Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome

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Basilica Aemilia: Request for reassessment

The Basilica Aemilia article is currently rated as Start-class of mid-importance to this WikiProject. Since it has been significantly expanded with multiple new sections, an improved bibliography, and generally broader coverage of the subject, I believe it may now meet the criteria for C-class (or higher). I also believe its importance should also be reconsidered, given that it was marked as high-importance to the WikiProject Rome (which appears to be inactive).

Feedback from project members on whether an upgrade is appropriate, or general thoughts on the article, would be greatly appreciated. Full disclosure: I am the primary editor who rewrote this article. Gavingaebe (talk) 16:37, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Erroneous "link suggestions"

Over the last couple of weeks articles on my watchlist, mostly from CGR, are having lots of "suggested links" added to them by editors who seem to have little or no experience with classical history or literature. Some of them are fine—links to Trajan or Amiternum or Africa Proconsularis, where I would have expected there to be a link, but for some reason there wasn't one. On the other hand, others are linking years (314 BC), which shouldn't normally be done unless there's a special reason, and others show a complete lack of understanding of Greek and Roman names and total disregard for whether they refer to the people concerned.

For example, Marcus Flavius Arrius Oscius Honoratus, an obscure third century military tribune, was linked to Marcus Flavius, tribune of the plebs in the fourth century BC; even more obscure persons named Eutyches, Marcus Lollius Secundinus, and Sextus Patulcius Eunus were linked to the fifth-century Christian philosopher Eutyches, Marcus Lollius, an Augustan-era consul, and Eunus, leader of the slaves during the First Servile War, late in the second century BC. These and several similar mistakes are just from the last couple of days! Even a cursory glance at the articles being linked to ought to show that they are not the same persons as the ones being linked to them.

Should we be concerned about the large number of erroneous links being added all at once (some of them likely to be repeated, if they result from random or perhaps AI-generated suggestions)? Does anyone know more about this process, and whether anything can be done to stop it, besides messaging each of the editors who makes such mistakes separately, and explaining why they are mistakes, and how to check before linking partially-matching names to anyone in antiquity with the same or a similar name? P Aculeius (talk) 02:13, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And so far this morning's erroneous links include Epicurus, Euhemerus, Clymenus, and Sulpicius Severus. All names or parts of names of ordinary Romans being confused with famous Greek philosophers, mythological figures, or early Christian writers just because they happen to share similar names. This work seems to be the result of new editors who don't even have talk pages yet, taking prompts that may well be automated whenever a section of text matches the title of an article, even if it doesn't refer to the subject of that article, without bothering to check or being able to tell. This is definitely going to be a problem if it continues. P Aculeius (talk) 16:10, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The quantity of these edits you've dealt with over the last few days is somewhat startling. I must admit I can't recall seeing such mistakes frequently enough for them to elicit any concern (in fact, filtering for Newcomer Tasks indicates only one such edit has floated across my watchlist in the last 30 days). If you're looking for a place to voice your concerns, Wikipedia talk:Growth Team features might be your best bet. I notice some such conversations are already there. The archives of that talk page (particularly this discussion) also contain some useful context on the feature's introduction. It seemingly commenced around a year ago, with the percentage of users receiving these suggestions being incrementally upped over time. As to the algorithm which is suggesting the links, yes, it appears to make use of machine learning (see this page on Meta-Wiki). – Michael Aurel (talk) 07:17, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm, that does provide some context that I wasn't able to find on my own. Inappropriate edits come and go here: though there were a fair number on September 29 and 30, yesterday was pretty light. Maybe I'll wait a little longer before reporting specific issues, since they already seem to be aware that some editors aren't checking to make sure that the linked topics are about the people or things being named. P Aculeius (talk) 15:24, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just saw a case of this earlier today which was reverted by SnowFire (tagging for discussion). I don't know what we can do about this. But cleaning up these incorrect link suggestions is very irksome and leading to non-trivial wasted effort. Ifly6 (talk) 14:58, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

diff for clarity. This was definitely a case of "just because someone has the same name doesn't mean they're the same person", especially with mononyms. I get that this is being presented as a "starter" task for Wikipedia, and that the bandwith of info to give new editors is limited, but... if we can somehow communicate more strongly that these links suggestions have NOT been checked for sanity and are more like educated guesses, that might help? (Beats me, though. There was a talk at WikiConference NA on college students having the problem of taking info from LLMs/tools as complete gospel with no need for further modification already. So I get it's a tough sell.) SnowFire (talk) 15:32, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Made a comment on the Growth team features page. Further discussion may be warranted. Ifly6 (talk) 15:08, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't actually seen many more of these since my last comment—perhaps someone messaged the people who were adding them in articles on my watchlist, or they stopped trying because they were being reverted, or maybe the AI is improving. Or maybe they're just going to come in bunches... anyway, at least for me it hasn't been a significant problem over the last three weeks. P Aculeius (talk) 15:51, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Given they're all noobs I would imagine the last of those options. But if the number is indeed decreasing that is a good thing. Ifly6 (talk) 02:35, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Teahouse question tangential to Servile Wars

Please feel free to respond at Wikipedia:Teahouse § Copying sources between articles instead of here. Thank you! Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 22:29, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Good article reassessment for Byzantine Greeks

Byzantine Greeks has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Bogazicili (talk) 22:49, 19 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]