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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (miscellaneous). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

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Is football player contract expires means still registered in a football club?

Most of the UK football contract ends in 30 June. I am trying to remove any club information of the player who is out of contract. But I was informed that out-of-contract player doesn't mean he leaves the club (similar to a man is alive if there is no proof that he is dead), and he is still within the club. I would like to know if it is true? Are there any example? Thanks a lot. Winston (talk) 19:27, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

I know nothing about that topic but superficially it would seem that mass removal of players from clubs at 30 June each year would be disruptive. Articles should not need that kind of accuracy. If necessary, add a sentence to the effect that contracts expire at a certain time and there is a period of uncertainty. Johnuniq (talk) 02:20, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

But do I need to provide a reliable source to update the free agent status (removing the club) (e.g. Cody Drameh)? But my edit got reverted because the admin think my edit is unsourced. I personally think that free agent after contract expiration is automatic (just like age, it could automatically count). And reverting my edit (i.e. saying the player is still in the club) need a source to say that there is a new contract between two parties. Winston (talk) 02:40, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

That sounds like original research to me. Do not describe any player as a free agent without a reliable source saying they are. I guess you can say that a player's contract expired on such-and-such a date, if you cite a reliable source for that. Whether or not a player's contract is renewed is also subject to being supported by a reliable source. Slow down, this is an encyclopedia, and we do not get ahead of the published news. Donald Albury 13:47, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

@Donald Albury I think I understand your point of view. May I explain why I couldn't agree with you

According to free agent in wiki: In professional association football, a free agent is either a player that has been released by a professional association football club and now is no longer affiliated with any league, or a player whose contract with their current club has expired and is thus free to join any other club under the terms of the Bosman ruling. As two sentences is linked with or, so the player is a free agent if any one of the two condition is met. And thus the player is a free agent when there is no evidence of a contract.

Therefore

1. The player is automatically a free agent when the current contract expire

2. The player with the club doesn't infer that the player is associated with the club in any employer-employee means. The player can sign with other clubs even he is with one club. To me the player is a free agent rather than belong to a club.

3. To keep the player in the club officially (not just training in the training ground), a contract is needed. And thus I think without a reliable source (evidence of the a new contract), it would sounds like original research to me that the player is associate with a football club professionally. Winston (talk) 01:16, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

@GiantSnowman Please feel free to add your comment here Winston (talk) 08:20, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Firstly, given your dispute was with me, I am appalled that it has taken you 3 days to notify me about this discussion.

Secondly, in the absence of a reliable source, we do not edit, especially about living people. In the Cody Drameh example, he was not on the club's official list of released players. There was no source presented by you saying he left the club (until I found one). GiantSnowman 17:18, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

@GiantSnowman First of all I don't think this is a dispute with you. I think this is more than how player under a club is defined. Because if the definition is not clarified there will be more edit fight and I think it would be beneficial for more wikipedian to discussed together:

1. Is player out of contract equals to free agent? I found the part that is related to free agent in wiki states that a player whose contract with their current club has expired and is thus free to join any other club under the terms of the Bosman ruling is defined as free agent. So latter statement states a player, even there is evidence of training with the club, without the evidence of contract with the club is considered free agent.

2. What is the Current team under Infobox football biography template means? The document said The club for which the player currently plays, or is employed by. If the player now works in a non-playing role at the club, add this after the club in brackets. For retired players and free agents not currently employed by any club or federation, leave blank. So if a player is a free agent, the Current team section should be blank. And it seems to me that player without evidence of employment should leave black. In my own personal view, it should leave blank until there are evidence that the player is not a free agent.

3. When you say in the absence of a reliable source, we do not edit. I would say we should edit based on the known reliable source. What is the known reliable source is the expired contract. Based on (1) the player is a free agent and (2) leave the Current team blank.

4. When you say no source presented by you saying he left the club. By referring (2) if current team means the club for which the player currently plays, or is employed by, then I think no evidence of left the club could not satisfy the definition of current club because no evidence of leaving the club would not imply the player currently play (or eligible to play) or employed.

Please feel free to comment Winston (talk) 01:58, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Again, all content in Wikipedia must be verifiable from reliable sources. Wikipedia itself is not a reliable source, so nothing that is stated in Free agent is sufficient by itself to support a claim elsewhere in Wikipedia. Anything that is entered in a infobox must also be verifiable from reliable sources. Any attempt to say that a player is a free agent without a reliable source saying so is original research. A consequence of the verifiability policy is that we sometimes have to leave things unsaid because we have not yet found a reliable source that supports it. Donald Albury 12:34, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

But I don't understand keeping the player within the club without a reliable source is not considered as original research? Is the player retaining in the club can be testified under verifiability policy?

I understand your view on the policy but I am not sure if I understand that how keeping the player within a club without a reliable source can take precedence? Could you elaborate more on that? Also could you add more comment on the free agent definition?

Also when we say a player is under a club, normally we would refer to the player signing a contract with the club. But it seems to me that the contract end date within the reliable source is being ignored. Winston (talk) 02:41, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

When you talk about the reliable source, Michael Cooper never say that he is 24 years old, also offical page his age is never mentioned. Thus there is no reliable source of the player is 24 year old. Assuming the age of 24 based on his date of birth is not reliable, is unsourced (the club info never mention Michael Cooper is 24 year old).

I think it is worth discussing why there is no source needed while inferring age but not player is officially unattached after contract expiry? Winston (talk) 10:16, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

@Winstonhyypia Michael Cooper's date of birth is reliably sourced (see the ref linked in the infobox). An algorithm calculates his current age (as anyone numerate could do, each day). That is reliable. PamD 15:03, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

@PamD Only the date of birth is reliably source but not the age (he never mention his age, the club info also didn't show his age). I would like to understand why calculating age based on DOB is allowed while a free agent after contract expiry require source. To me both are inferred from reliable source (age is from date of birth and free agent status is from the last known contract expiry). Winston (talk) 22:52, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Anyone knowing the date of a person's birth (which in this case we know from a reliable source), can calculate that person's age on the current date. Such calculations do not need a source, per Wikipedia:No original research#Routine calculations. Please stop this. What you are doing appears to be wikilawyering. Donald Albury 00:30, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

@Donald Albury Then I don't understand why the player is considered out of contract when there is no reliable source of having a new contract is considered as original research? I really believe it is a consensus player is out of contract is a free agent also defined in free agent). Winston (talk) 03:46, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

@Donald Albury Could you elaborate more on how my analogy appears to be wikilawyering? When I edit based on evidence (expired contract) and then people ask for evidence (which the expired contract is the evidence of the end of the employer-employee relationship). The expired contract is already an evidence of the player had a employer-employee relationship. Could you help me understand how employer-employee relationship ended at contract expire is considered original research? How would that considered as assumption? How would keeping the player in the club is correct? Winston (talk) 04:02, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

@Donald Albury Also there is Fixed-Term Contract saying a fixed-term contract can also be used for the completion of a specific task and the contract will be terminated automatically upon completion of the task. And I think it is the player contract works in this way.

I stated everything based on the free agent, fixed-term contract. I think the argument would be more constructive it is based on wiki policy. When you asked for evidence of player not including in the squad, I already mentioned that the nature of the fixed term contract and definition of free agent would be suffice to say that the player need a contract to keep the employer-employee relationship. This is not assumption this is automatic (unless there is a reliable source saying the player sign a new contract). Winston (talk) 04:19, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

@Donald Albury I think the analogy of asking evidence of age based on reliable source of DOB is very similar to the asking evidence of player is free agent based on reliable source of last known contract. In my view both are automatic. Winston (talk) 04:36, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I am not a sports lawyer, but I know that having a contract and registration are different, although thay may overlap enormously in the case of professional players, especially since Bosman. I don't know what effects Brexit has had on British clubs. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:40, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

@Phil Bridger In the english FA website there is FA NFAR Standard Tripartite Representation Agreement under representation agreements. Please feel free to check the SERVICES section. Winston (talk) 02:43, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

@Phil Bridger I checked the FA website and there is FA Handbook, under Rules of The Association that provide more information. Winston (talk) 04:44, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

I would strongly advise against any mass removal based on an assumption. I think in a high proportion of cases contracts are renewed, usually without much publicity, except for a few "stars". There is a tremendous amount of work involved in changing and then changing back - are you sure you are up to it? Johnbod (talk) 17:56, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

And does it matter? The English professional leagues finish in May and start again in August, at which time there are usually plenty of sources saying who plays where. This is an encyclopedia, not a breaking news site, so includes some content that may be outdated for a couple of months. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:17, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree this is not a breaking news site but should the article reflect the condition based on the reliable source (which in my own perspective the most reliable source is the previous contract)? Winston (talk) 03:52, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

It matter because I was warned by the admin saying that there is lack of evidence of player leaving the club. He would block me from editing. But I think the edit I made is based on the evidence of a contract (I quoted the free agent which said the player is automatically a free agent while contract expire. I also quoted fixed time contract which said the employer-employee relationship terminate automatically after contract expire). In my point of view evidence is needed to conclude that the player is having an employer-employee relationship instead. Winston (talk) 04:47, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I've notified Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football in the hope that this discussion may benefit from the participation of informed editors and because it has the potential to affect many articles of interest to that project. I'm a little surprised this discussion was opened here and not there. NebY (talk) 16:26, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

This is a prime example of Wikipedia not needing to be updated quite so quickly. It should be expected that team rosters will be in flux between seasons, and that our articles can not be updated until new contracts/rosters are announced. Blueboar (talk) 17:26, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

It really depends on the nature of Wikipedia. Should the article keep updated to represent the moving status? Is other editor allowed to update the wiki article based on the updated information based on reliable source? Winston (talk) 18:08, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

As far as I can tell from reading the above you do not have "updated information". You have old information concerning the end date in an old contract, not updated information about whether anything has replaced it or any termination clause has been acted upon, plus your deductions. You've focused on contracts rather than registration, but employment law regarding contracts is not simple - for example, a contract can exist even without a written statement of terms. Football's registration systems include professional and amateur players, so they won't depend on employment contracts or persistence of paid work between seasons. More generally, absence of information is not evidence of absence; much happens without being reported in the press. Happily, Wikipedia policy protects us from presenting as fact deductions based on diverse scraps of information such as those you mention above. If you have a reliable source saying that a footballer's affiliation has changed, you can change the article, but if all you have is information that their contract was due to end by now, it's a breach of WP:No original research to remove their sourced affiliation or insert a claim that they're now a free agent. NebY (talk) 20:05, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

@NebY I think this is the result of lack of information in either side of the argument that both side agrees.

1. When you say I don't have the "updated information". I want to state the fact that everyone agree here that there is no reliable source of player signing a new contract with the club. So in both ways (free agent vs still in the club) is not known. That's why I bring up this discussion. By the definition of free agent the player out of contract is a free agent.

2. I couldn't agree that the term old contract because it is the last known reliable source. I would rather name it as the latest contract with reliable source (there is no newer reliable source saying there is a new contract with the player).

3. I didn't say I agree contract could be more complicated than that. But if you say "the player could sign a contract with the club" without evidence that wouldn't be convincing.

4. May I use England Football as an example, based on REGISTRATION OF PLAYERS section of Standardized Rules of FA Handbook 2023-24, there is section 6.1.2 states that a Player’s registration with a Club as a Contract Player shall continue until the earlier of the date upon which: (a) the contract between the Contract Player and the Club expires. This should be the linkage between registration and contract. Once the the registration end with the contract. This is written in the rulebook and it is not deduction.

5. I think it would be hard to prove that there is termination clause in the contract. I think if when you say the player could still in the club because there could be a termination clause without any reliable source. Would that be fact based? Winston (talk) 01:30, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't know there are talk page for football. Winston (talk) 18:03, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I think part of the problem in this discussion is that to my understanding Winstonhyypia is assuming that all the info they have is correct and not changing, and that any change is properly communicated. The issue is that a fair amount of players extend quietly or automatically via different triggers and clubs/media update about it late if at all (for e.g. David Williams played all of last season with Perth Glory but there was never an announcement of a contract extension, and there was something similar with Jake Brimmer a couple of seasons ago). It's usually dependent on the "star power" of the player as well as the club's level (in women's football it's really hard to track). --SuperJew (talk) 20:42, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

@SuperJew It would depends if we should update based on the last known reliable source (I would say contract). My approach is didn't assume any contract extension without reliable source, the admins are saying the the player is still in the club without any reliable source saying the player left the club. I think in both ways you can bring counter example to say it is wrong. Both way would be affected by lack of information. Sometime the club didn't announce the contract extension of the player. Sometime the club didn't announce the leave of the player.

But without any known reliable source, I think the best option is to say that the player is a free agent (based on the definition of free agent and also the definition of fixed term contract) and rather not saying the player is still attached to the club. Winston (talk) 01:06, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

@Winstonhyypia, do you actually have a source that says "His contract definitely expired yesterday, and we confirm that it was not extended or renewed"?

Or do you just have a source that says "It will expire on this date in the future (unless it is extended or amended, of course)", and now that 'this date' has arrived, you're guessing that the original terms of the contract were still in force?

Are you even looking at a source with a specific date (e.g., 30 June 2024), or are you just looking at one that says "the 2023–2024 season" and guessing that the contract will expire at exactly 23:59 on 30 June?

A mere assumption is not sufficient for any of this. What if you're wrong? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:48, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

On the Cody Drameh example which kickstarted all this, there was a source saying 'we have offered the player a new contact', and then nothing further. Winston then assumed that, as the contract offer had not been accepted, the player had automatically left the club. I found a source confirming leaving the club a few days later. GiantSnowman 07:43, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

@GiantSnowman I think the key argument is "What is the status of the player if the latest contract is expired and there is no reliable source regarding of signing a new contract? Should the player automatically be a free agent?"

I already quoted Standardized Rules of FA Handbook (please check the link in the conversation above) that a player will no longer be registered to the club when there is no contract. In the same handbook it also mentioned that non-contract player applies to National League or below. Also inside the article free agent, a player is a defined as a free agent when the current contract expire.

I am writing here because the player would be automatically de-registered from the club when contract expire. Thus if the last expired contract is the latest reliable source then based on the definition of free agent, fixed-term contract and the FA rule, the player is a free agent. And it requires the evidence of a non-expiring contract to say that the player is registered under a club. I think it would be a good discussion to explain under the definitions above, saying a out-of-contract player a free agent is considered as original research. Winston (talk) 10:34, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing Most of the free agent could be found in transfermarkt. I would double check with the information online and make my edit.

I would like to clarify that my discussion is based on the fact that there is no reliable source about player signing new contract. Most all of the free agents listed in transfermarkt have no source say "His contract definitely expired yesterday, and we confirm that it was not extended or renewed" or "His contract definitely expired yesterday, and we confirm that it was extended or renewed". In both ways there is no reliable source. So things could go wrong in both ways. Also making an edit or not is making an assumption. The same question could be asked "do you actually have a source that says "His contract definitely expired yesterday, and we confirm that it was extended or renewed? What if you're wrong?". With the lack of information saying the player is staying and the player is leaving is a guess. But if we based on reliable source, the latest reliable source would be the expired contract. So what I am asking is, given the latest reliable source is the expired contract , should we say the player is a free agent when the contract is over? Winston (talk) 10:18, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Short answer: no, too soon to say anything. Blueboar (talk) 10:44, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Would you mind elaborate more on your reasoning? I think other people would like to understand why it is too soon to say he leave the club but it is not too soon to say that he is a free agent, by definition? Winston (talk) 11:07, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Have you considered the possibility that he has signed a contract, but no sources have reported it yet? IF that is the case, then he isn’t a free agent.

The fact is we don’t actually know his current status with the team. What we DO know is he was with the team last season. That is good enough for now… it is OK to leave the article as being “out of date” for a few months… until we DO actually know the player’s status for the next season.

Then there is the issue of simple practicality. The uncertainty of contract renewal likely affects dozens (if not hundreds) of players every year. It makes no sense to “update” all these articles to “Free Agent”… only to have to re-update them yet again a few weeks/months later when all these players either re-sign with their old team, sign with a new team, or are not picked up by any team. Allowing the article to remain “outdated” until we have more information is simply more practical. Blueboar (talk) 12:23, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

I think there are possibility that he signed a contract or not. In both ways people can ask the same question. People can be asked to consider the possibility that he didn't sign a contract and is a free agent. Since both ways is possible I think the conclusion can't be made based on this approach. Also if Wikipedia article should base on reliable source then I think people would also ask your approach as no reliable source of a new contract is available. Thus I think it would be best to say the player is a free agent if there is no reliable source of a new contract (also satisfy the definition of free agent). I think it make more sense as this is the definition of free agent and fixed term contract. And I don't see what's wrong if the player is updated as a free agent, and then updated with the existing club a few days later (based on the reliable source of a new contract). If Wikipedia based on reliable source then I don't see why this approach doesn't align with Wikipedia rule. Winston (talk) 15:19, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

If it were just one player, fine… but I strongly suspect it is far more than just one. Having to update, and then immediately re-update, on potentially hundreds of articles… and do so every year… is just disruptive. ‘Nuff said. Blueboar (talk) 15:40, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

@Blueboar If the wikipedia policy (reliable source) didn't apply to the article (also if the policy is not the discussion and the article should be based on reliable source.

1. When there are some editor comes in to make an edit, saying a player with expired contract as a free agent and remove his latest club info. By my understand on contract law, FA rule this edit should be allowed. Any revert of the club info (saying the player is still register under the club) requires evidence of contract extension because player registration above League 2 requires contract.

2. I started this discussion is because I am going to write down the points to discuss that the player is a free agent after contract expiry by definition not by original research. Winston (talk) 19:19, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

I think you are missing my point. It may arguably be verifiable that players are free agents the second their contracts expire. But “Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion”. Sometimes it is better to wait for evolving situations to play out before we include it in our article. I think this is one of those situations. Be patient. Blueboar (talk) 19:33, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Until you have a specific, clearly reliable source in hand that WP:Directly supports the claim that the individual athlete has not signed a contract, then you cannot do this. Your understanding of contract law is not a reliable source. WP:You are not a reliable source.

Perhaps it will make more sense as a story:

• The previously announced contract expired on Monday.
• Unknown to you, also on Monday, the player signed a new contract.
• On Tuesday, you change the article to say the player is a free agent and not part of the team because the old contract expired on Monday (and you still don't know about the new contract).
• On Wednesday, the team announces that the player signed a contract and is still with the team.

Do you know what that means? It means that on Tuesday you were putting lies about a living person into the Wikipedia article.

Don't do that. Wait until we have real information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:33, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing I didn't say the expiry is based on my understanding. I already wrote in the above that

1. Based on definition of free agent, a player without a contract is a free agent by definition.

2. Based on the definition of fixed-term contract. The employer-employee relationship is will be terminated upon completion.

3. Based on FA Handbook (please check the link above), a player would no longer be registered from the club when contract expire.

In your example there are 2 things I would argue

1. "Unknown to you" - I think it should be unknown to public. Based on the reliable source definition then it is best to say the player is a free agent on Tuesday. Everyone should making wiki edit based on reliable source, right?

2. I couldn't agree that the editor is making a lie too if there is no public information regarding to the new contract. This is the conclusion based on reliable source. Winston (talk) 19:56, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

"Based on these definitions" is not the same as "based on a reliable source that WP:Directly supports the claim".

"Based on these definitions" is indirect support. If you want to make a positive statement ("As of Monday, he is a free agent"), then you must have a source that actually says this. You cannot have only a source that says "If nothing else changes, he will become a free agent on Monday two years in the future". That source does not directly support a claim that he really is a free agent. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:04, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

In your example this is my understanding:

1. The player established employer-employee relationship for two years (it didn't have a support of player status after Monday). So the player is under the club until Monday (in normal terms). The source only Directly Support until Monday.

2. After Monday if there is no evidence of a new contract then by definition the player is a free agent. The source didn't have a Direct Support after Monday. Winston (talk) 20:38, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

No, you're wrong. After Monday, if there is no evidence of a new contract, then the player might be a free agent. However, the player could be already employed by a team. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:00, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

May I rewrite point number 2:

In order to use WP:Directly support to say that the player is still associated with the club, you need to provide a reliable source that a player sign a new contract with any club. Otherwise the player's status should be concluded as out of contract. Thus the player is a free agent (based on free agent definition).

If the problem is approaching using Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence then no conclusion could be made. And it could create an edit war (because other editor can say "the player could be a free agent" and make the edit). I think Wikipedia article should rely on the reliable source, and in this case when we make our discussion should we not guess (e.g. could/might) the status but instead conclude the player status following the rules provided by football association. Winston (talk) 13:50, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

On the contrary, the policy at Wikipedia:Verifiability#Burden states: The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution. The burden to provide reliable sourcing is on you if you want to change what the article says. Donald Albury 14:54, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

But I think I view this in a different perspective. At the very beginning a player is a free agent, then one editor comes in and wrote that player belongs to a club based on contract. Then another editor comes in reverting the previous editors edit based on the expiry of contract (the content in the reliable source no longer valid).

I would see the source (contract) of the first editor expires. And due to this reason the second editor comes in and revert the edit of the first editor because the edit couldn't pass Verifiability because the evidence expire. And it requires new contract to keep the player in the club. Winston (talk) 23:27, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I have read what you have said umpteen times and understand it. I'm sure the same goes for others. It's just that nobody agrees with you. Stop bludgeoning. Now. Phil Bridger (talk) 06:31, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

(Outdent) Something that hasn’t been established: WHY does our article need to note that a player is (technically and probably temporarily) a free agent? Why NOT just wait until the situation stabilizes and we know whether he has a new contract (and with which team)? Blueboar (talk) 20:12, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

I start this discussion based on the principle of wiki. For example if an edit war is established, then how should the conflict be resolved. And my claim is if there is no evidence of a new contract the player is a free agent. So if some editor change the status to free agent (removing the player from the team) then it should take evidence for other editor to revert the edit by showing that a new contract is signed. I think that would be the best if an edit war is established.

Lastly I didn't mean to agree or disagree your approach but I am viewing this from conflict resolution perspective. Winston (talk) 20:20, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Rather than try to disentangle the errors in reasoning from the grammatical errors and factual errors in your response to me, far above, there's something more fundamentally worrying about it and all your responses here. It seems that you haven't actually read through Wikipedia:No original research, grasped the principles and how they apply to all of us including yourself, or seen the blunt statement in it,

Do not combine material from multiple sources to state or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources.

Your desire to say things about football players that are not explicitly stated by sources is fundamentally contrary to Wikipedia policy.

Does this mean Wikipedia may be out of date? Yes, but that's fine. It's the most up-to-date encyclopedia ever, but not everything in it is up-to-the-minute and that is not our purpose. Our absolute reliance on reliable sources means that we're not at the cutting edge of scientific research or reporting the current status of every company either. We don't promise that, we don't assume our readers expect or demand that, and we don't compromise our fundamental principles to attempt or pretend that.

Lastly, an extraordinary number of editors have explained to you in many different ways that you should not, must not, edit our articles in the way you propose. It's time for you to listen, heed that and accept it. NebY (talk) 20:55, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

First of all multiple sources I use (in point form) point to the same conclusion, based on their definition. Also the source of FA I use is to say that player is deregistered from the club when the contract expire (the process saying that the player would no longer be registered). I am not combining the sources to state or imply a conclusion. Maybe my english is bad but multiple sources is not going to be used to make a conclusion. They are multiple references to say that the employer-employee relationship is broken when the contract expire.

There are lots of editor making Wiki edits every day. If there are people making the edit and if I need to revert his edit based on your suggestion, what is the grounds/where is the supporting policy that wikipedia empower me to revert the edit? Could you make an explanation more clearly so that I could follow? Throughout the discussion I am seeing concerns but I couldn't find there are policy that can strongly support the reverting the edit. Winston (talk) 22:11, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Is there an actual conflict needing resolution, or are you just curious about how we might handle a hypothetical conflict? Blueboar (talk) 20:57, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

For example my edit on Cody Drameh. I would like to understand why saying the player is a free agent violate wiki rule of no reliable source when the last known reliable source expire? And why saying the player is still with the club better follows wikipedia's reliable source policy? The mass edit (not by me) could be a result but this is already beyond the question itself. Winston (talk) 21:26, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, editing without a reliable source violates Wikipedia policies, as you have been repeatedly told. The fact you cannot understand that is growing increasingly concerning, as is your conduct here as highlighted by Phil Bridger. GiantSnowman 15:13, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

(After edit conflicts) Winston, rather than continually repeating the same point, it would be helpful if you stopped writing and tried to understand why people are disagreeing with you. See WP:Bludgeon. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:00, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Phil, I saw reply mostly on the concern (what if there are newer information in the future, then the edit you made would be wrong). I am explaining why the edit is showing the beauty of reliable source. I agree that some edit (e.g. removing the player from the club and then revert the edit later on) seems like a meaningless job but this is the best representation of the player at the moment people making edit (without any new reliable source of contract).

I didn't mean to make a mass edit but a reliable source of player is not attached to the club is needed when a player's contract expire doesn't seems right to me. Winston (talk) 21:42, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

About And my claim is if there is no evidence of a new contract the player is a free agent:

No. No evidence does not mean "the player is a free agent". No evidence means no evidence. Do not change an article until you have evidence.

Changing the article based on your own ideas about what has probably happened is a policy violation.

@Winstonhyypia, I want to be clear about this: The answer is no. The answer is always going to be no. If you think it would actually help you understand the rule better, then we can keep talking about it, but talking about the rule will not change the answer. The answer is no today, and the answer will be no tomorrow, and the answer will be no next year, and there is nothing you can say, no argument you can advance, no recommendation that you can make, that will actually change that answer. The answer is no.

Given that changing the rule is absolutely and totally hopeless, and understanding that you will never be able to convince us to change the rule, do you still need anything explained to you about the rule? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:57, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I didn't ask for rules changing but I rather think there is a difference in the conclusion made based on the reliable source. I think I might mislead you but my question on the title already said Is football player contract expires means still registered in a football club. After further checking multiple wiki article and english FA website it seems that football player is deregistered with the club when contract expire.

I would like to understand the rational on the player is still associate with the club after contract expiry because it seems to me that the decision couldn't stand the WP:Reliable Source and WP:Verifiability principle. Winston (talk) 14:11, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

@Winstonhyypia: you have returned to editing navigation boxes about football club squads, including removing players from them, and articles about players, including removing squad navigation boxes, without accompanying edit summaries explaining your actions. Please can you (a) state clearly now on what basis you made those changes, and (b) assure us that your future editing about football (including articles and templates) will be in accordance with the consensus of editors expressed above and not according to the rationale you have expressed above or your determination of a player's contract status? It is now in question whether the community can trust you to edit about football appropriately. NebY (talk) 11:40, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

The navigation boxes are updated are based on the first team page and it has nothing to do with the contract itself. May I use my edit on Villarreal CF as an example. You can check it easily as Official First Team page shows all the first team player they have. The source is already placed on the navigation box itself. And it has nothing to do with the rational that I expressed. I think this is the result you saw me edit without understanding how those football navigation box is referenced. That's why you didn't know how to verify my edit and ask this question.

Of those that is removed, some of them are due to contract expiry (e.g. Pepe Reina, Étienne Capoue, José Luis Morales, Alberto Moreno), I checked the article edit those people didn't have reliable source. I remove them from the navigation box because it is not listed as their first team player. Of coz you can argue that not listing those player as first team player doesn't mean the player is left. Please go and revert their edit one by one, go to their page and said they don't have a reliable source, and tell them how the community can trust you to edit about football appropriately. Please! Winston (talk) 15:40, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

The onus is on you to explain your edits in the edit summary at the time you make them; I've left a formal message on your talk page.

Once again, can you assure us that your future editing about football will be in accordance with the consensus of editors expressed above and not according to the rationale you have expressed? NebY (talk) 17:05, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

I didn't ask this question because I have trouble making edits (and I personally seldom make article edit). I asked this question because the understanding because reliable source is not being applied the way I think it should be when it comes to something that could lead of the end of the term (contract expiry in this case). Til now I didn't get a convincing answer (by stating wikipedia policy) on treating reliable source has an end date and the day is over, why the reliable source is still "reliable" after the contract term is over?

Thanks for the reminder. I would add the edit notes in the future. As the update link is already provided in the football navigation boxes I think I would write "update" as the note, if other editor would find this meaningful.

Also, I didn't see any reverting edits on player that didn't provide reliable source of player leaving the club after contract expired (e.g. Pepe Reina, Étienne Capoue, José Luis Morales, Alberto Moreno), after you were informed. Although based on my understand the edit should not be reverted but I think it already violated your definition of editor consensus. Would those edit be reverted and editor be questioned soon? Winston (talk) 02:41, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Actually I am saying not because I would edit the article. It is because other wiki editor would do the edit. I think it would be more beneficial for you to comment the edit if you understand how the the football navigation box is sourced? What Reliable Source mean? How should we treat the source that has an expiry date? Winston (talk) 15:49, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Actually this also applies to @GiantSnowman too because my edit on removing the first team template on Cody Drameh is also based on the First Team page. I remove him because he is not longer listed as first team player. His is with the club or not is not related at all. Thus asking for evidence of player leaving the team mean you need to understand how that football navigation box works, where is the source and why the edit make sense. Winston (talk) 16:07, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Winston, I suggest you stop editing so recklessly, lest you end up being blocked for editing disruptively and against consensus. GiantSnowman 17:54, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

I give up. I have twice referred Winston to WP:bludgeon above but see that he is carrying on. If he does not stop my next edit to this discussion will be to call for some sort of ban or block. I am not calling for it now only because I don't have time to decide whether it should apply to this discussion, English football, football in general or to everything. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:02, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Do merger recommendations get monitored somehow?

I have just recommended that our article on the human epigenome be merged into the one on epigenomes in general. Does my having used {{merge to}} and {{merge from}} put that recommendation onto some list of outstanding merger proposals or otherwise alert anybody to its existence? Or does the recommendation’s fate depend on people’s watching those pages, or (worse) on their simply happening to notice the recommendation upon visiting either of the pages? PaulTanenbaum (talk) 14:08, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

If the articles have a WikiProject banner, and that WikiProject is subscribed to Wikipedia:Article alerts, it will show up in the article alert report for the project that is updated once a day. Wikipedia:WikiProject Molecular Biology/Article alerts should include the epigenome merge proposal in about 12 hours.

And there is also Category:All articles to be merged, which is used to generate Wikipedia:WikiProject_Merge/Article_alerts. Plantdrew (talk) 19:14, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Cool. Thanks. PaulTanenbaum (talk) 19:23, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Have a technical problem or improvement in mind? Community Wishlist is now open!

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If you have some feedback or questions, please leave them on the project talk page. ––STei (WMF) (talk) 17:49, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Advice on a merger misstep

Re the merger I asked about here yesterday, when I created the {{merge to}} and {{merge from}}, I had not seen Wikipedia:Merging. Because of that and a lack of forethought on my part, I created the discussion in the talk page of the source article rather than that of the destination.

I now see that the destination article is a more sensible location, if only because, should the merger take place, then the now-stump (okay, redirect) source article would be a too-out-of-the-way (if not impossible) place for the historical record of the merger discussion. Darn!

A complicating factor is that the discussion has since been joined by another editor.

How—if at all—should I proceed to remedy my misstep? PaulTanenbaum (talk) 15:47, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

@PaulTanenbaum, the first thing to do is not worry, because Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a game of Mother, May I? If you make a misstep, it's okay.

The two usual things to do (yes, this happens often enough that there are usual things to do!) are:

1. Put a note on the 'other' talk page that links to the existing discussion, and proceed as if everything is 100% normal, or
2. Cut/paste the entire existing discussion to the 'correct' talk page, and set things up as if you had done everything perfectly from the first moment.

If you choose the first approach, please make sure that the "(discuss)" links in the mergeto/from templates are working (on both 'to' and 'from' pages).

If you choose the second approach, I suggest that you tell the first commenter (e.g., on their User_talk: page) why you moved the discussion and give them a link to its new location. Also leave a note on the 'incorrect' talk page that points to the discussion's new location.

Finally, if you'd like to avoid this problem in the future, go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets-gadget-section-browsing and enable Twinkle. Then, in the future, you can use the TW menu > Tag > merge dialog box to make sure that everything automatically goes in the ordinary place. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:46, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Yizhi Jane Tao

• Yizhi Jane Tao (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

There's someone who have been vandalising this entry for more than a year, ranging from unjustifiably deleting important information to sharing irrelevant rumours about the biographee. Rewed (talk) 21:55, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

@Rewed, please see Wikipedia:Requests for page protection.

The easiest way to submit a report is to go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets-gadget-section-browsing and enable Twinkle. Then, go back to the page and find the new 'TW' menu (near the watchlist ☆ button). Choose "RPP" from the Twinkle menu. Fill the in the form with a brief explanation of the problem and your request (e.g., for WP:SEMI to stop editing by the unregistered editor) . WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:49, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

I have protected the page. Please keep an eye on the talk page, to see if someone requests changes. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:52, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

About article Harbin

@Discospinster: Hi! If you translate this website this website with Google Translation, You will find a sentence that says: "Harbin" comes from the Jurchen language "Harwen", which means "swan". Because that website is the city government website, it should be a reliable source. This is different from the "Place of Drying Fishing Nets" statement introduced by English Wikipedia. I wonder if I can add it to the article? Suspected source, but not sure if it counts as original research. See also: Google Books (in Chinese). In addition, [1] [2] I found that some websites said that the literal meaning of "Harbin" comes from "Alejin", which means "honor". BUT THEY AREN'T ENGLISH SOURCES, ALSO I WAS NOT FIND ENGLISH SOURCES. And the harbin article Japanese Wikipedia have aparted these theories.-邻家的王子 (talk) 19:17, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

If the source is reliable it doesn't matter that it's not in English. You can add that information if it would be considered reliable. ... discospinster _talk 19:19, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

@邻家的王子, it is our policy that you can use Wikipedia:NONENGLISH sources. Editors should only use good sources, but there are many good sources that are written in other languages.

Finding a source that says "swan" does not prove that "place of drying fishing nets" is wrong. Sometimes it is best to say something like "Different meanings have been ascribed to the name. For example, the city government says the name means swan in the Jurchen language, and the Hong Kong Trade Development Council says that it means 'place of the drying fishing nets'."

When something needs a longer explanation, it should not usually be included in the Wikipedia:Infobox. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:28, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Reliable sources controversy

Wikipedians might be interested in knowing about a popular article released yesterday about admin @David Gerard, the alleged systematic misuse of Reliable sources and numerous instances of editing under clear COIs across several years. The article has received substantial attention on Twitter (600k views in less than a day). I'm skeptical of some specific claims made in the article, but overall, I think that it makes important well-sourced accusations of misbehavior, and that the community (and admins) might want to have a broader discussion about it.

I'm not sure what would be appropriate venues for discussion on this. agucova (talk) 14:57, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Appropriate venues would not include someone's blog or Twitter. I don't know whether David Gerard is right or wrong on the subject of reliable sources, but I do know that tracingwoodgrains.com and Twitter are not. Phil Bridger (talk) 15:22, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

They're words, written in the English language, which you can read and decide whether they're true or not.

I mean, if there's a "wet paint" sign on the bench, would you just ignore it and plop straight down because it doesn't have a green entry at RSP? jp×g🗯️ 19:13, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, they're English words, but they will only all be read be Wikipedia-obsessives (or, even worse, people who are obsessed with one Wikipedia editor) with too much time on their hands. "Wet paint" can be read in a split second. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:36, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

On a first read through, this is clearly a thoroughly researched piece by a writer who is familiar with how Wikipedia operates and diligently provides his diffs. It's not a random Twitter complaint to dismiss out of hand. It deserves careful consideration. – Teratix ₵ 15:59, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

no one is a villain in their own mind is very much my feeling from reading it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:09, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Sophocles worded it so much more eloquently. Traumnovelle (talk) 07:10, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

I did a spot check of several of the sources and conversations and did not particularly think it was fair in its analysis. It felt very deliberately set up to make the standard "Wikipedia hates conservatives" critique, especially in how it framed the result of the PinkNews discussion. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 18:01, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Yep. It's angry logorrhea from a Quillette fan. Nothing of consequence. XOR'easter (talk) 19:16, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I hate when people think they can decide "what is of consequence" for other people. 2603:7000:92F0:1100:51CB:6D03:8226:ABA1 (talk) 06:45, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Well, it could have been worse -- it could have been an angry driveby troll comment at the Village Pump. jp×g🗯️ 19:29, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

"Nothing of consequence" including BLP CoI violations? I don't intend to relitigate anything but that did seem pretty consequential to me. iczero (talk) 05:35, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Most of the article did not focus on this at all, but rather on Gerard's behavior. This does not seem like a crucial consideration to the discussion. agucova (talk) 20:13, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

We're so blessed to have DG. I stopped reading when they damningly referenced his views on the Huffington Post, which apparently changed between 2010 and 2020. Shocking stuff. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 18:15, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

To add a summary for onlookers not looking to spend 2 hours diving into the article.

The article is a pretty in-depth investigation from someone familiar with Wikipedia policies, where they allege that David Gerard has, over the span of almost a decade, engaged in systematic and strategic editing in a personal crusade against several people, violating not only a number of enwiki policies, but also largely going unnoticed, despite a number of disparate ArbCom cases and reported incidents, all which failed to see a bigger pattern in his edits.

The author explains that a key way he managed to do this was by feeding negative information about some of these people to journalists, which would then publish articles with the information, which he would then use as references in their articles to portray them in a negative light. He would also use the Reliable sources system differentially, in numerous instances using it to justify his edits under COI.

The article contains many serious allegations, and my impression after digging into them is that at least some of them have substantial and straightforward merit, directly verifiable from the provided evidence.

I urge editors to not get bogged down on specific claims made in the introduction about the Reliable sources system, since this is not actually the main focus of the article. The accusations made are far more serious and far-reaching. agucova (talk) 18:17, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Again, this is how I feel about it. The big claims are BlPs Ask me about air Cryogenic air (talk) 18:37, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah other editors are capable of reading, and having read it all I can't say I'm very jnoressed. "largely going unnoticed, despite a number of disparate ArbCom cases" I've yet to hear of an ArbCom case that goes 'largely unnoticed'. feeding negative information about some of these people to journalists I'm absolutely sure, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the journalist and editors of the Guardian didn't take one single persons word for granted without making certain of what they published. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:33, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Note that the policy violation is not the feeding information to the journalists, but then using that reference to edit under a clear COI (not only being in a crusade against the person, but also having been a source). Also, with "largely going unnoticed" I meant that the crusades/COIs were what went mostly unnoticed. agucova (talk) 20:12, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

If they've been taken to ANI or ArbCom they haven't gone unnoticed, the results just weren't to some editors liking. And if a reliable source substantiates the claims then it's a very weak COI. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:31, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, maybe I didn't express myself clearly. I meant that the ANI and ArbCom cases just didn't cover the accusations in the article, but instead focus on specific things that on their own don't look like flagrant violations. The Scott Alexander ANI did establish the COI, but didn't notice the other articles where Gerard had also done the same thing. The article threads them together to make a broader case. agucova (talk) 20:41, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Well if there is really anything there, and I still don't believe there is, then someone will need to make a case at ANI or ArbCom with diffs to show the behaviour. But I would note that anything on rationalwiki has nothing to do with Wikipedia, same with Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, etc. I agreed elsewhere recently that editors making nasty remarks on external sites should be covered by Wikipedia policies (it isn't currently), but that would also apply to linking to tweats that do the same. Also anyone wanting to discuss the reliability of Pinknews should take it to WP:RSN, same with Quillette or Unz, Gerard did not decide anything about this sources, and any personal biases they may have (which I'm sure they do, as all people have biases) were only one voice in a community decision. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:13, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I agreed elsewhere recently that editors making nasty remarks on external sites should be covered by Wikipedia policies - though it's worth pointing out that what people post here is still covered; linking to an offsite screed doesn't protect people from WP:ASPERSIONs. Agucova has posted repeated aspersions about DG in this thread, outright alleging a cloud of vague sinister activities with no specific policy-based accusations or evidence attached to them at all. If that keeps happening I would suggest a WP:BOOMERANG; it is not acceptable for editors to try and drag off-wiki harassment like this here. --Aquillion (talk) 21:48, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I was noting the linking to a tweet, now linked by multiple editors, that describes DG as 'the Forest Gump of the internet' and that doing so is probably against policy. I was just trying to not point it out directly. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:26, 11 July 2024 (UTC

That's something I actually called myself, 'cos I keep being on the sidelines of interesting things. (Though I never played college football and don't run, like, at all.) The blog post now attributes it - David Gerard (talk) 22:30, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough, I've struck my comment. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:34, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Note my careful use of the word 'alleged'. I haven't made any accusations. I'm in the course of preparing a proper ANI case, but it's not simple or fast when there's two decades of context to go through. agucova (talk) 21:52, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

"Alleged" does not free someone from the constraints of WP:ASPERSIONs; the entire point of the policy is to prevent people from making vague handwavy aspersions of the sort that you are introducing here. --Aquillion (talk) 22:20, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

'Diffs or no allegations' is the normal standard, and those allegations should be at the appropriate venue. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:23, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

> journalist and editors of the Guardian didn't take one single persons word for granted without making certain of what they published

A Guardian article about LessWrong contained a number of inaccuracies (some were corrected after the LessWrong team pointed them out): https://x.com/ohabryka/status/1802563541633024280?s=46. I wouldn’t think they make certain of what they publish. Saminmihail (talk) 16:37, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Relaible sources sometimes make mistakes. What is important is whether they aknowledge and correct those mistakes. Donald Albury 16:43, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

This article was also linked here. It seems to be today's Twitterstorm. If the people posting this want to get something done, rather than just whinge about how awful Wikipedia is, they need to make their point succinctly on Wikipedia, rather than expect people to read a very long blog post whose provenance we do not know. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:40, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I've provided a summary above, but the article covers so many accusations that it's not easy to compress it all. It's just an inherently very complex case. agucova (talk) 20:13, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

After reading it myself, it mostly looks like nonsense written by an angry culture-warrior type who detests David and who is upset that WP:RSes don't cover their pet topics the way they like, but who doesn't have any actual arguments or diffs to back up policy-based complaints. It also looks like most of the other people who have read it seem to agree, so I'd suggest you either WP:DROPTHESTICK or make any actual arguments for specific policies you feel were violated and things you believe should happen on WP:ANI or WP:AE, with actual diffs that relate to policy-based arguments and not just links to random blogs. If you insist on doing so, I'd strongly suggest doing it without linking the screed in question - it's clearly not helpful and fails to make a coherent policy-based argument itself. Either way I'd expect a WP:BOOMERANG if you keep pushing it too hard; we have no control over what people post off-wiki, but on-wiki, editors are protected from WP:HOUNDing and WP:ASPERSIONS, which you're already pretty deep into. Pointing at a largely nonsensical blogpost from an axe-grindy culture-warrior and asking people to not get bogged down on specific claims while making vague handwavy aspersions against a well-established editor in good standing with stuff like the accusations made are far more serious and far-reaching is not acceptable. If you want to continue without becoming the focus yourself, then every single thing you say about DG needs to be extremely specific about what policies you feel have been violated, with specific diffs for each accusation; if you're unwilling to do that, you need to WP:DROPTHESTICK, accept that you got hoodwinked by a blog post, and move on, preferably with an apology to DG for bringing this nonsense here in the first place. --Aquillion (talk) 21:40, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

From a quick read, this seems to just be someone who has multi-decade beef with David writing a rambling and often nonsensical screed. Best course of action is to just ignore it, it'll blow over. Curbon7 (talk) 20:27, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I read the article, and it doesn't make a bit of sense. What does the price of Bitcoin have to do with Gerard's influence over the definition of reliable sources? It piles up detail on detail with no clear explanation of what the actual bannable behavior is. Agucova's insistence that we "not get bogged down on specific claims" basically means "Gerard is bad, don't worry about understanding why". Toughpigs (talk) 21:15, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I said to, "not get bogged down on specific claims made in the introduction about the Reliable sources system". I'm saying that the relevant claims are the ones after the introduction. agucova (talk) 21:56, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

• STOP - or at least pause. If we are going to talk about a specific editor, at least have the courtesy to notify them of the discussion. Blueboar (talk) 22:08, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I apologize for not giving a notice to DG; I seem to have forgotten some of my Wikipedia etiquette with time.

Because I worry about further hurting the case for what, I believe, are serious accusations, I'll follow Aquillion's suggestion and WP:DROPTHESTICK. I'm ceasing discussion on this thread until I can write down a proper ANI case with a good restatement of the evidence in the article. Admins should feel free to lock down this discussion.

I don't feel like I'm the best person to write down an ANI case, so if anyone wants to take this over from me, feel free to let me know through my talk page. agucova (talk) 22:12, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for covering this important controversy. There is a balance to be found between protecting whistleblowers and safeguarding the accused from potential defamation. But the mentality in this thread is too much about discarding the accusation without having taken the time to read them.

I don't know how representative the article is of David Gerard's edits in general, since it focuses on the problems. But the article is an in-depth investigation, well-written and well-sourced. The fact that it's self-published should not be a reason to simply ignore any piece of information from it, especially in the context of a discussion, and considering that it links to many Wikipedia diffs. As suggested here, there should be some nuance: "Self-published works are sometimes acceptable as sources, so self-publication is not, and should not be, a bit of jargon used by Wikipedians to automatically dismiss a source as 'bad' or 'unreliable' or 'unusable'.".

I do not know David Gerard personally, but regrettably, the article resonates with my experiences over the past few months. You can occasionally see high-profile editors that show a recurring pattern of strawman arguments, edit wars, sarcasms, and pedantry about Wikipedia's rules that justifies opinionated edits. I have much respect for the people who spend significant time trying to improve the encyclopedia. But it's tragic how aggressive activism and bad epistemics sometimes bring out the worst in very smart and morally dedicated people. Alenoach (talk) 21:17, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

TracingWoodgrains (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is an editor here. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 23:26, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the tag. I have edited only very rarely, and I do not believe it would be appropriate for me to step in for the first time as a participant in an ongoing controversy spurred by one of my articles. This is obviously a subject I have strong feelings about, but I do not believe I should bring those feelings onto Wikipedia given the conflict of interest created by my article. I believe my writing speaks for itself on this matter. TracingWoodgrains (talk) 23:46, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Then you are admittedly not here to build the encyclopedia. Since you haven't broken any rules, I don't see any reason to block you for you to be blocked on that basis. Maybe you'll decide to become active. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:07, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Hm, I guess you could put it that way? I don't believe that policy fits; it's not that I'm not here to build an encyclopedia, it's that I'm not here at all. I've never been an active Wikipedia user and am only responding to people now because they're tagging me in. I researched details about your site as a journalistic exercise from the standpoint of a curious outsider. Were I to edit in the future, I suspect having my first serious activity in the site be engaging in a detailed dispute over an article I wrote would be a poor way to begin. TracingWoodgrains (talk) 01:47, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

@Valjean: It's good that you "don't see any reason to block you [TracingWoodgrains] on that basis", because you can't block anyone on this website for any reason. -- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 18:24, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

LOL! As well I know. I'm not an admin, but my comment was intended to prevent such a thing from happening. I had just witnessed an account related to this debacle blocked for that reason (NOTHERE), and it was justified. In this case, I don't see any justifiable reason for a block. My comment was purely preventive. After I wrote it, I realized that my comment might trigger such a reaction, so I finished off with that comment in order to prevent it. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:31, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

I have now stricken that wording, since it led to this misunderstanding. I hope the works. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:33, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

When somebody writes an article on an external website critical of Wikipedia, I am not aware of any standard practice to ping their account with vaguely-worded threats(?) of administrative action, and I would be opposed to starting such a practice, as it does not seem smart or useful. jp×g🗯️ 19:33, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

It would be nice if you read what I have written before commenting. There was no threat to this editor. I hoped they would begin editing more. I just wanted to prevent what happened to another editor from happening here. It was just written clumsily, so AGF. BTW, that other editor has been unblocked. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:36, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

What the post actually says

It is very strange to me how many people are in this section giving confident opinions about the merits of the claims in the post, while admitting to not having read it, or saying something about how its "provenance" is unknown -- it's not a cuneiform tablet, it's a blog post on the Internet, you can just go read it, and then use your brain to tell whether or not the things it says are true. If you aren't going to read it, then your opinion on whether it's true is almost by definition incapable of being useful. At any rate, it is fairly long, so I will reproduce here the summary I posted elsewhere.

If you read the article, it's not really a screed, nor is it "nonsensical", nor is it any of the other weird stuff people are saying who have not read it. For those without a lot of time on their hands, it's about an even split between:

1. Statements of fact that every drama-sniffer around here is already quite familiar with (people fling shit about politics all the time at RSN, Gerard was topic-banned a few years ago for aggressively pursuing COI edits in re Dr. Scotty Codex, etc)
2. Opinions that well-respected Wikipedians express all the time (it is a gigantic pain in the arse when people queue up AWB jobs to indiscriminately mass-remove deprecated sources; RSN is often a sewer).
3. Catalog of various based deeds David has done over time (represent WMUK for years, be the first CheckUser of all time, lead the charge against the crystal-woo morons, be the sysadmin of a really funny shock site, be right about the Chelsea Manning fiasco), various cringe deeds (get topic-banned after an aggressive COI campaign to defame aforementioned Dr. Scotty Codex, ongoing sloppy mass-removals of deprecated sources), and various neutral deeds (he hates cryptocurrency, and I guess he was a big LessWrong guy back in the day, which in retrospect makes the thing with Dr. Codex even more silly).

The main bombshell accusation being made in this piece against Gerard is something that basically everyone here knows: there is a big gaggle of libs who are always trying to use WP:RSP as a septic tank into which to flush newspapers they don't like. Now, before some bumberchute at Wikipediocracy gets their hemorrhoids up reading me type this dangerous harmful right-wing propaganda: it is not just libs who do this. Wikipedia, in its majestic equality, also lets Republicans act like chimpanzees about whether the Wetumpka Argus-Picayune or whatever is destroying our country and must be removed from all citations. But broadly, I think we are all pretty well aware of this. By volume, about 10% of RSN is discussion attempting to find consensus on what sources are reliable for use on Wikipedia, and 90% is rancid political mudflinging. Does anybody seriously disagree with this? It's a zoo! Clearly, we are ashamed enough about it being a zoo to insta-gib n00bs who show up and tell us so. But are we proud enough of our encyclopedia to actually fix it? jp×g🗯️ 19:09, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

I think you have you numbers back to front, the vast majority of RSN is banal questions about uncontroversial sources. The contentious discussions get lots of attention, but editors then miss all the minor discussions that go past unnoticed.

If anyone has any disagreement with consensus on Pinknews, Unz, or Quillette can open a discussion. If editors don't agree with them they might look to the quality of their arguments rather than posts that claim one individual is some master influencer. Yes the culture war generates lots of crap, but RSN isn't the cause of that.

Also again yes I read the whole post before even my first reply. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:38, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Well, that's what I mean: there really are discussions assessing the reliability of random unfamiliar sources in the boring straightforward way the noticeboard is well-suited for. The problem is that there's been a separate system grafted onto that, in which people write thousands of words of barely-readable walltext trying to give incredibly detailed assessments of decades' worth of output by major national newspapers... and then the only possible outcomes are "green", "yellow", "red" and "gray". The noticeboard/source list format does not work very well for doing this. This separate system is operated almost entirely by political animus, and unlike most onwiki politics arguments, it has wide-ranging destructive effects on the entire project.

For example, if there is some big nasty 600-comment-long RfC about gun control at Talk:Gun control, the worst-case scenario is that the article gun control says something dumb, temporarily (there can be another RfC later, and it's pretty simple to go back to an old revision). But if there is some big nasty RfC about gun control at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard, the worst-case scenario -- it doesn't actually matter which side wins, because both sides call it "victory" when one of the the other guys' sources is shitlisted -- is that some hapless website/newspaper gets painted red or gray, and somebody will go on a cackling AWB spree and completely hose up ten thousand articles by ripping out half the references, including articles about other political stuff that had nothing to do with the original argument.

This will also tear up articles about random stuff that isn't even remotely political. Many of them will then run the risk of being deleted because there "have no sources" (read: they have perfectly usable sources that happened to employ a guy who wrote something really stupid about politics ten years later). The loss of this content and these articles is, in practice, typically permanent. Source deprecation/GUNREL is basically a cluster munition that causes collateral damage all over the project every time it's fired, and I think we would probably be better off if we tried to be cognizant about this and resist the urge to give everything a reductive color-coded label. jp×g🗯️ 20:11, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

But the flip side is that political bias can also lead people to place excessive weight on trivial things or the opinions of non-experts who don't really belong in the article; or, worst of all, to take things that have actually dubious sourcing and state it as fact. If we don't draw a line as to the quality of required sources, what happens in political articles is that angry partisans on all sides of a dispute cram in everything they can dredge up, either to push the article in one direction or in a genuine good-faith effort to "balance out" what they see as bias by others. This results in articles that are bloated, unreadable, full of dubiously-sourced points or counterpoints, and which generally fail to reflect the tone, focus, and accuracy we would find from higher-quality sources. I think that if you look over how high-traffic articles have progressed over the last decade (as RSN and RSP achieved their current state), they have mostly improved in every respect - more accurate, better sourcing, more neutral, and so on. See eg. this paper discussing it. Saying "we're losing content" isn't meaningful because high-traffic, well-established articles aren't supposed to grow endlessly; they constantly both gain and lose content. The question is whether we're maintaining a balance that reflects the best sources - ie. removing poorly-supported, marginal or undue things and adding high-quality well-sourced things in a more balanced manner - and overall I think we've been getting better at that over time. For the most part, the only egregiously unbalanced articles are ones that have few editors, and that's not something that can be solved with policy or practice, since those things still require editors to implement them. --Aquillion (talk) 02:52, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

I think perhaps the biggest issue is the "cackling AWB spree". Sure, we shouldn't rely on unreliable news articles, but winning an "argument" on RSP shouldn't be a good reason to rip sources out of a huge pile of wiki articles. It's a gross overreaction if anything and a huge pain to fix if/when yet another argument breaks out on RSP and reverses that "decision". iczero (talk) 05:27, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

I mean, that's an extremely hostile way to characterize it. The fact is that when there's a clear-cut RSP decision, it needs to be implemented eventually; when a source comes up at RSP, that usually means there are constant disputes over it, which in turn means that people are using (or trying to use it) all over Wikipedia. And usually, people only implement it on scale for extremely clear-cut results (generally just deprecation; mere unreliable and other-concerns-exists results get implemented much more slowly and with more focus on controversial, exceptional, or BLP-sensitive things.) Before people stepped up to start implementing them, sources like the Daily Mail remained used all over the wiki, despite a clear consensus that they were unreliable and should generally be avoided; cleaning that up is a necessary service. And, as I've said, I feel that on the whole this work has improved our articles - most of the complaints seem to essentially amount to people disagreeing with the RFC's outcomes, which is certainly not a reason to obstruct implementation. We don't have to WP:SATISFY everyone before implementing an RFC. --Aquillion (talk) 22:02, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

I believe there's a pretty big difference between "we ought to recheck articles using this source" and "indiscriminately remove absolutely every reference citing the source". The former is (generally) done by humans; the latter is done by pure automation with little to no regard to actual article content, whether it be good or bad.

I would argue the best way to implement RSP verdicts involves generating a list of all affected articles and attempting to replace the source (or, if not possible, removing the content). Otherwise, even simply tagging the source as unreliable (i.e. by ) is a better idea than an AWB spree.

Yes, perhaps some cases (like The Daily Mail) are clear-cut. Others may not be. In either case, automated removal is usually not a good idea. iczero (talk) 22:48, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

In a perfect world where all Wikipedia editors were paid full-time employees (or well-off retirees, or universal basic income recipients, or whatever) things would be different. But the world we live in is one where everybody is a volunteer, and there are far more tasks to be done than editor-hours to do them in. It's true that articles should not have stuff in them cited to bad sources, and that they should not have uncited material -- but I hope everyone can agree that simply going through Category:Articles with unsourced statements (currently 521,561) with a blindfold and a chainsaw removing thousands of kilobytes of text from each page would be so unhelpful as to arguably constitute vandalism.

Regardless of what we may claim for rhetorical or political reasons, it seems like elementary logic and common sense that something cited to a shite rag like the Daily Mail would still have a higher probability of being accurate than something cited to nothing at all -- so I don't think the situation is all that different, and I'm similarly opposed to chainsawing them. jp×g🗯️ 02:46, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Statements tagged {{cn}} fall into a few broad categories:

• previously adequate source deleted (usurped by globally blacklisted host, unarchived deadlink, removed erroneously during rewrite, etc.)
• unreliable, deprecated, or verification failing source deleted
• source already present in article but not cited for tagged statement
• source exists in parent, related, or sister language article but never imported during split or translation
• source never provided.

Where no source was ever provided for a tagged statement, in the target article or any related article, some of these will have been confected, misremembered, or learnt in error from an unreliable source. I'm not sure what percentage of the time that's the case rather than someone just not bothering to write down where they read something where if they had recorded their source we'd accept it no problem.

I also have no strong insight into what percentage of claims tagged {{cn}} have never had a source versus have had a source that the tagging editor did not look for hard enough. But I would say that the probability of something cited to nothing at all being accurate is actually pretty good. Folly Mox (talk) 10:32, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, in my experience the likelihood of an unsourced claim being true is somewhere above 90%, and the likelihood of something (e.g. celeb gossip) being sourced to the Daily Mail is like 99% -- it just really doesn't seem like a thing which needs to be aggressively fixed by removing the reference. jp×g🗯️ 12:29, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Honestly my main take-away from the article is that anyone who edits a lot and has opinions is going to inevitably end up pushing those opinions one way or another. This is probably a bad thing but cannot really be fixed: the most we can do is take care of the more egregious episodes. —Ashley Y 19:55, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Usual disclaimer that David Gerard is a huge asset to the site and is usually right... but... without relitigating old disputes, let's not say that "[DG] was right about the Chelsea Manning fiasco". That was undoubtedly his lowest moment. What could have been a boring, standard WP:Requested Move turned into months of drama because DG insisted on doing the move out of process. If he had just dropped off a !vote like any other editor, or hell, done nothing, the article was going to move anyway, as indeed it eventually did after the dust settled. Just rather than having it be a community decision, just like 99.9% of other potentially controversial moves, he just tried to cowboy the move through on grounds of personal authority? It was a mistake. It made the result weaker, not stronger, as it opens up tales like this about admin abuse as the reason why, rather than "no this is what the community decided." The lesson is to just wait for the discussion to close. SnowFire (talk) 03:48, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Recommitting to Wikipedian greatness

I was inspired by the article to form and write up some convictions about what makes Wikipedia great, and how we can recommit to its sustained improvement. Thanks for taking a look if you do. Pizpa (talk) 14:02, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Wikimedia Movement Charter ratification voting results

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Hello everyone,

After carefully tallying both individual and affiliate votes, the Charter Electoral Commission is pleased to announce the final results of the Wikimedia Movement Charter voting.  

As communicated by the Charter Electoral Commission, we reached the quorum for both Affiliate and individual votes by the time the vote closed on July 9, 23:59 UTC. We thank all 2,451 individuals and 129 Affiliate representatives who voted in the ratification process. Your votes and comments are invaluable for the future steps in Movement Strategy.

The final results of the Wikimedia Movement Charter ratification voting held between 25 June and 9 July 2024 are as follows:

Individual vote:

Out of 2,451 individuals who voted as of July 9 23:59 (UTC), 2,446 have been accepted as valid votes. Among these, 1,710 voted “yes”; 623 voted “no”; and 113 selected “–” (neutral). Because the neutral votes don’t count towards the total number of votes cast, 73.30% voted to approve the Charter (1710/2333), while 26.70% voted to reject the Charter (623/2333).

Affiliates vote:

Out of 129 Affiliates designated voters who voted as of July 9 23:59 (UTC), 129 votes are confirmed as valid votes. Among these, 93 voted “yes”; 18 voted “no”; and 18 selected “–” (neutral). Because the neutral votes don’t count towards the total number of votes cast, 83.78% voted to approve the Charter (93/111), while 16.22% voted to reject the Charter (18/111).

Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation:

The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees voted not to ratify the proposed Charter during their special Board meeting on July 8, 2024. The Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, Nataliia Tymkiv, shared the result of the vote, the resolution, meeting minutes and proposed next steps.  

With this, the Wikimedia Movement Charter in its current revision is not ratified.

We thank you for your participation in this important moment in our movement’s governance.

The Charter Electoral Commission,

Abhinav619, Borschts, Iwuala Lucy, Tochiprecious, Der-Wir-Ing

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:52, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

If the Board of Trustees had veto power, maybe they should've voted first before wasting the time of the 2,500 other people who voted. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 20:39, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

I understand that "the 2,500 other people who voted" had an opportunity to provide anonymous comments along with their votes, so I can't see that as a complete waste of time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:13, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Evangelos Marinakis has an RfC

Talk:Evangelos Marinakis has an RfC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. D.S. Lioness (talk) 18:01, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

This appears to be a question about whether to include the word oligarch. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:24, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

That's right! D.S. Lioness (talk) 18:25, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Performing a random pages test on business articles

I've been focusing a bit on Wikipedia's articles on businesses recently. I think anyone who spends even a little time in the topic area knows we have problems with promotion, COI/paid editing, and dependence on non-independent sourcing. However, it's difficult to find hard numbers on just how big the problems are. To remedy this, I'm trying to obtain a random sample of a few hundred Wikipedia articles on companies to assess the extent to which they comply with our content policies. However, I'm having a bit of trouble working out how to get a good sample:

• Idea 1: Hit Special:Random. If article is about a company, add to list. Otherwise discard. Repeat until satisfied with number of articles on the list. Problem: Time-consuming and impractical for single editor.
• Idea 2: Use query service (Petscan or Quarry) to generate a list of company articles based on Wikipedia category system. Problem: Wikipedia category system not suited to this task. Structure of Category:Companies tree includes too many non-company articles (e.g. biographies in Category:People by company). Difficult to reliably filter.
• Idea 3: Query Wikidata for items about companies with an enwiki article. Problem: Potential for systematic bias in results if Wikidata editors focus on creating items for highly notable companies.
• Idea 4: Query DBpedia for company entities with enwiki articles. Problem: Classification as "company" apparently somewhat unreliable. Too many non-company articles in query results. Results seem to only appear if enwiki page was created before or up to ~2022.

I'm a bit stumped on what to do. Is there a way to adapt one of my ideas to produce good results? Or is there another idea I'm missing? – Teratix ₵ 16:05, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

For sure, trying to navigate the category tree from Category:Companies will just end up in a world of pain. You'll do much better using wikidata, say starting from company (Q783794). There's a dedicated query language for this sort of thing, see wikidata:Wikidata:SPARQL tutorial. RoySmith (talk) 16:15, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Yep, I've written a SPARQL query that pulls a random sample of Wikidata items on companies with enwiki articles. My concern is that this sample may not necessarily be representative of a random sample of companies with enwiki articles, depending on how Wikidata editors select which enwiki businesses to create items for.

If, for example, Wikidata is more likely to have an item on a prominent rather than an obscure business (given both have enwiki articles), then a random sample of Wikidata items will feature more prominent businesses than a random sample of Wikipedia articles, which could lead to biased results.

But I don't really know much about how Wikidata editing works, so this could be wrong. – Teratix ₵ 16:33, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Modify {{infobox company}} (used in ~85,000 articles) so that it emits a tracking category listing all articles that use that template? Allow the category to populate (could take a month or more). Add {{random in category}} to the category (or use Special:RandomInCategory) to fetch your random samples?

If there are other infoboxen that are commonly used in business articles, do the same with those templates; populate only the one common category.

When done, revert your template edits and delete the category.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:23, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

RandomInCatagory isn't very random (see T230700 and T200703). The strategy it uses is fine for an end user who wants to idly article hop, but I wouldn't use it for anything that requires statistical rigor. Keying off {{infobox company}} seems like a reasonable approach, but it suffers from a lot of the same problems the category tree DAG graph blob does. There's many similar templates, all related in a quasi-tree structure, but not easy to navigate. You might start from {{Organization infoboxes}}. It also suffers from the wikidata problem of people who write company articles being hit-or-miss about whether they add infoboxes of any kind.

You might want to go with multiple approaches to discover company articles and combine/deduplicate the results. Asking ChatGPT was amusingly useless. RoySmith (talk) 16:54, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

No need to mangle mainspace even temporarily with a tracking category; you can do something like this if you accept that transcluding {{Infobox company}} is good enough. —Cryptic 17:06, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

More than that, please don't "mangle mainspace". I know this idea was well-intended, but historically such things have been frowned upon. RoySmith (talk) 17:12, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Please explain how tracking categories mangle mainspace. Link to the consensus discussion that states that such things have been frowned upon.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:04, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

I can't find it now, but there was a thread (perhaps on WP:VPT? a few months ago about one of the mobile apps adding tags for its own tracking purposes. The general consensus was that it was a bad idea. There's a related phab ticket at T360164. RoySmith (talk) 18:19, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

That was about edit summaries, not actual article content. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:26, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

My wording was perhaps facetious, but - at least on my part - the intent wasn't so much as "this would be harmful" as "this would be impractical". It's going to take a while - perhaps a long while - for the category to get fully populated after you add it to the template (unless you null edit all its transcluders, which has its own problems). And you might have to go through several iterations of adding and removing templates to/from your dataset. —Cryptic 18:28, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

You can use toolforge:randomincategory for a more truly random selection from a category. It will be a bit slow the first time you run it on an 85,000 member category, but it should work (and it caches data for 10 minutes so subsequent runs should be fine). --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:02, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Great idea. How about going the Petscan route but using one of the more systematised subcategories of Category:Companies, like Category:Companies by country? I imagine that almost all company articles are in that tree. – Joe (talk) 16:55, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

We've actually already tried that, specifically with cat:Companies by country. It gets way too many non-company articles way too quickly, even after pruning categories starting with "People by company". —Cryptic 17:13, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, that's typical for category traversals. Honestly, having accumulated a few scars from trying things like this in the past, I think the wikidata route is your best bet. Or at least your least bad bet. RoySmith (talk) 17:19, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

You might be able to leverage Category:WikiProject Companies articles and the advice given to me at Wikipedia talk:PetScan#Help creating query. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:28, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the input, everyone. I've reflected a bit and come up with a hybrid/kludge solution that might work: deliberately getting a larger than optimal sample from Category:Companies by country with Petscan/Quarry, filtering out non-company articles from the sample by checking with Petscan whether they match a Wikidata query for whatever unwanted types (e.g. biographies) tend to show up, then just manually discarding anything unwanted that sneaks through the filter. – Teratix ₵ 15:18, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Vote now to fill vacancies of the first U4C

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Dear all,

I am writing to you to let you know the voting period for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is open now through August 10, 2024. Read the information on the voting page on Meta-wiki to learn more about voting and voter eligibility.

The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. Community members were invited to submit their applications for the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, please review the U4C Charter.

Please share this message with members of your community so they can participate as well.

In cooperation with the U4C,

RamzyM (WMF) 02:46, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Arabic Wikipedia help

Hi, I don't speak Arabic well and have been blocked on Arabic Wikipedia. As such, I am having trouble getting assistance to appeal my block there. Can someone help me with that? Ogundareibrahim123 (talk) 19:58, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

This is the English Wikipedia, we have no control over the Arabic Wikipedia. And if you know you don't speak Arabic well, isn't it kind of rude to try to edit there knowing that it will make things more difficult for them? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 04:54, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Maybe. I may not be able to make very useful edits, but I was still looking to see if I could fix small things, e.g. errors in links. I first made some test edits in the public sandbox there that may have been controversial, which is probably why I got blocked. But I actually wanted to meaningfully improve the Arabic Wikipedia later, but because they already blocked me I don't have a chance now. Is there a way to appeal their block if I don't speak Arabic? If so, how? Ogundareibrahim123 (talk) 06:33, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

@Ogundareibrahim123: You can communicate with the admin who blocked you as I did when I faced a similar situation on the Chinese Wikipedia (in that case I emailed them, but pinging would have worked too; the manual method of adding a user page link is universal and {{ping}} works everywhere, including in Arabic. The user who blocked you, Dr-Taher, is quite active here per their English user page. Graham87 (talk) 11:50, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

We here at the English WP can’t unblock you from a sister project. They have their own set of admins, and you need to talk to them to have the block lifted.

It probably isn’t a good idea to edit in languages you don’t understand, but if you must… my advice would be to leave a message on your Arabic userpage (either in English, or using machine translation), requesting the assistance of someone who understands English… perhaps they can help you sort things out.

Otherwise, just be patient and wait until the block expires… then stay away from anything even remotely controversial. Blueboar (talk) 12:19, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

The editor has been unblocked. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:32, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Question about such protected titles in different name spaces.

I've always wanted to know this, but after looking at the protection policy for each level the namespace's title is restricted to, there is nothing that states why those levels are set. So, now I believe that I'm in the right place, let me ask you: When searching for such a portal name that likely doesn't exist, (e.g. Portal:X) it obviously shows its nonexistent presence. ("Wikipedia does not have a portal with this exact name.") However, there are 2 differences - when logged in, you have the option to create it, as said: "Start the Portal:X page." The second one is: "This page is semi-protected from creation, so only autoconfirmed users can create it." Checking the logs for such titles - yields no results. So, I'd like to ask, Why is the Portal namespace restricted for editors above non-logged in/IP/not autoconfirmed?

Also, you know how when you're searching for something on Wikipedia via Special:Search, you intend to find what you're looking for. However, when clicking the link, a string at the end of the link is added for just a brief moment before disappearing when the page is fully loaded. There's such an example like this - "?wprov=srpw1_4". But, if you decide to put it on the Wikipedia link (using the URL encoder for the ?, %3F), you get the message of the page obviously being nonexistent. But, there's a catch: "This page is template-protected from creation, so only template editors can create it." How is that possible, if it's not in the Template namespace? As always, checking the logs for the page yields 0 results. But also get this: Putting a string of random special characters multiple times repeatedly (e.g. several dots, question marks, exclamations, etc.) at the end of a blank Wikipedia URL would show the exact same message as to that of "?wprov=srpw1_4". Despite not being in the Template namespace, why is all that? If I could get any answers to this, that would be great. Ṫḧïṡ ṁëṡṡäġë ḧäṡ ḅëëṅ ḅṛöüġḧẗ ẗö ÿöü ḅÿ ᗰOᗪ ᑕᖇEᗩTOᖇ 🏡 🗨 📝 18:21, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Non-auto-confirmed users can't create pages in the article space either. If they search for Create this Wikipedia page, they are told "You can create a draft and submit it for review or request that a redirect be created, but consider checking the search results below to see whether the topic is already covered" in the search page, and "You need to log in or create an account and be autoconfirmed to create new articles. Alternatively, you can use the article wizard to submit a draft for review, or request a new article" on the red link page. Restriction to other namespaces likely flow from this article creation limitation (although non-auto-confirmed users can create pages in the Draft and Talk spaces). I suspect the Portal message discussing semi-protection rather than something more tailored to the situation is due to it being some default message that no-one has looked into because the Portal namespace is a mostly forgotten realm. If you don't get more specific answers here, you could try asking at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)‎. Best, CMD (talk) 01:41, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

See also wikitech:wprov. This one is sort of like having an internal counter for how many times the search results got clicked on. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:10, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

EPUB is a good format in 2024; you can even cite Wikipedia with it

Does anyone else ever feel they could be citing EPUBs more if using them for citations wasn't such a pain?

It seems the primary tenor among both publishing houses and editors is that one should just read a PDF if they have to actually cite something with page numbers. This is a shame, since page numbers in the reflowable EPUB format is actually a totally solved problem: in research work, I am usually very happy when the EPUB version of the book I'm reading actually correctly supports this, as EPUBs are the fastest and most flexible format for me to search and navigate in my Calibre library and on my eINK ereader.

Suffice it to say, I have been some spending time figuring out the best way to use EPUBs for work on Wikipedia, and am curious if anyone else would be interested in a how-to guide listing all the tips and tricks. Remsense诉 09:33, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

As an author, I'd be super interested in how to generate page numbers (though it's veering off topic for the wiki).

What publishers publish epubs with page numbers? Presumably ones matching the paper/PDF? - David Gerard (talk) 22:40, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes; rather, I've never read an EPUB with page numbers not matching the physical edition. I'm also curious whether editors would enjoy Calibre; its ability to search my entire library has been killer for my research.

The one issue is Calibre actually doesn't make have the option of displaying <page-list>...</page-list> in its reader, so I presently use another reader so I can actually use the pages. On the bright side, I've just posted a feature request on the Calibre issue tracker, so maybe support will be implemented soon and my life will be perfect. Remsense诉 23:09, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Reminder! Vote closing soon to fill vacancies of the first U4C

You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki. Please help translate to other languages.

Dear all,

The voting period for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is closing soon. It is open through 10 August 2024. Read the information on the voting page on Meta-wiki to learn more about voting and voter eligibility. If you are eligible to vote and have not voted in this special election, it is important that you vote now.

Why should you vote? The U4C is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. Community input into the committee membership is critical to the success of the UCoC.

Please share this message with members of your community so they can participate as well.

In cooperation with the U4C,

-- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 15:29, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Porandla

-- GreenC 01:03, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

An impressive journey, originally located quite far inland, the village moved to the coast, then moved again back inland but more to the northeast. (The first and last both seem to be clear villages on google maps, and there is at the very least a street with that name in the location of the second one.) CMD (talk) 02:06, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

It also had a different name from 2011 before losing all its text in 2022, but seems never to have had any source. PamD 05:40, 25 July 2024 (UTC) expanded 08:49, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

This source supports the statement in the original version of the article, so perhaps we should revert to that and add the source - and choose whichever of the later-added coordinates seems appropriate. PamD 09:01, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

I would also say it should be reverted to maintain the original intent, but there will also be sources to support the current version of the article, as the new version is literally for another town. The telugu page (te:పోరండ్ల (జగిత్యాల)) has always been about the current (Jagtial) Porandla, as has the associated Wikidata item (wikidata:Q13003257). The original (Ranga Reddy) Porandla is at te:పోరండ్ల (మహేశ్వరం)/wikidata:Q16340753.

If the original wording is restored, the thing to do here would be to revert, split off Jagtial Porandla, disambiguate Ranga Reddy Porandla, and then switch the relevant Wikidata entries.

(As an aside, the one-up division, te:జగిత్యాల గ్రామీణ మండలం is one of the few Jagtial district#Mandals without an en.wiki article.) CMD (talk) 04:15, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

I've done this now, splitting off Porandla, Jagtial district. If anyone can figure out what the page was about in its second iteration, that may need another split. CMD (talk) 00:44, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

CMD: thank you for sorting out these villages! -- GreenC 05:48, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Low standards for references on the English Wikipedia

Why does the English Wikipedia allow the creation of articles without reliable sources? For example, if you look at the references for "El amor de mi bohío," you will find databases, blogs and other wikis. The same with Mira que eres linda, the sources are blogspot and Brito EcuRed. That's why many editors whose articles are deleted on the Spanish Wikipedia come to create them here, because the requirements for reliable sources are minimal. I don't think this does any good for Wikipedia's reputation. KokuyoKoychi (talk) 22:25, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

@KokuyoKoychi, the requirements aren't minimal but enforcement is difficult. Hundreds (or more) articles are created every day. There aren't enough editors to screen each one (although the New Page Patrol makes a valiant effort at doing so). Schazjmd (talk) 23:41, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Proposals to increase the requirements for sourcing in new articles have so far failed to receive a consensus. Donald Albury 00:09, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

You are welcome to improve the sourcing. There are many potential sources for the former here and here and for the latter here and here. I would do it myself but my Spanish is rather rudimentary. The article creator does not own an article on English Wikipedia. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:34, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Wayback Machine collection search

Normally it is not possible to full-text search through the Wayback Machine. However, they do make available certain collections for full-text search, such as the US Government docs collection has 403 million pages. The list of collections currently available for searching:

https://web-beta.archive.org/collection-search

This is a beta service. There is currently a bug in the interface sometimes it redirects to the home page. If this happens, go to a collection search that is working (such as the US govt docs link above) and use the pull-down menu to navigate the collections. You can also search via URL such as:

https://web-beta.archive.org/pdf/search/wikipedia

..will search the "pdf" collection (1,317,870,629 PDF files) on the word "wikipedia"

-- GreenC 05:04, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Is there a place to discuss all design choices for Wikipedia?

Is there a place to discuss all things related to visual aspects of Wikipedia? Icons, logo, screen layout, typography?Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 17:28, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

WP:VPT is a good place for general technical questions and bug reports. Got anything specific in mind? –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:07, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

The technical village pump is a good place to discuss the implementation details of a design. However to discuss the design itself, this village pump page would be more suitable. isaacl (talk) 21:48, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Ban in Azerbaijani Wikipedia

Hello, I would like to complain about the administrators of the Azerbaijani Wikipedia. The fact is that when I added az:Yenisey (Yenisei) in parentheses to the article its name in the Yenisei language in addition to the Russian term (and of course wrote the source from the 1899 book), I was banned by the Nemoralis administrator. To the question “what Wikipedia rule did I break,” he answered in an arrogant manner, “your account will not be unblocked.” I wrote this message here because I don’t know where to write. I also wrote the message to the Azerbaijani section, but Azerbaijani administrators support each other since for several years in a row these are basically the same people. Please help me in this situation. At least express your opinion, please.

To make it clearer, I write the difference between the articles:

Before: Yenisey (rus. Енисе́й), (evenk Ионесси "böyük su", xak. Ким, tıva Улуг-Хем "böyük çay", və Ene-Say (Ana-çay), nen. Енся’ ям’

After: Yenisey (rus. Енисе́й), (evenk Ионесси "böyük su", xak. Ким, tıva Улуг-Хем "böyük çay", və Ene-Say (Ana-çay), nen. Енся’ ям’, q.türk 𐰚𐰢 Kəm)

Thank you; Sebirkhan (talk) 19:21, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Normally the standard reply is enwiki has no powers over azwiki (and azwiki over enwiki). But you could try to find an azwiki admin who is active on enwiki. You could ask them about it here, in a neutral ground, maybe also try to find a neutral person on enwiki not from azwiki, to help moderate the dispute. It seems extreme to ban someone over what you describe so either they are bad amins or there is more to the story. -- GreenC 19:35, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

"bad admins" is surprisingly plausible. There are four azwiki admins indefinitely blocked here (Solavirum, Nemoralis, Wertuose, Atakhanli), including the admin who blocked Sebirkhan on azwiki. But Google Translate of the azwiki discussion linked to paints a different picture than an admin cabal supporting each other. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 19:59, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, this editor appears to have continuously ignored advice regarding using old sources for names in article leads and received a one-month block in response. I don't see any indication of foul play, and I say that as the admin who blocked 2/4 of the az.wiki admins listed above from en.wiki. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 20:22, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

However, I do not understand why I cannot add the name of the Yenisei River in the Yenisei language in brackets, while the name of this river in other languages ​​is added at the beginning (Maybe then we should delete all the names and leave only the official one - Russian). Where should I add this name if not in this Wikipedia article? I consider it important for preserving history. After all, I did not come up with this name. But the administrator deleted it and blocked my account and my IP Sebirkhan (talk) 20:35, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

As the admin of AzViki, I can say that the user presents the situation differently. The user constantly adds words in the old Azerbaijani language or the old Turkish language to the beginning of the articles, changes the names of the articles. We have repeatedly warned him to use only modern Azerbaijani words, not archaic words. As a result, he was blocked at the very end. And now he allegedly says that he added the word in Yenisei language to the beginning of the article, while he added the version in ancient Turkic language, which is unrelated to the topic. However, the Yenisei language has nothing to do with the ancient Turkic language. And the user does such things many times. The user even once wrote that the word "shogun" is a Turkish word in the Shogun article on AzWiki. Cosmic Bard ^utora! 20:32, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

It is not true because, A regular azwiki user does not have the technical ability to change article titles. Also I do not use Turkish language in Azerbaijani section.

Everything you write is far-fetched, because I have never written in my life that shogun is a Turkish word or comes from a Turkish word. However, thanks to me, the administrators eventually changed the name of the page Syoqun to Şoqun (which is correct from the point of view of the Azerbaijani language and Japanese language, and also others) and this is a fact if you look at the history of the article. Sebirkhan (talk) 20:41, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

In the edit Cosmic Bard identifies, you added [[Qədim_türk_dili|Əski türkcə]]: 𐱁𐰭𐰆𐰣, /şöŋün/, which would indeed suggest that the origin of shogun is Old Turkic. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 20:52, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

You are right, however (even though this is a word written in dictionaries), I thereby pointed out the inconsistency of using the Russian form Syoqun in the Azerbaijani language, in the end we came to a compromise Şoqun. I was not banned for this reason. The azwiki administrator is simply trying to direct the conversation in a different direction. While not banned for this, specifically I received a message about blocking after changing the Yenisei page and the administrator canceled my edits. Sebirkhan (talk) 20:58, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

also it was in 2019 Sebirkhan (talk) 21:04, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

You are not blocked just because of the Yenisei River article. Everyone can do something wrong. A user cannot be blocked for one edit. You are blocked because you keep doing things like this. Before that, you wrote the Dnepr River as "Ozü River" in a article, and I warned you about this, that this river is not called Özü River in any source in the modern Azerbaijani language. I will not comment further on this issue here, because it is not EnViki's issue, but AzViki's issue. Cosmic Bard ^utora! 21:08, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Why do use word Dnepr while the official name of this river is Dnipro? Sebirkhan (talk) 21:11, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

I have no idea who is right or wrong in this case, but I think you have been badly advised above. There is indeed nothing that can be done at the English Wikipedia about the Azerbaijani. The place to go if you are dissatisfied with the response you get at the Azerbaijani Wikipedia is Meta: . Phil Bridger (talk) 20:45, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

References

How do you determine the "size" of a list (or merging / splitting purposes)?

Ok, this may be a silly and redundant question. So, WP:SIZERULE gives good guidelines for when articles should be trimmed or merged. However, WP:SIZE states that readable prose size only includes "the amount of viewable text in the main sections of the article, not including tables, lists, or footer sections." For the purpose of merging lists, and with the removal of the kb limits (which I had previously used to judge list size) on WP:SIZE how do you determine the size of a list (as related to existing guidelines stated on WP:SIZERULE) if you wish to merge or split a page? Historyday01 (talk) 13:17, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

The kb limits on WP:SIZE also applied only to readable prose, nothing has changed in that respect. List splits likely come down to editorial judgement, what best helps a reader. Some lists do still end up breaking other limits like WP:PEIS, but that's not common. CMD (talk) 01:25, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Hmm, ok. I suppose that somewhat answers my question. What about list mergers? That also comes down to editorial judgment as well? Historyday01 (talk) 12:35, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

It does, keeping in mind WP:NLIST. CMD (talk) 12:51, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. I'll definitely keep WP:NLIST in mind. I will say that I referred this discussion to another user on here as well in reference to a possible split of the List of black animated characters page. Historyday01 (talk) 15:16, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

We've talked a bit about this at List of common misconceptions, where I have proposed a split.

The Wikipedia:Prosesize gadget can't count words in bulleted lists, so I found that the most effective way to count the words was to copy/paste the contents to a tool (e.g., the word count tool in your favorite word processor). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:25, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

making plans to edit articles again

Hey, everyone...

so, uh, I've been making random edits here and there when I see something that bugs me, but haven't edited Wikipedia *in earnest*, regularly, since, ah, ... *checks* idk, it trails off gradually, but since early 2007 or so? and really my heyday was before that. my user page is old enough to drink now.

... Anyway, I find myself interested in coming back and doing some Editing — by this I mean specifically working to improve the intelligibility of the information that is already present in some articles. Are there any good Wikiprojects that I should be looking at which might be a good match for this goal?

— maddie (same old account, new display name) 17:29, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

• (better known as fennec) (one-time arbcom member, officially a missing wikipedian, hehe)

• You may find some good places to start in Wikipedia:Articles for improvement. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:03, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Hey, I remember you! Or at least I remember the user name. Welcome back! RoySmith (talk) 19:11, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I'd say look at Category:Active WikiProjects and find topics you care about and watch the relevant WP:AALERTS. For example, if you care about dance, look at WP:DANCE and watch WP:DANCE/AALERTS. You can check out Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-07-17/Tips and tricks for more information on Wikiproject-level tools.

I'll also take the opportunity to promote one of my scripts, WP:UPSD, which is very useful in finding shit sources in articles. Or warns you against using bad sources that you weren't aware of. You can check Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2023-08-01/Tips_and_tricks for more information on citation-related scripts. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:22, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

The guild of copy-editors or WP:WikiProject Wikify might both be of interest. Cremastra (talk) 19:20, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

@Fennec, do you have any favorite subject areas? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:13, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

OKA: paid editors and poor translations

So the Open Knowledge Association pays people to write on Wikipedia [3]. On their Meta wiki page they encourage/explain how their paid editors should translate articles: by using AI and letting unpaid volunteers clean up the rest of the work: [4].

I've seen OKA articles pass AfC with completely untranslated sentences, references that have been translated/untranslated causing them to be incorrect, non-English article titles, and non-English section titles.

Ultimately people are being paid to mass produce low quality translations and volunteers are being forced to clean up after it. Traumnovelle (talk) 21:36, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

There was just a big discussion about this, now archived at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 195#Unnecessary delay in publishing articles translated for $$ by an NGO. You even commented in it. What are you hoping to have happen by restarting it here? Anomie⚔ 22:22, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

To have something change this time. Traumnovelle (talk) 22:32, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

What change would you like to see? From what you wrote, one thing may be to have AFC reviewers do a better job to not approve submissions with untranslated sentences and such, but that might be better discussed at WT:AFC rather than here since the reviewers are more likely to be over there. Anomie⚔ 22:37, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't think making AfC reviewers spend more time reviewing an article than someone spent 'creating' an article is fair and would just create bigger issues with a backlog. The problem is how quickly one can create these translations versus how long it takes to review them. I had to rewrite an entire article translated by OKA due to issues and I would've just been better off creating a brand new article. Traumnovelle (talk) 22:42, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Our policy is quite conservative. "Unedited" WP:MACHINETRANSLATION is not acceptable, but there is no consensus on what it takes to be considered edited. If there are a lot of issues from a single editor this is more likely to result in action, but that won't change the general policy. You could argue WP:TNT for a new article at AfD, but I'm not sure how successful that is for prose issues. CMD (talk) 02:57, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Would that be a valid deletion rationale in an AfD? I could also report the editor in question but it isn't limited to just his work and I imagine plenty of other people would be willing to do the exact same thing. The problem is that people are financially incentivised to produce these quick translations and rarely stick around to fix it once it's passed AfC. Traumnovelle (talk) 03:01, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

It can be a valid rationale, but it's one of those rationales where you very much have to make the case and convince others. If they're not up to a standard you'd consider 'edited', that would likely help the argument. CMD (talk) 03:20, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately, there are plenty of unpaid editors who create poor articles and do not stick around to fix them. One might even say it is part of the culture. (Sigh!) Donald Albury 12:51, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Ngrams updated

FYI: Google has recently updated their ngrams to include data up to 2022 (previously 2019, before that 2012). This is great for determining the common names of more recent subjects, among other uses. InfiniteNexus (talk) 21:21, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Sign up for the language community meeting on August 30th, 15:00 UTC

Hi all,

The next language community meeting is scheduled in a few weeks—on August 30th at 15:00 UTC. If you're interested in joining, you can sign up on this wiki page.

This participant-driven meeting will focus on sharing language-specific updates related to various projects, discussing technical issues related to language wikis, and working together to find possible solutions. For example, in the last meeting, topics included the Language Converter, the state of language research, updates on the Incubator conversations, and technical challenges around external links not working with special characters on Bengali sites.

Do you have any ideas for topics to share technical updates or discuss challenges? Please add agenda items to the document here and reach out to ssethi(__AT__)wikimedia.org. We look forward to your participation!

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:19, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Notice: discussions on WMDE sub-reference project in progress at Meta

The WikiMedia sub-referencing project (parent project: Reusing references) is having multiple discussions about the development of a sub-referencing feature by WikiMedia Deutschland Engineering. Your feedback would be welcome at any of the discussons at m:Talk:WMDE Technical Wishes/Sub-referencing. Mathglot (talk) 21:07, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Just noticed that there is also a discussion about this at VPT: WP:VPT#Coming soon: A new sub-referencing feature – try it!. Mathglot (talk) 21:37, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

There is another at Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates#Sub-referencing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:38, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Phobias navbox

I wanted to make a navbox for the different articles about phobias (such as fear of bees). Normally I'd just make it, but Template:Phobias was deleted at Templates for Discussion in 2007 and 2009. I can't imagine it will be an issue to create it since it would be the same as any other navbox, but for the sake of procedure I'm asking the community first, especially since I'd be adding it to roughly 100 articles. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:21, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Why do you want to do this?

Are you trying to make a navbox with "things called -phobia", in which case Photophobia (which is not a specific phobia) would be included but Fear of needles (which was officially recognized in the DSM as a specific phobia 30 years ago) would be excluded? Or are you trying to make a List of specific phobias in navbox form? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:43, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

The arguments from the AfDs are still good. PamD 04:36, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

RFC: Which cover for the infobox of And Then There Were None ?

More opinions would be helpful to settle this long-standing issue. Which book cover should be displayed in the infobox of And Then There Were None: the 1939 cover with the original UK title that includes a racial slur, or the 1940 US cover with the current title And Then There Were None? Please help by giving your view at Talk:And_Then_There_Were_None#RFC Deciding which cover should be displayed in the infobox. MichaelMaggs (talk) 08:12, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Candidate for the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation – Maciej Nadzikiewicz / User:Nadzik

Hello everyone! I am coming here to get feedback from you and ask for your support.

I am a candidate in the upcoming elections for the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees (a volunteer body that oversees the Wikimedia Foundation) and I want to make sure that I represent the voices of as many contributors as possible on the Board.

My candidate video

I am an active Wikimedia contributor (140,000+ edits on 462 projects & 3,000+ administrator actions) with advanced global permissions. I have experience as a Board Member of Wikimedia Europe, representing 29 Wikimedia affiliates from Europe. I have presented the Wikimedia movement values multiple times as an expert in the Polish Parliament. I was one of the organizers of Wikimania 2024. I generally understand the challenges the editors face, but I want to learn about particular issues that are relevant to your wiki that you’d want to bring to the attention of the Wikimedia Foundation.

I am willing to address any questions you may have. Please contact me here: (wiki-mail, meta-talkpage). See my candidate video; I prepared captions in 12 languages, including English.

I decided to answer ALL of the questions asked by the community members this year. My Candidate Statement is available in 19 languages

I hope for your support in the election, which starts on September 3. The time to change things is now! Nadzik (talk) 11:59, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees Election - Introduction

Farah Jack Mustaklem - Board of Trustees candidates lightning talk at Wikimania 2024

Dear colleagues,

In a week's time, polls open for the community to vote on the selection of four trustees to the Wikimedia Foundation Board. More information about the process and timeline is outlined here.

I am one of twelve candidates running to fill these seats, and ask for your support in this process.

My name is Farah Jack Mustaklem (Fjmustak), and I am a long-time Wikimedian with extensive on- and off-wiki experience. I seek to bring about change and reinforcement to the Board in the following areas:

1. Bring more diversity into the Board
2. Build a Charter
3. Combat misinformation/disinformation
4. Focus on human rights

For more about my candidacy, I invite you to visit my user page (including my answers to the community questions) as well as my candidate page. The short video to the right is a brief summary of my Board candidacy.

If you feel passionately about any of the issues outlined above, I urge you to consider voting for me and to spread the word. Please feel free to reach out to learn more or share your concerns.

--Fjmustak (talk) 10:44, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Suggested edits tool - Dysfunctional

I decided to use the edit suggestion tool and focus on adding missing references on women's biographies, but the edit suggestion tool presents me with pages that have nothing to do with the topic even tho I only ticked "Biography (women)" and "Find references (sources for existing articles)"

The tool suggests biographies of men. Example : Jeff Schweitzer

The tool suggests topics related to women, but not biographies. Example : A caress of twilight / 2011 Malaysian open

And these erroneous suggestions are not rare; I see one every 2-3-4 suggestions.

I wasn't sure where to post it, sorry if it's the wrong place. ProudWatermelon (talk) 22:57, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm able to replicate. I'm not sure if suggestions such as 1999 Toray Pan Pacific Open – Singles and 2015 ITF Women's Circuit (January–March) are genuinely false positives or just a matter of the articletopic display name needing some modification, but Francis Erdmann, Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg, Palakuan, and Visual Focus Depth Art certainly seem erroneous.

The LiftWing model probably needs some parameters tweaked. Anyone up for creating a phab task with Machine-Learning-Team tagged? Folly Mox (talk) 00:07, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Pinging @Trizek (WMF) WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:40, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

After a brief sleep, I realised anyone can see this behaviour without going through the full Suggested Edits endpoint with a simple articletopic:women search like this one. Folly Mox (talk) 10:41, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Have you observed similar issues with other topics? Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 14:28, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I edited David A. Louton yesterday, and it's no longer appearing in articletopic:women search results. I suspect that in some cases, especially when the page is short, the software makes the wrong guess about the subject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:46, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Template:Permanent dead link

{{Permanent dead link}}, currently a redirect to {{Dead link}}, needs to be modified so that it transcludes {{Dead link}} with the |fix-attempted=yes template parameter already specified. Because then it would be a convenient shortcut to transcluding that template with that parameter, as right now it's a deceptive and rather useless redirect which doesn't do that. How can this be accomplished?

P.s. I took a look at an existing template that does a similar thing, {{Edit semi-protected}}, but it uses code that invokes a module in the Module: namespace, which this 'Dead link' template doesn't have. — AP 499D25 (talk) 11:58, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

While I was writing this, I just thought of block notice templates like {{Uw-blocknotalk}}. However, I don't have a strong knowledge of template code, and so I don't know what a "safesubst:" is. I'm not sure if the includeonly and safesubst bits would be necessary in this 'Permanent dead link' template conversion, especially since it isn't going to be substituted when being used.

Update: using the code from the blocking templates as said above, I wrote Special:PermaLink/1242911547 in Template:X1 sandbox, and tested out transcluding it in another sandbox, comparing it to a plain old transclusion of 'Dead link' with the parameter manually specified. All looks identical and normal to me. So can someone confirm with me that the code is all valid? — AP 499D25 (talk) 12:06, 29 August 2024 (UTC) updated 12:27, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

You might want to ask on WP:VPT, the editors watching that page will be better able to help you. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:17, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

AP 499D25, looks good to me. The safesubst: is necessary for allowing it to be both transcluded and subst:ed. |bot= is probably unnecessary, because bots should be using the normal template directly. — Qwerfjkltalk 09:21, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Alright thanks! I'll be going ahead with publishing the redirect to template conversion now, and per your suggestion I'll take out the 'bot' parameter bit. — AP 499D25 (talk) 11:15, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

?` for each symbol of string ` template ?

does such a template exist and/or is there some other way to achieve the effect of calling a template with the every symbol of a given string as the argument
also i apologize if this is the incorrect place to ask- if so please point me to the correct one so that i can ask any further questions about templates there
thanks in advance ​akizet talk 20:41, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

WP:VPT is probably the correct place to ask. I don't understand your question though. An example might help. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:27, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

not moving the discussion as it would result in the same question beïng in two places which seems undesirable
what i meant was a {{for loop}}-like template such that e.g {{template name|key press|abc}} results in ` abc `

howëver i have since reälized i might not need it for what i'm doïng after all · still would be helpful though

​akizet talk 08:37, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Announcing the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee

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Hello all,

The scrutineers have finished reviewing the vote and the Elections Committee have certified the results for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) special election.

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On behalf of the U4C and the Elections Committee,

RamzyM (WMF) 14:05, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

The dubious template

What should be done to overhaul the {{dubious}} template? Literally every time I've seen it on an article, there is zero discussion on the talk page about what may be dubious in the article. I discussed this on the talk page a while back, but the discussion just went around in circles and fizzled out. Should a drive be done to remove drive-by instances of this tag where no discernible discussion exists? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 19:40, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

I see that you have asked this exact same question at three different locations (here, and at the WP:V and WP:RS talk pages). That is not helpful, as the discussions may end up working at cross purposes. Please choose one location for us to discuss this, and close the other threads. Thanks. Blueboar (talk) 20:34, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

I think of the "– discuss" as an invitation, rather than a requirement. Start a discussion if you want one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:03, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

The position taken by Jason Quinn (pinging) in the discussion you linked, especially So rather than a red link for "discuss" appearing if the parameter is not used, the "discuss" link should only appear if it is used and emphasis on the tag as a marker of dubious content seems rather reasonable. Ifly6 (talk) 16:33, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Nothing, users should at least fill out the reason =, and if that's not sufficiently obvious, start a discussion on talk like one would for any other tag. If not, some enterprising soul will likely revert the tag.Selfstudier (talk) 16:52, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

I think sometimes the |reason= is obvious enough that it doesn't need to be explained, too. I think that sometimes {{dubious}} gets used when the material really ought to have been removed instead, but the editor doesn't feel like it's okay to do that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:09, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

I thought after reading your first sentence, "if it's that obvious then surely the dubious claim should be removed", but then I read and agreed with your second sentence. Too many people are too diffident about removing things. I must say that I think I have used this template a few times, but, as far as I can remember, I have always started a discussion. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:57, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Agree with this too. Re Should a drive be done to remove drive-by instances of this tag where no discernible discussion exists? – I don't think there's much of a need to remove dubious without parameters. There are a lot of cases where editors are fearful of stepping on others' toes by just removing it. Ifly6 (talk) 22:14, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

The {{POV}} templates generally require an active discussion. It's one of our defenses against using then as a badge of shame, since we've had problems with people adding that template as a sort of public protest for not getting their way. I've occasionally cleaned out some old undiscussed ones, but even in an anti-tag-bombing mood, there have been a few never-discussed tags that I thought were very obviously deserved. I expect that some of the {{dubious}} tags are the same: there's no discussion, but you don't need an explanation to know why that's doubted.

There are only ~7K articles with this tag. There are 1200 biographies, 1600 STEM articles (including 12 medicine/health articles), 1200 about Asia, 1300 about Europe, etc. We can get search results for any subject named here, if you happen to have an interest area or favorite WikiProject in mind. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:32, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: what do you suggest then? Seems every time I bring this up, it just turns into an endless cycle of "We should do something." "Should we do something?" "We should do something." "Should we do something?" and nothing ever gets done. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 16:22, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

If you see such tag, it's not obvious why it's there and there is no talk page discussion, just remove it. Also can remove it if it's dated. Selfstudier (talk) 16:44, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

TPH, I don't think we should particularly worry about this. It's being used in about 0.1% of articles, which isn't much. The problem is sometimes obvious, so no discussion or reason needs to be given. In other cases, a discussion or reason has been given.

I think it should be treated like a {{citation needed}} template: Please be responsible about cleaning it up, but don't treat it like it's an emergency. I think that anything in Category:All unreferenced BLPs or Category:Wikipedia suspected hoax articles would be more urgent than this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:44, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

But just as we have a {{citation needed span}} template, we can and should have span templates for all inline content tagging. Imo this should be the default expected usage.

(Imo we also should have the inline citations themselves be placed in spans (which may help slow content drift) -- I drafted a template for this, but it's more of a VP proposal I think). SamuelRiv (talk) 23:15, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Hard agree on the span question. It's sometimes insufficiently clear what the tag is tagging; moreover, the span is very useful for readers to be signalled as to why some matter might be insufficiently sourced or (here) dubious. Ifly6 (talk) 23:54, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that either of those would be a good idea until phab:T52355 happens, and that might not happen during the present decade. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:45, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Seems a silly reason to delay if tl:c-n-span works acceptably enough. If the core issue is functionality with nesting, there are plenty of workarounds and alternative solutions, since the entire point of the "span" template is just so that editors see what is marked; it's not even necessary that the html span be explicitly encoded (any nested tl:fix-span template markup can just be converted to comments, for example). SamuelRiv (talk) 02:02, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

@SamuelRiv, I see that you haven't ever tried to remove {{citation needed span}} in the visual editor, without losing the spanned text. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:47, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't regularly use VE, but testing, I don't see a problem editing a cns in a single layer as a template. To delete a template in VE, it seems one has to manually copy contents one wants to keep to a clipboard. The phabricator requests seems to also be about adding a citation to the enclosed text. In any case, there would be alternative solutions. One is that the VE can just keep the enclosed text and change the surrounding template to a custom maintenance template (to be cleaned up by AWB automatically), and the new citation is appended.

The impetus to implement workarounds like this comes if there's an ecosystem of span templates already. The VE has never been perfect; its improvements are incremental, and meanwhile all VE users have to dip into wikisource from time to time.

Another quick solution of course is to, instead of using text-enclosure templates, use html span tag substitution templates (one template to open, one to close, with the benefit that the closure template includes the maintenance tag, so it's more likely the editor leaves a dangling closure than opener). tldr: I still see no fundamental technical reason for not making every citation flag spannable, today. SamuelRiv (talk) 05:50, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

It's not about fundamental technical reasons. It's about user experience. We ought to make adding citations as easy as possible, especially for newbies, so they learn to add citations from their very first edits. The fact that I know some workarounds doesn't mean that it's a good idea. Not only do I have more experience than 99.995% of editors, I also wrote a good deal of the help pages for the visual editor. The visual editor should be designed to work for people on their first edits, not on their hundred thousandth edits. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:02, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Have your say: Vote for the 2024 Board of Trustees!

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Presenting information

I'm thinking how to illustrate some different definitions in Pandemic. These can be hypothetical; the point is just to communicate that different definitions sometimes have different answers to the question of "Is this a pandemic?"

I've been thinking about a table that says something like this:

Fact	Required for definition #1	Required for definition #2
More than 1% of people infected	Y Yes	N No
Schools closed	N No	Y Yes
Limited population immunity	Y Yes	N No
Hospitals overwhelmed	N No	Y Yes
Affecting more than two countries	N No	Y Yes
Affecting more than 10% of world population	Y Yes	Y Yes
Rate of infection higher than normal	Y Yes	Y Yes

but then finds a way to present a couple of situations, and says "For story A, it's a pandemic according to definition #1 but not #2; for story B, it's a pandemic according to both definitions; for story C, it's not a pandemic according to definition #1 but it is according to definition #2". I'm not sure how to present this in a way that could be clear at a glance. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:39, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I'd do it with bullets rather than a table. (At first glance, "X No" might suggest to the reader that meeting this criterion positively disqualifies from meeting the definition.) Like this:

Both definitions require

• [criteria]

Definition A also requires

• [criteria]

while definition B instead requires

• [criteria]

—Tamfang (talk) 18:01, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Issue I have with a draft list article I am currently working on

I am stuck as to what to do regarding a draft I am working on (Draft:List of Buddha statues).

While I was working on the article I went on the article, Hōgyū Jizō expecting to add it to the list but the thing is that Hōgyū Jizō is a group of Buddha statues but like lots of Buddha statues (107 in total) so I don’t know if I should add all off them to the list, add them all collectively as a group to the list and add a note saying how it is a group of Buddha statues and not a singular statue or to just not add anything about it all together. Outlined Sandbox (talk) 18:27, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

What is your current criteria for inclusion on the list? CMD (talk) 19:11, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

My criteria for notability in the list is if the Buddha statue has a reference, its own article or section within an article.

The thing is that the statues as a group have their own article so as a group I would consider them notable but separately they are not notable so I don’t know whether to just not have anything about it in the draft or just to add it as a group collectively with a note about how it is a group. Outlined Sandbox (talk) 20:14, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Lists that are mostly about single examples of a topic often include links to articles about a group. See, for examples, List of islands of Florida, in which several items are about groups of islands. Lists should be about helping readers find articles about a particular type of thing. Donald Albury 22:00, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for telling me this. I will now add it as a group. Outlined Sandbox (talk) 14:44, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

This right here is my 3,000,000th Wikimedia-wide edit^*

I'm just saying. Cheers! BD2412 T 02:18, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Congratulations and thanks for all your contributions! Here's to 3 million more! Legoktm (talk) 03:10, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

3 million more is not outside the bounds of possibility. I'm not aiming for it, though. BD2412 T 03:26, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Jeepers. I'll be lucky to make a tenth as many. —Tamfang (talk) 01:12, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

^* As reported by the Global account information tool.

Does anyone know if there's a style guide about having subjects in images ideally facing the reader or into the article instead of out of it?

Per title Darkwarriorblake (talk) 14:47, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

MOS:IM. You might also be interested in the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#"Looking_towards_the_text". Schazjmd (talk) 14:52, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks so much! Darkwarriorblake (talk) 14:53, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

"In the news" section on the homepage?

Seems to be a primary spot for the site, but not updated very much. Is someone overseeing this section or is there some reason it doesn't get refreshed regularly? 2600:6C4A:4E7F:8D9D:6519:3F9A:34BF:6983 (talk) 11:32, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

There's a reasonably sized subcommunity who decide which news stories are linked at "In the news". The conversations are held at WP:ITN/C. You should be able to participate without an account, assuming some knowledge of Wikipedia policy. Folly Mox (talk) 11:53, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

In my experience, knowledge of policy is not a prerequisite and in fact conflicts with common practice. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:21, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

I think you have a common misunderstanding of what this section actually is. It is not meant to be a continuously updated news ticker, it is a way of showcasing articles that have been updated to reflect recent events. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 12:42, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Your thoughts are appreciated. If the main page had 138 million page views in the last 30 days, maybe the space could be used for something more intriguing or something that changes every day like the other sections on the main page? 2600:6C4A:4E7F:8D9D:F09D:D640:9B79:6F77 (talk) 18:14, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

We don't updated ITN particularly quickly compared to a normal news website. I think the normal cadence is a new news item in the ITN box every few days. And there's only around 4 bullets so not that many total news items either. I'm not sure the reasoning for this... maybe limited space, and the editor time it would take to do more voluminous or more frequent updates? –Novem Linguae (talk) 14:15, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

• No, ITN does not have a formal overseer, unlike other mainpage sections which are either driven by a single key volunteer or elected coordinator. But it has plenty of editors who hang around and vote on nominations. Very little gets through this gauntlet and so the section often gets stale, as you have noticed. Most recently, ITN ran the same picture of a cyclist for ten straight days. There were plenty of other pictures that might have been run but no-one was accountable or responsible for making this happen.

The good news is that this doesn't much matter because our readers just go straight to topics which are in the news. For example, the top read article on Wikipedia yesterday was WWE Bash in Berlin. But you'd never see that at ITN because, for some reason, such combat sports get no love at ITN – InedibleHulk can perhaps explain why that is.

If you want to browse what's happening in the world, then the best place to look is Portal:Current_events, which seems to work much better because there's a crew of editors more focussed on posting items than arguing about them. For example, today it reports that "NASA announces discovery of Earth's subtle electric field, which contributes to the polar wind phenomenon." Such interesting science gets little love at ITN too.

Andrew🐉(talk) 19:23, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

It all began on a night of indeterminate day and month in 1872, at the Zirkus Salamonsky in Berlin. Carl Kempf and Adolf Grün may or may not have "torn the house down". After that, it gets a bit fuzzy (though some online databases still never forget the man behind the curtain). InedibleHulk (talk) 22:59, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

I would say that if you want to browse “what is currently happening in the world”, the best place is a dedicated news outlet… not an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia is better for history than current events. Blueboar (talk) 22:21, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

And Wikipedia does, after all, generally by "lag" when it comes to information, by necessity since we focus on citing what others have already said. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 23:43, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

"In truth, whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well; and nothing can be done well without attention"

— Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, Letters to his Son (1746)

Andrew🐉(talk) 08:40, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. What if that section rotated with fresh links like the other sections on the main page? Are there any current event links on the page? Or how about positive news items to balance the negative trends of the for profit media? If this is an encyclopedia, maybe in the news section might be better as something else? Just wondering. I have no agenda. Seems a waste of potential to me. 2600:6C4A:4E7F:8D9D:F09D:D640:9B79:6F77 (talk) 18:20, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Or hmmm, maybe a most popular article of the day, or the week, or month, or year, that rotates? Or what was the popular articles on this day last year? 2600:6C4A:4E7F:8D9D:F09D:D640:9B79:6F77 (talk) 18:25, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

These are all good points. The first link above was to discuss ITN candidate articles, but you might also try Wikipedia talk:In the news, which is where to "discuss improvements to the In the news process", and where you'd get responses from the people who would actually make such reforms.

For my part, I'd note that it's not the popularity of the article (or event) that determines if it gets on the main page, but the article's quality (despite the fact that ITN and WP:DYK are made for new-and-improved articles). This could be expressed more clearly about ITN on the main page, but typically a major news story will attract a lot of old and new editors, and consequent quality control, regardless of its appearance on the main page or linking elsewhere. That said, I agree that the section could be more dynamic day by day (while still even restricting it to 4 or so quality items), just by rethinking that instead of being so exclusive about what is added, we be exclusive about what is kept on for more than a single day or two (regardless of whether a news event is considered ongoing). Rotation is a fine idea for a possible implementation. SamuelRiv (talk) 19:10, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I see it as "In the news AND likely Wikipedia-notable". I don't say that's any kind of policy, because I don't know. I think Wikipedia should avoid making that section more like a normal news website, because that would force Wikipedia to hire full-time staff to keep it up to date; or if it continued to be done by volunteers, it would be "just like [news site] except incomplete and out of date". Nobody needs or wants a bad copy of what other sites do, to be put here.

"In the News" can certainly be improved, but IMO it needs to stay a Wikipedia thing that's done in a Wikipedia way. TooManyFingers (talk) 16:14, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Less images being uploaded

Why are less images being uploaded today? It wasn't like that from 2006 to 2009, many images were uploaded at that time period. Is there a reason why the image uploads declined after that period of time? MJGTMKME123 (talk) 21:49, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Possibly because images to suit many purposes have already been uploaded, making new ones unnecessary? AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:53, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Okay but, why can't we upload new images that replace the old ones? MJGTMKME123 (talk) 21:54, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

There is nothing preventing appropriate and policy-compliant images from being uploaded. As to when it is appropriate to replace an existing image with a new one, that will depend on the specifics: newer isn't necessarily better. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:57, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

What is the criteria that determines if an existing image should be replaced with a newer and less outdated version? MJGTMKME123 (talk) 22:00, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

If someone finds it worth uploading in each particular instance? I have very little clue what sort of general rule you'd expect there to be. Remsense ‥ 论 22:03, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the response. But how can contributors decide if a new image is worth uploading for a specific article? MJGTMKME123 (talk) 22:13, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

There is no general answer to this line of questioning. Improved media are uploaded if editors discover or create them; what constitutes an improvement depends entirely on the media in question. Remsense ‥ 论 22:18, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Do you have an image that you think would illustrate an article better than whatever is already there? Then upload it and add it to the article, replacing the old one. Then, when someone reverts, explain on the Talk page why yours is better. —Tamfang (talk) 17:56, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

@MJGTMKME123, what do you mean by "less images being uploaded today"?

Do you mean specifically what's being uploaded today, as in Sunday, the 25th of August? (If so, please go to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) and sound the alarm, because a sudden downturn is probably technical in nature.) Or do you mean "in recent years"?

How much less? Is this like a long-term leveling off? Are you talking about uploads directly to the English Wikipedia, or at Commons? How are you counting the number of uploads? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:20, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

I meant "in recent years". MJGTMKME123 (talk) 22:21, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

We have made efforts to direct uploaders Wikimedia Commons whenever appropriate, so having less uploads here could be a good thing. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:32, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm talking about image uploads on Wikimedia Commons. MJGTMKME123 (talk) 22:36, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Are you thinking about any images in particular? Again, we can't really answer your question because it's way too broad. Remsense ‥ 论 22:38, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm just asking about the trend of fewer image uploads in the recent years, but I understand if it's too broad. I was wondering if there are any topics where image uploads have noticeably declined. MJGTMKME123 (talk) 22:43, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

How do you know that there are fewer uploads? What page or tool are you using to determine the number of uploads? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:56, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

I didn't actually use a tool. I just noticed that most images were made around that time period by just analyzing the date of random images. MJGTMKME123 (talk) 22:59, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

@MJGTMKME123, I suggest looking at c:Commons:Statistics of uploads vs deletions, which gives the number of annual uploads from 2003 through 2022, and which does not support your hypothesis that there has been a multi-year decline in uploads.

If you know anything about SQL, you can run queries like this and get whatever numbers you want. I use the "check 10 pages in Special:Random" method a lot, but you've got to remember that it's really quite a crude estimate, and if your random images weren't actually random (e.g., they were images used in Wikipedia articles), then you'd be looking at a crude estimate of a biased sample, which is basically worthless. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:07, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Okay thanks, I just realized that there are actually more uploads on the recent years then I expected. MJGTMKME123 (talk) 23:11, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

That's way more useful data than what I found just below. So uploads to Commons have risen steadily if non-monotonically, and there is no year for which the number of files uploaded was less than any all of the three previous years. Folly Mox (talk) 23:19, 25 August 2024 (UTC) edited 10:16, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

This wouldn't account for which images are actually being used in articles (plenty of Commons images aren't), but I'd be very surprised if those are mostly pre-2009. ― novov (t c) 10:10, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

I think most of them are pre-2009, I'm not entirely sure though. MJGTMKME123 (talk) 11:04, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

What do you base that on? The number of articles in the English Wikipedia has more than doubled since 2009 (3,144,000 on 1 Jan 2010, 6,764,355 on 1 Jan 2024), and images in older articles are often replaced, so I suspect a large majority of images in articles have been added since 2009. For your claim to be valid, editors would have had to be preferencially using images uploaded before 2009 to add to articles. However, an analysis of the upload dates of a large enough sample of images currently in use in articles would be needed to support your claim. Frankly, I don't think that is worth pursuing, as I don't see its relevance to building a quality encyclopedia. Donald Albury 13:49, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

@Donald Albury Thank you for pointing that out. I guess I was mistaken about the upload dates of the images. MJGTMKME123 (talk) 14:06, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

As one potentially interesting pair of datapoints, I see that c:Commons:Database reports/Page count by namespace (current as of June 2014, almost exactly a decade ago) shows 22,097,492 pages in the File: namespace, of which fewer than 2% were redirects. Executing the Magic word {{NUMBEROFFILES}} on Commons today returns 107,994,945. So there have been some uploads. Folly Mox (talk) 22:59, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

@Folly Mox Thanks for sharing that data, that means I might have underestimated the number of uploads. MJGTMKME123 (talk) 23:04, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

On a related point, please consider looking through the popular articles for a favorite subject area – most WikiProjects have a page like Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Popular pages – and seeing what new images could/should be added. Not having an adequate number of images in each article is a constant complaint from readers, and it even has benefits beyond the obvious value of the image itself (e.g., helping people with dyslexia keep their eyes on the right part of the article). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:08, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Another source for images (which I suspect has been under utilized) are family photos. For example, over his lifetime my Dad took approximately 4,000 photos which are in slide format. While some will be of little interest to Wikimedia in general -- I doubt anyone is eager to see photos of llywrch's first birthday -- there are a number of images that I know will be of interest, such as photos of his business trips to Sudan & Nigeria, photos Oregon from as far back as 1960, & so forth. (I have some of a railway train that ran between Banks & Vernonia back in the 1960s that no longer exists. The trackway has since then been converted to the Banks–Vernonia State Trail. I've already uploaded a few of these to Commons. I'd be far more along with sharing these on Commons except that for many I'm missing information. For example, he visited an agricultural station in a town in Western Sudan -- for which I'd be surprised if we had any photos -- however I don't remember/know the name of that town.

I expect there are countless Wikipedians with older family members who were hobbyist photographers, so this is a resource begging to be exploited. (PS, I had discussed doing this with my father before he passed, so I definitely have permission to do this.) -- llywrch (talk) 22:43, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Probs because we mostly already got what we need in terms of pictures. Jasonbunny1 (talk) 22:07, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Geoffrey Duchet

Hi everybody. I was searching about a person named Geoffrey Duchet, but he doesn't have any biography in wikipedia. He was british explorer and he visited persepolis in 1569 AD. My source about him was a persian translated of 1 of books of Alfons Gabriel means Geographical research about Iran (unfortunately all of his books is in german language, and i don't know do any of you can read german books or not). Can somebody build Geoffrey Duchet's biography's page on english wikipedia? Hulu2024 (talk) 13:19, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

And i shall add that i don't have any access on printed books on Geoffrey Duchet's biography to build his page, on myself. please if someone have access to english books on 16 th century, please write his biography. i needed it strongly. Hulu2024 (talk) 13:23, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Hulu2024, if you're not willing to do it, it's unlikely anyone else will be - WP:VOLUNTEER. — Qwerfjkltalk 13:33, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

I eager but i don't have access to academic and primary sources. It's odd that USA and UK have best universities with best storage of book (with monetary online access for western countries) and english wikipedia does the most editors in all languages, but nobody made this historical person's biography. Hulu2024 (talk) 13:43, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

@Hulu2024: Geoffrey Duchet may not have been notable in his day, hence the lack of coverage. I pretty much could only find modern day people by that name with a Google search.

The only mention that I found of his name in a Wikimedia article space was in Farsi, fa:ایران‌شناسی (English version of the article is Iranian studies). At the end of the sentence mentioning him as جفری داکت, there is a footnote that points to a shortened footnote, موسوی، تخت جمشید، ۱۴. [Mousavi, Persepolis, 14], which then appears to point to a full citation of an encyclopedic text,موسوی، علی (۱۳۸۵). «تخت جمشید». دائرةالمعارف بزرگ اسلامی. ج. ۱۴. تهران: مرکز دائرةالمعارف بزرگ اسلامی. شابک ۹۶۴-۷۰۲۵-۵۴-۸. بایگانی‌شده از اصلی در ۷ اوت ۲۰۲۴. دریافت‌شده در ۷ اوت ۲۰۲۴. [Mousavi, Ali (1385). "Persepolis". The great Islamic encyclopedia. c. 14. Tehran: Center for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia. Shabak 964-7025-54-8. Archived from the original on August 7, 2024. Retrieved on August 7, 2024.]

I have been unable to find anything about about The great Islamic encyclopedia at WorldCat.org, presumably because of my total incompetence in Farsi. You may do better if you understand that language. Also you might find help at the website for the Center for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia, www.cgie.org.ir/en. Peaceray (talk) 17:06, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

thank you. Hulu2024 (talk) 17:08, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

It's quite odd that anyone could "strongly need" information about a 16th-century person who isn't very well known. Why do you need it? TooManyFingers (talk) 19:38, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

@TooManyFingers Because he was traveler and he travels to persepolis in 1569 and his wrote about that at his memorial, i want to improve my article in persian wikipedia (iraian studies) to be choose as Featured articles, so i need enough information about him. Persepolis is one of iranian's historical monument, which european travelers had seen, and that was the motivation to start about iranology. Hulu2024 (talk) 21:11, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

This is great, I hope you can find good information. I'm sorry I don't know. TooManyFingers (talk) 21:44, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

I have at the moment no opinion about notability, but just say that sources in German or Persian are just as valid as sources in English. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:53, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Proper noun

Should the word "army" be capitalized when used to mention a specific army, such as the "French army"? M.Bitton (talk) 15:56, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

That does seem to be the general practice in WP articles. Donald Albury 16:31, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. M.Bitton (talk) 19:08, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Per French Army, yes. Article titles are a good (but not golden) source of this type of style issue. WT:MoS is also a good place to ask. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 18:37, 9 September 2024 (UTC).

Peter_A._Hall

Seems to be a pretty notable person. We had an article by a user who has left, which was nominated for speedy by a user who has since been banned for socking, after a discussion, started unironically by another user who has since been banned for socking.

Can someone restore this, and other history of the page. Looking at the incoming links GNG should be easily achievable.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough 18:33, 9 September 2024 (UTC).

This got turned into a dab page. I've put it in User:Rich Farmbrough/Peter A. Hall where you can sort things out. RoySmith (talk) 21:51, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 00:01, 10 September 2024 (UTC).

Community Wishlist: Let’s discuss how to improve template discovery and reuse

Hello everyone,

The new Community Wishlist now has a focus area named Template recall and discovery. This focus area contains popular wishes gathered from previous Wishlist editions:

• Wish #1: Quickly add infobox – an easier way for newer editors to find and insert common templates such as infoboxes.
• Wish #2: Quickly add favorite and related templates – a way to show recently used templates and favorited templates for frequent template use.
• Wish #3: Select templates by categories – a way to find templates by "type".
• Wish #4: Easy access templates – help users configure the Template dialog to show common and favorite templates.

We have shared on the focus area page how are seeing this problem, and approaching it. We also have some design mockups to show you.

We are inviting you all to discuss, hopefully support (or let us know what to improve) about the focus area. You can leave your feedback on the talkpage of the focus area.

On behalf of Community Tech, –– STei (WMF) (talk) 15:48, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Is there an automated tool that can scan an article's links and mark those necessary as dead?

Per title, thank you Darkwarriorblake (talk) 17:33, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I think you're looking for https://iabot.wmcloud.org/index.php?page=runbotsingle RoySmith (talk) 17:38, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

That's it, thank you Darkwarriorblake (talk) 17:44, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Presentation of the results of the 2nd phase of the ‘Hub Discovery’ research

We would like to invite you to the presentation meeting of the results of the Hub Discovery research, corresponding to phase 2 (survey to community members), on September 20th at 6 PM UTC (find here the time zone corresponding to your country). To participate, you need to register at the following Zoom link.

The presentation will be given by Guido Gamba, external consultant hired by Wikimedistas de Uruguay, and will be simultaneously interpreted into Spanish, English and Portuguese. The presentation will be recorded and later uploaded to the Meta page where we have documented all the aspects related to the research.

Please feel free to forward this invitation to anyone you feel would like to join in the conversation.

Best regards, Paula (WDU) (talk) 20:34, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

@Paula (WDU), do you have a link to a Meta page with more information? There is no Zoom link in this message. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:30, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Greetings, @WhatamIdoing. Thank you for this message. I didn't realise the links were missing when I posted my message. Regards, --Paula (WDU) (talk) 14:09, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for adding the links! WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:20, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

RfC on listing Bypass Paywalls Clean in Wikipedia:Find your source

There is a request for comment on listing Bypass Paywalls Clean (a browser extension that circumvents paywalls on news websites) in Wikipedia:Find your source § Newspaper articles. If you are interested, please participate at Wikipedia talk:Find your source § RfC: Bypass Paywalls Clean. — Newslinger talk 06:09, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Discussion about appropriateness of running a CentralNotice banner for Wiki Loves Onam

 You are invited to join the discussion at meta:CentralNotice/Request/Wiki Loves Onam 2024. Sdkb ^talk 18:55, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

2 000 000

The Russian Wikipedia now has 2,000,000 articles. Congratulate us) n:ru:Русская Википедия: теперь 2 000 000 статей, w:ru:Википедия:Форум/Новости#Есть_2_миллиона!, w:ru:Участник:Lesless/Пресс-релиз 2 000 000. Lesless (talk) 08:56, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

🎉 Remsense ‥ 论 09:09, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Great! Cremastra (talk) 22:57, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

That's very naive to think that many would congratulate us

~Fleur~ 14:46, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Congrats! _WADroughtOfVowels^P 17:57, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Removal of user draft tag

The other day, I tagged a user's userspace draft using {{user draft}}. This was undone. Does anybody know if there is any policy or guideline on that? Not looking to start a thing, but since tagging puts drafts into maintenance-relevant categories, I thought I'd ask. Paradoctor (talk) 23:04, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't have an answer to the question posed, but I'd probably remove that template from a draft I was working on in my userspace if someone else had placed it there. It takes up two thirds of the screen on mobile and would be a pain to scroll past every time I wanted to preview. Folly Mox (talk) 23:37, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Suggest you contact the user in question and simply ASK why the tag was removed. Don’t be accusatory about it… just state that you were trying to be helpful when you added the tag, and that you are curious as to why they felt it wasn’t helpful. Blueboar (talk) 23:52, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

You're the one being accusatory here. All I did was to ask if there is relevant policy. I neither expressed nor implied a judgment about the user's action.

And thank you for Wikipediansplaining talk pages to me. Noobs like me really need that. Paradoctor (talk) 08:58, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

It was a suggestion with advice, not intended to be accusatory. My apologies if that wasn’t clear. Blueboar (talk) 12:43, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

It's a quick edit to the template for a parameter to compactify, preserving the main important feature which is categorization and tagging (as well as to alert wayward readers). I agree that the tool list is a bit much to have on userspace. [Edit: it's already coded, but very confusingly and undocumented: you have to set |help=no to remove the cruft. Oddly, if you set |newuser= or |help= to any flag, you remove the first instruction but not the second. Should run AWB to deprecate the newuser and noob parameters, and then document help.] SamuelRiv (talk) 08:30, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

undocumented Actually... template:user draft § Minimalist output ;) Paradoctor (talk) 09:22, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:User pages#Removal of comments, notices, and warnings which says it is OK to remove. The next section also states: "one should avoid substantially editing another's user and user talk pages". So best not to unexpectedly edit other people's sandboxes. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:39, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

"Removal of comments, notices, and warnings" is talking about talk pages, not userspace drafts. And a tag is not a substantial edit. 🤷 Paradoctor (talk) 13:36, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

I think the guidance quoted can be equally applied to all subpages in userspace, not just usertalk pages. I also question the value of adding userspace drafts to :Category:Userspace drafts frommonth year (the only maintenance category added by the template; not sure why this matters enough to keep track of), but if it's that important then the category could always be added manually instead of through template transclusion.

I'd also say that putting an enormous maintenance message at the top of a user's draft does constitute a substantial edit, but I'm prepared to believe others feel differently. I think {{user draft}} is appropriate for stale drafts and userfied articles, but should probably be avoided for anything under reasonably active development (with the admission that, having not stalked the OP's contribs, I have no idea what the userspace draft tagged in the story is actually like). Folly Mox (talk) 15:36, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree with everything Folly Mox wrote. I would remove such a template from my userspace subpages/sandbox. Schazjmd (talk) 16:15, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Question- what is the purpose of the tag? Is there a need to place userspace drafts into maintenance categories? Blueboar (talk) 16:18, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

I imagine that some editors use it as a kind of {{r with possibilities}} for the userspace. If you just go looking through user pages, you'll find a lot of test edits and non-article content (e.g., nearly all of mine). The cat would let you find promising candidates for the mainspace. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:32, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

RfC about KeepLocal template

You are invited to join the discussion at Template_talk:Keep_local#RfC:_Limit_usage_of_this_template_to_files_which_are_fully_or_partly_own_work for your input. Thanks, —Matrix(!) {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 22:34, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Links to Wikidata

Hi there. I see many new articles in the English Wikipedia which are not then properly linked to the corresponding Wikidata item. It's a pity, because there's relevant data in that other project, but also because that's they way to get links to other editions of Wikipedia and to other projects within Wikimedia. Would it be possible to get a list of pages in this Wikipedia with no links to Wikidata? Thanks in advance, Alavense (talk) 11:06, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Be aware that there is significant resistance to linking Wikidata in the English version of Wikipedia. Check the archives here and at the other village pumps for the discussions about that (there have been many). Blueboar (talk) 11:26, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Well, not for this type of linking, which is adding a link to an enwiki article on Wikidata, not the other way around. These can be found at Category:Articles without Wikidata item, currently 157 items. Fram (talk) 11:36, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Ah… yes… true. Linking to WP at Wikidata is fine. Sorry if I misunderstood the intent. Blueboar (talk) 12:24, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Sorry if I didn't make myself clear, but that's what I was looking for. Thanks, Blueboar and Fram. Kind regards, Alavense (talk) 13:31, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Links are eventually auto-created. Consequently, one big problem is that Wikidata will have separate items for the same subject, as it auto-created an item for the English Wikipedia, without knowing that Wikidata already had an item for that subject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:26, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

I know, WhatamIdoing. That's why I like to link them myself and I also merge some items on Wikidata when needed. Thanks, Alavense (talk) 06:44, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Misuse of pages detailing energy use by countries

Academics funded by the oil industry are writing pages about the power consumption of each country. Instead of stating this power in watts which is the correct measurement of power, they are multiplying the numbers by calling one watt 8740 watt hours per year or 31.5million watt seconds (joules) per year. This inflation is done simply to make the numbers impossible to understand. For example a 3kW toaster would be described in one of these articles as either a 262 megawatt hours per year toaster or a 94.6 gigawatt seconds (giga joules or GJ) per year toaster. They use watt seconds for a country's total energy and watt hours for its electricity use so you cannot compare the two. For example the article for Germany says the total power use is 1,900 PJ. This is incorrect - it should say 1900 PJ per year. This means 1900 petajoules per year or 1900 x 10^15 watt seconds per year which is equivalent to 300GW which can easily be compared with other power levels. The electricity consumption is shown incorrectly as 508TWh and should be 508TWh per year or 508 x 10^12 watt hours per year. This equates to 58GW and now you can easily see the relationship between the whole energy use of 300GW and electricity use of 58GW. The oil industry wants to blur this distinction because they are trying to make out that all we need to consider is electricity and not worry about everything else. If 300GW and 58GW are clearly shown you can see straightaway that electricity is only a small part of the total energy use. They miss out the "per year" part of the power measurement because that further magnifies the difficulty for an ordinary viewer of understanding what the numbers mean. I would like to see this deliberate obfuscation of the power usage of each country terminated and the proper power measurement of watts used. This deliberate obfuscation goes on to my knowledge on the French Wikipedia and it is my belief it will be happening on every single language version of Wikipedia and every single article about the power usage by a country. I have not yet found any exceptions. This represents an serious abuse of Wikipedia and needs urgent attention. BrianAnalogue (talk) 22:57, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

You need to cite some specific instances of the editing behavior you're concerned about if you want other editors to share your concern. Remsense ‥ 论 23:02, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

I gave as an example the article on Germany's power consumption which can simply be stated as 300GW in total with 58GW used for electricity (a GW is a normal unit for a large amount of power - it is 1000 MW or 1 million kW or 1 billion watts. The Wikipedia article does not use these simple figures - instead of saying it is 300GW it says it is 1,900 PJ which is incorrect. It should say 1900 PJ per year. Without the "per year" the number is meaningless. This is multiplying the 300GW, which is a large number, by 31.5 million times by calling 1 watt 31.5 million watt-seconds (joules) per year. Then 300GW becomes 1900 petajoules per year which is 1900 x 10^15 joules per year. This is a misuse of numbers and using the term "PJ" will be understood only by engineers who are used to using these numbers, and it is done specifically to make the numbers impossible to understand. They cannot be understood because they are inflated 31.5 million times, they are stated in watt-seconds instead of watt-seconds per year, and they are using the letters PJ that only a very few people in the world will understand. How much clearer can I make it? I had to use a calculator and my engineering knowledge to find out what these colossal numbers actually meant. I also knew that numbers like this were intended to mean "per year" even though it was not stated so as to make it impossible to understand what it means. I have found that this is being done for the power levels of every country I have looked and and I have found an example on the French Wikipedia using the exact same number. What it needs is for all articles about the power used by countries to state the power in GW only and no other units. BrianAnalogue (talk) 18:18, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

You had a response to your post at Talk:Energy_in_Germany#Description_of_various_amounts_of_energy_are_in_different_(and_incorrect)_units., you should continue that discussion. Schazjmd (talk) 19:19, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

It sounds like the OP has two complaints:

• Articles such as Energy in Germany are not using the units that the OP believes are best/most familiar, and
• "Academics funded by the oil industry are writing pages".

WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:54, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Lifespan of a URL: report

Report: "Some URLs Are Immortal, Most Are Ephemeral".

Summary: most URLs have a median lifespan of 1 year.

-- GreenC 02:21, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

The average for the all the URLs cited on enwp is probably somewhat longer, given that newspaper websites etc. generally have a longer shelf life than, say, some random person's homepage. Though it's probably still a lot shorter than is ideal, given the number of dead links one comes across when working on articles.  novov talk edits 03:32, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Template translation

There are templates that I want to translate into my language, but the manual method makes it take more than 3 hours. I don't know why the Content translation tool does not support template translation, If I could use it would only take a few minutes.

I want a tool that enables me to translate templates. Is there any help? Mohmad Abdul sahib talk☎ talk 03:43, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Pinging @Amire80, who can sympathize with you, but we don't have a good solution. More information and links at mw:Global templates. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:36, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

It seems like some expediting solution could be accomplished via templates, even if they're not reflected in the live version. Remsense ‥ 论 14:00, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Request for comment about Assassin's Creed Shadows

Assassin's Creed Shadows has an RfC for possible consensus.Should Assassin's Creed Shadows retain the Re-enactment flag controversy and Japanese reaction? A discussion is taking place.Xslyq (talk) 15:55, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Arbitration committee 2024 election

The 2024 arbitration committee election will be taking place in two months. Given the significant commitment required to be an arbitrator, it's a good time to start thinking about candidates. If there is someone you'd like to see run, or if you want to know someone else's plans before making your own decision, I encourage you to get in touch with them now! For more information about the work involved with serving on the committee, see the arbitrator experiences page. isaacl (talk) 22:47, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

'Wikidata item' link is moving. Find out where...

Apologies for cross-posting in English. Please consider translating this message.

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T66315

Hello everyone, a small change will soon be coming to the user-interface of your Wikimedia project. The Wikidata item sitelink currently found under the General section of the Tools sidebar menu will move into the In Other Projects section.

We would like the Wiki communities feedback so please let us know or ask questions on the Discussion page before we enable the change which can take place October 4 2024, circa 15:00 UTC+2. More information can be found on the project page.

We welcome your feedback and questions.
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:57, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Accidentally made an IP edit (not vandalism)

I accidentally made an IP edit, what do I do??? How will I make the IP address invisible?? Will people track my location?? Susbush (talk) 13:53, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

There's not much to do I'm afraid. However, typically no one would think to notice these things unless one makes a post specifically drawing attention to it. Remsense ‥ 论 13:58, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

@Susbush, email oversight-en-wp@wikipedia.org and provide a link to the edit, requesting that it be hidden for user privacy. They will hide the IP address that made the edit. Schazjmd (talk) 14:04, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

My gmail is out of space. Now what am I gonna do?? Susbush (talk) 14:14, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

(And my apologies for thinking Oversight didn't address this specific class of edits.) Remsense ‥ 论 14:24, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

@Susbush: Use the builtin email - see User:Oversight and use Special:EmailUser/Oversight. Be sure to properly identify the edit(s) to them in your email. You may want to have a read of Wikipedia:Oversight after you've emailed them. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 14:36, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

I emailed them through Yahoo mail, will they reply? Susbush (talk) 14:39, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes. They're normally quite quick to respond to most requests. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 14:42, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

It's been 3 days, they haven't replied. How often do they reply? Susbush (talk) 18:13, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

@Susbush: That's too long (I'd be surprised if more than 2 hours had passed). If the IP has already been suppressed ('made invisible'), then check your spam folder for a reply. If the IP has not been suppressed, send the email again. I recommend using the built-in form to reduce the chance of errors, and again being very specific about what you want suppressed (maybe also mention your previous email). -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 19:06, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I even replied using the built-in form, but no reply or suppression. Susbush (talk) 05:37, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm out of advice, except to say you can also contact an oversighter directly. You can find a list here; some are more active than others. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 07:38, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Nvm, the IP address was suppressed. Susbush (talk) 12:24, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

CentralNotice for Bengla Wikivoyage contest

A contest will take place from October 1, 2024, to October 30, 2024, on Bangla Wikivoyage to enrich its content. A central notice request has been placed to target both English and Bangla Wikipedia users, including non-registered users from Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. Thank you. —Yahya (talk • contribs.) 08:27, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Sharp drop in page views in May 2024

Hello, I have noticed, for some numbers articles, a sharp sustained drop in daily page views occurring in May 2024, see: https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&redirects=0&start=2023-09-07&end=2024-09-27&pages=1%7C2%7C4%7C5 I mentioned this at WP:NUM and it was suggested it could be related to Google's roll-out of AI summaries. This doesn't affect every article (3 for example doesn't see any significant change) but I have checked a few non-number related articles and see a similar drop. However, I haven't done any extensive analysis. Has this been noticed elsewhere? Polyamorph (talk) 08:01, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I had a hunch and tried it for the article Index, which is subject to strange activity because of its name. Similar result. I suspect this has something to do with an automated process that stopped in May, and that the views we're seeing now are closer to the true number of readers. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 04:34, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

I see that Mount Takahe still has the spurious reader numbers. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:44, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=3#Sources-of-Traffic suggests that 3 is getting more internal traffic than 1, which might partially buffer the difference. I don't think it explains everything, though. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:58, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Has a good or featured article ever be nominated for deletion?

I'm just curious. EternalNub (talk) 02:37, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

I seem to remember a GA or two have been deleted in the past - no idea what. Johnbod (talk) 03:23, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Plenty of times - my first attempt at a search finds a bunch, without anything I'd call a false positive before I got tired of checking them. I don't know offhand how much our search results vary, but the first couple hits for me are WP:Articles for deletion/Lewis (baseball) (2nd nomination) (which I remember, since it made it to WP:DRV), WP:Articles for deletion/Nude celebrities on the Internet (2nd nomination) (then a former FA), WP:Articles for deletion/Sam Loxton with the Australian cricket team in England in 1948 (a mass nomination including four FAs), WP:Articles for deletion/Introduction to evolution (2nd nomination) (became a FA during the afd), and WP:Articles for deletion/Goomba (technically qualifies, but it's hard to call that a real afd). The more interesting question is how many currently-featured/good articles (not just former) have actually been deleted. —Cryptic 03:31, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Looking through old revisions of WP:GA yields Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anthony M. Benis. As well as the titular article, it also includes NPA personality theory which was a GA at the time according to the voters. Though of course the average quality of a GA was a lot lower in 2006 than now, as is evident in the discussion.  novov talk edits 03:42, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

An example is Justin Bieber on Twitter, which was a GA, and was nominated for FA but withdrawn after athe AfD was filed. The AfD, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Justin Bieber on Twitter banned all articles on the subject area. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:32, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

WP:Articles for deletion/Keith Miller in the 1946–47 Australian cricket season was deleted last year as a featured article looking like this. Thincat (talk) 15:23, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

I seem to remember that not that long ago, the main editor of a then-current FA (possibly on a 19th C. cricketer?) took his own article to AfD while it was an FA, and it was subsequently deleted. That's pretty specialist  :) SerialNumber54129 15:43, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

That would be WP:Articles for deletion/Lewis (baseball) (2nd nomination) which was already mentioned above. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:29, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Can we please source and update foreign language articles on Kuwohi

I have been trying to Google translate talk page messages on a number of Wikipedias but Spanish Wikipedia reverted the move because Spanish language sources are required. So I am asking anyone who understands the languages where it has either been reverted or not done yet to please update it. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 05:08, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

@Hurricane Clyde, is your goal to have more (non-English) articles about the Kuwohi mountain at other Wikipedias? If so, I think you will want to read m:Meta:Babylon. It lists several ways to find translators. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:25, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

My goal is to get everything renamed so that we have consistency across all of the Wikipedias that currently have an article on Kuwohi; (except for local variants due to the language). And that’s about a dozen and a half languages. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 05:48, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

In other words: I want the existing foreign language articles that say “Clingmans Dome” (or a variant thereof) to be updated to the new name.

The only new language (if there were any) that I’m necessarily requesting an article be written for about this mountain would be the seemingly defunct Cherokee Wikipedia. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 05:54, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

For chrwiki, I suggest talking to Nesnad or Seb az86556. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:16, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the request is. There is nothing to rename, we don't even have an article on ᎫᏩᎯ. We do have one on red mulberry (ᎫᏩ) but that is not the mountain, just it's namesake. Anyway, I hope a literate user contributes an article on ᎫᏩᎯ someday soon, but nothing yet so nothing to rename. Also, incidentally I would say Cherokee Wikipedia is NOT defunct, just not so active. Nesnad (talk) 09:06, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Then I’ll clarify it to everyone: my request is that all of the foreign language articles that are currently out get updated. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 12:38, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

This includes several articles in Arabic script, the Russian Wikipedia, and as of this writing the Spanish Wikipedia. The title and text within the article need to be updated to reflect the new official name. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 12:57, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Don't rush it. Some Wikis might have a local language source rule. Just let it happen naturally, it will be updated as time goes on. Nesnad (talk) 16:34, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I found that out the hard way on Spanish Wikipedia; and I’ve also made an administrator on the Danish Wikipedia mad at me by posting a message on his talk page. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 19:30, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Was not a wise idea (regarding Danish Wikipedia) Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 19:30, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Moral of the story: don’t bother (in his words) “random Wikipedians”. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 19:31, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Nesnad. Different wikis have different rules, so trying to get a blanket decision would a real headache, and also not needed. There are still some wikis that have "Uluru" titled "Ayers Rock" (see Uluru (Q33910)), and that was renamed in 1993 (and the order switched in 2002). Kuwohi was only officially renamed this year, so please sit tight. Cremastra (talk) 21:27, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I did get it changed on some of the wikis though. So at least a partial victory there. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 21:45, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

And as for Cherokee Wikipedia, my additional request would for someone to create a Cherokee language article on Kuwohi. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 12:59, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Survey: Future work

Hello! The Moderator Tools team is doing some research to understand how certain features and tools are used by moderators, and if there are any frustrations that moderators have with these tools.

Currently, the team is recruiting admins and content moderators to take a quick survey (4 questions) about the Recent Changes feature. If you are interested please visit the survey at: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Moderator_Tools/Survey:Recent_Changes
If you have any further questions, please contact: otichonovawikimedia.org

Thank you! OTichonova (WMF) (talk) 12:31, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi! I am not sure exactly what you mean by "content moderators", are you referring to recent changes patrollers in general? Thanks a lot! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 16:12, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

The linked page says "a patroller or an admin who uses Recent Changes for content moderation". I don't think the intention is to limit this to the Wikipedia:Recent changes patrol. If you use Special:RecentChanges enough to have any opinion about it, then they would like to hear from you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:10, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Call for electoral commissioners for the 2024 Arbitration Committee elections

Nominations are now open for electoral comissioners for the 2024 Arbitration Committee elections. To be eligible, you must be over 18 years of age, adhere to the Wikimedia Foundation's access to nonpublic personal data policy, and not be blocked or banned from the Wikipedia or Wikipedia talk namespaces. For more information, please see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee Elections December 2024/Electoral Commission. isaacl (talk) 23:40, 2 October 2024 (UTC)