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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (miscellaneous).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

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Upcoming numerological apocalypse

This seems like the default to ask this question, though I hope some of the people I'm trying to reach actually check this page:

Long-term IP editors, you are my favorite class of editor. How are you taking the news of the upcoming temporary accounts for unregistered editors|temporary accounts for unregistered editors roll-out? I hope you all will still feel whole after this comes to pass, and you are IP editors no longer. Remsense诉 16:50, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

I very strongly support that (the temporary accounts), but then I'm not an IP editor. It seems wonderful for privacy, which if I only edited as an IP I would be concerned about. Cremastra (talk) 19:42, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
I edit as an IP from time to time and I think an increased layer of privacy is only great. Especially since those seeking to find use for such public-facing IP information are generally doing so for bad faith purposes. (The administrative purposes of site maintenance is done with non-public user IP logs.)
I'd suggest for future consideration, for editor recruitment and retention studies, making available additional features for anonymous editors, inspired by that used in other social media. Some message boards allow limited customization of signatures for anonymous posters, for example, such as flair colors and flag icons; one can hypothesize (and test quantitatively) that giving anonymous editors some extra means to express individuality might encourage eventual creation and retention of accounts. SamuelRiv (talk) 04:41, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
Anyone seeking to find your IP information may be acting in bad faith, but most investigations concern the minority of IPs which are used to vandalise Wikipedia. Tracking them down so they can be educated or blocked is very much a good-faith activity in the interests of Wikipedia and its readers. As for customisation, the problem is identifying when two visits are by the same person. In many schools and businesses and some homes, multiple editors share a connection or even a device. Wikipedia can only customise appropriately for each person if they log in. We really don't want one editor displaying another's signature because the server can't tell them apart. Certes (talk) 08:29, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
This seems to be missing something. Identical IPs have identical temporary masks, so abuse can still be tracked by casual editors. The point is that the IP address itself, with all the security concerns attached, is only visible to those with elevated privileges. As for my suggestion of signatured customization, I only made suggestions of what is termed in other forums "flair" or "flags" -- i.e. supplements -- not changing the actual displayed IP mask/username. SamuelRiv (talk) 20:46, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
There are some relevant comments in a VPM archive. Details of IP masking are still hazy but it may rely on cookies, allowing a vandal to get a new identity by clearing them or browsing privately (e.g. Chrome's incognito mode). It will also be difficult to work out whether two IPs are in a similar range, or to check neighbouring IPs for vandalism. (Hopping within an IPv6/64 is so trivial it often happens accidentally.) Certes (talk) 21:30, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
I don't have much of an opinion on it yet, to be honest. It'll certainly be nice if it gives me the ability to receive pings, and it may possibly give me a stable talk page across IP addresses on this range - even a separate talk page from that of other users on the range - which would be neat. But if there turn out to be a lot of downsides for English Wikipedia as a whole, the final result may be the entire loss of IP editing here, masked or not, which I would regret. It'll be interesting to see what happens when it's actually turned on. 57.140.16.57 (talk) 15:10, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
It's a leap into the dark. We have no idea whether we will still be able to fight unregistered vandals effectively or will have to reject the millions of useful IP contributions. I fear that we may soon no longer have an encyclopedia anyone can edit, but I hope to be proven wrong. Certes (talk) 16:25, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

For the interested, WP:IPMASKING. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:49, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Does anyone know how long the temporary accounts last and if they last more than 4 days can a temp account become autoconfirmed? I didn't see anything about this in the linked pages but it is a lot to go through. The closest I could find is a comment that there is awareness of the impact on anti-vandal efforts but that is quite vague. RudolfRed (talk) 22:30, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

One document states that temporary accounts will last a year, but I see nothing about them becoming autoconfirmed and think it very unlikely that it will happen. Certes (talk) 16:27, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

The footer of our pages says:

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0; additional terms may apply. By using this site...

I think it would be sensible to change it to something like (additions emboldened for clarity):

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0; additional terms may apply. Images may be subject to copyright or require attribution if reused; see individual image pages for details. By using this site...

My reasoning is that images may be open-licensed or fair-use, and in neither case do we display any notice of this to readers on the page.

Is this in our gift, or is it a WMF issue? Where should a request be raised? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:14, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

The text comes from MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyright, which is already locally customized. While some of the local customizations make sense, I have no idea why e.g. Special:Diff/546973720 wasn't also done in mw:Extension:WikimediaMessages. To me this seems like another one that should probably be done there first rather than only being done locally. Anomie⚔ 15:05, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
Thank you. I have asked there. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:20, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
@Anomie: I mentioned you in that discussion, but my attempt to "ping" you failed (the interface is not one I'm familiar with). Please take a look. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:55, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

April 8, 1974

Why no mention on home page of 50th anniversary of Henry Aaron hitting 715th home run to break Babe Ruth’s MLB record? Fairly significant; maybe more than formation of Progress Party in Norway? Pliny37 (talk) 07:32, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

@Pliny37: You can start a discussion at Talk:April_8. There was a previous suggestion to add it, but that was a few years ago. RudolfRed (talk) 19:11, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
Pliny37 apparently wanted it on Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/April 8 so it would be on Main Page April 8. If there isn't even agreement about putting it on April 8 (it was added after the post) then forget about selected anniversaries. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:26, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation draft annual plan available for review

Hi everyone,

The Wikimedia Foundation’s draft annual plan for the 2024-2025 fiscal year is now available. This plan is shaped by many factors. These include external technological, regulatory, and social trends in the world about how people look for information and rely on the Wikimedia projects. Our planning was also built around small group discussions on wiki, via mailing lists and over 130 conversations with individuals in person and in scheduled calls. These discussions consistently highlighted the need to remain focused on upgrading our technical infrastructure and supporting volunteer needs for tool maintenance and metrics.

Our answer to these trends and needs is in this draft annual plan. You will see that it prioritises maintenance and upgrades for our technical infrastructure, such as MediaWiki core, data centre operations, and site reliability engineering services. There are also key results around a number of issues discussed here over the past year, such as ways to help volunteers connect to others who share their interests, building newcomer edit workflows that reduce the burden on experienced editors, building a new community wishlist that better connects movement ideas to Foundation activities, and improving tools for editors with extended rights.

You can read a summary of the plan in yesterday’s letter from Wikimedia Foundation CEO Maryana Iskander, with a slightly-longer version on the annual plan landing page. The summary also offers details about what we’ve achieved so far in this current year. You can also read about our financial model, revenue strategy, and budget breakdown.

The annual plan talk page is open for questions and feedback now through the end of May, after which we’ll summarise all of the responses across talk pages and community calls and publish a final version of the plan that considers this feedback. Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts! KStineRowe (WMF) (talk) 21:59, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

How do you make your username a color or font?

I see everyone doing it and I want to try. Amoxicillin on a Boat (talk) 15:28, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

@Amoxicillin on a Boat I suspect you are referring to user "signatures" in discussions posts. If so, see Wikipedia:Signatures for all about that. — xaosflux Talk 15:33, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
Hey, I think I got it ~~~ Amoxicillin on a Boat (talk) 16:11, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
I think I got it now Xeno User : Amoxicillin on a Boat 18:19, 15 April 2024 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amoxicillin on a Boat (talk • contribs)

Talk page subscriptions

Is there (or can there be) a bot to remove archived or stale talk page subscription from Special:TopicSubscriptions, or maybe there's a way to condense the page manually? I have not been able to find any documentation on this issue. - FlightTime (open channel) 20:53, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

@FlightTime, you have to manually click the red "Unsubscribe" item for each entry that you want to remove.
@Trizek (WMF), you might want to include this in the documentation at mw:Help:DiscussionTools#Topic subscriptions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:17, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Should this be reported to the Administrator's Noticeboard?

User behavior should be discussed at WP:ANI. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:49, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


Dalton Tan (talk · contribs) has described misinformation several times in railway-related articles, and it has escalated even if it is warned. Even if I have been warned many times, I don't seem to understand it, so should I report it to the Administrators' noticeboard? --H.K.pauw (talk) 09:55, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

User behavior issues should be posted to WP:ANI. I'd suggest copying this over. It may help to provide WP:DIFFs of misbehavior in your comment. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:14, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
You would need to give a couple of examples of edits that you believe are a problem and explain why they are a problem in a way that people without inside knowledge can understand. Be brief. Johnuniq (talk) 10:18, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
 information
According to Talk page, it is the next page that is making the misrepresentation.
Dalton Tan has listed misinformation in these articles and has been warned four times, but it continues to escalate. --H.K.pauw (talk) 00:00, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
Please do. Their persistence and lack of communication are clearly disruptive – I think a block might be in order. Be sure to provide diffs! XtraJovial (talk • contribs) 20:16, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
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.

What redirects here tool?

Is there a function that I can add to the Tools menu that will generate a list of redirects to the current page? I.e. similar to "What links here" but for redirects. I'd like to be able to check for valid anchor points. Thanks. Praemonitus (talk) 15:53, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

@Praemonitus, if you add User:GhostInTheMachine/SortWhatLinksHere to your .js, it will sort redirects first in the "what links here" results. (I find it works if I click "what links here" and then click "500") Schazjmd (talk) 16:03, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
If that user script isn't exactly what you are looking for, there's also WP:US/L and WP:US/R. –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:45, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
Thank you for the suggestions. Praemonitus (talk) 21:36, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
@Praemonitus, why not use Special:WhatLinksHere and then un-tick the boxes for transclusion and regular links? That will leave you with a list of redirects. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:13, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
Thank you. Praemonitus (talk) 14:44, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Requesting a Level 2 template

How do I request that a Level 2 caution template be added to the Twinkle notices? This is a long-standing complaint of mine about this particular message, which is copy-pasting a draft by someone else into article space. When I request the history merge to provide attribution, it tells me that I can copy a template onto the talk page of the editor who did the copy. However, the message that it puts on the user talk page of the user who did the copying is mealy-mouthed. I think that something a little stronger is in order. This is an action which, whether intentional or not, creates work for an administrator in order to provide attribution to the editor who really wrote and submitted the draft. It doesn't really say that copy-pasting is discouraged. So how do I request that a message having to do with inappropriate copying within Wikipedia be added to the Warn templates? Robert McClenon (talk) 22:29, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon: I don't see why an admin is needed to correct anything. According to WP:CWW, the template {{Copied}} can be added to the article's talk page and anyone can do that. For the other part of your question, you can post your suggestion to Wikipedia_talk:Twinkle RudolfRed (talk) 01:34, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
User:RudolfRed - That's interesting. Are you saying that history merge is not needed in those situations? AFC and NPP reviewers are instructed to request history merge in such situations. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:58, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
@Robert McClenon: I am not familiar with AFC/NPP so I don't know why it would be different, but WP:CWW says that either a link or list of authors is sufficient attribution, per the CC license and Wikipedia terms of use. RudolfRed (talk) 03:09, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
Then what is history merge for? Robert McClenon (talk) 06:11, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
Purely regarding copyright considerations, providing a list of authors is sufficient, and avoids the problem of using a link where the source page for the copied content must continue to exist to preserve attribution. In particular, when there is just one author of the source content, that is an easier approach (as alluded to in Wikipedia:History merging § When not to request a histmerge). A history merge preserves the history of individual edits even if the source page is deleted. This goes beyond what is needed to satisfy Wikipedia's licensing requirements, but can be helpful for editors, keeps all the attribution on the article history page, and doesn't require manually extracting a list of authors for the purpose of attribution. isaacl (talk) 17:02, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
The replies above are technically correct but they miss the point. Copy/pasting someone else's draft to an article is pathetic. Volunteers who create content should be acknowledged in the article history and posting a template on talk as an alternative is just bullshit. Johnuniq (talk) 00:44, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
User:Johnuniq wrote:

Copy/pasting someone else's draft to an article is pathetic. Volunteers who create content should be acknowledged in the article history and posting a template on talk as an alternative is just bullshit.

Exactly, although I think that "pathetic" is not a strong enough rebuke for plagiarizing someone else's draft. That is why I wanted a stronger warning, because I think that usually the editor who copies someone else's draft to an article knows what they are doing, or at least ought to know. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:18, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
In my experience, people who use copy/paste instead of WP:MOVE really don't know what they're doing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:53, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
I think the fundamental question here, though, is whether a strongly worded message is more effective than a gentler one. I doubt that it is.
By the way, about ten years ago, an editor changed the {{Uw-c&pmove}} template to say that page history is legally required. If we've been posting this message for a decade, then it's hardly surprising that some editors believe that it's actually required. @Isaacl, what you say aligns with my understanding. Perhaps you'd like to clarify the text of that message? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:23, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
I don't have a suggestion at this moment, as it's hard to get nuance across in a concise warning message. Page history is the built-in MediaWiki mechanism for maintaining attribution for a given article. There isn't a built-in mechanism for providing attribution for content copied from one page to another, but of course a cut-and-paste move is unnecessary with the page move function now available. So within the context of that specific warning template, the best course is to use MediaWiki's built-in functions to maintain attribution with the page history. isaacl (talk) 04:32, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
I agree that it's the best, but I don't believe that it's actually legally required. (It is required for non-legal purposes, such as Wikipedia:Who Wrote That? and edit counts.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:23, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
Sure, I've already agreed. isaacl (talk) 05:52, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
My point was to explain the benefits of history merges, even if there are other ways of satisfying attribution requirements. isaacl (talk) 03:58, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Sleeper Account Question

A new case request was made in the past 24 hours at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard with regard to a contentious perennial issue within a contentious topic. I checked on the history of the filing account. What I saw is that the filing account has made 16 edits, between 21 April 2024 and 23 April 2024. That would be a new account, jumping into a contentious topic, which is a little concerning as it is. But the account was created in December 2015. It has been a sleeper for more than eight years. I know that there is a guideline to Assume Good Faith, but should I assume good faith, or is there something that I should do or someone that I should notify? Robert McClenon (talk) 01:29, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

A lot of people make accounts just for watchlisting or setting a skin. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 01:32, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
Okay. Then the person got into a quarrel over an issue that has not been resolved in a decade, and asked for moderated discussion, and I declined the request, and gave a contentious topic notification. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:38, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
I sometimes do wish there was a better way to report and request investigations into editors who show WP:DUCK signs of being a possible abusive sockpuppet but where we have no idea who to compare them to; WP:SPI, unfortunately, doesn't accept that AFAIK and it's tricky to raise the issue otherwise while avoiding WP:BITE / WP:ASPERSION concerns. But I'm certain every experienced editor has encountered that situation before, so it would be nice to have a formalized way to say "hey, can someone look into this?" I think we do have a few more tools that can be used to investigate things like that now and produce initial leads for a SPI, such as the edit-similarity detector, but there's no real way that I can tell to request that they be used until / unless you already have a second name. Frustrating. And this is compounded by the fact that, inevitably, the people who look most closely at suspicious possible-sockpuppets are usually those in disputes with them (people simply notice odd behavior by people they're in disputes with). So what we need is something like a formal way to say "hey it might just be my biases talking but does anyone agree that this account is sus?" and to ask other editors to help do at least a basic glance-over for publicly-available evidence leading to a possible SPI, plus possibly asking checkusers to use their tools if they agree it's already a sufficiently blatant WP:DUCK despite the other account not being clear. --Aquillion (talk) 04:16, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
I agree that this question is important and I'm interested in the answers, but sadly I can't provide one. One idea is to consult a sock specialist (probably a checkuser, though they wouldn't be using that privilege to answer) but that raises its own problems. One is that you'd effectively have to say publicly "I think User:Example smells like a sock", which isn't ideal from an AGF/NPA viewpoint. The other is that the knowledge is distributed. I could recognise a few sockmasters' work on sight, but the particular sock you're interested in today is highly likely to be someone I've not seen before. Certes (talk) 20:03, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
In addition to what ScottishFinnishRadish said, a lot of people make accounts and just never get around to editing. Sometimes they just wanted to get in early to reserve the username, other times they might be paranoid about their IP address showing. One thing to definitely check in these cases is CentralAuth and global activity. I'll also just say that sometimes, just sometimes, checkusers see everything. But you can always just poke one if you're being deafened by alarm bells. -- zzuuzz (talk) 04:45, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
Thank you. This doesn't really answer my questions. I think that my questions had two parts. First, is there any particular guideline as to when I should be suspicious of a sleeper account that wakes from a long winter's nap? Second, is there any way that I can request a Checkuser to look at a suspicious awakening sleeper account, when I don't have a clue who the sockpuppeteer might be? If there is no answer, there is no answer. I am asking. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:46, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
I think the more important question to ask is, "Are they being disruptive?" If they are being disruptive, then we need to deal with that in some way that makes the disruption stop, regardless of whether they're socking or not. If they're not being disruptive, then I wouldn't get too excited over it.
One thing I might suggest is to check their global contributions. It might be that they're actively editing on other projects and just happened to drop in on enwiki 8 years ago and got an account auto-created that way. RoySmith (talk) 20:03, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
The problem with this way of thinking (which I've often encountered when pushing for stronger measures against sockpuppetry) is that a defining characteristic of "smells like a sock" editors, at least to me, is WP:TEND / WP:CIVILPOV / WP:BATTLEGROUND editing - some of the editors who are most likely to aggressively evade blocks are ones who feel like they have a "mission" here, crusading ones who approach Wikipedia like a battleground. And those are some of the hardest things to prove and to make a case for on WP:ANI or WP:AE; usually it requires an extensive track record and takes a lot of time. Being "the person who constantly brings people who are editing from the same viewpoint to ANI / AE" is also not usually a good look - even if they're all actually the same person, if you can't prove that then you risk looking like you're trying to abuse ANI / AE to selectively remove people with that view from Wikipedia. They're also situations where people are most likely to want to give them WP:ROPE, which means that a sockpuppet who slips back in is often going to be able to edit for a long time, despite fixing none of the problems that got them blocked to begin with, simply because it takes so long to get someone with a newly-clean record blocked for even fairly serious and clear-cut WP:TEND / WP:CIVILPOV issues, especially if they know enough to avoid crossing the few red lines that can lead to faster action. Basically, getting WP:TEND / WP:CIVILPOV / WP:BATTLEGROUND editors blocked is usually time-consuming and exhausting, so naturally editors who suspect sockpuppetry are going to want to start with that - suggesting "oh well if they're disruptive why don't you just get them blocked for that, and if not, what's the problem?" is totally unhelpful when some types of disruption can take months to deal with and massive amounts of effort to build a proper case for. --Aquillion (talk) 22:57, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Vote now to select members of the first U4C

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

Dear all,

I am writing to you to let you know the voting period for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is open now through May 9, 2024. Read the information on the voting page on Meta-wiki to learn more about voting and voter eligibility.

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

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

On behalf of the UCoC project team,

RamzyM (WMF) 20:20, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Windows 11 update (maybe)

I having trouble with my caplock, if I turn it on I have to restart my laptop to get it to turn off, also I now have a screen indicator showing caplock on/off, this has to be in a recent windows update, I did a search for the issue and they want me to uninstall my keyboard driver then re-install it, no way am I doing that, this really sucks. Is there a way to search recent updates, then uninstall the one with the issue? IDK.. - FlightTime (open channel) 21:23, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Do you have an HP laptop? If so, this thread might help (either the regedit or task manager approach). Schazjmd (talk) 21:27, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
It's not really a Wikipedia issue, but installing a keyboard driver without having a keyboard driver installed could be an interesting challenge. Certes (talk) 21:28, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
@Schazjmd and Certes: Thank you all, yes it's a HP and well I'm sure it has a keyboard driver, but I'm not good enough to even try. Thanx again. - FlightTime (open channel) 22:03, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
The task manager approach worked. Thanx, - FlightTime (open channel) 22:10, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
Whew, glad it helped. Schazjmd (talk) 22:17, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

The Met Office logo is currently protected by Crown copyright in the United Kingdom, but may not be copyrightable in the United States because it does not meet original standards. The version currently uploaded locally on English Wikipedia is the 2009 version. There may be differences in color matching between this version and the 1987 version. Therefore, the copyright protection period of logos uploaded in different periods will also be recalculated. -Fumikas Sagisavas (talk) 04:09, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

If you don't get an answer here, you might want to try asking at commons:Commons:Village pump/Copyright. —⁠andrybak (talk) 12:53, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
@Fumikas Sagisavas, On English Wikipedia, there is also Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. —⁠andrybak (talk) 14:44, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Abuse of autoblocking

If a user who is blocked takes advantage of autoblocking being enabled for their block to stop other, innocent users from editing by attempting to edit from random IP addresses, what will the administration do about it? By modifying the block to disable autoblocking, this allows the blocked user to evade the block, so will they send a request to a steward on Meta to lock the account to prevent further collateral damage because the account can no longer be logged into if all else fails? Faster than Thunder (talk | contributions) 21:51, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Has this ever been a problem before? Or are you just telling people how to stuff beans up their noses? * Pppery * it has begun... 21:52, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
If a user is being deliberately disruptive in this way, their account could be locked. — xaosflux Talk 22:11, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Community Wishlist Survey: Template Picker Project

We want editors to find and use templates easily. As such, we have selected two wishes which we are implementing together:

  • Wish #1: Quickly add infobox – an easier way for newer editors to find and insert common templates such as infoboxes.

These wishes ranked 5th and 11th in the Community Wishlist Survey 2023 respectively.

Please read more about the template picker improvements project, and leave any early feedback on the talkpage.

On behalf of Community Tech, –– STei (WMF) (talk) 21:20, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Need help with creating a consensus

About 2 months ago, I made an RFC at Talk:Somalia#Somalia showed as controlling Somaliland. After a slow RFC after which the opinion remained split, nothing happened. Owing to a recent edit war regarding the image, I am posting this here for further input so this issue can be put to bed.

This has been posted on different projects as of yet but it's still equally split. Fantastic Mr. Fox (talk) 20:51, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

You can post a close request at WP:CR. It could close as no consensus though. Which happens sometimes. The default in that case is to make no changes and leave as is. –Novem Linguae (talk) 14:27, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

WP 1.0 never returns

Starting yesterday, queries to the WP 1.0 server go into a loop that never responds. At least for me. Praemonitus (talk) 13:49, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Consider moving this to WP:VPT to alert technical folks. –Novem Linguae (talk) 14:25, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
Thank you, I have done so. Praemonitus (talk) 16:30, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Community Wishlist: Upcoming changes to survey, and work on template selection requests

Hello everyone,

We have two updates about the Community Wishlist Survey:

Update one concerns upcoming changes to the survey. In the new survey, we are experimenting with grouping similar wishes into a problem space known as Focus Area and modifying the way the community votes to complement this approach. We also have mockups of the new wish intake form. Get the full details.

The other update announces the selection of 4 related wishes around template use for fulfillment (e.g. adding infoboxes and bookmarking templates).

Please make time to read the announcements in detail, and join the discussions.

On behalf of Community Tech –– STei (WMF) (talk) 11:58, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

KOSA act blackout?

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.
It is clear the bill would not apply to Wikipedia. Cremastra (talk) 15:04, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

The "Kids Online Safety Act" (KOSA) is a bill introduced in the US Senate by Senators Richard Blumenthal (D‑CT) and Marsha Blackburn (R‑TN) in February 2022 and reintroduced in May 2023; the bill establishes guidelines meant to protect minors on covered platforms. Per Section 3.b of the proposed act, a "covered platform" (defined as "a commercial software application or electronic service that connects to the internet and that is used, or is reasonably likely to be used, by a minor.") has the duty to block a minor's access to content that is deemed harmful to them.

This puts **every** Wikimedia project in danger of being censored by the U.S. government, because not only does it count as a “covered platform” (it is used by students under 16 for study and references), but it may either force the Wikimedia Foundation to ask users to provide personal information about themselves (particularly their age) when creating a new account, or remove encyclopaedic articles under the guise of “ensuring minor safety”. If passed, the KOSA act will put information on Wikimedia projects under scrutiny by the US government, and virtually eliminate the neutrality that has been part of them for years.

Not only does the act create an excuse for information censorship (about things that the US government doesn’t favour), but also the risk of a data leak. If someone has access to the age of every single Wikimedia user, then there’d be a very real possibility that they would be leaked to the public, including those of younger editors.

Therefore, an anti-KOSA blackout should be done to stop the act from being passed (like the last time we did with SOPA and PIPA; all three bills are somewhat related to censorship).

The responsibility of protecting a minor’s information online should be done by, and taught to, the minor’s parent, and not by the government.

tynjee 13:18, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, obviously I oppose censorship, but is the legislation actually in any danger of being passed? Crazy ideas are proposed in parliaments across the world, and although U.S. politics is weirder than most, is there a reasonable chance of that legislature passing such a bill? I mean, is this an actual worry? Cremastra (talk) 13:36, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
@Cremastra i guess it is a worry; this act was introduced way back in 2022 and has 68 cosponsors at the time of writing (see https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/1409/cosponsors). sure kid safety on the internet is obviously a concern, but i don't see the point in putting an "age" option when creating a new wikipedia account tynjee 14:02, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
Oh, God, no, we don't want an age option, that would privacy invasion and just silly. To be clear, I think this bill has potential for abuse/censorship, although it means well, I'm just assessing whether we really need to be worried here or not. Cremastra (talk) 15:06, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
The definition in the bill of a "covered platform" excludes "an organization not organized to carry on business for its own profit or that of its members" (section 2(3)(B)(ii)). Phil Bridger (talk) 14:02, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
How should we parse that quote? If it's "a commercial (software application or electronic service)" then non-profits should be exempt. If it's "a (commercial software application) or electronic service" then we might not, as we clearly offer an electronic service. Disclaimer: I am neither a lawyer nor an American. Certes (talk) 14:11, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
That comment seems to relate to the OP's quote rather than to mine. The quote I provided is pretty clear that non-profits are not covered by the bill. Phil Bridger (talk) 14:18, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
(edit conflict) If you read things in context it's clear enough. The part you quote is part of the general definition in 2(3)(A), while Phil Bridger's quote is part of a list of specific exclusions from 2(3)(A). Anomie⚔ 14:25, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
So just to make this crystal clear: are non-profits excluded? Dronebogus (talk) 14:43, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
According to one of the sponsors, Blumenthal, non-profits are excluded from KOSA. [1]

Does the Kids Online Safety Act cover platforms run by non-profit organizations?
No, websites run by non-profits organizations – which often host important and valuable educational and support services – are not covered by the scope of the legislation.

Masem (t) 15:22, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
It sounds like Wikipedia and sites like it were explicitly considered and written around. In other words, this has virtually no effect on us. Dronebogus (talk) 04:07, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
The foundation pays lawyers. Have they said anything anywhere about this bill and how it may or may not affect this project? ElKevbo (talk) 15:11, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
I said the same thing at meta. I looked at the foundation website and blog and the answer is seemingly “no”. Dronebogus (talk) 04:06, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
I recall that there were at least some statements made on the matter. This CNBC article from 2022 says: The American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Democracy & Technology, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, GLAAD and Wikimedia Foundation were among the more than 90 groups that wrote to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Ranking Member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., opposing the Kids Online Safety Act.
When I started typing this comment, I would have bet $5 that we'd written about KOSA in the Signpost at some point in the last couple years (and an additional $2 that I was the one who'd written about it), but a search gives me absolutely nothing. It may be that it's hard to distinguish between the Kids Online Safety Act (US) from the Online Safety Act (UK) and the Digital Services Act (EU), even by epicly bigbrained policy wonks and/or journalists. jp×g🗯️ 23:45, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
Not that anyone was holding their breath on this, but I did find a page of notes from August '23 where I was going to try to mention KOSA in a special report, although I seem to never have actually done so. jp×g🗯️ 05:15, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
Is it that time of the year where we discuss a blackout? It was disruptive advocacy in 2012, and it would be disruptive advocacy now. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:21, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
It was based, actually. jp×g🗯️ 23:36, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
The SOPA blackout was definitely supported by the community because it 100% threatened the fundamental ability of Wikipedia to operate. (see [2]) This bill, as it appears to be in its language, immediately exempts non-profit organizations and websites they maintain from it, so there is no existential threat to WP. So it would be disruptive advocacy to push for any type of project-level notice. Of course, it still would be best to have WMF Legal to review and make sure we're clear on this. Masem (t) 03:48, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
The UK Online Safety Act 2023 provoked similar recent debate, leading to direct statements from WMF and non-compliance. I would expect more activity than this from WMF if they thought US legislation would have similar impact, and substantially more activity before it becomes an en.wiki issue (the WMF having a broader set of interests than en.wiki). CMD (talk) 05:47, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
I think the drafters of the bill were quite possibly looking at the arguable failure of OSA ‘23 when writing it, and specifically wanted to avoid accidentally kneecapping one of the biggest educational websites on the planet. Dronebogus (talk) 14:00, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
The KOSA blackout would be an effective protest. Other sites, including Miraheze might start blackout if the vote on legislation is started. Ahri.boy (talk) 11:01, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
If you want to protest, find another way to do so. Wikipedia is not the right venue for protests. No blackout please. Blueboar (talk) 11:51, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
I don't know about KOSA act, but I think that, if protest is considered convenient, things such as a black banner in the upper part of Wikimedia pages is a much more appropriate way to protest, in place of causing inconvenience to users. MGeog2022 (talk) 12:25, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
Protest is supposed to be disruptive. Cremastra (talk) 13:10, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
It should be disruptive for who you are protesting against... it shouldn't be disruptive for Wikipedia users who have nothing to do with it (especially, users from countries other than the United States, who have no relationship with KOSA act or even the election of the politicians that proposed it). MGeog2022 (talk) 13:18, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
There is no need for anyone to disrupt anything, because it was ascertained within an hour of this thread being opened that the bill does not apply to Wikipedia, a non-profit. Why on Earth is this thread still open? Can nobody read plain English? Phil Bridger (talk) 14:49, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
Besides the quote from the sponsor, we can always read the bill text.
Aaron Liu (talk) 00:07, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
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.

Sign up for the language community meeting on May 31st, 16:00 UTC

Hello all,

The next language community meeting is scheduled in a few weeks - May 31st at 16:00 UTC. If you're interested, you can sign up on this wiki page.

This is a participant-driven meeting, where we share language-specific updates related to various projects, collectively discuss technical issues related to language wikis, and work together to find possible solutions. For example, in the last meeting, the topics included the machine translation service (MinT) and the languages and models it currently supports, localization efforts from the Kiwix team, and technical challenges with numerical sorting in files used on Bengali Wikisource.

Do you have any ideas for topics to share technical updates related to your project? Any problems that you would like to bring for discussion during the meeting? Do you need interpretation support from English to another language? Please reach out to me at ssethi(__AT__)wikimedia.org and add agenda items to the document here.

We look forward to your participation!


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Discussion notice

Information icon There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Growth Team features#Should English Wikipedia enable the Suggested Links newcomer task? regarding the technical implementation of the "add a link" newcomer task. Thank you. Folly Mox (talk) 13:06, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Concerns about Internet Archive

As I have talked about both in Wikimedia Forum and in the Internet Archive's one, Archive's Wayback Machine, being a very important resource for Wikipedia (it's where many article references come from, and where all references will always be forwarded if the original source some day disappears), can't be taken for granted, because almost all its content is hosted only in an area with great natural risks. It strikes me (negatively) that no one has replied to my post on Archive's forums. Perhaps people are more concerned with day-to-day issues, and dismiss this as long-term paranoia, but I think this is currently the most important issue regarding human knowledge's future. If Archive is eventually lost, Wikipedia and its sister projects, will be even more important than they are now, as the memory of the start of 21st century (and of other previous times), but it would be really sad to lose so much content as Archive has. If there's anyone here that shares my concern, he/she could, if has an Archive account (or wants to create one), and wanted to do it, talk about it in the thread that I opened at Archive's forum. I think that this is a very important issue, for everyone, as persons, but especially as wikipedians/wikimedians. MGeog2022 (talk) 11:36, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't think this is as big of a problem as you think it is. According to the presentation by Jonah Edwards all of their data is in in the Bay Area in at least 4 different data centers (San Francisco, Oakland, Richmond, etc) and data is replicated across multiple data centers. In your post you mentioned the 3-2-1 backup rule, but that rule of thumb doesn't require the data to be replicated to different states or countries. Aside from an event like that from The Day After Tomorrow it is extremely unlikely that anything could cause the data to be lost in all these locations simultaneously. The only real risk is that a power outage can (and has) taken the archive offline. On that risk, I am perhaps less concerned than others as I don't believe an archive needs to have strict availability requirements - libraries and other physical archives close for the night without any problems. Mokadoshi (talk) 17:07, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
@Mokadoshi, thanks for your reply. Power outages aren't a big problem, I wasn't thinking about that (the archive ceases to be online for a time, but the important thing is that no data is lost).
you mentioned the 3-2-1 backup rule: as far as I know (unless I'm missing something), they don't store 3 copies of (perhaps an important) part of their data, so 3-2-1 can't be met then. They have 4 datacenters, but not all data is stored in all of them.
it is extremely unlikely that anything could cause the data to be lost in all these locations simultaneously: I hope so. I do know that 3-2-1 rule doesn't require different states or countries, but I fear that all copies are in an area that can (and will) be hit by a huge earthquake. Perhaps I am overestimating the consequences of such an earthquake, and none will ever cause huge damages both in Oakland and San Francisco at the same time, for example. MGeog2022 (talk) 20:13, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
Why do people like… live in California? Seems like a death trap. Dronebogus (talk) 14:45, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
Actually, I think a problem with the issue of power failures affecting archived materials/information is bigger than the interruptions of electricity generated by humans. A certain natural phenomenon that occurred last weekend; solar storms that allowed aurora borealis to be seen in areas of the world that would normally remain unaffected. I'd be concerned about a so—called "Carrington Event" wiping out electronic archives. Apparently humanity will have enough notice to react in good time. I cannot pretend to understand this fully but, I am reliably informed that as long as electrical devices are switched off before the event then remain switched off for the duration, all should be well. Does anyone else know or recognise what I'm writing about? Does anyone know who will be performing such duties? Asking for a friend . . . DieselEstate (talk) 06:41, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
Turning off a device isn't enough. A strong electromagnetic field can induce a current in a powered-down device - crucially, in parts of the device that aren't designed with that in mind. The good news is that EMI is something that electronic devices already have to deal with, and this is why shielding is used (some data centres advertise their use of a faraday cage). The bad news is that this shielding may not be adequate in a severe event, and I doubt there has been any robust testing. The best defence we have is to keep lots of copies. An internet archive backup site located under a large rock in Australia would be nice. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 08:13, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
Carrington Event took place in 1859. Electric and telecommunication (telegraph) infraestructure at that time was very primitive, even if compared to that of the early 20th Century (let alone the 21st Century). The Wikipedia article on it says:
A geomagnetic storm of this magnitude occurring today has the potential to cause widespread electrical disruptions, blackouts, and damage due to extended outages of the electrical power grid.
I don't think this is likely to cause permanent damage to storage devices. The events this month caused some problems, but I think that even a far stronger solar storm wouldn't cause anything close to an apocalyptic event with today's technology. MGeog2022 (talk) 12:19, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
I agree wholeheartedly with your concern but not because of natural disaster risk. The bigger risk at the moment is litigation over the former National Emergency Library service. The outcome remains uncertain - it could be a manageable out-of-court settlement with the four companies driving the current lawsuit, or it could be the start of a wave of lawsuits by other copyright owners (and there are a lot of them). There is a possibility that this will pose an existential threat to the Internet Archive, either by bankrupting it, or by forcing judgements that narrow the scope of fair use so as to render their "free access" mission impossible to deliver legally.
Personally I think the IA have acted recklessly, not just over the NEL, but in taking a cavalier attitude towards ingestion and distribution of non-free content. They have allowed members of the public to upload material with very little oversight. They host copies of material which is not significantly at risk of being lost (legal deposit libraries are doing fine). Some of their preservation activity is good and valuable (maintaining copies of niche works that are genuinely at risk), but they are playing with fire by redistributing copies of everything. This all serves to distract from, and endanger, what should be their primary mission: archiving websites. This is the area where nobody else (including the deposit libraries) is stepping up. The Wayback Machine is the unique copy of historical websites. We are used to web sources disappearing; we are unprepared for the Wayback Machine to disappear.
Since Wikipedia relies so heavily on IA-archived copies of website sources, we should have a strong interest in addressing this single point of failure. I have some ideas, but unfortunately the WMF seems to be strongly averse to hosting non-free content[3]. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 22:08, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
I agree, though I think that the Internet Archive's primary purpose is to archive everything that's getting outdated and rare; the wayback machine is only one part of this.
Personally, I also feel like archive.today is a superior service for everyone not using cloudflare as their DNS. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:51, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
archive.today is weird and opaque. It’s a very effective paywall-buster, but I don’t have a lot of confidence in its long-term survival. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 17:12, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
Internet Archive Canada has mirrors. I don't know to what extent and capacity as of today, but I know they are working to expand it.
Also, regarding the lawsuit: "What the Hachette v. Internet Archive Decision Means for Our Library" which states: "The Internet Archive may still digitize books for preservation purposes, and may still provide access to our digital collections [such as] “short portions” of books as is consistent with fair use — for example, Wikipedia references as shown in the image above." So there is no "uncertainty" for Wikipedia purposes, we are clear to continue linking "short portions" of books in citations - almost exactly how Google Books works. The lawsuit only concerned the use of Controlled Digital Lending ie. the lending of complete copies (not "short passages") which is an entirely different animal and not so important for Wikipedia purposes. -- GreenC 18:32, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
Yes, (which is also what Baranards said), but there is a possibility that they go bankrupt as a result of dying on this hill. Aaron Liu (talk) 18:33, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
Baranards said this particular lawsuit is "uncertain". But a reading of "What the Hachette v. Internet Archive Decision Means for Our Library" is helpful. This is where things are today.
In my opinion, as a legal public library, it is the Archive's mandate to lend holdings to patrons. If the courts allow corporations to sue libraries out of existence for doing what libraries do, that is a dystopian vision, because they won't stop at Internet Archive. It's possible we as a society will allow this to happen. My concern is not only for libraries, but all open access knowledge. The solution is to become aware of the war on libraries, the fight against open knowledge, and support politicians and entities who are in this fight. It is happening all over the world in many countries. -- GreenC 19:33, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
Well, the National Emergency Library wasn't what libraries do, but unfortunately there is a slight possibility that the Internet Archive will continue its current course that die on its hill that unlimited borrowing should be legal as it has costly and fight themselves out of existence. I'd say it's more the Internet Archive's fault. Aaron Liu (talk) 21:34, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
IA and many libraries around the world believe the NEL and CDL is what libraries do. Explained here. I hope you will consider supporting public libraries vs the controlling financial interests of a few powerful publishing corporations. -- GreenC 23:25, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
What other libraries offer unlimited borrowing? Also, could you point me to a page number? It is definitely true that authors' profits can be seriously harmed when you can just go to the Internet Archive all the time no matter what instead of buying an ebook, not just corporations.
Also, who should win in the lawsuit seems irrelevant to the current discussion about survival of the concerned modules. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:34, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
IA's Open Library does not do "unlimited borrowing". They require that you make an account and explicitly check out each book. Until you return it, nobody else can check it out. This is precisely what a dead-tree library does.
I can verify that they enforce the single-checkout function. I had a WP:FAC where I had to check something in one of my sources and found that I couldn't check the book out because somebody else had it. It turns out, the somebody else was one of my reviewers! We went back and forth a couple of times with each person checking it back in so the other could borrow it. RoySmith (talk) 23:37, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
Except for a period of time in 2020 where anyone could borrow a book as long as they pass a verification against sockpuppets and don't borrow more than 10 books at once. It was called the "National Emergency Library". Aaron Liu (talk) 23:38, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
It should be noted here that Green C has been paid by the Internet Archive; he correctly reveals this connection on his user page, but we should see it as relevant to his discussion whenever the IA is the topic.
As a publisher, a Wikipedia editor, and a copyright-holding author of work for which the IA offers an unlicensed electronic edition of their own creation, I've long been concerned about our reliance on IA and the way in which it has been used. While they provide a wonderful resource when they work with material in the public domain, we commonly do things like provide archive links to web pages that are still live, which flies in the face of WP:COPYVIOEL. Years back, they bought used bookseller Better World Books and their ongoing efforts to integrate with Wikipedia are linked to that (To pull something I said in a discussion about IA here in 2020 To quote the Library Journal on the purchase, IA founder and digital librarian Brewster Kahle told LJ’s Lisa Peet that the acquisition—and its pipeline of titles for digitization—would also facilitate broader ongoing efforts at IA to link internet content with relevant, reliable source material. “What we’re trying to do is weave books into the Internet itself, starting with Wikipedia,” Kahle said. [...] "We now have over 120,000 Wikipedia citations pointing to over 40,000 books, but we want to get to millions of links going to millions of books. The way we’re going to get there is by working really closely with Better World Books.” That's pretty blatant.) They put links to their bookstore on the book pages of books that their bookstore has in stock, making these sales pages.
The availability of a digital copy of referenced materials is certainly a convenience when it can be done in a legal and ethical way. However, it is not a requirement for a reference; the existence of a physical copy is sufficient. As such, we shouldn't be too worried about the risks of the Archive's disappearance either from ecological or legal drivers. If it's heavily integrated into Wikipedia, that is in good part due to the efforts of IA and their paid agents. In general, we should be more carefully considering the extent to which we use IA and allow IA to use us.
(In the interest of transparency, I have not gone to check all of which publishers are currently involved in the lawsuit, but it presumably includes publishers who have paid me to write material for them in the past. However, none of this pay was related to my Wikipedia editing.) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 15:11, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
I agree that our rules accept a citation which contains enough information to locate a physical copy of the book in a traditional library as sufficient. But it's an understatement to pass off a URL to an on-line copy as merely "a convenience".
I am privileged to have access to one of the greatest public libraries in the world. For the portion of their collection which circulates, they'll even deliver materials to my local branch (at no cost to me!) where I can pick them up, a 5 minute walk from my front door. Much of the collection does not circulate, so I need to (first world problem) schlep downtown to view it at a research library, where somebody will retrieve it from storage and deliver it to me at a desk. Again, at no cost to me. It is easy to become jaded when you grow up with this.
Alas, much of the world can't imagine access to a collection of this size and depth. Digitizing materials make them available to a vastly greater audience. There reaches a point where "convenience" transitions into "making possible", and we're already past that point. Today, we can deliver the world's knowledge to anybody in the remotest village anywhere that has Internet connectivity. which is pretty close to everywhere, and getting closer. It is the great equalizer.
At some point, libraries will no longer be able to justify the cost of storing their collections of books on paper, and they'll get thrown out. It is inevitable. If those materials haven't been preserved in digital form, they'll be lost forever. We'll save a few to put in museums so we can show our grandchildren how information was stored in the ancient days. IA may not be how digital libraries will look in the future, but they're a step in the right direction. And it is certainly true that today's copyright laws were designed in an era where "accessing information" and "having possession of a physical object" were one and the same, which is no longer true. As with so many things, when technology moves quickly, the law struggles to keep up. RoySmith (talk) 19:31, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
I am not at all worried about the IA’s book archive (because alternatives exist) and I agree that Wikipedia does not depend greatly on it. Citations to offline sources are fine. It would be great (for readers) if all sources were freely accessible online, but I don’t think either Wikipedia or the Internet Archive should be activist organisations that invite legal trouble by flouting or pushing the boundaries of copyright law.
Rather, it’s specifically the Wayback Machine I’m worried about. There’s nothing comparable, no offline fallback option like there is for books, and if it gets shut down that information is lost forever. I am worried that copyright activism puts this unique resource at risk, and I say that as someone who thinks there is a lot of mileage in copyright reform.
I would like to see a Wikimedia-hosted Limited Access Source Archive designed specifically for our needs, along the following lines:
  • Automatic archiving of cited URLs across all language Wikipedias.
  • Entirely independent of the Internet Archive.
  • Focus on web archiving only; leave books, video, audio, and software out.
  • No crawling / spidering / indexing the whole web. Just archive the links that are used in Wikipedia articles.
  • Legally defensive "fair use friendly" features:
    • No public access by default
    • No access at all to archived content until 30 days have passed, to discourage being used as a hot news paywall-buster
    • Access granted to editors on similar terms to The Wikipedia Library (6 months / 500 edits / good standing)
However, I think the WMF has deep rooted opinions/principles on non-free content (see the link I posted above) and this would be a significant departure. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 20:59, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
I think that this (not relying on external resources for archival of web citations) is a really great idea. For the scope of Wikipedia/Wikimedia, it would fully solve the exposed problem. Of course, thinking more broadly, a solution that preserved all Archive's content would be better. For that to be possible, perhaps a review and purge of unnecessary content (especially, really big unnecessary content; I bet there is, and a lot of it) should be carried on at Archive itself, but this exceeds Wikimedia's scope. MGeog2022 (talk) 19:44, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
I don't think we should impose that much of a burden on WMF. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:03, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
I/we don't have power to impose anything on WMF. It's only an idea, and I think it is a very good one. It could be feasible if WMF has enough financial resources and wants to do it. MGeog2022 (talk) 11:28, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
To better clarify it, when I say perhaps a review and purge of unnecessary content should be carried on at Archive itself, there I'm not talking about any WMF involvement, I say that Archive itself perhaps should address this issue if it's blocking them from having enough backups (but of course this isn't a Wikimedia issue at all). MGeog2022 (talk) 11:42, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
I suspect (he says, waving his Not A Lawyer flag vigorously) that any "fair use" defense of such a scheme would be strengthened by simply not displaying the archive link for pages that are still live and substantially unchanged, addressing the fourth factor in fair use evaluation (the effect upon the work's value.) This would show Wikipedia is not attempting to compete with a commercial display of the copyrighted material. Frankly, it is something that we should already be doing -- designing the templates so that the archive listing is displayed only if the page is no longer available or reliable as a source. Instead, web references are being turned into advertisements for the IA by a bot sponsored by the IA. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 20:25, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
Production scripts in the Wikimedia ecosystem can't even differentiate between live web pages and custom 404s (to say nothing of whether a live page reflects the same content it had at time of citation), so that would be a whole entire project unto itself. And what if the site is live but region locked? Or won't load on my browser even though the archived copy does? Or won't load unless the domain is whitelisted on the client's ad blocker? Folly Mox (talk) 20:44, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
We can, at the very least, use the same user-marked method that we use for whether to display the archive link first -- if someone marks url-status as dead. We cannot be responsible for every possible impediment to reading the source; we should take a path of minimizing both legal risk and damage. Verifiabiility does not call for every reference being readable at a single click on every browser in every condition. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 20:59, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
Internet Archive Canada has mirrors. I don't know to what extent and capacity as of today, but I know they are working to expand it. If a full (or almost full) copy is really under construction in a distant location, it's really good news. Greater transparency about it on their part would be appreciated, though (there is almost no updated information about it since it was first proposed in 2016; the only articles that I could find about it only talk about the opening of their Canada headquarters, but make no mention about if they actually host any content). MGeog2022 (talk) 12:07, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
I think that natural disaster is indeed by far the greater risk. Any attempt to destroy Internet Archive judicially would be such a barbarity that it would probably be stopped and a more logic agreement would be reached. Even if Internet Archive as such disappeared, I think some wealthy people would finance the creation of a new foundation to preserve its contents, given the catastrophe that its disappearance would be.
With all copies in an earthquake-prone area, I think this is by far the biggest risk. Unlike judicial procedures (or even hurricanes), the time to react to save it is absolutely 0. That's the really terrible thing about earthquakes. MGeog2022 (talk) 19:28, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
One might hope that there are enough philanthropic tech billionaires for one of them to step in and save the archive, but would we definitely trust them to run it? We take the integrity of the IA for granted. I'm not sure I'd automatically extend that trust if it were reincarnated as archive.x.com. Even if we had nothing to fear from from judges and earthquakes, a second independent archiving service would be a great reassurance. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 14:47, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
I wasn't thinking about a single billionaire running the Archive, but some wealthy people (not necessarily billionaires) or foundations donating large sums of money, and ordinary people donating the remainder (that is, basically the same way that WMF and the current Archive work). Of course, the scenario you mention wouldn't be desirable at all.
a second independent archiving service would be a great reassurance: I couldn't agree more on it. Or even the same archiving service, but with better backups and financial/legal reliability (for example, there is only one WMF, but I haven't the same fears about it than I have about Archive: it has standard backup practices, no main datacenters in big earthquake areas, it takes no legal risks, and has very solid finances). MGeog2022 (talk) 12:05, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
I agree with the concerns but disagree fully with the proposed stance: if we're going to treat these archival services like infrastructure in this imperfect situation, and we are, we should treat them like infrastructure, and not scatter our resources around. It wouldn't constitute redundancy, it would constitute weakness and two dead archives to cry over instead of one with enough flexibility and support to adapt to material and societal adversities. Remsense诉 12:10, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
I think that 2 dead archives is something highly unlikely (unless both are placed in San Francisco or a similar place, of course :-D). But I understand that a single organization is much more efficient, as long as it offers the necessary guarantees, such as proper backup policies (at suitable locations carefully selected), and perhaps something like Wikimedia Endowment, to secure its financial future. MGeog2022 (talk) 12:18, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
If you're building an archive, you need to be thinking deep about the threats and how to mitigate them. For sure, the physical threat of earthquakes argues for geographic diversity. But it's also good to have corporate diversity; two sites run by different corporate entities are not going to be taken down if one entity goes out of business, or gets bought out. See, for example MySQL or Freenode.
For that matter, infrastructure diversity is valuable. Having one copy hosted on linux and another copy hosted on Windows eliminates a lot of OS-targeted attack surface. RoySmith (talk) 12:54, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
I am not entirely sure your first paragraph maps onto IA's status as a non-profit which on some level intends to be public infrastructure. Remsense诉 13:18, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
My issue is that I no longer have full faith in the IA to deliver on that public infrastructure mission without getting distracted by legally risky activism. Looking at their blog post from last year on the Hachette matter:

Libraries are going to have to fight to be able to buy, preserve, and lend digital books outside of the confines of temporary licensed access. We deeply appreciate your support as we continue this fight!

This suggests to me that they intend to keep pushing boundaries. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 13:41, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
I agree with your assessment most of the way. I am conflicted, but can't help but come to the conclusion that you have to dance with the one who brought you, both because they're right to some degree (the activism is important if risky, it will only get worse without someone with clout in court about it) and there's simply no other game in town. Putting a thumb on the scale isn't free, it's exactly that they're worth something to society (even many of the otherwise apathetic or antagonistic power players out there—it's nice to have a copy of the internet for them too) that gives them a chance. Maybe. Remsense诉 14:08, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
I meant "corporate" in the broader sense of "whatever person or group of people controls the entity". Even non-profits have changes of control and the new administration may not be as good stewards as the old ones. Or they may suffer from fiscal mismanagement and just plain run out of money. Or, as discussed above, they may be sued into oblivion. RoySmith (talk) 13:43, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
The Internet Archive seems to have two rather different functions: to preserve the Internet and to let people read books online. Both are helpful to Wikipedia but neither is crucial. Sources do not have to be available online. Phil Bridger (talk) 14:58, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
Surely the former is? If the IA got knocked out, a huge chunk of claims made on Wikipedia would no longer be verifiable. Remsense诉 14:59, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
Indeed; Bridger's comment is silly to say the least. Yes, it's true that sources don't have to be available online, but they do have to be available somewhere. I'm as surprised as anyone that archive.today is still kicking, but the IA remains the only platform that can make a somewhat credible case for at least having the potential to stick around longterm. Dr. Duh 🩺 (talk) 15:18, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
and to let people read books access rare material Aaron Liu (talk) 17:55, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
If you think they limit themselves to "rare material", you have misestimated what they're offering. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 18:20, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
Yeah, they've extended into a great library, but their primary purpose is to prevent loss of information. Just look at their folk song collection. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:08, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Weird Wikipedia Search Result

Inappropriate, rude nastiness appearing in blurb of search result for "The Spike" essay by George Orwell. Can anyone help get it deleted? It is only returned +/- 1 in 5 times of search. Seemingly linked to orwell.ru website although I am not suggesting they are responsible. DieselEstate (talk) 06:59, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Hello @DieselEstate: can you confirm if this is the Wikipedia search function or Google? I can't reproduce this on Wikipedia. We have no control over the Google blurb or the knowledge panel here. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 14:05, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation banner fundraising campaign in Malaysia starts next week

Dear all,

As mentioned previously,  the WMF is running its annual banner fundraising campaign for non logged in users in Malaysia (on English Wikipedia only) from 28th of May to the 25th of June..

Generally, before and during the campaign, you can contact us:

Thanks you and regards, JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 09:46, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation banner fundraising campaign in South starts next week

Dear all,

As mentioned previously, the WMF is running its annual banner fundraising campaign for non logged in users in South Africa (on English Wikipedia) from 28th of May to the 25th of June.

You can find more information around the campaign, see example banners, and leave any questions or suggestions you might have, on the community collaboration page.

Generally, before and during the campaign, you can contact us:

Thanks you and regards, JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 09:49, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for working closely with the South African community @JBrungs (WMF). If there are any inputs from our end, we shall let you know.Bobbyshabangu talk 10:00, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Art Project about Userboxes

Hello, I'm an art student conducting research on Userboxes.

I made a tool to browse through your Userbox social graph, which you can check out at: https://lucaszuidema.com/network.html. And I'm hoping to gain more insight into why Wikipedians put Userboxes on their User Pages, and what the social function of them can be.

Do you have Userboxes on your page? Or do you actively choose not to use them? I'd love to interview you about your Userboxes (or lack thereof), and for your insights to be published on a website, together with the graph.

If you're interested in participating, please send me a message on my talk page, or send me an email via the sidebar. As a reward for participating (for all you Userbox collectors out there), you'll get a special Userbox to put on your User Page.

Thanks a lot!

Lucasorigami (talk) 18:14, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Feedback invited on Procedure for Sibling Project Lifecycle

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

Dear community members,

The Community Affairs Committee (CAC) of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees invites you to give feedback on a draft Procedure for Sibling Project Lifecycle. This draft Procedure outlines proposed steps and requirements for opening and closing Wikimedia Sibling Projects, and aims to ensure any newly approved projects are set up for success. This is separate from the procedures for opening or closing language versions of projects, which is handled by the Language Committee or closing projects policy.

You can find the details on this page, as well as the ways to give your feedback from today until the end of the day on June 23, 2024, anywhere on Earth.

You can also share information about this with the interested project communities you work with or support, and you can also help us translate the procedure into more languages, so people can join the discussions in their own language.

On behalf of the CAC,

RamzyM (WMF) 02:25, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Senior Secretary of Cadres for CPSU existed or not?

Hello, I'm researching historical positions within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) because Andrei Kirilenko (politician) page have the position called "Senior Secretary of Cadres." However, I haven't been able to find much information about it. Did this position officially exist within the CPSU, and if so, what were its responsibilities? Any guidance or references would be greatly appreciated. Thank you! SleepyJoe42 (talk) 09:27, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

You can try asking at the Wikipedia:Reference desk. This page is for discussing improvements to the article. Donald Albury 14:07, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
@Donald Albury: Your reply is confusing. Why would you say that the Village Pump is for discussing article improvements? RudolfRed (talk) 02:28, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
Forgot what page I was looking at, thought it was the talk page for an article. This is still not really the place to answer questions about the real world. Donald Albury 11:59, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Is this discrimination?(Transcription)

IT'S NOT DISCRIMINATION
Users with some mental disorders, such as pedophilia, are not very rational or discriminatory in their involvement with Wikipedia. --H.K.pauw (talk · contribs) 05:43, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

(Transcribed from here) "pedophiles, will be blocked and banned indefinitely." I was curious about the sentence, but isn't this equivalent to discrimination against the mentally ill? --H.K.pauw (talk · contribs) 05:14, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Certain mental illnesses and conditions are incompatible with collectively building an encyclopedia. This is one of them. Another, for example, could be being intoxicated to the point of disruption, delusions, and severe intellectual disabilities that prevent competent contributions EvergreenFir (talk) 05:36, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
@H.K.pauw: Not all pedophiles are mentally ill. Also, on the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog. So unless if an account tries to get over-friendly with minor/shows danger, then that account wouldn't be blocked. Like EvergreenFir said above, the goal of Wikipedia community is to build an encyclopeadia through collaboration. No matter what behavior causes problems to that, is not permitted. This includes pedophilia among other things. WP:NOT Wikipedia is not a social networking site, nor a dating site, nor a platform for pedophiles. —usernamekiran (talk) 05:45, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
@Usernamekiran:It's okay if it's not harming Wikipedia? H.K.pauw (talk · contribs) 06:11, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
@H.K.pauw: Wikipedia is neither omnipotent, nor a policing authority. What anybody does in their personal lives is out of scope of Wikipedia. I recommend you to concentrate on content creation, and if you have any suggestions to make changes to WP:child protection, then I recommend you to start relevant discussion here. —usernamekiran (talk) 17:36, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
I'm not asking how users with specific mental disabilities affect Wikipedia. I'm asking if it's tantamount to discrimination against people with mental disabilities. --H.K.pauw (talk · contribs) 09:14, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
This is not a place to exchange views about discrimination. This talk page is to discuss improvements to the wording at Wikipedia:Child protection. Please stop posting off-topic commentary here. Johnuniq (talk) 09:30, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
@EvergreenFir:I am sorry. It's about this page, so I wrote it here. In response to your point, I transcribed it to Village pump .--H.K.pauw (talk · contribs) 09:51, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

(Transcribed here) --H.K.pauw (talk · contribs) 09:51, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

An interested ethics question. The short answer is "no."
Discrimination against the mentally ill is generally categorized a subtype of discrimination against the disabled. Like all matters if discrimination, it is a fallacy to think of it in absolutist, black-and-white terms. It's not a iron-clad moral stance that must be followed to the letter no matter what; there are always exceptions. Certain types of medical research for example are based on things like skin type or genetic markers. Likewise, with disabilities there is the principle if "reasonable accommodation." There are many ways to be accommodating to the needs of someone with a disability, but sometimes accommodating is impossible, would require too much resources, or doing so would violate the rights of others. A person who is completely vision impaired will not be allowed to drive a car or fly a plane (with current technology anyway), and that is not discrimination. Mental illness in particular is a very broad range of conditions, which cause: subjective distress, impairment of function, and/or a drive or behavior causing harm the self or others. Many types of accommodation to alleviate distress or assist with function are reasonable. However, the harm the self or others has no need to be "accommodated." This is the reason why individuals can be held against their will when mental illness causes them to be suicidal or violent. Harm also doesn't have to be physical; psychosis, personality disorders and mood disorders are well known for causing people to be irritating, threatening, verbally abusive, or manipulative. We do not "accommodate" that either. An example was a lawsuit many years ago brought by a person who'd been expelled from a non-profit after he repeatedly made racist jokes, claiming his autism prevented him from judging the social inappropriateness of the joke, and that the non-profit was discriminating against him based on his mental illness. The judge threw his case out immediately.
With pedophilia specifically, it's often overlooked that the reason it's a mental illness is because it causes a drive to do harm. People with this condition generally fall into two types: with insight, and without insight. Pedophiles with insight know their drive is dangerous and harmful, and actively work against it, seeking treatment and refraining from pursing their drives. They are very unlikely to advertise that they are a pedophile on Wikipedia, and are less of a concern when it comes using Wikipedia for seeking victims or spreading false information. So they are unlikely be discriminated against as a result of this policy. Pedophiles without insight think their impulses are normal and that acting on them doesn't cause harm. They are more likely to openly declare themselves, and are also at a much, much greater risk for using Wikipedia as a propaganda tool by spreading false or biased information via editing, or trying to seek victims. This literally already happened. For this reason, it would not seem all that "reasonable" to accommodate such users on an encyclopedia.Legitimus (talk) 16:48, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
@Legitimus:Does this mean that users with mental disabilities are not allowed to participate in Wikipedia? --H.K.pauw (talk · contribs) 01:22, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
Asking such a question after the detailed explanation I wrote is concerning. I'd guess either a language barrier, or ulterior motives.Legitimus (talk) 01:29, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
Speaking as someone who is mentally ill the answer to the question posed by the OP is very simple: no. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:51, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
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.

CentralNotice for Bengla Wikibooks contest

A contest will take place from June 1, 2024, to June 30, 2024, on Bangla Wikibooks to enrich its content. A central notice request has been placed to target both English and Bangla Wikipedia users, including non-registered users from Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. Thank you. —MdsShakil (talk) 10:00, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Turn off Media Viewer option removed for IP users?

Has the ability to turn off Media Viewer been removed for users without accounts? I recently reset my cookies, and now I don't see the option to turn off Media Viewer anymore.

-- 65.92.244.237 (talk) 14:09, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

It's still there for me. Look on the upper edge, for a vertical column of icons (approximately ✖️ 🔲 ⛭). The gear-shaped settings icon has an option for disabling it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:51, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
Ok, I think something broke when I turned on experimental dark mode in about flags. (it breaks many things) -- 65.92.244.237 (talk) 13:10, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

I’m looking to create a Jet Lag: The Game themed userbox. I know this qualifies as fair use under U.S. law, however the Wikipedia upload tool for non free content says that it has to be for an article, explicitly stating “no userspace”, so what is the best way to proceed?
Iovecodeabc (talk) 00:48, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

@Iovecodeabc: Wikipedia policy is stricter than the "fair use" law. You can only use non-free content by following WP:NFCC, and that includes only using it in articles. You can create a user box that says "This user plays Jet Lag: The Game" but you can't use any copyrighted images/screenshots etc in that userbox. RudolfRed (talk) 01:12, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Rename Draft:Pepe to Policemen Story

There is an error in the title and the article should be renamed. 2A02:9130:803B:C427:7879:15DD:A35C:63C1 (talk) 14:17, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

I renamed it to Draft:Policemen Story, submitted it to AFC for you, and made an edit in the edit history mentioning that it was translated (in order to comply with WP:CWW). Hope that helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 14:51, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
Was this released in English as "Policemen Story", do English-language reviews call it that, or is there a prominent fan translation with that title? If not, then the article should appear under the Spanish title "Una historia de policias" and not under the English name. -- 65.92.244.237 (talk) 02:58, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Help us rename the Community wishlist

Hey folks - WMF is making updates to our Community Wishlist, from making it open year round to prioritizing "focus areas" of user submitted ideas, requests, and bugs that share an underlying problem.

In this process, we've realized we're outgrowing the the name "Community Wishlist Survey" and I wanted to get your feedback on a few other options. We've offered 3 ideas, and if you have another preference, we welcome you to suggest alternatives! JWheeler-WMF (talk) 21:31, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

I suggest you spend all the effort that would be spent on renaming on fulfilling requests on the wishlist. The name doesn't matter, and all of the options are objectively worse. It's a survey of the community about what features they wish existed. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:34, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
Can't you see there's important bike-shedding to be done? Jason Quinn (talk) 21:18, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
I'm totally in agreement with SFR. Changing the name is silly, both because it's accurate as is and because it wastes effort which could more profitably be spent writing code to fill more of the wishlist items. RoySmith (talk) 22:18, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
In my opinion, the existing name describes the process clearly and has some recognition. It seems more precise than the other options presented, and I'm unable to come up with a different term which would be an improvement. Certes (talk) 21:44, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
I agree with the others. The existing name is both descriptive and familiar. Dramatically changing the underlying process already makes the process significantly difficult for folks to adjust to. Changing the name makes it more obscure and harder for people to find. I'd suggest using this time to make the new process as thrilling and synergistic as the old process was. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 22:10, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
Hey, all, please share your views over there, instead of setting up a WP:TALKFORK here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:15, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
(In Herb Tarlek voice) OK fine. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 22:35, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
I've not commented on Meta, as I'm just here to edit English Wikipedia and don't have time to monitor yet another forum, but doing nothing sounds like an economical and productive way forward. Certes (talk) 08:54, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Rule of Three

Has there been anybody who tried to complete the rule of three when it comes to "Editing Wikipedia while driving" and "Editing Wikipedia while drunk" on Wikipedia:Deleted articles with freaky titles? Perhaps, "Editing Wikipedia while drunk driving"?

i am very interested in the deleted articles with freaky titles but i'm too chicken to make it myself OrlandoApollosFan69 (talk) 02:29, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Announcing the first Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee

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

Hello,

The scrutineers have finished reviewing the vote results. We are following up with the results of the first Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) election.

We are pleased to announce the following individuals as regional members of the U4C, who will fulfill a two-year term:

  • North America (USA and Canada)
    • –
  • Northern and Western Europe
  • Latin America and Caribbean
    • –
  • Central and East Europe (CEE)
    • —
  • Sub-Saharan Africa
    • –
  • Middle East and North Africa
  • East, South East Asia and Pacific (ESEAP)
  • South Asia
    • –

The following individuals are elected to be community-at-large members of the U4C, fulfilling a one-year term:

Thank you again to everyone who participated in this process and much appreciation to the candidates for your leadership and dedication to the Wikimedia movement and community.

Over the next few weeks, the U4C will begin meeting and planning the 2024-25 year in supporting the implementation and review of the UCoC and Enforcement Guidelines. Follow their work on Meta-wiki.

On behalf of the UCoC project team,

RamzyM (WMF) 08:14, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Typo or intentional?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T13700

When visiting this cascade-protected image file page, the action bar at the top shows "Edit source" instead of "View source". Was this a typo, or was it intentional? I would highly appreciate any responses, especially from WikiMedia staff.

MasterOpel 20:39, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Should probably have posted this at WP:VPT. I was able to replicate the error. Looks like phab:T13700. You can subscribe to that ticket if you'd like updates. However it looks like devs are hesitant to fix this due to performance reasons. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:31, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Arabic Wikipedia

Hi, sorry to bother everyone but I stumbled address the Arabic Wikipedia and they had a large banner that said something about the Hamas Israel war, and it was like (don’t quote me on this) stop the genocide in Gaza! And I could be wrong I’m not a Wikipedia editor but I was just curious like is this agents policy, like I don’t mind it at all but I was just wondering 2600:6C48:617F:2533:9D74:4184:C6F7:F5D6 (talk) 03:43, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

All language versions of Wikipedia are editorially independent, none of our policies at en.wiki affect ar.wiki and vice versa. CMD (talk) 04:16, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
I know this issue has been discussed in places, also in the media, but I don't have any links atm. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:23, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
https://ar.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B5%D9%81%D8%AD%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D8%A6%D9%8A%D8%B3%D8%A9 2600:6C48:617F:2533:55B:74F7:C323:A7C (talk) 20:41, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
I think it was this one meta:Requests for comment/Community consensus for blackouts and other advocacy. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:32, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
The phrase "be careful what you wish for" springs to mind. I'm sure that if there was a world-wide vote on the Arabic Wikipedia's definition of neutrality it would not result in the American position being supported. Do the OP and supporters want an anti-genocide message to be displayed on all Wikipedias, including the English and the Hebrew? Phil Bridger (talk) 19:16, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

A survey regarding patrolling

Hello

The moderation tools team is working on Automoderator, a tool that would make it possible to revert vandalism automatically. This tool could replace vandalism bots (or be used in parallel), or help users prevent vandalism on wikis where no bot is available.

From 6 June to 7 July 2024, on your wiki, we will randomly display an invitation to complete a survey to selected users, as part of our efforts to understand how patrollers behaviors will change when Automoderator is deployed.

The survey will be shown to registered users, who signed up before 2024, and who have made more than 500 edits.

You can find out more about this survey at phab:T362462.

Please share this information anywhere useful. Thank you in advance for your participation!

Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 13:22, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Discussion could use more eyes

There's really not a noticeboard that covers this, so this is the most general place I could find. Template talk:Header navbar community. Thanks. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:16, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

The final text of the Wikimedia Movement Charter is now on Meta

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

Hi everyone,

The final text of the Wikimedia Movement Charter is now up on Meta in more than 20 languages for your reading.

What is the Wikimedia Movement Charter?

The Wikimedia Movement Charter is a proposed document to define roles and responsibilities for all the members and entities of the Wikimedia movement, including the creation of a new body – the Global Council – for movement governance.

Join the Wikimedia Movement Charter “Launch Party”

Join the “Launch Party” on June 20, 2024 at 14.00-15.00 UTC (your local time). During this call, we will celebrate the release of the final Charter and present the content of the Charter. Join and learn about the Charter before casting your vote.

Movement Charter ratification vote

Voting will commence on SecurePoll on June 25, 2024 at 00:01 UTC and will conclude on July 9, 2024 at 23:59 UTC. You can read more about the voting process, eligibility criteria, and other details on Meta.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment on the Meta talk page or email the MCDC at mcdc@wikimedia.org.

On behalf of the MCDC,

RamzyM (WMF) 08:44, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Good article category switch request

Greetings, I have noticed that the article Squirtle which was recently promoted to good article has been placed not in the Video games category but Media and drama which doesn't make sense to me considering all previous Pokémon have been placed in the Video games category such as Bulbasaur, Charizard, Raichu, Jigglypuff, Psyduck, Voltorb, Jynx, Magikarp and Gyarados, Ditto, Eevee and many others. Moreover the article nomination WAS in the video games category. Is there a possibility to switch the category the good article is present ? DanganMachin (talk) 11:19, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

cc GA reviewer @Reconrabbit. Let me know if you're OK with changing it and I'd be happy to help. It will involve changing the template on the talk page, and moving the entry from one GA subpage to another. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:23, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
That was totally my mistake. I saw the broad category under Media and drama of "Fictional characters and technologies" and placed it under that title without realizing there was a specific category for Video games. I've made the change requested.. Reconrabbit 11:56, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
I see you changed it just now. The changes look good. I think this one's
Resolved
–Novem Linguae (talk) 12:03, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Renaming the Community Wishlist Survey: Vote for your preferred name

Thank you to everyone who has provided feedback on renaming the Community Wishlist Survey. We now have 3 names for you to choose from:

1. Community Ideas Exchange

2. Community Feature Requests

3. Community Suggestions Portal

You are invited to vote for one that works for you. –– STei (WMF) (talk) 15:03, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Attribution of articles translated from foreign language wikipedias

Hello all,

Questions for input from Wikipedians regarding how articles that include text translated from foreign language wikipedias should have attributions handled. All translations of content from any language wikipedia are derivative works that require attribution. (See here for rationale.)

This arises from pages like Abeozen which have in-article mentions of the translation source ( The above article was created as a translation of its counterpart on the French Wikipedia, . (Specifically this version) but no mention of this attribution in the edit history or talk page. Current policies WP:TFOLWP and Help:Translate recommend inserting this information only in the edit history, and there are many pages (approx. 94,000 with Template:Translated page included in their talk page, but this appears to be additional and alone does not satisfy attribution requirements.

Looking for input on the following points:

  1. Should pages which do not have attribution information in the edit history have this information added to the edit history?
    Rationale for Yes is that WP:TFOLWP and Help:Translate state this is a requirement for attribution, and prevents against any removal of attribution from future edits.
    Rationale for No is that attribution in the article is more visible than attribution in the edit history and is sufficient to meet Wikipedia's attribution requirements regardless of current policies as per WP:TFOLWP and Help:Translate.
  2. Should attribution information be included the article?
    Rationale for Yes is that this raises awareness and visibility of the article's origin as a translation.
    Rationale for Undecided / Decision between editors on individual articles is that changes to existing articles is not necessary, this is optional to each article's authors.
    Rationale for No is that to prevent WP:CIRCULAR, articles should not cite or present wikipedia in any language in a manner that could be confused with a source or reference, and guidance for attributions is for this to only be included in edit histories as per WP:TFOLWP and Help:Translate.
  3. Should attribution information be included in the talk page with Template:Translated page ?
    Rationale for Yes is that this raises awareness and visibility of the article's origin as a translation.
    Rationale for Undecided / Decision between editors on individual articles is that changes to existing articles is not necessary, this is optional to each article's authors.
    Rationale for No is that translation attribution should only be in the edit history..

Other answers or positions regarding the above questions are welcome, as are other questions arising in discussion on this point.

Pinging potentially interested Wikipedians: @Mike Peel @RudolfRed (thanks for suggestion to move question here from WP:Teahouse) @GreenLipstickLesbian (thank you for your clarification for new editors at WP:Teahouse and your position in this diff)

Thank you all for your input! Shazback (talk) 07:55, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

My understanding is that translations must be attributed in an edit summary in the main article. The talk page template is optional and can be skipped. I don't recall ever seeing attribution included in the article itself (i.e. via a citation to the foreign language Wikipedia, via a "note: this was translated", etc.). If you want to fix that article and you are sure there is no previous edit summary giving attribution, feel free to make a small edit to the article (add a space or something) and give the proper attribution in the edit summary. I believe the guideline WP:TFOLWP has suggested text for this. –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:36, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
I see there was also a discussion about this with several other editors on Wikipedia talk:Copying within Wikipedia and at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation about a month ago. I am pinging them for comment with the aim to gather a broader consensus / ensure all points of view are represented. @asilvering @Mathglot @S0091 @Ingratis @Greenman @Primefac @KylieTastic Shazback (talk) 06:20, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
Also @WhatamIdoing Shazback (talk) 06:28, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
Also (for completeness) there was a template merge discussion which may be relevant (Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2024 February 4), pinging involved Wikipedians @Matrix @Anomie @Noahfgodard @Ipigott @Cl3phact0 @Riad Salih @scope_creep @Occidental Phantasmagoria @Knowledgekid87 Shazback (talk) 06:37, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
Perhaps too many pings. Hopefully you have plenty of answers now. –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:14, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
Similar to Novem, I feel it unusual to have attribution in the article but not in the edit summaries (which is I assume what is meant by edit history). If attribution is added to an edit summary, that seems good practice for quicker glances although I suspect the licence is met by the in-article attribution. I'm not sure if there is a best way to add attribution to an article, the text is not permanently linked to the original language article and will have to stand on its own with regards to referencing etc. The talkpage template can be helpful, but doesn't seem a requirement for the licence. CMD (talk) 06:33, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
The license requirements can be met through any of several methods, including importing the original non-English article (the approach used at the German-language Wikipedia, where you can find non-lawyers solemnly averring that it is a legal requirement), adding a link to the original in the edit summary (the approach used by the Wikipedia:Content translation tool, and about which you can also find non-lawyers solemnly averring that this is a legal requirement), by adding a relevant template on the talk page, by adding a non-templated message on the talk page, by adding a message in the mainspace, and probably by other methods, too.
I suggest that if you encounter someone claiming that a specific method must be used for license/legal reasons, you should probably not believe anything that person says.
Having dispensed with what we must do, I will tell you my own views about what we should do:
  1. Should pages which do not have attribution information in the edit history have this information added to the edit history?
    • Sometimes. Although it is not legally required, I personally prefer and recommend this method, particularly for the first edit summary. If you forget on the first edit, and it can be done quickly, quietly, conveniently and near the start of the history (e.g., one of the first five edits), then I think that's a fine thing to do. But purely as a practical matter, adding an edit summary somewhere in the middle of hundreds of edits is not going to help anyone. In those cases, I think that a template on the talk page is more functional.
  2. Should attribution information be included the article?
    • No. Although it is legally permitted, we don't provide attribution information in the mainspace for the English Wikipedia editors, and therefore IMO we shouldn't provide attribution information in the mainspace for the non-English Wikipedia editors. Attribution of non-Wikipedia content (e.g., public domain sources) is permissible (e.g., within ref tags) and sometimes is legally required (e.g., a CC-BY source. Although this would not absolutely require attribution directly in the mainspace, ref tags may be the most convenient and reasonable way to fulfill the requirement).
  3. Should attribution information be included in the talk page with Template:Translated page?
    • Usually. Although it is not legally required, I think this should be used as often as practicable. Ideally both the source and the translated article would get a note on their talk pages. The reason for this is because admins who are considering deletion usually check the talk page, and it may be informative to them (e.g., if they are investigating an alleged copyvio).
WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:53, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
I support attribution in edit summaries and definitely on talk pages, but I very strongly oppose attribution in the article text (with rare exceptions) because of WP:CIRCULAR. The concerns about visibility are perhaps valid, but authorship information is never listed in the article body, so why should authorship information from a different Wikipedia page? As long as external sources are supplied to support the translated material (which they should be anyway), I see no particular reason to note the translation in the article itself. I think the violation of WP:CIRCULAR outweighs the desire for increased visibility here. Noahfgodard (talk) 06:44, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Yes; No; Yes if possible (as a nice-to-have, not a must-have).
With all due respect, this topic is not really subject to consensus from a discussion at Wikipedia, as it is part of the Wikimedia Terms of Use and supersedes any policy or guideline belonging to Wikipedia or any Wikimedia sister project, so I view this discussion as informative, but having no impact other than that, as decisions about attribution are not subject to debate here. That said, the Terms appear to be written in a way that if you squint hard and look sideways, it may admit a different interpretation by at least a minority of Wikipedians, but even in that case, the solution is to seek clarification from WMF legal about what the Terms actually mean, and not to try to draw up a consensus here which would have no effect, even if one was reached.
But since you asked, my understanding is this: translation attribution must be in the edit summary per ToU § 7, and must either have a link to the foreign article with the history of contributing editors readily available (e.g., in the History tab), or else list every contributing editor in the edit summary). Adding a citation to the article in no way satisfies the attribution requirement, nor does the handy {{translated page}} template destined for the article Talk page. When attribution is forgotten in the original translated edit, then it may be added to the history retroactively following the instructions at WP:RIA.
Note that there is an additional wrinkle that is usually left unaddressed: when content is either copied or translated from S to D, the page at S may no longer be deleted, because its history is required ad infinitum in order to support the attribution requirement; at best, S may be moved elsewhere, like Draft space or some other repository. This is somewhat easier to manage for content copied intrawiki because the link will remain blue as long as it exists, and if it ever turns red, that is a flag that it must be restored. But for translated material, there is no easy method for detecting this, as interwiki links are always blue regardless if the article exists or not. (A template on the S talk page stating that it must not be deleted because of the translation done over at D-wiki might help, but the S-wiki editors might not care or respect that, if an S-Afd nom resulted in deletion at S-wiki.) That's my take; HTH. Mathglot (talk) 06:54, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
In re this topic is not really subject to consensus from a discussion at Wikipedia, as it is part of the Wikimedia Terms of Use. Whether to comply with the license is not something we get to decide. Which methods are reasonable, and whether we want to exceed the minimum requirements, is something we should discuss. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:57, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
I think our existing transwiki attribution standards are sufficient, but I would support adding attribution in a footnote, similar to {{EB1911}} and similar templates. You could do something like:

This article contains content translated from Persian Wikipedia.

However, as Mathglot has mentioned, this is really something that should be discussed with WMF. Occidental𓍝Phantasmagoria [T/C] 07:14, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
(edit conflict) By the way, if you spot an article that appears to be an unattributed translation, you can either add attribution yourself ex post facto following WP:RIA, or if the source is unclear, you can add {{unattributed translation}} to the article. If you wish, you may also notify the user via {{uw-translation}}. Pro tip: if you want to know the exact text to use to attribute an original translation for a given article, edit the English article, add the Expand language banner for the correct language at the top, and Preview it. For example: for article Martinique, view the {{Expand French}} banner at the top, hit 'show' to expand it, and you will find the exact wording to use to attribute translated content for the article. Mathglot (talk) 07:18, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
Since the attribution for all other edits is in the page history it makes most sense to me that translations should also be mentioned in the edit summaries so all attribution is in one place. This applies to more than just translations but also any attributable copies from other sources. I do also like to see a talk page template for clarity, but ideally should should say when as it may no longer be true to say it currently is a translation. I personally don't like adding to the article as if feels unclear and possibly misleading to everyday readers: Articles are often started as translations but then some get completely re-writen over time making any "This article contains content translated from ......" statements potentially false. Lastly an edit summary is only removable by a sysop these other templates can be removed (or left incorrectly) by anyone. TLDR IMHO: edit summaries should be mandatory; talk page template recommended; article template discouraged. Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 08:43, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
@KylieTastic:, That's why the advice at WP:TFOLWP recommends the wording "Content in this edit is translated from..." for the edit summary, which remains true forever regardless what happens afterward. In the case of the (optional) {{translated page}} template, parameter |insertversion= is available to make the timing context clear; see for example Talk:ForGG or any of these transclusions of the template. If the wording is not clear enough for that case, you could raise a discussion at Template talk to request an improvement. Mathglot (talk) 19:50, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
For interwiki stuff I'll use the trans template on the talk, if a translation is being attempted. Its usually a partial translation with article expansion. I would never remove it even if the article was completely rewritten as they may be a sentence or two in there that needs attributed and that has happened. If on wikipedia, I'll search for the author and put their name in the edit summary. That is important, even though it takes some time. I would never mention attribution in the article for obvious reasons. Talk is ok, but its a boundary case as I'm struggling to think of an instance when you would need it. I agree with Mathglot above, the current arrangement is clear and well understood by everybody. New editors take to it quite quick. I've not seen a trans tag removed from talk at all, not even by a vandal or troll, although it is certainly possible. I've never seen the boundary case described by Mathglot above in action, although it must be possible. scope_creepTalk 09:52, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
If you're trying to find the name of the original author, I have had some luck with Wikipedia:Who Wrote That? Run the tool, then click on the bit you're copying/translating. (It doesn't work on all languages.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:00, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
Or WikiBlame, which does work for all languages (even if there's no link to it from the History page). Mathglot (talk) 19:32, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
  • This can be a tricky situation, and the question of what is the best guidance for new articles isn't necessarily something that can be or should be attempted to be applied retroactively. Yes anything translated should give credit to the source. Yes, ideally this should be a link in the first edit summary. No, I don't think anything should be in the prose of the article about this. We have a {{Translated page}} template that can be helpful for the talk page for lots of reasons, anyone should feel free to put that on a talk page if it isn't there. Probably making an future edit with an edit summary attributing the remote page and date of the translation would be useful and could satisfy more licensing concerns. In certain cases, we can import the transwiki pre-translated history over, requests can be made at WP:RFPI; xwiki imports can be very messy and once there are overlapping revisions, or very many revisions - are normally a bad idea. — xaosflux Talk 18:51, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
It looks like the editors who got here first have already gone over the salient points, but fwiw my answers to your three questions are: 1 yes, 2 no, 3 usually-but-not-required. The talk page template works well if the article is translated in one big edit and then doesn't get changed much after the fact. For articles that have gone through significant changes since then I think it's less useful. -- asilvering (talk) 19:34, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

How to make B heads smaller than A heads?

I've just noticed that A heads (i.e. headings made by pairs of double equals signs ==) are in a much smaller unbold roman point size than sans-serifed bold B heads (i.e. headings made by pairs of three equals signs ===), which looks ridiculous. I'm sure this never used to be the case in the near 20 years I've been editing here. Is there any way of viewing pages so that A heads appear bigger and bolder than B heads? Thanks, Ericoides (talk) 10:15, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

much smaller. h2's look bigger than h3's on my skin vector (2010). Example. What skin are you using? –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:39, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
Cheers. I'm not sure. How can I tell? Ericoides (talk) 12:16, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
@Ericoides You have some custom CSS at User:Ericoides/vector.css which is overriding the default styles. Note that there have been some recent changes to heading HTML structure which might affect how that CSS behaves. the wub "?!" 11:15, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
Thanks. Is there a simple fix so I can revert to the default? Ericoides (talk) 12:18, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
Just edit the page User:Ericoides/vector.css, delete all the content, and save it as a blank page. — xaosflux Talk 13:20, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
Ah, OK, thanks for the tip. Ericoides (talk) 15:29, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
ETA, I've done as advised and it's all back to normal. Good stuff. Ericoides (talk) 17:44, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
Resolved
–Novem Linguae (talk) 00:04, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Hatnote styling?

Did the hatnote stylesheet change? It seems to have become harder to read and a different font color in the last few days. -- 64.229.90.32 (talk) 06:40, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

See discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Hatnotes have Minerva-style background color? PamD 07:09, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Kurds and the rule of crowd

Moved to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents § Discussion of the block

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Novem Linguae (talk • contribs) 15:00, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

If there's any doubt that we need more sysops...

...I've made a graph comparing stats across English projects. Active users per admin is in blue. Cremastra (talk) 20:21, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

A better comparison would be the other major Wikipedia's (German, French, Japanese, etc). BilledMammal (talk) 20:27, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
Given that its users/admin, as opposed to straight-out number of admins, I'm not sure I see much of a difference. Cremastra (talk) 20:29, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
I think there are a lot of different variables to account for when comparing non-Wikipedia projects to Wikipedia projects that makes a direct comparison tricky. Ultimately, though, English Wikipedia has a lot of editors paying attention to it, and so out of necessity its community has tried to develop processes to handle large numbers of edits. (As I've stated previously, I do think that more administrators are needed in order to feed the pipeline of experienced users.) isaacl (talk) 02:12, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
That doesn't demonstrate anything much. It could just as easily be used to argue that (a) other projects need more sysops per user, or (b) other projects don't need more sysops per user, they just make it available to more people as a proportion. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:46, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
Indeed. It might also indicate that we have well-developed dispute resolution systems, effective patrolling by non-admins, a strong culture of mutually advising and warning editors, and/or more efficient sysops, due in part to those other factors. NebY (talk) 21:47, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
Why is users-per-sysop a valuable metric? Admins are not responsible for users in the same way a schoolteacher or prison guard is responsible for their charges. What you should be measuring is perhaps troubled users (vandals, etc) and required admin tasks (page protection, blocks) per admin. If you have 1 million users who behave and 3 admins, who cares? RudolfRed (talk) 01:31, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
More users, in general = more admin tasks. Cremastra (talk) 01:33, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
It would be interesting to compare the average admin workload (i.e. number of logged actions per admin) on different projects. RoySmith (talk) 02:10, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Help for article creation

I want to create article about Genetic studies on Bengali. I created many historical, political or other simple articles so I know how to find sources for these topics. But I am clueless about source indexing of genetic studies in search engines and I am having difficulties finding sources about genetic studies of Bengali people. Do you people have any idea how to find genetics-related sources effectively? Or can anyone redirect me to anyone who can really help me about the sources? Mehedi Abedin (talk) 04:33, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Mehedi Abedin, you might have better luck asking at WP:RD/S. The people there will likely know how to find research materials about genetic studies. Folly Mox (talk) 05:37, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Is this a Wikipedia error now appearing as an RS?

Until this edit[4], Austronesian peoples stated that Madagascar was reached by Austronesians c. 50–500 CE ("In the Indian Ocean, they sailed west from Maritime Southeast Asia; the Austronesian peoples reached Madagascar by ca. 50–500 CE"). Looking at that version[5], there are three references with failed verification tags. The last two references have been associated with this part of the article for some time. Precisely what is wrong with the references is discussed on the talk page[6] (It's the third of three issues under this heading.) Note these last two references, The Culture History of Madagascar and A chronology for late prehistoric Madagascar.

In a recent version[7] of the article, we have two reintroductions of early dates for Austronesian settlement of Madagascar. The one that says Estimates for when this occurred vary from the 1st century CE,[153]... has a new ref, Herrera et al. If you read that paper, you find, in the introduction:

  • "[Austronesians] ...colonized Madagascar during ca AD 50–500 [1,2]."

Checkout those references – they are The Culture History of Madagascar and A chronology for late prehistoric Madagascar. Since neither of them support this date range, where did the authors of the paper get this from? There are plenty of other potential references in the literature (giving later dates). So why use these? The most likely explanation is that they were lifted straight from the Wikipedia article that existed at the time.

So, do we have a Wikipedia error (since corrected) now being recycled back into the article to perpetuate the error? What do you think? ThoughtIdRetired TIR 22:42, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Link: Herrera et al. 2017.
It does look like citeogenesis. As far as I can tell the A chronology for late prehistoric Madagascar source is unrelated to the statement made. CMD (talk) 04:43, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia on visionOS

I neither have nor can afford an Apple Vision Pro at this time, and I don't think most of us do or can as well. I'd like to know, from those using the device, how Wikipedia on Safari functions as well as the Wikipedia mobile app there. George Ho (talk) 21:33, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

@SGrabarczuk (WMF), is this something that the Web team has tested? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:46, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
Hey everyone, thanks for the ping @WhatamIdoing.
Not yet! Compared to our total traffic, few people use this device. We had a talk about it soon after it was launched, but I guess we're still far from the decision to buy one. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 00:37, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
They should make the interface shaped like a puppy and rotating on a few axes. Like three. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 07:42, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Getting a list/count of values of a parameter.

(not real example). Template Infobox Guinea Pig has a parameter called "Tail color". I'd like to be able to see what values this parameter has over all articles that use the infobox. (I asked on the help desk and got no response)Naraht (talk) 21:46, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

I think the data only flows in one direction. You can double check at WP:VPT if you want. That's probably the best board for this question. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:05, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
I am sad that there is no {{Infobox guinea pig}} template. Not sure it is quite what you want, but Bambots tracks parameters for all sorts of templates. It can list the different values used for a param. See the documentation and an example (click on "Click to show"). The template needs to have TemplateData set up — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 11:06, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

GPT-4 user-created template at top of page

I just came across the Moto G54 5G article which has a rather peculiar template at the top of the page, saying it was written with GPT-4. At first I thought it was a new official template I didn't know about, then I looked at the source and noticed it's a template sitting in userspace, which looks like it was made to mimic the design of standard header templates. What is the right way to deal with a situation like this? Do we just remove the template from the page, or do we need to deal with the AI-written content in the article somehow? – numbermaniac 18:23, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

I did a spot check of some statements in that article and failed to verify them in the cited sources. I think it’s generally undesirable to use an LLM to write an article and then slap on a template saying the article might contain errors and copyvios. Any human edit might contain errors and even copyvios unwittingly, but if you’re going to use an LLM at all, you need to take much more responsibility for verifying these issues aren’t present. The current template reads too much like an excuse: “I took a shortcut and might have created a mess, so if you find the mess please go ahead and clean it up”. Plus, the current version of that template states: has been visited by many readers and is unlikely to include false information or fake references which seems fallacious. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 19:51, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
Just say no. RoySmith (talk) 19:57, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
Given the proven unreliability of LLMs, we can not trust anything that is not explicitly supported by the cited sources. Prune it severely. Then remove the template. Blueboar (talk) 20:17, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
Replace it with a real template. (In this case, I did so with {{AI-generated}}; {{db-hoax}} might be more appropriate, depending on how false the article is - I didn't check.) Userspace should never be transcluded into articles. —Cryptic 20:24, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
There is a mainspace redirect at Template:AI-generated-GPT-4-checked. CMD (talk) 06:09, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
Interesting. I noticed it in this edit when going through a bit of the revision history later, and figured the template he had replaced it with was a modification of that first, official, template. Didn't realise both templates had been created by the same user! If it's a redirect to userspace, should it be deleted? – numbermaniac 13:50, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
@Numbermaniac: It should, in principle, because it's not an appropriate use of userspace, but as others above noted, the templates (for the record, there are three of them, actually) really shouldn't exist at all and would be no better in template space, as the implications of their content are very concerning. After looking into it a bit I decided to AGF and leave a message for the user in question. Kinsio (talk ★ contribs) 21:51, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Chatbots assault?

What a weird coincidence; I came here with my "cyberthriller story". A user asked WPRussia to help with one reference in Assault they found suspicious, but it was to a text in Russian, so they asked for assistance. Indeed, the ref was nonsense and I removed it. At first I thought is was cut'n'paste error, but nasty me decided to find the author for mild trout-slapping. Well, it was a "drive-by editor" Ugwuowo samuel (talk · contribs) and at first (well, at second :-) I just shrugged, but I noticed that the user used the same edit summary "added few words and references" for all its edits. Then I noticed another editor in same page Ifyeke (talk · contribs) with exactly same edit summary, and all of them were the same as well. So I felt something fishy. Then in the page edited by Ifyeke I saw edits by blocked Onyebuchi Echezona (talk · contribs).... Oh people, You have to waste a minute of your time and read its unblock request! It is a poem written on a wall..... by a chatbot.

So, in two minutes I run into three apparently chatbots. In one page the edits of one of them were reverted, but it gives me goosebumps to think how much more of them are roaming unnoticed. I am wondering whether Wikimedia is aware of this threat? The prev section say failed to verify them in the cited sources -and tghat's one of severe issues: the bot generates fake refs (as I explained at the beginning, one was really fake, so the "page owner" (in a good sense) spotted it. But otherwise the texts look legit; Turing test, you know.

Another thing worries me is that I suspect Wikipedia is being (ab)used as a testbench for chatbots at all our's expense. If one may remember, in these gooden olden days of Wikipedia various smartasses loved to insert typos and nonsense into wikipedia to see how quickly they will be spotted. And quite a few had an arrogance to write news articles reporting their findings. Fortunately our antivandalbots became strong. Repeating: are there any "antiChatBots" in development? Or waiting until it hits the fan? - Altenmann >talk 05:35, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

Easier said than done I imagine. Because it produces natural language, it's kind of hard to know definitively when text has been written by a chatbot. There are some amusing examples where tools made to detect AI writing will say that the US constitution was written by an LLM.
The contribution histories of those 2 accounts look rather spammy - seems like it might be worth reporting to administrators. – numbermaniac 15:44, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
Not just text, but images too. The NY Times ran a quiz yesterday asking readers to identify 10 images as real or AI-generated. I got less than 50% right, and I know some of the things to look for (weird fingers and gibberish text). The tech will only get better and this is not going to go away. RoySmith (talk) 15:52, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

P.S. The sectkion above suggests to use template that says " may still include false information " - IMO it is an insult to the common sense. AFAIK such texts must be deleted on the spot, not tagged. If a user knowingly adds fake references by whatever means, they must be blocked for disruption of wikipedia. - Altenmann >talk 06:41, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

Do you think that the people using LLMs actually know that the refs are fake? Maybe they think it's great because (they wrongly believe) it looks up real references. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:52, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
There was a situation just like that last year where some lawyers used ChatGPT to do their "research" for them, and it came up with a bunch of fake citations and fake cases that got them in a lot of trouble with the judge. I remember watching a YouTube video about it at the time. – numbermaniac 15:17, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
@Altenmann: Inclined to agree with WhatamIdoing's thinking. I had to think about this when I was trying to work out how to gently warn the user whose edits are discussed above without WP:BITING: there's a meaningful difference between "knowingly adding fictitious references" and "adding references without checking them". Neither is good, but the latter case isn't as clearly malicious. There's a reason warning templates have multiple levels. And as far as the idea that such texts must be deleted on the spot, that's part of the challenge with LLMs. They're unreliable because of their inherent flaws, and have a significant risk of producing incorrect information, fictitious references, and copyvios, but it's not a given that LLM output is complete nonsense and there's nothing in it that could be salvaged. (As opposed to something like plagiarism, which absolutely should just be removed on sight.) Kinsio (talk ★ contribs) 17:45, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
@Kinsio: - I dont see any "meaningful difference" in terms of harm to wikipedia. ChatBot-generated text looks so strikingly real that it takes a real intellectual effort to pinpoint nonsense and it is twice as hard to prove that it is nonsense or WP:UNDUE or WP:OR. One lazy Wikipedian (or, I suspect, a chatBot tester) creates a huge workload on fellow wikipedians who have to verify the contribution of a 'bot. And without this extra scrutiny, as my initial story shows, bot-produced nonsense can sit there for years. I firmly believe it is an intellectual dishonesty and abuse of Wikipedia to pump chatBot texts into the widely read encyclopedia, on par with the abuse by lawyers mentioned above. - Altenmann >talk 17:55, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
Yes, it's bad, but when you're dealing with humans older than preschool age, you need to differentiate between "made a mess accidentally" and "made a mess on purpose". If the former are educated, they might be both willing and able to help us clean up the mess. The latter need to be shown the door. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:52, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

CentralNotice for Bengla Wiktionary contest

A contest will take place from July 1, 2024, to July 31, 2024, on Bangla Wiktionary to enrich its content. A central notice request has been placed to target both English and Bangla Wikipedia users, including non-registered users from Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. Thank you —MdsShakil (talk) 16:19, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Community Wishlist Survey is now Community Wishlist

Thank you everyone who has participated in the restructuring and rebranding conversations of the Wishlist so far.

Regarding the renaming, based on your feedback, we will keep the 'Community Wishlist' and remove 'Survey'.

Please read more about the renaming, check out the vote results and learn more about the re-opening of the Community Wishlist on July 15, 2024, in our latest update. –– STei (WMF) (talk) 20:06, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Announcing the Product and Technology Advisory Council, and a call for applications

Hi folks - I wanted to announce and invite anyone interested to view and apply to the Product and Technology Advisory Council.

As part of the movement strategy recommendation for "Coordinating Across Stakeholders," the Product & Technology Advisory Council (PTAC) will bring technical contributors and Wikimedia Foundation together to co-define a more resilient, future-proof technological platform. The PTAC will meet over a one year pilot; upon its completion, members of the Council will make a joint decision to continue the program, its member base, and purpose.

This council is sponsored by CPTO Selena Deckelmann. Applications are open today, July 1, 2024, through August 10, 2024, and we encourage anyone interested to apply.

To read more and apply, please view the post on Meta. --- JWheeler-WMF (talk) 12:11, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Subscribing to sub-sections

I see [subscribe] links on talk pages and noticeboards, but only for top-level sections (H2). On pages such as Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion, I would like to be able to subscribe to specific discussions that correspond to sub-sections or sub-sub-section. Is this possible? Jruderman (talk) 22:13, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T275943
No, it's not currently possible. I doubt that it will happen this year (and maybe not this decade). Some pages have been rearranged to use fewer ===H3 section headings===; that could be done for RFD. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:19, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Export a TimedText to Commons

How do I get TimedText:Stalin_Speech_Life_Has_Become_Better.webm.en.srt moved to Commons? The associated file was recently moved to Commons. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 06:12, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

You could ask a commons admin to transwiki it at commons:Commons:Administrators' noticeboard. Once done you can nominate it for speedy deletion here. — xaosflux Talk 10:23, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
 Done —Matrix(!) {user - talk? - uselesscontributions} 18:16, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Voting to ratify the Wikimedia Movement Charter is now open – cast your vote

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

Hello everyone,

The voting to ratify the Wikimedia Movement Charter is now open. The Wikimedia Movement Charter is a document to define roles and responsibilities for all the members and entities of the Wikimedia movement, including the creation of a new body – the Global Council – for movement governance.

The final version of the Wikimedia Movement Charter is available on Meta in different languages and attached here in PDF format for your reading.

Voting commenced on SecurePoll on June 25, 2024 at 00:01 UTC and will conclude on July 9, 2024 at 23:59 UTC. Please read more on the voter information and eligibility details.

After reading the Charter, please vote here and share this note further.

If you have any questions about the ratification vote, please contact the Charter Electoral Commission at cec@wikimedia.org.

On behalf of the CEC,

RamzyM (WMF) 10:51, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

the charter arbitrarily creates a solitary and arbitrary new hierarchical body which is not needed by anyone, called the "Global Council," with a highly questionable role. the rest of the charter is just vague-sounding platitudes.
also the WMF board has some designated liaisons, who have recommended to vote AGAINST the charter. I don't use the board to govern my opinion on most things. but if even the board and the WMF are against this, then how does this serve any purpose in any way???!! who exactly is in favor of this, or even sees a need for this, if even the board is against this??!! Sm8900 (talk) 16:38, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

the link below provides highly valuable data on some of the multiple concerns raised by the board's review process: 

link: meta:Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard/Board liaisons reflections on final Movement charter draft/Brief

important points from above:

  • The Global Council is the most anticipated aspect of the Movement Charter recommendation. Overall,the proposed Global Council's purpose is not clearly connected to advancing Wikimedia's public interest mission. It lacks a compelling explanation of how it will ensure more equitable decision-making and support the mission of sharing free knowledge. It also does not guide us as the Movement on how to address many of the most pressing issues facing community governance on Wikimedia projects.
  • The Wikimedia Foundation is willing to delegate some powers to the Global Council. At the moment, we have not read similar statements from other parts of the movement - and without that, the Global Council cannot really act as a body that goes beyond the Wikimedia Foundation.
    • Would volunteers accept a decision made by the Global Council, even if they don’t like it, just because they had a chance to vote in their elections?

why do we need a Global Council? Who is asking for this to be established? that's my own concern and my own questions on this. ok here is another comment, from someone connected to two members of the board, from the page below 

link:Wikimedia Foundation Board liaisons reflections on final Movement charter draft:
  • We believe that approving this version of the Charter, despite the tremendous amount of work and resources already put into it, would not be the right call. Instead, we think it is better to continue pursuing the same goals the draft Charter also sought to pursue in a different way, by identifying key areas where the final draft Charter provides us with guidance on concrete steps that can be taken towards increasing volunteer and movement oversight of certain core areas of responsibility.
  • addl excerpt: For an all-encompassing document the support required to ratify the threshold -- 55% plus a minimum of 2% of eligible voters participating in vote -- is quite low.

--Sm8900 (talk) Sm8900 (talk) 16:52, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for that food for thought. I also voted no. My reasoning was it is written in product manager speak, doesn't clearly state who is pushing for it and what problems it is trying to solve, appears to give too much power to affiliates, and creates bureaucracy without clearly stating the upside. I also worry that the creation of top-level movement documents like this puts pressure on folks to express their opinions on talk pages within the frameworks of these documents, and opinions that do not fit within these frameworks are more easily discarded. –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:23, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
Yes! Exactly! And also which governmental body defines the role of the Global Council and keeps them accountable?! It seems no one does! And also why are we enthroning this new hierarchy with no mission or defined role?!! Why couldn't a focused task force or maybe a whole set of them, been enacted here instead of this nebulous new authority??!! Sm8900 (talk) 18:24, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
So far, I have seen no independent evidence whatsoever that a significant proportion of people who use the various WMF-hosted websites actually consider themselves to be a part of any single 'movement', let alone that they ascribe to the objectives the WMF seems to think this supposed entity should be pursuing. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:07, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
"movement" is simply the term used to refer to the people who actively pursue editing activities, on the entries, items, and contents of "various WMF-hosted websites." so by definition that term would include them. Sm8900 (talk) 17:24, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
I'm torn. I like the idea of a formalized body to move some decision-making powers from the WMF to the broader community and have no problem with the involvement of affiliates for the way doing so means the English Wikipedia doesn't simply decide everything for everyone every time. I also don't want perfection to be the enemy of good enough, with there being no guarantee of a serious follow-up proposal if this fails. But it's also hard to understand exactly what this would do, what the WMF would let it do, and how exactly it would work in relation to all of the other entities. We have affiliates, we have thematic organizations, we have user groups, we have hubs, we have various committees, we have the UCOC folks, we have the Wikimedia Foundation, and we have the body of users on each project; we have meetings just for the WMF, meetings about strategy, meetings about UCOC, meetings just for affiliates, meetings within affiliates, and extensive, splintered discussions about all of this on meta, enwiki, and every other project. Part of me says we don't need yet yet another formal entity thrown in the mix, creating yet more bureaucracy, but I also feel like there's the potential for this to be the organization that actually gets things done on behalf of regular volunteers. The big problem, here and as usual, is this is all simply way too much to fully understand for anyone with a full-time job outside of the wiki world -- especially for people who, you know, are here to write articles or take photos or link data or whatnot.
As an aside, can we please give it a rest with the "there is no movement" tedium? I do not know why a handful of editors jump in to bang this drum any time someone uses a collective noun to refer to the editors, uploaders, museum staff, professors, trainers, casual meetup attendees, researchers, activists/advocates, developers, lawyers, event planners, organizers, government staffers, nonprofit EDs, fundraisers, etc. who work with, participate in, or advocate for wikimedia projects and/or the many projects it intersects with. It comes off somewhere between a sovereign citizen or the jock in the chess club loudly proclaiming he's not really part of that bunch of nerds. You're "not part of a movement" -- that movement "doesn't exist". We get it. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 19:21, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
i have to say I agree 99% with 95% of your points above. so you get a hearty Agree from me, @Rhododendrites! nice to have you here!! Sm8900 (talk) 22:10, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
also, what i would suggest is that even if we need a "global Council," a formalistic document like the "Movement Charter" is NOT the way to do it. just form a Global Council by signing volunteers up up one by one, based on interest. and do so by creating the resources!!! not by imposing an obligation!!! and use a movement "charter" as a means of expression, not as some new type of permanent hierarchy that no one understands and no one wants. Sm8900 (talk) 22:14, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
Related: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Wikimedia Movement Charter ratification vote! How should we spend a billion dollars? –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:56, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Proposed change to 'create article' message shown on search results

Please see MediaWiki_talk:Searchmenu-new#Remove_link_to_the_article_wizard. – Joe (talk) 07:51, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

The Community Wishlist is reopening July 15, 2024

Here’s what to expect, and how to prepare.

Hello everyone, the new Community Wishlist (formerly Community Wishlist Survey) opens on 15 July for piloting. I will jump straight into an FAQ to help with some questions you may have:

Q: How long do I have to submit wishes?

A: As part of the changes, Wishlist will remain open. There is no deadline for wish submission.

Q: What is this ‘Focus Area’ thing?

A: The Foundation will identify patterns with wishes that share a collective problem and group them into areas known as ‘Focus Areas’. The grouping of wishes will begin in August 2024.

Q: At what point do we vote? Are we even still voting?

A: Contributors are encouraged to discuss and vote on Focus Areas to highlight the areas.

Q: How will this new system move wishes forward for addressing?

A: The Foundation, affiliates, and volunteer developers can adopt Focus Areas. The Wikimedia Foundation is committed to integrating Focus Areas into our Annual Planning for 2025-26.

Focus Areas align to hypotheses (specific projects, typically taking up to one quarter) and/or Key Results (broader projects taking up to one year).

Q: How do I submit a wish? Has anything changed about submissions?

A: Yes there are some changes. Please have a look at the guide.

Q: Where do I find the Community Wishlist home page? (Kevin Bouwens)

A: ...................

I hope the FAQ helped. You can read more about the launch.

You are encouraged to start drafting your wishes at your pace. Please consult the guide as you do so. Also if you have an earlier unfulfilled wish that you want to re-submit, we are happy to assist you draft.

You can start your draft (see an example) and don't hesitate to ask for support when drafting by sending me a link to your draft/sandbox via Meta email to help/review it. Alternatively you can leave the link in the Drafts List.

–– STei (WMF) (talk) 11:43, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Adding that registration for Wikimania 2024 is open for those attending. There will be a session on the Community Wishlist, we look forward to seeing you. –– STei (WMF) (talk) 12:58, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Inexplicably popular article (by views)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T366554

Neatsville, Kentucky in April was the 2nd most viewed Kentucky-related article and has been similarly highly viewed for several months. I cannot make sense of this. This is a small unincorporated community in the middle of rural Kentucky. I cannot find any TV show or movie referencing it. It also doesn't make sense that anyone would be gaming this outcome for months (although I suppose this isn't impossible). Am I missing something? Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 21:00, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Fascinating. Two-year pageviews are even higher on average, peaking in mid-2023. I see no news coverage or anything else that would drive this traffic. BD2412 T 21:28, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
The start of this climb in pageviews seems to have been on 24/25 August 2021 ([8]), when daily pageviews climbed from 2 to 410 to 1,717. Perhaps this may narrow the search for what is causing this. Curbon7 (talk) 22:39, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
Billy Joe in the same Kentucky county announced he saw a UFO on 8/24. LOL. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 23:47, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
Also, nearly all of the traffic coming to the article is from unidentified external routes (which is highly unusual), and there is virtually no traffic from this article to other articles (also highly unusual). BD2412 T 22:02, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
Maybe there's a viral post or tweet somewhere with an easter egg? Schazjmd (talk) 22:07, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
Possibly. Although I've not heard it, I can easily imagine a meme in which "Neatsville" (a redirect to the article) becomes a trendy term of approval. (Compare Coolsville.) Alternatively, someone may be trying to get it into a most-viewed listing. It would be interesting to know how many different IPs have accessed the article (perhaps counting each IPv6 /64 as one), rather than just the number of hits. Certes (talk) 22:20, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
Redirects seem to be negligible in their impact. Unchecking "Include redirects" makes virtually no difference. Regarding someone gaming this, that's an awful lot of such to sustain. Of course, this could be a script disguising itself as a real person. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 22:35, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the pointer on redirects: I hadn't spotted that. Yes, I assumed it was scripted. It does seem erratic and slightly seasonal, with peaks in spring 2023 and 2024, but does not vary much by day of week. Certes (talk) 22:49, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
That crossed my mind, but I think the incoming traffic would be more varied and identifiable for something like that, rather than a dark web monolith (speculation before further details). Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 23:23, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
This sounds like a repeat of Mount Takahe, which also has inexplicably high reader numbers. And like Takahe, Neatsville has fairly average reader numbers when only counting the Mobile App and only slightly elevated reader numbers with by spiders. FWIW, neither News nor Twitter/X show many if any mentions. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:18, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
This is getting really ridiculous. It's skewing statistics, even to the point where new editors are noticing. I don't want make this into some huge problem, but I think "nipping it in the bud" is well called for now. Please admins block the access of this apparent script kiddie. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 21:51, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
I have logged a case in WP:ANI. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 22:10, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
Admins do not have the ability to block people from viewing articles, this would have to be handled by the system administrators. You would probably be best filing a ticket on Phabricator, though I'm not sure they'd take action. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 22:53, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
I'm not sure what action can or should be taken. This doesn't seem to be a denial-of-service attack (or, if it is, it's an incredibly lame one). Wikipedia's terms of service don't prevent anyone from viewing pages, even multiple times; in fact it's encouraged. I don't know whether the hosting system can, or should, rate-limit a particular IP address or range, even assuming that most of the unusual traffic comes from one IP or a small range. Certes (talk) 23:13, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
Indeed. I wouldn't be reporting this as a performance or security issue, but rather a data corruption issue. And I sense this might not be taken very seriously, but I have a thing against the presentation of false data and that in that presentation, the person doing it is getting away with it, possibly encouraging more of this kind of corruption by others. I think it is in our long-run interests to stop it or put some kind of brakes on it. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 23:52, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
If this is due to a malicious botnet, shouldn't you have WMF report this to law enforcement? –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 01:20, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
I don't know if it's malicious. It's just skewing our cumulative views data on a single article. I might rather have an ISP notified if that could be pinned down. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 02:10, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
The internet can be a bit of a wild west sometimes. I don't think calling the police to report a DDOS attack would result in anything. DDOS attacks are usually carried out by hacked zombie computers, and are often transnational. So it's a bit hard to police. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:43, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
An inexplicable steady increase in readership to an article happened one time before, and the explanation was that it had been included as an example/default link somewhere. Will see if I can find the details. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:20, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
That's a possibility if it's not a link from English Wikipedia but another project or website. I had already reviewed EN pages linking to the article and didn't see anything. Thanks for checking. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 23:46, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
It's tempting to put a banner on the top of the article: "Please tell us what brought you to this article" with a link to the talk page, see if any of the 17,000+ readers answer. Schazjmd (talk) 23:49, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
Many years ago I found – guess how – that the address anton@pobox.com was used as an example in what appeared to be a guide to email for new users (in Russian, but hosted in Israel). —Tamfang (talk) 22:17, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
Found this through some searching, not really sure where it came from: urlscan1: Kepler's Supernova article, urlscan2: Neatsville, Kentucky article. The scan was for a different url, which redirected to those Wikipedia pages with some (ad tracking?) parameters. – 2804:F1...99:B28F (talk) 05:48, *edited:06:42, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
Mind you, the interesting thing would have been to know where that original link was from (possibly emails? unsure) - both were scanned on the 17th of last month and both articles have an increase in views, but without knowing where that's from and if it always redirects there, it doesn't really mean it's even related with the view count unfortunately. – 2804:F1...99:B28F (talk) 06:42, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for bringing this here. Is it fair to say that Kepler's Supernova is also getting the same kind of fake views? Or could its extra recent views have a legitimate reason behind it? Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 07:03, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
Not that I could find, both noticeably grew in views since April: Kepler's Supernova, Neatsville, Kentucky
According to wikitech:Analytics/AQS/Pageviews#Most viewed articles the most viewed list (same data as the graphs) tries to only count page request from "human users", so it's not clear if the views are fake, though a reason is also not obvious. Do you know why the Neatsville article had similar numbers in from March to June of last year? – 2804:F1...99:B28F (talk) 08:21, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
I have no idea, and I'm in Kentucky. This place really is "in the sticks". Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 08:34, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
Talk page for Kepler's Supernova says Publishers Clearing House for some reason included a link to [the page] in email (promoting daily contests) for awhile. Page view patterns are the same as with Neatsville. Not sure if this IP is relevant either 107.128.181.22 (talk) 08:31, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
Publishers Clearing House for some reason included a link to [the page] in email (promoting daily contests) for awhile. This seems like the most plausible explanation so far. –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:10, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
I have reported this as a security issue (re: data integrity) to Phabricator. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 06:54, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
It might be very helpful to know how many different IP addresses access the page a lot (say >100 times a day) and whether they're in a single range. Obviously this requires access to non-public information, but it should be safe to pass on a digest with the actual IPs removed. Certes (talk) 11:04, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
@StefenTower could you add me to the phab ticket please? RoySmith (talk) 20:30, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
As it is still set as a security issue, I don't believe I am allowed to do that, and I don't know how to anyway. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 02:00, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
Of course you're allowed to. You created the ticket, right? RoySmith (talk) 02:06, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
Physically allowed to, apparently, but rules-wise, I don't know. I'd rather not do it if I'm breaching a protocol. Anyway, I have made a statement in the phab ticket if those administrating don't consider it a security matter and want to take that classification off, that would be fine by me. Then, anyone can subscribe. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 03:44, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
You can go to "Edit Task", type some more subscribers in the subscribers box, then click "Save Changes". –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:13, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
Thank you for pointing that out. I've never been asked to add anyone to a ticket before, so it didn't appear obvious to me how to do so. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 03:40, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
So, now that you know how, would you please add me? RoySmith (talk) 15:05, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
Update: Neatsville, Kentucky in May was the top most viewed Kentucky-related article. This effectively trashes the point of having a Popular pages list. There are bigger things to be outraged about in this world, but as far as Wikipedia goes, this really honks me off. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 17:00, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
The number of views 26k is so low it could easily be explained by a default link somewhere. The Publishers Clearing House explanation given above sounds reasonable, or something like it. These kinds of things are not uncommon. If the popular pages list is important, you could modify the list with another bot. -- GreenC 17:20, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
This isn't a very recent phenomenon. The views have been skewed off and on since over a year ago (see "Two year pageviews..." link above). Also, the explanation as such doesn't absolve this as not being a problem. There is no excuse for PCH or any entity for sending non-purposeful (junk) links to people. Whether or not it affects our system performance, it is abusive. As far as modifying Popular pages results, if there was a straightforward way to asterisk, strikethrough, hide or shade an entry based on particular criteria, that would suffice, but writing a new bot seems overwrought. I could temporarily strikethrough, hide or shade the top or nth entry via CSS but then that would require monthly maintenance. I think I'll just write a nasty letter to PCH - that may be our real solution (half-joke, half-serious). Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 20:47, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
Meh, somebody put a link in an email or newsletter or something. That doesn't strike me as abusive; if people are clicking the links and reading our article that's really no different than anyone who sees one of our articles through a link in a tweet or Discord, that page was popular. It doesn't seem like there's anything to be done. The WordsmithTalk to me 21:24, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
We'll just have to disagree on this. They had no business skewing views to these articles. What on earth is the purpose? These are not legitimate views. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 22:37, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
Wait one min-u-ette here. If these are all genuine human visits off an e-mail or promotion, how come I'm the only one to edit the article (once) since September? With the huge amount of visits, that seems to defy reason. For a small rural town, it has a kind of interesting story, having been relocated twice – so it's weird that edits wouldn't have happened. These are highly likely bot hits disguised as human hits. That's not a problem?? Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 22:57, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
Is it possible for Wikipedia articles to be embedded into a webpage, and if so, is it possible these collect pageview data without people clicking through? Curbon7 (talk) 23:43, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
Yes (<iframe>) and yes. Probably uncommon though. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:53, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
No. it's not a problem. Who cares why any of our articles are read and who by? Phil Bridger (talk) 06:36, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for your opinion, but it's not as simple as that. This is systems data used beyond the superficial aspect that you imagine. Note that if views data wasn't important, it wouldn't be collected and stored in the first place. It can be used for various purposes, like for instance, project prioritization. Corruption of data is a real problem. I am not suggesting this specific issue reported here is a huge problem but one that should be addressed lest it really get out of hand. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 06:53, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
I agree with Phil. Usually website backlinks are a good thing, for search engine optimization and brand awareness reasons. If it causes one aberrant data point in one report, that's fairly minor. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:13, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
Through my background in database development and 20 years as a Wikipedian, I insist it's a real (though not currently huge) problem by what I've already stated. Also, there seems to be an insistent assumption these are true views. Based on information that's been made available, the strong suggestion is that these are effectively bot hits. Also, I highly doubt we are getting SEO benefits from distributed junk hits, and who doesn't already know our brand? The bottom line is this has a potential to really bollocks up various processes that use this data if it isn't nipped in the bud. "Fairly minor" is today. But tomorrow? Yeah, let 'em increasingly tarnish our data. Cool, man, cool. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 07:32, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
We really need to ask someone with access to private logs whether these views come predominantly from one IP (or a small range) or are widespread. If the latter then they may also be able to tell us (perhaps from the referrer) whether they are predominantly from one webpage, perhaps via an iframe embedded in HTML bulk e-mail. Certes (talk) 09:53, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
I concur. That's a part of why I logged the issue in Phabricator, so that an investigation can be conducted. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 19:37, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
Also, I realize that when I said "distributed", I was buying into an assumption but yes, it's possible this comes from one IP or a small range. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 19:39, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
Even that's not absolute proof. A significant portion of our page views from mainland China come to use through just two (2) IP addresses (used by a VPN service). If you find that most of the traffic comes from a single IP, that does not mean that a single person is reloading the same page every few seconds round the clock. It could mean that a lot of people are using a VPN or other shared service.
You might also be interested in https://theconversation.com/2022-wasnt-the-year-of-cleopatra-so-why-was-she-the-most-viewed-page-on-wikipedia-197350 and similar reports. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:41, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
I guess my view doesn't count because I have only been editing Wikipedia for 17 years and my background is in systems programming, but I'll state it anyway. It is that the only problem here is with people who place too much faith in reports. Measure what you actually want to measure, not what's easiest to measure, and don't try to change what you're measuring to make it easier. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:47, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
Some reports do weed out automated views, sometimes by limiting their scope to articles which have between 5% and 95% of their views from mobiles. (Example: Signpost.) This technique is helpful but not foolproof, especially if someone who reads the report is trying to appear on it in some sort of SEO game. Certes (talk) 21:51, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
As someone with a similar background, these are the kinds of arguments you find in IT departments, I suppose. The report isn't the problem but rather the report is indicative of a data problem, and it's the data problem that should be solved, because that problem could increase and cause other issues. And yes, we should change what we're measuring, rather, prevent bad data input (the case here), because you don't want "garbage in". Spending time to assure clean data going into further processing in other systems was a significant part of my IT work. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 17:01, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
I am inclined to concur that we aren't looking at genuine readers here - few people seem to go from Neatsville to other articles. Compare Donald Trump, where almost all readers then go on to read other articles. That might be an iframe deal or a bot, but not people directly reading the article. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:45, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
Of course we aren't. But what does any of this have to do with Wikipedia? Phil Bridger (talk) 20:47, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
There are lots of people who are interested in how widely shared information on a given Wikipedia page is. That tells us something about which topics are important, which ones need to be taken care of etc. Distributing information is the purpose of a Wikipedia page after all. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 06:01, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
This may be related (or unrelated), but my talk page received an unusual number of page views each day from late March to early April: see here. Besides a couple of messages from the bots, there weren't any other activity on my talk during that time [9]. I doubt those page views (at least on my talk page) are genuine. Some1 (talk) 03:40, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Rename the article?

This constant pinging of our article could easily be disrupted by renaming the article without leaving a redirect, if only for a day or two. Of course that might still count as vandalism, and make Skynet very angry. NebY (talk) 19:02, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
Thank you both for the concept and implementation. I imagine at the very least the results will add to our body of knowledge. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 17:22, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
Seems a bit odd to let off-site pressures dictate the titles of our articles. Also if the Publisher's Clearing House explanation is accurate, we have now broken this link for regular users. Also may be a violation of WP:PMRC. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:14, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
This is effectively an experiment to determine whether moving the article — for one week — resolves the issue that has been reported. It may well be that these views are the result of an internal glitch rather than on off-site one, and this resolves that all the same. It may be that when the article is moved back, the issue will resume. The only way to find out is to perform the experiment and gather the data for analysis. As noted, the correct article is still the number one article that comes up when using the search function, and given the page views prior to this situation arising, actual inconvenience to regular users should be nominal. BD2412 T 02:50, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
I would oppose a permanent rename for a flimsy reason like that, but all along, this was set up as a one-week test, and I don't see a big problem there. Anyway, I saw that Neatsville, Kentucky was redirected after this test was started, so I wonder if that defeats the point of the test. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 02:58, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
I don't think it will defeat the point, since pageviews of redirects are tracked separately from pageviews of their targets. But then I could be misunderstanding. * Pppery * it has begun... 03:04, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
Yes that's true, but now these miscreant/fake hits will be hitting a live mainspace page that happens to be the same page they were targeting before. So, they won't be getting any indication they are hitting a nonexistent page like they would have when the test was first set up. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 03:10, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
(edit conflict) The point of moving without the redirect was to see whether the absence of anything at this target would "break" whatever is causing the excessive page views. Perhaps the few hours during which there was no redirect was enough to do that. The test does not have to run for a week, that was an arbitrary time set figuring that whatever process was involved might itself be on a week-long clock. Maybe a few days would do. BD2412 T 03:11, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

New data: This is remarkable. Two days after moving the article, Neatsville, Kentucky continues to average close to 20,000 pageviews per day, but Neatsville, Adair County, Kentucky is averaging 50 pageviews per day. Anyone actually navigating to the Neatsville, Kentucky link would be redirected to Neatsville, Adair County, Kentucky, which should therefore also have those tens of thousands of views. This definitively means that visits to Neatsville, Kentucky are not organic views from regular readers, but are queries of the URL itself that therefore do not get redirected. BD2412 T 17:15, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

That's maybe not so clear; I find that if I click "include redirects" then Neatsville, Adair County, Kentucky is receiving 20,000+ pageviews a day[10]. On the other hand, toying with the Agents setting gives me another puzzle. Over the last 90 days, the ratio of "User"[11] to "Automated"[12] views of Neatsville, Kentucky varied from 1:1 to 8:1 and more, but both peaked on 01 June 2024. Even assuming some views misidentify themselves, I can't even start to explain both the variation and the coincidence. NebY (talk) 18:26, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
My understanding (and this may be incorrect) is that including redirects merely adds the number of views to the page and the number of views to the redirect. I do not believe it is possible to have a view of the redirect that results in the viewer being redirected to the page, but does not also lead to a view to the page itself, such that pageviews alone should always be higher than redirect views alone (compare pageviews of "FBI" versus "Federal Bureau of Investigation"). BD2412 T 19:09, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
Ah, that it's simple addition does make sense. Still, the FAQ does say If a user browses to a redirect, a pageview is registered for the redirect but not for the target page. That suggests to me that it's technically feasible that ~20,000 human readers went to Neatsville, Kentucky, were redirected, and did read Neatsville, Adair County, Kentucky - but I've little experience of this tool, could be very wrong. NebY (talk) 19:42, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
I have yet to find a working redirect that has more pageviews than the page to which it redirects. BD2412 T 04:12, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
I think the question can be definitively answered by looking at Meghan Markle versus Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. The page was moved back and forth between titles a few times while her "official" name was being disputed, and the higher pageview count always jumped to the article title at the moment. BD2412 T 18:03, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
I just want to note that I haven't lost interest in this. I just don't know what to add. I'm just going to hope that system admins take this up at some point, using various findings here. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 10:23, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
Personally, I agree with earlier comments that any improvements should be made in data analysis, and not by rejecting page requests. If the triggers to detect denial-of-service issues haven't been set off, by net neutrality principles, the Wikipedia servers shouldn't be filtering page requests. isaacl (talk) 14:18, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
If you mean let's have a better way of detecting what are not genuine views by people, then of course that is a useful band-aid for views reports. But the rampant fake access for no discernible reason remains, and who knows where that is going if the systems admins don't know where it's coming from and gets worse and becomes a DOS. Net neutrality isn't a web server matter but an ISP one. Websites can choose to block whoever they want. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 17:00, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
I'm not speaking from a legal perspective, but a conceptual one. The Wikimedia Foundation's mission is "to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally." ([13]) It shouldn't decide what requests to process and which to not until necessary to protect its infrastructure. Triggers can include monitoring incoming flows and dynamically setting conditions. But until the triggers are met, it shouldn't play favourites in deciding what clients get access. isaacl (talk) 15:45, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
The infrastructure in terms of data integrity *is* being harmed. Performance isn't a concern, yet, and I haven't pretended that this is the case as of now, but it could become one if something isn't done. Bad data should trigger a response. Also, we're not talking about picking and choosing which access to accept willy-nilly - anything done about this would target a specific access producing said bad data. It's all right to stop access done for nefarious purposes (given it is technically feasible to do so), and I see no way this violates any concept of neutrality. This is not "playing favourites". All traffic is considered legitimate unless it demonstrates that it is not. And these views run-ups are almost certainly illegitimate (of course, to be fully determined in the Phab task). Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 06:14, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

The article has now been moved back. Moving the page does not appear to have had any effect on incoming views, but appears to have confirmed that these views were just calling the URL, and not actually looking at it (i.e., not following to the redirect target while it was a redirect). My going theory is that this is itself a test by some outside entity that intends to manipulate page views for some other page in the future, probably for commercial or political ends, and is confirming its ability to do so. BD2412 T 20:16, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure why people are making such a big fuss over this. The main concern here seems to be that it messes up our internal page view stats. I agree that can be annoying, but it's also inevitable that things like this will happen. It's a truism in the Big Data world that there will be garbage in your data. You need to accept that and be able to deal with it on the analysis side. You're never going to track down and correct all the sources of garbage, so don't bother trying. RoySmith (talk) 14:31, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
It's funny how folks keep coming here to tell us that it's all right for this site to be pummeled with fake visits (on edit: in the process, harming data integrity - my point all along) and just be cool with that. This isn't a few odd hits we're talking about. Sure, we can apply a band-aid to analyze views differently but we can also have the miscreants blocked and/or shut down (as long as that is technically feasible - something yet to be determined). Nobody is talking about chasing down any or all crap views. This is clearly a special case. And if it's not taken seriously, whoever is doing so will be emboldened to go further. If we do nothing, we are inviting worse. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 01:58, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
"all right for this site to be pummeled with fake visits and just be cool with that"
Oh noes, some weirdo spends the day pressing F5 on his browser to increase the views on one article. Or that Publishers Clearing House links to that page in promotion or something.
What changes on our end? Absolutely nothing, except an article has more views than if they didn't do that. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:19, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
@StefenTower., please Wikipedia:Don't worry about performance. There are people paid to worry about this. If they're not worried, we don't need to be worried. They are not worried about someone racking up 20K page views per day. That represents something around 1/50,000th the normal daily traffic. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:33, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
I *am* leaving it up to the people who run this site to make decisions about this. That's why I created the Phab ticket. I'm not the one finding a resolution. My trust is placed in them. If they decide to let it go, that's their decision. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 05:47, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
And again, it's the data integrity more than the performance. I thought I had made that clear before. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 06:00, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
If it was simply "more views", it wouldn't bother me in the least. If one reads above what the issue is about in total, they would see that data that is likely used in decision support, such as in WikiProjects, is being skewed to such a degree as to screw up top rankings. It may not seem so alarming now, but if nothing is done about it, what stops it from ballooning into something that even affects performance? But for me, the harm to data integrity is enough to warrant some kind of action. At the very least, we need a band-aid to look at these kinds of views and recategorize them. I don't think that is close to a complete solution, but I will take that for now. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 05:59, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

TL;DR: A data integrity problem (but not currently a performance problem) is being caused by some entity running up hundreds of thousands of fake views per month of select articles, particularly Neatsville, Kentucky, leading to corrupted presentations in reports based on this views data. Apparent solutions include more smartly identifying such views and recategorizing them (as they highly likely aren't views from real people) and figuring out what exactly is the origin or origins of this access and taking steps such as blocking to handle them. Stefen Towers among the rest! Gab • Gruntwerk 06:37, 27 June 2024 (UTC)


Doesn't it seem very likely that this traffic is being caused by a client-server botnet that is waiting for instructions?
It's normal for bot-nets to connect to a webserver to get instructions. But that's tricky for the bot-operators, because it has to be a website they have no legitimate connection to, and if the server is shut down, then all their bots are effectively worthless. Instead, If you point your bot-net to an obscure Wikipedia page it not only saves you the trouble of hacking into an unsecured web server, but it also means that sys-admins are unlikely to spot the uptick in traffic.
If this theory is correct, one day the "owner" of the bot net would insert some command into the page and all the infected devices would do some horrible thing. Perhaps the article should be be edit protected before that day comes. ApLundell (talk) 01:45, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
Nobody's said this yet, at least not that I can see, but I seem to remember a mystery along these lines happening some time ago, in which a photograph of a flower was getting some unbelievable number of hits -- it turned out to be that some app was using its URL as a way to diagnose connection issues. So it was not 100% benign -- it was someone being a cheap-ass about bandwidth and they really should have used something hosted on their own servers -- but it was not really malicious, just kind of lazy. jp×g🗯️ 00:23, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
We've got people whose job it is to worry about this kind of stuff. Not only do they have a better handle on how big a problem this is than we do, but they have access to server logs that we don't, giving them a ton more information than we have about where this is coming from. And if they decide something needs to be done about it, they have access to the tools to do it. Why don't we just let them do their jobs? And then we can all get back to important stuff like figuring out which shade of green to paint the bikeshed. RoySmith (talk) 00:33, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia in Fiction

Nature magazine has been running a series of Science Fiction short stories called "Futures". The latest one -- "Plastic-eating fungus caused doomsday:[2][3] A collaborative effort" -- is told as a series of entries to a Wikipedia talk page. Never thought of Wikipedia as a genre. AFAIK, this is the first Wikipedia fiction -- not counting hoax articles, of course.

I don't know how long this link will be good, so I downloaded a pdf copy of this story in case it goes away. -- llywrch (talk) 02:44, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Good find, thanks! Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:59, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
@Llywrch see lena by qntm Mach61 23:20, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
I have to do this: [1]

References

  1. ^ Burnett, Emma (12 June 2024). "Plastic-eating fungus caused doomsday[2][3]". Nature. doi:10.1038/d41586-024-01723-z.

Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:11, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

AFAIK, this is the first Wikipedia fiction Nope! Pre-dated by works like Neurocracy (2021), Missing Links and Secret Histories (2013), and I'm sure there's many more examples. – Teratix ₵ 10:02, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
@Gråbergs Gråa Sång, Llywrch, and Teratix: I have redirected Wikipedia in fiction to Wikipedia in culture. If the use of the above mentioned works is discussed in sources, it would be worth adding mention of them to that article. BD2412 T 19:49, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
I'm surprised that I missed Missing Links and Secret Histories, since I've read every issue of the Signpost since its creation years ago. But my oldest daughter was 6 at the time & having children that young limits every activity outside of work, eating & sleeping -- & sometimes the last two are also affected. -- llywrch (talk) 06:57, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
Another example of fiction in the form of a Wikipedia article is "Basilisk collection" by Blackle Mori. Jruderman (talk) 11:27, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
While reading an unofficial wiki about a webcomic franchise, I noticed that the wiki has an article of a Wikipedia-like (parodied?) character. His typing style and one of his bullet point in his promotional image seem to be somewhat obvious to me. --린눈라단 (talk) 04:04, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Voting to ratify the Wikimedia Movement Charter is ending soon

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Hello everyone,

This is a kind reminder that the voting period to ratify the Wikimedia Movement Charter will be closed on July 9, 2024, at 23:59 UTC.

If you have not voted yet, please vote on SecurePoll.

On behalf of the Charter Electoral Commission,

RamzyM (WMF) 03:45, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Help needed on Workers Party of Britain Page

This page has a broken infobox that I have no idea how to fix. Can someone help out with this? I hope this is the right place to ask. 🎸✒️ ZoidChan23 🥁🍕 20:29, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't know whether this was the right place to ask, but I've reverted to an unbroken version. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:53, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
Alright, thanks. 🎸✒️ ZoidChan23 🥁🍕 15:45, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

U4C Special Election - Call for Candidates

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Hello all,

A special election has been called to fill additional vacancies on the U4C. The call for candidates phase is open from now through July 19, 2024.

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

In this special election, according to chapter 2 of the U4C charter, there are 9 seats available on the U4C: four community-at-large seats and five regional seats to ensure the U4C represents the diversity of the movement. No more than two members of the U4C can be elected from the same home wiki. Therefore, candidates must not have English Wikipedia, German Wikipedia, or Italian Wikipedia as their home wiki.

Read more and submit your application on Meta-wiki.

In cooperation with the U4C,

-- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 00:02, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

If nobody from this project is eligible, what exactly is the point of posting a call for candidates here? – Joe (talk) 12:15, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
Personally, I think it is useful for the community to be kept informed of the progress of filling the seats on the Universal Code of Conduct coordinating committee, including the plan for a special election and that candidates are being sought, even if those candidates must be from other wikis. isaacl (talk) 18:20, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
Indeed, I can imagine the reaction of some editors if they found out such an election were being conducted without the English WP being officially notified. Donald Albury 20:04, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
You might know someone from a different project whom you'd like to encourage to apply. You might be reading this page, but your home wiki is actually somewhere else. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:03, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

One article about two different people?

Can someone else please take a glance at Bill Cook and Ron Herzman? It seems really odd to have one article about these two different people. Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 22:51, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Of course, same rules don't apply to fictional characters, like Luke and Laura, but there's WP:AT at least. Also, Luke Spencer and Laura Spencer (General Hospital) have their own articles. George Ho (talk) 00:14, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
  • It quite often happens that people dont have much notability outside the duo, i.e., if you write separate articles, there will be a heavy overlap beyond "born and raised" and "died and rests" So it makes perfect sense to have a single page. - Altenmann >talk 00:22, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
Two academics who co-author are not the same as a singing duo. The article should be split so they each have a separate page. PamD 05:21, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
If they are permanent coauthors then they are the same as Category:Business duos. - Altenmann >talk 05:40, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
No, because they have separate lives, and teaching careers, and in one case political aspirations. Not all their publications are joint: see https://bill-cook.com/resume/ and https://www.geneseo.edu/english/ronald-herzman. PamD 07:28, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
they have separate lives, and teaching careers, and in one case political aspirations. Those elements aren't indicators of notability, honestly. Per WP:N, WP:NBIO, WP:NACADEMICS, and WP:BLP if still living, everything about each of them comes down to what they are notable only for and how notable their own careers are outside the collaboration. Furthermore, the sources you provided are primary, so what about secondary and tertiary ones? George Ho (talk) 08:30, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
Look at the books they have written:
Not exactly "permanent coauthors". PamD 20:55, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
… Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller … —Tamfang (talk) 21:23, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Some examples I have encountered are: Charles and Ray Eames, Mary Dann and Carrie Dann, Peter and Rosemary Grant. Johnuniq (talk) 09:09, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Also, every page in Category:Married couples. jp×g🗯️ 00:24, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
and some of List of twins. —Tamfang (talk) 00:55, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
Sacco and Vanzetti. XOR'easter (talk) 20:05, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

RFC that could use uninvolved input

Please see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#RFC - Gaza Health Ministry qualifier. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:58, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

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