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The miscellaneous section of the village pump is used to post messages that do not fit into any other category. Please post on the policy, technical, or proposals sections when appropriate, or at the help desk for assistance. For general knowledge questions, please use the reference desk.

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« Archives, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78

Oh my, that's a relief

This morning I went to login and got presented with a captcha. Yes, a captcha! Just when the rest of the world is starting to move on from the wretchedly unpopular and increasingly useless things. I very nearly never came back. Glad I did try again later, as it has now gone. If it ever comes back, I won't. Anybody who needs that explaining to them, never will understand. (And before you ask, yes I am an infosec expert in my day job). — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:16, 22 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You dislike CAPTCHAs so much that you'd throw away your 37,000 edits over having to do two of them? Interesting. Any particular reason why? –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:22, 22 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

CAPTCHAs are an accessibility violation. Partially-sighted people may have difficulty working out what the oddly-shaped letters are supposed to be; blind people can't see them at all. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:02, 22 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And AI can beat the CAPTCHAs anyway. Cheerio, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 17:29, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

We really ought to do a better job of advertising the CAPTCHA exempt user right, information on it should be included in Special:Captcha. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 21:42, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, if the CAPTCHA is shown when logging in, then that doesn't help. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 00:00, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I know it wouldn't help in this specific scenario, but I still think it is something worth pointing people to. As redrose64 says, these CAPTCHAs are inaccessible to people with visual impairments, and I think that pointing out that there is a user right that allows you to skip them in a lot of situations would be helpful. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 10:30, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

skipcaptcha is already included with autoconfirmed, so that takes care of most everyone with an account. Captcha is not normally triggered during standard log on screens; if it is happening all the time we can check in to that. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:13, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I got captcha-ed a few times when creating some doppelganger accounts the other day. Not knowing what triggers the captchas, though, that may or may not have been caused by something like multiple accounts being created in fairly quick succession. A smart kitten (talk) 17:54, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

New anti-vandalism tool starting development at the Wikimedia Foundation

Hi - I’m the Product Manager for the Moderator Tools team at the Wikimedia Foundation (and long-time editor and admin here). I wanted to let you know that now that we're wrapping up our work on PageTriage, my team is in the early stages of designing and building Automoderator - an automated anti-vandalism revert tool like ClueBot NG. Although most of the details and discussion can be found on MediaWiki, we’ve created a project page here to discuss how this tool might be evaluated or used on the English Wikipedia. We think you have unique insight into how we should build the tool given your experiences with ClueBot NG. Please take a look at our project page and share your thoughts on the talk page. We’ll try to keep the page to date as we progress with the project, so consider watchlisting for updates. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 10:50, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, shouldn't this be also posted in Technical or WMF? Aaron Liu (talk) 02:26, 2 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Citation vs. attribution for direct quotes and close paraphrasing

A recent discussion at a FAC led me to realize that there's a difference in phrasing amongst WP:V, WP:CITE, WP:NONFREE, and WP:CLOP regarding in-text attribution. V and NONFREE are policy, CITE is a guideline, and CLOP is an essay.

V says Summarize source material in your own words as much as possible; when quoting or closely paraphrasing a source, use an inline citation, and in-text attribution where appropriate.
NONFREE says use brief verbatim textual excerpts from copyrighted media, properly attributed or cited to its original source or author (as described by the citation guideline).
CITE says In-text attribution should be used with direct speech (a source's words between quotation marks or as a block quotation); indirect speech (a source's words modified without quotation marks); and close paraphrasing. It can also be used when loosely summarizing a source's position in your own words, and it should always be used for biased statements of opinion. The distinction between should be used and should always be used doesn't seem to completely make sense, but I'd interpret this as meaning the former allows for some editorial discretion whereas the latter does not.
CLOP says Limited close paraphrasing is appropriate within reason, as is quoting, so long as the material is clearly attributed in the text.

CLOP seems inconsistent with the other three, each of which (debatably for CITE) say in-text attribution is not required and citation may be sufficient. Of course in-text attribution is very often the right thing to do, but there are cases where it can lead to ugly and unreadable prose. For example, in a section on the reception of an album, one might want to write 'The lyrics were poorly received, and were described as "bland", "unoriginal", "tedious", and "derivative"', drawing those comments from individual reviews. I won't write out a fully attributed version but it would clearly be horrible to read. I feel that if each of those one-word quotes has a citation to the review in question, that should suffice. Technically of course CLOP doesn't even apply as these are not paraphrases, but that makes the inconsistency even worse.

I would like to bring CLOP into line with the other three. I haven't yet posted notes at any of those other talk pages; I'm aware CLOP's wording has its defenders and if I get shouted down here there's no point in expanding the conversation. If there seems some support for rewording CLOP I'll add the relevant notes elsewhere. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:53, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

After thinking about it I think it makes more sense to get V, NONFREE and CITE to agree with each other first, and then to address CLOP once that's done. I've posted a suggested wording change to WT:CITE, and will post a note at VPP as well since that page covers guidelines. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:33, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Mike Christie, CLOP is probably the easier one to fix. The idea that close paraphrasing (which is a copyvio issue) can be solved with in-text attribution to the author came from SlimVirgin back in the day, and it is just not true.

Also, keep in mind that both she as well as the now-banned editor who started that page often used "attribution" to refer to Wikipedia:Attribution (the attempt to merge WP:V and WP:NOR). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:45, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like the change to CITE will happen; no opposition so I'll make the change in the next day or so. Then I think it should be easy to make CLOP match the other three. I agree with your take on attribution vs. copyvio and after seeing the conversation at WT:CITE I don't think anyone will object at WT:CLOP. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:54, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That CLOP statement should definitely be reworded, there should be no close paraphrasing at all unless explicitly quoted. – Isochrone (T) 23:28, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I'd make it so clear-cut, although what you're saying is true in the majority of cases. There's certainly an argument for phrasing like "The historian John Smith has called Augustus the worst emperor of all time", particularly when making the original quotation fit the grammatical structure of the sentence would require a lot of butchery. MOS:GID also gives a good example of where someone's name and pronouns have changed: it's better to paraphrase and attribute than to create a mess of square brackets. Granted, all rules should be applied with common sense, but I think people are (justifiably) less willing to stretch copyright rules than they are stylistic ones, so the rules should be written as such. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 09:43, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Generative AI from Google

Just a heads up that Google has launched another salvo in the generative AI wars. I just did a search for "geography of the western bronx" and was asked if I wanted to enable their generative AI experiment. I did so, and got back a couple of paragraphs of perfectly fluent and cogent English which would work perfectly for me to copy-paste into the article I'm working on. And a google search for the text comes up with nothing, so tools like Earwig wouldn't notice anything was amiss. This is going to be interesting. RoySmith (talk) 00:23, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Magnificent. Because NPP and AFC aren't sufficiently flooded, now we'll have even more AI stuff. Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 00:33, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It makes verifiable inline citations even more crucial, as proof it was researched and written by a human. Some AI includes cites but often to unreliable sources such as Wikipedia itself. -- GreenC 02:19, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What I'd really like to see is an AI that checks whether an article's source likely verify its claims. I know that's a bit beyond the technology right now, but I can dream. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:33, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Thebiguglyalien, a few years back, a researcher was developing a tool that would take a sentence or short passage (e.g., something with a {{citation needed}} tag on it) and search through newspaper databases to identify news articles that might be useful as sources for it. It was more of a keyword-matching exercise than actual AI, but it should be feasible to do a basic check. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:27, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Thebiguglyalien, there was an editor looking at doing that earlier this year. I think you might do d them in the archives of one of the village pumps, perhaps VPP. They provided most of the code they were using on-wiki. — Qwerfjkl talk 22:31, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia clone possibly scraping AfD articles

Not only is this not a problem, it is exactly as intended. --Jayron 32 12:42, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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

I found a Wikipedia clone online called WikiAlpha. It seems to have no notability rules (which is a bad idea BTW), however it seems that they have a bot that nabs AfD articles on the English Wikipedia here and could count as possibly scraping pages. You can literally input a page right now and copy and paste the wikitext code. People seem to have used the feature as far as I know. Isn't this a violation of WMF's ToS or something? EnbyPie08 (talk) 22:22, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

My idiot self just realized it nabs all articles. EnbyPie08 (talk) 22:31, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As long as they're complying with the CC-BY-SA license, then there's nothing against any rules happening here. Iffy★Chat -- 22:41, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Even if they straight up copypaste articles like this one? EnbyPie08 (talk) 22:49, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yep. There a number of sites out there that mirror WP. It is all legal and allowed under WP rules as long as they attribute the material to WP. See Wikipedia:Copyrights#Reusers' rights and obligations. Donald Albury 22:57, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

So this isn't scraping of any kind or something? Well, fine then. EnbyPie08 (talk) 22:59, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's scraping, but the license allows that. You can find published ebooks that consist of Wikipedia articles. (Don't know who buys them...) Schazjmd (talk) 23:01, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, ok, I see. EnbyPie08 (talk) 23:06, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

For a premium price you can even find printed books, though probably only printed on demand. The content is as good as our articles but presentation can be hilariously bad. My favourite was "Rugby Line", copying our article about a railway to the town of Rugby but with its cover showing a white line on a rugby pitch. Certes (talk) 23:10, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And it is annoying when those books show up in Google search results when I'm trying to find sources to improve an article. Donald Albury 23:15, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ha! That's how I discovered them. Schazjmd (talk) 23:16, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Good. Deletionwiki went down years ago. We need a place to preserve deleted content for things like seeding generative AI on topics Wikipedia won't cover. -- GreenC 00:02, 31 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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

B(L)P's and categories Antisemitism vs. Islamophobia

This thing already hinted in title should interest anyone concerned with discrimination and our articles related to various discrimination issues. It's mindboggling disparate in dealing with a categorisation of BP i BLP, in which we are allowed to categorize persons, living or dead, involved with Antisemitism with corresponding Antisemitism category, but we are not allowed to do the same thing with those involved with Islamophobia. The latest example from my own experience is categorization of Milo Yiannopoulos with Category:Islamophobia in the United Kingdom which was removed on the pretense that "this category is not to include individuals, especially BLPs", which is kinda false since there is no such guideline or policy that say Antisemitism related BLP's can be included into, say, Category:Antisemitism in the United Kingdom, but Islamophobia related can't be categorized with these specific categories such as Category:Islamophobia in the United Kingdom. I just would like to hear some reasoning and/or arguments in whatever direction. In a way, this issue concerns whole project and could be deemed a discrimination in itself. ౪ Santa ౪^99° 18:43, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Santasa99, I don't know about whether individuals should or should not be categorised in either of those categories, but for anything in those categories, Islamophobia/antisemitism should be WP:DEFINING for the subject. — Qwerfjkl talk 22:38, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Of course - so, let's imagine that WP:Defining is not an issue, that the categorisation was, in effect, done with utmost care and consideration. ౪ Santa ౪^99° 05:23, 2 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Santasa99, you might find more knowledgeable responses at WT:CFD. — Qwerfjkl talk 18:19, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I stumbled on this discussion old discussion Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2011_February_9#Bias_categories whose conclusion says what it says, and most of the subcats contain a Hatnote that alert editors what to do and how to use these cats and its subcats, but then I checked few random subcategories in Category:Racism (including above mentioned Antisemitism / Islamophobia in the UK) and it appears only those concerning Islamophobia are emptied and watched over. This discrepancy problem won't be easy to correct since it comprises who knows how many articles and subcategories, maybe many hundreds. ౪ Santa ౪^99° 19:19, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I will try to copy/paste my initial post from here to there and wait to see what happens, thanks I really appreciate it.--౪ Santa ౪^99° 20:08, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

archive.today keeps reCAPTCHAing me

Is it just me or is something wrong with archive.ph? It keeps serving me endless reCaptchas through Cloudflare; I'm stuck beyond it. After a recaptcha it refreshes and has me redo yet another recaptcha. Aaron Liu (talk) 02:26, 2 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's done that for me for years. I'm in Australia, in case that makes a difference. Graham87 09:52, 2 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well I’m on the upper US east coast and this just started a few days ago. Somebody at VPT (where I mistakenly posted this) said they have no issue. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:52, 2 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It mysteriously started working again... Aaron Liu (talk) 20:36, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Aaron Liu: You’re definitely not alone with this issue. There’s been some discussion about it going on at Help talk:Using archive.today § Convert to archive.today. A smart kitten (talk) 17:49, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, well it started reCAPTCHAing me again Aaron Liu (talk) 21:38, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

So TL;DR switch away from cloudflare's DNS if you don't wanna get cloudflare'd with reCAPTCHAs. Hmm. Aaron Liu (talk) 21:44, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Aaron Liu But also seemingly not isolated to Cloudflare’s DNS either, given the reports of issues from users experiencing the issue not using 1.1.1.1. A smart kitten (talk) 05:54, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

See the talk page at archive.today. There was a little discussion about it. I'm able to get around the problem by using Brave instead of Firefox. VintageVernacular (talk) 08:21, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Size of large currency

Once again you ignore the obvious question a reader of today’s photo will have — how large are large silver certificates? Even the article buries that information in an information footnote way down at the end of a very long article. I changed that, but my change won’t last long. Wis2fan (talk) 03:38, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Wis2fan Your edit to a featured article needed a little more care. In one sentence you left a typo, omitted a leading zero, didn't offer converted units, and used "current" unclearly ("of the time" or 2023?) That said, yes I agree that it seems useful that when something is described as large sized there should be an indication what "large sized" means. And when discussing an article please do other editors the courtesy of providing a link to it, so we don't need to go to your contributions list to find it. Thanks. PamD 04:08, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The article is Silver certificate (United States). PamD 04:10, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And I've tidied up your edit as best I can. PamD 04:19, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for tiding up my change. I apologize that I did not realize that for a number less than 1, i.e. .5, that a leading zero is required. I haven’t changed a number before. & I was unaware that the decimal equivalents are calculated through an editorial formula. I’ll try to get it right if there’s a next time. (I’ve finally learned how to get complicated links right, usually.) I replaced "current" with "modern," the word used in the explanatory footnote. I left your editorial comment. I never thought to leave a link, I’ll remember that next time. Thanks. Wis2fan (talk) 03:30, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Wis2fan MOS:NUM includes both the point about the leading zero and the need to offer metric equivalents for US measurements. It's an interesting read, though goes into a lot of detail on all sorts of obscure aspects of numbers and units etc. PamD 08:29, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why is this here and not at Talk:Silver certificate (United States)? Discussions over the minutiae of article content belong pretty much solely on the talk page of the article itself. --Jayron 32 15:58, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Jayron32 I replied to the original poster, who seems to be saying that their edits tend to get reverted ("my change won’t last long"), partly to suggest (perhaps too subtly) that this might be because of the quality of their edits: they managed to get a lot of things wrong in the space of part of one sentence added. But you're right that this was the wrong venue anyway: another learning point for them. PamD 17:02, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Understood. But the OP should have still not asked the question here. Asking why their edits on a particular article were reverted properly belong in one of two places 1) on the article talk page of the article where they were reverted or 2) on the user talk page of the person who did the reverting. This forum is still not an appropriate place for them to ask this question. --Jayron 32 17:30, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I posted my comments here because I was originally commenting on The Photo of the Day, which included part of the article in question and which prompted my question, "How big is large currency?" which was only answered in a commentary footnote at the bottom of a l o n g article. Wis2fan (talk) 20:21, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Wis2fan: Your post appears to be about Today's featured picture of 5 September 2023. Per WT:POTD, if you have an issue with Today's featured picture, you should raise it at WP:ERRORS. The same goes for any other matter related to what is displayed on the Main Page - it's mentioned at Talk:Main Page. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:48, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sharing the link to the Mental Health Resource Center

Hey all! I work in the Community Resilience & Sustainability team of the Wikimedia Foundation. I am writing to you today to let you know about the Mental Health Resource Center in case you find this resource useful. This is a new group of pages on Meta-wiki aimed at supporting the mental wellbeing of users in our community. This project is the result of the work of a Human Rights intern at the Wikimedia Foundation, who wrote a Diff blog post about it.

While we previously provided helpline contact information for people who are in an active crisis or near-crisis, the team’s goal is to provide additional resources to offer mental health and wellbeing information in a number of languages, covering a wide range of topics. Our hope is not only to help people who are in crisis, but help prevent crises.

As with the Helpline information page, the Foundation’s Trust and Safety team is tasked with maintaining the pages. They will do a quarterly review of the content, which will include reviewing any recommended changes left on the talk page. Because this is a page they send to people who are in crisis, for liability reasons they do have to review substantial changes. However, they very much hope for recommendations and ideas and especially notes of problems.

The Resource Center contains the helplines, a glossary of mental health terms, and resources divided by category with supported languages listed next to each resource. There is also a table available if community members wish to view the resources sorted by language. The hope is this resource expands over time to cover more languages and cultures. Currently, translations into several languages are underway.

Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 17:26, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Given the culture of this website, I'm not currently able to imagine a scenario where this link could be provided directly to someone on-wiki, even in good faith, without running the risk of (at minimum) a stern warning for "speculating about the mental health of another editor". While we try to figure that out, I've added it under ==See also== at Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not therapy. Folly Mox (talk) 08:29, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Folly Mox, what do you think about adding a link in Wikipedia:Responding to threats of harm? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:27, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Huh, it already links to m:Mental health resources, which looks similar to m:Mental Health Resource Center. @JKoerner (WMF), do you know anything about the differences between the two pages? Is one or the other better suited for different purposes? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:29, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

meta:Mental health resources seems to be mostly crisis lines and similar, geared towards more urgent incidents than uh chronic intractable problems, like meta:Mental Health Resource Center. The current linkages to those two pages seem appropriately placed, but there are probably more places to link the new one. Folly Mox (talk) 19:12, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hey there! Thanks for your very thoughtful reflection on this. You are right about the differences between the pages. The Resource Center is aimed at better understanding mental health, whether purely informational or a temporary or long-term need for support, while the Mental Health Resources are crisis helplines. The folks working on this Resource Center are looking at how to rename the "Mental Health Resources" page to more clearly identify its purpose. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 18:13, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

When do we start to top out?

Wikipedia now has 6,710,730 articles, and my sense is that most of the substantial encyclopedic topics are covered. While there are certainly pockets of information for which thousands or even tens of thousands more articles are needed, I think that by the time we hit 7,000,000, additions will have slowed to the trickle of new articles being created almost entirely in response to new events, rather than any previously uncovered topics being newly covered. Does this sound right to others, and if so, does this affect how we structure our approach to developing the encylopedia? BD2412 T 17:18, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Define "new articles being created almost entirely in response to new events". For example, if archeologists discover a previously unknown species of dinosaur, would you consider that a new event (despite the fact that the dinosaur lived millions of years ago)? What about historians writing about events that happened in the past that were previously understudied? The event happened a long time ago, and obviously the primary sources the historians use are from a long ago time, but the secondary sources we would need to write an article may not have existed. Is that a "new event"?

There will always be things about our past and our environment that, while they have been around, our understanding of them continues to evolve and so there will always be unwritten articles to write about. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 17:25, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think we're a long way from the slowdown point yet. Just in the area I contribute most to, historical magazines, I would guess we have articles on no more than half of the US and UK magazines that meet the GNG. For magazines in other languages I doubt it's more than ten or twenty percent. Yes, the high profile articles in all areas are very well covered, but human interests are fractal, and you have to get a long way down the fractal tree before the sources aren't there. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:26, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but that's still a bucket of no more than a few thousand new articles. BD2412 T 18:33, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, for magazines. Multiply that by every category you can think of -- newspapers, notable books, authors, journalists, editors, publishers -- and that's just a few ideas from one small part of human culture. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:40, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think efforts dipping to that level will run into encyclopedic notability barriers sooner rather than later. Most individual authors, journalists, editors, etc., are not notable. BD2412 T 18:53, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And even if they were notable, there is simply an information gap for noteworthy subjects owing to lack of reliable secondary sources. Simply put, if the world willingly turns a blind eye to something important, then it is no longer important. _{Duly signed,} ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 18:59, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

User:Uncle G/Missing encyclopaedic articles * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:41, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

For another example see this book, which provides bios of 850 people. I created Xavier Ract-Madoux citing that after coming across him in another context, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are less than ten articles in Wikipedia for the others in that book. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:50, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There's also Category:Redirects with possibilities, which has ~90K pages. I suspect that it is significantly underpopulated. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:54, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's an interesting question. One of my recent creations is Still Life with Bread and Eggs, an 1865 painting considered one of Cezanne's most important early still lifes. The reason I created it was a recent event that brought it into current discussion. It was just as much a notable painting before this recent event, but the coverage of the recent event brought the painting to my attention, and I created an article. So it's not "Pop star announces upcoming album" and all her fanitors rush to be the first to create the article. But it was indeed created because of a recent event. Valereee (talk) 19:05, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

We'll run out of new articles to write when reliable sources run out of different things to talk about. Since their livelihood depends on not doing that, it's my feeling the encyclopaedia will probably continue growing until other factors cause it to stop. Folly Mox (talk) 19:22, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In my view, as someone's whose article creation centres on taxon articles, we're nowhere near slowing down. Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 20:26, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm rather gobsmacked by this thread. Anyone who thinks that the notable topics are anywhere close to being completed here must have a severe lack of imagination. Just one small part of what needs to be done is creating articles about the villages and towns in India, China, the rest of Asia and Africa that don't have articles yet. There are millions of them. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:36, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Consider what Albert A. Michelson said in 1903, The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote.q:Albert_A._Michelson - Donald Albury 23:02, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

When we're done writing an article for every person who ever walked onto a cricket pitch, every TV or radio station that ever transmitted, and every song that was ever recorded, we could work on something really worthwhile like "between six and ten million" articles about insect species? That'll keep us busy for a while longer. RoySmith (talk) 23:13, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

More or less what Phil said. But there's a subtext in Phil and Roy's comments that I think deserves closer attention: this implies that growth will mostly take place at the "tips" of fractal interest, producing articles about well-delimited but very narrow or niche topics which exist in large numbers as part of some system (geographic places, biological taxa, etc.) I think there are many potential articles that, in theory, could be written; i.e., as I sit here, I'm holding a book entitled Movable bridge engineering, which could spawn an extensive set of articles. In practice, this rarely seems to happen. I suspect this is a byproduct of our (necessary!) quality-control efforts. Someone trying to write the latter type of article is much more likely to run into OR/SYNTH issues, or sources that almost support a statement but have a slightly different scope, and so forth. It's much easier to gravitate to the former type of topic and avoid those issues.

So I don't think any perceived levelling-off of article creation reflects the exhaustion of the world's existing corpus of knowledge outside of Wikipedia; rather, our (again, very necessary) defenses against editing by partisans and imbeciles have also defended us very effectively against the help of actual subject matter experts. Choess (talk) 04:45, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it is going to level off; instead, it is going to slow down. There are tens of millions of topics not currently covered by Wikipedia that warrant coverage, but we have made it harder to create articles on these topics - and that is a good thing. There is never going to be another Lugnuts, mass creating substubs on topics that likely warrant mentioning on Wikipedia but currently lack the content to justify articles.

Instead, we will be seeing more coverage of Indian villages and insects in list articles or similar, rather than standalone articles - and the millions of topics that there is sufficient content to justify an article will slowly have one created. BilledMammal (talk) 05:05, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Community discussion on Charter for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee

Hi everyone. About a week ago, RamzyM (WMF) posted the following message to VPM, which was probably overlooked because VPM is a relatively low-engagement forum:

More languages • Please help translate to other languages.

Hello all,

I am pleased to share the next step in the Universal Code of Conduct work. The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) draft charter is now ready for your review.

The Enforcement Guidelines require a Building Committee form to draft a charter that outlines procedures and details for a global committee to be called the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C). Over the past few months, the U4C Building Committee worked together as a group to discuss and draft the U4C charter. The U4C Building Committee welcomes feedback about the draft charter now through 22 September 2023. After that date, the U4C Building Committee will revise the charter as needed and a community vote will open shortly afterward.

Join the conversation during the conversation hours or on Meta-wiki.

Best,

RamzyM (WMF), on behalf of the U4C Building Committee, 15:35, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This draft Charter defines the election procedures and mandate of the U4C (Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee). Under the previously-ratified UCoC Enforcement Guidelines, the U4C is an elected body with responsibility for enforcing various provisions in the UCoC and coordinating others.

I am posting this here because I'd like to invite comment from enwiki folks on this, and will be posting this thread to T:CENT. You're welcome to comment in this thread here or directly on the meta consultation page. If you comment here, I will be sure to summarize the discussion and post it on the meta consultation page. This is a similar model to how some other projects are soliciting feedback: for example, the German-language Wikipedia had a local discussion on their equivalent of the village pump and posted a summary of their discussion to meta for consideration by the drafting committee.

I urge the community to participate. Under this draft Charter, the U4C in most cases would not have authority on enwiki absent "systemic issues" (Except in instances of systemic issues, the U4C will not have jurisdiction when a NDA-signed, high-level decision-making body exists, warranting effective self-governance.). Nonetheless, based on the Enforcement Guidelines that have already been ratified by the global community, the U4C will have an important role in the governance of the Wikimedia movement going forward. This is a good chance to help shape how it will look — only a small handful of people have commented at the meta consultation page. I have my personal opinions, but welcome feedback from this community more broadly (whether it aligns with my opinions or not, of course).

Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 23:38, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

I continue to believe that, absent an enabling act, that the UCoC has no applicability on the English Wikipedia, and arguments based on it should not be considered when assessing consensus.
As for an enabling act, I would advocate against passing one. Consider the strength of our existing policies and institutions it has no relevance here and will bring no benefit; it would only serve to worsen our current instruction creep. It appears to be little more than yet another example of the WMF overstepping its mandate, and any attempt by the WMF to enforce it through the use of office actions would both be ill-advised and unnecessary. BilledMammal (talk) 23:54, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think the lack of ratification of the UCoC itself was a mistake and an ongoing one and I wish the board would decide to fix it sooner rather than later. But that said what's the precedent for board policies needing an enabling act on enwiki? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:01, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I concur that the UCOC is not required, needed, or wanted, on English Wikipedia. Stifle (talk) 09:26, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't believe that anything we say here will matter. They're not going to give up the language that lets them swoop in here if they don't believe we're enforcing the vagueness in the UCoC properly. Even the election system seems designed to only represent whichever viewpoint votes in the majority in each geographical region (not that our variation on block approval voting does much for proportionality either). Anomie ⚔ 10:30, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
English Wikipedia has not requested, approved, endorsed or accepted UCoC. We can and should ignore it unless and until the WMF steps in and abuses its position as our web host to impose restrictions, e.g. an office block. That would lead to another Framgate, which would be unfortunate but might lead to a revision of our relationship with the WMF. Certes (talk) 10:47, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- This is the "revision of our relationship with the WMF" after the first Framgate. Next time it won't be the WMF overstepping, it'll be this "community"-based committee enforcing the "community"-based and board-approved UCoC. Anomie ⚔ 12:06, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  That's right. hich is why it's important to get the separation of powers right and to have a good charter that will keep this community body on track. I'm also not sure why you're putting community in scare quotes when the charter currently prohibits staff from running and it's based on something that had 75% approval in a community vote. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:09, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  There's no singular community. Even here on enwiki there's not one community. But if/when this committee does something controversial here, there will be claims like yours that it represents "the community" anyway from those who happen to agree with it. Anomie ⚔ 18:17, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Concur with the comments above: let the communities regulate themselves without (more) interference from the WMF. Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 12:10, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

How many edits have I made...

Is there any way that I can see the amount of edits I've made without counting them all? 𝒞𝑜𝑜𝓅𝑒𝓇 𝒢𝑜𝑜𝒹𝓂𝒶𝓃 (talk) 15:07, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

[1] AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:09, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Or just go look at your contributions page. Special:Contributions/CooperGoodman says "A user with 78 edits. Account created on 9 May 2023." — Qwerfjkl talk 15:31, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

thanks bruv 𝒞𝑜𝑜𝓅𝑒𝓇 𝒢𝑜𝑜𝒹𝓂𝒶𝓃 (talk) 18:29, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

But remember that one good edit outweighs any number of bad ones. I haven't looked at your editing history, but quality is what counts (or at least should count), not quantity. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:37, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 204: / Line 204: @@
 :Or just go look at your contributions page. [[:Special:Contributions/CooperGoodman]] says "A user with 78 edits. Account created on 9 May 2023."<span id="Qwerfjkl:1694187064352:WikipediaFTTCLNVillage_pump_(miscellaneous)" class="FTTCmt"> —&nbsp;[[User:Qwerfjkl|<span style="background:#1d9ffc; color:white; padding:5px; box-shadow:darkgray 2px 2px 2px;">Qwerfjkl</span>]][[User talk:Qwerfjkl|<span style="background:#79c0f2;color:white; padding:2px; box-shadow:darkgray 2px 2px 2px;">talk</span>]] 15:31, 8 September 2023 (UTC)</span>
 ::thanks bruv [[User:CooperGoodman|𝒞𝑜𝑜𝓅𝑒𝓇 𝒢𝑜𝑜𝒹𝓂𝒶𝓃]] ([[User talk:CooperGoodman|talk]]) 18:29, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
+:::But remember that one good edit outweighs any number of bad ones. I haven't looked at your editing history, but quality is what counts (or at least ''should'' count), not quantity. [[User:Phil Bridger|Phil Bridger]] ([[User talk:Phil Bridger|talk]]) 20:37, 8 September 2023 (UTC)