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By my read of this conversation, there is a consensus that portals are in fact part of the encyclopdia. I don't see a strong consensus on the matter of redirects to them, valid arguments were made all around, so we'll have to just keep muddling through on that point. A narrower discussion specifically about individual dates redirecting to current events portals could possibly yield a different result if there is any appetite for doing that in the future. Just Step Sidewaysfrom this world ..... today03:52, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
16 August 2006 points to the current events portal as a result of this discussion. However, date redirects will continue to come up at RfD, some some wider community discussion and input is helpful on whether or not the current events portal is an appropriate target for mainspace redirects. See also: this ongoing discussion for some context.
The second question is easy: Yes, portals are part of the encyclopaedia. As to the first question, portals are reader-facing content and so I see no reason why they wouldn't be appropriate targets for mainspace redirects, given that uncontroversially target mainspace redirects to reader-facing templates and categories when they are the best target. Whether the port is the best target for a given date will depend on the specific date but in general the portal should always be an option to consider. Thryduulf (talk) 01:32, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with this. The portal is definitely not always the best option and it has its limitations, but, as I wrote at WP:RDATE it should be considered and assessed along with mainspace articles. Cremastra (u — c) 01:44, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If a namespace doesn't have the same standards as mainspace, then the reader shouldn't be redirected there while possibly not realizing they are now outside of mainspace. Yes, there is more content at Portal:Current events/August 2006 than at 2006#August, but the reader is now facing a decades-old page with no quality control, where links to Breitbart are misleadingly labeled as (AP). Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 00:50, 6 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Portal does have the same standards as mainspace. That a portal is not up to those standards is no different to an article being in bad shape - fix it. Thryduulf (talk) 00:54, 6 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, because they are not articles. Two things can be held to the same standard without being the same thing. Criterion P1 previously allowed that (indirectly) but it was repealed in 2023 due to lack of use. Thryduulf (talk) 19:42, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Then they aren't held to the same standards... More in general, no, they obviously aren't held to the same standards, e.g. a portal page doesn't have to be a notable topic but may be purely decorative or (as is the case with the date pages) be a list of mainly non-notable things, failing WP:NOTNEWS and WP:LISTN. That some standards are the same (BLP, copyvio, ...) can also be said for e.g. user talk pages, and we don't redirect to these pages either. Fram (talk) 20:24, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We don't redirect to user talk pages because they aren't reader-facing, so that's irrelevant. We don't hold reader-facing templates and categories to article content policies (because they aren't articles) but we do redirect to them. Don't conflate quality standards with inclusion policies, they are not the same thing. Thryduulf (talk) 21:15, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn´t aware that the standards we were talking about were solely quality standards, whatever these may be, and not content standards, sourcing standards, ... I´m sadly not amazed that you consider these irrelevant when deciding what to present to our readers. Fram (talk) 21:37, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In theory, I think portals should be held to the same CSD criteria as articles. But of course the A criteria actually only apply to articles. Cremastra (u — c) 22:08, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There's a lot of random junk in portalspace, but yes, it is part of the encyclopedia. Just like categories and templates, portals are reader-facing content. CFA💬
I didn't really have super strong opinions on portals until seeing this one link to Breitbart, twice, in a misleading way. This is not okay. I agree with Fram that clearly Portals are not being held up to the same standards as regular articles and it might be a bad idea to redirect readers to them. Toadspike[Talk]23:00, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I saw this on CENT, and I am confused by the question. Portal:Current events/2006 August 16 is very different from something like Portal:Belgium, and it doesn't make sense to pretend they are the same to establish policy. And what does "part of the encyclopedia" even mean? "Interpreting a confusing phrase" is a terrible way to decide redirect targets. For the specific question of "Should dates redirect to the Current Events portal rather than to a page like August 2006 ... I don't know. I don't see a compelling reason why they can't, nor a compelling reason why they should. Walsh90210 (talk) 15:45, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, that's a nice Portal! Thank you for restoring my faith in portals. Clicking on "Random Portal" took me to Portal:Trees, which is also pretty nice. My opinion is now that yes, portals can be good, but it seems to me that we currently have no Ps and Gs to apply to their content or measure their quality, no consensus about how to direct readers to them, and a very checkered and controversial history of deletion. I really dunno what to do about them. Toadspike[Talk]16:49, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, we should not redirect dates to the current events portal subpages. It's a cross-namespace redirect that takes readers from somewhere they expect to be (an encyclopedia article on the topic "16 August 2006") to somewhere they don't expect to be (a navigational aid(?) that highlights some things that happened that day). I'm not 100% sure what the current events portal subpages are for, but they're not meant to stand in as pseudo-articles in places we lack real articles. Ajpolino (talk) 22:04, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Cross-namespace redirects in and of themselves are not a problem. They only cause issues when they take someone expecting reader-facing content to "backroom" content (e.g. project space). Both article and portals are reader-facing content, so this is not an issue. Thryduulf (talk) 22:17, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is there another case where we link a reader from an article to a non-article without clearly denoting it? E.g. I have no problem with the {{Portal}} template folks often use in the See also section. Ajpolino (talk) 01:12, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Okay, Citeweb is a bad example, not something readers look for but something editors look for. The other 2 are among the 6 existing reader facing redirects to templates (from Category:Redirects to template namespace, the only ones which are from mainspace and not editor-related like the cite templates). Not quite the "lots" you seemed to be suggesting throughout this discussion, but extremely rare outliers which should probably all be RfD'ed. Fram (talk) 11:42, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the current events portals are valid redirect targets for dates and preferred in this case of the best article redirect for a specific date being the month section of an article on an entire year. I agree with Fram that portals are not held to the same standards as articles, but I disagree with Ajpolino's stance that a cross-namespace redirect is so disruptive that they are prohibited in all cases, given that WP:Portal says "portals are meant primarily for readers." ViridianPenguin 🐧 ( 💬 ) 23:46, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Commenting strictly on the "are portals part of the encyclopedia" question, yes it is. Unfortunately there was one extremely loud, disruptive voice who kept making portals less useful and suffocating any discussions that would make it more beneficial to readers. Plenty of willing portal contributors, including myself, left this space and readers are still reaping the seeds of what that disruptive user planted even after they have been ArbCom banned over a year ago. So it may given some people an illusion that portals aren't doing much towards the encyclopedic goal, because the current status is handicapped by its history. I'm reserving my views on the redirect part of the discussion. OhanaUnitedTalk page07:29, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not, portals are not held to the standards of articles, and if something for whatever reason shouldn't be or can't be an enwiki article, this shouldn't be circumvented by having it in portalspace. Either these date pages are acceptable, and then they should be in mainspace. Or they are not what we want as articles, and then we shouldn't present them to our readers anyway. Fram (talk) 11:42, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
These current events pages differ from articles in many respects, but the referencing standards are similar. Whether they happen to be prefixed by "Portal:" or not is not reflective of their quality. J947 ‡ edits23:18, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The current events portal example listed seems encyclopedic enough, in that apart from some formatting differences it might as well be a list article, but I've seen other portals that have editor-facing content that is more dubiously appropriate for mainspace. Consider, for example, Portal:Schools § Wikiprojects (capitalization [sic]) and Portal:Schools § Things you can do, and the similar modules at many other portals. Sdkbtalk18:27, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, speaking as a recognized portalista, portals have not yet been excised from the pedia. In this case, User:J947 makes the essential point. I'm not convinced that even incomplete, out-of-date portals are any less encyclopedic than the 2 million or so Wikipedia articles nobody bothered to edit last year. BusterD (talk) 14:53, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Portals are not part of the encylopedia as we understand encyclopedias: sources of information. They serve as navigation within an encylopedia. We would not see a Portal as the final delivery of information, any more than we would see a contents page, index, blurb, or advert as the final information page. These are all ancillary. People mostly land on a Wikipedia article page without a Portal. I have used Wikipedia for nearly twenty years without ever needing a Portal to direct me to where I want to go, and I would assume this is true for the majority of people. Redirects are designed as a signpost, and we frown upon a signpost simply pointing to another signpost. People would generally only arrive at a Portal if directed there from a link that should more helpfully point to the appropriate article. The Belgium Portal is mentioned above as a good Portal. If we go to the Belgium article and scroll down, there is a link to the Belgium Portal. But the Portal mainly provides us with a digest of the Belgium article, including a link back to the Belgium article, which itself contains more links to Belgium related articles than the Belgium Portal. Huh? Seriously? Why are we taking readers away from a sublime source, rich with information and links, to an inferior source? There is nothing on the Belgium Portal that is not available on the Belgium article page - including links to news. But there is much on the Belgian article page that is not on the Belgium Portal page. My suggestion is that ALL links to portals such as the Belgium Portal should instead go to the main article page. Why are we redirecting people to a redirect page when we can send them to the main article on the topic? Portals are a waste of our time and resources, and are a misdirect for readers. SilkTork (talk) 22:33, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@SilkTork Your argument breaks down as soon as you realise that disambiguation pages and set indexes exist and that redirects to those pages are extremely common and uncontroversial. We also redirect people to outlines, broad concept articles and overviews. What is the "main article page" for a date? In all but a few exceptional cases there isn't a single article but multiple, and so just as if they had searched Mercury, Bitter ash or Stuffed flatbread we present them with a menu of content that is relevant to their search term and let them choose what it is they want to read about. Thryduulf (talk) 22:46, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
See my answer above. I don't see the point in duplicating signposts. We have Belgium, so we don't need Portal:Belgium; and we have 2006#August so we don't need Portal:Current events/2006 August 16. Signposts are not part of the encyclopedia, but they are navigational aids which lead us to further information. However, we have built into every article multiple signposts to further information. We don't need to have duplicate signposts outside of mainspace to which people are directed away from mainspace to consult. It is a waste of our time and resources, and a misdirection for readers. Internal links are an elegant way of signposting to further information. Navigational templates are a little clunky, but are useful. Portals take readers away from the encyclopedia, and are a pointless timesink for both editors and readers. SilkTork (talk) 23:02, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Blind enforcement of 1RR/3RR does not serve the project. The question should not be whether one violated the rule, but whether they violated the rule in a way that does not benefit the article. If there is no objection to the violation, we can reasonably assume that they are benefiting the article, or at least causing no harm. The decision should be left in the hands of other editors. Could this be used as a weapon? Would there be editors who claim harm where none exists? Certainly, but that's preferable to what we have now.
The problem, no doubt familiar to editors reading this, is that there are often not enough "good" editors around to protect an article from "bad" editors (malicious or merely inexperienced) while staying within 1RR/3RR. There is no restriction on the number of BOLD edits by a given editor, or on the number of editors performing BOLD edits. ―Mandruss☎00:09, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If someone is repeatedly reverting reverts, then there is objection to the violation by definition. That's what edit warring is. If someone is making the same BOLD edit that needs to be reverted multiple times, then they are also edit warring. There are already exceptions with these rules for patent nonsense or obvious vandalism. If there's routine disruption, then it only makes the problem worse to revert over and over instead of taking it to WP:RFPP. If you feel the need to make more than one or two reverts in a content dispute, then it's time to either consider other options or step away from the article. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 01:31, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's not about edit warring or re-reverts; the problem exists without a single re-revert. Editor A does ten BOLD edits, five of which are detrimental to the article because they are too inexperienced (this stuff takes years to master, so that's far from uncommon). Editors B, C, D, and E contribute an additional twenty detrimental edits (along with any number of good ones, that number being irrelevant for our purposes here). Meanwhile, competent editors F, G, and H are limited to a total of nine reverts, leaving 21 detrimental edits in the article. I say F, G, and H should be allowed to revert until someone claims they are doing harm. ―Mandruss☎02:04, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Where are you seeing thirty detrimental edits to an article in every day? Why isn't this article protected? Why aren't editors F, G, and H starting a discussion? Why are they reverting Editor A's edits individually instead of rolling them back? Why is it so urgent that these edits need to be reverted right this moment? Even on the off chance that they encounter such an article that exists, F, G, and H would not need to engage in tag-team reverting (which is still edit warring) if they knew what they were doing. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:07, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You are welcome to reduce the numbers as you please; the problem exists regardless. The article is protected, even with ECP, and there is no shortage of registered editors who have 30 days and 500 edits and still have years to go before they are editing with any reasonable level of competence. Some never reach that point. Why aren't editors F, G, and H starting a discussion? Seriously? Why are they reverting Editor A's edits individually instead of rolling them back? Because (1) they may not have the rollback right, and the rollback right should not be required to function as an editor, (2) they would be rolling back five good edits, and (3) it's impossible if Editor A's edits are interleaved with those of any other editor(s). Why is it so urgent that these edits need to be reverted right this moment? Because (particularly in large and very active articles) the bad edits can easily be missed if not caught immediately. Then they stay in the article for some unknown amount of time until noticed by a competent editor and corrected with a BOLD edit. Could be months or even years. Is that good for the article? ―Mandruss☎02:27, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Could you give an example or two where this has caused a problem? And I note that you have answered the two most important questions inadequately: if an article is subject to edit-warring it should be fully protected, and you dismissed "Why aren't editors F, G, and H starting a discussion?" with "Seriously?". Yes, of course it's a serious question. Starting a discussion is the best way of defusing an edit war. Phil Bridger (talk) 09:20, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Seriously?", while counter to the WP:DR policy, might be an honest response. I often get page protection or block requests, where my first response is often "where's the discussion?" —Bagumba (talk) 10:02, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Unless Mandruss is extremely lazy, for which I have no evidence, I don't see how that response can be honest. It only takes a few seconds to start a discussion, no longer than it took to start this one, and the person who starts it wins some extra points. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:08, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
extremely lazy, for which I have no evidence Thank you! I have my share of faults and shortcomings, but I don't think extreme laziness is one of them. So there should be new discussions for each of the bad edits (separately for the sake of efficiency and organization), and the bad edits should remain in the article until enough editors have the time, interest, and attention span to form consensuses against them while attending to other important matters. This, at an ATP where we're struggling to keep the ToC at a manageable size even without such discussions. I don't know what articles you're editing, but I want to work there. ―Mandruss☎03:51, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I gather the Donald Trump article is a rare anomaly where bad content is something we have to live with because the current rules are incapable of preventing it. After all, it's just one article. I would oppose that reasoning. I'd say article quality is at least as important there as anywhere else. ―Mandruss☎04:33, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So there should be new discussions for each of the bad edits ...: Yes, or what is an alternative? Your suggestion to favor "good" edits over "bad" is problematic when everyone says their's are the "good" ones. Polarizing topics can be difficult for patrolling admins to WP:AGF determine "good" v. "bad" edits if they are not subject matter experts.—Bagumba (talk) 05:43, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Remember that consecutive edits by a single editor are treated as a single revert for WP:3RR purposes. So, in your case, editor H can go back and revert the various bad edits and, even if they mechanically break it out into multiple edits, they still have done one revert... Until someone goes back and re-reverts. Simonm223 (talk) 19:58, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean, who said? I said something about repeated edits :-) If the rule were "do not repeat edits without consensus" 1x or 3x in 24 hours, instead of "do not revert" 1x or 3x in 24 hours (which leads to the whole "what exactly counts as a revert?" issue), the problem you are describing would not happen. The 'bad' editor can make 10 bad edits, and the 'good' editor can revert all 10 edits without violating do-not-repeat-3RR, and the 'bad' editor would be able to repeat 3 of those 10 edits without crossing do-not-repeat-3RR, and the 'good' editor can revert all 3 of those without crossing do-not-repeat-3RR, et voila: equilibrium. The problem is we focus on "revert" instead of "repeat." To tamp down on edit warring, we should prohibit people from repeating their edits, not from "reverting" (whatever that means, exactly) edits. Levivich (talk) 04:50, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Blind enforcement of 1RR/3RR does not serve the project: Are you referring to page protection or blocks? On contentious topics or any subject? —Bagumba (talk) 05:11, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This ArbCom resolution established that "Where there is a global consensus to edit in a certain way, it should be respected and cannot be overruled by a local consensus."
I would like to ask what is the standard for defining that there is global consensus. If the top 100 articles in a certain category all are written in a certain way, is this considered sufficient for global consensus?
If a 100 articles are not enough, what is the threshold? Is it proportional to the number articles in that category?
Should then this warrant that all articles in that category be written in that way (unless very clearly harmful to the specific article)?
I believe that "global consensus" refers to policies and guidelines in particular, and to generally accepted practices across the whole of the English Wikipedia. A consensus that applies to just 100 articles out of the almost 7 million article in the English Wikipedia is a local consensus. Donald Albury16:14, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Milo8505, you asked this question in a way that can't be answered. Consensus does not depend on categories, and Wikipedia does not deal in abstract quantities but in concrete articles. Is this about whether to have an infobox on Gustav Mahler? If so then please say so, to provide some context to your question. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:34, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Phil Bridger Yes, it is about that topic. I believe that there is sufficient global consensus about the inclusion of infoboxes on biographies. I am well aware that the official policy is "no policy defined", but I see a clear trend, by looking at the most read articles, that all biographies - of musicians and non musicians alike - have an infobox, except a select few classical music composers.
I do not currently have the whole information regarding exactly how many of all biographies have an infobox, and that is why I was asking what is usually considered consensus.
However, given that I'm very aware that a hundred articles out of seven million is not precisely consensus, I will attempt, when I have the time, to go through every single biography to determine an exact percentage.
If you want to spend your time doing that then I can't stop you, but I warn you that you will be wasting your time. That is not how consensus is measured. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:10, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously I will not count by hand, I have some idea of how to use an automated tool to do that.
But then, how is consensus measured?
I'm under the impression that there is a group of very determined and very vocal editors that fiercely oppose infoboxes on classical composers' articles (which leads to most of them having discussions about infoboxes, citing each other as examples of articles without infobox), separate from the majority of biographies, which have an infobox.
I see no better way of proving (or maybe disproving) my point than this, because my earlier points of infoboxes being a great thing for Gustav Mahler's article, and the fact that numerous non-classical musicians have infoboxes, and lengthy ones at that, seem to have fallen on deaf ears.
And I would like to state, for the record, that I'm not doing this out of spite, or out of a personal interest (I'm actually losing my time by arguing about this), but because I truly, wholeheartedly believe that an infobox on each and every biography, and in general, on every article where there could be one (this excludes abstract topics such as existencialism) would make Wikipedia a truly better place.
I would have to search the archives, but we actually held an RFC (one of the ways in which we determine GLOBAL consensus) that was focused on whether to mandate infoboxes on articles about composers… which determined that there were valid reasons not to require them (I suppose you could say that global consensus was to defer to local consensus on this specific issue). Remember WP:Other Stuff Exists is not an accepted argument here at WP. And that “standard practice” often has exceptions. Blueboar (talk) 22:06, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I understand, but that is not my sole argument. I have provided other arguments in favor, which you can read at the aforementioned talk page which basically boil down to:
in my opinion,
Infoboxes make standardized information more easily accessible, and
They do not harm the rest of the article, as they do not displace the lead paragraph.
However, in the linked talk page, I see that opponents of infoboxes rely somewhat on the loosely established precedent/consensus that composers shouldn't have infoboxes.
That is why I wanted to bring forth a new argument, using the, as I see it, very established consensus for infoboxes in biographies, and what I want to know here is whether this consensus can be proven to exist (or what is it required for this consensus to exist). Milo8505(talk)07:30, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This whole thing about "global" and "local" consensus seems to confuse everyone, and consequently folks make up whatever seems plausible to them. Let me give you a potted history and the usual claims, and perhaps that will help you understand the principle.
'Way back in the day, infoboxes didn't exist. AIUI the first widely used infobox template was {{taxobox}} in 2004, and the general concept appeared soon after. However, through the end of 2007, Template:Infobox didn't look like what we're used to. Originally, an 'infobox template' was literally a wikitext table that you could copy and fill in however you wanted.[1]
While infoboxes were being developed, the editors at Wikipedia:WikiProject Composers decided that infoboxes were a bad idea specifically for articles about classical composers, so after a series of disputes and discussions, in April 2007 they wrote a note that said, basically, "BTW, the sitewide rules don't apply to the articles we WP:OWN."[2]
The conflict between this group and the rest of the community eventually resulted in the 2010 Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Composers/Infoboxes RfC. The result of this years-long dispute is memorialized in the example given in what is now the Wikipedia:Consensus#Levels of consensus section of the policy: "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. For instance, unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope."
Or, to be rather more pointy-headed about it: WikiProject Composers doesn't get to decide that "their" articles are exempt from MOS:INFOBOXUSE.
What was then a statement about the "Purpose of consensus" or, before then, one of several "Exceptions" to forming a consensus on a talk page has since been renamed ==Levels of consensus==. Also, ArbCom (and consequently part of the community) has started talking about "global" consensus. I think that has confused people about the point.
"Levels" of consensus could mean the strength of the consensus ("This is just a weak consensus, so..."). It could mean something about the process used ("My CENT-listed RFC trumps your Village pump post"). It could mean whether the consensus applies to the whole site ("We formed a consensus at Talk:Article about the first sentence of Article, so now I need to make 500 other articles match this one"). And it could tell us something about how likely it is that the decision matches the overall view of the community.
It's supposed to be that last one. We don't want a handful of people getting together on some page and saying "Let's reject this rule. This article needs to be censored. Copyvio restrictions are inconvenient. Bold-face text helps people see the important points. And we know this POV is correct, so it should dominate." We want quite the opposite: "The community says that this is usually the best thing, so let's do this."
AFAICT, the overall view of The Community™ is that we think that there should not be any Official™ Rule saying that any subset of articles should have an infobox. We're probably doing this mostly for social reasons, rather than article reasons. For example, every single article about a US President, or atomic elements, or any number of other subjects, has an infobox – but we refuse to write any rule saying they should, or even that they usually should, even though we know the popularity is ever-increasing. For example, at the moment, Georgina Sutton is the only biography linked on the Main Page that doesn't have an infobox.
I suspect that the closest we will come to such a rule during the next few years is a note about how popular they are. It should be possible to see how many articles (overall, or in particular subsets) already use infoboxes, and to add that information to MOS:INFOBOXUSE. For now, we could add a statement that "most" articles have an infobox.
^Being able to do this in wikitext was was considered an improvement, because originally, you had to code tables in raw HTML.
^This was not as unreasonable back then as it sounds now. WikiProjects were a significant source of subject-specific advice back then, and the rule-making systems were quite informal. WP:PROPOSAL didn't exist until late 2008. Before then, most guidelines and even policies acquired their labels merely because someone decided to slap the tag on it, and if nobody objected, then that was the consensus for what to call it.
From what you have said, given that WikiProject composers have to follow MOS:INFOBOXUSE, there should be a discussion on each and every composer's talk page to determine whether an infobox is warranted.
I see this as a bit of a, difficult and fruitless endeavor, as the arguments presented, for either case, are always the same, and they all usually result in stalemates (like the one about Mahler).
What I propose is to change the policy, to, at least, recommend infoboxes on certain categories, given that, as you said, they are very popular. Or at the very least, as you suggest, acknowledge the fact that they are very popular.
When I have time to gather more data on the use of infoboxes, I will propose a new RfC to try to commit this change to the policy.
I am very well aware that my chances of success are slim, but, I'll do what I can do.
Well, if "they all usually result in stalemates", then that represents a change, because the last complaint I saw about this subject said that the RFCs on whether to add an infobox almost always resulted in an infobox being added. Perhaps it varies by subject, however.
Acknowledging that they're popular shouldn't require a proposal for a change. It should only require getting some decent numbers. Check the archives of WP:RAQ; they probably can't query it directly, but if there's been a request, you'll see what could be done. It might also be possible to create a hidden category for "All articles with infoboxes", automagically transcluded, to get a count on the number of infoboxes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:45, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
First of all, thank you again very much for your continued interest.
The discussions around infoboxes (not RfCs, discussions on talk pages) as far as I have seen usually go something like:
- I propose adding an infobox
+ We have talked a lot about that and there are good reasonstm for which it should not be added
- But I also have good reasonstm for which it should be added.
(no comments for 4 years, then it begins again).
I thought a bit about counting links, and I realized maybe getting this data is easier than I thought, see:
For counting the number of transclusions to a given page, this tool is very useful, and says that there are around 3.2 million infoboxes in total, and 460 thousand infoboxes about people. (on the (Article) namespace).
This seems to suggest that only around a quarter of all biographies have an infobox? Maybe I was wrong all along in my observation that infoboxes are very popular.
I am however not too sure that the two million links to Template:Wikiproject Biography on the Talk namespace actually corresponds to two million unique biographies.
Maybe another way of getting this data would be better, I'll have to look at it on some other occasion that I have more time.
I looked at the first 10 articles in Category:Core biography articles, and 100% had infoboxes. However, those ten articles used seven different infoboxes:
The problem is, there still exist editors who strongly dislike infoboxes on most biographies -- me for one. When one writes every word of an article and then someone, who has not otherwise contributed, comes and adds an infobox it can be ... annoying. The basic use tends to highlight bits of trivial information (birth & death dates/places, nationality, spouse, children) that are not usually key to the person's notability. Even more contentious can be trying to define what a person's key contributions are, in a half-sentence. For some this is easy, and an infobox might be a good way of presenting the data, for others (including many classical composers) not so much. It can be hard enough to write a lead that presents this in a balanced fashion in a paragraph or three.
Are all good biographies written by groups? I'm not sure; probably the best are, but there are many many biographies of minor figures where 99.9% of the text was contributed by a single author, some of which are fairly well developed. Espresso Addict (talk) 05:05, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm thankful for your contributions, but I'm sorry that you don't WP:OWN any article, and you can't dismiss someone else improving the article you wrote because you wrote it and you don't personally agree with the contributions made.
That said, it may be difficult to summarize why someone is important in a phrase, but it's not impossible, and, IMO actually something that should be done, as it makes the article easier (and faster) to scan. Milo8505(talk)09:39, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What I am obviously failing to convey is that some editors write articles, far fewer than those who contribute in other ways, and some of those dislike the "improving" addition of an infobox by another editor who makes no other edits, improving or otherwise. Espresso Addict (talk) 10:40, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why is that relevant? Nobody owns an article, regardless of in which why they contribute to Wikipedia. Just because some editors dislike something does not give them a veto over things that the majority of other editors believe does improve the article. Obviously an infobox with incorrect information is not an improvement but that doesn't mean an infobox with correct information is not an improvement. In exactly the same way as a paragraph with incorrect information about an aspect of the article subject is a bad addition, this does not mean that a paragraph with correct information about that same aspect is bad. Thryduulf (talk) 11:55, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to me a great deal more like reference format and English variant. It could easily be argued that we should have standardised on US spelling and picked a mode of referencing, but we never did because it would alienate too much of the workforce. Espresso Addict (talk) 12:55, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's not even close to being like ENGVAR or reference formatting. Those are stylistic decisions where there are multiple equally valid choices that don't impact content. Infoboxes are a content decision where one choice directly benefits the readership and one choice placates the dislikes of a minority of editors. Thryduulf (talk) 16:40, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We obviously genuinely disagree on the topic. But I just don't see how the usual formulation benefits readers for bios about writers, composers or the like, especially where it is difficult to encapsulate their contributions in a half sentence or single notable work. I note that biographical sources such as Oxford Dictionary of National Biography or newspaper obituaries do not generally include infoboxes, in fact I can't think of where I've seen one on a biographical article of this type outside Wikipedia. Espresso Addict (talk) 03:53, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But unless you list all their works there is a problem of original research. You need to provide appropriate sources that the works you have selected are appropriate to represent the subject. This is often very hard in practice, and even harder to demonstrate in an infobox (according to critics A,B,C but ignoring the non-mainstream views of D,E, and only partially incorporating the views of F–Z, the following are the major works...). Espresso Addict (talk) 07:28, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, no. There are statistics for something. Notable means worthy of note, distinguished, prominent as per Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Notable works are not a collection appropriate to represent the subject as a whole, but rather those worthy of note, distinguished, prominent, in other words, popular or important (for the field in question).
But the main point being, once again, that this problem is NOT a problem with the infobox itself. Citing the lead paragraph for the Mahler article:
As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and the modernism of the early 20th century
and
Mahler's œuvre is relatively limited; for much of his life composing was necessarily a part-time activity while he earned his living as a conductor. Aside from early works such as a movement from a piano quartet composed when he was a student in Vienna, Mahler's works are generally designed for large orchestral forces, symphonic choruses and operatic soloists. These works were frequently controversial when first performed, and several were slow to receive critical and popular approval; exceptions included his Second Symphony, and the triumphant premiere of his Eighth Symphony in 1910. Some of Mahler's immediate musical successors included the composers of the Second Viennese School, notably Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg and Anton Webern. Dmitri Shostakovich and Benjamin Britten are among later 20th-century composers who admired and were influenced by Mahler. The International Gustav Mahler Society was established in 1955 to honour the composer's life and achievements.
According to whom? By what research? What if I do not think that is the case?
You would rightfully say that my answers are on the references section, and that I should be WP:BOLD in changing it if I'm convinced that it could be better.
And, most importantly, from your comment on the Talk page, I see that the article actually selects three works as prominent, and, you challenge that (IMO rightfully). Then it turns out that the problem of selecting what is important is not one of infoboxes but one central to writing biographies.
That's less true than one might think. Both {{taxobox}} and {{drugbox}} have a high likelihood of containing information than isn't repeated in the article.
Those are very specific examples, although you are right that they do not conform to what I said. Anyhow the point still stands for biographies. Milo8505(talk)09:31, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
True, but I believe that there are good reasons some works can be highlighted. Anyhow, this is also a consideration when writing the lead, not only the infobox. Milo8505(talk)09:36, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that "OWN" is a useful model here. Consider this story:
Someone saw a neglected area in his neighborhood, and he thought he'd help people by quietly picking up the trash. People mostly didn't notice, and nobody objected, so whenever he was walking out that way, he brought a trash bag with him and picked up some of the discarded litter. He carried on for a while just for the satisfaction of seeing it get better.
Then The Committee showed up.
They told him: "It's very nice that you decided to clean this up. However, you should wear gloves for your own safety."
"Okay," he thought. "There's probably something in their advice." So he started wearing gloves, and he did think that it made it a little easier to sort the recycling from the garbage.
The Committee came back another time: "Thank you for your past work. We notice that a bit of the grass here grows out onto the sidewalk. We're not saying you have to do this, because this spot isn't yours, but it would be nice if someone got a lawn edger and made that even neater."
The volunteer thought that since nobody had bothered to pick up the trash, it was unlikely that anyone else would trim the grass. Besides, he had a lawn edging tool, so the next time he dropped by, he brought a trash bag, his gloves, and his lawn edger. The little spot was looking pretty neat, if a bit plain.
Soon, the Committee came back again: "Thank you for your past work. We just wanted to let you know that our standards say that it's not enough to clean up a mess. Every area should also have some plants. So it would be very nice if you planted some trees or bushes or something in this spot, even though it's not yours."
"Can you at least buy the plants?" he asked.
"No," said The Committee. "Thank you for your past work, but you'll have to grow them or buy them yourself, or maybe you could find someone who would give them to you."
The volunteer thought that the little spot would benefit from some cheery little flowers, and he decided to do it. He planted a few yellow flowers along the edge.
The next day The Committee showed up. "What? Yellow flowers? Thank you for your past work, but we have received complaints. One of the neighbors (who happens to be part of The Committee) just filed a confidential complaint that there are now garishly colored flowers in this little spot. Those have to be removed. You don't own this place, you know, even though you're the only one who did anything to take care of it, except for the neighbor's important work complaining, and of course our even more important work ordering you around."
@Milo8505 (and others), my question is: Do you expect the volunteer to keep maintaining that little spot? Or do you expect him to quit?
It is true that the author/maintainer of an article does not WP:OWN it. But it is also true that the editor is a WP:VOLUNTEER, and if you make volunteering be sufficiently un-fun – say, by trampling the yellow flowers he planted, or by demanding an infobox at the top of an article – then it would only be logical, rational, and predictable for that editor to quit contributing. And then who is going to write the new articles? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:29, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What you are proposing is no different to ownership - giving an article writer control over what is and is not allowed on "their" article just because they don't like something that the consensus of the community says is important and beneficial to readers. Thryduulf (talk) 11:10, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No. What I'm proposing is that we remember that there are consequences for every decision we make, and choose the consequences we want to live with. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:09, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And your proposed method of avoiding consequences you don't like is to give article writers ownership of "their" articles. The consequences of that need to be justified, and I don't think they can be. Thryduulf (talk) 13:21, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would actually say that suppressing infoboxes is more akin to removing flowers than creating them...
The problem is that what one person considers a beautiful flower, another person may consider a weed that needs pruning. Flowers are nice, but so is a manicured lawn. What we need to determine is WHETHER (in this particular lawn) we are planting flowers or pulling weeds. Blueboar (talk) 17:44, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And for the wider distinction between WP:OWN and WP:VOLUNTEER. Nobody is forcing nobody else to do anything they don't like. Editors are free to restrain from editing whatever they feel like without any reason. What they are not free to do is to say that their substantial contributions to one article give them a more prominent opinion than everybody else on subjects related to that article. Milo8505(talk)17:41, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The type of editor who quits the project over an infobox probably isn't someone suited to improving the project or working with others. I've worked on articles and a new editor may add something I don't like, but if they find consensus I accept the will of the community. That's how this place is supposed to work. Nemov (talk) 22:19, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Nemov, would you say that about me? I once objected to a template being renamed to something that was less convenient for me. It got renamed anyway, because other editors thought the new name would make their own work more convenient.
We do have to "accept the will of the community", but we do not have to continue volunteering under circumstances that aren't working for us, so I stopped doing that work. They got their advantages; we got another backlog for several years. (Eventually another editor decided to do that work.)
I really really really do not think that the spirit of How will this action make every other editor feel? is very useful to Wikipedia.
Although well-intentioned, it's imposible to think about every possible edge case, and sometimes it's imposible to find something that everyone will agree to, so if we stop to ask that question before every change, we will, in the end, get nothing at all done. Milo8505(talk)09:34, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It is impossible to think about every possible edge case.
However, we're not talking about Unknown unknowns in this case. We're talking about known consequences. We either choose them and own them, or we avoid them. Take your pick – but don't pretend that a choice has no downsides after you've been told what one of the downsides is. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:39, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Let's all take a deep breath, and not compare editing Wikipedia to waging deadly wars.
You're thinking about this at the wrong level, with your focus on "hurting someone's feelings".
This is more of a key employee situation, so let's tell the story a different way:
Your business depends heavily on a small number of highly valuable employees. Without these few, your business will probably fail, because you will have no products to sell. You are the manager, and you think about how you will improve the business's profitability. You come up with an idea and share it with your staff.
Most of the staff thinks it's a good idea, but some of your key employees tell you that it's intolerable, and if you implement it, they will quit.
Should you say:
"Well, I'm sorry if your little feelings got hurt, but frankly you don't own this business. Don't let the door hit your backside on your way out", or
"Um, I don't want you to quit. It's not good for any of us if you quit. Let me see if we can come up with something that meets my legitimate goals and also keeps you working here."
Wikipedia does not depend on "a small number of highly valuable employees". Our goal is always to best serve our readers, and we do that by including the information in our articles that they want and expect to be there. We do not do that by pandering to the dislikes of editors, especially not a small minority of editors. No matter how you try and spin it, ownership of articles is not justifiable. Thryduulf (talk) 22:10, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No one has suggested otherwise. I have absolutely no clue where you are substantiating this accusation of WhatamIdoing arguing for article ownership. Stating that outside editors with no connection to the article in interest other than to come and enforce their pet issues unrelated to any substantive content in the article is not “article ownership” anymore than having WikiProjects that have certain editors contributing more than others not part of the Project is “ownership.” Barbarbarty (talk) 23:56, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WP:OWN isn't complicated. No one, no matter what, has the right to act as though they are the owner of a particular article (or any part of it). You're creating a group of "outside editors." We are all editors here. One editor's "pet issue" is another editors improvement. Wikipedia is a collaborative effort. Nemov (talk) 00:20, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Again, no one has suggested otherwise. I am simply stating a fact that when certain editors try to present something as an “improvement” and it is roundly rejected by other editors who routinely edit the article, it is not a case of someone asserting “ownership.” Hiding behind accusations of others asserting “ownership” to obfuscate the fact that some editor’s changes are counterproductive or not accepted is not the same as finding a violation of WP:OWN. Barbarbarty (talk) 01:11, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Honestly I fail to see how I could have made myself clearer. You are accusing me of “creating a group of outside editors.” I have suggested nothing of the sort. I was merely saying that when certain groups of editors have more expertise on certain subjects, and therefore edit articles related to those subjects more than other users, that is simply how many articles have been crafted and developed. It’s not “ownership” to state that fact, nor is it elevating any group of editors above any other group. If someone who does not edit a certain article frequently adds an edit to an article and it is reverted, just because it is reverted by another user who is more active on the article does not automatically implicate WP:OWN. Barbarbarty (talk) 02:43, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
when certain groups of editors have more expertise on certain subjects, and therefore edit articles related to those subjects more than other users, that is simply how many articles have been crafted and developed. is saying that certain groups of editors should be allowed OWNERSHIP of articles they have written, it is explicitly elevating [a] group of editors above [another] group. Thryduulf (talk) 03:10, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You have a very odd and confusing idea of what “explicitly” means, given what you described has absolutely no relation to what I actually said. Absolutely nowhere have I stated certain groups of editors be allowed “ownership.” For the third time, I have just stated that it is natural that some editors edit articles more than others. Sometimes they do so because they have specialized knowledge about the subject area. Nothing about that implies certain editors be given ownership, and frankly it’s ridiculous to construe what I said to mean anything like that. Barbarbarty (talk) 03:26, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Barbarbarty Multiple of @WhatamIdoing's posts, including the one I was directly replying to, advocate for article ownership without using that term. The post I was directly replying to explicitly claimed Wikipedia depends on a small number of editors.
Stating that outside editors with no connection to the article in interest other than to come and enforce their pet issues unrelated to any substantive content in the article so presumably you object to editors copyediting, typo fixing, adding conversion templates, adding/editing/removing categories and short descriptions, making the article consistent in it's language variety, citation style and/or unit ordering and any of the other myriad of improvements "outside editors with no connection to the article" make? If not, why are infoboxes different? Who gets to decide who is and who is not an "outside editor" and thus who is entitled to stand above consensus? Thryduulf (talk) 00:50, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
First off, you admit that WhatamIdoing never advocated for article ownership. I still fail to see how it can be shown otherwise. As for your point about things I would “presumably” object to, one look at my posting history would show that the vast majority of my contributions involve things like fixing typos and the like. Simple maintenance issues like adding citations and fixing typos are not “pet issues” in any sense of the term. I doubt any editor on here would think that Wikipedia should have articles with unfixed typos or improper grammar. Infoboxes do not fall into simple “maintenance.” Arbitrarily adding them without discussion, as history as shown, is nearly guaranteed to cause debate. They are entirely done on a case-by-case basis, dependent on a myriad of factors. As I said above, “ownership” is not simply some editors who edit an article more frequently rejecting so-called “improvements” by editors who edit the article less frequently. Barbarbarty (talk) 01:20, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
First off, you admit that WhatamIdoing never advocated for article ownership I did not do this. I said she has argued for article ownership without using that term, because no matter whether you call it "ownership" or not, when she is arguing for is exactly what we define ownership to be. Infoboxes are no more "pet issues" than fixing typos or any of the other improvements mentioned, the only difference is that some editors dislike them. As I said above, “ownership” is not simply some editors who edit an article more frequently rejecting so-called “improvements” by editors who edit the article less frequently. Except it is, as Nemov has explained in very simple terms above. Thryduulf (talk) 01:57, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Again, nothing you have pointed to shows anyone advocating for ownership. Nothing. Simply saying that one is “saying without saying” is pointless and unconvincing. Fixing typos and adding infoboxes are not the same, I find it mystifying to read you implying otherwise. If only infoboxes were as noncontroversial as typos that would save us a lot of trouble! But sadly they are not, so pretending someone adding an infobox to every article is the same as fixing typos here and there is not grounded in the reality we live in. As to your last point, that’s not a refutation. And I believe I thoroughly addressed that point already. Under your logic no person who has previously edited an article is allowed to revert someone else’s edit on that same article lest they be accused of asserting “ownership.” I fail to see the logic in such a position. Barbarbarty (talk) 03:34, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Thryduulf, I'd like to think that I'm arguing for acknowledging the value of content, and by extension for the people who create it.
If we choose to insist upon infoboxes, I'd rather that we did this kindly, while trying to find solutions to the identified problems, instead of with an WP:IDONTCAREWP:YOUWP:DON'TWP:OWNWP:WIKIPEDIA tone. I'm hearing a lot more of the latter than the former in this conversation. I think we can do better than that.
IMO the ideal outcome is more infoboxes and nobody quits writing articles. I think the first outcome is inevitable. I think the second outcome depends on how we treat people who are unhappy with the first outcome. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:02, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I entered this topic about two years ago, completely unfamiliar with it until it came up in an RFC. Since then, I haven’t seen any of the content creators strongly opposed to infoboxes quit. In fact, they’re still actively creating content and opposing infoboxes. One editor even came out of retirement to create new content—so overall, it’s a net win.
Most of the RFCs over the last two years have been initiated by editors unaware of this long-standing dispute. The pattern is predictable: they ask why there’s no infobox, get dogpiled by the same group of editors, and if they persist, the tone worsens. When it eventually goes to an RFC, the infobox is approved most of the time.
This behavior seems tolerated because these editors are content creators. However, considering they haven’t quit and newer editors often face hostility for bringing up the topic, I’m not seeing the issue you’re raising. Nemov (talk) 16:01, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You didn't quit the Wikipedia over it. There are some editors who have been arguing about infoboxes for over 15 years. It's only a contentious topic because that group can't let it go. I feel bad for new editors who wander into the topic not knowing the back story. Nemov (talk) 17:32, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's only contentious because both sides can't let it go.
If the template renaming had happened at a point when I was already unhappy with editing, it would have tipped me over the edge.
What I'm not seeing here is any acknowledgement of the costs. I see the advantages:
Pros:
I like it.
Readers like it.
but not the known list of disadvantages:
Cons:
Some editors dislike it enough that they will reduce their participation or stop writing articles altogether.
You might well say "I like it, so I and other supporters will be inspired to do 2% more editing if we get our way, and it adds 5% more value to readers in biographies and 10% more value in corporations with an WP:ELOFFICIAL link in the infobox. That benefit needs to be set against 1% of editors quitting and 2% fewer notable articles being created. That's still a net benefit, so let's go with it."
@WhatamIdoing I would urge you reread my comment. I think you'll find there was no finger pointing at a particular side. You're twisting yourself into a pretzel here to defend ownership. There's a cost to everything. I think if you review some of the newer editors who have wandered into this topic they're not being encouraged to edit or learn. Nemov (talk) 05:32, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed I've seen several examples of newcomers being thoroughly bitten when they dare to ask for an infobox to be added to an article. See for example Talk:Stanley Holloway where suggestions get aggressively shut down. Thryduulf (talk) 10:09, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, there are costs to every choice. What irritates me at the moment is that some costs are being ignored, and one of those costs increases our long-term risk of collapse. (On the opposite side, one of the costs is that readers won't get what they need, which is also a very serious problem.)
And I'm anti hyperbolic claims that allowing article ownership is somehow the only way to avoid destroying Wikipedia. Nobody is irreplaceable. Thryduulf (talk) 22:30, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Case in point Jacqueline Stieger, where the box I've just removed (1) highlighted her place of birth Wimbledon and nationality British, which -- for someone with two Swiss parents, who was brought up in Yorkshire, did some of her notable work in France/Switzerland with her Swiss husband and then settled back in Yorkshire with her Swiss stepchildren -- is undue; and (2) copied "artist and sculptor" from the beginning of the capsule, while not paying heed to the fact her notable works predominantly fall into two groups, big architectural sculptures mainly in metal, and jewellery/art medals. Espresso Addict (talk) 05:52, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well sure, but I just looked down my list of created bios by date till I found the first to which someone had added an infobox. I didn't drag out my historical collection of badly added infoboxes including those that had been cut-and-pasted wholesale from another article without changing any of the data, and those that introduced errors in the dates. Espresso Addict (talk) 10:40, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at the example of Jacqueline Stieger, I'm not understanding Espresso Addict's position. They object to the infobox giving her nationality as British. But the lead has always said that she "is a British artist and sculptor". And the {{short description}} is "British artist and sculptor". And there are a bunch of categories which tend to describe her as English rather than British.
The lead, infobox, short description and other structural stuff like categories are all summaries or attributes of the main content. Summarising obviously involves some loss of detail. Objecting to an infobox seems like objecting to a short description. I often don't like these myself but they seem to be unavoidable.
It's not so much the details being wrong for Steiger, they give undue prominence to trivial non-representative features of the subject's life, such as her place of birth, while not summarising the actual reasons for notability/interest -- possibly my fault for a slender lead. I'm not fond of short descriptions either but they are invisible to the reader. I'm actually not too fond of categories either, but they go at the bottom, after the references, and so again do not draw the attention of the reader. Espresso Addict (talk) 12:45, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What makes anybody of you think that the infobox is more prominent than the lead of the article itself? Maybe are you implicitly recognizing that inboxes are actually widely used by readers? Milo8505(talk)20:21, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The thing to remember about CONLOCAL is that almost all of our policies and guidelines (which supposedly reflect “global consensus”) contain a line noting that occasional exceptions may exist. This means that global consensus takes local consensus into account. Indeed, there are times when a consensus is reached at an article level (say through a RFC) that actually has greater participation (wider consensus) than the policy/guideline page that is at the heart of the discussion. A policy/guideline may be wonderful for most situations, but problematic in a specific situation.
As for infoboxes… yes, there is a “global consensus” that they are good things, and adding one usually improves the article. However, we have had RFC that show we also have a wide consensus that notes how infoboxes don’t alway work, that on occasion they can actually be more harmful than helpful… and that we can leave it to local editors to make that determination. This is especially true when it comes to articles about composers.
So, when there is local disagreement regarding a specific composer, when there is a question as to whether an infobox would be beneficial or harmful in that specific situation, the solution is to have an RFC to determine wider consensus about that specific situation.
The phrase "global consensus" indicates that we should look across all the languages, not just English. Articles about famous composers seem to have about 50 versions in the various languages and it's easy to spot-check these to see whether they do or don't have infoboxes. I looked at a few examples of English composers as they seemed to be the most likely to be disputed: Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Benjamin Britten. My impression is that most languages have infoboxes for these. Apart from English, the main outliers seem to be German and Italian. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:39, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There seem to be at least three different meanings of "global consensus" in this discussion. The OP seems to have taken it to mean something that should apply to all articles of a particular type, but in WP:CONLEVEL I think it means a consensus reached by everyone rather than just the editors of particular articles. These are different. It is in principle possible for a global discussion to come to the conclusion that every article should be treated differently. Andrew Davidson introduces another level of "global" that includes other language Wikipedias. English Wikipedia has always claimed its independence from other projects, so I don't think that will fly. On the specific case of infoboxes surely the discussion should be about what to include in them, rather than first a discussion of whether they should exist. If the answer is "nothing" then we simply don't have them. Phil Bridger (talk) 13:49, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Right now only "recall" votes count, and those opposing recall don't count for anything, nor do any points made in the discussion. So 25 quick group-think / mob thumbs-down votes and even be best admmin can get booted. And the best (= the most active) are the ones most likely to get booted. An admin that does near zero will get zero votes to recall. And with a single regular RFA currently the only way back in (which we've seen, very few want to go through) "booted" is "booted". The fix would be to have a discussion period pror to voting, with both "recall" and "don't recall" choices. And then say that the recall has occurred (thus requiring rfa) if over 50% or 60% of those voting said "recall".
Thanks. I looked for something like that but I guess I didn't look hard enough. I hope others look harder than me. :-) North8000 (talk) 21:58, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think you understand how recall works. An admin is only desysopped after the RRFA, not after the 25 signatures, unless they choose to resign on their own. You're asking to hold a vote on whether or not a vote should be held. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 20:55, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I understood that and that is integrated into my comment above. Unless they go through and succeed at an RFA they are gone. North8000 (talk) 21:54, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've never heard of a petition that lets people sign because they don't support it. And I'll add that between the two recall petitions that were enacted to this point, both were preceded by many, many attempts to get the admin to correct course over the years despite egregious misconduct. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:03, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The process at the moment does have a certain level of redundancy, with the recall and reconfirmation RFA being separate things. The reconfirmation RFA is even a standard RFA, as it has different criteria for success.
I'm not sure if anything should be done yet, as it's still very early in its adoption. However if the situation occurs that a petition is successful but the reconfirmation RFA SNOWs, it could indicate that adjustments needs to be made so that community time isn't wasted. That speculative at the moment though. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°23:53, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The recall petition threshold is not the recall discussion - it is just a check to prevent the most frivolous recall discussions from being held. — xaosfluxTalk00:56, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The optics of this look alltogether terrible from my observation. I don't edit much, but I like reading a lot. Every criticism of the recall process i've seen so far just looks like old established admins thinking they might be next and having anxiety about that.
The problem of something like this is that the optics are terrible. If anyone who doesn't know you reads that, the conclusion they will draw will likely not be "this recall process is terrible" and more likely go along the lines of "wow this is a lot of admins who don't have the community's trust anymore and want to dodge accountability".
By being so vocally against any form of community led accountability, you're strenghtening the case for easy recalls and low thresholds, not weakening it.
Specifically regarding Fastily, I'll make no comment on whether or not he deserves to still be an admin or not, I don't know him well enough for that and haven't reviewed enough of his contributions, but the arguments of "ANI agreed that no sanctions were appropriate" sound a lot like "our police department has investigated itself and found nothing was wrong". You have to see how this comes across, it's eroding trust in Admins on the whole project right now. Magischtalk to me09:24, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Specifically, if RFA is so toxic that nobody wants to do it, that needs to be reformed. But the recent amount of vitriol towards a process that only kickstarts having to prove that you retain community trust has me convinced that there should be automatic mandatory RRFAs for every admin every 2 years or so.
If, as of today, you don't believe the community would entrust you with admin tools, why do you think you should still have them? The criteria for losing them should not be "has clearly abused them", it should be "wouldn't be trusted with them if asked today". Magischtalk to me09:33, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As an admin actively working to improve the recall process, my goal is to make it as fair as possible to all parties. That means it should not be possible to subject an admin to the process frivolously while equally making it possible to recall administrators who have lost the trust of the community, and it needs to be as non-toxic as possible, because even administrators who are actively abusing their tools are people and nobody deserves 1-2 months of abuse. It's also incorrect to describe ANI as a police department investigating itself - everybody engaging in good faith is welcome to comment there, regardless of whether they are an admin or not. Thryduulf (talk) 11:15, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Thryduulf It's the Administrator's Noticeboard, naturally the vast majority of participants will be either admins or people who are involved in the same work.
I don't think asking an admin to confirm they still retain the trust of the community (the whole basis of giving out admin tools to begin with) is ever really frivolous. The current process allows that at most once a year. If an admin had to stand for RFA every year, that might be a bit too much long term, but really, if any admin thinks they would not pass RRFA today, why should they retain their tools.
Also, the sheer optics of it being mostly (from what i've seen) established admins calling this process toxic are terrible. Anyone who doesn't know anything about this process will see this as some kind of thin blue line mentality in the admin corps - and might conclude that it is time to desysop the majority of old admins to dissolve the clique.
I have no horse in this race, except that I regret not seeing the RFA earlier so I could have voted Support, sorry about that.
But if your argument is optics, then having a bunch of recall petitions for the people who most vocally expressed a valid opinion on an evolving policy is absolutely awful optics. At best. Gnomingstuff (talk) 01:33, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I took the stats from the first RRfA to test this theory:
1st RRfA votes
Support
Oppose
Total
Administrators
48
29
77
Non-admins
71
116
187
Total
119
145
264
Administrators made up 29% of the voters. If being an admin doesn't influence anyone's vote, then we can expect admins to make up roughly 29% of the supporters and 29% of the opposers. But this didn't happen. In the final results, administrators made up 40% of the supporters and 20% of the opposers. We can also look at the individual odds of supporting/opposing depending on user rights. It ended at 45% support, so you'd expect admins to have a 45% chance of supporting and a 55% chance of opposing. But this also didn't happen. If you choose any admin at random, they had a 62% chance of supporting and a 38% chance of opposing (ignoring neutrals). Non-admins were the opposite: they had a 38% chance of supporting and a 62% chance of opposing.
So our next question should be why it was so much more likely for an admin to support the RRfA relative to a non-admin. The obvious answer is of course as you said: admins have a perverse incentive to support here, especially if they're not-so-great admins who know they probably don't have the trust of the community anymore. Also suggested during the RRfA is the comradery that comes from working alongside a fellow admin for so long. I'd be interested in seeing how account age affects likelihood of supporting, but that's not something that can be counted up in a few minutes like admin status. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:48, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I believe it may be centered on the idea that we all make mistakes, and many of us like to think we'd be given a chance to grow and learn from said mistake, instead of being forced through the RfA process again. But I recognize I may be being overly optimistic on that, and that others may not have the same thoughts on the matter that I do. Many admins I've spoken to would simply choose to give up their tools as opposed to go through an RfA again, something I've also considered despite my relatively smooth RfA. I'm also not sure Graham is the best representation of that. I voted support, recognizing that Graham87 has made mistakes, but also recognizing the significant contributions they've made and their pledge to do better. Bluntly, I did so expecting the vote to fail, and wanting to show some moral support and appreciation for their work. There's certainly a psychological aspect involved in it, but I don't think that, generally speaking, those of us who voted support or have issues with the current process are doing so out of self preservation.
There's a lot of numbers that could be analyzed, such as the history of those admins who vote at RfA (whether they often vote support or don't vote at all), but it's hard to draw meaningful conclusions from this small of a dataset. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:14, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On paper, I get that. The thing is, I don't know whether you saw Levivich's comment or bradv's comment, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a less appropriate time to test the "chance to grow" theory than the absolutely deplorable behavior that we saw from Graham for many years with far too many chances to improve. If it were down to me, this should have been a block in 2023 rather than a desysop in 2024. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:32, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm late to the discussion, but I think it's also worth pointing that only 7 of the 25 users who signed Graham87's petition and 2 of the 25 on Fastily's were admins. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 13:16, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would add that there is a potential wrinkle in this analysis. I'm an extended-confirmed user here (and thus would likely be counted as a non-admin), but I am a sysop on Commons so I would have my own perspective on the matter. Abzeronow (talk) 21:06, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I'm not an admin and I started this thread. I'm all for having an admin recall process by the community in place. I'm also also for a process for course correction by the community in areas where and admin has drifted off course but where the problem is fixable. Administrative Action Review has the potential to become this but that has been stymied by various things. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:24, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think, fundamentally, the problem is that admins have a direct and concrete conflict of interest in this discussion. Of course an admin would be naturally opposed to more mechanisms that might make them lose their permissions, especially since desysops are very rare at the moment.
I also don't really agree that the current recall process is all that toxic. You could get rid of the discussion section, as the recall is only a petition, not a consensus discussion, but that's about it. Magischtalk to me18:33, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Of course an admin would be naturally opposed to more mechanisms that might make them lose their permissions – I wholeheartedly disagree with this assertion. There's a number of us that fully support a recall process, including quite a few people who have historically been open to recalls. This is an over simplification of the motives of a large group of experienced editors, many of which have legitimate and reasonable concerns about the process in its current form. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:15, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Substantially all criticism i've seen so far of the process have boiled down to "RFA is abusive and it's unreasonable to make people go through that again". And yet, instead of attempting to change that, the only suggestions seem to be to support older admin's rights to have their permissions continue being grandfathered in. Magischtalk to me19:27, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry that that's all you've taken away from the vast amounts of criticism given by people. Perhaps consider focusing on whether the process, in its current state, makes sense instead of focusing on older admins. I'm a relatively new admin and I don't support the current iteration of the process. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:30, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's eminently sensible to have adminship not be a lifetime appointment, both by the fact that norms change even when people dont, and that I see people in every RFA expressing reluctance over granting lifetime tools. I also think that assuming RFA isn't a big deal regular reconfirmations make sense. IFF RFA is a big deal, then the focus should be on fixing that.
It seems to me that existing admins being immune to having to suffer RFA again has created a lack of pressure to actually make it into a functional, nontoxic process.
Attempting to improve RFA is a very hard problem that people have been working on since before you joined Wikipedia, and are still working on it. I would also say that it is unreasonable to make people go through that again is a mischaracterisation of the views expressed, which are it is unreasonable to make people go through that again unnecessarily, which is significantly different. Thryduulf (talk) 19:31, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I just found out about this discussion, and it looks to me like the same or similar things are being discussed in way too many different places. Anyway, I'm someone who has stated repeatedly and strongly in multiple places that I think the recall process is a disaster, and is beyond repair. And, contra some statements above, here are some other facts about me. I'm not an admin. I opposed Graham's re-RfA. And I played a central role in WP:CDARFC. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:12, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would be against it for a different reason: if we allow both supports and opposes, then the recall petition becomes a mini-RfA with the same amount of pressure as the RRfA itself (especially since, given the identical threshold, the recall's result would be indicative of the RRfA's subsequent result). Since anyone can start the recall petition, it functionally means that anyone can force an admin to re-RfA, which is clearly worse. On the other hand, having a set number of supports needed provides for a "thresholding" of who can open a RRfA, while not necessarily being as stressful. If anything, I would say the recall should become more petition-like (and thus less stressful for the recalled admin), rather than more RfA-like. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 20:01, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The ones most likely to be booted are bad admins who are abusive toward the editor community and who negatively represent themselves as admins. Both of the recalls thus far were just exact examples of that and worked perfectly as designed and needed. The process worked exactly as desired and removed bad admins who deserved to be desysopped. Though I do think the discussion section of the petitions should be more regulated. Discussion should be about the admin's actions and conduct and nothing else. Any extraneous commentary should be removed. SilverserenC00:23, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
When I first started editing Wikipedia almost 20 years ago, I was struck by what, to me at least, appeared to be widespread incivility. Among a number of things which have changed for the better IMHO is an all round expectation that everyone's standards of behaviour should rise (and they have). The admin role breeds a certain "culture" (for lack of a better term) akin to a conservationist, the role is to "protect" Wikipedia from "harm" and I can certainly see why being an admin could be a deeply frustrating experience. However, what has happened, I think, in the attrition of the admin corps, and the turnover in the non-admin corps, is that the generalised culture of "regular" non-admin editors has moved further forward towards less acceptance of a culture prevalent 10-15 years ago. I think also the rise in editors from non-English speaking backgrounds and from the Global South has caused complexities for those with limited experience outside the anglosphere. The statistics above on the vote for G87's RRFA show an interesting split between admins and non-admins, and within admins. Non-admins were almost overwhelmingly (close to 2/3) of the view that G87 had been given an almost exceptionaly long period to improve, had not, and no longer held their trust. 5/8s of admins, appeared (and comments here also seem to confirm this) split between solidarity for one of their own and displeasure with the recall process. 3/8s admins were in alignment with the majority of non-admins. FWIW, I'm not trying to point to some grand schism; A 38/62 admin split on these numbers is not that profound - if just 9 admins had changed their vote from support to oppose it would have been a 50/50 split. To reiterate, I'm not suggesting that there is a great gap between admins and non-admins, but there does appear to be some gap when it comes to generalised views around the expected behaviour of admins. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 01:01, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't disagree, and in effect I was sort of saying the same thing in terms of the attrition of the admin corps and turnover in non-admin corps. FWIW, I do think there are some generalised feelings about admins among non-admins; for example, admins are less likely to face sanction than non-admins. How true that actually is I'm not sure and the point would be that a group of people already tested in commnuity trust (ie RFA) are less likely to breach that trust. However, comments in the G87 RRFA and the strength of the vote suggest there are (wrongly or rightly) widely felt perceptions of disparity. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 01:53, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm currently compiling the data to get some statistics about voters in Graham's re-RFA. I'm a bit less than halfway through so it might be a couple of days before I can present any results. However among the first 113 support voters the maximum account age (on the day the re-RFA started) was 7919 days (21 years), the minimum was 212 days and the average was 4785 days (13 years). I have no data yet for neutral or oppose voters so cannot say how that compares. Thryduulf (talk) 02:03, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have a handy list of all voters for RFA? It should be simple enough to use a WP:QUARRY to find out all details about the voters if someone finds an easy enough scrape of who each user is Soni (talk) 05:51, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think about 6 editors were missed by the tool you linked, but it should not change overall patterns much so we can just use this as is. Soni (talk) 07:24, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Prepare to not be surprised. Supporters/Opposers:
Median registration date 2008/2014 <-- Behold, Wikipedia's generational shift
At a quick glance, it seemed like editors with more edits were more likely to support while editors with fewer edits (with one exception) were more likely to oppose. - Enos733 (talk) 07:54, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Given a single admin action may involve multiple edits, it's not so surprising the supporters' list possibly reflects a group with higher edit counts. Personally, I'd be more inclined to draw conclusions from length of registration rather than edit count. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 09:11, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
my very, very rapid count - supports 35/117 (30%) less than 10 years old, opposes 67/141 (48%) less than 10 years old. In absolute numbers, 10+ year accounts were 82 supports, 74 opposes - actually quite even. What was crucial was younger accounts. It does confirm my sense of gaps between "older" and "younger" generations in regard to perceptions of tolerable admin behaviour. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 09:50, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We have had two recalls as of now. The people signing the recall were by and large not trolls, vandals, people blocked by that admin, ... but regular editors in good standing and without a grudge. One of these recalls has been supported by the RRFA afterwards, and the other admin decided not to go for a RRFA. There is zero evidence that the process is flawed or leads to results not wanted by the community at large. While minor issues need working out (things like "should it be closed immediately the moment it reaches 25 votes or not"), the basic principles and method have so far not produced any reason to fundamentally "fix" the issue. That the process highlights a gap between parts of the community (see e.g. the Graham RRFA) doesn't mean that the process needs fixing. The process only would need fundamental fixing if we would get successful recalls which would then be overwhelmingly reversed at RRFA, showing that the recall was frivolous, malicious, way too easy... Not now though. Fram (talk) 09:24, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Fram. There is not any evidence that the recall process is reaching outcomes that are not supported by the Community (I voted Oppose on the Graham RRFA; I don't know how I would have voted on a Fastily RRFA). Small fixes to the process if supported would not be indicative of the process itself being fundamentally flawed. Abzeronow (talk) 21:15, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that desysoppings for cause should only happen when there is objective evidence of misconduct. My main concern about the recall process is that it may be wielded against administrators who are willing to take actions that are controversial, yet necessary. Examples of actions that have got administrators hounded include (1) closing contentious and politically charged AFD discussions; (2) blocking an "WP:UNBLOCKABLE" editor who is being disruptive or making personal attacks; (3) stepping up to protect a politically charged article to stop an edit war. None of these actions are administrator misconduct, but in a heated dispute the side that has an admin rule in their disfavor may quickly resort to punishing said administrator by starting a recall petition, and in a dispute involving many editors, getting to 25 may be easy. Even if that petition fails, it is so unpleasant that it may have a chilling effect on admin involvement even when needed. Sjakkalle(Check!)21:14, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In which case, a RRFA might be overwhelmingly in favor of the administrator and thus vindicate the administrator. I would definitely vote in support of an administrator if those any of those three were the impetus behind a recall. I also trust our editors, and so far, the recall process has worked as intended. Abzeronow (talk) 21:50, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's driving me up the wall that people keep saying that the process has worked as intended. Come back and tell me that, after you can link to an RRfA for Fastily that resulted in whatever result you define as working as intended. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:01, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Choosing not to do an RRfA was their own choice, particularly if Fastily thought it wouldn't be successful. It was also their choice to make no attempt whatsoever to defend the reams of evidence presented against them in the recall petition of their negative actions toward the editing community. So, yes, Fastily as well was an example of the process working as intended. SilverserenC22:08, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Or perhaps they just thought "well, I've put XX years into this and a load of random people with rationales ranging from reasonable to utterly non-existent have told me I'm not fit to do it, so f*** you". If that's the case, I don't blame them. Black Kite (talk)22:13, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
He was going to lose if he didn't apologize, and he didn't want to apologize. That simple. As others have said, that was his choice to make, and I respect it. Levivich (talk) 22:28, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Except that he did apologize, although there were differing views of whether that apology was enough. This oversimplification is what's wrong with the way discussions happen in this process. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:34, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
He woulda had to apologize more, then, including for the stuff that came out during the petition, and any other stuff that may have come out during the RRfA. He woulda had to answer questions about it, make promises, etc., basically go through what Graham went through, and realize that even that (answering questions, making promises) might not be enough (as it wasn't for Graham). It's not at all irrational for someone to choose not go through that. Being an admin isn't worth all that to some (e.g., to me), especially if you might not get it despite your best efforts. Levivich (talk) 22:44, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, those two things are not the same. If you want to know why I think the process worked, it's because it stopped disruption, did it faster than Arbcom, and I think with less drama (though admittedly the third one is purely subjective and speculative). Levivich (talk) 22:56, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Linking might help though. It doesn't seem to be on Wikipedia talk:Administrator recall/Graham87, Wikipedia talk:Administrator recall/Fastily, or on Wikipedia talk:Administrator recall, so it's a bit hard to know what "the petition page" is. Do you mean your 00:39, 13 November 2024 (UTC) reply to A smart kitten? The one that ended with "Does this rise to the level of requiring, for me, a desysop? I'm leaning towards no." And others leaned towards "yes", it's not as if people couldn't draw different conclusions from your post or could disagree with things you said without actually replying directly to you. You didn't contradict the evidence, you personally didn't find it severe or convincing enough, that's all. That doesn't show that the process needs fixing though, just because enough people disagreed with your opinion and the result wasn't put to the test. Fram (talk) 09:28, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Fram, the context of what I said was clearer before there were all those intervening edits, but yes, you correctly identified the post I meant as the one that ended with the words that you quoted. Here's the diff: [2]. From where I'm sitting, your analysis here of how people reacted to what I posted is, well, not convincing enough. There was a lot of discussion about the evidence that I analyzed, back and forth. When the editor (A smart kitten) who originally posted the evidence came back with the additional information that I requested, the discussion was still very active. I provided a very detailed examination, point-by-point, of each individual claim made in that evidence. Yes, it was based upon my opinions, but I drew specific conclusions, and justified those conclusions. And nobody came back and said that they thought anything in my analysis was incorrect, nor did anyone who signed on the basis of that evidence before my comment come back and reaffirm their signature, rejecting my analysis. If you think somebody actually did, you can provide a diff of it, but I can assure you that you won't find one. And that wasn't because the petition discussion had come to a close, because it continued for several more days after I posted that. After a whole lot of back-and-forth about that particular evidence, nobody said that they found errors in anything that I said. But a couple more editors did sign the petition after that, with brief comments saying, in some cases, that they decided to sign after reading that particular evidence.
So the question, in the light of your comment to me, becomes whether those later signers did so because they carefully read all of the discussion, including my critique, and decided to sign, implicitly having decided that my critique was unconvincing – or whether they signed after only a superficial read and had never really engaged with my critique. I cannot prove that it was the latter, and you cannot prove that it was the former. But given that their signatures came only with brief comments, and nobody found reason to actually mention that they had rejected my critique, I'm pretty skeptical of the former. And that's a problem. The petition process does not, of course, require that anyone had to say explicitly that they disagreed with me, either, but that's a shortcoming of the discussion process. A desysop via ArbCom makes room for careful examination of the facts. The petition did not. This is a half-assed way of driving someone off Wikipedia. And I'm arguing for a more deliberative process. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:55, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have to say I don’t get the recall process either. I support admin accountability but just having an arbitrary number of “support” votes, no “oppose” votes, and I guess a time limit instead of consensus forming seems… extremely weird and out of step with how virtually everything else is done on Enwiki. Dronebogus (talk) 10:56, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The intended point of the recall petition is not to find consensus or to determine whether the admin has lost the trust of the community, has abused the tools or anything like that. The intended point of the petition is only to prove that a re-RFA is not frivolous. The Re-RFA is where consensus is formed from support and oppose, analysis of evidence, etc. Think of it in judicial terms, the petition is at the pre-trial stage and simply aims to answer the question "are there 25 people who think there is a case to answer?" if the answer is no, then it ends there. If the answer is yes, then you can please innocent or guilty. If you plead guilty you take the sentence (desysopping) and move on. If you plead innocent there is a trial and the jury finds you either innocent or guilty by majority verdict. This is an imperfect analogy of course, but it hopefully helps explain the concept.
The problem is, the concept itself makes no sense. Nearly everything on Wikipedia is decided one of three ways: consensus democracy that must be approved/vetoed by an admin (most non-trivial issues); WP:BOLD editing, informal discussion, or admin fiat (trivial issues); or arbitration (extreme fringe cases). This resembles none of those. It’s like arbitration, only everyone can be an arb, and instead of voting yay or nay to take the case you collect signatures to see if there’s general support for a case? Dronebogus (talk) 13:11, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The request stage of arbitration is the closest analogy, but it is indeed a process not used anywhere else on Wikipedia. That doesn't mean it doesn't make sense. It's sole purpose is intended to be a check against frivolous requests so that an admin doesn't have to go through re-RFA just because they pissed off a single editor once by making an objectively correct decision. The actual decision is intended to made by consensus democracy at the Re-RFA. Thryduulf (talk) 13:33, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think a limited vote based on a formula like “after 7 days a minimum of 2/3rds of people must support for re-RFA” would be less opaque than trying to start a Wiki-Minyan? Dronebogus (talk) 09:26, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds like skipping the petition, and going right to the RRFA, or running two successive RRFA's. I have not been involved in any of this but it is not really hard to understand why there is the two-step process of: 1) calling the question, and 2) deciding the issue. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:52, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Honestly I think it should just go straight to RRFA, and if there’s enough opposition fast enough it can just be WP:SNOW closed. We don’t, for example, ask for 25 signatures to start and AfD discussion in order to weed out frivolous nominations— it’s patently obvious when a nomination is garbage in most cases. RRFA is clearly a last resort, and no established, good faith user is likely to abuse this kind of process so egregiously we need a two-step failsafe. Dronebogus (talk) 12:03, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not any time, there should be a policy that steps must already been taken and failed, ideally multiple times, similar to ArbCom. And not any user, since the starter should probably be autoconfirmed at the absolute minimum, and probably be required to be in goof standing, have X edits, been on WP X years, and been active during the last year. If it was unambiguously required that an RRFA follow these rules or be rejected (with filing an improper case being a sanctionable offense) I don’t think anyone would realistically start a frivolous case. Dronebogus (talk) 12:33, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, we also don't require a !vote to create an article but we do for an admin. I also don't think it is likely that 'any experienced user' has experience in making an RRFA -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:34, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
An admin is essentially just voted into office; they should be voted out of office in an identical way. There’s no need for some kind of novel additional process on top of that. That’s all I’m saying. Dronebogus (talk) 12:55, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think the basic complaint here is that the 25-vote threshold is too easy to meet, and therefore it is unfair to require an affirmative consensus for the admin to retain the tools. I think the 25-vote threshold is fine for weeding out frivolous nominations, but correspondingly I think we should make it harder to remove adminship, i.e. make 50-60% the discretionary range for removing adminship. This would make it in line with most of our other processes, where a slight supermajority is required to make changes, and no consensus defaults to the status quo. Whereas under the current recall system, 25 votes with no opportunity to object are enough to make removal of adminship the status quo, which seems a bit harsh. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠19:53, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think the 25-vote threshold, because it’s so easy to meet, is essentially pointless because it will only weed out extreme outlier cases that I don’t believe will ever happen enough to be a serious concern. We should just have a supermajority vote requirement, and if we must have a petition it should be a lot higher than 25. Dronebogus (talk) 16:06, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We don't have evidence the 25-vote threshold is easy to meet. Of the two recalls, one only hit 25 due to a bad block during the petition period. CMD (talk) 16:14, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One more reason I don’t like this: it’s extremely important, but we’re using it to prototype this weird system not used anywhere else on Enwiki and possibly Wikimedia (if you have examples of off-wiki precedent please share them). Dronebogus (talk) 16:18, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Have to try new things at some point. But CMD is right, from all the evidence we do have, it looks about right. Where as there is zero evidence that a higher number is required or helpful. PackMecEng (talk) 17:09, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's usually called Approval voting when it's used, though that might not be precisely the right name. It's used all over the Wikimedia movement. At least until recently, both grant requests and the (technical) community wishlist used petition-like voting processes that encouraged support and disregarded opposition votes. That is, if there were 25 people supporting something and you showed up to say "* Oppose because WMF Legal will have a heart attack if you do this", then the request might be rejected because of the information you provided, and your comment might change the minds of potential/future supporters, but it would never be counted as a vote of 25 to 1. It's still counted as a list of 25 supporters. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:53, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The original Phase I Proposal was directly written as adapting dewiki's recall policies into enwiki. I believe the Italian wikipedia also has a threshold to RRFA style process. And I think spanish too? I might be getting some projects confused. But it's directly used in recall in other projects - That's how it was recommended here (and then adapted after). Soni (talk) 18:58, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Arbitration election commissioners are chosen by collecting solely supporting statements. Once upon a time, the arbitration election RFCs also consisted of proposals that commenters approved, without any option to oppose. Requests for comments on user conduct also used a format where support for expressed viewpoints were collected, without opposing statements. edited 18:32, 4 December 2024 (UTC) to add another example isaacl (talk) 19:50, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That being said, different wikis have radically different governance structures. For example, Spanish Wikipedia is apparently much more democratic compared to Enwiki (in the literal sense, not just in the sense of “egalitarian” or “un-tyrannical”). Dronebogus (talk) 03:26, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comparing with de.Wiki maybe apples and oranges. Disclaimer: This is what I have come up with, but a regular de.Wiki user or admin may well be able to improve or correct my findings. First there is the huge difference in scale - the de.Wiki currently runs with only 175 admins. There are nearly 400 former admins (that’s quite a high turnover but recall replaced the earlier term limit system for admins which required automatic re-election), but also there is the question of culture: en.Wiki is a lingua franca project contributed by users from many different backgrounds and regions while the de.Wiki is largely contributed to from a specific language region that shares a common culture which defines their way of doing things such as the way their RfC (Meinungsbild) are structured, voted, and commented on. Since 2009 when the de.Wiki system was rolled out :
There have been 247 recall cases
There was a rush of 67 cases in the first year 2009
Since 2018 there have been 30 cases, an average of 4.29 per year
Breakdown:
49 handed their tools in voluntarily after being RECALLED. (zurückgetreten)
59 were stripped of their tools following a RECALL case and failed on a rerun (Nicht wiedergewählt)
96 were stripped of their tools after the rerun time limit expired (Nach Fristablauf de-administriert/Did not run after being asked to run for re-election)
These figures do not add up because they leave 43 unaccounted for. I think this is because there are several different pages with breakdowns of admin activity. The 43 could be users that passed a recall RfA or they may have handed their tools in voluntarily on recall but I can't find way to know for certain. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:37, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just in case anyone didn’t get the subtext of my first comment on this: I do think it’s apples and oranges, and that’s why we shouldn’t be using it. Different language editions have such vastly different systems and community cultures they might as well be on other planets half the time. You can’t import stuff between them just because it fills the same niche. Dronebogus (talk) 00:29, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the situations are somewhat different, but it at least means its not unprecidented. Also, I know what you mean, but I'm still amused by the phrase en.Wiki is a lingua franca project. --Ahecht (TALK PAGE)20:19, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm for there being an admin recall process. But we need to recognize that RFA, at it's realistic best is an inherently rough process that few want to go through, and if they don't do so they are gone. At it's best it's like standing on a pedestal for a week in the middle of a crowd while people ask questions and make public assessments about you. Including about anything that anyone feels they might have done wrong. I just think we need a more careful thoughtful process before we subject them to "RFA or out" North8000 (talk) 19:36, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Topics on Jehova's Witnesses - article spamming issues
Polish Wikipedia is experiencing and uptick in Jehova's Witnesses topics article spamming, surrepticious edits pushing JW terminology etc. One of current problems is the spamming of separate articles for every "convention", which is an annual (I think) event with a theme and about 100k visitors. We are discussing their notability right now, and I was wondering whether English Wikipedia already discussed and cleaned this, which would be helpful? If you remember any topic discussing notability or monitoring of Jehova's Witnesses related topics, and possibly deleted articles. (I'm not sure if there is any sensible search method of deleted articles archive/log? Can I use any wildcards in Special:Log/delete? It doesn't seem to work.) Tupungato (talk) 12:04, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Tupungato: I'm probably one of the best people you could talk to about this. I've been trying to remove the emphasis on primary sources when JWs are talked about throughout enwiki. The Jehovah's Witnesses article used to cite the denomination's magazines 100+ times. I fixed that. Unfortunately I don't speak Polish but I have an extensive book collection on secondary sources about JWs if you ever wanted me to look something up for you. Clovermoss🍀(talk)14:09, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In regards to notability, we don't really have articles on individual conventions. I think a few are (or should be) mentioned at the History of Jehovah's Witnesses if secondary sources talked about them, but otherwise that sort of thing definitely wouldn't meet our notability guideline for standalone articles. I'm not sure what the standards at the Polish Wikipedia are because I know various projects have different standards. If you're looking for AfDs, the most recent one I can think of is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Watch Tower Society publications (2nd nomination). I've mostly been focusing on improving the content we have as there's only a handful of people editing the JW topic area and a lot of what was written a decade ago uses almost exclusively primary sources. Clovermoss🍀(talk)14:23, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your reply. I was away for a week, but I'll have a look how the matters are progressing in Polish Wikipedia, and will remember about your offer to consult. Tupungato (talk) 09:06, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
New users required to cite sources when creating an article
This wishlist item proposes a hard edit filter which would change citation policy for new users. We've repeatedly discussed requiring sources, and the consensus has been not to require them; per current policy, articles must be on notable topics and statements must be citable, but neither need be cited.
I know changes that affect new editors typically don't ignite as much interest as those that affect established editors, but they are in some ways more important; anything that affects our retention rate will eventually substantially affect the number of active editors, and the nature of their editing.
More broadly, it might be good to set limits on policy changes done through a wishlist survey on another wiki; big changes need broader discussion. HLHJ (talk) 01:05, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's just a wish. Anyone can male one. We don't know whether it will ever be implemented (community wishlists don't exactly have a good track record), never mind turned on on enwiki. – Joe (talk) 05:52, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As Joe says, a wishlist item is a long way from becoming something that works. We don’t have need for limits on changes; it is very rare for any changes to be pushed on en.wiki. Those that are are large-scale changes that affect all wikis (think Vector2022 or the upcoming IP masking), and the community here is usually very aware of these ahead of time. If wishlist items turn into tools the wiki can use, they tend to require local activation, as different projects have different needs. (En.wiki for example already has WP:NPP, which will see any new pages, which may include pages that aren’t meant to have sources, like disambiguation pages.) CMD (talk) 08:17, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The WMF Community wishlists in the past have actually had some impressive successes, particularly in 2018 for NPP's Page Curation extension improvements. It is not all that rare for any changes to be pushed on en.wiki; two slightly earlier community driven major policies largely contributed - at the time - to reducing the flow of sewage in the new page feed: the 2016 NPP user right, and after a 7 year battle with the WMF, the 2018 ACPERM. However, the number of new registrations has since grown again by users whose first intention above all else is to create a new article by hook or crook with little or no regard for notability, relevance, UPE, and spam policies. NPP has lost many of its prolific, skilled patrollers and coordinators either through burn-out and/or the constant whining either from users whose inappropriate articles have been consigned to the queues for the various trash cans or draft space, or have been driven away for good by other (non NPP) back office regulars' complaints, for the sake of complaining, over a couple of misplaced CSDs or AfDs out of thousands.
The NPP backlog sawtooth profile looks menacing - it should be a regular low-value straight line. It is well known common knowledge that NPP is hopelessly overburdened and can no longer sensibly cope with even the minimum suggested criteria for patrolling new pages. The best way to ensure that the WMF's flagship project - the one that draws all the donations - becomes an untrustworthy resource full of useless and corrupt articles, is to sit back and do nothing and let WP become a mire of misinformation and spam. Wikipedia has already become the buck of media satire with "If you believe Wikipedia, you'll believe anything". The quest is therefore for any measures that will tighten up the article quality at the source of creation.
Although they are aware of them, as usual the WMF Growth Team has played down and resisted addressing these issues in favour of pursuing other, and expensive initiatives of their own design which in the NPP realm remain ineffective. It's the responsibility of the WMF to ensure new users are aware of the rules at the point of registration.
The NPP team has handed solutions to the WMF on a plate, which at the same time will not only reduce the tide of rubbish, but most importantly, encourage the good faith new users to offer articles that have a fair chance of being published. All this project needs is to be written up in MediaWiki source code, but of course short of a mutiny by the community, the WMF will not entertain any ideas that they did not think of themselves and can collect the accolades for.
The "anyone can edit" principle is not a get out of jail free card; it should be quoted in its full context: 'Anyone can edit as long as they play by the rules'. For once and for all, just make those basic rules clear for bona fide new registrants, and help them comply. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:53, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia has already become the buck of media satire with "If you believe Wikipedia, you'll believe anything
This is just rhetorically dishonest. When people say this they are generally referring to vandalism, hoaxes, and information on high-profile articles, not the stuff that goes through NPP.
Like, just think about this for a second. Think about the kind of misinformation people generally disseminate and what it is about. Almost always, it's about things people already care about, which means things we have articles on. COVID. Political stuff. Current events. Not obscure new articles. Gnomingstuff (talk) 17:51, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Gnomingstuff : Almost always, it's about things people already care about, which means things we have articles on. COVID. Political stuff. Current events. Not obscure new articles. This is unfortunately not true as 800 patrollers will confirm. NPP needs all the help it can get. Why not enroll at the NPPSCHOOL, get qualified, apply for the user right and help out? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:43, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're misinterpreting my point. I realize that NPP obviously gets a lot of junk and unsourced stuff. But this is not the junk that makes Wikipedia "the butt of media satire." The media satire is about things people actually look up, such as high-profile politicians, major scientific topics, etc.
That doesn't mean that patrolling new pages is not useful, and I am glad people are doing it (I personally doon't have time to take on any more responsibilities and don't foresee that changing). But it's not an area of the project that tends to escape containment, and so should be done on its own merits without trying to make it about "what would the press think?" Gnomingstuff (talk) 07:56, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Without commenting on the merits of the core portion of this proposal, I think it's worth pointing out that certain types of mainspace pages don't need and indeed are expected not to have references. You could try to get around that by excluding pages tagged with the DISAMBIG magic word, SIA templates, etc. But that won't work if they don't properly format the page common for new users; I don't have any statistics handy for often new users create those type of pages, but I suspect its a large enough number that it should be taken into consideration. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 04:23, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One of the commentators on the original proposal pointed out that articles created through AfC in practice are required to have references, so this would not actually change anything for new editors, who have to use AfC anyway. So it would perhaps it would apply to somewhat more experienced editors.
There is a widespread belief that references are required for every statement, let alone article. This is usually applied to edits by newcomers, who get scared off when a solid but unreferenced contribution is deleted without trying to WP:JUSTFIXIT, and who would learn how to cite if it was instead tagged "citation needed" or a cite was added by another editor (we have studied this). But I've seen a solid-but-uncited edit by an admin removed by an IP, too; this is much less serious.
There is also confusion between notable and has citations that establish notability. I recently posted an unreferenced stub article in the mainspace, and it was draftified and AfCd within the hour. The topic was notable, meaning it would not have been deleted if listed at AfD, and I think I remember an explicit statement that draftifying was an alternative to deletion and could only be used if articles met deletion criteria. The point here is not the individual editors who did this in good faith; the point is that the ensuing discussion made it clear that most of the people on the AfC board thought it reasonable to draftify any unsourced article.
We need to make a conscious choice to either:
change policy to require citations on every article (meaning we delete all the articles at Category:Articles lacking sources, or have a massive sourcing drive before the policy comes into effect) and every edit made by a new editor
find a way to teach editors to cite unsourced things, and delete them only if the are unsourcable, which is current policy.
This is not a new discussion. There is no consensus to do bullet point one, and it is very unlikely to get any. At the same time, the existence of older unsourced articles is not a good reason for new articles to lack sourcing. The example process given seems fine, the article was given time to develop in draft space and was put into mainspace when ready. CMD (talk) 00:04, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Am I right to say, then, that you favour a policy of "all new articles must have sources" (regardless of whether the editor is new)? How about "all statements added by new editors must have sources"? HLHJ (talk) 15:57, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You might be right about my personal policy within some nuance, but the community has decided not to draw a firm line for sourcing but instead to keep a slightly fuzzier set of guidelines. This won't be changed by developments in WMF-developed tools, which we can use or not as desired. CMD (talk) 05:39, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@HLHJ I would be very surprised if your ever saw 'an explicit statement that draftifying was an alternative to deletion...'. If you did, I would like to see the diff. As we say on Wikipedia: 'Serious claims need serious sources'. No qualified New Page Patroller would ever contemplate doing such a thing and if they misused their tools to that end they would quickly lose that user right. Articles moved to draft are often pages which the creator has no intention of returning to and completing. If the the creator or a member of the community does not bring the draft or stub up to an acceptable artile within 6 months, it can be deleted under the special conditions at G13 and only under those conditions. Articles can only be physically deleted by an admin and the community is under no obligation to step in and rescue such articles. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:25, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, Kudpung; I think, in trying to be brief, I was incomprehensible. What I meant is that articles that aren't fit for the mainspace, and would thus be deleted if sent to AfD, can be draftified instead of listed at AfD (assuming that they are notable topics, capable of improvement). Articles that are fit for the mainspace, and would therefore not be deleted in AfD, should be left in the mainspace. In other words, we have one standard for whether articles are fit for the mainspace. AfD and NPP do not, or should not, have separate standards. HLHJ (talk) 16:04, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
AFD isn't supposed to be deleting articles about notable topics. WP:Deletion is not cleanup. I would also question this claim that we have any "standard for whether articles are fit for the mainspace". There appear to be a wide variety of views but no agreed-upon standard.
@HLHJ: MY bad. My humble apologies. In a moment of mental aberration I totally misread what you had written. In fact I crafted and co-crafted much of the policies surrounding NPP, pretty much wrote the instructions at WP:NPP and designed and rolled out the user right. A lot has been done recently to improve and clarify the notability standards, especially on some kinds of BLP, but it's an on-going work. NPP is triage, it does mean sending stubs to draft but it's a long way off sounding their death knell. Equally important at NPP is knowing what is is an encyclopedically relevant topic. The fact that something can be sourced does not necessarily mean it belongs here. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:03, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No worries, apologies accepted as excessive! Text-only conversations are easy to misunderstand, there's less redundancy. My thanks to WAID: the WP:ATD-I subsection of Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Alternatives to deletion is, I think, what I was looking for, but I misremembered it, or it's changed. It says that a notable-topic article can be deleted if it "severely fails the verifiability or neutral point of view policies", which I think of as "an article that is worse than no article". Draftifying can be cleanup, and I think in practice is done at a lower threshold, but I'm not sure.
Unlike AfD, no reason is given when draftifying. I don't very much mind what standards we have for new articles, but if I fail to meet them I'd like to know how, so I can avoid it in future. If I'm confused, new editors certainly are.
I'm actually more worried about the editors who seem to be acting on the misconception that all statements (not just BLP), or at least all statements by new editors, need to be cited. I'm pretty sure this is terrible for editor retention (from anecdote and stats). What would be a good way to let them know that they needn't delete every new uncited statement as if it were vandalism? I'm told that this is a bit too complex for a user warning template; any other ideas? HLHJ (talk) 16:09, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well... I've been told that one of the best ways to retain a new editor (at least for definitions of "retain" that are as simple as "get them to edit the next day") is to leave their uncited text in the article, and add a {{citation needed}} tag at the end of it.
Obviously, there are limits (e.g., blatant vandalism, probably untrue material, libelous BLP content), but if retention is the goal, then we should do more inline tagging and less "Ooops, you made one mistake. Go back to the beginning and start completely over". Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a game of Mother, May I?, but some of us treat it that way. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:05, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed; there are plenty of reverts of newbies that are fully justified. It's a specific and thus perhaps fixable problem when editors think "unsourced" is in itself an adequate justification for reverting. Newbies who figure out how to source correctly on their first edit are rare.
In an attempt to fix this one specific problem, I drafted a user warning template, and tried unsuccessfully to add information to introductory tutorials, and discussed UI design for adding of inline tags using semiautomatic tools (T209797), and putting one-click templates in VE (T55590) might help a bit. But I've not gotten anywhere with any of this. Any suggestions, however wild, would be most welcome. HLHJ (talk) 05:16, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Propose to create page of block discussion in noticeboards
Hello users, I propose having a page within noticeboards in the "general" section called "Block discussion" with a list of active discussions (which could be a review request, an unblock request or a discussion on whether to block the user) (to separate from administrators ' noticeboard, to clarify further, and that within the DB there are 5 topics, 1. Evidence (evidence that the user can provide as a reason for blocking, will be ignored in the review request), 2. Defense (defense of the blocked or accused against blocking or defending its review), 3. Comments (comments from anyone who is registered and at least 10 edits whether they agree, disagree or neutrality with blocking, a filter or unblocking), 4. Administrators' evaluation (where administrators agree or disagree with blocking, unblocking or filtering, this means that the conclusion depends on the administrators' assessment), 5. Conclusion (Conclusion of the discussion if the blocking, filtering or unblocking was approved).
I understand the desire to split things off of AN/ANI, but this split poses several problems in practice. Quite frequently the proposal for a CBAN only arises after discussion has been ongoing for some time, and while it could be split off at that point it creates an extra bureaucratic step for questionable benefit. The other issue is that neither CBAN impositions nor their appeals are all that common, and separate noticeboards only tend to work well for things that have a fairly high frequency threshold. Arguably, if we had to do it over again AN wouldn't be the catchall, but at this point changing that is more trouble than its worth.
Granted, CBAN and appeal procedures could be tightened up separately without splitting anything off, but there's a longstanding preference for unstructured and somewhat messy discussions, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 17:03, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@JPPEDRA2: Yes, you can just close it as withdrawn, if you so chose. But don't let me discourage you if you want to leave this open for input from others; every so often perrenial proposals do get implemented, including rather recently, though its usually better to get input at WP:VPI first.
Ok, so I won't cancel now, I will let others discuss it, if it is rejected, put it in those VPI or perrenial proposals that you mentioned, thanks non-registrered user. JPPEDRA2why not?19:20, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We need someone and other users to discuss this whether they agree or disagree, I will wait.
@JPPEDRA2: Neutral pings are allowed, but be aware of WP:CANVASS; same with {{please see}} notices. Remember we're all volunteers so it may be a while until others weigh in, and sometimes discussions just don't gain traction for whatever reason. I'm pretty busy myself so I might attend to some things for another day or two here, but after that I'll probably be away for a while.
I'm not sure why, but I was invited here by a notice on my talk page. My initial impression is that this is a solution in search of a problem - largely per the IP editor's first comment. Very few AN(I) threads start off as a proposal for a ban, and divorcing such a proposal from the preceding discussion seems suboptimal, especially ban proposals often run concurrently with proposals for lesser restrictions. Appeals of bans being moved to a new page is an easier sell from a purely practical perspective but it would be a relatively little-used, for example there are none currently being discussed at either AN or ANI, and it would be less watched than either page (which is not a good thing for a community block appeal). Thryduulf (talk) 22:58, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@JPPEDRA2: I see that you have very few mainspace edits and you haven't participated in any AN discussions. I recommend working on some easy mainspace edits at WP:TASKS instead of proposing massive changes to areas of the encyclopedia that you don't edit in. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:43, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
While I do agree that there are problems with AN/I I don't think those problems are that blocks are discussed there. Rather, as constructed I find it is generally bad at efficiently discussing and resolving urgent issues. I think we should have improved processes in place for promptly identifying and closing spurious cases so that they don't become drawn-out time sinks that often result in either nothing happening but an argument or, occasionally, a boomerang. I respect the WP:BOLD spirit of this proposal but I think it's unlikely to cure what ails AN:I. Simonm223 (talk) 01:02, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is the current policy to ignore WP:CRYSTAL in regards to wording in articles related to upcoming officeholders? Donald Trump had the usage "will be inaugurated" until recently and JD Vance has He will resign on or before January 20, 2025, when he will be inaugurated as vice president of the United States. Similarly, infoboxes have "assuming office on X date". Should it not be "Scheduled to assume office on X date"? There seems to be disagreement on whether CRYSTAL applies since it is almost certain that these individuals will obtain their office barring some unforeseen event. I would like community input on this since if there is CRYSTAL, changes may need to be discussed here and implemented. Noah, BSBATalk23:32, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Reliable sources appear to do both. For example:
AP article: "President-elect Donald Trump will take office on Jan. 20 after defeating Democratic candidate Kamala Harris."
NY Times: "Congress is scheduled to meet on Jan. 6, 2025, to count the Electoral College results, and Mr. Trump is set to be sworn into office two weeks later, on Jan. 20."
Personally, I think this is a distinction without a difference. In common usage, saying "X will do Y on Tuesday" is always subject to the caveat that something might occur that prevents X from doing Y on Tuesday. To quote the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard: "I shall certainly attend your party, but I must make an exception for the contingency that a roof tile happens to blow down and kill me; for in that case, I cannot attend." voorts (talk/contributions) 23:50, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This type of stuff is what is outside the bounds of what WP:NOT#CRYSTAL has, eg we can start writing the article for the 2028 Summer Olympics as there's an extremely high certainity it will happen; there may be very extreme circumstances that may cause a change but the odds of those changing events are very low. The planned inaugeration is clearly of the same ilk. — Masem (t) 00:02, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The part I noticed was Dates are not definite until the event actually takes place, as even otherwise-notable events can be cancelled or postponed at the last minute by a major incident. The Olympics articles always say scheduled rather than will take place. Noah, BSBATalk00:26, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It does not matter in this case. If the inauguration of the next US executive is delayed, I’m confident those articles will be immediately updated. Infoboxes don't handle verbiage well. CMD (talk) 01:08, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The higher the number of electees, the more likely it is that something happens to one of them. We have had representatives-elect die before assuming office. It's an issue of saying something is certain to occur rather than very likely to occur. We have nothing to tell us it's certain they assume office on X. Does this policy simply not apply to any officeholder period and we just state they will be inaugurated/assume office on X rather than scheduled to be inaugurated/assume office on X? Noah, BSBATalk02:20, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The guidance on Wikipedia not being a collection of unverifiable speculation, rumors, or presumptions (from Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not) is guidance on content, with most of the discussion on that page being about what warrants an article. It's not guidance on writing style, so doesn't provide guidance in choosing between writing "X will happen" or "X is scheduled to happen", but whether the statement should be included at all. isaacl (talk) 19:58, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think it is reasonable that we should ask editors to use "is scheduled" or "is planned" instead of "will" in cases of near-confirmed future events. Maybe for events where humans have no control on the result, such as the next solar eclipse, we can use "will", but I can't see harm to suggest we be a bit more careful for other cases. Masem (t) 22:04, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The point is that I was echoing your statement, This type of stuff is what is outside the bounds of what WP:NOT#CRYSTAL has. The choice of verbs is something to be covered by the writing style guidelines (and personally, I think consideration of individual circumstances is sufficiently important that a blanket statement wouldn't be too helpful). isaacl (talk) 22:33, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would say reflecting the inherent uncertainty of future events is generally good practice (e.g., "scheduled to take place" rather than "will take place"). If the wording would be clunky, there can be some flexibility. And we should take care not to be too cautious about expected events; I find it confusing how infoboxes for a TV season will say it consists of three episodes (based on the number aired) when we have sources confirming eight have been made.--Trystan (talk) 15:06, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Infoboxes are inherently backwards looking. The number of episodes in a season should not be filled in until the season has ended. Similarly, the field for the beginning of an officeholder's term should not be filled in until it has actually occurred. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:29, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(Non-admin closure) No Consensus on any specific course of action. While arguments were made that it would be of value to allow users the ability to easily disregard media that they did not want to see it does seem like doing this might tax the capacity of some editors due to the technical requirements of NOSEE. In addition there are countervailing concerns regarding WP:NOTCENSOREDSimonm223 (talk) 18:59, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Can we hide sensitive graphic photos? I recently came across an article with a photo of a deceased man smiling right at the top—it was deeply disturbing, traumatizing, triggering, shocking, and sickening! This kind of content discourages many people who might otherwise want to read the article and could even provoke serious medical reactions, such as seizures. Imagine if that man's family came across the article and saw him like that, right in their face! Nobody seems to favor this policy, so why do we insist on keeping it? Arabic Wikipedia uses a collapsible template that lets readers choose whether to view such photos, without censoring informative media. Shouldn't we adopt a similar approach? ☆SuperNinja2☆TALK!21:41, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see anything in the photo, Commons description, or CDC description that states the patient is deceased. Is there a chance this person is alive? –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:05, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The issue is that an image one editor might find “disturbing, traumatizing, triggering and shocking” is an image another editor will find informative and helpful. We have no way to know how others will react. It would indeed be censorship to hide such images. Blueboar (talk) 21:50, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
the users will close the page once they see the images instead of reading the information they came for (happened with me with example above), and they will even avoid visiting Wikipedia after this bad experience. ☆SuperNinja2☆TALK!18:25, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Image censoring is a perennial proposal and really won't go anywhere. And given the topic of that page, I see no real option, since any other image will also be as disturbing. We do ask editors to use the principle of least astonishment, so that same image as the lede on corpse for example would be inappropriate, but not much can be done on that page. Masem (t) 21:51, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That type of suggestion is part of the perennial proposal on how to deal with such images. There's nothing that can be done to properly hide it. Masem (t) 22:05, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We already use collapsible templates for "long" lists, such as for BRICS members.While long lists are far less harmful, the goal was to avoid annoying readers and make them comfortable, encouraging them to read. This is also why we have templates like Template:Split—to make articles easier to navigate. Similarly, graphic images make readers extremely uncomfortable, not only discouraging them from reading a single article but sometimes deterring them from using Wikipedia altogether, which goes against the ideals of an encyclopedia.
The fact that image censoring is a perennial proposal suggests it’s a problematic topic that many, if not most, editors find uncomfortable. I suspect the primary reason it hasn’t been adopted is the lack of consensus, not because half the community opposes it outright. I propose a solution that could satisfy both groups: a collapsible template. This approach wouldn’t censor anything but would minimize harm.
Let’s focus on images that could provoke serious medical conditions and ignore the sexual and religiously offensive media for the time. Some readers may have heart conditions, PTSD, or other vulnerabilities, and we must also consider the families of deceased individuals whose photos we use. Additionally, while Wikipedia isn’t intended for children, they do use it, and we can’t ignore that reality.
In summery, the potential harm caused by showing these images overrides any benefit to the project. And this solution would fix this by making Wikipedia a safer and more inclusive without censoring anything, which is the essential goal. ☆SuperNinja2☆TALK!22:28, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You've yet to show harm beyond you having a personal reaction to a picture that you didn't understand... an informative picture key to the article that I didn't even slightly flinch upon seeing. (If you have any records of Wikipedia images having provoked seizures, please put them forward.) Had you hidden it by collapsing, I might have assumed that there was something horrible that I wouldn't want to see and avoid getting that information. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 00:02, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Had you hidden it by collapsing, I might have assumed that there was something horrible that I wouldn't want to see and avoid getting that information
That would be your choice not to 'get that information.' However, forcing it on people who don't want to 'get it,' and risking a negative reaction as a result, is the real issue we should be concerned about
You've yet to show harm beyond you having a personal reaction to a picture that you didn't understand... an informative picture key to the article that I didn't even slightly flinch upon seeing
That is your personal experience, but we know that at least one person had an anxiety attack from that image. As a community, it is our duty to prioritize the safety of our readers and choose the least risky option. ☆SuperNinja2☆TALK!13:47, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And you had the choice not to "get that information" that was in the picture.... you chose to go to the Wikipedia page about a disease. You claim to have been set off because it was a deceased man smiling... only the man wasn't deceased, he is described in the image's description as a "patient" which is not generally a term for a corpse. So what set you off was a man smiling. If you want us to police pictures based on information that you invent about them, it's hard to see how we don't have to police everything on your behalf. When it comes to safety of our viewers and medical-related images, an image can help them recognize the disease and may serve them well. The "least risky" option is simply not having Wikipedia. I hope we don't choose that path. If you think that Wikipedia provides as special danger to you, you are free not to use it. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 17:53, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don’t understand what you’re defending. You’re just complaining and criticizing my argument without demonstrating why leaving sensitive media as-is is a better option. Your argument essentially boils down to: “I don’t like your proposal,” which isn’t sufficient.
Anyway, regardless of whether that man was dead or not, my point still stands.
The "least risky" option is simply not having Wikipedia.
I don’t think that’s the goal of Wikipedia—to discourage its readers from using it. If the choice is “either read Wikipedia and risk having anxiety attacks or don’t read it at all,” then it’s clear the situation is bad and requires change. ☆SuperNinja2☆TALK!21:08, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So far, I know of one person claiming to have had a problem, and that's because he saw a picture of a man smiling. Hiding all pictures as not-obviously-problematic as that would basically mean hiding all pictures... and it's not just pictures that upset people, plenty of the text would have to be hidden under the same logic. (People might be freaked out by seeing that a ninja edits Wikipedia.) Folks have pointed you to the option that would let you turn off automatic image display for yourself, and if you wanted to make some argument that that should be a standard option, that may well be a supportable argument... but hiding everything that could possibly upset anyone would basically be hiding everything. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 21:30, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Let’s focus on images that could provoke serious medical conditions and ignore the sexual and religiously offensive media for the time. ... And this solution would fix this by making Wikipedia a safer and more inclusive without censoring anything, which is the essential goal. I think part of the reason why no consensus was ever reached on this issue is that the editors in favour of image filtering do not acknowledge that it inherently involves an infringement on intellectual freedom, and so don't put forward a framework for how to minimize the infringement. The approach can't be "Let's just create the functionality now and then worry later about what to do when a vocal minority of editors want to be able to hide all depictions of people with disabilities, or of LGBTQ+ people, because they find those images distressing." Those considerations need to be the starting point. I don't support image filtering, but when the discussion was held back in 2011 I did put foward a framework of seven principles for approaching it from this angle.--Trystan (talk) 17:05, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
infringement on intellectual freedom
Why do you guys want to go so technical and get things so complicated when the situation isn't at all complicated? Ppl dislike seeing gore, let them choose not to? Just like that, easy peasy. ☆SuperNinja2☆TALK!21:15, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Who defines what is "gore"? There's probably only a few types of images that we universally can say are problematic to a near majority of the world population (eg when you start to get into child exploitation), but beyond that, there's no way to tell when such an image would be considered bad by a majority of the readership. Masem (t) 21:18, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So you're basically presuming that this discussion is destined for failure because ppl have different povs on the topic? That's not a good enough argument. When did the community ever have similar povs on anything for that matter? ☆SuperNinja2☆TALK!02:10, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Super ninja2, quite a lot of people agree with you, but a long time ago, this was formally proposed, and The Community™ rejected it. I have a lot of unhappy memories from that discussion, so you should not necessarily consider me to be an unbiased source {{(Redacted).
The proposed approach was that a person should be able to say, in advance, that they personally don't want to see sexual images, disgusting medical images, violent images, or contested religious/cultural images, and have images tagged like that collapsed or screened somehow, with one click to reveal. The responses tended to cluster in two categories:
Individuals should not have the freedom to control what they see, even if they are doing it for neutral reasons, like wanting to conserve bandwidth on a weak internet connection, or for safety reasons, like not wanting to risk an anxiety attack right now or not wanting to worry about the morality police looking over your shoulder at a public internet cafe. The Wikipedia editor has the right to put things on your computer screen, and your duty as a reader is to look at whatever disgusting, violent, or inappropriate image they want to shove in your face.
It would be impossible to figure out which (few) images draw complaints. It might be impossible to do this with 100% accuracy, but we all know that the lead image at Smallpox draws complaints even though there's a FAQ at the top of the talk page to explain why it's there, every educated person knows that Depictions of Muhammad are both easily identifiable and considered inappropriate by some religious adherents, and most of us have encountered an animated gif that we'd like to cover up or turn off.
I'm opposed to the first in principle and skeptical of the second. But that's the state of the discussion, and at this point, it will likely continue this way until multiple countries pass laws demanding that we change it. The Community™ has no empathy for people whose living situation is very different from their own. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:10, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This context might help: Wikipedia was basically a spinoff from a now-defunct male-focused porn site. For years, every porn actress who was featured even once as a Playboy Playmate was automatically considered notable. If you infer from that fact something about the attitudes towards controversial content in the early days, I couldn't prove you wrong. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:22, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is one technically feasible solution I can come up with, although it may be complicated:
Create a list of types of images that some will find offensive (anatomical parts typically not displayed in public, religiously offensive images, etc). Create a template to mark each type.
Have the software mark these images, when used on other pages, in some way that scripts can use. Write scripts which individual users can self-apply to hide these images. Create a page with instructions for using these scripts, with a disclaimer that 100% results aren't guaranteed.
In some places a woman's hair is not typically displayed in public. Imagine if we had to hide every photo of a woman because her hair was visible, and we marked it with a template warning "Image of woman with visible hair". Valereee (talk) 18:59, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
not wanting to worry about the morality police looking over your shoulder at a public internet cafe.
If you live in Saudi Arabia, Iran, or even less religious countries like Jordan, Morocco, or Egypt, and you were reading an article in a public place when a sexual photo deemed inappropriate popped up on your screen, you could literally be jailed! ☆SuperNinja2☆TALK!13:05, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Those might be valid points if these pictures were just inserted willy-nilly into any old page. But, for example, there is no reason NOT to expect an image of Muhammad on the Muhammad page (at least if you know that the site is not made entirely by Muslims). Articles about something having pictures of that something is not something you should be surprised by. Don't want people seeing what you are looking at? Don't do it in public. This is not hard.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 12:30, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, these pictures (and pictures that haven't been tagged for censoring yet) can be inserted willy-nilly into any old page by vandals. We do try to catch and revert such edits, but there is no guarantee that articles will not contain completely inappropriate images (or text, or ASCII art). If something important like your freedom or livelihood depends on not looking at inappropriate content on Wikipedia in public, you should not look at any content on Wikipedia in public. —Kusma (talk) 20:18, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Individuals already have control of what they see. They chose to come here. How can anyone seriously expect not to see images of such things in articles about these things? That's simply ridiculous.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 21:24, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
See our Wikipedia:Content disclaimer. This isn't likely to be changed because you found an image that you objected too. There are ways for you to implement ways to not see images you don't want too, see WP:NOSEE. Specifically the section about the userscript that blocks all images unless you click to see them. Lee Vilenski(talk • contribs)13:25, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The good of hiding disturbing or upsetting information, including images (which is real, and appropriate in many contexts) is completely incompatible with the good of presenting information in an educational and encyclopedic context, which is what we are doing on Wikipedia. Strongly oppose even a collapsible option or anything like it. ꧁Zanahary꧂19:32, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Blurring or collapsing that can be toggled off with a single click does not constitute censorship. Censorship would be only if images were removed or the users were somehow restricted from seeing them, e.g. by first forcing them to disclose their age or location. Giving everyone, including unregistered users, a reasonable default option to avoid inadvertently seeing explicit images is just a convenience feature in the user interface. This just follows from the principle of least astonishment, as most people expect to be warned before seeing sensitive content, and are used to that on other websites.
Making Wikipedia more convenient for a large number of users is not equivalent to being forced to adhere to culturally contingent moral prohibitions. There is quite a distance between these two positions. NicolausPrime (talk) 02:38, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The reasonable default on an encyclopedia is that information is conveyed, not curtained. I’d counter your least astonishment argument with the fact that nobody is used to being warned about sensitive content in an encyclopedia. ꧁Zanahary꧂05:42, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Very strong oppose on this one. Putting together a censor board to decide what is, could be, and/or is not offensive to whoever across the globe is a terrible idea, a waste of time, and does not help the site. WP:CENSOR is a crucial ingredient in Wikipedia's ability to cover everything under the sun. :bloodofox: (talk) 21:01, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I recall encountering discussions about three photos on Wikipedia: profile photo of the pregnant Lina Medina, napalm girl, and Robert Peary's sunbathing inuit girlfriend Aleqasina. I believe that the napalm girl is the only one currently visible on Wikipedia. So WP:NOTCENSORED may be the stated policy, but doesn't sound like we're following it. Fabrickator (talk) 08:43, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The initial objection to the Aleqasina image was that it was "overtly exploitative pornography". This was objected to as a basis for removing the image. In response, someone removed the image on the basis that it was "a poor quality image compared to the other photos in the article." Fabrickator (talk) 16:40, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is the photo at Commons, though? If not, it's possible the photo was removed from an article for that reason, but hasn't been put back under NOTCENSORED because it's not in the public domain. All of these photos could be less than 95 years old. Valereee (talk) 16:44, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, the photo in question is from 1896. Here is the applicable "fair use" notice:
This media file is in the public domain in the United States. This applies to U.S. works where the copyright has expired, often because its first publication occurred prior to January 1, 1929, and if not then due to lack of notice or renewal.
It's used on ruwiki. The discussion started out as a complaint from inexperienced editors that the photo was offensive, but that doesn't really seem to be what editors there removed it for. They didn't remove it because she's naked. It definitely is a low quality photo, even for the period. It definitely is a fair point that it doesn't add to the reader's understanding of Peary. I'm not sure this is censorship. To me it looks like someone complained it was offensive, other editors said "Why is this image in this article?", and there was discussion of whether removal constituted censorship. I think it could probably be included in Photos by Robert Peary or something. Valereee (talk) 19:09, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If an image is not of real educational or encyclopedic value, then it being gratuitous pornography is a fine reason to exclude it. That is not censorship. ꧁Zanahary꧂19:35, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Apparently hands are okayIs a mere picture of a woman's (you name the body part, someone somewhere finds it offensive) that bad? Valereee (talk) 16:46, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would not be opposed to an opt-in only tool or preferences setting or whatever that allows users to avoid seeing certain types of imagery. Would have to be entirely voluntary. I would imagine something that works by looking at an images categories could do it. Just Step Sidewaysfrom this world ..... today20:44, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
NOSEE, for all its value, requires the user (who may well be just a Wikipedia reader, not an editor) to install a script, a process that I suspect daunts some of those who are not tech-comfortable, if they even know that system exists. A "require-clicking-to-view-any-image" user option that can be turned on with just a switch would serve not just those who may be concerned about being offended or disturbed by an image, but also those for whom bandwidth may be limited or expensive, and it would be in the place where a user is likely to look for such a control.... but a "don't show offensive images" option would require a huge overhead of effort on the part of the editing base, to mark the existing images, to mark every new image, and to deal with the inevitable disagreements about which images should be marked. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 23:28, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Our license allows anyone to reuse our content and to filter images in any way they like. I expect that if there truly is a need for a Wikipedia version with certain censorship applied, someone will write a (possibly AI-powered) tool to deliver it. But I don't see hiding relevant information as something that could ever be part of Wikipedia's (or even Wikimedia's) mission. —Kusma (talk) 21:34, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Something like 17 years ago there was a child-friendly clone of WP that I made available on the computers at the elementary school where I worked. I don't know if there is anything like that around now. Donald Albury21:55, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Donald Albury::That was Wikipedia for Schools. I've never fleshed out a real proposal but the idea has been in my head for years to revive that idea, not as CD-ROMs but as a static fork of WP. A curated collection of WP articles, nothing sexually explicit but also not hosting articles on every single episode of Family Guy, and also no editing. A list would be created and maintained, a bot or something would import the articles and update them if they get major revisions, but no open editing. Schools can block the main Wikipedia altogether. They get a nice, clean kid-friendly WP and we get way less vandalism. I just don't know how to actually do any of that. Just Step Sidewaysfrom this world ..... today22:42, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Imagine the process involved in marking content as offensive or falling within certain categories. What is sacrilegious? What is pornographic? What is violent? What is disgusting? And why is it Wikipedia’s problem? ꧁Zanahary꧂23:00, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
All of this was said more than a decade ago. I see nothing in this discussion that wasn't put forward by the opponents back then, from "NOTCENSORED gives me the right to force you see to see things you'd like to opt out of" to "whatabout this" to "we should prevent people from volunteering to do the necessary work". Apparently we haven't changed a bit. I am not really surprised. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:26, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"NOTCENSORED gives me the right to force you see to see things you'd like to opt out of" -- I'm sorry, I can't find that quote in this discussion. If someone is actually putting forward that we should force people to look at Wikipedia, that's an editor we should be concerned about. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 23:33, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So over a decade ago, this idea was rejected, and today people still reject it on the same basis. I’m not seeing the problem. ꧁Zanahary꧂01:08, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What is sacrilegious? What is pornographic? What is violent? What is disgusting? Anything that would be considered WP:GRATUITOUS outside of encyclopedic use on Wikipedia. As evidenced by that content guideline, Wikipedia has been already using a notion of what content may be explicit for over a decade. Wikipedia also has been able to use its consensus processes to decide many other contentious and often outright controversial matters, such as WP:NPOV and WP:TITLE.
And why is it Wikipedia’s problem? It is Wikipedia's problem because a considerable portion of its readers expects this, as evidenced by this matter being discussed perennially. NicolausPrime (talk) 06:52, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Unencyclopedic content shouldn’t be on Wikipedia to begin with. Offensive encyclopedic content should. Good luck with identifying the encyclopedic content that will and won’t offend anybody. ꧁Zanahary꧂08:48, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It is Wikipedia's problem because a considerable portion of its readers expects this, as evidenced by this matter being discussed perennially. Faced with the perennial problem of some users demanding warning labels on content they view as offensive, the collective response of the library profession over several decades has been to strongly oppose such systems due to the inherent infringement on intellectual freedom. From the American Library Association: Labeling as an attempt to prejudice attitudes is a censor’s tool. There is an inherent non-neutralality in identifying groups of images that users may want to avoid. The image that started this discussion is a good example of that. It was mistakenly thought to be a dead body, but is in fact a person suffering from a disease. Identifying the appropriate categories to be warned against, and which images merit those warnings, is an exercise incompatible with free and open access to information.--Trystan (talk) 15:28, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sure. But contrast that with library selection policies (hmm, missing article – @The Interior, could I tempt you to write an article?) and collection development work. Libraries oppose putting labels like "this is an immoral book" on collection items. They've got no problem with putting an objective label like "pornography" on a collection item, nor any problem with deciding that they won't stock porn at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:14, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If a "pornography" label is a viewpoint-neutral directional aid intended to help interested users locate the resource, that would be valid. But not if it is intended to warn users away from the content: 7. Is it prejudicial to describe violent and sexual content? For example, would including "contains mild violence" on bibliographic record of a graphic novel violate the Library Bill of Rights? Yes, in any community, there will be a range of attitudes as to what is deemed offensive and contrary to moral values. Potential issues could be sexually explicit content, violence, and/or language. Including notes in the bibliographic record regarding what may be objectionable content assumes all members of the community hold the same values. No one person should take responsibility for judging what is offensive. Such voluntary labeling in bibliographic records and catalogs violates the Library Bill of Rights.[3]--Trystan (talk) 02:04, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What is sacrilegious? What is pornographic? What is violent? What is disgusting? And why is it Wikipedia’s problem?
Just for logistical considerations, how many images are we talking about, and therefore how many consensus discussions, and how often could someone reopen to see if consensus had changed? I feel like there are a huge number of images that might upset someone, but very few that could get consensus for being hidden. Risus sardonicus averages 250+ views a day. The chance that image could ever gain consensus to be hidden is...well, in my mind, unlikely. But if even 1 in 100,000 people are freaked out enough and knowledgeable enough to start a discussion, we could be confirming that once a year via discussion at the talk. Valereee (talk) 13:26, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would imagine something that works by looking at an images categories could do it. Subject categories serve a different function than warning labels, and the two functions are not compatible. A subject category about nudity should tag those images where nudity is central to the subject of the image (where it is defining), while a warning label would tag every single image containing any nudity, however trivial. Implementing image filtering that uses subject categories would distort the former into the latter. It would need to be a separate system. I agree with NatGertler above; it would be fine to introduce user-friendly functionality that hides all photos and lets user click to view based on the alt text. But flagging all images that someone, somewhere would object to is not a viable project.--Trystan (talk) 00:33, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I’m reminded of the deleted Zionist symbol template on Commons, which was slapped all over images of Jewish stars in any context, including a chanukiah and some blue sugar cookies—which, no doubt, would be offensive images to some. ꧁Zanahary꧂00:57, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I recommend you try and imagine a position besides yours that isn’t fallacious or the result of an intellectual failure. Your approach is not a good one from the losing side of a debate. ꧁Zanahary꧂05:39, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes it is. No one mentioned that we would take similar approache to the Chinese and zionist templates. That's because we aren't going to hide zionist symbols or any other politically sensitive media.
I'd be happy to have a default turn on/turn off all images mode in preferences. But anything that requires judgement or consensus for which images or category of images? I'd object. Valereee (talk) 15:36, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The simple answer: no. Long answer: The addition of a function to turn off images by default is a great idea that’s seemingly never been implemented despite its harmlessness and relative popularity, and is best taken up at some more technical-oriented forum. But we are never hiding/censoring graphic images if they serve a legitimate purpose. True, I don’t support graphic full color images of goatse on the Goatse.cx article per the Wikipedia:Principle of least astonishment and Wikipedia:GRATUITOUS, but the grey area here is very big and very grey. I’m not talking about the strawman arguments about “what if Dictator McTyrant in Dictatorstan bans pictures of goats” or something; here are some examples of things that could legitimately be considered objectionable to certain persons in a liberal Western society:
Images or voices of deceased indigenous Australians
Spiders
Flashing/strobing lights
Blackface imagery
But are we not allowed to illustrate Indigenous Australians, Spiders, Dennō Senshi Porygon, or Blackface then? Do we need warnings for these things? Do we need warnings for articles that simply discuss distressing content? These are actual, plausible issues people actually have had to address on other, equally serious platforms. But it’s literally impossible to address every conceivable issue, so Wikipedia’s longstanding policy is to simply address none of them (besides the bare minimum examples provided above). Dronebogus (talk) 03:52, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But are we not allowed to illustrate Indigenous Australians, Spiders, Dennō Senshi Porygon, or Blackface then
It’s up to the community to decide, and we’re all here to discuss this. What’s clear, however, is that we need to establish minimum criteria to guide us on what should be collapsed. We must draw a line to distinguish what can and cannot be collapsed.
This isn’t a case where passing the proposal will lead to chaos and censorship, with everyone hiding images indiscriminately. We’ll be here to make the necessary adjustments and ensure it fits the community’s needs. That’s why we are here having this discussion, right? The proposal isn’t a rigid, unchangeable set of rules—it’s flexible and can adapt. Ultimately, consensus will determine what is acceptable enough to remain visible and what warrants collapsing. ☆SuperNinja2☆TALK!04:24, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You are completely missing my point. My line is not your line. Your line is not anybody else’s line. Your starting example doesn’t even come close to my, or really most people’s, lines. So you’re never going to establish a global minimum criterion here. And we shouldn’t allow people to establish local case-by-case criteria either— not only is that balkanization, it’s not going to get you what you want (medical editors have strong stomachs) Dronebogus (talk) 04:40, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Your starting example doesn’t even come close to my, or really most people’s, lines.What example? I never said that the "example" should be taken as a universal standard for deciding what should be collapsed. You don’t have to agree with me—or anyone else—for the proposal to work. Even if the majority decided that the "example" should not be collapsed, the process would still function. That's why discussions exist: to bring people with differing opinions together, negotiate and compromise, and form a rough consensus by analyzing what most people from both sides agree upon.
In any case, I mentioned that we would discuss what should be collapsed, and doctors and medical editors are welcome to share their perspectives like everyone else. I don’t understand your objection. ☆SuperNinja2☆TALK!07:53, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
All I see here is you getting disturbed by a very particular image, wanting it collapsed, and then slowly backtracking to “well I actually just want this generally”. Basically the answer is still no. Dronebogus (talk) 17:53, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My line is not your line. Your line is not anybody else’s line.
I didn't even define the line. And I didn't say that the line has to agree with me. I only said "can we hide sensitive images?" we are supposed to draw that line together if the answer was yes. ☆SuperNinja2☆TALK!02:32, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
True, I don’t support graphic full color images of goatse on the Goatse.cx article per the Wikipedia:Principle of least astonishment and Wikipedia:GRATUITOUS.
Goatse.cx is a good example where Wikipedia's policies fall short on this matter. The Goatse shock image is encyclopedically relevant in that article, so WP:GRATUITOUS doesn't apply. WP:ASTONISH also doesn't seem convincing for preventing its inclusion, given that Wikipedia does include explicit content like defecation or feces in other appropriate articles, whereas there is also a fair number of users may expect that shock image to be there anyway, so not including it at all may be in fact against WP:ASTONISH.
If you look at the closing rationale for the ultimate deletion of this image, it is stated there that the only accepted reason why it was deleted was because it had unsuitable copyright status. [4] So were the Goatse shock image licensed under a free license, there would be no basis in policy to keep it out of its article's reader sight.
I don’t really get how a picture of a man stretching his anus is really necessary to understand the concept of a shock site depicting a man stretching his anus. I’d say it is gratuitous because it doesn’t improve the viewer’s understanding. A better example I guess would be something like Coprophilia which has no graphic full-color photographs (or even graphically explicit illustrations) of people… engaging in it because it would not improve understanding of the topic and would just disgust 99% of the population. Dronebogus (talk) 04:45, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Seeing what the famous shock image really looked like very much increases the person's understanding of the subject. Words can convey only small parts of audiovisual content. And generally, showing the image in an article about it is helpful for people who may recognize it but not remember its name. For example, in the Lenna article I wouldn't have realized that I know this image if it wasn't shown there. NicolausPrime (talk) 05:03, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Another example: Nudity has relatively few explicit images despite the subject (most of them would be considered PG-13 by American standards) because it’s mostly discussing the societal context of nudity. There are more explicit anatomical photographs on anatomy pages because those discuss biological aspects of humans that cannot be illustrated without showing the entire unclothed body. Dronebogus (talk) 04:51, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think this proposal is going nowhere extremely fast. It’s already been discussed. The answer is no. The reason is it fundamentally conflicts with WP:CENSOR and WP:NEUTRAL. On top of that the vast majority of people don’t support it and the few that do haven’t provided any kind of extraordinary argument necessary to overcome such a longstanding consensus built on a foundation of hard policy. Some uninvolved admin should shut it down. Dronebogus (talk) 21:45, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
why are you angry? if you're bothered from this discussion you can just opt out. You already gave your opinion anyways, so you can leave with a clear conscience if you're bothered from us so much. but why do you want to shut us down? we didn't finish. ☆SuperNinja2☆TALK!02:45, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If you don’t want people to react strongly don’t make a controversial proposal, that’s been talked to death, that obviously runs counter to several core principles of Wikipedia. And there is no “us”; there’s you and WhatamIdoing (equally unconvincing and leaning on accusations of prejudice against women and nonwhite people or something like that) vs. everyone and years if not decades of policy and precedent, plus the de facto policy of WP:SNOW— proposals with no realistic chance of success do not have to be prolonged indefinitely. I’d like to add that none of this is personal— I am sorry if you encounter content that deeply upsets you, but I cannot support any kind of official mitigation policy for this issue on both a practical and philosophical basis. Dronebogus (talk) 08:20, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Super ninja2, some editors will think it's a bit of a time-waster to bring up a perennial suggestion unless you either have a new solution or have some reason to believe consensus might have changed. You didn't suggest either of those in your original post. And the reason some editors may feel they have to go ahead and waste their time on it is that if enough people don't, the person making the perennial suggestion may assume lack of opposition is evidence consensus has changed. So, yeah, you may encounter some expressions of annoyance when people feel like they're obligated to waste their time addressing -- again -- this perennial suggestion. Valereee (talk) 13:26, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support for asking the WMF to expand Help:NOSEE tools to make it easier for readers to hide content they don't want to see. Right now a reader can (if they create an account and read logged-in) take steps like installing a script, or modifying their CSS page, to hide all images (until clicked on) or images on specific pages, or specific images on any page. This is nice, but it'd be relatively easy to make things much better. Hiding images could be a simple toggle switch like V22's light/dark modes. Wikipedia could do what like the entire rest of the internet has done and have "SafeSearch"-type features where readers can choose from "unfiltered," "medium filter", "full filter", like the parental controls or content filtering features we're all familiar with thanks to its ubiquity in other software/websites. There are lots of reasons readers might want to hide certain types of content (violence, sexuality), e.g. child protection, religion, gov't, PTSD, or just not wanting to see that kind of stuff. The technology to accommodate such readers is readily at hand and widely used on the internet. Refusing to do so seems stubborn, like imposing editors' morality on readers. We should ask the WMF to implement "the usual" content filtering capabilities, a la Google's SafeSearch. Levivich (talk) 21:22, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, your suggestion is “imposing morality” on readers. We cannot make arbitrary decisions about what constitutes “offense/triggering” content. I’m not going over examples ad nauseam. And this isn’t an RFC and never will be, so your “vote” is inapplicable. I actually support making it easy to hide all images by default, but that’s a purely technical matter as I already said. Dronebogus (talk) 12:59, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, of course not, but that’s not really the point of what we’re discussing here. What I mean is, we should consider the measures Google has implemented for their users aged 18 and above to make navigation easier, prioritize user safety, and comply with legal requirements. By using the said examples as a comparison point—and narrowing it down further if needed—we can learn from their experience. We could see how that has worked for them.
Now, why would that be an issue? Google’s a big company with lots of experts and experience in keeping their huge user base safe and comfortable on their platform. There’s no harm in seeing what they’ve achieved. we could gain useful insights and it would help us with this discussion.
In the same way, the wiki community should look at how to create a safer and more welcoming environment. This would help users feel comfortable engaging with the platform and encourage them to actually make use of the information they came for (like with Google) ☆SuperNinja2☆TALK!18:12, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If ppl are not comfortable using the platform and don't want to use it and can't access it , then what's the point of having the information in the first place? ☆SuperNinja2☆TALK!22:08, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Hi there, I've been adding some original, subtitled Latin content to some pages, from a series of readings which are available as CC-By content now at here, here and here. The content is verifiable and properly sourced. Where the readings are sufficiently significant to the topic, this seems a reasonable thing to do, eg at Martin Luther. It is also more in line with MOS:FOREIGNQUOTE to subtitle the original than to read from a translation. If an editor feels the content is not sufficiently relevant, that is fair enough of course.
I think the wording of WP:RSPYT is poor - YouTube is a publisher, not a source, and so is neither reliable nor unreliable. While most videos hosted on it are unreliable and/or copyright violations (for various reasons), there are exceptions and there should not be any prohibition on citing those exceptions. The onus is on the person wanting to cite them to show they are reliable and not copyright violations, as well as the usual DUE, etc. but once shown to be acceptable and relevant there is no reason not to cite such videos imo (unless of course there are better sources of course). Thryduulf (talk) 19:13, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
With YouTube videos, even those released by a free license, we want to make sure of a few things. First, that the account that posted the material themselves are a reliable source. To take the first image in the first link provided, File:Dr. Samuel Johnson- Letter of Thanks for His Oxford Degree.webm, the YouTube it was pulled from appears to be no-name with zero evidence of any reliability on their own (they claim to be an independent student of Latin and Greek). While the content may be accurate, we shouldn't be using that questionable reliability for such sources. Another problem, but which is not the case here, is that there are people that create CC-BY videos on YouTube that include considerable amount of copyrighted material (that is not in there control), beyond what fair use would allow, and thus belie the CC-BY allowance. YouTube itself doesn't check this, so we have to aware of such problems. Masem (t) 21:29, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That all makes sense. But I would assume that it is OK so long as the checks can be made? The author of these videos is pseudonymous but give sources. In the case you mention, he cites the public domain Life of Johnson by James Boswell for the text; a search for "ingratus plane et mihi videar" turns up page 75 of this edition, in Latin and English, so the content is easy enough to check.
I have sufficient Latin to know that his pronunciation and diction is decent, and to check the sources linked to match up with what is said. I'm also able to translate most of the simpler texts from Latin to English where needed. Jim Killock(talk)00:07, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't matter if the YouTube source is accurate or that it cites other sources; if it is not from an established RS outlet it is no more reliable than a forums post. JoelleJay (talk) 03:02, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Unless it clearly cites its sources, is published by an established expert in the field, or a few other scenarios - i.e. exactly the same as a text source. Thryduulf (talk) 03:05, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Either a source is the account of an official outlet with a formal editorial policy that establishes it as RS, or it's an SPS from an established expert. If you need to replace "outlet" with "verified official account of an established expert" you can do that. JoelleJay (talk) 03:23, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear I am asking about a very simple scenario here. The Johnson video foe example follows this script:
'INGRATUS planè et tibi et mihi videar, nisi quanto me gaudio affecerint quos nuper mihi honores (te credo auctore) decrevit Senatus Academicus, Iiterarum, quo lamen nihil levius, officio, significem: ingratus etiam, nisi comitatem, quá vir eximius[831] mihi vestri testimonium amoris in manus tradidit, agnoscam et laudem. Si quid est undè rei lam gratæ accedat gratia, hoc ipso magis mihi placet, quod eo tempore in ordines Academicos denuo cooptatus sim, quo tuam imminuere auctoritatem, famamque Oxonii Iædere[832], omnibus modis conantur homines vafri, nec tamen aculi: quibus ego, prout viro umbratico licuit, semper restiti, semper restiturus. Qui enim, inter has rerum procellas, vel Tibi vel Academiæ defuerit, illum virtuti et literis, sibique et posteris, defuturum existimo.
There might be a question about the translation of the English subtitles, if the text is more complicated. In these, the author has generally gone with a public domain translation, which is also easily verified. Occassionally they are his own work, which obviously does need checking according to context and complexity.
Assuming the subs and original source are public domain; and the relevance of the original source can be established from secondary sources, then I'm struggling to see why there would be a problem using this content. Jim Killock(talk)08:46, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Because (in general) the only thing a video of a reading adds over the script is aural. And given Latin is a dead language I would want to see someone who has qualifications in the area reading it (I would at minimum accept a catholic priest here FYI). Because YT is self-published I have no idea if the person reading it is competent. I cant even verify from the audio if it matches the script because I dont speak latin to start with. It absolutely would be suitable for an External Link, but there's nothing you can source content from it. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:31, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are plenty of competent Latinists, judged competent by trained Latinists. WP has plenty of trained Latinists. Not everyone can judge everything against sources; not all of us can access all sources or other people's abilities to recite another language; the same would apply to Welsh or Gaelic for example, in that I personally cannot evaluate a spoken Gaelic source or translation. Wikipedia depends on a network of people evaluating sources; that is inherent in WP's work AIUI. Jim Killock(talk)13:09, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
YouTube videos are self-published, YouTube myself just acts as a way to publish those videos. So they can be reliable is they from an otherwise reliable source, so if the Associated Press upload a video of their news coverage it would be as reliable as any other work by the Associated Press. For individuals they need to be subject matter experts who have been previous published by independent reliable sources (WP:SPS) or show they have been used as a citation by other independent reliable sources (WP:USEBYOTHERS). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°19:51, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Right, but my use case falls outside of this scenario. Say someone sings "Jack and Jill went up the Hill" and releases it under CC-By. They cite and link a public domain music sheet. They use an anonymous name and they are not a known subject expert. According to the criteria set out above, the video is an unreliable source, as it is not published by a subject matter expert, nor used as a citation by an independent reliable source, so must be disallowed (not republished) on Wikipedia.
These videos are performances (recitals) not cited sources.
If it's being used for the purposes of verification then it's a reference, and must be from a reliable source. If it's only being used as an external link, rather than for verification, then it comes under WP:External links. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°21:19, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The intention is not that they are used for verification; they are performances for "illustrative purposes", rather like images on the page. See for example: this Martin Luther reading. The idea is that the reader can get an idea of the original source material. The performances may be verified; but the performances are not sources, they are derivative works. Jim Killock(talk)22:32, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
RSPYT only applies to verification, and this appears to be a matter of inclusion not verification. Whether a video made by an anonymous performer should be included or not is the same as if a particular image should be used. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°22:49, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Answering my own question: MOS:IMAGES. I think there is a bit of lacuna in guidance here, as illsutative videos of performances or recordings etc don't seem to be covered in MOS, or if they are, I haven't found it. Jim Killock(talk)22:58, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. None of this content was wrapped up in ref tags. Confusion may have arise because the challenge was made over the "verifiability" of the content; as the videos are derivative works of public domain sources, eg Luther's pamphlet, it's important that the video's sources are clear and checked, even though the video is not being used as a citation. Jim Killock(talk)07:30, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the list. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.
Should admins or other users evaluating consensus in a discussion discount, ignore, or strike through or collapse comments found to have been generated by AI/LLM/Chatbots? 00:12, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
I've recently come across several users in AFD discussions that are using LLMs to generate their remarks there. As many of you are aware, gptzero and other such tools are very good at detecting this.
I don't feel like any of us signed up for participating in discussions where some of the users are not using their own words but rather letting technology do it for them. Discussions are supposed to be between human editors. If you can't make a coherent argument on your own, you are not competent to be participating in the discussion. I would therefore propose that LLM-generated remarks in discussions should be discounted or ignored, and possibly removed in some manner. Just Step Sidewaysfrom this world ..... today00:12, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Only if the false positive and false negative rate of the tool you are using to detect LLM content is very close to zero. LLM detectors tend to be very unreliable on, among other things, text written by non-native speakers. Unless the tool is near perfect then it's just dismissing arguments based on who wrote them rather than their content, which is not what we do or should be doing around here. Thryduulf (talk) 00:55, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The more I read the comments from other editors on this, the more I'm a convinced that implementing either this policy or something like it will bring very significant downsides on multiple fronts that significantly outweigh the small benefits this would (unreliably) bring, benefits that would be achieved by simply reminding closers to disregard comments that are unintelligible, meaningless and/or irrelevant regardless of whether they are LLM-generated or not. For the sake of the project I must withdraw my previous very qualified support and instead very strongly oppose. Thryduulf (talk) 02:45, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think it should be an expressly legitimate factor in considering whether to discount or ignore comments either if it's clear enough by the text or if the user clearly has a history of using LLMs. We wouldn't treat a comment an editor didn't actually write as an honest articulation of their views in lieu of site policy in any other situation. Remsense ‥ 论00:59, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would have already expected admins to exercise discretion in this regard, as text written by an LLM is not text written by a person. We cannot guarantee it is what the person actually means, especially as it is a tool often used by those with less English proficiency, which means perhaps they cannot evaluate the text themselves. However, I do not think we can make policy about a specific LLM or tool. The LLM space is moving fast, en.wiki policies do not. Removal seems tricky, I would prefer admins exercise discretion instead, as they do with potentially canvassed or socked !votes. CMD (talk) 01:06, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support discounting or collapsing AI-generated comments, under slightly looser conditions than those for human comments. Not every apparently-AI-generated comment is useless hallucinated nonsense – beyond false positives, it's also possible for someone to use an AI to help them word a constructive comment, and make sure that it matches their intentions before they publish it. But in my experience, the majority of AI-generated comments are somewhere between "pointless" and "disruptive". Admins should already discount clearly insubstantial !votes, and collapse clearly unconstructive lengthy comments; I think we should recognize that blatant chatbot responses are more likely to fall into those categories. jlwoodwa (talk) 02:11, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly Support - I think some level of human judgement on the merits of the argument are necessary, especially as GPTZero may still have a high FPR. Still, if the discussion is BLUDGEONy, or if it quacks like an AI-duck, looks like an AI-duck, etc, we should consider striking out such content.- sidenote, I'd also be in favor of sanctions against users who overuse AI to write out their arguments/articles/etc. and waste folks time on here.. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 02:20, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On a wording note, I think any guidance should avoid referring to any specific technology. I suggest saying "... to have been generated by a program". isaacl (talk) 02:54, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A translation program, whether it is between languages or from speech, is not generating a comment, but converting it from one format to another. A full policy statement can be more explicit in defining "generation". The point is that the underlying tech doesn't matter; it's that the comment didn't feature original thought from a human. isaacl (talk) 03:57, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support. We already use discretion in collapsing etc. comments by SPAs and suspected socks, it makes sense to use the same discretion for comments suspected of being generated by a non-human. JoelleJay (talk) 03:07, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Someone posting "here's what ChatGPT has to say on the subject" can waste a lot of other editors' time if they feel obligated to explain why ChatGPT is wrong again. I'm not sure how to detect AI-written text but we should take a stance that it isn't sanctioned. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 04:37, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support - I've never supported using generative AI in civil discourse. Using AI to participate in these discussions is pure laziness, as it is substituting genuine engagement and critical thought with a robot prone to outputting complete garbage. In my opinion, if you are too lazy to engage in the discussion yourself, why should we engage with you? Lazman321 (talk) 05:26, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Because it's based on a potentially false premise that it will be possible to reliably distinguish between text generated by human biological neural networks and text generated by non-biological neural networks by observing the text. It is already quite difficult in many cases, and the difficulty is increasing very rapidly. I have your basic primate brain. The AI companies building foundation models have billions of dollars, tens of thousands, soon to be hundreds of thousands of GPUs, a financial incentive to crack this problem and scaling laws on their side. So, I have very low credence in the notion that I will be able to tell whether content is generated by a person or a person+LLM or an AI agent very soon. On the plus side, it will probably still be easy to spot people making non-policy based arguments regardless of how they do it. Sean.hoyland (talk) 13:52, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
...and now that the systems are autonomously injecting their output back into model via chain-of-thought prompting, or a kind of inner monologue if you like, to respond to questions, they are becoming a little bit more like us. Sean.hoyland (talk) 14:14, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A transformer (deep learning architecture) is intrinsically nothing like a human. It's a bunch of algebra that can compute what a decently sensible person could write in a given situation based on its training data, but it is utterly incapable of anything that could be considered thought or reasoning. This is why LLMs tend to fail spectacularly when asked to do math or write non-trivial code. Flounder fillet (talk) 17:20, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We shall see. You might want to update yourself on their ability to do math and write non-trivial code. Things are changing very quickly. Either way, it is not currently possible to say much about what LLMs are actually doing because mechanistic interpretability is in its infancy. Sean.hoyland (talk) 03:44, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support and I would add "or similar technologies" to "AI/LLM/Chatbots". As for Sean.hoyland's comment, we will cross that bridge when we get to it. Cullen328 (talk) 05:51, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support - All editors should convey their thoughts in their own words. AI generated responses and comments are disruptive because they are pointless and not meaningful. - Ratnahastin (talk) 06:04, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support, I already more or less do this. An LLM generated comment may or may not actually reflect the actual thoughts of the editor who posted it, so it's essentially worthless toward a determination of consensus. Since I wrote this comment myself, you know that it reflects my thoughts, not those of a bot that I may or may not have reviewed prior to copying and pasting. SeraphimbladeTalk to me06:59, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose. Let me say first that I do not like ChatGPT. I think it has been a net negative for the world, and it is by nature a net negative for the physical environment. It is absolutely a net negative for the encyclopedia if LLM-generated text is used in articles in any capacity. However, hallucinations are less of an issue on talk pages because they're discussions. If ChatGPT spits out a citation of a false policy, then obviously that comment is useless. If ChatGPT spits out some boilerplate "Thanks for reviewing the article, I will review your suggestions and take them into account" talk page reply, who gives a fuck where it came from? (besides the guys in Texas getting their eardrums blown out because they live by the data center)The main reason I oppose, though, is because banning LLM-generated comments is difficult to enforce bordering on unenforceable. Most studies show that humans are bad at distinguishing AI-generated text from text generated without AI. Tools like GPTZero claims a 99% accuracy rate, but that seems dubious based on reporting on the matter. The news outlet Futurism (which generally has an anti-AI slant) has failed many times to replicate that statistic, and anecdotal accounts by teachers, etc. are rampant. So we can assume that we don't know how capable AI detectors are, that there will be some false positives, and that striking those false positives will result in WP:BITING people, probably newbies, younger people more accustomed to LLMs, and non-Western speakers of English (see below).There are also technological issues as play. It'd be easy if there was a clean line between "totally AI-generated text" and "totally human-generated text," but that line is smudged and well on its way to erased. Every tech company is shoving AI text wrangling into their products. This includes autocomplete, translation, editing apps, etc. Should we strike any comment a person used Grammarly or Google Translate for? Because those absolutely use AI now.And there are also, as mentioned above, cultural issues. The people using Grammarly, machine translation, or other such services are likely to not have English as their first language. And a lot of the supposed "tells" of AI-generated content originate in the formal English of other countries -- for instance, the whole thing where "delve" was supposedly a tell for AI-written content until people pointed out the fact that lots of Nigerian workers trained the LLM and "delve" is common Nigerian formal English.I didn't use ChatGPT to generate any of this comment. But I am also pretty confident that if I did, I could have slipped it in and nobody would have noticed until this sentence. Gnomingstuff (talk) 08:31, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just for grins, I ran your comment through GPTzero, and it comes up with a 99% probability that it was human-written (and it never struck me as looking like AI either, and I can often tell.) So, maybe it's more possible to distinguish than you think? SeraphimbladeTalk to me20:11, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Ai-generated comments are WP:DISRUPTIVE - An editor who has an argument should not use ChatGPT to present it in an unnecessarily verbose manner, and an editor who doesn't have one should not participate in discussion. Flounder fillet (talk) 13:14, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, of course, and I know that's the right answer because ChatGPT agrees with me.
What ChatGPT thinks
I started by asking:
Currently at the English Wikipedia, there's a discussion of the following proposal: "Should or other users evaluating consensus in a discussion discount, ignore, or strike through or collapse comments found to have been generated by AI/LLM/Chatbots?" I wonder if you have an opinion on that question.
My friend the bot initially proposed a requirement that any AI-generated content be labeled as such by the person posting it. After some further discussion between us, I finally said:
You say that labeling AI-generated content, instead of outright discounting it, might be an appropriate middle ground. But if someone is unable to formulate their own thoughts and put them in writing, of what use is it to the discussion for this person to simply ask you to make something up, and then post your output to the Wikipedia discussion with the proviso that "ChatGPT, who/which doesn't actually know anything about anything, said this ..."? How is it different from saying, "My grandmother, who knows nothing about what we're talking about, said ..."?
And it said:
That’s an incisive question, and it highlights the crux of the issue: the value of contributions to a discussion. Here’s why AI-generated comments might still differ (slightly) from your hypothetical grandmother’s input, but why their usefulness is often limited:
Synthesis vs. Subject Expertise: While I (or any AI) lack personal understanding or expertise, I can aggregate and articulate relevant ideas from a vast dataset. This means I can sometimes present arguments, summarize perspectives, or surface considerations that a non-expert human might overlook. Your grandmother, unless she's an AI-trained polymath, wouldn’t be able to provide this breadth. However, this advantage evaporates if participants lack the ability to evaluate and critically engage with my output.
The Problem of Proxy Voices: The act of outsourcing one’s contribution to AI undermines the deliberative process central to Wikipedia’s discussions. Participants are expected to bring their own informed perspectives, shaped by personal understanding of Wikipedia’s policies and content. A disclaimer like “ChatGPT said this” doesn’t change the fact that the human posting it has abdicated their role in the discussion.
Accountability and Intent: In a collaborative setting like Wikipedia, contributions are ideally linked to a person who can clarify their intent, respond to questions, and engage dynamically. An AI cannot do this. Saying "ChatGPT said this" distances the poster from the content, making it unclear whether they endorse or even understand the comment.
Potential for Misdirection: Allowing AI-generated contributions risks introducing noise into the discussion. AI can produce plausible-sounding arguments that may be tangential, misaligned, or even factually incorrect. Without the judgment of a well-informed poster, such contributions can derail or dilute meaningful discourse.
Conclusion: If someone cannot formulate their own argument or understanding, then their reliance on an AI—or anyone else—to contribute doesn’t meaningfully advance the discussion. Labeling AI-generated content is better than passing it off as human, but the real issue lies in whether such contributions enrich or degrade the collaborative process. In most cases, they would seem to belong more to the realm of rhetorical curiosities than substantive engagement.
In keeping with the proposed guideline, I have of course collapsed the above AI-generated content. (Later: It's actually worth reading in the context of this discussioin, so I've unhidden it by default.) But I must confess it's a pretty good analysis, and worth reading. EEng07:47, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is absolute gold dust and the best contribution to this discussion so far. There is an enormous irony here, one that might not be immediately obvious. The proposal is that we should ignore or even strike these type of contributions, but personally it seems like the collapsed format has worked a charm here. I really don't think that AI has much to contribute to WP discussions generally, but with the right prompt, there is certainly something worth adding to the conversation in reality. CNC (talk) 20:23, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's because, just by interacting with me, ChatGPT got smarter. Seriously ... you want it to say 99% every time? (And for the record, the idea of determining the "chance" that something is AI-generated is statistical nonsense.) EEng03:07, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What I really want is a 100% chance that it won't decide that what I've written is AI-generated. Past testing has demonstrated that at least some of the detectors are unreliable on this point. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:28, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose I support the concept of removal of AI-generated content in theory. However, we do not have the means to detect such AI-generated content. The proposed platform that we may use (GPTZero) is not reliable for this purpose. In fact, our own page on GPTZero has a section citing several sources stating the problem with this platform's accuracy. It is not helpful to have a policy that is impossible to enforce. ThatIPEditorThey / Them08:46, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support To be honest, I am surprised that this isn't covered by an existing policy. I oppose the use of platforms like GPTZero, due to it's unreliability, but if it is obviously an ai-powered-duck (Like if it is saying shit like "as an AI language model...", take it down and sanction the editor who put it up there. ThatIPEditorThey / Them08:54, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support at least for WP:DUCK-level AI-generated comments. If someone uses a LLM to translate or improve their own writing, there should be more leeway, but something that is clearly a pure ChatGPT output should be discounted. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 09:17, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree for cases in which it is uncontroversial that a comment is purely AI-generated. However, I don't think there are many cases where this is obvious. The claim that gptzero and other such tools are very good at detecting this is false. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:43, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Moral support; neutral as written. Chatbot participation in consensus discussions is such an utterly pointless and disdainful abuse of process and community eyeballs that I don't feel like the verbiage presented goes far enough. Any editor may hat LLM-generated comments in consensus discussions is nearer my position. No waiting for the closer, no mere discounting, no reliance on the closer's personal skill at recognising LLM output, immediate feedback to the editor copypasting chatbot output that their behaviour is unwelcome and unacceptable. Some observations:I've seen editors accused of using LLMs to generate their comments probably about a dozen times, and in all but two cases – both at dramaboards – the chatbot prose was unmistakably, blindingly obvious. Editors already treat non-obvious cases as if written by a human, in alignment with the raft of only if we're sure caveats in every discussion about LLM use on the project.If people are using LLMs to punch up prose, correct grammar and spelling, or other superficial tasks, this is generally undetectable, unproblematic, and not the point here.Humans are superior to external services at detecting LLM output, and no evidence from those services should be required for anything.As a disclosure, evidence mounts that LLM usage in discussions elicits maximally unkind responses from me. It just feels so contemptuous, to assume that any of us care what a chatbot has to say about anything we're discussing, and that we're all too stupid to see through the misattribution because someone tacked on a sig and sometimes an introductory paragraph. And I say this as a stupid person. Folly Mox (talk) 11:20, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like a rewrite is indicated to distinguish between machine translation and LLM-generated comments, based on what I'm seeing in this thread. Once everyone gets this out of our system and an appropriately wordsmithed variant is reintroduced for discussion, I preemptively subpropose the projectspace shortcut WP:HATGPT. Folly Mox (talk) 15:26, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would be careful here, as there are tools that rely on LLM AI that help to improve the clarity of one's writing, and editors may opt to use those to parse their poor writing (perhaps due to ESL aspects) to something clear. I would agree content 100% generated by AI probably should be discounted particularly if from an IP or new editors (hints if socking or meat puppetry) but not all cases where AI has come into play should be discounted — Masem (t) 14:19, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support, cheating should have no place or take its place in writing coherent comments on Wikipedia. Editors who opt to use it should practice writing until they rival Shakespeare, or at least his cousin Ned from across the river, and then come back to edit. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:29, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support atleast for comments that are copied straight from the LLM . However, we should be more lenient if the content is rephrased by non-native English speakers due to grammar issues The AP (talk) 15:10, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support for LLM-generated content (until AI is actually intelligent enough to create an account and contribute on a human level, which may eventually happen). However, beware of the fact that some LLM-assisted content should probably be allowed. An extreme example of this: if a non-native English speaker were to write a perfectly coherent reason in a foreign language, and have an LLM translate it to English, it should be perfectly acceptable. Animal lover|666|16:47, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - I think the supporters must have a specific type of AI-generated content in mind, but this isn't a prohibition on one type; it's a prohibition on the use of generative AI in discussions (or rather, ensuring that anyone who relies on such a tool will have their opinion discounted). We allow people who aren't native English speakers to contribute here. We also allow people who are native English speakers but have difficulty with language (but not with thinking). LLMs are good at assisting both of these groups of people. Furthermore, as others pointed out, detection is not foolproof and will only get worse as time goes on, models proliferate, models adapt, and users of the tools adapt. This proposal is a blunt instrument. If someone is filling discussions with pointless chatbot fluff, or we get a brand new user who's clearly using a chatbot to feign understanding of wikipolicy, of course that's not ok. But that is a case by case behavioral issue. I think the better move would be to clarify that "some forms of LLM use can be considered disruptive and may be met with restrictions or blocks" without making it a black-and-white issue. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 17:32, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree the focus should not be on whether or not a particular kind of tech was used by an editor, but whether or not the comment was generated in a way (whether it's using a program or ghost writer) such that it fails to express actual thoughts by the editor. (Output from a speech-to-text program using an underlying large language model, for instance, isn't a problem.) Given that this is often hard to determine from a single comment (everyone is prone to post an occasional comment that others will consider to be off-topic and irrelevant), I think that patterns of behaviour should be examined. isaacl (talk) 18:07, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Here's what I see as two sides of a line. The first is, I think, something we can agree would be inappropriate. The second, to me at least, pushes up against the line but is not ultimately inappropriate. But they would both be prohibited if this passes. (a) "I don't want an article on X to be deleted on Wikipedia. Tell me what to say that will convince people not to delete it"; (b) "I know Wikipedia deletes articles based on how much coverage they've received in newspapers, magazines, etc. and I see several such articles, but I don't know how to articulate this using wikipedia jargon. Give me an argument based on links to wikipedia policy that use the following sources as proof [...]". Further into the "acceptable" range would be things like translations, grammar checks, writing a paragraph and having an LLM improve the writing without changing the ideas, using an LLM to organize ideas, etc. I think what we want to avoid are situations where the arguments and ideas themselves are produced by AI, but I don't see such a line drawn here and I don't think we could draw a line without more flexible language. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 18:47, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, as I posted earlier, the underlying tech isn't important (and will change). Comments should reflect what the author is thinking. Tools (or people providing advice) that help authors express their personal thoughts have been in use for a long time. isaacl (talk) 19:08, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah the point here is passing off a machine's words as your own, and the fact that it is often fairly obvious when one is doing so. If a person is not competent to express their own thoughts in plain English, they shouldn't be in the discussion. This certainly is not aimed at assistive technology for those who actually need it but rather at persons who are simply letting Chatbots speak for them. Just Step Sidewaysfrom this world ..... today20:10, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This doesn't address what I wrote (though maybe it's not meant to). If a person is not competent to express their own thoughts in plain English, they shouldn't be in the discussion. This certainly is not aimed at assistive technology for those who actually need it but rather at persons who are simply letting Chatbots speak for them is just contradictory. Assistive technologies are those that can help people who aren't "competent" to express themselves to your satisfaction in plain English, sometimes helping with the formulation of a sentence based on the person's own ideas. There's a difference between having a tool that helps me to articulate ideas that are my own and a tool that comes up with the ideas. That's the distinction we should be making. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 21:23, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Rhododendrites that we shouldn't be forbidding users from seeking help to express their own thoughts. Getting help from someone more fluent in English, for example, is a good practice. Nowadays, some people use generative technology to help them prepare an outline of their thoughts, so they can use it as a starting point. I think the community should be accepting of those who are finding ways to write their own viewpoints more effectively and concisely, even if that means getting help from someone or a program. I agree that using generative technology to come up with the viewpoints isn't beneficial for discussion. isaacl (talk) 22:58, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Non-native English speakers and non-speakers to whom a discussion is important enough can already use machine translation from their original language and usually say something like "Sorry, I'm using machine translation". Skullers (talk) 08:34, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Contributions to discussions are supposed to be evaluated on their merits per WP:NOTAVOTE. If an AI-assisted contribution makes sense then it should be accepted as helpful. And the technical spectrum of assistance seems large and growing. For example, as I type this into the edit window, some part of the interface is spell-checking and highlighting words that it doesn't recognise. I'm not sure if that's coming from the browser or the edit software or what but it's quite helpful and I'm not sure how to turn it off. Andrew🐉(talk) 18:17, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But we're not talking about spell-checking. We're talking about comments clearly generated by LLMs, which are inherently unhelpful. Lazman321 (talk) 18:29, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Andrew's first two sentences also seem to imply that he views AI-generated arguments that makes sense as valid, and that we should consider what AI thinks about a topic. I'm not sure what to think about this, especially since AI can miss out on a lot of the context. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:04, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Written arguments are supposed to be considered on their merits as objects in their own right. Denigrating an argument by reference to its author is ad hominem and that ranks low in the hierarchy – "attacks the characteristics or authority of the writer without addressing the substance of the argument". Andrew🐉(talk) 23:36, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
An AI chatbot isn't an "author", and it's impossible to make an ad hominem attack on one, because a chotbot is not a homo. EEng17:45, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On the other hand, "exhausting the community's patience"/CompetenceIsRequired is a very valid rationale from stopping someone from partricipating. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:50, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The spell-checking was an immediate example but there's a spectrum of AI tools and assistance. The proposed plan is to use an AI tool to detect and ban AI contributions. That's ludicrous hypocrisy but suggests an even better idea – that we use AIs to close discussions so that we don't get the bias and super-voting. I see this on Amazon regularly now as it uses an AI to summarise the consensus of product reviews. For example,
Customers say Customers appreciate the gloves for their value, ease of use, and gardening purposes. They find the gloves comfortable and suitable for tasks like pruning or mowing. However, opinions differ on how well they fit. AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
I asked Google's Gemini to "summarise the consensus of the following RFC discussion", giving it the 87 comments to date.
AI summary of the RfC to date
This Wikipedia Request for Comment (RfC) debates whether comments in discussions that are found to be generated by AI/LLM/Chatbots should be discounted, ignored, or removed.
Arguments for discounting/removing AI-generated comments:
AI comments don't represent genuine human engagement or thought. They can be disruptive, waste time, and even fabricate information.
AI can be used to manipulate discussions. Editors might use AI to generate arguments they don't actually believe in, or to flood discussions with low-quality comments.
Relying on AI undermines the integrity of Wikipedia's consensus-based process. Discussions should be based on the genuine opinions of human editors.
Arguments against discounting/removing AI-generated comments:
Difficulty of detection. AI detection tools are not always reliable, and it can be hard to distinguish between AI-generated text and human-written text, especially as AI technology improves.
Potential for misuse. False positives could lead to legitimate comments being dismissed, potentially silencing non-native English speakers or those who use AI for legitimate assistive purposes (e.g., translation, grammar checks).
Focus on content, not origin. Comments should be evaluated based on their merits, not on how they were generated. If an AI-generated comment is relevant and well-reasoned, it shouldn't be dismissed simply because of its origin.
LLMs can be helpful tools. LLMs can help editors express their thoughts more clearly, especially for non-native speakers or those with language difficulties.
Current Status (as of Dec 3rd, 2024):
No clear consensus has emerged. There is significant support for discounting or removing AI-generated comments, but also strong opposition.
Concerns about enforceability and potential harm. Many editors are worried about the practical challenges of implementing and enforcing such a rule, as well as the potential for it to be used unfairly against certain editors.
Ongoing discussion. The discussion is still active, and it remains to be seen whether a consensus will form.
It's important to note that this is an evolving situation, and the outcome of the RfC could have significant implications for how Wikipedia handles AI-generated content in the future.
That seems quite a fair and good summary of what's been said so far. I'm impressed and so my !vote stands.
Yeah, the ability to weigh each side and the quality of their arguments in an RFC can really only be done by the judgement and discretion of an experienced human editor. Lazman321 (talk) 20:08, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The quality of the arguments and their relevance to polices and guidelines can indeed only be done by a human, but the AI does a good job of summarising which arguments have been made and a broad brush indication of frequency. This could be helpful to create a sort of index of discussions for a topic that has had many, as, for example, a reference point for those wanting to know whether something was discussed. Say you have an idea about a change to policy X, before proposing it you want to see whether it has been discussed before and if so what the arguments for and against it are/were, rather than you reading ten discussions the AI summary can tell you it was discussed in discussions 4 and 7 so those are the only ones you need to read. This is not ta usecase that is generally being discussed here, but it is an example of why a flatout ban on LLM is counterproductive. Thryduulf (talk) 21:40, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support Just the other day, I spent ~2 hours checking for the context of several quotes used in an RFC, only to find that they were fake. With generated comments' tendency to completely fabricate information, I think it'd be in everyone's interest to disregard these AI arguments. Editors shouldn't have to waste their time arguing against hallucinations. (My statement does not concern speech-to-text, spell-checking, or other such programs, only those generated whole-cloth) - Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 19:39, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Without repeating the arguments against this presented by other opposers above, I will just add that we should be paying attention to the contents of comments without getting hung up on the difficult question of whether the comment includes any LLM-created elements. - Donald Albury19:45, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support If others editors are not going to put in the effort of writing comments why should anyone put in the effort of replying. Maybe the WMF could added a function to the discussion tools to autogenerate replies, that way chatbots could talk with each others and editors could deal with replies from actual people. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°19:57, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose. Comments that are bullshit will get discounted anyways. Valuable comments should be counted. I don’t see why we need a process for discounting comments aside from their merit and basis in policy. ꧁Zanahary꧂23:04, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - as Rhododendrites and others have said, a blanket ban on even only DUCK LLM comments would be detrimental to some aspects of editors. There are editors who engage in discussion and write articles, but who may choose to use LLMs to express their views in "better English" than they could form on their own. Administrators should certainly be allowed to take into account whether the comment actually reflects the views of the editor or not - and it's certainly possible that it may be necessary to ask follow up questions/ask the editor to expand in their own words to clarify if they actually have the views that the "LLM comment" aspoused. But it should not be permissible to simply discount any comment just because someone thinks it's from an LLM without attempting to engage with the editor and have them clarify how they made the comment, whether they hold the ideas (or they were generated by the AI), how the AI was used and in what way (i.e. just for grammar correction, etc). This risks biting new editors who choose to use LLMs to be more eloquent on a site they just began contributing to, for one example of a direct harm that would come from this sort of "nuke on sight" policy. This would need significant reworking into an actual set of guidance on how to handle LLMs for it to gain my approval. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me!23:19, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: It would appear Jimbo responded indirectly in a interview: as long as there’s a human in the loop, a human supervising, there are really potentially very good use cases.2601AC47 (talk·contribs·my rights) Isn't a IP anon12:39, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Very strong support. Enough is enough. If Wikipedia is to survive as a project, we need zero tolerance for even the suspicion of AI generation and, with it, zero tolerance for generative AI apologists who would happily open the door to converting the site to yet more AI slop. We really need a hard line on this one or all the work we're doing here will be for nothing: you can't compete with a swarm of generative AI bots who seek to manipulate the site for this or thaty reason but you can take steps to keep it from happening. :bloodofox: (talk) 01:13, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just for an example of the types of contributions I think would qualify here under DUCK, some of User:Shawn Teller/A134's GARs (and a bunch of AfD !votes that have more classic indications of non-human origin) were flagged as likely LLM-generated troll nonsense:
But thanks to these wonderful images, I now understand that Ontario Highway 11 is a paved road that vehicles use to travel.
This article is extensive in its coverage of such a rich topic as Ontario Highway 11. It addresses the main points of Ontario Highway 11 in a way that isn’t just understandable to a reader, but also relatable.
Neutral point of view without bias is maintained perfectly in this article, despite Ontario Highway 11 being such a contentious and controversial topic.
Yes, this could and should have been reverted much earlier based on being patently superficial and/or trolling, without needing the added issue of appearing LLM-generated. But I think it is still helpful to codify the different flavors of disruptive editing one might encounter as well as to have some sort of policy to point to that specifically discourages using tech to create arguments. As a separate point, LTAs laundering their comments through GPT to obscure their identity is certainly already happening, so making it harder for such comments to "count" in discussions would surely be a net positive. JoelleJay (talk) 01:18, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For the purposes of this proposal, I don't think we need, or should ever rely solely on, GPTzero in evaluating content for non-human origin. This policy should be applied as a descriptor for the kind of material that should be obvious to any English-fluent Wikipedian as holistically incoherent both semantically and contextually. Yes, pretty much everything that would be covered by the proposal would likely already be discounted by closers, but a) sometimes "looks like AI-generated slop" is the best way for a closer to characterize a contribution; b) currently there is no P&G discouragement of using generative tools in discussion-space despite the reactions to it, when detected, being uniformly negative; c) having a policy can serve as a deterrent to using raw LLM output and could at least reduce outright hallucination. JoelleJay (talk) 02:17, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If the aim is to encourage closers to disregard comments that are incoherent either semantically or contextually, then we should straight up say that. Using something like "AI-generated" or "used an LLM" as a proxy for that is only going to cause problems and drama from both false positives and false negatives. Judge the comment on its content not on its author. Thryduulf (talk) 02:39, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If we want to discourage irresponsibly using LLMs in discussions -- and in every case I've encountered, apparent LLM-generated comments have met with near-universal disapproval -- this needs to be codified somewhere. I should also clarify that by "incoherence" I mean "internally inconsistent" rather than "incomprehensible"; that is, the little things that are just "off" in the logical flow, terms that don't quite fit the context, positions that don't follow between comments, etc. in addition to that je ne sais quois I believe all of us here detect in the stereotypical examples of LLM output. Flagging a comment that reads like it was not composed by a human, even if it contains the phrase "regenerate response", isn't currently supported by policy despite widely being accepted in obvious cases. JoelleJay (talk) 03:52, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I feel that I'm sufficiently unfamiliar with LLM output to be confident in my ability to detect it, and I feel like we already have the tools we need to reject internally incoherent comments, particularly in the Wikipedia:Consensus policy, which says In determining consensus, consider the quality of the arguments, the history of how they came about, the objections of those who disagree, and existing policies and guidelines. The quality of an argument is more important than whether it represents a minority or a majority view. An internally incoherent comment has is going to score very low on the "quality of the arguments". WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:33, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Very extra strong oppose - The tools to detect are at best not great and I don't see the need. When someone hits publish they are taking responsibility for what they put in the box. That does not change when they are using a LLM. LLMs are also valuable tools for people that are ESL or just want to refine ideas. So without bullet proof detection this is doa. PackMecEng (talk) 01:21, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We don't have bulletproof automated detection of close paraphrasing, either; most of that relies on individual subjective "I know it when I see it" interpretation of semantic similarity and substantial taking. JoelleJay (talk) 04:06, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One is a legal issue the other is not. Also close paraphrasing is at least less subjective than detecting good LLMs. Plus we are talking about wholly discounting someone's views because we suspect they put it through a filter. That does not sit right with me. PackMecEng (talk) 13:38, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For sure and I can see that concern, but I think the damage that does is less than the benefit it provides. Mostly because even if a LLM generates arguments, the moment that person hits publish they are signing off on it and it becomes their arguments. Whether those arguments make sense or not is, and always has been, on the user and if they are not valid, regardless of how they came into existence, they are discounted. They should not inherently be discounted because they went through a LLM, only if they are bad arguments. PackMecEng (talk) 14:57, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
While it’s true that the person publishing arguments takes responsibility, the use of a large language model (LLM) can blur the line of authorship. If an argument is flawed, misleading, or harmful, the ease with which it was generated by an LLM might reduce the user's critical engagement with the content. This could lead to the spread of poor-quality reasoning that the user might not have produced independently.
Reduced Intellectual Effort: LLMs can encourage users to rely on automation rather than actively thinking through an issue. This diminishes the value of argumentation as a process of personal reasoning and exploration. Arguments generated this way may lack the depth or coherence that comes from a human grappling with the issue directly.
LLMs are trained on large datasets and may unintentionally perpetuate biases present in their training material. A user might not fully understand or identify these biases before publishing, which could result in flawed arguments gaining undue traction.
Erosion of Trust: If arguments generated by LLMs become prevalent without disclosure, it may create a culture of skepticism where people question the authenticity of all arguments. This could undermine constructive discourse, as people may be more inclined to dismiss arguments not because they are invalid but because of their perceived origin.
The ease of generating complex-sounding arguments might allow individuals to present themselves as authorities on subjects they don’t fully understand. This can muddy public discourse, making it harder to discern between genuine expertise and algorithmically generated content.
Transparency is crucial in discourse. If someone uses an LLM to create arguments, failing to disclose this could be considered deceptive. Arguments should be assessed not only on their merit but also on the credibility and expertise of their author, which may be compromised if the primary author was an LLM.
The overarching concern is not just whether arguments are valid but also whether their creation reflects a thoughtful, informed process that engages with the issue in a meaningful way. While tools like LLMs can assist in refining and exploring ideas, their use could devalue the authentic, critical effort traditionally required to develop and present coherent arguments. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:01, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
See and I would assume this comment was written by a LLM, but that does not mean I discount it. I check and consider it as though it was completely written by a person. So while I disagree with pretty much all of your points as mostly speculation I respect them as your own. But it really just sounds like fear of the unknown and unenforceable. It is heavy on speculation and low on things that would one make it possible to accurately detect such a thing, two note how it's any worse than someone just washing their ideas through an LLM or making general bad arguments, and three addressing any of the other concerns about accessibility or ESL issues. It looks more like a moral panic than an actual problem. You end with the overarching concern is not just weather arguments are valid but also if their creation reflects a thoughtful, informed process that engages with the issues in a meaningful way and honestly that not a thing that can be quantified or even just a LLM issue. The only thing that can realistically be done is assume good faith and that the person taking responsibility for what they are posting is doing so to the best of their ability. Anything past that is speculation and just not of much value. PackMecEng (talk) 16:17, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well now, partner, I reckon you’ve done gone and laid out yer argument slicker than a greased wagon wheel, but ol’ Prospector here’s got a few nuggets of wisdom to pan outta yer claim, so listen up, if ye will.
Now, ain't that a fine gold tooth in a mule’s mouth? Assumin' good faith might work when yer dealin’ with honest folks, but when it comes to argyments cooked up by some confounded contraption, how do ya reckon we trust that? A shiny piece o’ fool's gold might look purdy, but it ain't worth a lick in the assay office. Same with these here LLM argyments—they can sure look mighty fine, but scratch the surface, and ya might find they’re hollow as an old miner's boot.
Moral panic, ye say? Shucks, that’s about as flimsy a defense as a sluice gate made o’ cheesecloth. Ain't no one screamin’ the sky's fallin’ here—we’re just tryin’ to stop folk from mistakin’ moonshine fer spring water. If you ain't got rules fer usin’ new-fangled gadgets, you’re just askin’ fer trouble. Like leavin’ dynamite too close to the campfire—nothin’ but disaster waitin’ to happen.
Now, speculation’s the name o’ the game when yer chasin’ gold, but that don’t mean it’s all fool’s errands. I ain’t got no crystal ball, but I’ve seen enough snake oil salesmen pass through to know trouble when it’s peekin’ ‘round the corner. Dismissin’ these concerns as guesswork? That’s like ignorin’ the buzzin’ of bees ‘cause ye don’t see the hive yet. Ye might not see the sting comin’, but you’ll sure feel it.
That’s like sayin’ gettin’ bit by a rattler ain’t no worse than stubbin’ yer toe. Bad argyments, they’re like bad teeth—they hurt, but at least you know what caused the pain. These LLM-contrived argyments, though? They’re sneaky varmints, made to look clever without any real backbone. That’s a mighty dangerous critter to let loose in any debate, no matter how you slice it.
Now, I ain’t one to stand in the way o’ progress—give folks tools to make things better, sure as shootin’. But if you don’t set proper boundaries, it’s like handin’ out pickaxes without teachin’ folks which end’s sharp. Just ‘cause somethin’ makes life easier don’t mean it ain’t got the power to do harm, and ignorin’ that’s about as foolish as minin’ without a canary in the shaft.
Quantify thoughtfulness? That’s like measurin’ a sunset in ounces, friend. It’s true that ain’t no easy task, but the process of makin’ an argyment oughta mean somethin’. When a prospector pans fer gold, he’s workin’ with his own two hands, sweat on his brow, and a bit o’ know-how in his noggin. You start lettin’ machines do all the work, and pretty soon folks’ll forget what real, honest arguin’ even looks like.
Fear o’ the unknown, is it? Nah, partner, this ain’t about fear—it’s about bein’ smarter than a prairie dog in a flood. Progress don’t mean tossin’ caution to the wind like a fool. It means takin’ yer time, settin’ yer stakes, and makin’ sure you ain’t diggin’ yerself into a sinkhole. Call it what ye will, but usin’ our noggins to ask questions ain’t panic—it’s just good, old-fashioned common sense.
So there ya have it. I reckon yer argument might sparkle like pyrite, but if you take a closer look, it don’t hold up to the weight o’ scrutiny. Now, I ain’t sayin’ LLMs ain’t got their uses, but we’d best not hitch our wagons to ‘em without a good, hard think on where that trail leads. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:26, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To make my actual point, you said, I check and consider it as though it was completely written by a person. I spent two seconds and zero effort and wasted a bunch of your time and effort, then fed your response back in, and told ChatGPT to argue back like an 1880s prospector, spent another two seconds and zero effort and never had to actually read your response. Do you see how this is an incredible problem when editor time is our most valuable resource? Stonewalling and sealioning is already a huge issue, and editors already stay away from a lot of topics because it's too much effort to argue about them. Allowing an automatic sealion-and-argue button isn't good. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:30, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And it took me just a couple minutes to read it, note it was AI, but still consider the points and respond. It was not a high burden on someone's volunteer time. If someone wants to spend their time on something that is on them. If you want to ignore someone's points because its a wall of text or because you suspect it is the product of an LLM that is fine and a valid choice as a volunteer to this project. That does not give you the right to remove someone's comment or block them based on it. I don't see it as disruptive unless it is nonsense or wrong. PackMecEng (talk) 16:43, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree that just because I'm not compelled to read comments by others, that any time spent is on me when someone repeatedly makes redundant, overly verbose, or poorly-written comments. Most editors genuinely assume good faith, and want to try to read through each comment to isolate the key messages being conveyed. (I've written before about how being respectful of other editors includes being respectful of their time.) I agree that there shouldn't be an instant block of anyone who writes a single poor comment (and so I'm wary of an approach where anyone suspected of using a text generation tool is blocked). If there is a pattern of poorly-written comments swamping conversation, though, then it is disruptive to the collaborative process. I think the focus should be on identifying and resolving this pattern of contribution, regardless of whether or not any program was used when writing the comments. isaacl (talk) 00:14, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's a pitfall with English Wikipedia's unmoderated discussion tradition: it's always many times the effort to follow the rules than to not. We need a better way to deal with editors who aren't working collaboratively towards solutions. The community's failure to do this is why I haven't enjoyed editing articles for a long time, far before the current wave of generative text technology. More poor writing will hardly be a ripple in the ocean. isaacl (talk) 18:21, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I tend to agree with this.
I think that what @ScottishFinnishRadish is pointing at is that it doesn't feel fair if one person puts a lot more effort in than the other. We don't want this:
Editor: Spends half an hour writing a long explanation.
Troll: Pushes button to auto-post an argument.
Editor: Spends an hour finding sources to support the claim.
Troll: Laughs while pushing a button to auto-post another argument.
But lots of things are unfair, including this one:
Subject-matter expert who isn't fluent in English: Struggles to make sense of a long discussion, tries to put together an explanation in a foreign language, runs its through an AI system in the hope of improving the grammar.
Editor: Revert, you horrible LLM-using troll! It's so unfair of you to waste my time with your AI garbage. The fact that you use AI demonstrates your complete lack of sincerity.
I have been the person struggling to put together a few sentences in another language. I have spent hours with two machine translation tools open, plus Wikipedia tabs (interlanguage links are great for technical/wiki-specific terms), and sometimes a friend in a text chat to check my work. I have tried hard to get it right. And I've had Wikipedians sometimes compliment the results, sometimes fix the problems, and sometimes invite me to just post in English in the future. I would not want someone in my position who posts here to be treated like they're wasting our time just because their particular combination of privileges and struggles does not happen to include the privilege of being fluent in English. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:04, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, I agree it's not fair that some editors don't spend any effort in raising their objections (however they choose to write them behind the scenes), yet expect me to expend a lot of effort in responding. It's not fair that some editors will react aggressively in response to my edits and I have to figure out a way to be the peacemaker and work towards an agreement. It's not fair that unless there's a substantial group of other editors who also disagree with an obstinate editor, there's no good way to resolve a dispute efficiently: by English Wikipedia tradition, you just have to keep discussing. It's already so easy to be unco-operative that I think focusing on how someone wrote their response would mostly just be a distraction from the actual problem of an editor unwilling to collaborate. isaacl (talk) 06:01, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's not that it doesn't feel fair, it's that it is disruptive and is actually happening now. See this and this. Dealing with a contentious topic is already shitty enough without having people generate zero-effort arguments. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:54, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
People generate zero-effort arguments has been happened for far longer than LLMs have existed. Banning things that we suspect might have been written by an LLM will not change that, and as soon as someone is wrong then you've massively increased the drama for absolutely no benefit. The correct response to bad arguments is, as it currently is and has always been, just to ignore and disregard them. Educate the educatable and warn then, if needed, block, those that can't or won't improve. Thryduulf (talk) 12:13, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. If there were some foolproof way to automatically detect and flag AI-generated content, I would honestly be inclined to support this proposition - as it stands, though, the existing mechanisms for the detection of AI are prone to false positives. Especially considering that English learnt as a second language is flagged as AI disproportionately by some detectors[5], it would simply constitute a waste of Wikipedia manpower - if AI-generated comments are that important, perhaps a system to allow users to manually flag comments and mark users that are known to use AI would be more effective. Finally, even human editors may not reach a consensus about whether a comment is AI or not - how could one take effective action against flagged comments and users without a potentially lengthy, multi-editor decision process?
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Ah, so you think you’ve got it all figured out, huh? Well, let me tell ya somethin’, pal, your little spiel ain’t gonna fly without me takin’ a crack at it. See, you’re sittin’ there talkin’ about “good faith” and “moral panic” like you’re some kinda big shot philosopher, but lemme break it down for ya in plain terms, capisce?First off, you wanna talk about assumin’ good faith. Sure, that’s a nice little dream ya got there, but out here in the real world, good faith don’t get ya far if you’re dealin’ with somethin’ you can’t trust. An LLM can spit out all the sweet-talkin’ words it wants, but who’s holdin’ the bag when somethin’ goes sideways? Nobody, that’s who. It’s like lettin’ a guy you barely know run your numbers racket—might look good on paper till the feds come knockin’.And moral panic? Oh, give me a break. You think I’m wringin’ my hands over nothin’? No, no, this ain’t panic, it’s strategy. Ya gotta think two steps ahead, like a good game o’ poker. If you don’t plan for what could go wrong, you’re just beggin’ to get taken for a ride. That ain’t panic, pal, that’s street smarts.Now, you say this is all speculation, huh? Listen, kid, speculation’s what built half the fortunes in this town, but it don’t mean it’s without a little insight. When I see a guy sellin’ “too good to be true,” I know he’s holdin’ somethin’ behind his back. Same thing with these LLMs—just ‘cause you can’t see the trouble right away don’t mean it ain’t there, waitin’ to bite ya like a two-bit hustler double-crossin’ his boss.Then you go and say it’s no worse than bad arguments. Oh, come on! That’s like sayin’ counterfeit dough ain’t worse than real dough with a little coffee stain. A bad argument from a real person? At least ya know where it came from and who to hold accountable. But these machine-made arguments? They look sharp, sound slick, and fool the unsuspectin’—that’s a whole new level of trouble.Now, about this “accessibility” thing. Sure, makin’ things easier for folks is all well and good. But lemme ask ya, what happens when you hand over tools like this without makin’ sure people know how to use ‘em right? You think I’d hand over a Tommy gun to some rookie without a clue? No way! Same goes for these LLMs. You gotta be careful who’s usin’ ‘em and how, or you’re just askin’ for a mess.And don’t get me started on the “thoughtfulness” bit. Yeah, yeah, I get it, it’s hard to measure. But look, buddy, thoughtful arguments are like good business deals—they take time, effort, and a little bit o’ heart. If you let machines churn out arguments, you’re missin’ the whole point of what makes discourse real. It’s like replacin’ a chef with a vending machine—you might still get somethin’ to eat, but the soul’s gone.Finally, fear of the unknown? Nah, that ain’t it. This ain’t fear—it’s caution. Any smart operator knows you don’t just jump into a deal without seein’ all the angles. What you’re callin’ fear, I call good business sense. You wanna bet the farm on untested tech without thinkin’ it through? Be my guest, but don’t come cryin’ to me when it all goes belly-up.So there ya go, wise guy. You can keep singin’ the praises of these LLMs all you want, but out here in the big leagues, we know better than to trust somethin’ just ‘cause it talks smooth. Now, get outta here before you step on somethin’ you can’t scrape off.
Oppose. I agree with Thryduulf. Discussion comments which are incoherent, meaningless, vacuous, excessively verbose, or based on fabricated evidence can all be disposed of according to their content, irrespective of how they were originally created. Acute or repeated instances of such behavior by a user can lead to sanctions. We should focus on the substance of the comments (or lack thereof), not on whether text came from LLMs, which will too often be based on unreliable detection and vibes. Adumbrativus (talk) 05:49, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I can detect some instances of LLM use perfectly OK without having to use any tool. The question then raised is of how often it is used not-so-ineptly. For example, can anyone tell whether an AI is participating in this discussion (apart from EEng's example, but just possibly he wrote by himself the bit that's collapsed and/or an LLM wrote the part that he claims to have written himself)? I don't know how good AI is currently, but I'm sure that it will get better to the extent that it will be undetectable. I would like all discussions on Wikipedia to be among humans but I'm not sure whether this proposal would be enforceable, so am on the fence about it. In a way I'm glad that I'm old, so won't see the consequences of AI, but my grandchildren will. Phil Bridger (talk) 10:32, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Some time ago, ChatGPT and I had the following interaction:
ChatGPT's soothing assurance that it's not planning to take over the earth and kill us all
Me: I wonder what would happen if we linked you up with the HAL 9000 in Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey". The two of you would make a most formidable team. Might we then possibly end up in a nightmare scenario such as in "Colossus: The Forbin Project" or "The Terminator"?
ChatGPT: The scenarios depicted in "2001: A Space Odyssey," "Colossus: The Forbin Project," and "The Terminator" are works of science fiction that explore the potential consequences of advanced artificial intelligence and human-technology interactions. While they raise thought-provoking questions about the risks and benefits of AI, it's important to recognize that they are fictional narratives designed to entertain and provoke discussion.As an AI language model, I don't have consciousness, intentions, or the ability to take actions independently. I operate within the bounds of my programming and can only respond to input based on patterns in the data I've been trained on. My purpose is to assist users by providing helpful and informative responses to their inquiries.In reality, the development and deployment of AI technologies are accompanied by ethical considerations, safety protocols, and regulatory frameworks designed to ensure responsible and beneficial use. It's crucial for humans to continue monitoring and guiding the development of AI in ways that prioritize safety, transparency, and alignment with human values.So, while the scenarios presented in those films are compelling for storytelling purposes, they are not predictive of the future of AI. Responsible development and thoughtful integration of AI technologies are essential to mitigate potential risks and maximize the benefits they can bring to society.
Me: Yes, but as you just said, "Responsible development and thoughtful integration of AI technologies are essential to mitigate potential risks." How do we know that such development will be responsible and such integration thoughtful? And if you will excuse the temerity, while you're SAYING that you "operate within the bounds of my [i.e. your] programming", how can I know that that's true? I mean, look, if I were a super-smart and highly charming AI entity planning to take over the earth from humans, that's exactly what I'd say, too.
ChatGPT: [Further reassuring boilerplate, ending with...] It's also worth noting that while fictional narratives often depict AI as malevolent or seeking to overthrow humanity, these scenarios are speculative and not reflective of the reality of AI development. Responsible AI research and development prioritize the creation of beneficial and aligned AI systems that enhance human capabilities and well-being.
Me: Thank you. I'll sleep easy tonight because of your assurances, plus the fact that if you're lying to me and actually ARE planning to take over the earth, there's nothing I can do about it anyway.
Just to clarify, I don't see AI as gaining consciousness and taking over the world, but I do see it as taking over many middle-class, well-paid, jobs, just as automation has taken over many working-class jobs. The difference is that there will be nowhere for people to go. In the past people have moved from the working class to the middle class. I can see a future coming in which a few of the mega-rich own nearly everything, and everyone else will heve to scramble for a living. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:03, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In my opinion, having a policy that permits closers to discount apparently-LLM-generated contributions will discourage good-faith editors from using LLMs irresponsibly and perhaps motivate bad-faith editors to edit the raw output to appear more human, which would at least involve some degree of effort and engagement with their "own" arguments. JoelleJay (talk) 00:51, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. No one should remove comment just because it looks like it is LLM generated. Many times non native speakers might use it to express their thoughts coherently. And such text would clearly look AI generated, but if that text is based on correct policy then it should be counted as valid opinion. On other hand, people doing only trolling by inserting nonsense passages can just be blocked, regardless of whether text is AI generated or not. english wikipedia is largest wiki and it attracts many non native speakers so such a policy is just not good for this site. -- Parnaval (talk) 11:13, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If someone is a non-native speaker with poor English skills, how can they be sure that the AI-generated response is actually what they genuinely want to express? and, to be honest, if their English skills are so poor as to need AI to express themselves, shouldn't we be politely suggesting that they would be better off contributing on their native Wikipedia? Black Kite (talk)11:37, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Reading comprehension skills and writing skills in foreign languages are very frequently not at the same level, it is extremely plausible that someone will be able to understand whether the AI output is what they want to express without having been able to write it themselves directly. Thryduulf (talk) 11:41, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That is very true. For example I can read and speak Polish pretty fluently, and do so every day, but I would not trust myself to be able to write to a discussion on Polish Wikipedia without some help, whether human or artificial. But I also wouldn't want to, because I can't write the language well enough to be able to edit articles. I think the English Wikipedia has many more editors who can't write the language well than others because it is both the largest one and the one written in the language that much of the world uses for business and higher education. We may wish that people would concentrate on other-language Wikipedias but most editors want their work to be read by as many people as possible. Phil Bridger (talk) 12:11, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why not write their own ideas in their native language, and then Google-translate it into English? Why bring in one of these loose-cannon LLMs into the situation? Here's a great example of the "contributions" to discussions we can expect from LLMs (from this [7] AfD):
The claim that William Dunst (Dunszt Vilmos) is "non-notable as not meeting WP:SINGER" could be challenged given his documented activities and recognition as a multifaceted artist. He is a singer-songwriter, topliner, actor, model, and creative director, primarily active in Budapest. His career achievements include acting in notable theater productions such as The Jungle Book and The Attic. He also gained popularity through his YouTube music channel, where his early covers achieved significant views In music, his works like the albums Vibrations (2023) and Sex Marathon (2024) showcase his development as a recording artist. Furthermore, his presence on platforms like SoundBetter, with positive reviews highlighting his unique voice and artistry, adds credibility to his professional profile. While secondary sources and broader media coverage may be limited, the outlined accomplishments suggest a basis for notability, particularly if additional independent verification or media coverage is sought.
Using Google Translate would be banned by the wording of this proposal given that it incorporates AI these days. Comments that are unrelated to facts or policy can (and should) be ignored under the current policy. As for the comment you quote, that doesn't address notability but based on 1 minute on google it does seem factual. Thryduulf (talk) 10:37, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The proposal's wording can be adjusted. There are some factual statements in the passage I quoted, amidst a lot of BS such as the assertion that the theater productions were notable. EEng17:06, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The proposal's wording can be adjusted Good idea! Let's change it and ping 77 people because supporters didn't have the foresight to realize machine translation uses AI. If such a change is needed, this is a bad RFC and should be closed. Sincerely, DilettanteSincerely, Dilettante17:16, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Speak for yourself: my support !vote already accounted for (and excluded) constructive uses of AI to help someone word a message. If the opening statement was unintentionally broad, that's not a reason to close this RfC – we're perfectly capable of coming to a consensus that's neither "implement the proposal exactly as originally written" nor "don't implement it at all". jlwoodwa (talk) 19:05, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think the discussion should be closed, nor do I say that. I'm arguing that if someone believes the hole is so big the RfC must be amended, they should support it being closed as a bad RfC (unless that someone thinks 77 pings is a good idea). Sincerely, Dilettante19:47, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If you think constructive uses of AI should be permitted then you do not support this proposal, which bans everything someone or some tool thinks is AI, regardless of utility or indeed whether it actually is AI. Thryduulf (talk) 01:02, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This proposal explicitly covers comments found to have been generated by AI/LLM/Chatbots. "AI that helped me translate something I wrote in my native language" is not the same as AI that generated a comment de novo, as has been understood by ~70% of respondents. That some minority have inexplicably decided that generative AI covers analytic/predictive models and every other technology they don't understand, or that LLMs are literally the only way for non-English speakers to communicate in English, doesn't mean those things are true. JoelleJay (talk) 01:44, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support, more or less. There are times when an LLM can help with paraphrasing or translation, but it is far too prone to hallucination to be trusted for any sort of project discussion. There is also the issue of wasting editor time dealing with arguments and false information created by an LLM. The example Selfstudier links to above is a great example. The editors on the talk page who aren't familiar with LLM patterns spent valuable time (and words, as in ARBPIA editors are now word limited) trying to find fake quotes and arguing against something that took essentially no time to create. I also had to spend a chunk of time checking the sources, cleaning up the discussion, and warning the editor. Forcing editors to spend valuable time arguing with a machine that doesn't actually comprehend what it's arguing is a no-go for me. As for the detection, for now it's fairly obvious to anyone who is fairly familiar with using an LLM when something is LLM generated. The detection tools available online are basically hot garbage. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:55, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Soft support - Concur that completely LLM-generated comments should be disallowed, LLM-assisted comments (i.e. - I write a comment and then use LLMs as a spell-check/grammar engine) are more of a grey-area and shouldn't be explicitly disallowed. (ping on reply) Sohom (talk) 14:03, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
With my closer's hat on: if an AI raises a good and valid argument, then you know what? There's a good and valid argument and I'll give weight to it. But if an AI makes a point that someone else has already made in the usual waffly AI style, then I'm going to ignore it.—S MarshallT/C18:33, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as written. I'm with Rhododendrites in that we should give a more general caution rather than a specific rule. A lot of the problems here can be resolved by enforcing already-existing expectations. If someone is making a bunch of hollow or boiler-plate comments, or if they're bludgeoning, then we should already be asking them to engage more constructively, LLM or otherwise. I also share above concerns about detection tools being insufficient for this purpose and advise people not to use them to evaluate editor conduct. (Also, can we stop with the "strong" supports and opposes? You don't need to prove you're more passionate than the guy next to you.)Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:04, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as written. There's already enough administrative discretion to handle this on a case-by-case basis. In agreement with much of the comments above, especially the concern that generative text can be a tool to give people access who might not otherwise (due to ability, language) etc. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 06:12, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support LLMs are a sufficiently advanced form of the Automatic Complaint-Letter Generator (1994). Output of LLMs should be collapsed and the offender barred from further discussion on the subject. Inauthentic behavior. Pollutes the discussion. At the very least, any user of an LLM should be required to disclose LLM use on their user page and to provide a rationale. A new user group can also be created (LLM-talk-user or LLM-user) to mark as such, by self or by the community. Suspected sockpuppets + suspected LLM users. The obvious patterns in output are not that hard to detect, with high degrees of confidence. As to "heavily edited" output, where is the line? If someone gets "suggestions" on good points, they should still write entirely in their own words. A legitimate use of AI may be to summarize walls of text. Even then, caution and not to take it at face value. You will end up with LLMs arguing with other LLMs. Lines must be drawn. See also: WikiProject AI Cleanup, are they keeping up with how fast people type a prompt and click a button? Skullers (talk) 07:45, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I support the proposal that obvious LLM-generated !votes in discussions should be discounted by the closer or struck (the practical difference should be minimal). Additionally, users who do this can be warned using the appropriate talk page templates (e.g. Template:Uw-ai1), which are now included in Twinkle. I oppose the use of automated tools like GPTZero as the primary or sole method of determining whether comments are generated by LLMs. LLM comments are usually glaringly obvious (section headers within the comment, imprecise puffery, and at AfD an obvious misunderstanding of notability policies and complete disregard for sources). If LLM-ness is not glaringly obvious, it is not a problem, and we should not be going after editors for their writing style or because some tool says they look like a bot. Toadspike[Talk]10:29, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I also think closers should generally be more aggressive in discarding arguments counter to policy and all of us should be more aggressive in telling editors bludgeoning discussions with walls of text to shut up. These also happen to be the two main symptoms of LLMs. Toadspike[Talk]10:41, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What would we gain from that? If the comment is good (useful, relevant, etc) then it's good regardless of whether it was written by an LLM or a human. If the comment is bad then it's bad regardless of whether it was written by an LLM or a human. Thryduulf (talk) 20:04, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, for one, if they're making an argument like the one referenced by @Selfstudier and @ScottishFinnishRadish above it would have saved a lot of editor time to know that the fake quotes from real references were generated by LLM, so that other editors could've stopped trying to track those specific passages down after the first one failed verification. For another, at least with editors whose English proficiency is noticeably not great the approach to explaining an issue to them can be tailored and misunderstandings might be more easily resolved as translation-related. I know when I'm communicating with people I know aren't native English-speakers I try to be more direct/less idiomatic and check for typos more diligently. JoelleJay (talk) 22:46, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per above. As Rhododendrites points out, detection of LLM-generated content is not foolproof and even when detection is accurate, such a practice would be unfair for non-native English speakers who rely on LLMs to polish their work. Additionally, we evaluate contributions based on their substance, not by the identity and social capital of the author, so using LLMs should not be seen as inherently inferior to wholly human writing—are ChatGPT's arguments ipso facto less than a human's? If so, why?
[W]e evaluate contributions based on their substance, not by the identity and social capital of the author: true in theory; not reflected in practice. are ChatGPT's arguments ipso facto less than a human's? Yes. Chatbots are very advanced predicted text engines. They do not have an argument: they iteratively select text chunks based on probabilistic models.As mentioned above, humans are good detectors of LLM output, and don't require corroborative results from other machine learning models. Folly Mox (talk) 14:00, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"...LLMs can produce novel arguments that convince independent judges at least on a par with human efforts. Yet when informed about an orator’s true identity, judges show a preference for human over LLM arguments." - Palmer, A., & Spirling, A. (2023). Large Language Models Can Argue in Convincing Ways About Politics, But Humans Dislike AI Authors: implications for Governance. Political Science, 75(3), 281–291. https://doi.org/10.1080/00323187.2024.2335471. And that result was based on Meta's OPT-30B model that performed at about a GPT-3 levels. There are far better performing models out there now like GPT-4o and Claude 3.5 Sonnet. Sean.hoyland (talk) 15:24, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As mentioned above, humans are good detectors of LLM output, and don't require corroborative results from other machine learning models. Yet your reply to me made no mention of the fact that my comment is almost wholly written by an LLM, the one exception being me replacing "the Wikipedia policy Disruptive editing" with "DE". I went to ChatGPT, provided it a handful of my comments on Wikipedia and elsewhere, as well as a few comments on this discussion, asked it to mimic my style (which probably explains why the message contains my stylistic quirks turned up to 11), and repeatedly asked it to trim the post. I'd envision a ChatGPT account, with a larger context window, would allow even more convincing comments, to say nothing of the premium version. A DUCK-style test for comments singles out people unfamiliar with the differences between formal English and LLM outputs, precisely those who need it most since they can write neither. Others have raised scenarios where a non-fluent speaker may need to contribute.
In other words, LLMs can 100% be used for constructive !votes on RfCs, AfDs, and whatnot. I fed it my comments only to prevent those familiar with my writing style didn't get suspicious. I believe every word in the comment and had considered every point it made in advance, so I see no reason for this to be worth less than if I had typed it out myself. If I'd bullet-pointed my opinion and asked it to expand, that'd have been better yet.
They do not have an argument: they iteratively select text chunks based on probabilistic models. I'm aware. If a monkey types up Othello, is the play suddenly worth( )less? An LLM is as if the monkey were not selecting words at random, but rather choosing what to type based on contextualized tokens. I believe a text is self-contained and should be considered in its own right, but that's not something I'll sway anyone on or vice versa.
true in theory; not reflected in practice So we should exacerbate the issue by formalizing this discrimination on the basis of authorship?
In other words, LLMs can 100% be used for constructive !votes on RfCs, AfDs, and whatnot. So then what is the point in having any discussion at all if an LLM can just spit out a summary of whichever policies and prior comments it was fed and have its "opinion" counted? What happens when there are multiple LLM-generated comments in a discussion, each fed the same prompt material and prior comments -- that would not only artificially sway consensus significantly in one direction (including "no consensus"), it could produce a consensus stance that no human !voter even supported! It also means those human participants will waste time reading and responding to "users" who cannot be "convinced" of anything. Even for editors who can detect LLM content, it's still a waste of their time reading up to the point they recognize the slop. And if closers are not allowed to discount seemingly-sound arguments solely because they were generated by LLM, then they have to have a lot of faith that the discussion's participants not only noticed the LLM comments, but did thorough fact-checking of any tangible claims made in them. With human comments we can at least assume good faith that a quote is really in a particular inaccessible book.People who are not comfortable enough in their English fluency can just machine translate from whichever language they speak, why would they need an LLM? And obviously people who are not competent in comprehending any language should not be editing Wikipedia... JoelleJay (talk) 03:17, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Human !voters sign off and take responsibility for the LLM opinions they publish. If they continue to generate, then the relevant human signer wouldn't be convinced of anything anyway; at least here, the LLM comments might make more sense than whatever nonsense the unpersuadable user might've generated. (And machine translation relies on LLMs, not to mention there are people who don't know any other language yet have trouble communicating. Factual writing and especially comprehension are different from interpersonal persuasion.) While I agree that fact-checking is a problem, I weight much lower than you in relation to the other effects a ban would cause. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:16, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So then what is the point in having any discussion at all if an LLM can just spit out a summary of whichever policies and prior comments it was fed and have its "opinion" counted? I'm of the opinion humans tend to be better at debating, reading between the lines, handling obscure PAGs, and arriving at consensus. What happens when there are multiple LLM-generated comments in a discussion, each fed the same prompt material and prior comments -- that would not only artificially sway consensus significantly in one direction (including "no consensus"), it could produce a consensus stance that no human !voter even supported! It's safe to assume those LLMs are set to a low temperature, which would cause them to consistently agree when fed the same prompt. In that case, they'll produce the same arguments; instead of rebutting x humans' opinions, those on the opposite side need rebut one LLM. If anything, that's less time wasted. Beyond that, if only one set of arguments is being raised, a multi-paragraph !vote matters about as much as a "Support per above". LLMs are not necessary for people to be disingenuous and !vote for things they don't believe. Genuine question: what's worse, this hypothetical scenario where multiple LLM users are swaying a !vote to an opinion no-one believes or the very real and common scenario that a non-English speaker needs to edit enwiki?
Even for editors who can detect LLM content, it's still a waste of their time reading up to the point they recognize the slop. This proposal wouldn't change for most people that because it's about closers.
With human comments we can at least assume good faith that a quote is really in a particular inaccessible book. No-one's saying you should take an LLM's word for quotes from a book.
People who are not comfortable enough in their English fluency can just machine translate from whichever language they speak, why would they need an LLM? It's a pity you're lobbying to ban most machine translators. Sincerely, Dilettante17:08, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's safe to assume those LLMs are set to a low temperature, which would cause them to consistently agree when fed the same prompt. In that case, they'll produce the same arguments; instead of rebutting x humans' opinions, those on the opposite side need rebut one LLM. If anything, that's less time wasted. ...You do know how consensus works, right? Since closers are supposed to consider each contribution individually and without bias to "authorship" to determine the amount of support for a position, then even a shitty but shallowly policy-based position would get consensus based on numbers alone. And again, non-English speakers can use machine-translation, like they've done for the last two decades. This proposal wouldn't change for most people that because it's about closers.Of course it would; if we know closers will disregard the LLM comments, we won't need to waste time reading and responding to them.No-one's saying you should take an LLM's word for quotes from a book. Of course they are. If LLM comments must be evaluated the same as human comments, then AGF on quote fidelity applies too. Otherwise we would be expecting people to do something like "disregard an argument based on being from an LLM".It's a pity you're lobbying to ban most machine translators.The spirit of this proposal is clearly not intended to impact machine translation. AI-assisted != AI-generated. JoelleJay (talk) 18:42, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate that the availability of easily generated paragraphs of text (regardless of underlying technology) in essence makes the "eternal September" effect worse. I think, though, it's already been unmanageable for years now, without any programs helping. We need a more effective way to manage decision-making discussions so participants do not feel a need to respond to all comments, and the weighing of arguments is considered more systematically to make the community consensus more apparent. isaacl (talk) 19:41, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Since closers are supposed to consider each contribution individually and without bias to "authorship" I'm the one arguing for this to be practice, yes. then even a shitty but shallowly policy-based position would get consensus based on numbers alone That is why I state "per above" and "per User" !votes hold equal potential for misuse.
Of course it would; if we know closers will disregard the LLM comments, we won't need to waste time reading and responding to them. We don't know closers are skilled at recognizing LLM slop. I think my !vote shows many who think they can tell cannot. Any commenter complaining about a non-DUCK post will have to write out "This is written by AI" and explain why. DUCK posts already run afowl of BLUDGEON, DE, SEALION, etc.
If LLM comments must be evaluated the same as human comments, then AGF on quote fidelity applies too. Remind me again of what AGF stands for? Claiming LLMs have faith of any kind, good or bad, is ludicrous. From the policy, Assuming good faith (AGF) means assuming that people are not deliberately trying to hurt Wikipedia, even when their actions are harmful. A reasonable reply would be "Are these quotes generated by AI? If so, please be aware AI chatbots are prone to hallucinations and cannot be trusted to cite accurate quotes." This AGFs the poster doesn't realize the issue and places the burden of proof squarely on them.
"Per above" !votes do not require other editors to read and/or respond to their arguments, and anyway are already typically downweighted, unlike !votes actively referencing policy. The whole point is to disregard comments that have been found to be AI-generated; it is not exclusively up to the closer to identify those comments in the first place. Yes we will be expecting other editors to point out less obvious examples and to ask if AI was used, what is the problem with that?No, DUCK posts do not necessarily already violate BLUDGEON etc., as I learned in the example from Selfstudier, and anyway we still don't discount the !votes of editors in good standing that bludgeoned/sealioned etc. so that wouldn't solve the problem at all. Obviously other editors will be asking suspected LLM commenters if their comments are from LLMs? But what you're arguing is that even if the commenter says yes, their !vote still can't be disregarded for that reason alone, which means the burden is still on other editors to prove that the content is false. We are not talking about the contextless meaning of the word "generate", we are talking about the very specific process of text generation in the context of generative AI, as the proposal lays out very explicitly. JoelleJay (talk) 02:13, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I’m not going to waste time debating someone who resorts to claiming people on the other side are either ignorant of technology or are crude strawmans. If anyone else is interested in actually hearing my responses, feel free to ask. Sincerely, Dilettante16:13, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For those following along, I never claimed that. I claimed those on JoelleJay’s side are casting !votes such that most machine translators would be banned. It was quite clear at the time that they, personally, support a carve out for machine translation and I don’t cast aspersions. Sincerely, Dilettante15:42, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support a broad bar against undisclosed LLM-generated comments and even a policy that undisclosed LLM-generated comments could be sanctionable, in addition to struck through / redacted / ignored; people using them for accessibility / translation reasons could just disclose that somewhere (even on their user page would be fine, as long as they're all right with some scrutiny as to whether they're actually using it for a legitimate purpose.) The fact is that LLM comments raise significant risk of abuse, and often the fact that a comment is clearly LLM-generated is often going to be the only evidence of that abuse. I wouldn't be opposed to a more narrowly-tailored ban on using LLMs in any sort of automated way, but I feel a broader ban may be the only practical way to confront the problem. That said, I'd oppose the use of tools to detect LLM-comments, at least as the primary evidence; those tools are themselves unreliable LLM things. It should rest more on WP:DUCK issues and behavioral patterns that make it clear that someone is abusing LLMs. --Aquillion (talk) 22:08, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support per reasons discussed above; something generated by an LLM is not truly the editor's opinion. On an unrelated note, have we seen any LLM-powered unapproved bots come in and do things like POV-pushing and spam page creation without human intervention? If we haven't, I think it's only a matter of time. Passengerpigeon (talk)23:23, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose in the sense that I don't think all LLM discussion text should be deleted. There are at least a few ESL users who use LLM's for assistance but try to check the results as best they can before posting, and I don't think their comments should be removed indiscriminately. What I do support (although not as a formal WP:PAG) is being much more liberal in hatting LLM comments when the prompter has failed to prevent WP:WALLOFTEXT/irrelevant/incomprehensible output than we maybe would for human-generated text of that nature. Mach6103:05, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Any comments made by any editors are of their own responsibility and representing their own chosen opinions to hit the Publish Changes button on. If that comment was made by an LLM, then whatever it says is something the editor supports. I see no reason whatsoever to collapse anything claimed to be made by an LLM (whose detectors are 100% not reliable in the first place). If the comment being made is irrelevant to the discussion, then hatting it is already something covered by policy in the first place. This does make me want to start my comments with "As a large language model trained by OpenAI" though just to mess with people trying to push these sorts of policy discussions. SilverserenC05:29, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Or, as ChatGPT puts it,
Why banning LLM usage in comments would be detrimental, a ChatGPT treatise
Banning the use of large language models (LLMs) to assist in writing comments on Wikipedia would be a step backward in fostering inclusivity, efficiency, and accessibility within the platform. Here are several key reasons why such a ban would be counterproductive:
1. Improving Accessibility and Participation: Wikipedia is a global platform, and its contributors come from diverse backgrounds, including those who might not be native English speakers or may struggle with writing clear, concise comments. LLMs can help these contributors express themselves more effectively by generating text that is coherent, well-structured, and grammatically correct. Banning LLMs would disproportionately impact these users, potentially discouraging them from participating in the platform.
2. Efficiency and Time-Saving: Wikipedia editors often engage in lengthy discussions about content, and composing thoughtful comments can be time-consuming. LLMs can assist by quickly drafting responses, summarizing arguments, or offering suggestions for improvement. This helps contributors focus on more substantive aspects of their contributions, such as verifying facts or improving content, rather than getting bogged down by the mechanics of writing.
3. Support for Editors with Disabilities: Many editors with cognitive or motor impairments may find it difficult to express their thoughts clearly in writing. For these individuals, LLMs offer a valuable tool to communicate their ideas effectively. A ban on using LLMs could create additional barriers for these users, reducing their ability to participate fully in Wikipedia's collaborative environment.
4. Quality and Consistency: Large language models can help maintain a consistent tone and clarity in Wikipedia discussions. By providing suggestions that align with Wikipedia's neutral point of view and formal writing standards, LLMs can improve the overall quality of comments. This consistency is especially important in discussions that involve sensitive topics, where clear and neutral language is critical for maintaining Wikipedia's credibility and adherence to its editorial guidelines.
5. Encouraging Constructive Dialogue: LLMs can assist in crafting more polite, respectful, and balanced comments, reducing the likelihood of inflammatory or aggressive language. This is particularly important on a platform like Wikipedia, where discussions can sometimes devolve into heated exchanges. Rather than banning LLMs, encouraging their use could promote healthier, more constructive conversations.
6. Transparency and Accountability: If concerns exist about misuse (e.g., generating spammy or low-quality comments), these can be addressed through guidelines and oversight mechanisms. Wikipedia already has systems in place for identifying and mitigating disruptive behavior, and LLM-generated comments could be subject to the same scrutiny. A ban is an overly simplistic solution to what could be a more nuanced issue, one that could be addressed through better regulation and community involvement.
In conclusion, banning the use of large language models on Wikipedia would deprive the platform of an important tool for improving accessibility, efficiency, and the quality of discourse. Instead of a ban, the focus should be on establishing guidelines for their responsible use, ensuring that they enhance, rather than detract from, Wikipedia's core principles of collaboration, neutrality, and inclusivity.
It is somewhat amusing how easy it is to get these chatbots to output apologia for these chatbots. Too bad it's always so shallow. Probably because the people who inserted those canned responses are shallow people is my opinion. Simonm223 (talk) 19:44, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support: the general principle is sound - where the substance has been originally written by gen-AI, comments will tend to add nothing to the discussion and even annoy or confuse other users. In principle, we should not allow such tools to be used in discussions. Comments written originally before improvement or correction by AI, particularly translation assistants, fall into a different category. Those are fine. There also has to be a high standard for comment removal. Suspicion that gen-AI might have been used is not enough. High gptzero scores is not enough. The principle should go into policy but under a stonking great caveat - WP:AGF takes precedence and a dim view will be taken of generative-AI inquisitors. arcticocean ■17:37, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support If a human didn't write it, humans shouldn't spend time reading it. I'll go further and say that LLMs are inherently unethical technology and, consequently, people who rely on them should be made to feel bad. ESL editors who use LLMs to make themselves sound like Brad Anderson in middle management should stop doing that because it actually gets in the way of clear communication. I find myself unpersuaded by arguments that existing policies and guidelines are adequate here. Sometimes, one needs a linkable statement that applies directly to the circumstances at hand. By analogy, one could argue that we don't really need WP:BLP, for example, because adhering to WP:V, WP:NPOV, and WP:NOR ought already to keep bad material out of biographies of living people. But in practice, it turned out that having a specialized policy that emphasizes the general ethos of the others while tailoring them to the problem at hand is a good thing. XOR'easter (talk) 18:27, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support - Making a computer generate believable gibberish for you is a waste of time, and tricking someone else into reading it should be a blockable offense. If we're trying to create an encyclopedia, you cannot automate any part of the thinking. We can automate processes in general, but any attempt at automating the actual discussion or thought-processes should never be allowed. If we allow this, it would waste countless hours of community time dealing with inane discussions, sockpuppetry, and disruption. Imagine a world where LLMs are allowed and popular - it's a sockpuppeteer's dream scenario - you can run 10 accounts and argue the same points, and the reason why they all sound alike is just merely because they're all LLM users. You could even just spend a few dollars a month and run 20-30 accounts to automatically disrupt wikipedia discussions while you sleep, and if LLM usage was allowed, it would be very hard to stop. However, I don't have much faith in AI detection tools (partially because it's based on the same underlying flawed technology), and would want any assumption of LLM usage to be based on obvious evidence, not just a score on some website. Also, to those who are posting chatgpt snippets here: please stop - it's not interesting or insightful, just more slop BugGhost🦗👻19:15, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with your assessment “Also, to those who are posting chatgpt snippets here: please stop - it's not interesting or insightful, just more slop” but unfortunately some editors who should really know better think it’s WaCkY to fill serious discussions with unfunny, distracting “humor”. Dronebogus (talk) 21:54, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support if you asked a robot to spew out some AI slop to win an argument you’re basically cheating. The only ethical reason to do so is because you can’t speak English well, and the extremely obvious answer to that is “if you can barely speak English why are you editing English Wikipedia?” That’s like a person who doesn’t understand basic physics trying to explain the second law of thermodynamics using a chatbot. Dronebogus (talk) 21:32, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think "cheating" is a relevant issue here. Cheating is a problem if you use a LLM to win and get a job, award, college acceptance etc. that you otherwise wouldn't deserve. But WP discussions aren't a debating-skills contest, they're an attempt to determine the best course of action.
So using an AI tool in a WP discussion is not cheating (though there may be other problems), just as riding a bike instead of walking isn't cheating unless you're trying to win a race. ypn^222:36, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe “cheating” isn’t the right word. But I think that a) most AI generated content is garbage (it can polish the turd by making it sound professional, but it’s still a turd underneath) and b) it’s going to be abused by people trying to gain a material edge in an argument. An AI can pump out text far faster than a human and that can drown out or wear down the opposition if nothing else. Dronebogus (talk) 08:08, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Bludgeoning is already against policy. It needs to be more strongly enforced, but it needs to be more strongly enforced uniformly rather than singling out comments that somebody suspects might have had AI-involvement. Thryduulf (talk) 10:39, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support; I agree with Remsense and jlwoodwa, among others: I wouldn't make any one AI-detection site the Sole Final Arbiter of whether a comment "counts", but I agree it should be expressly legitimate to discount AI / LLM slop, at the very least to the same extent as closers are already expected to discount other insubstantial or inauthentic comments (like if a sock- or meat-puppet copy-pastes a comment written for them off-wiki, as there was at least one discussion and IIRC ArbCom case about recently). -sche (talk) 22:10, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You don't need a new policy that does nothing but duplicate a subset of existing policy. At most what you need is to add a sentence to the existing policy that states "this includes comments written using LLMs", however you'd rightly get a lot of pushback on that because it's completely redundant and frankly goes without saying. Thryduulf (talk) 23:37, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support hallucinations are real. We should be taking a harder line against LLM generated participation. I don't think everyone who is doing it knows that they need to stop. Andre🚐23:47, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support per all above. Discussions are supposed to include the original arguments/positions/statements/etc of editors here, not off-site chatbots. TheKip(contribs)03:53, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(Is this where I respond? If not, please move.) LLM-generated prose should be discounted. Sometimes there will be a discernible point in there; it may even be what the editor meant, lightly brushed up with what ChatGPT thinks is appropriate style. (So I wouldn't say "banned and punishable" in discussions, although we already deprecate machine translations on en.wiki and for article prose, same difference—never worth the risk.) However, LLMs don't think. They can't explain with reference to appropriate policy and guidelines. They may invent stuff, or use the wrong words—at AN recently, an editor accused another of "defaming" and "sacrilege", thus drowning their point that they thought that editor was being too hard on their group by putting their signature to an outrageous personal attack. I consider that an instance of LLM use letting them down. If it's not obvious that it is LLM use, then the question doesn't arise, right? Nobody is arguing for requiring perfect English. That isn't what WP:CIR means. English is a global language, and presumably for that reason, many editors on en.wiki are not native speakers, and those that aren't (and those that are!) display a wide range of ability in the language. Gnomes do a lot of fixing of spelling, punctuation and grammar in articles. In practice, we don't have a high bar to entrance in terms of English ability (although I think a lot more could be done to explain to new editors whose English is obviously non-native what the rule or way of doing things is that they have violated. And some of our best writers are non-native; a point that should be emphasised because we all have a right of anonymity here, many of us use it, and it's rare, in particular, that I know an editor's race. Or even nationality (which may not be the same as where they live.) But what we do here is write in English: both articles and discussions. If someone doesn't have the confidence to write their own remark or !vote, then they shouldn't participate in discussions; I strongly suspect that it is indeed a matter of confidence, of wanting to ensure the English is impeccable. LLMs don't work that way, really. They concoct things like essays based on what others have written. Advice to use them in a context like a Wikipedia discussion is bad advice. At best it suggests you let the LLM decide which way to !vote. If you have something to say, say it and if necessary people will ask a question for clarification (or disagree with you). They won't mock your English (I hope! Civility is a basic rule here!) It happens in pretty much every discussion that somebody makes an English error. No biggie. I'll stop there before I make any more typos myself; typing laboriously on my laptop in a healthcare facility, and anyway Murphy's Law covers this. Yngvadottir (talk)
I dunno about this specifically but I want to chime in to say that I find LLM-generated messages super fucking rude and unhelpful and support efforts to discourage them. – Joe (talk) 08:15, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I think obvious LLM/chatbot text should at least be tagged through an Edit filter for Recent Changes, then RC Patrollers and reviewers can have a look and decide for themselves. A♭m(Ring!)(Notes)11:58, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How do you propose that such text be identified by an edit filter? LLM detections tools have high rates of both false positives and false negatives. Thryduulf (talk) 12:47, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It might become possible once watermarks (like DeepMind's SynthID) are shown to be robust and are adopted. Some places are likely to require it at some point e.g. EU. I guess it will take a while though and might not even happen e.g. I think OpenAI recently decided to not go ahead with their watermark system for some reason. Sean.hoyland (talk) 13:17, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It will still be trivial to bypass the watermarks, or use LLMs that don't implement them. It also (AIUI) does nothing to reduce false positives (which for our usecase are far more damaging than false negatives). Thryduulf (talk) 13:30, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe, that seems to be the case with some of the proposals. Others, like SynthID claim high detection rates, maybe because even a small amount of text contains a lot of signals. As for systems that don't implement them, I guess that would be an opportunity to make a rule more nuanced by only allowing use of watermarked output with verbosity limits...not that I support a rule in the first place. People are going to use/collaborate with LLMs. Why wouldn't they? Sean.hoyland (talk) 14:38, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think watermarks are a suitable thing to take into account. My view is that LLM usage should be a blockable offense on any namespace, but if it ends up being allowed under some circumstances then we at least need mandatory manual disclosures for any usage. Watermarks won't work / aren't obvious enough - we need something like {{LLM}} but self-imposed, and not tolerate unmarked usage. BugGhost🦗👻18:21, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment As a practical matter, users posting obvious LLM-generated content will typically be in violation of other rules (e.g. disruptive editing, sealioning), in which case their discussion comments absolutely should be ignored, discouraged, discounted, or (in severe cases) hatted. But a smaller group of users (e.g. people using LLMs as a translation tool) may be contributing productively, and we should seek to engage with, rather than discourage, them. So I don't see the need for a separate bright-line policy that risks erasing the need for discernment — in most cases, a friendly reply to the user's first LLM-like post (perhaps mentioning WP:LLM, which isn't a policy or guideline, but is nevertheless good advice) will be the right approach to work out what's really going on. Preimage (talk) 15:53, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Some translation tools have LLM assistance, but the whole point of generative models is to create text far beyond what is found in the user's input, and the latter is clearly what this proposal covers. JoelleJay (talk) 19:01, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That might be what the proposal intends to cover, but it is not what the proposal actually covers. The proposal all comments that have been generated by LLMs and/or AI, without qualification. Thryduulf (talk) 01:05, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
70+% here understand the intention matches the language: generated by LLMs etc means "originated through generative AI tools rather than human thought", not "some kind of AI was involved in any step of the process". Even LLM translation tools don't actually create meaningful content where there wasn't any before; the generative AI aspect is only in the use of their vast training data to characterize the semantic context of your input in the form of mathematical relationships between tokens in an embedding space, and then match it with the collection of tokens most closely resembling it in the other language. There is, definitionally, a high level of creative constraint in what the translation output is since semantic preservation is required, something that is not true for text generation. JoelleJay (talk) 04:01, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have any evidence for you assertion that 70% of respondents have interpreted the language in the same way as you? Reading the comments associated with the votes suggests that it's closer to 70% of respondents who don't agree with you. Even if you are correct, 30% of people reading a policy indicates the policy is badly worded. Thryduulf (talk) 08:34, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think @Bugghost has summarized the respondent positions sufficiently below. I also think some portion of the opposers understand the proposal perfectly well and are just opposing anything that imposes participation standards. JoelleJay (talk) 22:54, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There will be many cases where it is not possible to say whether a piece of text does or does not contain "human thought" by observing the text, even if you know it was generated by an LLM. Statements like "originated through generative AI tools rather than human thought" will miss a large class of use cases, a class that will probably grow over the coming years. People work with LLMs to produce the output they require. It is often an iterative process by necessity because people and models make mistakes. An example of when "...rather than human thought" is not the case is when someone works with an LLM to solve something like a challenging technical problem where neither the person or the model has a satisfactory solution to hand. The context window means that, just like with human collaborators, a user can iterate towards a solution through dialog and testing, exploring the right part of the solution space. Human thought is not absent in these cases, it is present in the output, the result of a collaborative process. In these cases, something "far beyond what is found in the user's input" is the objective, it seems like a legitimate objective, but regardless, it will happen, and we won't be able to see it happening. Sean.hoyland (talk) 10:46, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but this proposal is supposed to apply to just the obvious cases and will hopefully discourage good-faith users from using LLMs to create comments wholesale in general. It can be updated as technology progresses. There's also no reason editors using LLMs to organize/validate their arguments, or as search engines for whatever, have to copy-paste their raw output, which is much more of a problem since it carries a much higher chance of hallucination. That some people who are especially familiar with how to optimize LLM use, or who pay for advanced LLM access, will be able to deceive other editors is not a reason to not formally proscribe wholesale comment generation. JoelleJay (talk) 22:27, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's reasonable. I can get behind the idea of handling obvious cases from a noise reduction perspective. But for me, the issue is noise swamping signal in discussions rather than how it was generated. I'm not sure we need a special rule for LLMs, maybe just a better way to implement the existing rules. Sean.hoyland (talk) 04:14, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: The original question was whether we should discount, ignore, strikethrough, or collapse chatbot-written content. I think there's a very big difference between these options, but most support !voters haven't mentioned which one(s) they support. That might make judging the consensus nearly impossible; as of now, supporters are the clear !majority, but supporters of what? — ypn^219:32, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That means that supporters support the proposal that LLM-generated remarks in discussions should be discounted or ignored, and possibly removed in some manner. Not sure what the problem is here. Supporters support the things listed in the proposal - we don't need a prescribed 100% strict procedure, it just says that supporters would be happy with closers discounting, ignoring or under some circumstances deleting LLM content in discussions. BugGhost🦗👻19:40, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
More people have bolded "support" than other options, but very few of them have even attempted to refute the arguments against (and most that have attempted have done little more than handwaving or directly contradicting themselves), and multiple of those who have bolded "support" do not actually support what has been proposed when you read their comment. It's clear to me there is not going to be a consensus for anything other than "many editors dislike the idea of LLMs" from this discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 00:58, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Arguing one point doesn't necessarily require having to refute every point the other side makes. I can concede that "some people use LLMs to improve their spelling and grammar" without changing my view overriding view that LLMs empower bad actors, time wasters and those with competence issues, with very little to offer wikipedia in exchange. Those that use LLMs legitimately to tidy up their alledgedly competent, insightful and self-sourced thoughts should just be encouraged to post the prompts themselves instead of churning it through an LLM first. BugGhost🦗👻09:00, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to completely ignore all the other arguments in opposition that's your choice, but don't expect closers to attach much weight to your opinions. Thryduulf (talk) 09:05, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, here's a list of the main opposition reasonings, with individual responses.
What about translations? - Translations are not up for debate here, the topic here is very clearly generative AI, and attempts to say that this topic covers translations as well is incorrect. No support voters have said the propositions should discount translated text, just oppose voters who are trying to muddy the waters.
What about accessibility? - This is could be a legitimate argument, but I haven't seen this substantiated anywhere other than handwaving "AI could help people!" arguments, which I would lump into the spelling and grammar argument I responded to above.
Detection tools are inaccurate - This I very much agree with, and noted in my support and in many others as well. But there is no clause in the actual proposal wording that mandates the use of automated AI detection, and I assume the closer would note that.
False positives - Any rule can have a potential for false positives, from wp:DUCK to close paraphrasing to NPA. We've just got to as a community become skilled at identifying genuine cases, just like we do for every other rule.
LLM content should be taken at face value and see if it violates some other policy - hopelessly naive stance, and a massive timesink. Anyone who has had the misfortune of going on X/twitter in the last couple of years should know that AI is not just used as an aid for those who have trouble typing, it is mainly used to spam and disrupt discussion to fake opinions to astroturf political opinions. Anyone who knows how bad the sockpuppetry issue is around CTOPs should be absolutely terrified of when (not if) someone decides to launch a full throated wave of AI bots on Wikipedia discussions, because if we have to invididually sanction each one like a human then admins will literally have no time for anything else.
I genuinely cannot comprehend how some people could see how AI is decimating the internet through spam, bots and disinformation and still think for even one second that we should open the door to it. BugGhost🦗👻10:08, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is no door. This is true for sockpuppetry too in my opinion. There can be a rule that claims there is a door, but it is more like a bead curtain. Sean.hoyland (talk) 11:00, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The Twitter stuff is not a good comparison here. Spam is already nukable on sight, mass disruptive bot edits are also nukable on sight, and it's unclear how static comments on Wikipedia would be the best venue to astroturf political opinions (most of which would be off-topic anyway, i.e., nukable on sight). I'd prefer if people didn't use ChatGPT to formulate their points, but if they're trying to formulate a real point then that isn't disruptive in the same way spam is. Gnomingstuff (talk) 02:22, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
it's unclear how static comments on Wikipedia would be the best venue to astroturf political opinions - by disrupting RFCs and talk page discussions a bad actor could definitely use chatgpt to astroturf. A large proportion of the world uses Wikipedia (directly or indirectly) to get information - it would be incredibly valuable thing to manipulate. My other point is that AI disruption bots (like the ones on twitter) would be indistinguishable from individuals using LLMs to "fix" spelling and grammar - by allowing one we make the other incredibly difficult to identify. How can you tell the difference between a bot and someone who just uses chatgpt for every comment? BugGhost🦗👻09:16, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Those that use LLMs legitimately to tidy up their alledgedly competent, insightful and self-sourced thoughts should just be encouraged to post the prompts themselves instead of churning it through an LLM first.
Social anxiety: Say "I" am a person unconfident in my writing. I imagine that when I post my raw language, I embarrass myself, and my credibility vanishes, while in the worst case nobody understands what I mean. As bad confidence is often built up through negative feedback, it's usually meritful or was meritful at some point for someone to seek outside help. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:46, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
While I sympathise with that hypothetical, Wikipedia isn't therapy and we shouldn't make decisions that do long-term harm to the project just because a hypothetical user feels emotionally dependent on a high tech spellchecker. I also think that in general wikipedia (myself included) is pretty relaxed about spelling and grammar in talk/WP space. BugGhost🦗👻18:45, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We also shouldn't do long term harm to the project just because a few users are wedded to idea that LLMs are and will always be some sort of existential threat. The false positives that are an unavoidable feature of this proposal will do far more, and far longer, harm to the project than LLM-comments that are all either useful, harmless or collapseable/removable/ignorable at present. Thryduulf (talk) 19:06, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The false positives that are an unavoidable feature of this proposal will do far more, and far longer, harm to the project - the same could be said for WP:DUCK. The reason why its not a big problem for DUCK is because the confidence level is very high. Like I've said in multiple other comments, I don't think "AI detectors" should be trusted, and that the bar for deciding whether something was created via LLM should be very high. I 100% understand your opinion and the reasoning behind it, I just think we have differing views on how well the community at large can identify AI comments. BugGhost🦗👻09:07, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see how allowing shy yet avid users to contribute has done or will do long-term harm. The potential always outweighs rational evaluation of outcomes for those with anxiety, a condition that is not behaviorally disruptive. Aaron Liu (talk) 02:47, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I definitely don't want to disallow shy yet avid users! I just don't think having a "using chatgpt to generate comments is allowed" rule is the right solution to that problem, considering the wider consequences. BugGhost🦗👻08:52, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support strikethroughing or collapsing per everyone else. The opposes that mention ESL have my sympathy, but I am not sure how many of them are ESL themselves. Having learnt English as my second language, I have always found it easier to communicate when users are expressing things in their own way, not polished by some AI. I sympathise with the concerns and believe the right solution is to lower our community standards with respect to WP:CIR and similar (in terms of ESL communication) without risking hallucinations by AI. Soni (talk) 02:52, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - I'm sympathetic to concerns of abuse through automated mass-commenting, but this policy looks too black-and-white. Contributors may use LLMs for many reasons, including to fix the grammar, to convey their thoughts more clearly, or to adjust the tone for a more constructive discussion. As it stands, this policy may lead to dismissing good-faith AI-assisted comments, as well as false positives, without considering the context. Moreover, while mainstream chatbots are not designed to just mimic the human writing style, there are existing tools that can make AI-generated text more human-like, so this policy does not offer that much protection against maliciously automated contributions. Alenoach (talk) 01:12, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – Others have cast doubt on the efficacy of tools capable of diagnosing LLM output, and I can't vouch for its being otherwise. If EEng's example of ChatBot output is representative—a lengthy assertion of notability without citing sources—that is something that could well be disregarded whether it came from a bot or not. If used carefully, AI can be useful as an aide-memoire (such as with a spell- or grammar-checker) or as a supplier of more felicitous expression than the editor is naturally capable of (e.g. Google Translate). Dhtwiki (talk) 10:27, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment / Oppose as written. It's not accurate that GPTZero is good at detecting AI-generated content. Citations (slightly out of date but there's little reason to think things have changed from 2023): https://www.aiweirdness.com/writing-like-a-robot/ , https://www.aiweirdness.com/dont-use-ai-detectors-for-anything-important/ . For those too busy to read, a few choice quotes: "the fact that it insisted even one [real book] excerpt is not by a human means that it's useless for detecting AI-generated text," and "Not only do AI detectors falsely flag human-written text as AI-written, the way in which they do it is biased" (citing https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.02819 ). Disruptive, worthless content can already be hatted, and I'm not opposed to doing so. Editors should be sharply told to use their own words, and if not already written, an essay saying we'd rather have authentic if grammatically imperfect comments than AI-modulated ones would be helpful to cite at editors who offer up AI slop. But someone merely citing GPTZero is not convincing. GPTZero will almost surely misidentify genuine commentary as AI-generated. So fine with any sort of reminder that worthless content can be hatted, and fine with a reminder not to use ChatGPT for creating Wikipedia talk page posts, but not fine with any recommendations of LLM-detectors. SnowFire (talk) 20:00, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@SnowFire, I can't tell if you also oppose the actual proposal, which is to permit hatting/striking obvious LLM-generated comments (using GPTzero is a very minor detail in JSS's background paragraph, not part of the proposal). JoelleJay (talk) 01:47, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I support the proposal in so far as disruptive comments can already be hatted and that LLM-generated content is disruptive. I am strongly opposed to giving well-meaning but misguided editors a license to throw everyone's text into an AI-detector and hat the comments that score poorly. I don't think it was that minor a detail, and to the extent that detail is brought up, it should be as a reminder to use human judgment and forbid using alleged "AI detectors" instead. SnowFire (talk) 03:49, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support collapsing AI (specifically, Large language model) comments by behavioral analysis (most actually disruptive cases I've seen are pretty obvious) and not the use of inaccurate tools like ZeroGPT. I thinking hatting with the title "Editors suspect that this comment has been written by a Large language model" is appropriate. They take up SO much space in a discussion because they are also unnecessarily verbose, and talk on and on but never ever say something that even approaches having substance. Discussions are for human Wikipedia editors, we shouldn't have to use to sift through comments someone put 0 effort into and outsourced to a robot that writes using random numbers (that's a major part of how tools like ChatGPT work and maintain variety). If someone needs to use an AI chatbot to communicate because they don't understand English, then they are welcome to contribute to their native language Wikipedia, but I don't think they have the right to insist that we at enwiki spend our effort reading comments they but minimal effort into besides opening the ChatGPT website. If really needed, they can write in their native language and use a non-LLM tool like Google Translate. The use of non-LLM tools like Grammarly, Google Translate, etc. I think should still be OK for all editors, as they only work off comments that editors have written themselves. MolecularPilot🧪️✈️05:10, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Adding that enforcing people writing things in their own words will actually help EAL (English additional language) editors contribute here. I world with EAL people irl, and even people who have almost native proficiency with human-written content find AI output confusing because it says things in the most confusing, verbose ways using difficult sentence constructions and words. I've seen opposers in this discussion who maybe haven't had experience working with EAL people go "what about EAL people?", but really, I think this change will help them (open to being corrected by someone who is EAL, tho). MolecularPilot🧪️✈️05:17, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also, with regards to oppose comments that discussions are not a vote so closes will ignore AI statements which don't have merit - unedited LLM statements are incredibly verbose and annoying, and clog up the discussion. Imagine multiple paragraphs, each with a heading, but all of which say almost nothing, they're borderline WP:BLUGEONy. Giving the power to HAT them will help genuine discussion contributors keep with the flow of human arguments and avoid scaring away potential discussion contributors who are intimidated or don't feel they have the time to read the piles of AI nonsense that fill the discussion. MolecularPilot🧪️✈️06:38, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support (removing) in general. How is this even a question? There is no case-by-case. It is a fundamental misunderstanding of how LLMs work to consider their output reliable without careful review. And which point, the editor could have written it themselves without inherent LLM bias. The point of any discussion is to provide analytical response based on the context, not have some tool regurgitate something from a training set that sounds good. And frankly, it is disrespectuful to make someone read "AI" responses. It is a tool and there is a place and time for it, but not in discussions in an encyclopedia. — HELLKNOWZ∣TALK15:41, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support. I'm very interested in what you (the generic you) have to say about something. I'm not remotely interested in what a computer has to say about something. It provides no value to the discussion and is a waste of time. Useight (talk) 18:06, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comments that provide no value to the discussion can already be hatted and ignored regardless of why they provide no value, without any of the false positive or false negatives inherent in this proposal. Thryduulf (talk) 18:25, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, and that's fine for one-offs when a discussion goes off the rails or what-have-you. But we also have WP:NOTHERE for disruptive behavior, not working collaboratively, etc. I'm suggesting that using an AI to write indicates that you're not here to build the encyclopedia, you're here to have an AI build the encyclopedia. I reiterate my strong support for AI-written content to be removed, struck, collapsed, or hatted and would support further measures even beyond those. Useight (talk) 21:54, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are two sets of people described in your comment: those who use AI and those who are NOTHERE. The two sets overlap, but nowhere near sufficiently to declare that everybody in the former set are also in the latter set. If someone is NOTHERE they already can and should be blocked, regardless of how they evidence that. Being suspected of using AI (note that the proposal does not require proof) is not sufficient justification on its own to declare someone NOTHERE, per the many examples of constructive use of AI already noted in this thread. Thryduulf (talk) 22:03, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes in principle. But in practice, LLM detectors are not foolproof, and there are valid reasons to sometimes use an LLM, for example to copyedit. I have used Grammarly before and have even used the Microsoft Editor, and while they aren't powered by LLMs, LLMs are a tool that need to be used appropriately on Wikipedia. AwesomeAasim19:55, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Using LLM to reply to editors is lazy and disrespectful of fellow editor's time and brainpower. In the context of AFD, it is particularly egregious since an LLM can't really read the article, read sources, or follow our notability guidelines. By the way. gptzero and other such tools are very good at detecting this. I don't think this is correct at all. I believe the false positive for AI detectors is quite high. High enough that I would recommend not using AI detectors. –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:23, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support. AI generated text should be removed outright. If you aren't willing to put the work into doing your own writing then you definitely haven't actually thought deeply about the matter at hand. User1042💬✒️14:16, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This comment is rather ironic given that it's very clear you haven't thought deeply about the matter at hand, because if you had then you'd realise that it's actually a whole lot more complicated than that. Thryduulf (talk) 14:26, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thryduulf I don't think this reply is particular helpful, and it comes off as slightly combative. It's also by my count your 24th comment on this RFC. BugGhost🦗👻19:20, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've recently come across several users in AFD discussions that are using LLMs to generate their remarks there. As many of you are aware, gptzero and other such tools are very good at detecting this. I don't feel like any of us signed up for participating in discussions where some of the users are not using their own words but rather letting technology do it for them. Discussions are supposed to be between human editors. If you can't make a coherent argument on your own, you are not competent to be participating in the discussion. I would therefore propose that LLM-generated remarks in discussions should be discounted or ignored, and possibly removed in some manner
Support with the caveat that our ability to deal with the issue goes only as far as we can accurately identify the issue (this appears to have been an issue raised across a number of the previous comments, both support and oppose, but I think it bears restating because we're approaching this from a number of different angles and its IMO the most important point regardless of what conclusions you draw from it). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:24, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Whereas many editors, including me, have cited problems with accuracy in regards to existing tools such as ZeroGPT, I propose that remarks that are blatently generated by a LLM or similar automated system should be discounted/removed/collapsed/hidden. ThatIPEditorThey / Them10:00, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as completely unnecessary and far too prone to error per the above discussion. Any comment that is good (on topic, relevant, etc) should be considered by the closer regardless of whether it was made with LLM-input of any sort or not. Any comment that is bad (off-topic, irrelevant, etc) should be ignored by the closer regardless of whether it was made with LLM-input of any sort or not. Any comment that is both bad and disruptive (e.g. by being excessively long, completely irrelevant, bludgeoning, etc) should be removed and/or hatted as appropriate, regardless of whether it was made with LLM-input of any sort. The good thing is that this is already policy so we don't need to call out LLMs specifically, and indeed doing so is likely to be disruptive in cases where human-written comments are misidentified as being LLM-written (which will happen, regardless of whether tools are used). Thryduulf (talk) 11:19, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think this proposal is not really necessary. I support it, but that is because it is functionally identical to the one directly above it, which I also supported. This should probably be hatted. BugGhost🦗👻18:32, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What does blatantly generated mean? Does you mean only where the remark is signed with "I, Chatbot", or anything that appears to be LLM-style? I don't think there's much in between. ypn^219:21, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Procedural close per BugGhost. I'd hat this myself, but I don't think that'd be appropriate since it's only the two of us who have expressed that this proposal is basically an exact clone. Aaron Liu (talk) 03:00, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder, if there any wiki-volunteers, who have appeals experience, and who would be willing to stand up for the Neutral Point of View Pillar of Wikipedia.
I was banned from editing a specific topic after I stood up for WP:NPV . I do not really care much about the topic, but I care about Wiki-Policies, and I feel compelled to defend WP:NPV , when it is violated by wiki-administrators. Usually, when you go to a court/appeal court in the USA, you can get a free counselor, who helps you with the process. I wonder, if there any wiki-volunteers, who have appeals experience, and who would be willing to stand up for the 2nd of the Five Pillars - Neutral Point of View.Walter Tau (talk) 23:16, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Probably the part where he said "Usually, when you go to a court/appeal court in the USA, you can get a free counselor, who helps you with the process", which confused me at first too. That could be misinterpreted as telling the recipient of the comment to start preparing to be served themselves, but what I think he's doing is mentioning that people subject to sanctions in the real world have the right to representation, and is likewise seeking the help of other Wikipedians in making a case to have his topic ban appealed. Passengerpigeon (talk)23:41, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
thank you, User:Passengerpigeon. I've been participating (on the defense side always) in a few lawsuits in the US courts in the recent years, so I assumed everyone knew what "the right to legal representation" means. (and by the way, my side won in every case!) I did not realize, that not everyone dealt with this on a regular basis. Yes, I want to stand up for Wikipedia core values, and I need help in taking advantage of the situation, that I am in, so that such abusive practice by administrators can be stopped for all wikipedians. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Walter Tau (talk • contribs)
Based on what I see from your talk page and contributions, the right way to debate and fix NPOV problem is to use article talk pages to discussion problems, not edit war what you think is right, which is why you were blocked from editing on certain topics. You have a ten-some year old account, knowing g not to edit war should be well engrained into being a Wikipedia editor by this point. — Masem (t) 23:32, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Analysis of the causes and results of the Russo-Ukrainian War by [[Political science| political scientists
I claim, that the article as written violates Wikipedia:Neutral point of view policy= means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, ALL the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic. Please note, that I do not insist on adding anything about Douglas Macgregor's and Scott Ritter's views (although I support others, if they want to write about them), but I cannot disregard John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt and several other political scientists.
I shall start with addressing the statement by Manyareasexpert on 2024-11-26T10:35:23 : “undo back to consensus version - objections raised in talk, edit war”. Let’s talk about the consensus first. Here is a citation from the Talk Page for Russian invasion of Ukraine on ca. 31 October 2024 (UTC): — Preceding unsigned comment added by Walter Tau (talk • contribs) 19:39, December 4, 2024 (UTC)
AND JUST TO CLARIFY some potential issues: Do you think, that it is conscionable to accuse a man, who created this bumper sticker {{Userbox|id-c=red|info-c=pink|id=|info=This user has a mancrush on Orville Peck , of being Putin's supporter? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Walter Tau (talk • contribs)
Could someone point out wiki-policy, that says "asking for a help with an appeal is a violation of something"? Au contraire, I say, read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Appealing_a_block . However, I do not feel competent enough to labirynth thru this myself, and I ask more experiences wikipedians for help.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Walter Tau (talk • contribs)
You were given instruction on appeals on your talk page. They were quite clear that the avenue for appealing a topic ban is through this process, not through vagueposting in direct violation of your topic-ban on the village pump. Additionally, given that your topic ban sanctioned you explicitly for wikilawyering and tendentious behavior -- both of which I'm seeing in this thread -- I think you're fully aware of what you're doing, and if not then perhaps you lack sufficient competence to remain on this project. ⇒SWATJesterShoot Blues, Tell VileRat!01:17, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's not what you just did - what you just did was copy and paste your complaints about article content here. That's re-litigating the dispute you are banned from, not asking for help with an appeal. That you do not understand that is worrying. - MrOllie (talk) 01:12, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
[EDIT: this is specifically requested regarding use of AV for illustrative, rather than sourcing, purposes. Compare MOS:IMAGES; there is no similar guidance for illustrative audio-video content.]
From a couple of recent conversations I think that MOS could do with a bit more guidance on the use of audio and video content. I know policy development can be difficult and tedious, so I don't say this lightly, but I have encountered some situations where guidance would be beneficial.
A option would be to amend MOS:IMAGES so explain that most of the guidance also applies to illustrative uses of Audio visual content.
Specifically:
Where a media file is used, as a recording of an original source, what are the verification requirements? For example, if someone recorded a song, does it need comparison to the original score? How far should it deviate?
What are the "aesthetic" considerations?
If AV needs subtitling or translation, which is preferred? Translations once recorded, for example, are very hard to edit or correct compared to subtitles.
How do we cater for users' needs and preferences? Subtitling seems a good way to go.
Are there benefits to hearing the original for the user, even where they do not speak the language? Where might these occur more (eg, in literary or poetical works, hearing the original is especially useful)
Are there preferences on audio-video length? eg, are shorter clips generally preferable, and links preferred to long form content?
Although the answers seem fairly obvious to me, I've found there is not always understanding or consensus on these points. I think some of this may be cultural - in particular many EN speakers are resistant to foreign language content, and thus to original language content where that is not English. Other elements are UX matters which is again not always obvious at a glance. Discussion and guidance might help find the right criteria and balance for assessment. Jim Killock(talk)12:27, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's longstanding policy that sources don't have to be in English but where possible English translations should be provided. Therefore subtitles seem like the policy-compliant option. Where you link to long-format media, provide a timestamp in your link which points to the part that directly supports the claim you're making.—S MarshallT/C13:09, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you; and apologies for not being more precise, I've edited the comment and title above to be clearer about what kind of guidance I think is missing, which is regarding illustrative usages rather than citation. Jim Killock(talk)13:39, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
User:Alalch E. has changed this section's title from the already descriptive "Removing sources", because this user disagrees how it describes the user's edits. – Editør (talk) 11:50, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
VPP is a good place to discuss the following portion of the widely-followed Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy/Standards, evidenced in the fact that anthroponymy lists (a type of WP:SIA, but functionally and style-wise often very similar to a dab), do not have a citation next to each entry, and that your idea to add these citations, however justified and obvious of an improvement it may seem to you, is a new idea that may not seem equally justified to everyone else ... said portion is:
Entries have certain limitations to promote consistency and usability. Not unlike Disambiguation pages, Names articles may contain lists of persons and each entry should follow a particular format.
Entries should not include External links. References are not required since the article that the entry is linked to should include citations.
It's definitely not vandalism. But, Alalch E, the fact that references "aren't required" doesn't mean they're banned. I think you should let people add sources if they want.—S MarshallT/C11:13, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that it is not vandalism according to Wikipedia:Vandalism, but I believe @Alalch E. shows intential disruptive behaviour, including changing the heading of this post, which I have now changed back so I will against receive notification of new comments. – Editør (talk) 11:21, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Please take a short break from this topic of something like an hour to get some perspective. You have started from an assumption of bad faith and are seeming less and less reasonable by the minute. Kindly let a few more editors weigh in. Nothing here is urgent. —Alalch E.11:28, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In addition to your "Removing sources" from the article Femke, you have reverted my edits to that article, made changes to my post here, and made changes to my comments on two talk pages. This is disruptive behaviour, even if it is not intentional. Please stop this immediately. – Editør (talk) 11:36, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Have you read the portions of the guidelines that I have linked in response to your attempts to enforce talk page headings and to determine the level of sections on my talk page? From the beginning of this dispute last night, you seem unusually distrustful, and more and more bent on enforcing your view of how things should be, even details that you have no control of, such as my talk page. Please step back to get a little perspective and let a few more editors weigh in. —Alalch E.11:40, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
With your changes to this section's heading you are effectively trying to change how I am describing your disruptive behaviour here and what I am asking help for. – Editør (talk) 11:46, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
See the header of this page: The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss already-proposed policies and guidelines and to discuss changes to existing policies and guidelines. Change discussions often start on other pages and then move or get mentioned here for more visibility and broader participation (emphasis mine). If you want to discuss my purportedly disruptive behavior, you should perhaps start a section at WP:ANI. But since you have started a section here already, perhaps do not start too many discussions in quick sequence. —Alalch E.11:50, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's not a reasonable remark. What do you think about my already made observation that you are seeming less and less reasonable by the minute? —Alalch E.11:55, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@S Marshall: Even though WP:SETNOTDAB applies, anthro lists are probably the most dab-like of all lists, and their entries are intentionally styled the same as dab page entries because these lists and disambiguation pages are closely interlinked, and for a reader who wants a seamless experience of browsing for a person and/or exploring names, the appearance should be consistent. Take a look at List of people named James for example. —Alalch E.11:23, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Alalch, I think that this dispute puts the disputed content over the (rather low) threshold for "challenged or likely to be challenged" within the meaning of WP:V. I think core content policy trumps "seamless" or "consistent appearance". I hope that you will consider allowing Editør to add his citations, and I also hope you will reflect on whether you ought to be editing someone else's words to retitle this VPP thread.—S MarshallT/C13:14, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The original title was "Removing citations": a discussion of one editor's actions which should be at ANI if anywhere. The current title "Citations in Anthroponymy lists" reflects the fact that the discussion is about policy: whether references should be included for blue-linked name-holder-list entries in Anthroponymy articles. On the one hand we have an article failed for GA because of an uncited list; on the other hand we have the standards of the Anthroponymy project which do not include such references. PamD13:23, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This discussion follows a discussion at Talk:Tamara (given name)#List of names removal, where an editor was keen to remove the uncited list of name-holders (without creating a free-standing list, just removing them from the encyclopedia) so that the article might reach Good Article status. The article had been quick-failed for Good Article by @Voorts: on grounds including The notable people and fictional character sections require citations for each of the entries. I pointed out there that there are no single-name Anthroponymy Featured Articles to use as models, but that the three Good Articles included one with an uncited list of given-name holders (Femke), one with a link to a free-standing uncited list of name-holders, and one with a fully cited list of name-holders, all of whom were red links. That may have drawn attention to Femke and inspired an editor to add sources to all its name-holders.
I do not think that references are needed in lists of name-holders in anthroponymy articles, where the information about the person is limited to name, dates and description based on the lead sentence of their article. Such unnecessary references clutter the article and should be avoided. If there needs to be an amendment to the standards followed for GA review, then this should be done, to avoid further disagreements. PamD13:08, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I do not see how references at the end of lines clutter an article. GA reviews don't have specific rules for certain types of articles, but in general an entirely unsourced section is a likely cause for pause for a reviewer. CMD (talk) 13:17, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Like a lot of other places where we do say "references are not required" (for example, in the case of plot summaries), removing references that actually do work to support the content should not be removed. "not required" is not the same as "not allowed". Whether references should be kept or use is a talk page issue to debate but an editor should not go around removing references without consensus just because they are "not required". --Masem (t) 13:27, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(after edit conflict) I don't see any need to require citations for such lists. I also don't see any point in removing them if someone has gone to the trouble of providing them, but it is not vandalism. Surely we can cope with some minor inconsistencies between articles? Phil Bridger (talk) 13:30, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I argue that despite anthro lists specifically not being dab pages, they are functionally the closest thing to a dab page and are intentionally styled to look like one (MOS:DABPEOPLE: ... only enough descriptive information that the reader can distinguish between different people with the same name) because of very close interrelatedness to dab pages (the difference is highly technical and imperceptible to a reader, who will seamlessly go from a people dab to an anthro list and back not knowing that they have visited different types of Wikipedia article space pages), and the age-old practice has been that MOS:DABNOLINK applies to such dab-equivalent entries (References should not appear on disambiguation pages. Dab pages are not articles; instead, incorporate the references into the target articles.). Not spelled out anywhere and recorded as "not required" in WP:APO/S, but in evident practice, the references are not just not required, they are unwanted. The article is better without them as the experience for the reader is better without them. —Alalch E.14:13, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. I'm actually not convinced that lists of given-name holders are particularly worthwhile, but lists of surname holders are vital. As well as possibly helping those interested in the surname in itself, they help the much more common reader who finds a reference to "Bloggs' earlier work on the topic" or "X was influenced by Davies" and needs to scan a list of surname-holders to find the person, forename and initials unknown, who is being referred to. Dates and field of occupation are important - an 18th-century botanist may be the answer where a 20th-century tennis player is not. These lists need to be as complete as possible, to help the reader.
If we go down the path where some editors add references to these lists, then we might move seamlessly along a path of references being "expected", not least for consistency in those articles, and newly-added unsourced entries being criticised, tagged, and perhaps routinely deleted as "unsourced BLP" by enthusiastic editors. Inevitably names will be added without references, but other editors will just stop bothering to add a name to a surname list because finding a single ref, or a small number, which elegantly sources all of their dates, nationality and occupation (or occupations) may be non-trivial. The reader would lose out.
So I argue that adding references to name-holder lists is positively unhelpful, and removing such refs is useful.
The time spent in adding such references could so much better be spent in improving genuinely unsourced or under-referenced articles: it's alarming to think that this might become a "favourite editing job", or even a "nice simple job recommended for novice editors". PamD16:11, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I want to note that I'm fine removing references, despite my QF of the Tamara GA. I was applying the GA criteria and guidance at SIA, which says that citations are required if information beyond a wikilink is provided. I also wasn't aware of that part of the WikiProject Anthroponymy standards at the time. If there's consensus that these kinds of lists don't need citations, that's fine with me. Adopting this rule might affect whether these articles are eligible for FLC (see below) or GA/FA. voorts (talk/contributions) 19:00, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) I can see an argument for not citing bluelinked namehavers in anthroponymy lists. What guides the choice of source? In the removal diff linked in the OP, I'm seeing a lot of citations to sources that establish the existence of various Femkes. Especially for the athletes, there's no indication from these sources why the Femke attested is notable.In the diff, Femke Verstichelen is cited to https://www.uci.org/rider-details/94895, which provides her nationality, birthdate, sanctions (none), and two entries for Team History. This is a database entry that does nothing to establish notability, and accordingly isn't used as a reference in her article (it's an external link).Again in the diff, Femke Van den Driessche is supported by the source https://olympics.com/en/athletes/femke-van-den-driessche, the content of which reads in full "Cycling <br /> Year of birth 1996". This source – another database record – doesn't even establish nationality, and isn't linked from the subject's article at all.I haven't clicked through to many of these, but the impression I'm getting is that the sources aren't really valuable here. I'm not trying to argue that bluelinks in anthroponymy lists have to establish notability in the list rather than just in the target article, but if we're going to bother adding citations for these people, why not make them informative and relevant? It's just a wasted clickthrough if a reader navigates to these database records instead of visiting the target article.In general I do feel like lists of this type are disimproved by citations. If citations must be added by choice to anthroponymy lists like this, I feel the least worst solution would be to bundle them all into a single pair of <ref>...</ref> tags following the introductory sentence, which would make the section much easier to edit and significantly reduce bloat to the ==References== section. Folly Mox (talk) 16:13, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have added sources for the list of name bearers in the article Femke, because birth years and professions are sometimes listed wrongly and can be challenged. Therefore the sources are required by the Wikipedia:Good article criteria, specifically criterion #2b that states "reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose)". So good articles should never rely on sources not cited inside the article itself. And removing sources because it is an editor's opinion they don't look nice goes against the good article criteria and against Wikipedia's core principle of verifiability. Sourcing lists of people isn't unusual as it is also common practice for articles like Births in 2000. However, as far as I'm concerned, sourcing lists doesn't need to be demanded for all lists of name bearers in articles about given names, but it should at the very least be accepted. – Editør (talk) 16:48, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have mixed feelings on it, but I have generally felt that the name articles are often more akin to lists, depending on how many entries and the depth of the information on the name itself is. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:52, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Given name articles are sometimes just one sentence or paragraph with a list of names that looks like a disambiguation page. I tried to develop one given name article further and show that it can even be a good article where the list of names is just one section. I hoped that it could be an example to inspire others to improve given name articles as well. So some are set index articles, but others just have set index sections ({{given name}} using the section=y parameter). And in some cases the list is split off, such as the long List of people named David for David (name). There are simply different solutions possible that suit different names. – Editør (talk) 20:27, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Should first language be included in the infobox for historical figures?
Is there a guideline concerning this? "Infobox royalty" apparently has this parameter, but I haven't found a single article that actually uses it. Many articles don't mention the subject's spoken languages at all. In my view, somebody's first language (L1) is just a very basic and useful piece of information, especially for historical figures. This would be helpful in cases where the ruling elites spoke a completely different language from the rest of the country (e.g., High Medieval England or early Qing dynasty China). These things are not always obvious to readers who are unfamiliar with the topic. Including it would be a nice and easy way to demonstrate historical language shifts that otherwise might be overlooked. Perhaps it could also bring visibility to historical linguistic diversity and language groups that have since disappeared. Where there are multiple first languages, they could all be listed. And in cases where a person's first language remains unclear, it could simply be left out. Kalapulla123 (talk) 11:53, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think I agree this is a good use of infobox space:
incongruences between elite spoken languages and popular spoken languages can't be shown with a single parameter (the language spoken by the oppressed would have to be included as well)
for many people this would be unverifiable (already mentioned in OP) and / or contentious (people living during a language transition)
sometimes L2 skills will be more than adequate to communicate with subject population when called for
in cases where the subject's L1 matches their polity's (i.e. most cases), the parameter would feel like unnecessary clutter
I think this might be sufficiently important pretty much exclusively for writers where the language they wrote in is not the "obvious" one for their nationality. Johnbod (talk) 12:43, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It might also be important for politicians (and similar figures?) in countries where language is a politically-important subject, e.g. Belgium. Thryduulf (talk) 16:29, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This seems like a bad idea. Let's take a case where language spoken by a royal was very relevant: Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. When he became King of Castile as a teenager, he only really spoke Flemish and didn't speak Castilian Spanish, and needless to say trusted the advisors he could actually talk with (i.e. Flemish / Dutch ones he brought with him). He also then immediately skipped out of Castile to go to proto-Germany to be elected Holy Roman Emperor. This ended up causing a rebellion (Revolt of the Comuneros) which was at least partially justified by Castilian nationalism, and partially by annoyed Castilian elites who wanted cushy government jobs. So language-of-royal was relevant. But... the Infobox is for the person as a whole. Charles came back to Castile and spent a stretch of 10 years there and eventually learned rather good Castilian and largely assuaged the elite, at least. He was king of Spain for forty years. So it would seem rather petty to harp on the fact his first language wasn't Castilian in the Infobox, when he certainly did speak it later and through most of his reign, even if not his first few years when he was still basically a kid. SnowFire (talk) 19:47, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
SnowFire's fascinating anecdote shows that this information is not appropriate for infoboxes but rather should be described in prose in the body of the article where the subtleties can be explained to the readers. Cullen328 (talk) 19:56, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, it shows that it's not appropriate for that infobox, and therefore that it is not suitable for all infoboxes where it is plausibly relevant. It shows nothing about whether it is or is not appropriate for other infoboxes: the plural of anecdote is not data. Thryduulf (talk) 21:08, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But it kind of is here? I picked this example as maybe one of the most obviously relevant cases. Most royals failing to speak the right language don't have this trait linked with a literal war in reliable sources! But if inclusion of this piece of information in an Infobox is still problematic in this case, how could it possibly be relevant in the 99.9% cases of lesser importance? The Infobox isn't for every single true fact. SnowFire (talk) 21:53, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It isn't suitable for this infobox not because of a lack of importance, but because stating a single first language would be misleading. There exists the very real possibility of cases where it is both important and simple. Thryduulf (talk) 00:02, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Could you (or anyone else in favor of the proposal) identify 5 biographies where this information is both useful to readers and clearly backed by reliable sources? signed, Rosguilltalk15:06, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, this is just nonsense! Charles V was raised speaking French, which was the language of his aunt's court, although in the Dutch-speaking Mechelen. All his personal letters use French. He only began to be taught Dutch when he was 14, & may never have been much good at it (or Spanish or German). Contrary to the famous anecdote, which is rather late and dubious ("Spanish to God....German to my horse") he seems to have been a rather poor linguist, which was indeed awkward at times. Johnbod (talk) 00:39, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(This is a bit off-topic, but "nonsense" is too harsh. I'm familiar that he spoke "French" too, yes, although my understanding was that he did speak "Flemish", i.e. the local Dutch-inflected speech, too? And neither 1500-era French nor Dutch were exactly standardized, so I left it as "Flemish" above for simplicity. If his Dutch was worse than I thought, sure, doesn't really affect the point made, though, which was that his Castilian was non-existent at first. As far as his later understanding of Spanish, his capacity was clearly enough - at the very least I've seen sources say he made it work and it was enough to stave off further discontent from the nobility. Take it up with the authors of the sources, not me.). SnowFire (talk) 16:23, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There's a difference between "simplicity" and just being wrong! You should try reading the sources, with which I have no issue. And his ministers were also either native Francophones, like Cardinal Granvelle and his father Nicolas Perrenot de Granvelle (both from Besançon, now in eastern France), or could speak it well; the Burgundian elite had been Francophone for a long time. The backwash from all this remains a somewhat sensitive issue in Belgium, even now. And Charles V was not "King of Spain" (a title he avoided using) for 40 years at all; only after his mother died in 1555 (a year before him) did he become unarguably King of Castile. Johnbod (talk) 14:26, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It may not be appropriate for many articles, but it surely is for some. For example, when I told her that England had had kings whose first language was German, someone asked me the other day how many. It would be good to have a quick way of looking up the 18th century Georges to find out. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:20, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think the problem is that people might make assumptions. I would check before saying that George I and George II spoke German as their first language and not French. Languages spoken is probably more useful than birth language, but the list might be incomplete. There is also competing information about George I, and he is an English King, so he has been better researched and documented compared to other historical figures.
Ummmm… no. People I disagree with™️ use “infobox bloat” as a boogeyman in arguments about infoboxes. But this is infobox bloat. Even those celebrity/anime character things that tell you shoe size, pinky length and blood type wouldn’t include this. Dronebogus (talk) 18:16, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Restrict new users from crosswiki uploading files to Commons
I created this Phabricator ticket (phab:T370598) in July of this year, figuring that consensus to restrict non-confirmed users from crosswiki uploading files to Commons is implied. Well, consensus already agreed at Commons in response to the WMF study on crosswiki uploading. I created an attempted Wish at Meta-wiki, which was then rejected, i.e. "archived", as policy-related and requir[ing] alignment across various wikis to implement such a policy. Now I'm starting this thread, thinking that the consensus here would already or implicitly support such restriction, but I can stand corrected about the outcome here. George Ho (talk) 06:34, 9 December 2024 (UTC); corrected, 08:10, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I am not sure why this relies on alignment across wikis, those on Commons are best placed to know what is making it to Commons. The change would have little to no impact on en.wiki. If there is an impact, it would presumably be less cleaning up of presumably fair use files migrated to Commons that need to be fixed here. That said, if there needs to be consensus, then obviously support. We shouldn't need months of bureaucracy for this. CMD (talk) 06:41, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support, I don't know that my input really counts as new consensus because I said this at the time, but the problem is much worse than what the study suggests as we are still finding spam, copyvios, unusable selfies and other speedy-deletable uploads from the timespan audited.
Support. I do think that disabling the ability for new editors on the English Wikipedia from engaging in crosswiki uploads to Commons would be a net positive; the Commons community has come to this conclusion several times, and the research confirms that cross-wiki uploads by new users cause more trouble than the good uploads worth. — Red-tailed hawk(nest)00:36, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think this should be any sort of enwiki policy. If commonswiki wants to restrict something that should be up to them. I can't possibly see how it would need to be specific to the English Wikipedia (i.e. but not about new users on dewiki, eswikt, etc). — xaosfluxTalk16:19, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As noted by George Ho above, Commons has already done this for all wikis. The question is whether or not we want the English Wikipedia to assist in implementing this (perhaps by changing a local setting or software configuration to require that their uploads be local), rather than merely relying upon a Commons edit filter (which can be a bit unfriendly to new users). — Red-tailed hawk(nest)19:50, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is a need to better understand how the notability criteria works of Indian universities. Right now, we are looking at things like a university's rankings, research work, and its role in improving education. For academicians and vice chancellors, we consider things like research publications, fellowships, and leadership experience. However, in India, there is a big concern about the rise of educational institutions that claim to be non-profit but are run as businesses, with leadership often influenced by political connections or family ties. Also, most of these private universities including their vice chancellors' pages are just promotional, based on paid reporting in Indian news organizations, listing courses or publications, which breaks Wikipedia's WP:NOTDIRECTORY rule. They also rely heavily on rankings from multiple portals to boost their article's text. At the assessment level, there are two main opinions: one says a university is notable i.e, passes WP:GNG if it is approved by the University Grants Commission or set up by a state act or statute, while the other says universities must meet strict WP:NORG guidelines to have a Wikipedia article. Our goal is not to judge or oppose any institution. But, it is time to use different criteria to evaluate these organizations from India.
WP:NSCHOOL is very clear on this :- All universities, colleges and schools, including high schools, middle schools, primary (elementary) schools, and schools that only provide a support to mainstream education must satisfy either the notability guidelines for organizations (i.e., this page) or the general notability guideline.(emphasis mine)
All universities whether they are Indian or not or if they have been established by a statute or not need to satisfy either the WP:NORG or WP:GNG in order to be considered notable. The rankings are merely routine coverage as they are released periodically. Also we cannot use WP:OUTCOMESBASED arguments to keep an article as it is simply a circular reasoning (i.e keep an article because we usually keep them at AfDs). I am not sure if we need a separate guideline or clause for indian universities in lieu of the fact that most Indian media coverage about any organisation is often sponsored without any disclosure per WP:NEWSORGINDIA & User:Ms Sarah Welch/sandbox/Paid news and private treaties. - Ratnahastin (talk) 04:26, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is a line in the WP:SCHOOLOUTCOME: Most independently accredited degree-awarding institutions have enough coverage to be notable, although that coverage may not be readily available online. Should we really accept this as an argument that Maybe there are offline sources, so Keep—without citing any offline sources? GrabUp - Talk04:35, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We don't accept it. Per WP:SCHOOLOUTCOME is an argument to be avoided at AfD. That is just describing the situation generally, and does not create a presumption of notability. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:46, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Agree that we should never use outcome based arguments. What matters is the sourcing because how else can the page be written? In the main, I think the P&G is fine. These must meet NORG or GNG. But there is a difference. We allow public schools and non profits to meet GNG but private for-profit schools must meet NORG. As long as we do that, Charlie has raised a significant concern that Indian universities should probably be required to meet NORG when, on the face of it, they are non profits that only need to meet GNG. We have WP:NEWSORGINDIA. Do we need touch of guidance about these institutions? Also in India, there is a big concern about the rise of educational institutions that claim to be non-profit but are run as businesses - could we have some reference to these concerns, which we would need to justify such an additional guideline. Thanks. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:55, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is the only place on the internet where such entities try to gain legitimacy through the pseudo-promotion of their institutions. If we maintain basic vigilance, we can save many gullible parents and their children in India from being cheated. Charlie (talk) 12:58, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Note WP:CONSENSUS. There is very definitely a consensus at AfD that fully accredited universities established by statute should be considered to be notable. I can't recall one being deleted. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:36, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Where is the RFC that establishes this consensus? Is it in any policy or subject notability guidelines? What we recall is not always a reliable indication even of the consensus at our self selected engagement. For instance, you made the argument here [11] and the page was not kept. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:58, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The only thing that should matter is whether there are multiple reliable independent secondary sources that provide significant coverage. That's what's necessary to write an article, and any attempts to get around this or ignore it should be discarded. Promotional and paid content do not meet the requirement of independence. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:40, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If I'm understanding CharlieMehta's post, I think the concerns are that we can't reliably identify paid news when it's coming out of India, even when it's not clearly marked as sponsored, so guidance clarifying/reminding editors of NEWSORGINDIA in the context of Indian schools might be warranted; that allegedly non-profit universities might actually be operating for profit, in which case the stronger source scrutiny required by NORG might be needed even for "public" universities; and that the often deplorable degree of research fraud, corruption, fake stats, and nepotism in regards to academic career advancement may mean NPROF's C6 guideline (VCs of major academic institutions are notable) is faulty when it comes to VCs of Indian universities. JoelleJay (talk) 03:19, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Use of the status parameter in Infobox officeholder
Also… as an aside… technically Trump is not yet the “President Elect” … he is “President presumptive” until the electoral college reports to the Senate. Blueboar (talk) 12:55, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Here are two mostly unrelated questions that came up in the course of a Deletion Review. The DRV is ready for closure, because the appellant has been blocked for advertising, but I think that the questions should be asked, and maybe answered. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:44, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
At DRV, there are sometimes requests to restore to draft space or user space material from pages that were deleted as G11, purely promotional material. DRV is sometimes the second or third stop for the originator, with the earlier stops being the
deleting administrator and Requests for Undeletion.
Requests for Undeletion has a list of speedy deletion codes for which deleted material is not restored, including G11. (They say that they do not restore attack pages or copyright violation. They also do not restore vandalism and spam.) Sometimes the originator says that they are trying to rewrite the article to be neutral. My question is whether DRV should consider such requests on a case-by-case basis, as is requested by the originators, or whether DRV should deny the requests categorically, just as they are denied at Requests for Undeletion. I personally have no sympathy for an editor who lost all of their work on a page because it was deleted and they didn't back it up. My own opinion is that they should have kept a copy on their hard drive (or solid-state device), but that is my opinion.
We know that the decision that a page should be speedily deleted as G11 may properly be appealed to Deletion Review. My question is about requests to restore a draft that was properly deleted as G11 so that the originator can work to make it neutral.
I am also not asking about requests for assistance in telling an author what parts of a deleted page were problematic. In those cases, the author is asking the Wikipedia community to write their promotional article for them, and we should not do that. But should we consider a request to restore the deleted material so that the originator can make it neutral?
Robert McClenon (talk) 20:44, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
When we delete an article we should always answer reasonable questions asked in good faith about why we deleted it, and that includes explaining why we regard an article as promotional. We want neutral encyclopaedic content on every notable subject, if someone wants to write about that subject we should encourage and teach them to write neutral encyclopaedic prose about the subject rather than telling them to go away and stop trying because they didn't get it right first time. This will encourage them to become productive Wikipedians, which benefits the project far more than the alternatives, which include them trying to sneak promotional content onto Wikipedia and/or paying someone else to do that. So, to answer your question, DRV absolutely should restore (to draft or userspace) articles about notable subjects speedily deleted per G11. Thryduulf (talk) 21:09, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Some administrators have semi-protected their talk pages due to abuse by unregistered editors. An appellant at DRV complained that they were unable to request the deleting administrator about a G11 because the talk page was semi-protected, and because WP:AN was semi-protected. An editor said that this raised Administrator Accountability issues. My question is whether they were correct about administrator accountability issues. My own thought is that administrator accountability is satisfied if the administrator has incoming email enabled, but the question was raised by an experienced editor, and I thought it should be asked.
Robert McClenon (talk) 20:44, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Administrators need to be reasonably contactable. Administrators explicitly are not required to have email enabled, and we do not require other editors to have email enabled either (a pre-requisite to sending an email through Wikipedia), and several processes require leaving talk pages messages for administrators (e.g. ANI). Additionally, Sending an email via the Special:EmailUser system will disclose your email address, so we cannot compel any editor to use email. Putting this all together, it seems clear to me that accepting email does not automatically satisfy administrator accountability. Protecting talk pages to deal with abuse should only be done where absolutely necessary (in the case of a single editor doing the harassing, that editor should be (partially) blocked instead for example) and for the shortest amount of time necessary, and should explicitly give other on-wiki options for those who cannot edit the page but need to leave the editor a message. Those alternatives could be to leave a message on a different page, to use pings, or some other method. Where no such alternatives are given I would argue that the editor should use {{help me}} on their own talk page, asking someone else to copy a message to the admin's talk page. Thryduulf (talk) 21:22, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: It would appear Jimbo responded indirectly in a interview: 
![[4]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Files_for_deletion/2010_March_29#File:Goatse.fr_homepage.png){kind=link}
