming overwhelmed by AI slop that takes two seconds to produce and much longer to correct in every nook and cranny of the site. :bloodofox: (talk) 20:17, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
User:Bloodofox: Yup. It's a huge waste of time, just dealing with one short AI generated article has taken days of research to untangle, only to conclude the entire thing should be redirected and summarized into a single paragraph. AI makes much out of nothing .. then gets it wrong anyway! -- GreenC 23:17, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Any sources may not be entirely accurate. While people should definitely not rely on ChatGPTs description of the source, it may be a worthwhile tool for finding sources with reliable and usable content... much as Wikipedia itself is not a reliable source, but one of its great uses is finding the sources it uses on a given topic, which themselves may be reliable. So if the policy change you're suggesting is that you can't use sources suggested by ChatGPT, I don't see it... but if it's some sort of policy that you cannot use a source until you actually verify what the source says, that's at the very least a good guideline no matter where you find the source. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 20:23, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Are these fake sources? Sources that are real but don’t support the content? Or what?

Blueboar (talk) 20:28, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I did check just two of these, and in one of them I found real problems. 01:47, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Editors have the responsibility of using citations to sources that they read to craft the text they wrote. They also are responsible to evaluate the reliability of sources and their suitability for the content being added. What additional guidance are you proposing? isaacl (talk) 22:47, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is a proposed edit filter to track these additions. Of course, the filter is not going to capture all uses of llms, just the ones where the llm helpfully appends a tag to the url and where the editor does not delete those tags. Last time I checked some they were riddled with problems, but you can revert them under current policies. CMD (talk) 03:18, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds like a good way to catch an editor's LLM use early before they rack up thousands of edits adding AI text. That's the sort of thing we should be focusing on. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 05:05, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To make sure I understand this properly: this thread seems to be about links added in refs where the link's UTM source parameter is ChatGPT. Apparently ChatGPT adds that now when it references a URL in output.

I think an edit filter in articlespace is the best solution here, it's a great, unambiguous smoking gun for AI-generated text. Gnomingstuff (talk) 08:15, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To test how unambiguous, there is a trial filter at Special:AbuseFilter/1346. CMD (talk) 13:02, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see a need for a new policy here when the problem is just one of countless possible ways to violate current policies with inappropriate sourcing. But there's little doubt that one of the things chatgpt is worst at is identifying sources (it would be bad for business to too easily connect specific sources with its output). Since the only way we'd be able to identify these sources to enforce this hypothetical policy is if they carried through the referral in the url, this is a case for an edit filter, not a new policy. I've talked to many people who mistakenly think that because chatgpt is decent at summarizing sources you feed it, it must be helpful with a literature review -- they're not fiends trying to ruin Wikipedia but people trying to improve an article using a popular new tool. This is a case for an edit filter, not a new policy. If someone adds a source with that chatgpt referral (and presumably other tools have something similar), we should explain to them that chatgpt stinks at connecting information with sources and flag the edit for others to look at. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:12, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
With the caveat that a LinkedIn post is not a reliable source and I don't trust this guy at all, 19:21, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

[Tangent] What I really want right now is a list of links to prior discussions about AI rules. I'm imagining a transcludable list, so every time someone posts yet another idea for yet another rule, we can ask them to read the previous discussions and give them a link to WP:Nobody reads the directions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:17, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A partial list of AI-related discussions is at Wikipedia:Artificial intelligence#Discussion timeline. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:41, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I was wondering the same thing, a central place to track the discussions. Now, we need AI to summarize each discussion for salient points. It would have to be in userspace, but its nature. Then a meta-analysis. This is IMO a good application of AI, which is essentially statistics based summation. -- GreenC 18:38, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

22:40, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Editors need to verify the sources themselves, as they are ultimately responsible for the edits they make. But as long as they have done so there's no issue with using sources that an LLM suggests. Editors just adding text and sources created by LLMs without checking are already covered by guidance on disruptive editing. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:04, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's also worth noting that the presence of the url parameter is not an indication that the sources have or have not been checked. Even someone who knows about the existence of the parameter (which is likely to be a minority of people using LLMs in this manner) is unlikely to specifically remove it - if the source is OK they're most likely to just leave it as is, if it isn't they'll remove the whole thing. Thryduulf (talk) 22:45, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In cases where the source is good we probably should be removing the utm_source parameter since otherwise we are causing any clickthroughs of Wiki references to appear on site analytics as ChatGPT referrals. -- LWG ^talk 02:22, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't saying we shouldn't remove them if they are added, just that them being added is not an indication that the source is good or bad or that the URL has or has not been checked. Thryduulf (talk) 03:55, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with others that existing policy seems sufficient here. I do think it would be reasonable to add an edit filter with a reminder to verify the content of added sources (or, perhaps, a new custom edit tag). Cheers, Suriname0 (talk) 23:26, 15 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Where is this Wiki policy?
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I remember reading a resonating policy page/section/essay whose thesis was don't exhaust people by pretending like your argument has gone unaddressed and repeating it over and over, and it had a picture of a head with hands over its ears. I can't seem to find it on w:Wikipedia:Etiquette or w:Wikipedia:Vandalism#Types_of_vandalism Lumbering in thought (talk) 16:20, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT maybe? Anomie ⚔ 16:28, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's the one. Lumbering in thought (talk) 17:03, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you're thinking of Wikipedia:Drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 16:32, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I may have read that essay, but I for sure read in the See Also there, Wikipedia:It's_not_the_end_of_the_world, Wikipedia:Let_it_go and Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_not_about_winning (almost perfectly relevant) for what it's worth. Also sorry you replied before viewing my minor edit. Lumbering in thought (talk) 17:11, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There's also WP:SATISFY which is part of WP:BLUDGEON. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:09, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Rate-limiting new PRODs and AfDs?
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Hi, I was recommended to post this at the village pump by a a comment here.
There has been a recent issue where dozens of PRODs and AfDs (about 80 of them last month) of pre-Internet-era track and field Olympians were all created in a short timespan. For comparison, the usual rate that these get created is one or two per week. The rate is of particular importance here because unlike most processes on Wikipedia, there is a one-week deadline for most PRODs and AfDs, so when many are created all at once it can be difficult to properly address them in time.
While it's true that some of these articles were created by User:Lugnuts without SIGCOV references, it's also true that significant coverage exists for most of them -- to quote User:WhatamIdoing at the above linked thread, At some level, we all know that there is local coverage on every modern Olympic athlete, because (a) local newspapers always run the 'local kid does well internationally' kinds of stories, because articles that combine national pride, local people, and good news sell well, and (b) every time someone has actually done the work of getting access to paper copies, they've found these sources.
A similar situation happened about four months ago, and the solution was just to procedurally revert all of the PRODs: User_talk:Seefooddiet/Archive_1#109 proposed deletions in a couple of hours?
Because finding pre-Internet newspaper sources for non-English speaking countries can be labor intensive, is there a policy solution to the above problem? --Habst (talk) 20:45, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this is something we can solve with more rules.

Making 109 PRODs in one hour is just silly, and there's no amount of regulation that will stop people from doing silly things. I do understand this kind of rate is frustrating, but I think creating and enforcing rules about the rate of nominations will create unforseen problems. You can't stop people from being silly, but you can trout them after the fact. Cremastra (talk) 21:56, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You can also WP:TBAN them after the fact. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:30, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

109 PRODs in one hour sounds like a WP:MEATBOT issue. There is no way you can evaluate that many articles in that amount of time, so the first step would be to deprod with the summary that no WP:BEFORE was done and the article needs a full evaluation. Thryduulf (talk) 23:36, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note it's possible, if unlikely, that the tagger spent significant time researching the 109 articles individually before tagging them all at once. A single rapid tagging session does not by itself indicate WP:MEATBOT. Anomie ⚔ 13:23, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For small groups of closely related articles that is possible, but it's not at all plausible that you'd research that many before nominating them - you'd tag them as you go. Especially if you are not doing a group nomination. Thryduulf (talk) 14:34, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is mostly something that can be dealt with informally through current P&G (disruptive editing applies to all sorts of things). For larger deletion projects, it would be preferable to either bundle them or start a community discussion, depending on the nature of the articles. With that said, note that per WP:NSPORTS2022 Proposal 5 there's already consensus to delete any sports bios that do not currently have significant coverage in the article, overriding WP:NEXIST and WP:BEFORE. These deletions aren't indefinite, they're just until someone gets around to finding significant coverage. I'd also ask about whether local coverage is "significant" as opposed to routine; if all athletes have local coverage regardless of notability, it's unlikely to be significant. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 00:23, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have a relevant discussion open at WT:NOT about the definition of 'routine'. We're just getting started, so things may change, but from early comments, it appears that 'routine' is frequently understood to have no particular relationship to 'significant coverage'. SIGCOV is how many (encyclopedically useful) words/facts were written. 'Routine' is that if every ____ automatically gets (e.g.,) one article printed about it the next morning, then that is the routine. ("____" is a relevant large category, like "film" or "sports game" or "election", not a small category like "films starring Joe Film" or "FIFA World Cup finals").

With these two models, it is possible for routine coverage to provide SIGCOV. And if you agree or disagree with that, then I invite you to join that discussion and tell us so. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:39, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This sort of thing in general is a matter of good old common sense, no ammount of policy will help here. If you need one, WP:BULLINACHINASHOP would be it. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:37, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely not, not unless a similar rate limit is applied to article creation. At the moment an editor can mass-create a ton of articles very rapidly; to avoid a WP:FAIT situation, it is obviously necessary for another editor to be able to challenge those articles equally-rapidly. Regarding the evaluation of articles, above - often when people do this, it's in response to discovering such a mass-creation. In that case all the articles can reasonably contain the same crucial flaw that means they shouldn't have been created; I continue to assert that WP:BEFORE is advisory and optional (otherwise it would invert WP:BURDEN, which obviously places the burden to search for sources on the people who add or wish to retain material - you can't add something and then insist other people do that search before deleting it.) But even for people who try to insist that it is mandatory, it only requires "reasonable" searches, and when dealing with mass-created articles it is reasonable to simply evaluate the method they were created by and therefore examine them all at once before mass-prodding or mass-AFDing them. Obviously such mass actions are meant to be taken cautiously but we can't forbid them here, since they're sometimes clearly necessary. --Aquillion (talk) 12:36, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Editors can't mass-create more than 25–50 articles per day without getting written permission (and nobody's actually done that for years). If the goal is to mirror creation limits, then that suggests a rate limit of 25–50 AFDs per day. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:55, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
15:39, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Redirects aren't articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:57, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's a limitation of the data available. Manual inspection of the results reveals plenty of instances where the created pages are mostly non-redirects. 16:29, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Disambiguation pages aren't articles, either. BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:32, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Can Quarry filter by Special:Tags or edit summaries? Excluding any edit with "Tags: New redirect" or an edit summary containing words like redirect or disambiguation would help. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:00, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On the very rare occasions it is actually desirable (it's never "necessary") to mass-delete articles then we have processess for that - namely group AfDs and in extreme cases RFCs. PRODs should never be used en-mass because PRODs are explicitly only for uncontroversial deletions, and mass deletion is always controversial. And anyway it should never be easier to delete an article than create one - our goal is to build an encyclopaedia not to delete one. Thryduulf (talk) 15:02, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
mass deletion is always controversial Is that a guideline or your opinion? I was reading this because in December I proded a bunch of articles a single editor had made in a short period of time and I think most of them were deleted. I do not recall anyone mentioning this to me at the time Czarking0 (talk) 04:29, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
How many is "a bunch"? On 18 December 2024, I see five articles that you prod'd but that did not get deleted. They were by two different editors, writing about two unrelated subjects. Two or three articles per editor/subject is not "mass deletion". Something like 25–50 articles, all on the same subject, and especially if it were all of the articles on that subject or if the prod statement had a lousy rationale (such as "No ____ is ever notable" – something an experienced editor like you would never claim) would be mass prodding.

Reasonable people could disagree on exactly where to draw the line between those two extremes, but I don't think that, say, five articles on the same subject would count. And if the article is unsourced and qualifies for WP:BLPPROD, then any editor who runs across it should either promptly make it ineligible (i.e., add a source) or prod it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:26, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think there needs to be proportionality here, and specifically that the effort required to delete an article should be proportionate to the effort spent in its creation. Lugnuts stubs were created at extremely high rate, often several per minute, from databases. Therefore they should be proddable at an extremely high rate; but they aren't, because we have editors who insist on laborious and time-intensive processes that have the practical effect of making them ludicrously difficult to get rid of.

Per policy, we're expected to be very firm about the use of high quality sources for biographies of living people. Lugnuts' creations very largely consist of undersourced, unmaintained, unwatchlisted BLPs and in my view they represent the most ghastly risk to the project. I continue to feel that the best thing we could do with Lugnuts articles is purge them all. In due course, good faith editors who will actually curate and maintain them will be ready to bring the appropriate ones back.

Of course, on the day that happens, I'll be hitting the slopes with my good buddy Satan.—S Marshall T/C 23:08, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is a fairly specific issue that is better addressed on a case by case basis

Czarking0 (talk) 04:32, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Guidelines related to WikiProjects
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The current WikiProject infrastructure was set up around 2006 with the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council and its Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide. This system defines a WikiProject as "a group of people" and "a social construct" as opposed to a resource for the community. Per Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals: A WikiProject is a group of editors who want to work together. A WikiProject is not a subject area, a group of pages, a banner on talk pages, or any of the infrastructure used to support the group. I don't believe this lines up with how they're currently used or how the community sees them.
Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide has guideline status but is relatively obscure and reflects how Wikipedia worked in its early days. Note that it also has additional guideline-style subpages at Guide/WikiProject, Guide/Task forces, and Guide/Merging WikiProjects, as well as a Proposals subpage. Given how much Wikipedia has changed in the 15–20 years since this system was established, and the growing opposition to insular groups on Wikipedia since then, I'm asking the community whether everything regarding the WikiProject Council and its guidelines still has sitewide consensus. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 04:14, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

TBUA, it's customary to discuss changes to a guideline at the talk page for that guideline. You already started a discussion there. Why did you create this WP:TALKFORK? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:21, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's not a guideline talk page, that's a WikiProject talk page, and the fact that you want to constrain it there instead of get community feedback kind of proves my point. Especially since you've been the editor enforcing the current system more than anyone else. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 04:25, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's both, because Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council/Guide redirects there. There are thousands of centralized talk pages on wiki, and this is one of them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:55, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On the subject of WikiProject resources, I have raised a couple of times, including as a response to a request by the WMF for collaboration ideas, that the WMF explore the separation of the tools that rely on WikiProjects from the rigid WikiProject system. It would be great if others do the same, if they also feel that the use of WikiProjects has diverged from their original design. CMD (talk) 04:35, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
How else would we define these projects? Moxy🍁 04:46, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My hope is not to redefine WikiProjects, but to have ways to use tools such as WP:Article alerts without requiring they be linked to a dead noticeboard. CMD (talk) 04:49, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Chipmunkdavis, I've not spent much time with the Wikipedia:Article alerts system, but I don't believe it actually requires a WikiProject. You can set up an alert page several different ways. I believe it would be possible, for example, to set up an alert based on Category:Featured articles or {{infobox book}} (giving you notifications about all actions affecting FAs or all actions affecting articles containing that infobox, respectively). It's possible that its |maincategory= would even let you get alerts to articles within a chosen content category like Category:Italian artists. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:04, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes there are a few options, but there is a limit to the flexibility. CMD (talk) 06:59, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I do think the community views a WikiProject as a group of editors collaborating on a shared area of interest, without any special powers beyond those of any group of collaborating Wikipedia editors. I think the statements at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide § What is a WikiProject? continue to be an appropriate description of the roles currently filled by active WikiProjects. isaacl (talk) 05:52, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm mostly active in one project (organised labour) and drop in and out of a number of others, but I'm really not clear what is the problem being called to attention here? If it is about the tools projects use, no problem, wish we could develop more, but I think generalising in toto about projects rather than pointing to specific projects with problems seems to be throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 10:37, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not opposed to evolving the WikiProject system but the statement, the current [X] infrastructure was set up around 2006 could apply to pretty much any process X. It's not in itself a reason to overhaul things – when a guideline remains unchanged for many years, we usually take that as a sign of more consensus, not less. – Joe (talk) 11:40, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That guidance lines up pretty well with how I see the role of Wikiprojects. In what way do you believe that it does not line up with how they're currently used or how the community sees them? Phil Bridger (talk) 13:45, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The Wikimedia Foundation is definitely prioritizing new tools to be agnostic from WikiProjects, for example the 01:33, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Was there a dispute that led to this? What is broken that we are trying to fix? The only problem with WikiProject is that they're just not really popular. There are a handful of active ones, a handful that are just a labor of love for one or two people, and a slew of inactive projects. There have been multiple efforts to reinvigorate them (see WP:WikiProject X for one that involved developing new tools), but I don't think any have been terribly successful (or perhaps haven't been funded long enough to evaluate successfulness after the short-term?). I'm all for tools that help with things like article alerts, assessments, etc., whether or not they're connected to a WikiProject, but ultimately WikiProjects are just handy ways to divide up millions of articles into topics/themes. Strong disagree with growing opposition to insular groups on Wikipedia since then being applicable here - WikiProjects aren't insular. Anyone can join, and they're fully transparent. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 02:51, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
but ultimately WikiProjects are just handy ways to divide up millions of articles into topics/themes This is what I'm proposing. Right now, the editors who maintain WP:WikiProject Council insist that this is not what they're to be used for. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 02:55, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Rhododendrites, if WikiProjects were merely the division of articles into topics/themes, then it wouldn't actually be possible for any WikiProject to be inactive. Groups of people can become inactive; dividing lines cannot.

Mainspace categories, starting with Category:Main topic classifications is the way to divide articles into topics/themes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:00, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not "merely". And yes, categories also divide articles by topics/themes. The WikiProject approach to dividing comes with categories as well as a space to put information, communicate, and coordinate about those articles. I'd call them a topical or thematic grouping of articles with space to coordinate rather than a group with space for grouping articles. I'm not sure what real difference that makes, though, or what point you're making. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:17, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
One requires constant maintenance, one doesn't. So when editors create dozens of inactive WikiProjects, it falls on other editors to clean up. Gonnym (talk) 15:06, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What cleanups do inactive WikiProjects require? Thryduulf (talk) 17:14, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In the easiest cases, it just needs a trip to Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion. In most cases, it needs a fairly cumbersome merge process, including a trip to Wikipedia:Templates for discussion to get templates deleted and a bot to merge them.

A couple of us have been picking at the edges of this to figure out how to describe the process. At the moment, I estimate the problem to need a few thousand hours of hands-on time to resolve. This cannot be done by simple bot. For example, Wikipedia:WikiProject Chinese in New York City is defunct. It was doomed from the beginning due to choosing an overly narrow subject area, and there has never been a group behind it. But should it be merged to Wikipedia:WikiProject New York City or to Wikipedia:WikiProject China or to Wikipedia:WikiProject Immigration or to Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic groups or to Wikipedia:WikiProject Asian Americans or to something else? Or would the editor who created it just prefer to have it disappear via MFD?

Addressing these can have some benefits. For example, the WikiProject banner on an article's talk page is a false promise for former groups: "You can join the discussion" – only nobody's home, so you can't actually get your question answered. Similarly, if obvious sub-groups get merged up (e.g., Wikipedia:WikiProject New York City → Wikipedia:WikiProject New York (state) → Wikipedia:WikiProject United States – though at the moment, the NYC group may be stronger than the other two), then editors will spend less time trying to find and add all the banners. It will be easier to find a relevant subject, and when you do find a relevant subject, you'll be more likely to find an actual group of editors there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:43, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The current guidance has it right, and if anything the problem is implementing it more broadly. WikiProjects are Wikipedia-side entities; they are not the same as Categories, which are on-encyclopedia ways of divvying up content. We don't need Categories, Again. And we don't need people creating shell, phantom Wikiprojects that cover some category but don't actually have a population of editors discussing things, maintaining standards & structure suggestions for a topic, tracking recent articles in the topic, etc. Inactive Wikiprojects also have the problem that there's nobody to define their scope - which will result in well-meaning editors spamming it on loosely related articles and there not even being anyone to clarify if that was useful or not. There are lots of Wikiprojects that probably should be deleted precisely because they represent broken promises - they don't actually have a community behind them and that is unlikely to change, and were instead created because someone felt that their favorite sports team / band / etc. "deserved" one. SnowFire (talk) 18:45, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Recent deaths.
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Recent deaths often omits celebrities who have recently reported died even those who have a Wikipedia page. How recently is recent? 2A0C:4F41:1C13:6800:10A1:649C:E601:63CD (talk) 16:51, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Recent deaths are nominated at WP:ITNC where they are reviewed for quality purposes, and if they don't reach sufficient quality in 7 days, the nomination fails. Most celebrities (particularly actors and musicans) do not have quality articles due to unsourced filmography or discography tables, nor get improved, so many of these are not posted. — Masem (t) 17:12, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It also sometimes happens that people are not nominated, although this is uncommon with people likely to be described as a celebrity. Unsourced or partially sourced filmographies and discographies is by the most common reason but the whole article needs to be fully cited and free of orange maintenance tags and other significant issues. By far the best thing to do if there is someone you really think should be featured is to make sure their article is of good quality - and you don't need to wait until they die to start doing this.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Thryduulf (talk • contribs) 17:53, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Remember that this is an encyclopedia, not a news site. The idea of this section is to show what encyclopedic content we have about the person who has died, not to report that fact. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:22, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Clicking on the "Recent deaths" link leads to Deaths in 2025, which is more comprehensive.—Bagumba (talk) 06:43, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Testing the waters: Overturning USPLACE
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Yes, I know this is at perennial proposals, which is why I'm not jumping straight ahead to an RFC, but WP:USPLACE, the guideline that determines the titles of settlements in the United States, is fundamentally at loggerheads with the five criteria:

Recognizability: Large cities that are not usually associated with their state may astonish readers who see the page name connected to the state (for instance, when I hear Louisville, I don't think of it being in Kentucky). Yes, this is a double-edged sword, as people with no knowledge of the city might not know of it, but this can easily be solved with textual disambiguation. For instance, 2022 Ürümqi fire says in its lead sentence: On 24 November 2022, a fire broke out... in Ürümqi, Xinjiang, China, because the average reader will not recognize Ürümqi as being in Xinjiang or China, yet no disambiguation is present in the Ürümqi article. We could easily use this in the lead sentences of articles concerning these cities. Also, the short descriptions and previews of the articles with USPLACE disambiguation, which include the state, are redundant to the disambiguation in the title.

Naturalness: Readers are likely to search Louisville instead of Louisville, Kentucky just because of typing efficiency, and in articles, the short form is usually linked to (example: in Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport). This satisfies both subcriteria in the Naturalness section.

Precision: In cases where there is a primary redirect, such redirect is unambiguous if a hatnote is added, as is present on Boston, Cleveland, and most of the other 26 undisambiguated city articles. If the title was ambiguous in any way, there would be no primary redirect.

Concision: Raleigh, North Carolina is almost three times longer than just plain old Raleigh, which redirects there already, so moving the much longer name to the shorter name breaks nothing and makes Wikipedia more efficient.

Consistency: Another double-edged sword. The argument for consistency is clear: not a single other country uses USPLACE. Yes, consistency has been used by supporters of USPLACE to argue that it goes against consistency to have some articles using commas while others don't. However, we don't worry about that in any other country: we have Valence, Drôme but Biarritz not Biarritz, Pyrénées-Atlantiques. There's no reason we need to treat the US different from literally every other country.

The argument is that appending the state is part of American English. That is not even remotely true. No source describes American English as such (see American English, which does not mention the comma convention at all) and other articles that use American English, such as Agua Prieta, whose article uses American English and with the town just across the border, even so, the article is not titled Agua Prieta, Sonora, which would be the title if the comma convention were part of American English. Yes, the AP Stylebook recommends the comma convention. But if we followed the AP stylebook, then we'd be ending quotes with ." instead of "., our article on the Salem witch trials would have to be moved to Salem Witch Trials, and our article on Gulf of Mexico would have to be moved to Gulf of Mexico/Gulf of America. Simply put, USPLACE violates our guidelines on article titles.
Furthermore, many editors oppose USPLACE, as can be shown by the three RMs opened in the last month, all of which unfortunately failed, on removing the state name from Brownsville, Lubbock, and Redmond. Even some of the oppose !votes in those RMs and others expressed dissatisfaction with USPLACE, with one editor calling it peculiar and another saying they were personally opposed to it. Consensus can change, especially when consensus is determined to be in conflict with policy. Thank you for considering my request.
—🐔 Chicdat  ^{Bawk to me!} 19:11, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I can't see what the arguement is. We gave naming conventions for most of the world. In the case of Brownsville there us clearly two places on wikipedia with that name, so we need to distinquish them and the US has a lot of places with the same name. If we didn't have these conventions, based upon some of the arguments raised, Boston, Lincolnshire should be just plain Boston as it is the original - which is just silly. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 19:48, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but that's true of lots of topics. Having the larger area name is something we do for disambiguation, and like anything that we disambiguate, there can be a primary name. We even do that geographically; we have an article on Paris and don't feel the need to specify it's the one in France and not Paris, Texas. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 19:57, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But we should not have "Primary pages", as how can we determine what is primary? Boston, Lincolnshire or Boston, Massachusetts, or the 16 places in the US or the 34 other places around the world? Paris should be Paris, France. Even Britannica has it as Paris (national capital, France) so we are following normal conventions. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 20:17, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting viewpoint, however, it is not the consensus of Wikipedians, who believe that it is much more convenient to have a primary topic, with such a high consensus that it became one of our policies and guidelines. Feel free to open an RM at Paris asking to have it moved to Paris, France, however, in accordance with the primary topic guideline, it will likely fail. 🐔 Chicdat  ^{Bawk to me!} 20:22, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Concensus? In Bios it isn't. Take John Smith, there is no primary article. What is the primary article is conjecture, which leads to edit wars. Clearly making something clear and simple is easy, and falls in line with what Encyclopedias have done for years. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 20:28, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not everything has a primary topic. John Smith is such a vague, common name, that of course there isn't one. But Boston, Mass., not Boston, Lincolnshire, is clearly the primary topic and thus does not need a disambiguator. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:30, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So how is Boston MA the primary? The tea party may have taken place their, but that is a page on its own? Boston, Lincolnshire has a history of over 1000 years, while Boston MA is named after the UK town by settlers from their? I would say neither are primary, as they are amongst how over 40 world wide. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 02:05, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Boston: population of 675,000 in the city proper, and 4,900,000 in the Greater Boston area.

Boston, Lincolnshire: population of 45,000 in the city proper, and 67,000 in the borough.

I'd say that having 15 times as many residents in the city and 70 times as many in the surrounding area is good evidence towards being primary. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:32, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We do it all the time in bios, when there's a clear "primary" topic -- i.e., the one that most of the people entering the name are looking for. Consider, say, Robin Williams, which takes you right to the comedian, even though Robin Williams (disambiguation) shows you eleven other Robins Williams. Over 13,000 page views a day for the comedian's page, and less than a quarter of one percent of those end up on the disambiguation page looking for the other Robin Williams they were looking for. See WP:DETERMINEPRIMARY for how we judge this. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 05:58, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not going to go into why Boston is the primary topic, but you can read WP:DETERMINEPRIMARY and then do the analyses between the former and the latter. In any event, Boston isn't a great example since we have an exception for major US cities that don't require disambiguation. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:26, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think Zzyzx11 has the right idea Czarking0 (talk) 04:40, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You might want to first look at all the archived discussions and proposals listed near the top of Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names). I count almost 30 dating back to May 2004 discussion, with the last one in February 2023. Even getting the AP Stylebook exception for the 28 or so for the larger cities seemed to be a hassle. I think it had gotten to the point in that last discussion, with over 20 years and 30 discussions with this disputed issue, that the titles are "stable" now and it would be more of a disruption for a massive change rather than keep retaining this existing style. Zzyzx11 (talk) 19:52, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Admin recall was soundly rejected for two decades before passing in 2024. Consensus can change, and it does. To Davidstewartharvey, the proposal is only for articles such as Louisville, Kentucky, to which Louisville redirects. If this proposal were to pass, Louisville, Kentucky would be moved to Louisville. And once again, no evidence that this is the style in American English. 🐔 Chicdat  ^{Bawk to me!} 20:04, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well thats just plain wrong! Louisville should redirect to Louisville (disambiguation) as there is more than Louisville in the US - 8 in the US alone plus 1 in Belize! Davidstewartharvey (talk) 20:23, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oh and I forgot to say, what do American reality programs for food and property do when they go anywhere? They normally flash the name up in the convention i.e. Boston, MA, which is just an abbreviation of what USPLACE is doing so it is used in American English Davidstewartharvey (talk) 21:14, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's not plain wrong. That is not how we deal with ambiguous names. If something is the primary topic (that is, it is either the most likely reference of that topic that someone is looking for or "itt has substantially greater enduring notability and educational value than any other topic associated with that term"), then the article is placed at that page, and a hatnote to a disambiguation page is provided. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:36, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That would make the disambiguation page malplaced. If you think this primary redirect is incorrect, you can request that Louisville (disambiguation) be moved to Louisville. jlwoodwa (talk) 19:33, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If Americans want to be excpetional then let's let them do it somewhere relatively harmless, like this. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:41, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Chicdat, WP:ADMINRECALL finally passed in 2024 partly because it was initially identified as part of the larger urgent need to reform RFA. I did not see that sense of urgency in that last 2023 USPLACE discussion -- everybody basically repeats all the same arguments as in the previous discussions, and it ends with no consensus. I do not think you bring anything significantly new to the table that has not already been discussed repeatedly. Zzyzx11 (talk) 20:53, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Fully concur with User:Zzyzx11's assessment. Also keep in mind that for many American attorneys and other legal professionals, the first Louisville they think of when they hear Louisville is Louisville, Colorado, because that is where the National Institute for Trial Advocacy is currently based. Most people who have heard of Louisville, Kentucky think of it only because they are fast food fans, and of course, all true fast food fans around the world love Yum! Brands. --Coolcaesar (talk) 05:13, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Which is my point about Primary that I raised, you dont instantly think Louisville, Kentucky but one of the others! Davidstewartharvey (talk) 06:17, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I had no idea NITA was based in Louisville or Colorado. We also don't base a primary topic or decision to disambiguate on whether a small population of people associate something with a place. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:37, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would definitely be in favor of allowing more specific exceptions to USPLACE, for additional large or particularly famous cities, and for unambiguously named state capitols. BD2412 T 03:43, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reminder that someone should post an announcement at WP:USCITY too, because this topic affect far more editors than just those who watch the WP:USPLACE article. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 00:44, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Notified: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names). jlwoodwa (talk) 02:13, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your sound argumentation, Chicdat. I agree with your points, but as I am not familiar with the history of USPLACE I don't know how much of a trainwreck yet another RfC would be. Toadspike [Talk] 10:58, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that the fact that Palo Alto rediects to Palo Alto, California is strong enough evidence that the article should be at the former. And the best way to challenge the Louisville example stated by User:Coolcaesar would be to move the Kentucky city's article to that title and running a WP:Requested Moves request. Animal lover |666| 23:18, 15 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I agree that cities where the short name redirects to the long name should be at the short name. Toadspike [Talk] 17:23, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Completely disagree. That someone created an article about the city in California and gave it a non-disambiguated title is not evidence that the non-disambiguated title was correct. That said, I could see an argument for saying that the redirect should point to Palo Alto (disambiguation). Blueboar (talk) 18:38, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Blueboar: I'm not saying these articles should be automatically moved. I'm just trying to get the rule prohibiting such a thing out of the way before opening a bunch of RMs on those articles. If evidence can be provided that the city in California is not the primary topic for Palo Alto, it is likely an RM would fail. 🐔 Chicdat  ^{Bawk to me!} 18:41, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The “rule” is fine as is. Far simpler to go the other way… and file an RM arguing for an “occasional exception” when appropriate. Blueboar (talk) 19:25, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That would make the disambiguation page malplaced. If you think this primary redirect is incorrect, you can request that Palo Alto (disambiguation) be moved to Palo Alto. jlwoodwa (talk) 22:42, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My concern would be that by snipping the states we'd end up with yet another round of RMs on things like Plymouth (MA) v Plymouth (UK) or Birmingham (AL) v Birmingham (UK). Neither US city in these cases is close to being the primary use, but that hasn't stopped people wasting everyone's time over and over before. Black Kite (talk) 19:36, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Taiwan MOS
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In WP:NC-CN, We can clearly see when to use "China," "PRC," and "Mainland China." However, there are only a few sentences regarding "Taiwan" and "ROC." Due to the Political status of Taiwan is much more sensitive—for example, calling Taiwan a "country" may be controversial, while saying that "Taiwan belongs to the ROC" and that "the ROC is a country commonly known as Taiwan" is broadly acceptable—I believe it is necessary to establish a MOS for Taiwan and ROC, similar to that for China.
I think WP:NC-TW is a good solution, but it didn't work due to lack of consensus or other reasons. ?8 (talk) 16:30, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Would you mind articulating the specific points you had in mind that require additional guidance? The one example offered is not terribly helpful, given that (as you have been told repeatedly) we refer to Taiwan as a country because that is what our sources do, regardless of what one feels to be controversial about it. There's nothing based in policy (which region-specific guidelines still have to obey) that allows one to circumvent that reality. Remsense ‥ 论 16:42, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, I just think that PRC has a detailed MOS and ROC should have one too. ?8 (talk) 03:21, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We do not write guidelines simply because there are no guidelines – that's instruction creep. We write guidelines to record consensus if an issue arises and is discussed repeatedly. If you insist on pursuing this further, I would appreciate an example that does not contradict itself and illustrates an actual gap in the MOS. Toadspike [Talk] 12:52, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Use ROC in my opinion. Thehistorianisaac (talk) 16:18, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That has clearly not been an option on the table for decades. Remsense ‥ 论 23:17, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Happy 22nd birthday (roughly), notability!
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Further information: User:Uncle G/On notability § A tiny bit of history

It has been 22 years and 9 days since MartinHarper made an edit that quite a lot of people have missed since. I wrote Special:Diff/1278668922 on the 22nd anniversary, entirely coincidentally since someone was talking about the history and I thought that I should write it up. I didn't even spot the date when I was doing it.

(I'm not aware that this came up on the mailing list prior to that, although memory is hazy and I'd have to pore over the archives to refresh it. However, there is context in the form of m:What to do with entries related to September 11 casualties, which was a contemporary issue. c.f. Special:Diff/715056 on the policy talk page the day before.)
Uncle G (talk) 16:27, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for this. It is sometimes difficult to trace the history of our rule and processes, but knowing the history can help understand why things developed the way they did. I hope that you left a note at Wikipedia talk:Notability about this as well. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:36, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please see discussion of IPBE
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Please see the latest talk page entry of WP:IPBE. I added in that users from a censored country such as China could apply for it as an explicit mention on the page itself, but an editor objected. Please feel free to provide your views. Félix An (talk) 16:40, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Direct link to the relevant section: Wikipedia talk:IP block exemption#Chinese version of this page. Thryduulf (talk) 16:53, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Two ideas to improve wikipedia
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I have two ideas to improve the current situation with wikiprojects and users
Idea 1: Limiting the edit count of IP users
Limiting the amount of edits IP users can make(ideally to something between 50-250) has several benefits:

It incentivizes people to make accounts, which makes it better to incorporate people in the community. See Wikipedia:Why create an account? for more details.

It can be useful to prevent vandalism. The vast majority of vandalism in my experience in the CVU comes from IP editors(though vandalism from registered accounts still exist), and limiting the amount of edits can stop vandals using IP accounts from vandalizing too much before admins react.

This may sound counter-intuitive, however linking back to reason 1, people with accounts are more likely to edit wikipedia. If we make people have accounts, they will have better incentive to edit wikipedia(I also used to be an IP user, but now I have an account and I am more motivated.)

Idea 2: Automatic invites to Wikiproject upon making the first few edits
My Idea is that, when a registered editor makes a new account and does his or her 10th-20th edits, the Wikiprojects which his or her first edited articles fall under will send invites to join the wikiproject.(e.g. A new registered editor's 10th edit is on an article that is under the scope of WikiProject China and WikiProject Military history, so both of those wikiprojects send invites to the editor.).
This idea would work best with Idea 1, but could work on it's own.
The most obvious advantage here would be recruiting new editors to Wikiprojects, and potentially saving semi-active wikiprojects. Though I would still suggest that if you are experienced and like editing certain articles, do join a related wikiproject if you haven't already; i would rather have experienced editors than amateurs saving semi-active wikiprojects and expanding active wikiprojects. Thehistorianisaac (talk) 17:12, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Idea 1 sounds like an interesting thing to test and see what happens. However, I wonder if "people with accounts are more likely to edit wikipedia" is factually true (it might be). An IP-editor always has at least one edit (and may have more under other IP:s), but there are WP-accounts with very few or any edits at all. And this would be more like a technical limitation than a policy, perhaps. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:05, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The way I interpreted "people with accounts are more likely to edit Wikipedia" is that because the user managed to spend enough of their time crossing the 50 to 250 edit threshold, the fact they went out of their way to create their own account means they want to edit past the limit for the future, making them more likely to contribute than someone who didn't want to contribute in the first place. Tarlby ^{(t) (c)} 21:37, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think many people might create an account but then don't edit for some reason, or make one to get away from the fundraising banners. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 22:06, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When Vector 2022 was deployed, we saw a small, temporary uptick in the number of accounts created. That aligns with the idea that some fraction of people create accounts to get access to various settings.

Template:Registered editors by edit count has the data on account activity. Most accounts never make an edit; of the ones that do make an edit, most never edit on a second day. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:22, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I can't speak for anybody else, but the rollout of Vector 2022 is what caused me (not to create an account) but to log back into this one. I didn't edit, of course, because it turns out a full set of courses in topology, discrete maths, and real analysis does not free time create, but if anybody's looking for anecdotal evidence that Wikipedians are created by a desire to get rid of trivial things that annoy us... GreenLipstickLesbian (talk) 05:51, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My first edit (which was as an IP) was probably to fix a punctuation error. There is a user 06:36, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What I mean is, having an account is a huge motivation to edit wikipedia. Thehistorianisaac (talk) 00:10, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In the way I meant it? Tarlby ^{(t) (c)} 00:13, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe wanting to edit Wikipedia is a huge motivation to create an account. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:21, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like time to pull out the mantra, "correlation is not causation". Phil Bridger (talk) 13:54, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Perennial proposal. Even then, why? Not everyone will want or be able to invest time into the encyclopedia. Most IP editors correct a mistake they see or add info. Also abuse filters and Cluebot ng is a thing. DotesConks (talk) 21:23, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I like idea 2 in particular. My concern with idea 1 is that it would catch IPs for schools and other places from which multiple individuals might edit. You don't become a Wikipedian if you are first ever attempt to edit from an IP is already blocked because others have made innocuous edits from that IP. BD2412 T 21:30, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah I agree slightly with your point; However cases are pretty rare overall from my experience Thehistorianisaac (talk) 00:06, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
From informal discussions, about half of existing editors first edited as an IP. A behavior that can be seen in the logs (but not publicly connected) is an edit from an IP, followed by Special:CreateAccount from that same IP. Another behavior that can be seen is an IP opening a [View source] page, and then giving up. That isn't necessarily a lost edit (e.g., it could be an established editor who was going to fix one quick thing, but doesn't want to put their real login information into a school/work/public computer), but it sometimes is. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:27, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

i think the assumptions implied by both of those need to be examined. Why is it a good thing to have more people editing Wikipedia (I know it sounds like heresy to even ask that question)? There are good edits and bad; it is not self-evident that we would get more good edits than bad by following your first proposal. And do editors who are engaged with Wikiprojects make any better edits than those who are not? Again, this is not self-evident. I don't know the answers to these questions, but before entertaining any policy proposals I would need to. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:45, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the more people edit wikipedia, even though there would be some more problems, two heads are better than one, and it could help to solve many issues.

As for wikiprojects, Wikiprojects are a great resource to help new editors. Linking back to why 1 and 2 would be best added together, I am currently part of wikiproject law enforcement, a semi-active wikiproject, where I notice many major edits are done by IP editors/new editors. Would be very useful if there was some way to automatically invite them, as currently the wikiproject is struggling to some extent. Thehistorianisaac (talk) 00:30, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you're willing to do some manual work, then you might see User:WhatamIdoing/WPMED invitations. I use it occasionally to find promising new editors and invite them to WP:MED. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:29, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a useful proposal to me. Cheers. DN (talk) 00:03, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm OK with #1. Not so keen with #2. If done, it should not include any new IPs posting to CTOPs as we have an enormous amount of difficulty with new users in those articles nearly all pushing a POV, and many probably brought from external forums. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:12, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's why I propose the user's 10th-20th edits instead of 1st-10th.

By their 10th edit, most users will have some basic knowledge of at least part of the guidelines. Additionally people's first edits often tend to have many issues, often in good faith.(just see my first few contributions)

Additionally, certain wikiprojects may have specific guidelines, and the invite link could help lead new users to them if they are interested in that aspect. Thehistorianisaac (talk) 00:24, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thing is, many of the new folks that have been "sent" to CTOPs are here to "fix" evil Wikipedia they believe is paid by communists. Some appear knowing a long list of our polices used in Wikilawyering. I like ideas to get IPs to register. Not so much with getting them to join projects in the contentious arena, particularly before they are EC. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:36, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I also agree with this, again i would suggest the invites being sent on the 10th-20th edits, because that gives us some time to see if they are paid editors, vandals or working in bad faith. It also filters out the people only doing 1-2 edits. Thehistorianisaac (talk) 00:39, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You could just skip the invitations to people editing any sort of CTOP article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:40, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I know, but some wikiprojects lack invite templates, and most of the time, it takes quite some time Thehistorianisaac (talk) 01:42, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

2, on any sort of an automated basis, sounds like a way to let people know were tracking them, like when Amazon tells you that you've been buying lots of tissues and lotion, maybe you'd like the ebook Naughty Busty Cowgirls (oh, okay, some less spicy equivalent of that.) I'm not sure it will generate any reasonable embracing of the goal. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 01:07, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I mean at some point you have to realize you are getting tracked

I'm part of the CVU and I have monitored potential bad-faith editors before(and I am sure I also get monitored at times)

Additionally the contributions page is public, I'm sure everyone will eventually find out. Thehistorianisaac (talk) 01:38, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but there's a difference between "there's a record of what I did" and "automated systems are using that to make assumptions about me". There's a creepiness factor that occurs. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 01:46, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sort of agree yeah

Maybe we could add an opt out option for people when they make accounts Thehistorianisaac (talk) 02:02, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There are probably more important things to do with people's attention when they create their accounts. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:39, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps a compromise... after someone has been editing a while, an automated message that promotes project management and has a link that will, at their request, generate some project suggestions for them. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 04:51, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Further compromise idea(which also basically destroys the idea as a whole):

Maybe allow wikiproject pages be more accessable? Maybe when someone creates and account, there is a banner showing the list of wikiprojects to possibly join, OR, maybe on the welcome message, add links to wikiprojects Thehistorianisaac (talk) 05:02, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That assumes active WikiProjects, which is not at all a given. Directing new users to the WP:TEAHOUSE, which I believe our welcome messages generally do, is the right way to get them advice. CMD (talk) 05:37, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You could limit the invitations to known-active groups, or even to known-newbie-friendly groups. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:41, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That sort of consideration is going to be fluid, so even if was automated it would need manual maintenance. At that point, manual responses on TEAHOUSE serve the same function. CMD (talk) 05:45, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

When someone is new, our main communication goal is:
Please add a source.

After that, we have a large number of things we want them to learn, like:
Next time, try adding a source that's actually reliable.

Unfortunately, a source published by this person/business/event does not prove that this person/business/event is notable.

No copyvios.

Please do not use promotional language. Every single word you have written, except "is an author" and "published a book in 2013", is an example of promotional language.

If you need help, please try the Wikipedia:Teahouse, where more than half of the editors make an attempt to be nice to newbies.

That's not a reliable source for "everybody thinks A" because that source actually says "everybody thinks either A or B".

Welcome to Wikipedia. No, you're not actually welcome at articles about Wikipedia:Contentious topics. See you in six months at minimum.

If you keep trying, you'll eventually qualify for access to Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library, which will help you find reliable sources.

Points like:
There are various ways to hang out with other Wikipedia editors.

If you know something about website coding, you can do some fun stuff here.

There are occasional contests.

are really far down the priority list. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:40, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I was about to argue against 1, but it's a moot point – enwiki will get 10:26, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Temporary accounts will function like IP accounts in terms of not being able to access account-specific tools like newcomer features. Those using cookie-based temporary accounts will still have to be encouraged to create an account, the same as those who currently use IP-based accounts. CMD (talk) 13:20, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oh ok thanks Thehistorianisaac (talk) 13:20, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion around suggestion 2 should really take account of the 11:27, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:User pages § RfC: allowing editors to opt-out of seeing floating decorative elements
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23:03, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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