Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

  1. Home
  2. Wiki
 Policy Technical Proposals Idea lab WMF Miscellaneous 
Shortcuts
"WP:VPP" redirects here. For proposals, see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals).

The policy section of the village pump is intended for discussions about already-proposed policies and guidelines, as well as changes to existing ones. Discussions often begin on other pages and are subsequently moved or referenced here to ensure greater visibility and broader participation.

  • If you wish to propose something new that is not a policy or guideline, use Village pump (proposals). Alternatively, for drafting with a more focused group, consider starting the discussion on the talk page of a relevant WikiProject, the Manual of Style, or another relevant project page.
  • For questions about how to apply existing policies or guidelines, refer to one of the many Wikipedia:Noticeboards.
  • If you want to inquire about what the policy is on a specific topic, visit the Help desk or the Teahouse.
  • This is not the place to resolve disputes regarding the implementation of policies. For such cases, consult Wikipedia:Dispute resolution.
  • For proposals for new or amended speedy deletion criteria, use Wikipedia talk:Speedy deletion.

Please see this FAQ page for a list of frequently rejected or ignored proposals. Discussions are automatically archived after 7 days of inactivity.

Airport destination lists - WP:NOTGUIDE?

[edit]
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Sorry, all, but this page was over 600K long, so I'm splitting off the biggest discussions. Please continue this discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Airport destination lists. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:46, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is a huge problem with airport destination lists, in that they are huge, unwieldy, very dynamic and largely unsourced or difficult to source. In my, and others (Courtesy pinging @AndyTheGrump and @EEng as said persons), opinions, they fall foul of WP:NOTGUIDE, as they are nothing more than a huge list of destinations served by airlines operating at an airport. In my personal opinion, they would be better replaced with text, something along the lines of "X number of airlines fly from Airport A, serving destinations across Y number of countries." Currently, these tables are atrociously sourced, being largely unsourced, and efforts to improve sourcing over the last few months have led to no fewer than 3 ANI discussions ([1], [2], [3]), with the quite understandable result that some well-respected editors are tired of the constant back and forth - Not a month goes by that we don't get a report here of some cosmic struggle over lists of destinations reachable from various airports.[4].

In my opinion, these destination lists should be removed from airport articles under WP:NOTGUIDE, as they, as AndyTheGrump said, are arguably fancruft - but definitely not encyclopaedic. There are plenty of websites to get travel information, Wikipedia isn't one of them. If not removed, they should be seriously looked at with a view to fundamentally altering them. Danners430 tweaks made 13:39, 5 October 2025 (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.

Similarly, should Wikipedia:WikiProject Automobiles/Conventions be demoted to a WikiProject advice page?

[edit]

I cannot find a discussion on any Village Pump pointing to the discussion. The [discussion took place on the talk page behind the WikiProject page in 2021.

  • Support. This mostly explains existing PAGs and applies them to automobiles. There are a few errors (e.g. around capitalisation of compound units), and overly specific prescriptive guidance that make it unsuited as a guideline at the moment. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 13:00, 12 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Can you provide details of where you think the capitalisation is wrong or it is overly prescriptive?  Stepho  talk  04:23, 13 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The page says incorrectly that compound units do not use capitals, but contradicts that statement later on by correctly using capitals in kWh and Nm. The tips section is an example text you would not find in a normal guideline. Another example is for instance 100% prohibition on variants being bold. If a variant is what the car is mostly known as for some reason, it should be bolded. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:42, 13 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay. So there is a little rewording required. Many editors will want to use "RPM" and "MPH" when MOS says to use "rpm" and "mph". We make this explicit because most editors do not go chasing every clause in MOS - we collect the relevant parts of MOS into a single place to make it easier for new editors. As pointed out, we need to reword it to allow for SI symbols such as kWh and Nm. The bolding issue can be looked into too. I also note that MOS itself gets frequent updates in both its decisions and its wording, so neither the capitalisation or bolding issues should be a reason to demote.  Stepho  talk  23:55, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per nom. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 16:14, 12 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Details?  Stepho  talk  04:23, 13 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Sure, I agree with Femke that this is just instructions for the sake of having instructions and that if you want to make this into a community guideline you need to follow WP:PROPOSAL (at a minimum, notifying the wider community). HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 21:40, 13 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Automobiles have many different conventions in different countries. Some conventions are simply an overwhelming choice of options, eg, km/h vs kph or rpm vs min-1. Sometimes these conflict in an unresolvable manner (eg US style model years vs calendar years used in most other countries). Only by setting conventions can these be easily understandable by the average reader across many countries without requiring readers to understand every possible usage in every possible country.  Stepho  talk  04:21, 13 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    But do these conventions need to be a project-wide guideline or simply a Wikiproject guideline advice page? In terms of the choice between km/h and kmh, we already have guidelines to use the appropriate SI unit formatting. This page needs wider community vetting to be designated a guideline. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:42, 13 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The terminology is a little confusing. What is the difference between a project-wide guideline and a Wikiproject guideline?  Stepho  talk  23:55, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    All guidelines are project-wide by definition, apologies for the typo above. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:09, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    A Wikipedia:WikiProject advice page is a page written by the participants in that group and represents their advice to everyone else. The name includes the name of the WikiProject, and the group gets to control the content, just like you'd get to control a Wikipedia:User essay in your User: space. It's "just an essay", but they are often respected because of the expertise of the authors.
    A project-wide guideline should (since 2008) go through the WP:PROPOSAL process. It should not name a WikiProject, and the group loses control over its contents. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:18, 20 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Procedural oppose – I don't disagree that a broad consensus should be attained before promoting any page to guideline status, but I am not sure that this approach is the best one. Long-standing pages like this may have attained consensus as documentation of actual editorial practice. This proposal is premised on demotion and therefore non-neutral: its apparent goal is to simply invalidate the page without considering the specific reality of its application in the relevant topic area. I believe that it would be more reasonable to hold a neutral RfC to consider whether this page should retain guideline status or not, rather than merely attempting to force demotion. Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 00:30, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm following the procedure as set out at WP:Policies and guidelines#Demotion. The alternative is to simply revert the inappropriately placed guideline tag and ask for others to start the discussion here to make this a (community-wide) guideline. The route I've chosen means that there is more of a status quo bias in favour of retaining the inappropriately placed guideline tag. I've reworded the section heading to be more clearly a question.
    Note that WikiProject advice pages can still be cited and applied. Many essays on Wikipedia are cited frequently and (mostly) reflect consensus. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:09, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My concern is with the way that your own project, which itself lacks any broader community-based authority, seeks to rewrite, eliminate, and otherwise 'simplify' our policies and guidelines. I do not believe that small groups of editors should be plotting to implement changes that affect the broader community. Much as you object to Wikiprojects establishing 'guidelines' that may not have been subject to a formal consensus, I object to your Wikiproject's objective to impose its own philosophy on everyone else, including content editors in specific topic areas, without fully considering the implications of those changes, or consulting those editors. This concern arose when I noticed that, upon launching this discussion, you provided no courtesy notice to Wikiproject Automobiles.
Guideline pages are intended to document actual editorial practice. Before considering whether a guideline should be 'demoted', it is necessary to evaluate whether the practices documented at the relevant page faithfully represent actual editor conduct. Simply insisting that a page must be demoted because it may have evolved informally is contrary to the spirit of Wikipedia:NOTBURO. I appreciate that you and your collaborators are acting in good faith. I am also much obliged that you updated the section heading. I still do not agree, however, that this is the best way to go about what you are trying to do. Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 00:00, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What if we make this an RfC? That way, we get more input from a wider range of editors (hopefully), without a double notification of automobile specific editors (both on the essay/guideline and the WikiProject). If the outcome is that the essay/guideline is rewritten to be in line with established guidelines and moved to Wikipedia space, I'd be happy too. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:07, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would agree that an RfC seems like a reasonable path forward. Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 07:28, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
WP:ADVICEPAGE talks about what happens when a WikiProject advice page becomes a guideline: [A]fter being adopted by the community, they are no longer WikiProject advice pages and have the same status as any other guideline. When this happens, the WikiProject's participants cede any notion of control over the page, and everyone in the community participates equally in further development of the guidelines. Such pages move out from under their original "Wikipedia:WikiProject Something/" path. It would make sense to frame an RFC with two options: keep as a guideline and move out from under the WikiProject, or change to an advice page and leave it where it is.--Trystan (talk) 22:56, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support The 2021 WikiProject discussion proposed making it "an official guideline of the automobile project", so does not establish even a local consensus for making it a project-wide guideline.--Trystan (talk) 17:34, 19 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose any changes to these long-standing guidelines without involving the editors who actually use them. These have evolved over decades and concern themselves with minor issues that are specific to automobiles.  Mr.choppers | ✎  02:29, 20 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You call it a guideline but it is not a guideline in the Wikipedia sense of a Wikipedia guideline. Any page with some prescriptive content can naturally be called a guideline, policy, standard, etc. On Wikipedia, i.e., within this encyclopedia-building project, "guideline" has a particular meaning defined by policy. This page was incorrectly tagged as a guideline using a template reserved for guidelines when it is not a guideline. Proposing to "demote" it was the wrong framing because it actually empowers the wrong idea that the page is a guideline, since for something to be demoted from guideline status it first must be a guideline. —Alalch E. 08:04, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove the guideline tag without an RfC. This is a mistagged page. Someone put the guideline template by mistake, not understanding what the template is for. Wikipedia's policy on Wikipedia guidelines (titled "Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines") says: Simply adding the {{policy}} or {{guideline}} template to a page without the required consensus does not mean the page is policy, even if the page summarizes or copies existing policies. The existence of the markup for the transclusion of the guideline template in the discussed page's wikitext is a content error that any editor can correct. There is nothing to "support" or "oppose" here and nothing to "demote". A non-guideline page mistagged as a guideline is not a guideline for it to be demoted from a guideline to a non-guideline: it is already not a guideline. —Alalch E. 07:52, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I understand what a guideline is per WP:GUIDELINE. But I've not heard of a "WikiProject advice page" before, so what's the difference? I find that there's a description at WikiProject advice page. That's part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide which says that it's a "project content guideline" which yet another novel classification. There are too many of these labels and they are all subject to our core policies which include WP:IAR and WP:NOTLAW which mean that none of them are absolute and binding. See also KISS principle and WP:CREEP. Andrew🐉(talk) 18:01, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Andrew Davidson: I'm not saying that this is a WikiProject advice page, I'm just saying that it is not a guideline. Someone just incorrectly put up the guideline template on a page that is not a Wikipedia guideline. This discussion is like "should we phase out this banknote" and the "banknote" is a white piece of paper with "THIS IS MONEY" written on it. You will come and say "meh, this money business has become too complicated, oppose". Consensus does not form to "phase out" the "banknote". Can I go to a store and buy a gallon of orange juice with this piece of paper? —Alalch E. 18:33, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Bank notes are just pieces of paper with writing on them -- see paper money. Notice that the price of gold has shot up recently! Andrew🐉(talk) 19:48, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    So you're saying I'm getting orange juice with a white piece of paper with "THIS IS MONEY" written on it. If not orange juice, maybe bubblegum? —Alalch E. 23:54, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Alalch E.: FWIW, on a trip to Italy in the 1980s the people who made money (as in mint workers, or perhaps it was the people who distributed coins, I don't know, I was young) went on strike. When you bought things, stores would write IOUs on tiny pieces of paper rather than hand you change. Near the end of our stay at a campground, me and my siblings went and bought Nutella and candy with all the little slips of paper we had accumulated, since they would be unlikely to be accepted anywhere else.  Mr.choppers | ✎  03:47, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The main differences between a guideline and a WikiProject advice page are that the latter is maintained by the members of a WikiProject and represents their consensus advice. A guideline requires broad community consensus, and consequently it is not part of a WikiProject's pages and no WikiProject has any special role in updating it. A project content guideline isn't really a separate classification, it is just a guideline that deals with the content of admin pages, in the same way that a content guideline deals with article content.--Trystan (talk) 18:38, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That's a theory but the practice is otherwise. For example, I tend to focus on the main page currently and this is effectively organised as a project for each section. And they have their guidelines such as WP:ITN/R for In the News and Wikipedia:Did you know/Guidelines for Did You Know? These are not "advice" – they are taken quite seriously in the day-to-day operation of those projects. This is the practical test for such pages – do people take them seriously?

    Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.

    Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them?

Andrew🐉(talk) 19:30, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Going down the rabbithole of the WikiProject Council, I'm amused to find that there's a WikiProject Policies and Guidelines. Per discussion, its first incarnation became defunct but it was recently resurrected. Why will it be more successful this time? Perhaps I should join it and start demanding enforcement of WP:BURO, WP:CREEP and WP:IAR! Andrew🐉(talk) 20:17, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
ITN and DYK are rather exceptional cases, as they aren't WikiProjects in the normal sense. WikiProjects are entirely voluntary; they provide a forum for collaboration, using their WikiProject pages to discuss articles, generate reports, and provide advice. ITN and DYK are different, providing the only process for participating in the content of the related main page features. By contrast, a user interested in editing automative articles is under no obligation to participate in WP:WikiProject Automobiles. The question is then why would it be preferable to have community guidelines about automobiles located in the WikiProject's pages. Avoiding WP:CREEP definitely is not helped by creating confusion between community endorsed guidelines and the advice of a WikiProject's participants.--Trystan (talk) 17:15, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Both ITN and DYK are regarded with contempt by much of the general community. What happens with all such local activities is that they develop their own culture and tribal customs. The idea that there's a common community across all these activities is quite weak. And the idea that WikiProject Policies and Guidelines has some special authority over any of the other projects seems quite unproven; it seems to be just another project and not an especially successful one. Andrew🐉(talk) 23:18, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't follow. WikiProject Policies and Guidelines is just like any regular WikiProject: a forum for collaboration, discussion, and advice. It has absolutely no authority of any kind. WikiProjects as a whole have absolutely no authority, which is precisely why their sub-pages should not be marked as Guidelines, and any advice page that is adopted by the broader community as a Guideline should be moved out from under the WikiProject.--Trystan (talk) 16:05, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see any sign of that group claiming any sort of authority over anything. Do you? Note that a discussion among editors that results in an individual making a proposal to the whole community at the village pump is not an example of a group claiming "special authority over any of the other projects". WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:39, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support – Doesn't look any different from similar WikiProject advice pages FaviFake (talk) 16:06, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Recall check-in

[edit]
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Sorry, all, but this page is over 600K, so I've split this off to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Recall check-in. Please continue the discussion there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:43, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

English Wikipedia's recall process was largely based on German Wikipedia's recall process, but it has played out differently here than it did on German Wikipedia. Now that we've had 10 recall petitions it seems like a good time to examine the process.

Support 1 or more of the following:
  1. Process is working well, no changes needed
  2. There should be some way of enabling support for the admin during the petition phase
  3. There should be fewer signatures needed
  4. There should be more signatures needed
  5. 30 days is too long, the petition process should be shorter
  6. 30 days is too short, the petition process should be longer
  7. Keep recall, but develop a different process than petition leading to a re-RFA
  8. Keep recall, but do some other change to how re-RFA works
  9. Keep recall, but do some other change to how the petition works
  10. Recall should be abolished
  11. Prohibit admins from !voting in RFCs to amend recall

When closing the closer is encouraged to think about overall support relative to participation in the RfA (e.g. if 5 people support Foo, 10 people support the opposite of Foo, and 30 people didn't support either but participate elsewhere, the consensus may be no change rather than opposite of Foo) and where a bartender's close may be appropriate. Barkeep49 (talk) 14:31, 21 October 2025 (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.

RfC: Amending administrator recall

[edit]

I propose to amend Wikipedia:Administrator recall, specifically the first paragraph of the section on requests for re-adminship, as follows:

Addition: "Administrators may choose to further delay running in an RRFA or administrator election by up to 6 months after the recall petition is closed: they will be temporarily desysopped in the interim upon declaring such an intention. The temporary desysop will be reversed if they retain adminship within 6 months by the means described below: otherwise it is made permanent."

Removal: "; they may grant slight extensions on a case-by-case basis"

Sandbox diff for clarity.

19:55, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

Additional background: A recent recall petition and the administrator's subsequent request to be allowed to run in the next administrator election, which would start outside the 30-day window specified in the policy, led to this extensive thread at the bureaucrat's noticeboard. I see no clear consensus there as to whether the specific delay in this instance is permissible, or as to how to handle this situation in the future. Rehashing this conversation for each subsequent recall seems to me to be undesirable. Vanamonde93 (talk) 19:55, 25 October 2025 (UTC) Addendum: it has been brought to my attention that in this instance there appears to be 'crat consensus to permit an extension. Vanamonde93 (talk) 04:05, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

[edit]
  • Support, as proposer. As I noted at BN, the community clearly intended for administrator elections to be a path for retaining adminship. However, only offering it to those admins recalled within the arbitrary window of 30 days before each call for candidates feels inequitable. Given the tendency for regular candidates for adminship to choose EFA over RFA, I suspect this matter will come up again, and we will have further lengthy discussions about how much delay is permissible, which this proposal will eliminate. It also gives recalled admins more time to choose their path and reconsider their approach before asking to retain the tools, while simultaneously restricting them from taking bad admin actions. Vanamonde93 (talk) 19:55, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Noting that the emergence of 'crat consensus to allow UtherSG an extended timeframe to run in the coming admin elections only strengthens my desire to enact this, because it highlights the potential for difficulty with longer delays, and creates the possibility that an administrator's popularity will affect the community's perception of the delay. Obviating the need for an extension is the most equitable solution. Vanamonde93 (talk) 04:05, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I made a similar proposal in the "check-in" but it got lost in the noise. Stifle (talk) 20:01, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Per the maxim Justice delayed is justice denied, it seems best to act expeditiously rather than spin things out. Six months seems quite a long time and I don't like the idea that an RfA candidate would retain the right to a discount on the % required for success for so long when other candidates, who hadn't given cause for complaint, were not given this advantage. If someone is too busy to attend to an RfA then they can just resign and try a regular RfA later at a time of their choosing.
Note also that there's a procedural problem with this RfC. WP:RFC states "There is no technical limit to the number of simultaneous RfCs that may be held on a single talk page, but to avoid discussion forks, they should not overlap significantly in their subject matter." This RfC obviously overlaps significantly with the Recall check-in RfC above. Tsk.
Andrew🐉(talk) 08:22, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I supported reconfirmation by election to avoid the confusion of an admin that preferred WP:AELECT needing to resign to access it during their temp desysop. However, like many expressed in the initial approval of this option, we should not extend the admin's lenience at RRFA and AELECT just to ensure an election occurs within their limbo. If someone really prefers elections, they can pursue it like any other user. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 22:26, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mostly support. Recall only works when it is fair to all parties, and allowing someone to wait until the next admin election is fair. Allowing crats discretion to extend is fair. Sticking to rigid arbitrary deadlines is not - why would we penalise someone for starting an RFA on the 31st day vs the 29th day due to personal circumstances? Thryduulf (talk) 22:27, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak support (prefer 3 months) I understand and don't oppose the general idea of giving an admin some additional flexibility around the timing of their RRfA. That said, 6 months is a long time; I would support a shorter window for this extension as a first preference. 2601:540:200:1850:CC47:61C6:19C6:6028 (talk) 22:55, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If the goal is to allow admins to use the election process to RRfA, perhaps that could be spelled out as an exemption to a 3-month limit: "The temporary desysop will be reversed if they retain adminship within 3 months by a Request for Adminship (RfA) or at the next regularly-scheduled Administrator Election, regardless of date: otherwise it is made permanent." 2601:540:200:1850:CC47:61C6:19C6:6028 (talk) 23:02, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That's a fair concern. I chose 6 months to ensure the window would always encompass an admin election. EFAs are supposed to be held every 5 months, plus some wiggle room with scheduling. Vanamonde93 (talk) 23:02, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, prefer "until the next scheduled election" to the 6-month limit.—S Marshall T/C 23:07, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support for 2 reasons. First the community has been uniformly happy with giving administrators the option to reconfirm via election. This proposal prevents that from being an empty option 4/5th of the time. Second, it gives an admin the option to step back, address a concern, show some personal growth from the process and then reapply for adminship. The current system of a RRFA in the immediate shadow of a petition-generating controversy feels difficult to pass, and transforms 25 signatures from a statement of concern to a de facto permanent desysop. As a pleasant side effect, this should also give clarity to the crats, who would otherwise have hard decisions anytime a candidate wanted an extension for running in an election.Tazerdadog (talk) 23:27, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, though I agree with S Marshall that "until the next election" is probably the better way to phrase this. We should make it as painless as possible recalled admins, and this is a step towards that goal. The admin is desyopped in the interim, so there is no chance of further misconduct with the tools. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 01:44, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Although I agree with S Marshall and House that until the next election is the better wording. This is a reasonable proposal that will enact the communities will to allow ALECT for recall by giving more flexibility for Admins to stand at the next election. GothicGolem29 (talk) 03:27, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Six months is a long time on the internet, and would allow whatever issues that led to the recall petition to quietly fade from memory. They of course would still be welcome to run in an election, they would just have to follow the same rules as us normal folk. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 03:50, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, for either RRFA or AELECT, with the temp desysop. Worried that the petition makes admins do RfAs at an inconvenient time? This solves that! Worried that the petition was started by a bunch of bad faith socks? Now you've got potentially 6 more months to prove that, bring the evidence to the community, and watch some SPI blocks get dropped before they show up to RfA. Worried that your favourite vandal and sock blocking admin had gotten too jaded and wish there was an option between having them ignore community concerns and removing them permanently? Then Vanamonde's administrative leave plan may be just the thing you're looking for!
    More seriously, I do get the concerns around giving somebody desysopped for cause more time for the community to forget (lol, we're Wikipedians, we dig up books from the 1930s about abandoned settlements for fun), and I really do understand that there's an inherent unfairness in turning away a potential new recruit who hit 65% approval rating while letting somebody who was desysopped for cause 180 days ago sail through at 55%, which I really don't like, - but at the end of the day, I don't actually want to desyop admins. I want good admins. I believe that incentivizing a long period of reflection and a period of time without tools, where you have to run every single admin action past your peers instead of cutting corners, can only be a good thing. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 04:19, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support for both RRFA and AELECT. This was proposed in the earlier discussion, and I wholeheartedly endorse this. This proposal retains accountability for the admins (they lose their bits) while reducing the "temperature" of RECALL. If an admin is sufficiently flawed, the voters will inevitably bring out their mistakes anyway. But this allows any good admins having a "bad time" to have a gap to improve their behaviour and prove themselves to the community. If passed, I also think this should retroactively apply to every admin who resigned instead of RRFA in the last 6 months. Soni (talk) 04:32, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • support – it'd be great to have this as an option. Also see my comment about it above. Graham87 (talk) 05:03, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Very weak support for AELECT I agree with S Marshall that it should be "until the next election." I oppose for RRfA unless it's only 2-3 months, in which case it would also be a very weak support. fanfanboy (blocktalk) 05:06, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weakish Support - This feels like tinkering around the edges of a bad system, but anything is better than nothing in this case. This definitely should not preclude other changes or indeed getting rid of the whole mess of an RRFA system. FOARP (talk) 06:07, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per many others, especially GLL. I'm not sure if the "next election" wording is better than a hard limit (6 months), since the former varies with time, which is a criticism of the current system. It would also mean the time limit for an RfA and AELECT could be different, which is odd. Toadspike [Talk] 02:09, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Musing on your final point, does it matter if the RFA and AELECT deadlines are different (this is genuine question)? You've also got me thinking about the minimum times between petition closure and the stand/don't stand decision deadline. I'll put my comments about that in the discussion section below. Thryduulf (talk) 02:49, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I think there probably needs to be some tinkering after the fact to make it more concise and flow better with already there since it's weird to say you have 30 days and then at the end of the paragraph say that actually, it's effectively 6 months (presumably if declared within the 30 days?). I would honestly just make it opt-out instead of opt-in if the point of this is to make it easily for recalled admins to "rehabilitate" themselves to use a criminal justice term. It gives the admin time to schedule a potentially busy week for an RFA/admin election so they can put their best foot forward on how to address the inevitable questions and allows sentiments to cool off for both the admin and by the community. It also allows the admin time to continue to edit and show that they're addressing the issues raised in the recall (e.g. tagging and declining CSDs properly if overzealous CSD deleting was an issue). Maybe if memory is an issue, just make it a link to the recall petition mandatory. -- Patar knight - chat/contributions 06:46, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support principle but not for 6 months until RRFA. It's reasonable to allow the re-appointment discount for a little longer, giving the admin time to consider what happened, whether they want the bit and how to go about it. But per S Marshall and others, only until the next election if choosing AELECT and only for 3 months, not 6, for an RRFA. We do, after all, want memories of the events, discussions and petition to be reasonably fresh and comparatively accurate (which may favour the candidate or may not). Three months also happens to be a little more than the average time from a petition passing to the next AELECT, on current timing. NebY (talk) 16:41, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    See my comments below about "until the next election" - that could be just under 6 months away, it could be minutes, it could be anywhere in between. Thryduulf (talk) 17:32, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, I'd seen those comments. That's three months on average, but I also note Vanamonde's comment above, "EFAs are supposed to be held every 5 months, plus some wiggle room with scheduling.". NebY (talk) 17:43, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "On average" is fine in the abstract but not when it comes to an individual administrator. What matters then is how long there is until the actual next election - if nominations close imminently that's very very different to the next election being 2-5 months away. Thryduulf (talk) 17:55, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Perhaps you haven't read my full support comment. I do support allowing the discount at the next AELECT. However, I don't support allowing the discount for an RRFA for up to 6 months and support up to 3 months instead, for the reasons I stated. I then noted - and it's regrettable if my noting it misled you as to the previous points - that 3 months is also (a little more than) the average discount period created by allowing the discount at the next AELECT. NebY (talk) 18:07, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I have read your full comment, and I still think that you're missing the point that I'm making. I cannot think how to say what I've been saying any differently though, so I'm just going to hope someone else can. Thryduulf (talk) 18:18, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I view this as largely academic (since starting with 25 opposes dooms a RRFA from the start, and I suspect that's by design); but it doesn't make sense for there to be a longer possible wait time if you choose to use the venue that, so far, has always resulted in much less scrutiny. —Cryptic 16:48, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per Tazerdadog. This gives all recalled administrators the option of running in the next WP:AELECT rather than being forced to go use WP:RFA as their reconfirmation process unless they get lucky, and it also lets both the recalled admin and the community take a step back, reflect, and approach the RRfA after some introspection, rather than being forced to do it immediately after some controversy. Mz7 (talk) 04:53, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Woudn't a election after recall be a REELECT rather than a RRfA? GothicGolem29 (talk) 16:19, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You're right, to be more precise I should have written "re-election/RRfA" instead of just RRfA. Mz7 (talk) 19:22, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Fair enough. GothicGolem29 (talk) 23:28, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    To avoid confusion regarding whether or not the admin is being elected or re-elected when their first request used the open viewpoint process, personally I suggest staying with the term re-request for adminship, which can proceed either through the open viewpoint process, or the election (or secret ballot) process. isaacl (talk) 00:44, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I would say the best way to avoid confusion is to have REELECTS the term for admin elections and RRFA be the term for RFA. This is because it matches each process better with RRFA referring to the process involving RFA and REELECT referring to the process with the Admin Elections. GothicGolem29 (talk) 15:53, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - I don't see a need for this. The "temperature" is primarily generated by those opposed to recall. If a recall is rubbish then the election or RRfA should pass easily. Iggy pop goes the weasel (talk) 22:22, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Iggy pop goes the weasel By all accounts even fairly uncontested RFAs are stressful and time consuming for the candidate Mach61 02:19, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, but that isn't a compelling reason to reduce accountability. RfA will be difficult whether it happens sooner or later. Delaying it only serves to remove it from the reasons Recall was initiated and certified and those reasons should be a key component of those processes. Iggy pop goes the weasel (talk) 14:57, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    those reasons should be a key component of those processes. Yes and no. They should be a component of the processes, but only in the context of their adminship as a whole. "Occasional mistakes are entirely compatible with adminship" is an oft-repeated principle at arbitration, but finding 25 signatories to a petition in the immediate aftermath of an isolated controversial decision is likely going to be very easy, so there needs to be a period to allow tempers to cool and ensure that the ReRFA is a fair reflection of the admin not just of one incident. However, it is equally likely that the cause for a petition is ongoing chronic inappropriate adminning (with or without an easily-pinpointable final straw), and in that case there shouldn't be too long a gap between petition and ReRFA. This means that the timescale needs to be a balancing act between these competing directions and also remain fair to both petitions and the admin. I don't think 30 days is long enough, but contra WAID I do think a year is too long. If admin elections were not a thing, I'd probably be suggesting 3 months, but admin elections are a thing and the community consensus was strongly in favour of both a 5-month schedule and allowing admins who are the subject of a certified recall petition to choose to stand in an election. We cannot control when petitions are certified relative to the admin election schedule, so to ensure that the community consensuses are respected without unfairly forcing admins to stand immediately after a petition closes we have to allow the election interval plus circa three weeks, which in round numbers is 6 months. Thryduulf (talk) 15:37, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Nothing under the current system prevents the context of their adminship as a whole being discussed or taken into account at RRfA or AElect, two processes by which all are able to identify their support or lack thereof. The discussion sections of Recalls have proven this. Iggy pop goes the weasel (talk) 19:39, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It's correct that nothing currently prevents that, but it does discourage that. The discussion sections of recall are irrelevant by design. Thryduulf (talk) 19:48, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - six months is too long, and enough with coddling troublemaker admins. They can run for RFA anytime they want, and they can stand in any election. 30 days at a reduced threshold is already a lot of leeway. Nobody else whose perm gets pulled gets this kind of indulgence. Levivich (talk) 16:01, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I am proposing a window of up to 6 months during which the admins will no longer be admins. That's not coddling in any sense of the word. Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:18, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It's coddling because they get the benefit of the lower pass thresholds six months later instead of just 30 days later. I appreciate that the proposal would prohibit tool use during the six months, I think that aspect is good of course, but still, six months is too long. If an admin wants to run six months after their recall petition is certified, they can just do so, at the normal thresholds. I think it's coddling because you're giving them a six month window for a full community review of their actions while enjoying the lower threshold privilege. Nobody gets this. I didn't get to delay any of the arbcom cases where I was a party by six months to a time that was convenient for me. The last one happened over Christmas and New Years, nobody gave a crap that this was bad timing. I get having a little leeway like 30 days, but I don't see why admins should get so much leeway as six months. Imagine an ANI thread and the reported editor says "can we talk about this in six months? I promise not to edit the article in the meantime." Nobody gets this privilege on Wikipedia, no reason to give it to admins. Levivich (talk) 16:59, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It isn't accurate to say nobody gets this "privilege": I can think of at least three admins who received similar grace periods, when desysop cases were opened by ARBCOM and suspended until such a time as the admin chose to resume them. It's not accurate to say we don't extend the privilege to editors either. We have certainly closed noticeboard reports based on a voluntary commitment to stay away from a particular conflict. Now maybe you think that's coddling too, and I won't argue with that. But there's certainly precedent. And I will emphasize for anyone following along at home that the "privilege" is only the lower passing threshold, not a retention of the mop. Indeed the proposal will likely reduce the length of time that an admin can hang on to the tools after a successful recall petition, by obviating the scenario we just had and limiting that grace period to 30 days plus the length of RRFA/AELECT. Vanamonde93 (talk) 19:21, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose If there's a six-month delay, that should be normal pass numbers, not the reduced RRFA ones. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:26, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I don't believe that AELECT has proven itself to be fit for the task of the recall system. It produces admins, but I don't really think the evidence is there that the marked lack of scrutiny isn't a problem. Affixing two new systems to each other isn't a good idea. Stick with 30 days for an RFA. Parabolist (talk) 22:35, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Parabolist: AELECT is already an option. But only if the 30-day window after the closure of a recall petition overlaps with the call for candidates of an AELECT or - as happened this week - the bureaucrats grant a discretionary delay. I am seeking to abolish that discretionary delay, which is primed for inequities. Vanamonde93 (talk) 00:47, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Right, but extending this window essentially guarantees the choice of AELECT. The inequity is that poorly timed (by my personal standard) recalls can allow for less scrutiny in how the tools are reconfirmed. So this solution does solve that, but by making everyone have the worse outcome. For the record, I'm against the crats allowing the extension they're allowing in this case, so I'm at least consistent! Parabolist (talk) 00:58, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Acknowledging that our data about AELECT is still limited, I genuinely do not think admins would necessarily choose to participate in AELECT over RFA. As I see it the major difference is in voter anonymity. It's an open question whether editors would be more likely to support a recalled admin if they are anonymous. I suspect it depends on the popularity of the admin and the nature of their transgressions. You're entitled to your opinion of course. Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:37, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support mainly because if I had had the chance, I'd have chosen an administrator election instead of the classical RfA process, and because I'd prefer a re-election to a re-RfA. Whether this can be discounted as a biased vote with a conflict of interest, or given additional weight as one made with experience others lack after having experienced both RfA and ACE, I don't know. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 01:38, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose as WP:INSTRUCTIONCREEP. A desyopping is a desyopping, "temporary" or not. If an admin gets recalled, and wants to wait to "re-run" at an election instead of a RRFA, then they can do so right now under the current procedure. - The Bushranger One ping only 03:26, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If they want the lower threshold for success that the community consensus says they are entitled to, then they can only do this if an admin election happens to be scheduled within about 30 days of the petition being certified. As elections only happen every 5 months, that's only a (very approximately) 20% chance. Thryduulf (talk) 04:06, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It is not only within 30 days as there is some discretion afforded to the Bureaucrats according to the current system(albeit there will be a limit to how far that goes.) GothicGolem29 (GothicGolem29 Talk) 16:10, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Hence I very explicitly said "about 30 days". Thryduulf (talk) 16:23, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Ok fair enough apologies misread that. GothicGolem29 (GothicGolem29 Talk) 16:36, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Though given the level of discretion hasn't been said fully as far as I know that does mean the 20% figure you gave could change a fair ammount(to the point where I would say there isn't a percent even very aproximately given the level it could change.) GothicGolem29 (GothicGolem29 Talk) 16:37, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The level of discretion is not formally bounded, but given the comments at BN regarding the current case I'd be very surprised if it were extended much further. For the sake of argument, if we assume that the crats said an extra 20 days was acceptable but 21 days was not (I think this is more generous than it would be in reality) then that gives a 50-day window during which admins can nominate themselves for AELECT with the reduced threshold. The duration of the nomination window is not specified in the policy but it has been 7 days every time so far. So the 50-day and 7-day windows need to overlap, and let's generously assume that every part of the 50 days is equally useful (in reality it won't be due to real life commitments, not having prepared a nomination statement in advance, etc). The 50 day window can occur at any time, the 7-day window occurs only once every 5 months - so a maximum of three times a year.
    If my maths is correct (and I'd really like someone to double check if it is) then there are 414 possible 50-day windows with at least 1 day in a non-leap year. Only 21 of those overlap with a nomination window, which is actually very slightly over 5% - and thats with very generous assumptions. Thryduulf (talk) 17:49, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Very fair points. Though the reality given the fluidity could be beyond what you said depending on the circumstances where the crats are ruling on it which could increase the percent. GothicGolem29 (GothicGolem29 Talk) 18:49, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose and propose instead that any admin who receives 25 signatures for RECALL is immediately desysopped, and prevented from running for admin again until 6 months has passed, after which they may run again for admin (with no reduced pass threshold).  Tewdar  15:01, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Levivich. The current system does not need amendment. If a former admin wants to request re-adminship after 30 days, they are welcome to do so at RfA (under the regular thresholds). Ajpolino (talk) 19:07, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. If you prefer AELECT over RfA, then you can wait, just like everyone else. If not having admin rights for a few months is unacceptable for you, then you should not be an admin. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 02:13, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Thebiguglyalien Under this proposal, admins wouldn’t have rights longer than they currently do after a petition Mach61 16:09, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, I could've been clearer. My opinion is that a desysopped admin, even "temporarily", is just a regular editor and I've yet to be convinced that special considerations need to be given. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 16:22, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Are you generally opposed to different thresholds for RRFAs? ~ ToBeFree (talk) 23:24, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support One of the pluses of RfA is you can choose when it happens. RfA is one of the most stressful things I ever did (on par with taking the bar exam). This is a volunteer project afterall, and we are struggling to recruit and keep editors. Giving folks a little more leeway to choose a time that fits their life best is humane and sensible. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 20:45, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Levivich and The Bushranger. Mztourist (talk) 08:14, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Andrew and Levivich.Katzrockso (talk) 08:28, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I find it a little weird that whether admins get to run in an election with the lower threshold depend solely on whether they happened to be recalled at the right time. While I'm not suggesting anyone has done so, it could easily lead to concerns an editor has chosen to start the recall precisely at a time to prevent an admin chosing election. More significantly, one of the concerns expressed by those opposed to the way recalls are currently working is that a successful recall means that the admin is going to be permanently desysoped in part because their chances are already low and in so much as they might have a chance with the reduced threshold, the stress of doing so when the former admin is effectively required to run an RRfA in an emergency rather than at a time of their choosing means the reduced threshold is basically pointless. Frankly, I'd prefer an immediate desysop upon successful recall and the admin then getting 6 months to decide whether to try to confirm their adminship than the current system (by which I mean they have to start an RfA or enter an election). While I appreciate even under the proposed change if the timing is off an admin might still have to run an election in an emergency which isn't ideal it strikes a decent balance although I wouldn't be opposed to extending it to 9 months to give an admin the chance to not have to run for an election in an emergency. Although I appreciate this does mean memories of the problems with an admin will be less fresh, I still feel it's a decent balance noting also most recalls seem to have been for longer term problems. Nil Einne (talk) 13:26, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

[edit]

Next election as the deadline

[edit]

In the voting section, several editors have commented about setting the next admin election as the deadline for an admin who is the subject of a certified petition to decide whether to initiate a new RFA/AELECT with the reduced passing percentage versus a fixed deadline (whether that is the current 30 days or something longer). The next election could be as long in the future as almost 6 months (nominations closed just before the petition is certified) or as short as (in theory) minutes but more realistically a few hours - all of which could be in the middle of the night in the subject's timezone or during some other period where they are unable to look at Wikipedia. This means an admin could go from being in apparent good standing to desysopped with little or even no warning at all.
Obviously in extreme cases the crats would uncontroversially use their discretion and not insist on the literal meaning of "next election" (doubly so if there was any indication of gaming the timing of the petition or its closure). However given the ongoing discussion about discretion in UtherSRG's case, if we're going down the movable deadline we need to put some guidelines in place for the minimum time before the deadline. Hopefully even those who see nothing wrong with the current system can agree that 5 days or less is unarguably not fair on the admin, but what if the close of nominations is 29 days after the petition was certified? If those choosing RFA get up to 6 months, does that mean that's the minimum someone choosing AELECT gets? With the possible exception of those opposed to any recall procedure in principle, I can't see anyone agreeing that 11 months (6 months minimum, plus up to 5 further months for the next election) is within the spirit of the process. Where in the middle of the extremes does consensus lie though? It needs to be long enough to enable the admin to make a considered decision and, if they choose to stand, to write a good nomination statement but not so long that an admin who is actually and actively causing harm to the project can be reasonably curtailed.
I should stress that this is explicitly not trying to influence consensus either way regarding this option, I'm literally just surfacing questions that need answers before it could be implemented. Thryduulf (talk) 03:22, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is largely to avoid these sorts of questions that I proposed an unchanging six month window that should always encompass an admin election that's more than a few hours after recall. Vanamonde93 (talk) 04:48, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
AELECT is too young a process to know how often it will end up running over time.
Thryduulf, I might be able to support a year-long window. It might be nice if de-sysopped folks took a little while to reflect on what went wrong and whether they want to re-commit to a community that just rejected them. A decision made while emotions are still running high might not be the best for anyone. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:28, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Small point: it might be better not to frame recall petitions as rejection by the community; formally speaking at any rate, that would come at an RFA or AELECT. Seeing a petition that way might even be making emotions run higher. Otherwise yes, taking time to take stock should be encouraged, assisted and if possible normalised. NebY (talk) 12:49, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

CSD U6 implementation details

[edit]

"User subpages of users who have made few or no edits outside of user space, which have not been edited by a human in at least six months, excluding redirects, .js pages, .css pages, and Wikipedia Books. Promising drafts may be moved to draftspace by any editor as an alternative to deletion."

— CSD U6 (wording as of 14:17, 30 October 2025 (UTC))

An RfC has closed with the enactment of CSD U6 and U7, which replace U5 for the handling of userspace material by non-contruibutors. With U6, which calls for procedural deletion of most such pages if they go 6 months without being edited, there are two implementation details I'd like to follow up on. I'm not making this a formal RfC, because no major new consensus is needed here, but I'll make subheadings below for the two questions I have. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 14:17, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

U6: Bot tagging of unambiguously eligible pages

[edit]

There is some room for variation in interpretation of U6' "few or no edits outside of user space" rule and "human edit" rule, so some pages will need manual review to see if they qualify. However, in cases where the user has no edits (including deleted edits) outside their own userspace and there are zero edits in the past six months except by flagged bots, a bot could easily tag such pages with near-zero risk of error. I propose a bot to do just that; it would also check that the page is not a redirect, that its title does not end in .js or .css, and that its wikitext does not start with {{saved book}}. Per U6' wording, reviewing admins (or anyone else monitoring the category) would still be able to draftify in lieu of deletion. The bot would ignore pages created before May 2025 (6 months prior to U6' enactment); see below for other pages.

Does that sound reasonable to people? -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 14:17, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  • I put together some bot code for this and the "old pages" task just below, on the assumption that this plan will get consensus. Rather than "ignore pages created before May 2025", though, I'm having it treat any page last edited by a human in May 2025 or later as being a current page rather than an old page. I also decided to exclude .json subpages (there are 12 that would be eligible), as those seem likely to need more human attention in case they're loaded by a ,js page or something. And rather than running this under AnomieBOT, I'll probably create a separate bot account for this one. Anomie⚔ 03:40, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't think we should engage in systematic (bot- or human-) tagging of these articles. This should be a viable option for a page that an individual human editor happens to encounter and believes that keeping the article would be undesirable for a reason specific to the page's contents. For example, please delete (i.e., hide from non-admins' view) a page with insulting content, but don't waste time deleting simple test edits. "Leaving a test page alone" is better than "Test edit page + another copy to tag it (every edit makes a separate copy on the servers) + admin time to verify that it's eligible + log entry hiding ('deleting') the pages". I think the most value we could get from a bot is one that removes bad tags, especially if it can see deleted edits. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:13, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    We just had a monthlong RfC resulting in consensus that these kinds of pages should be procedurally deleted (with the option of checking for draft quality but no obligation), so I think any attempt to say that that shouldn't be enforced systematically is a nonstarter. I respect that you disagreed with that proposal but I'm hoping we can keep this thread focused on implementing the consensus that the community reached. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 20:15, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Did the RFC actually develop a consensus that it's important to delete a couple hundred thousand old User: subpages, and that we should do so as expeditiously as possible, or did the RFC merely provide an "optional option" that could be applied to as many or – importantly – as few of the eligible pages as we choose to tag? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:00, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The RfC explicitly framed this as a procedural mechanism that would apply to all non-contributor subpages with no edits in six months (minus a few excluded categories). "Procedural" was in the name, and my opening !vote included the sentences The logical solution to this is to make the deletion of unmaintained pages in non-contributors' userspace procedural, the same as it is for unmaintained drafts in draftspace. This means that the vast majority of U5 cruft will be deleted without anyone needing to assess it on the merits. (emphasis original). I do not think there was a single participant, for or against U6, who interpreted it as something optional that would only apply ad hoc. But I'm happy to ping SilverLocust if he'd like to comment as closer. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 22:09, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Tamzin, I've just searched through Wikipedia talk:Speedy deletion#RfC: Replacing U5 with a primarily procedural mechanism. I did not find the word "bot" anywhere in the RFC. (Give me a link if I missed it, of course.) The RFC does not demonstrate consensus to run a bot to tag these articles. How did we jump from "a procedural mechanism" to "I wanna run an automated bot to tag thousands of pages"? These are not the same thing. (Ping me; I'm not watching this conversation closely.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:18, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @WhatamIdoing: The entire premise of the RfC was that U6 would be modeled on G13, which is primarily enforced by bot. Furthermore, RfC-level consensus is not needed to authorize a bot to enforce existing policy. This implementation thread, in which you are the only person opposed to this being done by bot (or one of two if one reads Blueboar's "why" as rhetorical), should suffice as consensus for BRFA purposes. You're of course welcome to raise the matter at BRFA when it's filed, though. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 03:27, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If the entire premise was that this would be enforced by bot, why didn't the word bot get mentioned by anyone, ever? It seems like if the goal were to have a bot to tag 161,000 pages for deletion, then someone would actually mention that, at least once. Since nobody did, I question whether editors who were supportive of being able to delete these were actually supportive of this kind of bot-based mass CSD tagging. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:39, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If you want to get particular about it, there was at least one comment explicitly about automation. I couldn't tell you why no one specifically used the word "bot", but I think everyone at WT:CSD knows what G13-style procedural deletion looks like, and it involves bots. You are welcome to contest this with the closer, in a close challenge at AN, or in a follow-up RfC at WT:CSD, but this is the thread for implementing the RfC consensus, and procedurally cannot overturn its outcome. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 03:47, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

U6: Handling of old pages

[edit]

By my estimate, about 13% of the 2,014,835 non-redirect subpages in userspace are eligible for U6 deletion, and in about two-thirds of those cases the eligibility will be unambiguous (per the same definition as used above). It would place an untenable load on admins were someone to go and tag all ~161,000 unambiguously eligible pages. At the same time, deleting them all in one fell swoop would make it unfeasible for people to go through and rescue salvageable drafts, as U6 allows them to do.

So what I propose is this: On the first of every month, a bot will generate a list of the 1,000 oldest U6-eligible pages. The pages will be tagged with a custom version of {{db-u6}} specifying the one-month timer and putting them in a distinct subcategory. People will then have a month to look through those pages and draftify anything salvageable. At the end of the month, the bot will run a second time to remove any listed pages that are no longer unambiguously eligible and then update some template that will flip the relevant CSD tags from "pending" to "due for deletion" and move them into a different category. An admin can then mass-delete.

A note would be placed in U6 advising users not to tag pages from before May 2025 with U6 if the page is unambiguously eligible. People could still manually U6-tag old pages whose eligibility requires human analysis. After about 3 years this would become obsolete once we catch up with May 2025incorrect, see below; we could make it faster by picking a higher number than 1,000.

Thoughts on that? The other option here is just allowing for all ~161k pages to get mass-tagged, which I don't think would be the end of the world, but I do like the idea of leaving some room for draft salvage if people want. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 14:17, 30 October 2025 (UTC), ed. 07:22, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I like the 1000/month proposal. If any single human edit makes the page ineligible for deletion, then the custom U6 template can simply state that if someone believes the page should be kept but not moved to draft space then they should just remove the template. Perhaps a log-only edit filter (or some other method) could track such removals by the owner of the userspace so that a human can review and take it to MfD if they think it needs to be deleted. This seems like the fairest solution for everyone. Thryduulf (talk) 15:28, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, a single edit would remove them from that month's list, but would just restart the U6 timer. Since the idea is for this to be like G13, which is exempt from the no-retagging rule in cases where the six-month window lapses anew. But someone having removed a U6 template should probably keep a page from being tagged by bot, as discussed in the subsection above, since human review may be needed to determine if the removal is "Shouldn't be U6'd yet" or "Categorically ineligible for U6" (e.g. it's in the userspace of someone with significant contributions on another account). -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 15:56, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
significant contributions on another account has just made me think of the one question I had during the RfC, but didn't ask. What about significant contributions on another Wiki? Like, say, an foreign language Wikipedia admin who admin who makes a edit notice for their enwiki talkpage, or an editor who tries to start translating one of their articles to enWiki by dumping a few sources into a sandbox? Would these be categorically ineligible? (I dug up a couple examples of pages like this, then promptly lost my notes ) GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 17:23, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't love the "few or no edits" wording, to be clear; it's a holdover from U5 because we couldn't find a clear better alternative at VPIL that wouldn't risk tanking the proposal, but I'd support changing it to something else. In the case where someone has edits on another wiki, well, they'd be subject to U6 by the letter of the policy, but note that anyone can decline a CSD if they don't think deletion would be non-controversial (excluding a few special rules like G4 and G5). -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 18:43, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
{{db-u6}} currently has a "contest this speedy deletion" button. Should it be changed to the {{db-g13}} format (If you plan to improve this subpage, simply edit this page and remove the {{Db-u6}} code.) plus mention moving it to draftspace as a possibility? Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 19:39, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I think that's a great idea! -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 19:45, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Relatedly, we're going to need to either update or duplicate Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion/G13. (I've changed my mind over which would be more appropriate several times now, so I'm just going to throw up my hands and foist the decision off on everyone else.) —Cryptic 19:48, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think just making it "/G13 and U6" is the past of least resistance. Or "/Procedural deletions" if we want something more forward-compatible. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 19:59, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Requests for undeletion § Requested move 1 November 2025. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 12:52, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
 Done Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 20:18, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't like 1,000 in a single batch. If we were going to do this IMO unnecessary and time-wasting thing at all, it would make more sense to do 250 per week, or even 33 per day. And maybe have the bot check the size of the category, and only top it up to the limit. That way, if admins decline to bother with these, the bot won't keep dumping new entries on top of the old backlog.
OTOH, I think we've just found the perfect solution for WP:INACTIVITY: Just go delete a handful of User: pages, and now you've "used the tools". Less-than-ideally-active admins should remember that everyone needs to share, so please limit yourself to about 10 of these deletions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:22, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The 1,000 per month idea is okay.—Alalch E. 15:28, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Oldest" by latest edit timestamp or first edit timestamp? Either way it's going to be very slow. Sorting by current page length, on the other hand, is practically instant. Currently-longest page for zero live non-userspace edits and less than a thousand edits total; there are 17819 such with length 0, i.e. blanked. (I'd post the query but suspect we'd wake up tomorrow to find that every hit had already been meatbot-deleted, with no checks for alt accounts, viability in the draft namespace, etc.) —Cryptic 17:39, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The code I've put together takes around 15 minutes to scan all pages for matches, querying the database for batches of 1000000 page IDs, so not too bad. I wound up sorting the results by latest human edit timestamp in post-processing. Anomie⚔ 03:40, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I did some querying and found 319306 User-namespace pages that seem unambiguously eligible by the criteria described here, after filtering out all subpages of User:UBX and all flagged bots. Looks like another few hundred could be filtered out by excluding a few unflagged bots operating under WP:BOTUSERSPACE, which pretty much by definition will have zero edits outside of their userspace.
Also of note is that 246726 of the subpages (77%!) are "/sandbox", 12256 are "/Sample_page", 4403 are "/TWA/Earth", 3299 are "/TWA/Earth/2", 2886 are "/be_bold", 2882 are "/Sandbox", 520 are "/citing_sources", 386 are "/Editnotice", 346 are "/Enter_your_new_article_name_here", 250 are "/new_article_name_here", 214 are "/sandbox2", 213 are "/Evaluate_an_Article", 182 are "/About_you", 160 are "/test", 148 are "/WikiProjectCards/WikiProject_Women_in_Red", 146 are "/sandbox/", 143 are "/citations", 130 are "/UserProfileIntro", and 106 are just "/". Anomie⚔ 18:02, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also, there are 237 pages that have never been edited by a human per the definition used here. Most seem to be sandboxes created by Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/RagesossBot 2. Subpages of User:StatusBot (those only edited by Chris G Bot 3 before it stopped that task) are another good-sized chunk. The page with the oldest most-recent human edit is User:Burkhold/MyBookMarks, dated 14 November 2003. Anomie⚔ 18:25, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for crunching the numbers, Anomie. Presumably (almost) any bot, flagged or not, will be operated by someone who does have non-userspace edits, and "user" in policies like U6 and U7 generally refers to the individual, not the account (although in practical terms keeping track of alts is hard and the occasional mistaken U6 will probably happen on that basis; fortunately U6s can be speedily reversed, like G13). Anyways, point is, can probably safely just have the old-U6-listing bot sort usernames containing bot into a separate list for manual review; once a username is flagged as a bot or other alt, it can be added to a list and the listing bot can ignore it in the future. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 18:50, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What's the rationale for deleting (i.e., not removing from the servers and not saving any disk space, but just hiding from ordinary non-admins) the pages created through Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Adventure? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:25, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't strongly object to exempting those, if you want to propose that at WT:CSD. I'd weakly oppose, though, on the basis that adding exceptions complicates enforcement, and there is some small increase in vandalism potential by having unwatched pages sitting around. Neither would be a reason to make specifically those pages eligible for a CSD, but taken together IMO are enough of a reason to not exempt them, given that the pages are entirely value-neutral (i.e. while they don't cause a direct harm, there's also no harm in deleting them). -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 20:18, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
After about 3 years this would become obsolete once we catch up with May 2025 I think the math is off on that estimate. At 1000/month, 3 years would only take care of 36k backlogged pages. The estimated 161k pages would have taken about 13 years, and the actual 319k will take 26 years at that rate. OTOH, 1000/week would get though 161k pages in about 3 years, and the 319k in a bit over 6 years. Anomie⚔ 20:34, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder if it would make sense to do something like "tag 1000 more when the category gets to <10 entries" instead of 1000/month. That way if people work through them quickly, they won't have to wait for a new batch. And having reviewers delete or mark-for-deletion as they go, versus trying to flip any left-overs at the end of a month, could save some duplicate work too. Anomie⚔ 03:40, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is possible that a sleep-deprived Tamzin, in xyr haste to post this promptly after the RfC closed, thought that there are 52 months in a year. I like where you're going with this rolling-window proposal, but I worry it leaves too much room for an admin just steamrolling through the category (as was infamously a problem with U5), since they will all be deletable at admin's discretion. What if we had the old-U6 template work like a PROD? One-week window for someone to rehabilitate the page (including by just removing the template to kick the can six months), and at the end of the week the page is deleted if still tagged. Every time the category drops below 900, the bot can add another 100. This also avoids the overhead of having to have a page where everything's listed, because things will just either be in the "will be deleted after a week's pendency" subcat or the "can be deleted now" subcat. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 07:22, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That'd be a long year! Or short months. 😀 I don't think I'd want the bot to do the deletion automatically (which I don't think you're suggesting either). I can code "if it drops below 900, add 100" as easily as any other numbers (there'll be a cap for internal reasons, but not one likely to be hit unless someone is steamrolling), and I can have the bot put pretty much whatever tag-wikitext we want.
Beyond the bot part, I don't spend much time doing deletions (speedy or otherwise) so I don't have much of a strong opinion on how exactly they're handled by human admins. Wouldn't a prod-like process have similar issues to the steamrolling admin though, with things getting deleted without really being reviewed? Anomie⚔ 17:19, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Anomie: Well my thinking was that the one-week PROD-like window (or make it a month or something else) would provide the window for review by admins and non-admins alike, ensuring that even if the deleting admin doesn't look closely, there's been some chance to salvage drafts and pages that should be preserved for any other reason. Part of my thinking here is based on the idea that, with undeletion being as cheap as for G13, and most of these belonging to accounts who will never edit again, and most of these pages not being salvageable drafts but rather mostly being worthless, the cost of the occasional misfire across 300k pages is not as high as for, say, incorrectly deleting a new article as A7. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 18:44, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd maybe support an exception here for manual tagging the more problematic U6 candidates. Vandalism-adjacent stuff for instance, like a lot of this kind of thing, which would be unambiguous if it weren't in userspace. Gnomingstuff (talk) 21:42, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If it's G3 or G10 or something, you can go ahead and do that as always. And personally I'd think a normal amount of manual U6 tagging would be ok, particularly if you're looking at editors who've ever edited outside their own userspace (which the proposed bot here won't handle). The thing here is more that we don't want people to decide to tag thousands of easily identified pages (semi-)automatically, it makes more sense to have a bot do it at an agreed-upon rate. Anomie⚔ 03:40, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I thought G3/G10 were for non-userspace? Gnomingstuff (talk) 04:37, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, that's WP:G1 and WP:G2. Hoaxes/vandalism (G3) and attack pages (G10) can be speedily deleted in any space. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 05:01, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ah OK thanks for the clarification! Gnomingstuff (talk) 12:09, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that editors should feel free to U6-tag pages that wouldn't be tagged by the bot, and that limited manual tagging of pages that would be tagged by the bot should be fine. I could see doing that, for instance, for a page that has BLP issues (but falls short of G10 or BLPDELETE), rather than waiting for it to wind its way to the front of the bot's queue.
The policy wording I'm picturing here is something like A special process exists for pages created before May 2025 where the creator has zero non-userspace edits and there are zero edits in the past six months except by flagged bots. It is generally not necessary to patrol such pages, and editors should not do scripted mass-tagging, but it is permissible to tag one if you encounter one. For all other eligible pages from before May 2025, editors may tag as normal. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 07:14, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Makes sense. Let me know if tagging on my part is too much.
For what it's worth, I think manual triage is probably a much better way to tackle this, where vandalish stuff is at the top and drafts are at the very bottom. I don't love the idea of indiscriminate random bot tagging for older pages -- feels like there's too much possibility to sweep up useful drafts and edge cases, when there are probably lots of pages that couldn't possibly be interpreted as useful. Gnomingstuff (talk) 13:39, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
How about indiscriminate sequential bot tagging? 😀 Seriously though, this part of the bot is more intended as "delivering the backlog for review in smallish chunks". If humans want to specifically search for drafts to rescue or vandalism to CSD-tag, that's fine. We just don't want a meatbot deciding to tag 319000 easily-identifiable pages all at once, or a meat-admin-bot blindly deleting them without actually looking at them. Anomie⚔ 17:29, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Why do we (apparently) feel a need to hide these pages? How about "don't create a bot, don't worry about it, and just do everything manually, when and if you see a page that really shouldn't be kept"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:18, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I second this question… WHY? Blueboar (talk) 12:33, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd encourage you to take a look at my argument for creating the criterion and my analysis of 20 U6-eligible pages, finding that about 40% of the sample posed some harm in keeping, and 0% had a realistic chance of ever becoming useful pages. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 12:39, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Your definition of "harm" seems to be more expansive than mine. Sure, User:Ozaloy/sandbox is the kind of thing people should post on LinkedIn instead of on Wikipedia. But it got just five (5) page views in the ten years(!) before you complained about it last month. I rate this as zero harm.
But even with your definition, by your own admission, most of these pages pose no harm in keeping. So why bother deleting them? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:13, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Added extra parameters pending=yes, due=yes and date=October 2025 (example values) to {{db-u6/sandbox}}. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 22:43, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I support a proposal for 1k/week, or a similar rate that doesn't take more than 3 years to complete. FaviFake (talk) 12:22, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I won't stand in the way of this, and I know enough to know I may well be proven wrong in the long run. However I strongly suspect we are fooling ourselves if we operate on the assumption that there is a rate of deletion that will both result in careful review of every individual page and clear the backlog on any kind of reasonable time scale. Yes some drafts will be rescued, but the input-to-output ratio is going to be rather unfavorable. I can see good arguments supporting both the tag manually as encountered and delete everything via script positions, but I think that in trying to split the difference we are going to end up reducing many of the advantages of those two approaches while incurring a new drawback in the form of a guaranteed workload in addition to the inherent disadvantages of both that are retained. 184.152.65.118 (talk) 20:39, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • (To avoid doubt: I have an account, but I haven't logged in for the previous ~2 weeks. I am posting this logged-out, because right now, I have neither time nor energy to go through my watchlist, notifications, etc. I will maybe respond to comments when I log in.)
Firstly, I don't like the recurrent month-long cycle of nominating, reviewing, deleting pages. I dislike the recurring deadline for checking all the month's pages. I would say that if we want to salvage prospective drafts, one month for reviewing 1000 pages is not always enough. (SD is a niche area. There a wouldn't be any feedback telling us which pages have already been checked and deemed deletable.)
Secondly, here is my counter-proposal:
  1. Anytime, any (sufficiently priviledged) editor could carry out any of following actions on any page deemed eligible under U6 criteria:
    • delete it
    • draftify it
    • mark it as "endorsed for deletion by a non-admin" (This would be equivalent to adding a SD template to that page.)
  2. Anytime, an admin may mass-delete (without review) pages that simultaneously:
    • have been marked as "endorsed for deletion" for an amount of time (This time could either be fixed (e.g. 2 months), or decrease based on number of "endorsements" of that page.)
    • meet the unambiguous criterion mentioned above ([...] where the [creator] has no edits (including deleted edits) outside their own userspace and there are zero edits in the past six months except by flagged bots [...])
Point 1 ensures that there is always enough work available to do for everybody. Point 2 ensures that the backlog of endorsed deletions doesn't accumulate (when there is too much admin work to do). If the varying-time variant was chosen, it would encourage editors to supervise others rather than to exacerbate the existing backlog.
—~2025-31176-26 (talk) 16:22, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Relevant to this is the stale userspace drafts backlog; many of these would meet the criteria for U6. Should we notify WikiProject Abandoned Drafts about this discussion? (Also, whatever you do, please don't delete userboxes with at least one transclusion unless they are problematic, unless you really like ugly red links all over userpages.) OutsideNormality (talk) 04:23, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

General U6+U7 Discussion

[edit]
  • There is just one problem: what about the main user pages of contributors whose pages violate WP:UPNOT? I guess when it is a spambot we can delete under G11, maybe other general criteria apply for other cases, I don't know. Aasim (話す（はなす）) 14:59, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Correct. If any G-series criterion applies, a top-level userpage can still be deleted under that. And per the newly-added wording at WP:UPNOT, if a top-level userpage would be eligible for deletion under [U7] if it were a subpage, it may be blanked by any editor. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 15:06, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Tamzin: What, exactly, is the difference between U6 and U7 if they both apply to subpages of non-contributors only and need a six-month waiting period? I've read the policy page and can't find any. Initially I assumed that U7 might also apply to main userpages but when I read the new templates that seems to not be the case. With a few exceptions the main thing I used U5 for (on its own and not alongside G11) was lengthy profiles on main userpages of non-contributors that were obviously autobiographical, very resume-like, and would require a complete rewrite to be published (if we're going to WP:AGF and assume that the person is both notable and has misplaced a WIP draft), and I think that self-promotion of this nature should still be deleted. Passengerpigeon (talk) 19:17, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Passengerpigeon: U7 is measured relative to creation, not most recent edit, so it still applies even if the user is actively maintaining the page. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 19:31, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    In spirit, the effect is that U6 is more similar to G13 (have all abandoned userpages expire so we don't have to worry too much about edge cases), while U7 is to deal with the more problematic cases that would be a problem even if they are still "in use". Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 19:32, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Should we have a similar limit as the above section per U7? Checking for U7 requires more triage than U6, but based on a few test search queries, there are probably a lot of eligible pages. (For comparison, there's an analogous speedy criterion on Commons, and that category sometimes gets up to a few hundred per day depending on whether anyone's working on the backlog.) Gnomingstuff (talk) 21:32, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't think a limit is urgent. Most of the pages now eligible for U6 weren't speedy-deletable before; everything now a U7 should have previously qualified for U5 (but not vice-versa). —Cryptic 21:36, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    For reference, how are you searching for U6 and U7-eligible pages? Passengerpigeon (talk) 19:38, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • other U7 question -- what exactly qualifies as "personal life"/"creative writing" stuff? doing a trawl currently, a large amount of it seems to fall in a gray area between U6 and U7, such as this or this. Then there's stuff that would probably fall under (c) but is pretty short, like most of the stuff here. Gnomingstuff (talk) 22:31, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, both of those would count as U6 to begin with. Part of the idea with U6 is that we get to be agnostic as to the merits of the page, only needing to decide if it was inherently problematic in the event that a user requests undeletion. To these specific examples, the first one can be deleted under G3 (might be on the margins, but it's within discretion IMO) and the second is valid use of a sandbox for testing, so should not be deleted. U7 would only come into play if either of the pages was being actively maintained such that U6 couldn't apply, but I don't think either meets any of the U7 subcriteria. And short personal content like "I love my friends" is intentionally excluded from U7 because "limited autobiographical content" is permissible under the userpage policy. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 06:59, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Got it. Trying to stay really conservative here (a lot more conservative than my similar edits on commons, certainly) but of course it's not always easy to calibrate that. Gnomingstuff (talk) 12:55, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Gnomingstuff: Regarding some of your recent taggings: There's nothing in U7 saying it can't be used on a page that is U6-eligible, and I don't think there needs to be, but just speaking as one admin, if you tag a page for U7 that would also meet U6, you'll probably find me deleting it under U6, for the simple reason that it's much easier for me to check whether it's eligible. In the event the user tries to REFUND it, the reviewing admin can always make the determination then to decline if they think U7 also applies. So you might find it easier for both yourself and CSD admins to tag such pages as just U6. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 20:27, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Good call, thanks. Was probably going to stop with the U7 anyway, it seems more harmless. Gnomingstuff (talk) 20:36, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've taken a crack at starting Wikipedia:Replacement of CSD U5 FAQ. I'll drop a note at WP:AN and WT:NPR about this to hopefully reduce the rate of mistaggings. Courtesy pings @Cryptic, Anomie, Pppery, HouseBlaster, and Thryduulf as the sorts of people who might like working on this sort of infopage. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 07:56, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If you're working on it, I'll add that the U6 and U7 templates are now set to only work on user subpages, and show up as a warning banner otherwise, so there's less risks of mistagging. Cryptic also envisioned an edit filter for that matter, I'll drop a note at WP:EFR and you could add that to the FAQ if it goes through. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 14:52, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

U7 Template

[edit]

There is nor a U7 template nor a template message. I have no idea what wording should be used in one so I can't create it myself, but I feel this was a massive oversight to not have it ready first. LakesideMinersCome Talk To Me! 15:19, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If a page has been around for 6 months it can wait another a few hours for someone to create {{db-u7}} (if one didn't want to use {{db|u7}}), as was done while I was called away by IRL things. Nobody has yet tagged a page for either, though there was one non-test deletion (that happened to be incorrect) via the dropdown menu. ~ Jenson (SilverLocust 💬) 17:08, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(Someone's tagged at least one U7, which also didn't qualify for any part of U7 except that its creator had few edits. (Just like they used to for U5!) I speedied it as G11. —Cryptic 17:23, 30 October 2025 (UTC))[reply]

Simplified solution

[edit]

Looking above at §§ U6: Bot tagging of unambiguously eligible pages​ and U6: Handling of old pages, I see no opposition on the former, and on the latter I see a rough consensus for doing something to prevent runaway mass-tagging, but not for my own original proposal in particular. Usually when that happens and then a thread dies down it's because things are too complicated, so here is my simplified solution, which requires no tracking page or anything like that:

  • A bot may tag pages under U6 in cases where no subjective assessment is required
  • A |bot_timestamp= parameter will be added to {{db-u6}}, to be used both for old U6s and new ones. When specified, it will add the page to a day-based subcategory, like with CAT:PROD, and the template's wording will say something like "Any user may remove this tag to restart the 6-month window, or may move this page to draftspace. Otherwise, it will be deleted on <bot_timestamp+7d>".
  • The bot's priority in tagging will be: first, all pages that hit 6 months on that day; then, a number of older pages not to exceed a total of 150. Further prioritization can be left to the bot op / informal consensus.
  • None of this changes how human tagging works, except that humans are discouraged from mass U6-tagging by script. Things in the main CAT:U6 work like any other CSD. The fact that a human made the decision to tag the page supplies the level of review that the 7-day window for bot-tagging is meant to encourage.

Would that work for people? -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 13:48, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This sounds like the best possible solution! I like it. FaviFake (talk) 16:08, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Works for me! I've updated {{Db-u6/sandbox}} with this proposal! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 16:25, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Seems reasonable to me. Updating my bot code. Anomie⚔ 20:22, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Tamzin: then, a number of older pages not to exceed a total of 150 150 each day, or 150 total bot-tagged? Anomie⚔ 23:04, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Anomie: I had the latter in mind when I wrote this, but I was actually just thinking as I went to sleep last night how that could seriously delay what's already looking like a 6-year process, depending on the volume of new bot taggings. So I think each daily subcat should consist of however many are newly eligible as of that day, plus 150 old ones. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 02:47, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Newly eligible as of that day" would potentially be unreliable, if e.g. the bot is down for a day. I liked the earlier definition of "tag any with a last-human-edit after May 2025", although we may want to shift that to the day the bot gets approved instead of May 1 to avoid dumping a month's worth (currently around 600, IIRC) all at once. BTW, looks like the per-day numbers for the first week of November would have been 58, 54, 60, 42, 70, 83, and 77. Anomie⚔ 13:26, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah that works for me. So basically: The bot tags any eligible pages it can find that were created more recently than <six months before its BRFA approval>, plus 150 pages from before that date. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 13:29, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
BTW @Tamzin and Chaotic Enby: It would be useful to create a template to use when creating the daily category, so the bot can create it with something like {{Db-u6/daily bot category|bot_timestamp=2025-11-11}} before starting to populate it. Anomie⚔ 01:08, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Done, although I made the parameter {{{timestamp}}} for conciseness. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 11:12, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My main concern is whether people are actually going to go through these after the initial burst of activity in the first few weeks or so. Gnomingstuff (talk) 13:45, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Gnomingstuff: For the most part probably not. But Wikipedia is a volunteer service and there's nothing we can do to make anyone do anything. I think what matters is giving people the opportunity if they want it. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 14:02, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: Status of WikiProject Belgium/Brussels naming conventions

[edit]

Should WikiProject Belgium/Brussels naming conventions be:

  1. Moved to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Brussels) and confirmed as a community-wide naming convention guideline?
  2. Moved to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Brussels) and made a supplemental information page of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names), commonly known as 'NCPLACE'?
  3. Kept at its current title and marked as a Wikiproject advice page?
  4. Marked historical as unneeded, unenforced or lacking consensus?
  • If C or D are adopted, the following guidance at WP:NCPLACE#Belgium would be removed: The Brussels naming conventions should be used for articles related to Brussels.
  • If C or D are adopted, a discussion would be opened to determine the status of the Brusselsname talk page template.

Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 06:43, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Introduction

[edit]

This page was marked as a guideline 2009 by Oreo Priest after discussion on the talk page and a much more substantial discussion at Talk:Brussels-Capital Region. For those who are not familiar with the subject matter, Brussels is now a majority francophone city, but historically was Dutch-speaking. Place names in the city are thus the subject of controversy. As shown in the discussion, this topic area seems to have been subject to a substantial dispute on Wikipedia prior to the creation of this page. More than a decade has passed, and the dispute is mostly forgotten. Recently, two editors have removed the guideline tag, saying that it should be properly situated as a Wikiproject advice page. To come to a consensus about what we should do with this page, I have opened this RfC. Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 06:43, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Survey (Brussels)

[edit]

Discussion (Brussels)

[edit]
  • This page was marked as a guideline 2009 by Oreo Priest after discussion on the talk page and a much more substantial discussion at Talk:Brussels-Capital Region I cannot see discussion about marking this page as a guideline on either of those talkpages; could you link to an actual discussion rather than an entire talkpage? Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 11:01, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This was an informal process of consensus making, which is why I linked the whole talk page, though sections 1, 2, 3 and 4 are the most relevant. The page was drafted by a variety of editors from WikiProject Belgium in 2009. If you are asking for a specific discussion that resulted in the guideline tag being added, that would probably be the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Belgium/Brussels naming conventions#In conclusion section, which was immediately followed by Oreo Priest's action. If you are looking for a discussion that meets the current expected standard, i.e. WP:PROPOSAL, there is none. Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 12:15, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Which is to say, there was no discussion about marking it as a guideline. There were only comments from people who assumed that of course it was going to be a guideline. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:01, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:NCPLACE#Belarus also says editors should follow a specific page, but the linked page is a dormant proposal PositivelyUncertain (talk) 22:31, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Cyrillic) is not a Wikiproject advice page, but an information page, outside of any Wikiproject's control. It is not normal for a guideline to prescribe that editors should follow Wikiproject advice without any obvious consensus, because Wikiprojects are not rule-making organisations, per WP:PJ. Guidelines may sometimes link to Wikiproject pages as a reference, but that is different from prescribing that one should follow a given project's internal strictures.
    Keep in mind, the removal of the guideline tag in this case was premised on 'simplifying our policies and guidelines'. Think of a random editor that encounters the guidance at WP:NCPLACE, or the talk page template above, which prescribes that one should follow the guidance at Wikipedia:WikiProject Belgium/Brussels naming conventions, but then, one arrives at the page and encounters a template that says that its contents are the mere 'opinion' of a Wikiproject that has not been vetted by consensus. This is beyond confusing, and one will be left wondering, should this guidance be followed or not? This is the opposite of simplification, it is confounding. Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 00:15, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Nope. I removed the {{guideline}} tag, and I did so not out of any desire to 'simplify our policies and guidelines', but solely because tagging it as a guideline was a violation of both the WP:PROPOSAL policy and the WP:PROJPAGE guideline.
    It's true that I found the list of violations over at that WikiProject's talk page, but that was only a matter of where I happened to see it; I'd have done the same thing no matter when or where I found out about it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:59, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I see. What I would point out to you again, as I have done before, is that merely removing or changing a tag without considering the impact of that change on adjacent articles, guidelines, and policies is not very helpful, if the end result is to make our guidelines even more confusing. The point of this RfC is to tidy up what is admittedly a mess, and ensure that there is a clear consensus for any result. No matter which option is adopted, the end result will be a simplification, a clarification, and that is something I think that even you should find laudable. I long for your constructive participation here, as your many years of experience in the topic area will be of great value in reaching a well-reasoned consensus. Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 01:16, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    What I would point out to you again, as I have done before, is that changing this tag has no effect whatsoever on any guidelines or policies.
    Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Content says "Policies and guidelines may contain links to any type of page, including essays and articles". Almost nobody is actually confused when they see that a guideline has linked them to an essay page, probably because almost all experienced editors have banner blindness, and those who don't are used to our practices.
    For example, the introduction to WP:V has links to two essays (both of the "supplement" variety), and its first section has links to two "information pages" that "may reflect differing levels of consensus and vetting". The next section has links to four ordinary Wikipedia articles and two essays (one ordinary and one of the "supplement" variety). This happens in almost all of our policies and guidelines, and people are not confused by it. If you're genuinely confused by it, then you're confused by basically every policy we have. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:42, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    As for reaching consensus: I don't actually care what the page's title ends up being or what it gets tagged with – so long as it isn't a {{guideline}} that implies it's WP:OWNED by any WikiProject.
    IMO the only actual {{guideline}} that can have "WikiProject" in its name is WP:PROJGUIDE, and that's because WP:COUNCIL is a bit more like a weird meta-noticeboard for people trying to organize groups than like a real WikiProject. (Even then, if PROJGUIDE got moved to another title, that wouldn't break my heart.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:48, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with you entirely that Wikiprojects should not have any control over any guidelines, and this is a position I have consistently held in any discussion on the subject. However, there is nothing to be gained from narrowly focusing on the title of the page or procedural concerns without considering the page's actual value or function. As for 'links', yes, many guidelines and policies link or reference essays, as I said above. The issue is not a link or reference, but the guidelines' current prescription that editors should follow what is now tagged as a 'Wikiproject advice' page. This is clearly irregular, as it is basically delegating rule-making authority to a Wikiproject, something that is out of line with WP:CONLEVEL. Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 04:13, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It is appropriate and helpful to take corrective action and remove the guideline template from any page which is not a guideline. Recognition must be denied to the status quo to begin with. That is because a lack of consensus to "demote" the false guideline is not an acceptable outcome. Instead, the falsehood that a given page is a guideline needs to be addressed, and then the same page may be made into a guideline, or it may not become a guideline, and both of these outcomes are acceptable—whereas maintaining the falsehood that a page that is not a guideline is a guideline because of a lack of consensus to correct the falsehood is not acceptable. —Alalch E. 13:32, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with Alalch, and I add that it's not "clearly irregular" to recommend good advice, no matter where it's found. For example, Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles recommends advice pages from three different WikiProjects, and the absence of the exact word should in those sentences in no way lessens the recommendation about where to find the specialist advice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:29, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If a guideline tag has been stable for more than ten years, that in and of itself is a form of consensus, per WP:EDITCON, though as WP:PROPOSAL says the tag itself does not grant guideline status. Whether the community wants the page to actually be a guideline or not can only properly assessed in an RfC, and that is what is being done here. This incredibly narrow focus on the tag itself is bizarre, because Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. You say that it is not 'irregular' to recommend 'good advice', but have not bothered to consider whether this page actually is 'good' advice, never mind that the page is written as if it were a guidleine, and never mind that an actual guideline references the page not merely as a recommendation, but as almost mandatory, excluding the usual IAR exceptions, and that numerous Brussels-related pages currently have a talk page template that specifies that editors should follow this page. I understand what you are trying to do, but please consider the impact on actual articles. This is an encyclopaedia, and these sorts of pages don't exist in a vacuum. They only exist in as much as they help us build an encyclopaedia, and that is where your thoughts should go, not to some legalistic understanding of the meaning of the word 'guideline'. Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 04:25, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • The word should does not mean "almost mandatory".
    • I am not particularly concerned about whether this page offers good advice. I assume that it does, but I don't really care whether it does, and I will not spend my time figuring out whether it does.
    • What I care about is whether the process for tagging the page was improper (answer: yes) in a way that misleads ordinary editors into thinking that it was actually vetted by the community (answer: yes) instead of being advice put together by a small group of editors (answer: yes). I fixed the misleading and procedurally improper parts. You may find it better to describe my focus in this process as bureaucratic rather than bizarre.
    • If you want to make a WP:PROPOSAL or otherwise pick an arrangement that is procedurally proper and results in a non-misleading status for the page, then be bold! But my chosen role doesn't extend to that point. I'm here for the "not wrongly marked as a community-wide guideline" part. What it ends up getting marked as is not important to me, so long as the result is not wrongly marked as a community-wide guideline.
    WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:37, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Retirement of Construction Templates/ Stricter enforcement of Wikipedia's neutrality standards

[edit]

Hello everyone,

I am a long-time reader of Wikipedia who has created an account specifically to discuss a concern about what I see as a continuing erosion of neutrality and impersonality on the site.

Before I begin, I acknowledge that I am not deeply familiar with every aspect of Wikipedia’s editorial culture, but I have read the core policies. For years, I have visited the site—drawn by the epistemological purity and neutrality of its articles—and until recently, I had never encountered editor usernames appearing in article space.

As of late, I have noticed users placing “Under construction” templates (which allow editors to display their handles) in main article space. Examples include the pages for the recently released video game Donkey Kong Bananza and the cartoonist Charles M. Schulz. In the case of the former, the template remained on the article for more than a month without anyone taking it down, even though the template itself instructs removal after several days of inactivity.

These templates distract from the content, undermine reader trust, and arguably conflict with core policies such as WP:NPOV, WP:NOTADVERTISING, and WP:PROMOTION. Wikipedia is a platform for knowledge, not ego, visibility, or branding (see WP:NOT).

I am also concerned that editors could misuse these templates as a means of self-promotion or soft ownership, since their presence prominently displays usernames to readers. On a related note, I have begun noticing watermarks and visible handles in Wikimedia Commons images used by articles, which raises similar concerns about the erosion of impersonality.

What I propose: • That a discussion be opened on re-evaluating “Under construction” and similar templates to determine whether they align with current editorial standards. • That Wikipedia consider retiring or reworking templates that allow personal handles to appear in article space. • That a prohibition on visible editor usernames in mainspace (including within templates) be reaffirmed as consistent with WP:NPOV and Wikipedia’s long-standing commitment to impersonality.

Thank you for reading, and I welcome community input on how we can best preserve the neutrality and facelessness that have always made Wikipedia unique among online spaces. Kirby9717 (talk) 03:57, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Kirby! I love that you're looking at how to improve the project in a reasoned way. The under construction template doesn't really promote anyone or anything, it's just a way of saying someone is actively making changes. No one remembers the names of editors unless you yourself are an active editor and these are people you interact with. I've never heard of "impersonality" being part of neutrality. I like that we're open about how individuals work on the articles, as it reminds people that this is a project anyone can edit, even the reader, and that we have a wide variety of voices giving input. You're right that it's a problem if the template is there for a month, that defeats the purpose of having it, and it might be worth discussing a bot program that automatically removes it after a certain amount of time. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 04:18, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the thoughtful response! I see what you mean about openness — and I understand that from an editor’s perspective, these templates feel more like collaboration markers than personal credit. My concern comes more from the reader’s side: even subtle visible usernames shift perception from “knowledge” to “authorship,” which erodes the sense of impersonality that makes an encyclopedia feel neutral.
It’s not about hiding who contributes — the history and talk pages already preserve that transparency — but about protecting the presentation layer of articles as ego-free. Perhaps a middle ground could be what you mentioned: a bot or auto-expiry system, or even a modification of the template to avoid displaying usernames in mainspace altogether, or perhaps an option for readers/editors/users to hide templates altogether in the sidebar so one can actually read the articles free of distraction.. Kirby9717 (talk) 05:10, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Added: to thebiguglyalien,
I understand the reasoning behind transparency and community visibility — and I agree that collaboration is the heart of Wikipedia. But there’s a subtle distinction here: transparency should live in edit history and talk pages, not in article presentation. When usernames appear in mainspace, even briefly, it changes how the text is perceived — it stops being pure knowledge and starts being authored.
For readers, that shift matters deeply. It turns a faceless, objective encyclopedia into something participatory and performative — more social than scholarly. Impersonality, to me, isn’t the absence of humanity; it’s what allows the reader to trust that knowledge speaks for itself, not through a name. Kirby9717 (talk) 05:16, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But Wikipedia is participatory, and that's one of its strengths. If we keep readers unaware of that, we prevent them from becoming editors. I am glad that you got an account to engage with us here, but if the tag on Donkey Kong Bananza was enough to let you know that someone was editing it, it also lets you know (to some degree) that you, too, could edit it, even if just in removing that particular template.
I will note for the sake of completeness that the "Under Construction" tag is not the only one that indicates that there are personal hands on the article; the tags announcing that an article appears to be an autobiography clearly suggests a name, and the one warning that an editor with a conflict of interest has been editing may not call out a name on the article itself, but it indicates that there are specific human fingerprints on this article. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 05:46, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Nat. I understand that Wikipedia’s participatory nature is a strength — it’s what keeps it alive. But I think we need to distinguish between a participatory process and a participatory presentation.
Readers come to Wikipedia not to join a community, but to learn. That’s what makes it function as a public knowledge utility, not a social platform. When editor handles or personal tags appear in article space, even indirectly, they erode that neutrality and create the impression that the text is authored, not curated.
I worry that in trying to encourage participation, we may unintentionally import the visibility logic of social media — where identity display becomes part of the content. The encyclopedia’s credibility has always depended on the opposite: anonymity, impersonality, and clarity.
And again, both you and theBigUglyAlien have not brought this up but the appearance of construction templates with editor handles in them, something that has started happening recently, is a violation of Wikipedia's WP:NPOV, WP:NOTADVERTISING, WP:PROMOTION, and WP:NOT
I’m not against transparency, but I think it belongs in edit history, not in the reader’s view. The goal should be for knowledge to speak without an owner’s signature. Kirby9717 (talk) 06:04, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nat and Alien, Thank you both for your perspectives — I do understand where you’re coming from. I agree that Wikipedia’s participatory nature is one of its greatest strengths. However, participation is a means to an end, not the end itself. The encyclopedia exists first and foremost to serve readers with neutral, impersonal knowledge.
I think there’s an important distinction to be made between a participatory process and a participatory presentation. Editors should always remain visible and credited in the revision history and talk pages, but the main article space has historically been — and should remain — impersonal. That separation is not cosmetic; it’s what protects the project’s perceived neutrality.
When an editor’s handle or watermark appears directly within an article’s content (even via a construction tag), the article stops “speaking as Wikipedia” and starts “speaking as someone.” That small perceptual shift undermines the neutrality guaranteed by WP:NPOV, contradicts the impersonality implied by WP:NOTADVERTISING and WP:PROMOTION, and blurs the boundary between knowledge and authorship.
Transparency does not require self-reference. The edit history already fulfills that role. Inviting readers to edit is vital — but the invitation belongs in the site’s interface, not within the text itself. Otherwise, we risk importing the logic of social media visibility — where identity and participation eclipse substance — into a space that has thrived precisely because it was ego-free.
My proposal is not to hide the collaborative spirit of Wikipedia, but to reaffirm the distinction between where knowledge is built and where it is presented. Preserving that distinction is, in my view, essential to maintaining the trust that has made this project the modern Library of Alexandria it is today. Kirby9717 (talk) 06:20, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think you may be simply mistaken about the history here, perhaps you just hadn't run into this template before (it's on a fraction of a percent of pages.) Looking at, say, the revision from about a decade ago, it was already listing the name of the most recent editor as part of the display. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 06:29, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, I don't use these templates a whole lot, but when used correctly, they are very useful, particularly the "in use" template if its undergoing a major edit. When used correctly, it helps avoid edit conflicts, and also informs the readers that there are impending changes to the content of the article. That said, I don't doubt that there is a potential for those templates to be abused, and I also don't doubt that people put those up and then forget that they put it up. I once put placeholder text in a draft article, published the article, forgot to remove the placeholder text for more than a year. So I understand that there is definitely a potential for both good faith forgetting and bad faith abuse of those templates. That said, I don't think full deprecation/retirement is a good idea, because you're just trading one problem for another. But I would not be opposed to modifying the templates to remove the "who edited last" part of it. I agree that is redundant given the existence of page histories. Hurricane Clyde 🌀my talk page! 06:50, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Hurricane Clyde I agree that replacing the "who edited last" with something like "See talk page" might not be a bad idea. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:18, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Or we could us CSS to make that line invisible to ordinary readers. Having the name handy might prompt an experienced editor to see just how long it's been since that person actually made an edit. If they've been offline for a few hours, the tag isn't serving its primary purpose of preventing edit conflicts.
I would like to see a bot remove that tag if there have been no edits for 36–72 hours. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:24, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note that {{in use}} and {{under construction}} are different templates with different uses. The former is for avoiding edit conflicts, while the latter explicitly invites other edits. Also, it appears User:JL-Bot already does remove these when stale. Anomie⚔ 12:17, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, but this reads like it was AI-generated, which our guidelines discourage. Gnomingstuff (talk) 21:53, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, I'm just using an LLM to parse my ideas properly.. again to reiterate, (this message is NOT AI assisted/generated, written by me alone) I just really think that Wikipedia's epistemological purity is being corroded by these construction templates that allow editors to place their handles in main article main space, which shifts focus from the content of the article at hand to the editors themselves, and I think it significantly erodes trust by readers in Wikipedia as an authoritative source of knowledge.. and I think these templates and other loopholes that allow editors handles to show up in main article space (not talk pages and histories) should be changed/modified to omit their handles to better uphold Wikipedia's commitment to neutrality (see WP:NPOV) Kirby9717 (talk) 01:14, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I should also emphasize - "I have begun noticing watermarks and visible handles in Wikimedia Commons images" - even if you have only recently begun noticing this, it's long been an issue. DS (talk) 16:55, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is a strange line of thought. While it's not necessary to have the username of the person who put the tag on, since you could easily figure it out through the edit history, I'm not sure anyone else on the wiki thinks it's a form of promotion. Promotional usernames are banned anyway, and a vast majority of editors are anonymous. Good day—RetroCosmos talk 19:08, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback requested at Wikipedia talk:Directory articles

[edit]

I got lots of good feedback on this proposal for directory articles at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 68#Directory articles. For the uninitiated, directory articles (DARTs) are a type of navigational list for a lot of notable things that have a common relationship to a non-notable thing; sort of like a cross between a standard list and a SIA, or a soft redirect with multiple targets. I'm preparing in earnest for a proposal RfC, so I'd appreciate any thoughts, questions, comments people have before then. Thanks! theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 18:47, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Propose Exceptions for Wikipedia:Contentious topics/South Asia

[edit]

If an intro on articles like Pakistan Military Academy is being included as barred to newcomers (with less than 500 edits), it feels overly bureaucratic - focused more on procedure than on efficiency or common sense. I understand the original intent of the arbitration ruling was to manage conflict, not to block harmless copyedits on neutral, factual topics. However, when good-faith newcomers are now prevented from improving basic English or formatting in sections that don’t even discuss Indian military history, it discourages participation rather than protecting content. Hence there really should be clearly defined exceptions made for parts or entire articles that are unlikely to provoke edit wars and are generally apolitical - otherwise, the restriction stops serving its purpose and ends up penalizing constructive editing. I'd be interested in community feedback on whether a more nuanced approach could be implemented to allow newcomers to improve such sections without risk to genuinely contentious pages. JaredMcKenzie (talk) 02:18, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@JaredMcKenzie: I realize this will sound bureaucratic, but there's no helping that... The South Asia contentious topic is imposed by the Arbitration Committee, which means that the community cannot modify its rules (short of fully amending ArbCom policy, which probably wouldn't happen for something like this). Now, at a glance, I agree that [6] probably didn't need to be reverted, even if it is technically a violation of the ECR. Editors have discretion in how strictly to enforce the ECR, and personally I would not have reverted in this case. That said, I can't say that Dreamer765 did anything against policy here. Which brings us to the question of if policy should change. If you want to request a change to the ECR rules for South Asia, you can do that at WP:ARCA, but you will have to wait till you are extendedconfirmed yourself. Which also applies to this thread, I'm afraid. Again, bureaucratic, I know, but you're really going to have to stop making reverts like this, or starting threads like this one, or that same administrative discretion will run out and someone will have to block you for violating the restriction. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 02:36, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Tamzin, for the clarification. I reverted the edit purely because of the South Asia topic restriction which falls under contentious topics, not because there was anything wrong with the content itself. I agree the change looked harmless, but the ECR applies to the whole article. If we start making exceptions, it may set a precedent that could blur the line for other cases.
@JaredMcKenzie:,it's great that you're contributing in Wikipedia, but once you gain extended confirmed status, you will be allowed to edit these pages freely without any restrictions. It will be really worth to take time to learn the editing policies and workflows in the meantime, since that experience will makes things smoother later. My intention was only to follow the restriction of WP:CT/SA, not to discourage your editting. Thank You Dreamer765 (talk) 06:32, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No worries - I don't take this revert personally, as it doesn't seem politically motivated. You're welcome to revert if you feel it's necessary, though I'd prefer if you left it since it seems harmless. Either way, it's fine. JaredMcKenzie (talk) 06:38, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification wanted for temporary account usage rules

[edit]

"Please be aware that editing with multiple temporary accounts may be against the rules of this wiki and you could be blocked if this happens frequently."

It may be? Sounds kind of vague, which is why I am asking this. What would this mean for new users editing Wikipedia, but have their cookies cleared routinely without their knowledge? Will these editors be held culpable for accidentally clearing their cookies? Will public computers at the library or wherever be more likely to have editing privileges for that network blocked not because of any shady editing, but rather because the temporary account for the network changes regularly between multiple people?

While this feature appears to be brand new, I just want to know if editing without an account will understandably have more restrictions imposed in the future due to recent issues, and whether Wikipedia is shifting towards a more disciplinary approach towards these users.

Cordially, ~2025-31311-72 (talk) 22:08, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No. This has nothing to do with punishing users. You will be blocked only for abusively using multiple TAs. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:13, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The good news is that temporary accounts can be thanked and pinged. Schazjmd (talk) 22:49, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RfC notice

[edit]

There is an RfC at Talk:Clayton Kershaw#RfC: 2x or 3x champ? which involves WP:LOCALCON policy concerns. Left guide (talk) 02:55, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Make technical articles understandable § RfC: Amending the guideline text

[edit]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Make technical articles understandable § RfC: Amending the guideline text. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:07, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One question has been split off from the original for additional discussion: Should "Introduction to.. " articles be retired?. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 11:57, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Are Wikipedia:List of bibliographies encyclopedic?

[edit]

I just stumbled upon this dusty old part of Wikipedia. While Category:Bibliographies by writer (i.e. lists of works of a particular writer) have some merit, I am concerned about Category:Bibliographies by subject, ranging on more esoteric (Bibliography of hedges and topiary) to major topics like Bibliography of Canada or Bibliography of World War II. There are dozens (hundreds) of articles in the form of "bibliography of Fooian topic", and they are pretty much random laundry lists of books/articles/etc. related to Foo. The criteria are pretty loose; virtually all lists that I checked at best have claims saying "we list only important works" (as decided by who?). Some larger topics (like countries) cannot be reasonably scratched by a single list. Most don't have any criteria (failing WP:LISTCRIT. This reminds me of MOS:TRIVIA and the dreaded "list of mentions of Foo in popular culture" that we have been steadily deleting at AfD for many years now (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Popular culture...); it is just that instead of works of fiction that "foo" concept appears in, here we have a list of works of non-fiction. Other than that, it's the same principle (see also: WP:INDISCRIMINATE, WP:IPC, WP:NOTTVTROPES). I think these kitchen-and-sink lists are now-useless relics of the past (when we weren't sure what Wikipedia's scope is) that we need to, well, delete. An RfC may be in order, but perhaps we can judge early consensus here. PS. I checked AfD logs; such articles are AfDed with random outcome. Deleted (hard and soft): Oakland, Californi, Tirana, psychology. Kept: Thomas Jefferson, American Civil War Union military unit histories, books critical of Islam. There were the fist six results in my search, and the outcome is very much no consensus (3 deleted, 3 kept). Sigh. (I have a feeling that more recent outcomes may be more deletionist, as our standards rise, but I haven't run the data...). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 13:24, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  • I think most bibliographies should be merged or deleted. Articles are welcome to have modestly sized Further Reading sections, but when the list is quite long, as you say, there is no clear criteria for what should be included. We are not an indiscriminate card catalogue of any book in the library. If a book is significant, it should be cited or listed in the main article, but beyond that if there's no indication why a reader should care about a particular set of books that one could find in a variety of search engines and resources, it shouldn't be a standalone article. — Reywas92Talk 15:12, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It's possible that there are some notable collections of works about a particular subject, but in those cases there should be some prose about the collection that establishes why it is notable and the selection obviously won't be made by Wikipedians. The article title is also less likely to be "Bibliography of <subject>" Thryduulf (talk) 15:32, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The only relevant bibliography I have to draw from in this subject is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Grmoščica bibliography, which explicitly looks at WP:NLIST (that the collection of works about a subject has to be described as a group independently to meet this notability standard). That seems like a reasonable standard. In this case the criteria is fairly narrow (there are only so many works about this Croatian hill) but I can see this being applied to a larger subject (e.g., "bibliography of the economy of the Maldives", where we might expect to find multiple metatextual works that examine the works examining the economy of the Maldives - review articles?). For an example that actually exists - would it be considered appropriate for an article called bibliography of work-related injuries to exist citing this article? -- Reconrabbit 16:28, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Reconrabbit Regarding that example, this is a literature review. Most acadademic papers do it, through they are almost never throughout. We can find lit reviews on many topics, but I don't think they should be sufficient to say that bibliographic lists are notable. That said, I could see a compromise, where each work on our list is cited to a secondary source of that type (a lit review, etc.). As in "criteria for inclusion on our list is being cited in a relevant secondary work". Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 00:45, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, literature reviews obviate the issue of WP:INDISCRIMINATE and WP:LISTCRIT. Katzrockso (talk) 00:48, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see how this has anything in common with trivia sections. They are not any more indiscriminate than any other kind of article content on a broad topic is. They're books about a topic, it's more like further reading than anything, or categories. The fiction is not analagous because to be included it should the sole or main part of the work, not at all similar to those lists of individual tropes or what have you, more like genres (which we do have lists for, e.g. list of dystopian literature). I would strongly oppose deleting them unless there is a extra problem with the subject (e.g. it's about a topic that is itself non-notable, the group is not discussed in sources (so, e.g. any topic where the group of books about it has been the subject of discussion would pass, which is extremely common for any topic; when looking for sources, I have never found one topic with enough books to sustain a bibliography that did not have some kind of meta aspect on the general circumstance of books about the topic and what they're like), or it's about a topic that has too few writings on it to sustain a bibliography), because they are very useful and I don't see the problem. Bibliographies are regularly part of print encyclopedias on specialized topics, so yes, it is inherently encyclopedic. Why should we be different than print encyclopedias in this regard? PARAKANYAA (talk) 18:29, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
+1, this is my thought on the matter as well. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 18:55, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that we can find sources for some subjects. For example, there is a Bibliography of World War II, and a quick trip to my favorite search engine finds sources such as "The 19 World War II Books That Experts Trust Most", 30 Best World War II Books That Examine Every Angle, 25+ Best WWII Books to Broaden Your Perspective, Best books about the Second World War. I assume that if I did a serious search, I'd find high-quality reliable sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:26, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:Five pillars begins with the statement that "Wikipedia combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers". I believe that some specialized encyclopedias include lists of recommended works; therefore, these pages are at least potentially "encyclopedic". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:21, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see a fundamental problem with bibliographies but individual pages may need some attention. Along the lines of what others have said, I can see the utility for somewhat specialized topics where the literature is not extensive but starts to get too long for a typical 'Further reading' section. I do question the selection criteria, especially for enormous topics like Canada. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 23:04, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Including any book, even if it's only books related to a specific topic, is indiscriminate and a violation of policy. If we're going to have articles that are just lists of books and they aren't split out bibliographies of an author who is already notable, then we need those lists of random books in a topic to meet one particular criteria to make it a discriminate list. They need to be notable books that have an article already. That should be the criteria we're working with here. SilverserenC 00:55, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    No, it is not. It is not any one of the things listed at WP:INDISCRIMINATE, any more than literally any notable list about any topic that has ever existed on Wikipedia is. Per the list guidelines there is no strict need to limit list contents to notable items unless there is consensus to do so. Also the individual entries being notable would not make any difference about it being indiscriminate, at all. PARAKANYAA (talk) 01:05, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If we're making them "lists that reliable sources have also made lists about", that seems just as uncontrolled and random. And, even in such a case, such articles don't follow that requirement anyways as it stands. WhatamIdoing above points out reliable sources on lists of best WWII books. So, we should reduce that bibliography of WWII article to only those listed books, about 50 or so, correct? Should we also WP:SYNTH in any other books that has ever been on such a list ever? Is every list of books on a topic ever made in a reliable source now subject to having a bibliography article made on it? Is just a single reliable source list good enough? Is there a threshold now? What exactly is the criteria being used to claim inclusion on such a bibliography article? As it stands now, the criteria is none and all books ever, it seems. SilverserenC 01:45, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It's just as uncontrolled and random as notability is, because notability is determined by the whims of the media and academia. Doesn't mean all notable things are indiscriminate. It is not synth to put a book that says it's about world war II on a list of books about world war II; by this logic, what is not synth? Would it not be equally synth to use that book as a source if another source did not say it was about WWII?
    "Is every list of books on a topic ever made in a reliable source now subject to having a bibliography article made on it?" Is every notable topic subject to having an article made on it?
    No, it is just to determine the notability of the list. We do not only have to use notability-proving sources content of the list, per Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists. Or, would you argue that to require we put someone on "list of French poets", they be included in "top 50 french poets"? Or "list of [geographical feature] in X"? Ludicrous.
    The guideline is, like any other list, Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists, which includes bibliographies already in its list type. PARAKANYAA (talk) 01:52, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    List of French poets still requires actual secondary reliable sourcing on someone being a French poet, however. Or it's subject to removal per WP:V. And, no, using the books themselves as a primary source to themselves is not appropriate. SilverserenC 01:55, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Why not, if WP:V is your concern here? The book is certainly verifiable for that. Of course, you can limit it to only notable works if there is consensus for that, and so it may be useful on broader topics, but per the list guidelines that is not mandatory. And our coverage of books is abysmal; most books people use as sources or in bibliography listings are notable, they just don't have articles yet, because our coverage is terrible. PARAKANYAA (talk) 01:57, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It's not true that List of French poets still requires actual secondary reliable sourcing on someone being a French poet. A secondary source for that would have to do some kind of analysis ("Is this person really French? Is their work really poetry? Did they do enough to be called a poet, rather than a writer who sometimes writes a poem? Analyzing it according to the P.O.E.T. model, this paper concludes that this person probably is a French poet...").
    In general, we take any reliable source (not just true secondary sources) for this kind of content, and even fairly low-quality sources are enough when the list really a {{Navigation list}}. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:56, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As you can see, they are all author bibliographies. But there are many subject-specific bibliographies whose notability is supported by even more sources. See Bibliography of World War II#Bibliographies, for instance, which is a very incomplete list of bibliographies of WWII. Bibliography of Italy doesn't cite it, but there is a book, Bibliotheca bibliographica italiana (1889), with a 27 page chapter, Bibliografie di bibliografie, devoted entirely to bibliographies of bibliographies of Italy! Any Wikipedia bibliography article with a matching chapter in A List of Bibliographies of Special Subjects (1902) meets WP:NLIST. Bibliographies of many specific topics have also been covered in more than one encyclopedic aspect, such as the "History of bibliography of Subject X", i.e. A History of Bibliographies of Bibliographies (1955). Once a bibliography grows large enough, it can be split into multiple bibliographies, as happened with the Bibliography of WWII. Ⰻⱁⰲⰰⱀⱏ (ⰳⰾ) 02:03, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Template:+1 and WP:NOTVOTE

[edit]

I noticed a weird trend on this page and at ANI. Recently a bunch of people started using +1 and 👍 Like. I thought we weren't supposed to vote? ~2025-31597-25 (talk) 20:24, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You're correct that discussions aren't strictly votes. When people use templates like these, or simply type "+1", what they're saying is something like "I second the sentiment in this comment" or perhaps "I would have said this, but they beat me to it". You'll generally see these in open discussions where people are simply talking things out and expressing their thoughts. They're not as common if it's a formal poll where people are indicating whether they "Support" or "Oppose" a proposal. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 22:31, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes this. Some other Wikimedia wikis have things like Template:Support and Template:Oppose; we don't. Graham87 (talk) 16:36, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sometimes it's better to do it like that than spend unnecessary time saying the same thing in different words just for the sake of fostering discussion. Katzrockso (talk) 01:04, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:SYNTH and academic consensus

[edit]

Suppose there is a clear academic consensus on a topic - all the academic sources agree with a certain position. However, there are no sources that state that this is the academic consensus such as literature reviews. What can and cannot Wikipedia say about academic opinion in this situation? Eldomtom2 (talk) 18:21, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:RS/AC. Unless the consensus is explicitly stated Wikipedia should not state it Andre🚐 18:36, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But if there is no descent on the matter, it should just be stated as a fact - no need to include whether it's the academic consensus. If no sources say that planets are flat then Planet just says "A planet is a large, rounded astronomical body ..." So it will depend on the specific situation. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:16, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What if there's no dissent in academia but there is in non-academic sources generally considered reliable?--Eldomtom2 (talk) 20:36, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's likely to specific a question, and best discussed at each articles talk page. Is it misreported in a news article due to not understanding the complexity of the issue, or do non-academics disagree due to an issue with language (academics tend to use language very specifically, at times that can conflict with common usage), or one of many other issues. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:25, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That dissent has not been expressed doesn't it mean it doesn't exist. When there isn't a positive attribute of "scientific consensus", there are better ways to word things that don't invoke a consensus that falls afoul of WP:RS/AC. Katzrockso (talk) 01:02, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If everyone says something is a fact, then state it as a fact. To do otherwise would be against basic NPOV. Absolutely don't say that something is the scientific consensus if no sources say that, instead just state it as fact if no dissent exists. If something doesn't exist in reliable sources, because dissent has never been expressed then to iinclude or balance content based on something that doesn't exist in the sources is not NPOV. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:22, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's is exactly how we get in trouble with neutrality (and there's a very recent issue that this would apply to). We should not be trying to arbitrate what the truth is, particularly if what's at stake is still on going or very recent. Even if all reliable sources only say one stance, we shouldn't assume that's the truth and treat it as a fact until well after the dust has settled, we can review sources far distance from the event, and make a better judgement. Just because no RS discuss opposition to an idea doesn't mean the opposition doesn't exist, and in the short term we shouldn't be jumping to conclusions, particularly if we know that there is such opposition to some degree that is not covered in RSes.
In the hard sciences, there can be theories that there is no disagreement among all reliable sources that the theory is true, but we still present it as a theory and not a hard fact if its clear there still other possible explanations or that they cannot absolutely prove the truth but have found nothing to deny it. This type of attitude needs to apply to the rest of our coverage. Masem (t) 13:35, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If something does not exist in a source then including it in content, or in weighing content is not neutral. Arguing that we should say that some sources that that planted are round is nonsense.
By including something that doesn't exist in sources editors are injecting their own opinions on the TRUTH. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:56, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously, if no opposing view exists in RSes to discuss it, we can't include it, but the absence of that type of information does not automatically make the view covered by RSes the truth to be said in Wikivoice, particularly if it is something that cannot be proven or is highly subjective and contentious. Documenting the prevailing view outside wikivoice (with attribution) when we as editors see that it could be taken as contentious (like, in the midst of an ongoing event or in its immediate wake) does zero harm and keeps us neutral.
The "flat earth" issue is not a good example, because we have decades/centuries of proven evidence that the earth is spherical and thus can readily justify the use of Wikivoice to say its round and not flat. That's a clear case where FRINGE applies, and the documentation of "flat earth" is mainly due to coverage of groups that insist that. On the other hand, the origin of COVID is a prime example. The prevailing theory is that it did not come from the lab, the lab theory rejected by the bulk of reliable sources, but yet we still report COVID being zootrophic in nature as the prevailing theory. Maybe it will take a decade, or a century, before we can flip that to being factually the zootrophic origin, but we can't do that now, and thus take it out of Wikivoice. Masem (t) 14:04, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But I've not argued for stating more than what exists in sources, if the sources states it as a theory then follow the source. But if all sources state it as fact, then not stating it as fact is against NPOV. Stating it as fact if all sources state it as theory is the same. The flat earth argument works for the former, the zoonotic origin of COVID the latter. But in each case stating something that is not in the sources is bullshit. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:15, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Taking something out of Wikivoice and adding some type of attribution is not "stating something that is not in the sources", its simply writing from a far more distance neutral tone, and requires common sense to consider, not blind adherence to the sources and nothing else. Masem (t) 14:19, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That argument is saying that we should attribute the earth being round. Absolute adherence to 'everything must be attributed' is not sustainable as an argument. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:21, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Depends on the article… in our article on Flat Earth, where we are comparing the claims of various flat earth proponents to the scientific consensus, it does make sense to attribute the various viewpoints (so readers know who says what). In our article on Earth, we can omit the fringe claims of flat earth proponents and simply state that the Earth is globular in Wikivoice. Blueboar (talk) 14:40, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also it is not always more neutral. Adding attribution, when no source states it as anything but fact, is not more neutral - it is adding your own opinion. It's not about blindy following sources but rejecting your own feelings about a subject. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:31, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I assume this is related to Talk:Grooming gangs scandal#Can anyone find any academic sources saying it's not a moral panic? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:32, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Per RS/AC, it shouldn't be stated in Wikivoice that there is an academic consensus on a subject if there isn't an RS stating explicitly that. However, if there is no dissent or countering claims in RS and all of the available RS, particularly in academic sources, state one position, then you can (and probably should) state whatever the fact is in Wikivoice directly. To prevaricate on this sort of thing and to make it only a list of such and such says opinion statements is absolutely not a proper way to showcase NPOV on whatever the subject is. No RS dissent means you can state the thing as a fact. Because it is a fact. Because there is no RS statements to the contrary. SilverserenC 22:39, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@WhatamIdoing - yes, that is correct.
@User:Silver seren - the issue in this case is that all academic sources say X, but not all non-academic RS say X.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 01:19, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Generally, academic sources 100% trump news sources, which can be reliable for general information, but not if they conflict with what all of the academic sources say. We wouldn't, for example, use news sources that are credulous toward anti-vaccine stances to then claim there isn't a 100% stance of safety on the subject of vaccines, as the academic sources represent. I feel like if we're ever in a situation where all of the academic sources that exist have one stance and there are news sources claiming otherwise, the news sources should be counted as discredited on that specific topic. SilverserenC 01:24, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that holds for hard sciences, on questions for which there is generally one correct answer and the others are false, but in other situations, we really need to look at whether an "academic only" rule improperly excludes viewpoints in violation of WP:YESPOV. Particularly in the social sciences, it's possible for academic sources to disagree with (e.g.,) political sources or financial sources, and since those non-academic views have real-world consequences, it would be non-neutral for the Wikipedia article to report only one viewpoint. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:58, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see why political or financial topics would be any different. If a political or financial event is covered in academic sources as meaning or representing one particular thing and some news sources claimed otherwise, we'd still consider the news sources to not be superior to the academic sources. In fact, we'd be likely to consider the news sources to be actively and likely purposefully biased in their representation of the topic because of that contradiction with the academic sources. News sources, on a whole, are both not experts on topics, they're also often misinformed, credulous, and focused on breaking news rather than factual analysis. We use them in the interim when they are the best sources available, but once academic sources are made on a subject, they supersede those news sources completely. As is appropriate, because random news journalists do not trump actual academic analysis of factual reality. SilverserenC 03:12, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is when academic sources don't cover a significant viewpoint. In the best-case scenario, we have:
  • Scholarly sources talk about their abstract viewpoint ("This will produce valuable social benefits")
  • Scholarly sources talk about the political viewpoint ("I oppose this because I want to be re-elected")
  • Scholarly sources talk about the financial viewpoint ("This could cause many small businesses to fail")
But sometimes we only have this:
  • Scholarly sources talk about their abstract viewpoint ("This will produce valuable social benefits")
  • Political sources talk about the political viewpoint ("I oppose this because I want to be re-elected")
  • Business news talk about the financial viewpoint ("This could cause many small businesses to fail")
In that latter case, it's not always reasonable to exclude significant viewpoints (which YESPOV says we need to include) just because the peer-review cycle hasn't gotten around to describing those non-academic POVs yet. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:33, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
From what I'm seeing on this particular article in question based on the talk page discussions, the academic sources do address the "is it just a moral panic" question though. They frequently and often do and all state that, yes, it is a moral panic and not substantive in terms of being a real thing. That is addressing the political viewpoint. Just because political news sources would like to claim otherwise doesn't mean the academic sources very clearly all stating the opposite don't count on that aspect of the topic. SilverserenC 03:40, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia covers such a broad range of topics that it's hard to state any one-size-fits-all rules. Generally speaking, as WP:BESTSOURCES states, basing content on the best respected and most authoritative reliable sources helps to prevent bias, undue weight, and other NPOV disagreements, and as WP:SOURCETYPES says, When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources. Putting those two together, if a topic is thoroughly covered by academic sources, the Wikipedia article on that topic should be based on those sources. So if you can write a whole article using only academic sources, ignore other sources. Take, for example, topics like quantum mechanics, democracy, or climate change: it really doesn't matter what non-academics have to say about any of those topics; the academic sources cover it.

If all the best sources say X, then Wikipedia should just say X, as WP:WIKIVOICE explains: Uncontested and uncontroversial factual assertions made by reliable sources should normally be directly stated in Wikipedia's voice, for example 'the sky is blue' not '[name of source] believes the sky is blue.' Unless a topic specifically deals with a disagreement over otherwise uncontested information, there is no need for specific attribution for the assertion, although it is helpful to add a reference link to the source in support of verifiability. Further, the passage should not be worded in any way that makes it appear to be contested.

Putting it all together, to answer your original query, if all the academic sources say X, and non-academic sources say not-X, Wikipedia should generally just say X, directly in Wikivoice, and the non-academic sources should be ignored. If not-X were a significant minority view, the academic sources would cover it; if they don't, it means the view is not significant.

Of course, as always, there will be exceptions. The most common is breaking news: academic sources may become outdated, sometimes suddenly, in which case we must rely on non-academic news sources to keep the article current. There were times in history when all the academic sources would have said that the USSR existed, or that no one had ever stepped on the moon, and they all would have been wrong, because they would have been superseded by recent events (until new academic sources were written).

There are also some topics where academic sources really don't cover the entire topic well or in an up-to-date manner even though they are available (e.g. video games, professional wrestling, music, film, sports, art, etc.). In such topic areas, academic sources may not be enough. That's why you need human editors to make case-by-case judgments. But, generally, prefer scholarship over non-scholarship. Some people say scholars shouldn't be weighed more than, say, governments or political commentators, but those people are wrong. Scholars will be the most reliable sources for almost every topic covered by scholarship. Levivich (talk) 23:38, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

+1 Selfstudier (talk) 11:14, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

User:Silver seren, to put it bluntly, I agree with you. Academic sources are frequently and explicitly written with political intent and are not neutral observers. Pretending that they are and regurgitating their politics creates issues. But it looks like the consensus says that's what we must do, so I have rewritten Grooming gangs scandal accordingly.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 00:18, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  • The discussion on this page doesn't apply here: [7]. We've got a topic, that originally hit the news when the first criminal case lead to a conviction, and news coverage was criticized AT THAT TIME by academics as 'it almost never happens, so people's concern is out of proportion to the event'. You're arguing to go against WP:LABEL and put "moral panic" in the lead, in wiki voice, not the content of what was said in those articles: [8]. Over the years, as the convictions have increased, more widespread coverage has happened, multiple government reports were written, the topic went international, academics wrote that the previous academics were wrong (which I provided evidence for), academics don't describe it that way any more (like the book from Oxford University that describes it as a failure of government), and those early academics moved on to new topics and just stopped writing about this one. I absolutely reject these changes and challenge the logic you've used to to get there. Denaar (talk) 03:35, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence that suggests the common name of the People's Republic of China is anything but the "People's Republic of China"

[edit]

Dear WikiCleanerMan, the Government of the People's Republic of China, as you probably know much better than me, was proclaimed in 1949. The name "People's Republic of China" has been widely accepted by other governments, and the PRC was admitted to the United Nations under that name in the early 1970s. In my specialist field, invariably the references are to the "People's Republic of China", including Category:Military units and formations of the People's Republic of China. For example, the US DOD publishes a document known as the "Military and Security Developments involving the People's Republic of China."

You have started to try and change a large number of categories involving these terms. Before I start an RfC and/or an ARBCOM case for what appears to be a massive exaggeration of the commonality of the term, would you kindly like to present *why* you believe "China" has now been widely enough adopted as the *common* name of the People's Republic of China? Should say, I do not believe that having the main article as "China" creates enough precedent to change all the terms associated with the People's Liberation Army. Kind regards, Buckshot06 (talk) 00:25, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

All involved in this dispute should probably read WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Blueboar (talk) 14:42, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know about where you work, but most English-speakers refer to the PRC as China... Lazman321 (talk) 04:01, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:OPENWIKI needs clarification, and proposal to amend WP:ELNO to address content quality

[edit]

To date, I've been of the understanding that non-WMF open wikis such as many of those on Fandom, Conservapedia, and RationalWiki, are almost never appropriate in external link sections, but there is a key loophole in that those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors. The problem there's little to go by as to what constitutes a substantial history of stability. For example, I'm inclined to think many popular Fandom sites like Wookiepedia, the Marvel Database, The Sims Wiki (Fandom version), as well as maybe Nookipedia.com might fit the bill in that they're wikis with a lot of specialized content that would never pass for inclusion at Wikipedia, they have active communities, and there's not a tremendous amount of in-fighting or external attacks. RationalWiki, Conservapedia, Metapedia, Encyclopedia Dramatica, and poorly maintained wikis on Fandom, on the other hand, seem like sites that should never be included in an external link section with the exception of the articles on those subjects, due to a history of serious in-fighting and serious external attacks from vandals and worse on the WP:OPENWIKI side in addition to questionable content quality. I've found my removal of the latter sites challenged at least twice, and I think the main reason is disagreement of what a substantial history of stability looks like. What looks obvious to me apparently is not as obvious to others, or I'm just wrong in interpretation.

On the other side of this, I've noticed the content quality side of WP:ELNO leaves a little to be desired. For example, point number 2 would seem to exclude the obvious such as deprecated sites and obvious fake news sites, but what about a link to a page about Chuck Schumer on GOP.com on his article, or a page about Donald Trump on Democrats.org on his article? What about a link to RationalWiki on Clarence Thomas's article? WP:OPENWIKI aside, is seems like common sense for an encyclopedia adhering to WP:NPOV to NOT link to RationalWiki on any article other than the site's own article and possibly one about rationalism if there were consensus that it passed WP:OPENWIKI, just as it seems like it would be common sense to not link to sites owned by political parties except for those parties' own articles and possibly articles directly related to that party's members, yet there is nothing in WP:ELNO addressing bias or any other quality factor other than not to link to sites that publish blatantly bogus content or personal sites such as social media, and it seems like addressing this directly could reduce disputes over the matter (and not just in consideration of RationalWiki).

So to both points, I'd like to propose we amend WP:OPENWIKI to clarify exactly what constitutes "significant stability" and also add a new point addressing non-neutral external links, not necessarily requiring external links to perfectly follow WP:NPOV as we do, but to address sites with an obvious agenda to push, such as GOP.com, democrats.org, moveon.org, sites related to the TEA Party movement, RationalWiki, Conservapedia, Planned Parenthood's websites, etc. Obviously there are places where links to those sites are appropriate, but in my opinion their use should be limited. PCHS Pirate Alumnus (talk) 01:25, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Life is too complex for rules to be able to dictate what should happen in every circumstance. What is best for the encyclopedia has to be argued over for individual cases. I haven't looked at what RationalWiki has to say about Clarence Thomas, but I assume it would be an obvious fail of WP:EL. At any rate, there can't be a good definition of what external links are suitable other than what is at WP:EL. Johnuniq (talk) 02:05, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@PCHS Pirate Alumnus, why didn't you ask this question at Wikipedia talk:External links?
I agree with Johnuniq. I don't think we should officially clarify exactly what "a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors" means, because there needs to be an element of editorial judgement involved. Here's how it works:
  • Our goal: Send readers to pages that contain content that will interest them. Do not send readers to pages that will be worthless, a mess, defunct, usurped by that gambling company, etc.
  • First decision: Are you linking a single page (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Darth_Bane to go in Darth Bane) or the whole site (https://starwars.fandom.com/ to go in Star Wars)? If the first, make sure that the individual page is worth reading. If the second, make sure that the landing page is good (e.g., informative) and that the site contains information (e.g., pictures) that you think a reader would be interested in. Don't send our readers to lousy pages. Every external link in every article should be justifiable, regardless of whether it's a wiki or some other kind of page.
  • Second decision: Is this a site you can trust to be in good shape in the coming months and years? Some little place that nobody's editing is not (e.g., because low participation means spam or vandalism isn't likely to get caught quickly), and we don't want to send our readers to a page that's at risk of being vandalized or spammed without anyone noticing. Consequently, we're looking for "a substantial history of stability" (if they've managed to keep good pages for a while, they'll probably manage in the future) and "a substantial number of editors" (more eyes on the wiki = lower risk of spam and vandalism going unreverted).
  • If it looks like a good page and a solid site, then consider linking it. Otherwise, don't. And when editors disagree about the specifics, then consensus is king.
If you personally need numbers, then look for a wiki that has been open for couple of years (no brand-new groups, because the failure rate is high in the early days; no groups that were obviously taken over by another recently) and edits in Special:RecentChanges (or the equivalent for non-MediaWiki software) from at least 30 registered accounts in the last 30 days (=at least one person a day). But I hope you can use good editorial judgement instead of simplistic numbers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:34, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Your question about non-neutral links is answered at Wikipedia:External links#Avoid undue weight on particular points of view. External links don't have to be "neutral". WP:ELNO#EL2 is about links to pages that are wrong "misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research", not just biased.
For example, in The Call (1985 World Series), we could have:
  • a webpage arguing that the umpire's call was correct and the Kansas City Royals deserved to win and
  • a webpage arguing that the call was wrong and the St. Louis Cardinals should have won,
but not:
  • a webpage arguing that secret government research caused a wormhole to open up the multiverse and the umpire's call was correct in an alternate universe.
WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:44, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: Update to WP:USPLACE

[edit]

This request for comment proposes deprecating the Associated Press Stylebook as a naming authority within WP:USPLACE. The current guideline ties certain U.S. city article titles to whether the AP Stylebook lists them as not requiring a state name, a practice that dates back to Wikipedia’s early years. However, this external dependency conflicts with Wikipedia’s self-governed policy hierarchy and with the way other countries’ naming conventions are structured. No other national convention relies on an outside publication to determine article titles. This discussion invites editors to consider whether Wikipedia should instead base U.S. city naming solely on internal principles such as WP:TITLE, WP:COMMONNAME, and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, supported by verifiable usage data such as pageviews and clickstreams.

Proposal

Deprecate the Associated Press Stylebook as a naming authority within WP:USPLACE. Future decisions about the inclusion or omission of state names in U.S. city article titles should be based solely on Wikipedia’s internal policies and verifiable usage evidence.

Replace the existing paragraph:

"Cities listed in the AP Stylebook as not requiring the state modifier in newspaper articles have their articles named 'City' unless they are not the primary topic for that name."

with:

"Cities are titled by the most common and unambiguous name used by readers and reliable sources, in accordance with WP:TITLE and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. The inclusion or omission of a state name is determined by actual disambiguation need, not by external style guides.""

Add an explanatory note:

"References to the AP Stylebook in earlier versions of this guideline are deprecated. Wikipedia naming conventions should rely on internal policy and verifiable data, such as reader behavior or reliable source usage, rather than on external editorial manuals."

Background

The current wording of WP:USPLACE incorporates the Associated Press Stylebook as part of its reasoning for which United States cities are exempt from the “Placename, State” format. This reliance on an external publication is unusual within Wikipedia’s system of self-contained policies and guidelines. Other country-specific naming conventions (for example WP:UKPLACE, WP:CANPLACE, WP:NCAUST, WP:NCIND) rely only on internal policy principles such as WP:TITLE, WP:COMMONNAME, and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC.

Rationale

The AP Stylebook was created for journalistic brevity, not encyclopedic clarity. Wikipedia’s naming standards are designed for reliability and reader intent, not for newspaper copy. No other country’s naming convention cites an external editorial manual as authority. The United States should not be an exception. The AP list of cities without state modifiers is dated and arbitrary, reflecting mid-20th-century newspaper familiarity rather than modern global recognition. Wikimedia’s pageview and clickstream data provide transparent, empirical evidence of what readers mean when they search for a city name. This change aligns WP:USPLACE with WP:TITLE and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, ensuring that the same principles apply worldwide.

Intended outcome

Consensus to remove or deprecate references to the Associated Press Stylebook from WP:USPLACE and clarify that U.S. city naming follows the same internally governed, data-based principles used for other countries. TrueCRaysball 💬|✏️ 18:07, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (USPLACE)

[edit]
  • I strongly oppose something as broad as The inclusion or omission of a state name is determined by actual disambiguation need, not by external style guides. While I may agree with the principle that we needn't rely specifically on only the AP for which cities have standalone names, I believe nearly all US cities should still include the state name in the title, even if the city is the primary topic for that name or disambiguation isn't needed. Even if we could retain our discretion to deviate from the AP in particular in some circumstances, I see no issue with the current practice and this method helps avoid pointless move debates while maintaining consistency. I'd rather extend this practice of including a state name in the title to other countries, rather than the other way around. Reywas92Talk 18:31, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Isn’t that the entire point of a Village Pump discussion? To craft something better that we can all agree to through consensus? The AP standard is written for journalists, not encyclopedias, and in my view it has no place in our naming conventions. TrueCRaysball 💬|✏️ 19:21, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      • I've shared my opinion, others are welcome to contribute. I see no strong reason to change the current consensus, and even if the wording were changed not to prioritize just the AP, I strongly believe we should not start proposing to remove state names from other titles, which would be a huge waste of effort over something that works fine as it is. Reywas92Talk 19:31, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Reywas. This reads like a solution in search of a problem. I have no objection to deviating from the AP in individual cases if someone can demonstrate a benefit from doing so, but as a general rule everything is working fine as it stands and I see no benefit to changing it after this many years without problems. Thryduulf (talk) 19:51, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I also oppose. If it isn't broke then don't fix it. Gommeh 📖   🎮 20:05, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose – There is no evidence of a problem with the existing scheme. It is clear, a long-standing consensus, and based on a reliable source. Implementing this change will result in the need to reconsider the article titles of thousands of pages, for no good reason, resulting in a waste of valuable editor time. See WP:TITLECHANGES and WP:BROKE. What will the reader gain from this change? As far as I can see, nothing. If the text of the guideline needs to be rewritten, that can be arranged: WP:CONSISTENT is one element of our article titles' criteria. As mentioned above, it is already possible to deviate from this guideline when consensus exists. Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 00:32, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Regardless of its intent, the AP Stylebook is still reputable, and our usage of it to help inform our guidelines, as others have stated, has not caused any issues as far as I'm aware. Lazman321 (talk) 04:08, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Several of the opposes here rely on "if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it" reasoning or the assumption that editors can already make exceptions. However, that ignores the reality of how this actually functions in practice.
Every city move discussion in the United States is automatically opposed or SNOW-closed on the basis of WP:USPLACE, even when strong evidence and consensus-building attempts are presented. That means editors cannot meaningfully discuss exceptions. The policy itself shuts down the conversation before it can happen. My own RM of Orlando, Florida from last year is one of many examples.
Additionally, the claim that "it works fine" does not hold up when data says otherwise. Clickstream analytics show that thousands of readers type terms like "Orlando" expecting to reach the Florida city, only to land on a disambiguation page and have to click through. That is, by definition, a navigation failure. It proves the system is broken for readers. Not just editors.
The workload objection is also a red herring. A simple "grandfather clause" could apply: existing titles remain until a discussion is individually initiated. No one is proposing a mass retitling campaign.
Finally, the AP Stylebook is written for journalists, not encyclopedias. Its inclusion in our naming conventions has no policy basis and should not function as an unchallengeable authority. We have robust internal guidelines like WP:COMMONNAME and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC that already handle naming consistently and logically without relying on external style manuals. TrueCRaysball 💬|✏️ 04:46, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That your proposed move was rejected does not indicate that anything is amiss with the guideline. What it means was that you failed to provide persuasive evidence of a 'good reason' to change the article title per WP:TITLECHANGES. In fact, in that RM, you failed to provide any evidence to support your claims, at all. I can see that you are now engaging with empirical data, such as Clickstream analytics. If you think you can make a better case now per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, you are free to open a new RM discussion. Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 05:46, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]