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Grammar issue regarding POV on titles for objects in preservation.

I am deciding to officially issue this thread as I have investigated through Wikipedia and determined that there is a grammar issue for machinery in preservation. Most people are using the grammar "surviving" for machines instead of "preserved". I have moved some of them due to the following grammar issue (which I will highlight in bold to convince you guys in order to fix this issue), but for one example, it has been reverted many times.

  1. The word "surviving" is only used for a term to describe organic beings (e.g: Pets, humans).
  2. The word "surviving" (although could be used for machinery) sounds more like the Wikipedia article was titled from a fan's point of view instead of a neutral point of view as per this thread and per WP:POV.

Grammar issue being referred to machines in preservation.

@Chaotic Enby recommended me to move it to here after I attempted to report this to WP:ANI Airbus A320-100 (talk) 01:42, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

This isn't really a POV issue as such; it's much more of a style issue. While some may not find "survived" to be the best word, I don't really see why it matters as much as you say. Both communicate the meaning perfectly well, and the sense of animate versus inanimate "POV" seems to be more of a personal hang-up of yours barring any further explanation, if I can be frank. This doesn't seem like something worth having a rule about, and it is not very persuasive to showcase an example of your getting reverted repeatedly. Remsense ‥ 论 01:48, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
I've closed the ANI thread after I have moved this thread to here. Airbus A320-100 (talk) 01:54, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
The word "surviving" is only used for a term to describe organic beings (e.g: Pets, humans) doesn't match my experience as a native English speaker familiar with railway preservation and archaeology, and it doesn't seem to be an opinion shared by reliable sources, for example:
Given that all those sources are/appear to be written in British English it's not impossible this is an ENGVAR matter (or that could just be an artefact of google's personalising my search results), but either way it's not a POV issue. Even if it were a POV issue, it would not justify the edit warring over it you seem to have been involved with. Thryduulf (talk) 02:06, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
Thryduulf graciously posits that this may be an WP:ENGVAR issue. It isn't. I am a 72 year old American and "surviving" is normal usage in American English in the context of historic preservation and archaeology. This is neither a grammar issue nor a POV issue, and the concern lacks merit. Cullen328 (talk) 06:32, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
It just doesn't make sense for aircraft when you think about it. Airbus A320-100 (talk) 02:08, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
Why? Thryduulf (talk) 02:11, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
If you keep reading my thread again and again, you will see what I mean. Airbus A320-100 (talk) 02:13, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
And then you will realise it is more than what you think. Airbus A320-100 (talk) 02:17, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
I've read this thread multiple times and all I can see is you declaring your own opinion to be objective fact and refusing to consider the possibility it is not. Thryduulf (talk) 02:23, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
I'm not saying it will happen instantly, it will take some time to understand it just for clarification. Airbus A320-100 (talk) 02:25, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
No, we understand it. Your point is just not persuasive. No amount of re-reading is going to change that. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 16:15, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
This reminds me of a passage in the introduction to Dianetics: (paraphrasing) "If the text makes no sense to you, at some point you have misunderstood a word; go back and find what word that was." —Tamfang (talk) 02:19, 2 October 2024 (UTC)
Also you sourced a reference from Wordpress, which is an unreliable source. Airbus A320-100 (talk) 02:09, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
Wordpress is not a source, but a publication medium. The source is the Warwickshire Industrial Archaeological Society, who are a reliable source in this context. Thryduulf (talk) 02:11, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
Whoops. I misread that. I got confused. Because across Wikipedia through hundreds of debates, I've since learned that Wordpress as a source is an unreliable source. Airbus A320-100 (talk) 02:13, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
If you'd prefer some more, unambiguously reliable sources...
Comment: This WP:FORUMSHOP follows directly on from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation#Names of Surviving Aircraft Articles (Airbus A320-100, see WP:DR for how/when to use dispute resolution processes properly; that said Thryduulf's refs show that your belief does not accord with common practice -- also look at all the other books using "surviving aircraft"). ~Hydronium~Hydroxide~(Talk)~ 03:54, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
This does look like forum shopping and another editor had to apparently undo dozens of article page moves that Airbus A320-100 did and then refused to undo when challenged on the WikiProject talk page. One of the major rules in collaborative editing is don't force other editors to clean up your mistakes. That's a great way to try other editors' patience and is unlikely to sway anyone to your point of view. If you are challenged, revert and find consensus. Liz Read! Talk! 05:46, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
"Surviving" has 17,500 hits on Historic England's NHLE. Some may be "surviving members of the family", but the first two are one surviving windbrace (no idea what that is!) and surviving panelled dado. Good inanimate surviving entities. PamD 08:00, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

In my opinion, "surviving" applied to inanimate objects is good British English (see Thryduulf's comment, above). I found the following examples which indicate that it is also good American English; searching isn't easy even if you know the sort of thing you're looking for, there's a lot of clutter:

Narky Blert (talk) 06:45, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

"Preserved" and "Surviving" have very distinct meanings; they're not simply interchangeable. "Preserve" implies that someone, at some stage, has attempted to maintain the thing in a way that keeps some aspect of its original state, or at least that's what they want. Some ancient railway tracks may be preserved in their original location, because someone at least chose to leave them there, chose not to get rid of them, and possibly cleared away the weeds and documented them. "Survive" puts the stress on the fact that time and decay have not obliterated the object. The railway tracks may survive, in that despite no one looking after them (even despite a land-owner possibly wanting rid of them), the historically-interested observer can go there and find that they still exist. Both are good English; please remember the subtlety of the written word, and don't substitute rules for understanding. Elemimele (talk) 10:15, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
No two words are simply interchangeable: in the narrow context of its use as a descriptor here, they essentially are. Remsense ‥ 论 10:17, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

So, first of all, it's not a question of grammar at all, it is about idiomaticity. And it's not all that difficult to find out how "surviving" is used if you use a text corpus (my go-to collection of corpora for this kind of question is the one at https://www.english-corpora.org ). When I search for "surviving NOUN" in the British National Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American English at english-corpora, animate nouns (spouse, children, victims, etc) are of course much more common than inanimate ones in both corpora, but both corpora have quite a few different instances of "surviving" with an inanimate noun such as "records", "letters", "accounts". And the usage is in fact much more frequent in the British English corpus, both in terms of actual frequency (the BNC yielded 0.2 instances per 1 million words, versus 0.03 instances per 1 million words in the COCA), and in terms of variety, where the BNC has surviving portraits, villages, and buildings – in fact, looking at the 100 most common nouns that follow surviving, the BNC had about 44 different inanimate nouns, with about 27 different inanimate nouns in the COCA.

This was a very quick investigation, and I did not search for any alternative construction such as "surviving ADJECTIVE NOUN", for instance. But it does show without any doubt that "surviving" is indeed used with things other than people and animals, in British English as well as in American English. --bonadea contributions talk 10:41, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

All sorts of things have survived, from ancient literature to archaeological remains to brutalist buildings. The henges that remain in the UK survived for thousands of years before anyone started trying to preserve them. The last surviving example of some aircraft might be a decaying wreck deep in a rainforest. Any that still exist have survived, whether or not they've been preserved. NebY (talk) 11:04, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I think "preserved" can also be used without any human intervention, when something has been preserved by natural factors such as soil chemistry: see Bog body. PamD 11:45, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
Sure - cold water's preserved the Titanic, though the bacteria are getting to it now. Preservation helps things survive. NebY (talk) 11:59, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
  • In my head, "preserved" is a hyponym of "surviving" that merely implies the presence of external factors favorable to the entity's survival. I don't have a problem with describing old aircraft as either "surviving" or "preserved" but I would strongly prefer to use the latter if said aircraft "survived" exclusively in a museum setting, which seems to be the case with the Avro Lancasters the OP mentioned meaning I'd vote in support of moving the page back to the OP's preferred title even though, like many others, I completely reject their curious theory about living beings vs. objects. 78.28.44.127 (talk) 16:08, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
I might say that, akin to how I would say ants are preserved in amber. Remsense ‥ 论 18:11, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
  • Agree with everyone - in general, "surviving" is the best word in most cases, especially in archaeology and art history. "Preserved" may be useful for planes etc where a lot of upkeep is needed. Johnbod (talk) 01:22, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
  • This is notionally a MOS issue at best, but I don't think we would benefit from a top-down directive. In situations where it's controversial for some reason we would probably want to reflect the best sources. All that said, it seems to me that "surviving" is a more general and neutral term overall. "Surviving" merely states that it continues to exist (a neutral fact, provided its survival to the present is uncontested), whereas "preserved" carries additional connotations of someone or something actively preserving it, which may not always be the case. --Aquillion (talk) 01:38, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
  • Extant. Folly Mox (talk) 01:06, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
    That's a synonym that will likely be appropriate and useful in some circumstances and not in others. Thryduulf (talk) 01:15, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
    I agree with Thryduulf that it's a very useful word in some cases, but it isn't a synonym. The only extant monotremes are the echidna and the duck-billed platypus; but calling them "surviving" raises the question of what it was they survived. It's generally accepted that the Gospel of Mark is the earliest gospel extant, but that's a different question from that of the earliest gospel or of the oldest surviving manuscript of Mark. Narky Blert (talk) 15:44, 4 October 2024 (UTC)
Preservation doesn't work since the concepts are separate see the use of the phrase ""surviving into preservation" you also have the issue of tanks that were used as hard targets on gunnery ranges that survived by were certainly not preserved.©Geni (talk) 19:22, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Can I change my name?

Is it possible to change my name? Electrou (formerly Susbush)(talk) 20:50, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, you can submit request at Wikipedia:changing username. ‹hamster717🐉› (discuss anything!🐹✈️ • my contribs🌌🌠) 19:15, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Article mergers where the content is never actually merged

I've observed a pattern where article mergers never actually result in any relevant content being merged, so the content, while often (usually?) not entirely lost, remains hidden away in edit histories and difficult to access. It's extremely annoying when you click on a link, are redirected to some random article, typically a sub-section, and find nothing about the subject in question, or at most a throwaway line. That's not what a merger is! At least the useful and decently referenced content found on the merged page should be actually merged, and not just a tiny summary, let alone nothing at all. Mergers often seem to amount to (sugarcoated) deletions. This has become a pet hate of mine recently. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:53, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

That problem can occur when the content is regarded as WP:UNDUE on the target page, so in theory the merge resolution was wrong, but in practice it becomes, as you say, a de facto deletion. Sometimes it is done with that very purpose in mind. The other form is where the merge is never performed at all, because it would require actual work. In some cases, this results in a de facto deletion; in others, despite the merge resolution, the subject page is never merged and hangs around for years. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:58, 25 September 2024 (UTC)
The other problem I see many times..... is there maybe a consensus to merge.... but the content is horribly sourced or not sourced at all.... Thus not suitable for any page let alone the target merge page for those who actually work on the content. Must remember rfc's attract random people that many times have no clue about the topic at hand thus can't help out with any merger..... We literally have editors that just go around from RFC to RFC. This is also the case for deletion talks..... dominated by very few editors who simply can't have expertise in everything they discuss.Moxy🍁 01:05, 25 September 2024 (UTC)
I agree that many "mergers" are in fact little more than redirects, making them like deletions to the vast majority of our readers who don't look in article histories. But very little is likely to happen unless someone champions the issue, and identifies which articles this has affected. I don't have the time to do this (or maybe am too lazy) so we have to look at the OP or elsewhere for a volunteer. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:29, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
There's a bigger point at work here. Very roughly speaking, a merger should occur when two topics shouldn't have been separate articles in the first place because they are too closely related to warrant being separate. Effectively it's to prevent duplicated effort from being made. While merged articles ought to be properly content-merged, once merged, the new combined article should grow organically as articles do. So even if content were not properly merged and lost during the merger, if the content is apropos enough, you'd expect it to eventually be re-added anyway. Jason Quinn (talk) 12:08, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

How is everyone today?

You guys good or bad or whatever? Personally I’m decent. Jasonbunny1 (talk) 20:18, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm as good as can be expected thanks, but that's by-the-by. We usually allow a bit of latitude for general chit-chat here, but I think this question strays too far from discussion of Wikipedia editing even for this page. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:53, 5 October 2024 (UTC)
Oh, my bad then. Sorry! Jasonbunny1 (talk) 21:30, 5 October 2024 (UTC)
Hey, @Jasonbunny1, thanks for your edit to Liliaspis. Would you mind taking a look at these 18 articles or these 9 articles, which are tagged as wanting some work on refs? If the tag's out of date, or if you're able to add some refs, then please just remove the tag when you're done. It would really help a lot. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:54, 5 October 2024 (UTC)
Yeah I'm doing well, thanks for asking! —Matrix(!) {user - talk? - uselesscontributions} 15:13, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
No problem! Jasonbunny (talk) 21:52, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
im sad, because of 7 october massacres in israel, my condolonces to these civilian victims of terrorism. ----modern_primat ඞඞඞ TALK 21:51, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
Me too Saankhyareddipalli (talk) 10:44, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

User page design

Hi everyone, I recently redesigned my user page and would massively appreciate another editor (or editors) taking a quick look at it to let me know of any improvements I could make or issues which need to be addressed. Thanks! harrz talk 21:54, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Everything looks okay in Firefox on my Mac, and everything except the center-top 'ad' looks good in Safari. (I think the space for the ad might be too narrow.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:58, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
Ok, thank you. I'll work on formatting the ad soon. harrz talk 15:38, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Donald Trump 2024 presidential campaign

(non-admin closure) Nothing proposed. Regular ol' baloney. Talk:Donald Trump/Response to claims of bias. Babysharkboss2!! (Trout me, pull the trigger.) 15:34, 8 October 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.

This page was obviously written by opponents of Donald Trump. Do you really want to take a political side with Wikipedia, the results would be disastrous. Especially to the funding of Wikipedia and if he is elected, to your platform and user group. Over half of America supports Trump. I would suggest this article be eliminated and especially with it's woke jargon and criticisms. It is also protected so that whoever wrote it (DNC) has the writes to edit it and not allow peer review by Republicans.. so sad especially because Wikipedia has previously been a fairly reliable source for many. 162.192.94.207 (talk) 14:33, 8 October 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.

Indigenous_peoples_in_Canada#Peoples

Where I can get this kind of statistics for Alaska for 2020? Kaiyr (talk) 17:01, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi Kaiyr. It looks like Canada conducts censuses every 5 years, so 2021 is the closest you'll get to 2020. For future reference, questions like this would be better suited to one of our reference desks. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:12, 8 October 2024 (UTC)
I mean for USa. Alaska. Kaiyr (talk) 17:22, 8 October 2024 (UTC)
@Kaiyr, Alaska Natives#Ethnicity by region uses the 2010 census. This article on Census.gov gives figures for Alaska Native tribes in 2020 (table 2). Schazjmd (talk) 17:46, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Too much "Personal life" type detail and trivia in bio "Early life" sections?

The notability of individuals having a dedicated Wikipedia article usually stems from their professional or societal achievements as opposed to their personal lives. Accordingly, "Personal life" sections typically appear later in an article, once professional aspects have been covered. A significant exception to this appears to be "Early life", which often includes extensive amounts of subject matter which by its nature seems better suited for "Personal life".

Is this based on general consensus or simply a tendency of more literary-inclined editors to attempt to establish some sort of a narrative about their subject? Wouldn't it in most cases be more appropriate to keep the "Early life" section as "dry" as possible (born when, where, to whom, educated at school A, university B, etc.)? I'm trying to keep this question as general as possible, so I don't want to link specific articles, but I don't think lengthy coverage of the subject's family situation and especially their parents' pasts should be in "Early life". Except for those whose entire claim to fame intrinsically stems from their lineage, like royals and nobles.

MOS:CHRONOLOGICAL directs editors to In general, present a biography in chronological order, from birth to death, except where there is good reason to do otherwise. However, since "Personal life" is separated anyway, is there a good reason to give special treatment to "Early life"? 186.86.52.215 (talk) 03:05, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

These sections tend to be popular with readers. You might be interested in reading "Obsessed with Wikipedia ‘personal life’ entries? You’re not alone" from The Washington Post.
Sometimes the ==Early life== sections don't connect well with the rest of the article, but often they do. It frequently makes sense to have a paragraph about the subject's family of origin, followed by a paragraph about education. If the coverage of non-subjects (e.g., a parent's past) really takes over articles to the point of cloaking the nominal subjects, then we call those Wikipedia:Coatrack articles. That said, one or two paragraphs wouldn't be a problem, because reading (for example) about the parents' background can help people understand the subject (e.g., Joe Film went into acting because both of his parents were actors). In principle, the amount of time spent on the subject's early life, education, and personal life should be proportionate to the amount of interest in those subjects shown in reliable sources. A CEO's biography might gloss right over those and start with the meteoric rise through the management ranks. A child actor (or the child of an actor) would probably have more about their early life.
(The early goal for Wikipedia's writing style was called Wikipedia:BrilliantProse; to the extent that "dry" means "boring", then that's not really the goal. You'd probably have better success if you argued for "encyclopedic concision".) WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:10, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
I'm not against including this material per se, I just don't think a subject's "Early life" section should detail other relationships of their parents, all their half-siblings, other stuff like that. This usually has very little to do with why the subject is notable. If someone went into acting because their parents were actors then of course that has relevance and makes sense to include. But you seem to be saying that if someone is a gossip magnet to the extent that even "reliable sources" feel compelled to cover that more than their professional work, then this proportion should be replicated here? I don't think I can agree with that. Reliability is not the issue here, all of the material may be true and verifiable as well, but it shouldn't be front and center here, I think. "Personal life" can accommodate all those looking for "sizzle". If the only way to make "Early life" not boring is to include extraneous relationship drama and such, then I'm sorry, but I don't find that an acceptable practice for Wikipedia. 186.86.52.215 (talk) 04:45, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
In-depth biographies are holistic: they cover a person's life, and examine interconnections between different parts of it. Most people with Wikipedia articles do not have in-depth biographies written about them, and so this type of info isn't available. But for those who do, meeting Wikipedia's requirements for appropriate independent, reliable sources, their Wikipedia articles can be more inclusive of details in their lives that relate to their significant actions and characteristics. isaacl (talk) 04:25, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
Like I said, I'm not against including at least some "in-depth" personal detail about people, but if who the subject dated and married is normally kept separate from the great discovery they were working on at the time, then so should the subject's mother's affair be kept separate from telling the reader what school the subject was attending at the time. For some reason this separation all too often isn't being followed in "Early life" sections, even though it is elsewhere. That's what I have a problem with. 186.86.52.215 (talk) 05:07, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
In short, use appropriate biographies as as guide. If they exist and aren't making interconnections between personal info (beyond some basic family info) and other aspects of the subject's life, then the Wikipedia article shouldn't, and the personal info may then be irrelevant to the article. isaacl (talk) 05:15, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
I don't think it's necessarily irrelevant as it may still be good for background, but if it's not really a part of the subject's notability, it should be demarcated, and in "Early life" sections it often isn't. 186.86.52.215 (talk) 05:34, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
Perhaps there's a bit of a Demarcation problem with "the subject's notability". In some cases, "the subject's mother's affair" could be something that gets a lot of attention and thus is part of the subject's notability. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:43, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
I’ll say that I have noticed on a few biographies of people that the Personal life tends to be merged in the early life (like religious beliefs for example) when they are less notable than, say, George Washington. It’s a poor comparison I’d admit, but still one nonetheless. Wolfquack2 (talk) 16:43, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Preliminary results of the 2024 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees elections

Hello all,

Thank you to everyone who participated in the 2024 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election. Close to 6000 community members from more than 180 wiki projects have voted.

The following four candidates were the most voted:

  1. Christel Steigenberger
  2. Maciej Artur Nadzikiewicz
  3. Victoria Doronina
  4. Lorenzo Losa

While these candidates have been ranked through the vote, they still need to be appointed to the Board of Trustees. They need to pass a successful background check and meet the qualifications outlined in the Bylaws. New trustees will be appointed at the next Board meeting in December 2024.

Learn more about the results on Meta-Wiki.

Best regards,

The Elections Committee and Board Selection Working Group


MPossoupe_(WMF) 08:25, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Internet Archive hacked

For those who haven't seen this yet: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/internet-archive-hacked-data-breach-impacts-31-million-users/ RoySmith (talk) 23:46, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Looks like a registered user email address leak. The passwords are hashed and salted so those shouldn't be useful to a hacker unless the user had a weak password or is reusing passwords. internetarchive.org and the Wayback Machine are up and working as of right now when I tested it. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:16, 10 October 2024 (UTC) Added some caveats. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:28, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
With that said, it wouldn't hurt for people to change their passwords, especially if they use the same password for their email address (which you shouldn't!). I imagine most Wikipedians are going to have Internet Archive accounts given how difficult it is to write articles without its library. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 00:21, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
I'm quite upset about this. Not only because this interfered with my work, but because I can't fathom why someone would want to DDOS one of the most useful services on the internet. Speaking of, I hope Wikimedia's own DDOS mitigation systems are solid... --Grnrchst (talk) 14:27, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
"Internet Archive hacking drama: why did they do it?". -- GreenC 16:29, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
I read about that GreenC and honestly I find it pathetic. I’m going to refuse to bring politics into this discussion (which while they contribute slightly to this, I infer it is rather unnecessary), but this must be the lowest way I have ever seen someone try to protest; it’d be like burning Buckingham Palace to protest the Monarchy. Wolfquack2 (talk) 16:39, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
To alliterate, it’s result will only be in the group you’re demonstrating a “protest” disliking you even more. Wolfquack2 (talk) 16:51, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
I doubt it. As the editorial says, this kind of attack is done for advertising purposes. They probably hope someone will think "Wow, they must be expert hackers" and hire them. They are probably hoping that potential employers will not think "Seriously? That's the biggest, hardest target you can handle?"
As for results, being unfairly attacked is usually good for a non-profit's income stream in the short term. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:26, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Still down as of 8 43am est oct 11 •Cyberwolf•talk? 12:44, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
I’m surprised hardly any Wikipedians are replying to this serious topic. Actually I’ve seen hardly ANYBODY in general (social, news etc) that have gotten noteworthy attention. CNN, FOX, CBC and other mainstream medias aren’t even mentioning the issue. Driving me nots honestly. I wish the masses and higher ups would understand how important this library is, not only because of the Wayback but also the thousands of documents stored on it. Wolfquack2 (talk) 16:32, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
I’m saying this as someone who has a interest in Lost Media. The Archive being lost in the future could be devastating for that community. Several books that have been out of print and lost to time are stored there. Not every library in the states or elsewhere probably contains that vast of information. Wolfquack2 (talk) 16:34, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
I think this gets at a pretty gaping vulnerability with centralised infrastructure as a way to preserve information. This is only a problem because we have nowhere else to go for these books and archived web pages; we have the Internet Archive, rather than many Internet Archives (from mirrors to alternatives). If we want to ensure that such things won't be so devastating to our work in future, we need to build redundancy. To some extent, this applies to Wikipedia too. It only becomes the Library of Alexandria if we let it remain so. --Grnrchst (talk) 21:44, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
@Grnrchst I certainly agree with that. The problem is that I don’t think many are willing to make alternatives since it takes a lot of time and effort to run one of these things. Then again this situation may open those opportunities… who knows. Wolfquack2 (talk) 17:41, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
As far as mainstream media, I see reports in Newsweek, Forbes, ABC, Times of India, and The Hill. Plus of course the techie places like Wired, The Verge, etc. But, yeah, less coverage than I would have thought. RoySmith (talk) 16:46, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
What I was confused about to @RoySmith. You’d think that 31 million users would develop some type of significant coverage right? Apparently not. Wolfquack2 (talk) 16:54, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
To clarify; I’m not saying that the “tech-neck” news (as I like to call them) aren’t real media/news, I’m merely saying that the more, say, “infamous” medias (for a lack of better terms) appear to be not covering such. If you ask me, the Internet Archive is more important than the 2024 Election. Wolfquack2 (talk) 16:57, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Speculation here, but I can think of a few motives, or 'anti motives' as it were, for why the MSM not covering it - first, the claimed source of the hack being 'pro palestinian', and the MSM's tendency towards deference to that side of the political issue. Also, an awful lot of MSM folks have been not just embarrassed, but in some cases 'canceled', due to the existence of the archive as the internet's memory - people who have made egregious statements in the past, and having them dredged up later - long after they were deleted - and weaponized against them. Third - the fact that the MSM is largely a dying concern, and the fact that the archive can in some cases cause a loss in revenue. For example, lots of older news articles are paywalled by the publishers, the largest and most well-known being the NYT and WaPo. Via the archive, a great many of those articles can be accessed without restriction.
As I said, this is all speculation. I wish there was more information available about how the archive manages their data. Considering all of the 'ransomware' incidents that have happened in recent years, that sort of exploit could indeed be ruinous - many petabytes of data encrypted by malefactors who refuse to share the key unless millions of dollars are paid. Unlike the Wikimedia foundation, the archive doesn't have an Everest-sized stack of cash lying around to pay such a ransom. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 17:50, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
It's serious, because all of the Wayback Machine links on Wikipedia are down at the moment, with no clue as to when they might be back again. This is believed to be the result of a separate DDoS attack, but the Wayback Machine will not be back until all of this is fixed. --♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 17:54, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Do we know just how many of our articles have wayback machine links? It would be quite illuminating to understand just how deeply this has affected us. --Grnrchst (talk) 21:51, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
@Cyberpower678 and Harej: operate WP:IABOT, so one of them may have some stats on this. RoySmith (talk) 22:03, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Although, I see that User:InternetArchiveBot has 5,338,042 edits, so that may be a reasonable guess at the answer. RoySmith (talk) 22:05, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Some crude searching gives ~44,000 articles[1], ~960 templates[2] and ~5,559,000 files[3]. I may be doing something wrong. NebY (talk) 22:18, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Globally, IABot has added Archive URLs to over 22 million dead links. —CYBERPOWER (Message) 03:03, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
Enwiki itself has 12.5M wayback links in 2.5M articles (as of July), out of nearly 7M articles, or about one third of articles contain a wayback link(s), each containing 5 on average. -- GreenC 20:15, 13 October 2024 (UTC)
@Anastrophe I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case you mentioned in the latter. And considering that the signatures to possibly overrule the Hacchett vs IA is only 40,000 signs away, I wouldn’t be shocked if this is something that scummy publishers are involved. Wolfquack2 (talk) Wolfquack2 (talk) 19:07, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
I don't think it's a good idea to speculate about motives or try to uncover grand plots. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:15, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Fair point. Wolfquack2 (talk) 17:39, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
“But someday I'll prove (I'll prove, I'll prove, I'll prove)
There's a big conspiracy” -Weird Al Yankovic Wolfquack2 (talk) 17:43, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
Only way i think to fix it is shut it all down for a few days implement major security fixes and features. Wikipedia foundation wink wink could y’all help them. •Cyberwolf•talk? 18:42, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Yep, that's exactly what the plan is per their most recent post https://x.com/brewster_kahle/status/1844790609573277792. They have it offline intentionally right now and estimate it will be back up in a few days. I'd love if the WMF were to help—besides the Wayback Machine, losing the IA library significantly affects my ability to expand several articles I'm working on. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:50, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Me too race result archives and news papers •Cyberwolf•talk? 18:52, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Not to mention how lost media can now become lost-lost media if this happens to a greater extent. Wolfquack2 (talk) 19:00, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
I suggest checking out Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library. I spent a couple of hours earlier this year really digging through the offerings, and it's amazing. It doesn't cover everything, but it covers a lot. The central search bar at the top is nice, but it doesn't search everything, so it's useful to do publisher-specific searches occasionally.
It's probably also worth looking into your local library's offerings. The online resources from my local library, which tend to be more pop culture in nature, complement TWL's offerings, which tend to be more scholarly in nature. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:37, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Oh, for sure. I can't give enough praise to Oxford University Press and Springer, among others. But unfortunately it doesn't have everything (yet)! Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:49, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
My comments about this in Wikimedia Commons village pump, if anyone is interested.
Here at Wikipedia village pump, as well as in the Commons one, I've talked previously about the dangers that Archive faces, and I also suggested WMF collaboration to adress that. I hope recent Archive's partnership with Google provides them with the needed money, but its current infrastructure (according to their publicly available information) needs to be improved without doubt. For a collection so critical to humanity, 2 production copies in San Francisco Bay Area, with no proper backups, all or part of it is only one earthquake or one cyberattack from disaster. I would like this to change. MGeog2022 (talk) 16:16, 13 October 2024 (UTC)
Looks like the web archive is provisionally back up at least. Alpha3031 (t • c) 07:24, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
Yes, things seem to be getting back to normal. Let's hope that this kind of event don't happen again in the future, but above all, if it happens, let's hope that it will be like this time, without any loss of data. MGeog2022 (talk) 17:46, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
IA should hopefully get a little bit more robust each time it happens. Speaking generally, security and disaster recovery go from being low priority to top priority every time an incident happens. Over time organizations will iterate and harden their defenses. –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:53, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
The group claiming to be behind the hack seems to have copy-pasted text from the Wikipedia article on the Internet Archive (specifically regarding lawsuits by publishers and record companies) in a twitter post justifying the attack;[4] it appears they're siding with the copyright claims of large corporations against the IA. --Grnrchst (talk) 11:38, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart.
Oh, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
NebY (talk) 11:50, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
So, are my e-mail and password safe, or not? I am confused. Thanks, Cremastra (talk) 23:56, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
Your email and your password hash were both stolen. A password hash is your plaintext password one-way encrypted, and usually looks something like this: $2y$10$rTgZnDT6ZB93l5gY6eO.r.g2C1L3taBEL.mM1M5PFdtj3tca.UlOe. Password hashes are usually not possible to crack, with some rare exceptions such as it being a really weak password. Your plaintext password is probably safe, although it wouldn't hurt to change it anyway. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:01, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
Thanks, so given that my password was not re-used, other accounts should be fine? I assume I may get some spam in the coming days if my e-mail is stolen. Cremastra (talk) 00:02, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
Yeap, that about sums it up I think. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:10, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
All right, thanks very much. Cremastra (talk) 00:12, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Adding Hindustan Times sources

I do not know if this is the right place to discuss this or seek remedy, but HT sources can no longer be added automatically via ref gadgets like ProveIt and VisualEditor, only manually. Can't this be fixed, the way other websites like The Times of India were? Kailash29792 (talk) 17:29, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Are you saying that Visual Editor -> Cite -> Automatic -> pasting a hindustantimes.com URL and clicking "Generate" isn't generating good citations for that website? There's a procedure for fixing that but I forget the details. I think it might have to do with submitting a pull request upstream to Zotero? Anyway, you might have better luck posting this at WP:VPT. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:37, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Yup, you are absolutely right. Previously it could, but I don't know what happened. Kailash29792 (talk) 00:54, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
There are several possibilities, some of which we can fix and some of which we can't. This periodically happens to nytimes.com too, which is inconvenient. Mvolz (WMF) can usually figure out which kind of problem it is. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:16, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
I can confirm that it works locally from my IP, but in production they give us a 403 forbidden error. That might mean we're IP blocked. Mvolz (WMF) (talk) 10:21, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Feedback on chatbots as valid sources, or identifiers of them

We have a {{find sources}} template destined for Talk page use, which invokes a module to display a set of links to help editors find sources for articles. Here's one for Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico:

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

A discussion is taking place at Module talk:Find sources#Chatbots as valid sources or identifiers of them about whether the links given should be expanded or modified to include some AI chatbot links. Your feedback would be appreciated. Mathglot (talk) 16:34, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

For reference, I as an experiment added Gemini and Copilot (as well as an earlier experiment to add Bing) to the sandbox version of find sources:
Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · Gemini AI · WP refs) · FENS · Bing (Copilot AI) · JSTOR · NYT · WP Library
The goal is to help find valid sources, not that the chatbots themselves are valid sources.
A different question would be why we list Google and not some privacy focused alternative like DuckDuckGo in {{find sources}} but that would be a different thread. Awesome Aasim 17:23, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Heads up for accidental logouts

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T372702

There's a bug that's been going around for a few weeks where users get logged out, apparently at random. I'm aware of a few incidents where people have been logged out (presumably due to this bug), didn't notice, and leaked their IP address. So this is just a heads up to be mindful of your login status. If you're running a non-default skin and/or custom CSS, it might be obvious when you get logged out. If you're running all the defaults, not so much. So just try to be alert to this. RoySmith (talk) 01:41, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

A little more information is at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Keep getting logged out. Johnuniq (talk) 22:34, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Ouch :(
thx for the heads up! Jasonbunny (talk) 19:21, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Seeking volunteers to join several of the movement’s committees

Each year, typically from October through December, several of the movement’s committees seek new volunteers.

Read more about the committees on their Meta-wiki pages:

Applications for the committees open on 16 October 2024. Applications for the Affiliations Committee close on 18 November 2024, and applications for the Ombuds commission and the Case Review Committee close on 2 December 2024. Learn how to apply by visiting the appointment page on Meta-wiki. Post to the talk page or email cst@wikimedia.org with any questions you may have.

For the Committee Support team,


-- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 23:07, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

For anyone who doesn't know what these groups do:
AffCom deals with organizations: Is this new group suitable for being officially declared an affiliate? Did that old group accidentally forget to file their report, or has it actually quit existing? If you are interested in the organizational side of the movement – editing events, conferences, national chapters, and so on – then this is for you.
Ombuds deals with individuals who have privacy concerns (e.g., misuse of CheckUser tools). I don't know how things stand at the moment, but they are usually desperate for people who can read and write in languages other than English, and for women. Technical skills are a plus, but you can learn those. The most important thing is that you care about editors' privacy.
CRC works with WMF Legal about office actions. I believe that criminal activity gets filtered out, so this is more like "they were wrong to ban me just because I was toxic to everyone" appeals instead of the "my lawyer says I might not actually go to prison" ones. I believe there are only a handful of requests each year at this point. Recommended for policy wonks and future lawyers, as well as folks with dispute resolution experience.
If you are even vaguely interested in one of these, please look into it. The best-case scenario is that they get more applicants than they need. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:08, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
Let me provide another viewpoint. Here on enwiki, we tend to think of ourselves as the be-all and end-all of wikidom. Being on one of these committees exposes you to what's going on outside our walled garden and gives you a broader view of the wiki world, which is a good thing. RoySmith (talk) 20:19, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Very future projects going full Crystal Ball

Basically, there's two works currently listed under Category:2110s works: the film 100 Years, and the Future Library project (plus a page for one of its constituent pieces of writing). Nothing wrong with talking about them as they have valid coverage, except that categorizing them flies in the face of Wikipedia:CRYSTAL. If we cannot assure something as usually predictable as elections or Olympics less than a decade in advance, then it's frankly silly to play along what two private entities claim will happen almost a century into the future. Sure, every announced release date is uncertain (see: Silksong), but within a few years it is sensible to believe the companies. Within several decades? Not so much. 2803:4600:1116:4C4:C163:2583:D895:96D (talk) 09:00, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

translations

I edit in wikipedia in different languages and I want please 3 things that I do not manage to do from translators:

1. Translate for me to Hungarian the sentence "In October 12 2024 Matip announced his retirement from professional football at the age of 33" to put in Joël Matip's page

2. Translte my english user page that you can see in the link bolow to Hungarian, and put it here

3. Translate Joel Matip's page to Icelandic Latin clash (talk) 14:59, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

@Latin clash, I think you are looking for m:Meta:Babylon. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:03, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
thank you @WhatamIdoing, that helped me.Latin clash (talk) 14:32, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Hello everyone, I previously wrote on the 27th September to advise that the Wikidata item sitelink will change places in the sidebar menu, moving from the General section into the In Other Projects section. The scheduled rollout date of 04.10.2024 was delayed due to a necessary request for Mobile/MinervaNeue skin. I am happy to inform that the global rollout can now proceed and will occur later today, 22.10.2024 at 15:00 UTC-2. Please let us know if you notice any problems or bugs after this change. There should be no need for null-edits or purging cache for the changes to occur. Kind regards, -Danny Benjafield (WMDE) 11:29, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Arbitration committee 2024 election: nominations to start on November 3

The nomination period for the 2024 arbitration committee election will start on November 3. If there is someone you'd like to see run, or if you want to know someone else's plans before making your own decision, I encourage you to talk to them now, well in advance of the election. For more information about the work involved with serving on the committee, see the arbitrator experiences page. isaacl (talk) 01:53, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Relaunch of the Community Safety Survey

Hello there!

This month, the Wikimedia Foundation will be relaunching the Community Safety survey on your wiki. This survey occurred in 2021 and 2022 to monitor safety sentiments on large Wikipedias. The survey used the QuickSurveys extension. Users were asked one question: “In the past 30 days, have you felt unsafe or uncomfortable contributing to Wikipedia (en.wiki.x.io)?”

This year, we will be adding a second question to the survey. For those who answer “Yes” to having felt unsafe or uncomfortable, they will be asked to select or write in some reasons they have felt unsafe. Users may permanently dismiss the survey, otherwise, the survey will show up once each quarter to a random sample of logged in editors.

The goal is to use this anonymous survey to monitor users’ perception of safety as they contribute to Wikimedia projects. Data will be published on the Community Safety reports page for administrators and interested community members to review and support their own work. This project is led by the Wikimedia Foundation Trust and Safety team, with research support from the Research and Trust and Safety Product teams.

For questions and comments, feel welcome to reach out to us on the Community Safety Talk Page.

Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 18:56, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

great, long overdue! Nayyn (talk) 19:20, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Global Ban Request Notification

In accordance to the global bans policy, this message is to notify the English Wikipedia community that a global ban request has been instigated against User:Won1017, a user indefinitely blocked in your project. Takipoint123 (talk) 22:44, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Style sheets & printing

In Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia, I know the following statement is outdated, but I don't know what should replace it. If someone does, please edit accordingly and indicate here that you have taken care of it. "Browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox, that recognize the media print will automatically apply the printable version when printing with the default Monobook stylesheet." Jmabel | Talk 17:58, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

@Jmabel, maybe move this to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:11, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
Feel free to move it where you will; I don't particularly see rewriting documentation as a technical issue, but if you do please feel free to pursue this as you wish. - Jmabel | Talk 02:57, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

I've gone and removed that section. I don't think it's needed anymore. All modern browsers now show the printable version when you print the page, without having to us the "printable version" link --Chris 07:10, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Please see the details at the upper part of Talk:Yandex Search #Classification box

So it looks like the wiki software does consider and would treat this name as a non-existent and thus legitimate possible name of/for an account.

I do see two problems:

  • If now some one else/new would create a (second) account with this name, provided the wiki software would allow it, there would exist, via certain links, an old version with the same name.
  • In the history of all pages which were created or edited by this original account the original name of this account is existent, therefore this name must not be allowed a second time as an account name.

So, as I see this, something should be changed, probaly only on the technical ( not the rule ) side.

Ping welcome, Steue (talk) 10:13, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Isn't that just a misspelling? The username that created the page ends in "ffee" while the talk page comments are missing that last 'e'. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:47, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
I've wondered about this before. We have a bot that can change existing links, though not those in older revisions. You might get more reliable information at Wikipedia talk:Changing username. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:16, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
On second thought: Xaosflux, do you know the answer to Steue's question about people changing usernames, and then a future editor innocently creating an account under the same name? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:19, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing in general, antispoof should prevent someone from creating another account with the same name as one that was renamed. — xaosflux Talk 17:44, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
I remember, on advice from another admin, creating a doppelganger account on my old user name to prevent usurpation. My account was renamed in July 2008 (at least, that is when my user page was moved), but the current account with my old name was created in November 2009. That was a while ago. Donald Albury 18:23, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
That used to be common advice, before antispoof. It is still useful to at least have a redirect from pages in old signatures/lists to current pages. — xaosflux Talk 13:25, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

ActivelyDisinterested, you are right: mis-spelling; getting old.
I corrected it on Talk:Yandex Search #Classification box.
Steue (talk) 11:49, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Check the notablity of this article and after approval then delete the speedy delete template

Hello dear Wikipedians. This article (Najmeddin Shariati) was created once before in an unprincipled manner and without citing reliable references. For this reason, it was deleted under the title of not notablity and fame with the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. But this time I created it with basic editing and citing more than 20 reliable references from official Iranian news agencies (Because this person is Iranian) that independently covered the news of this person. Please review this article and its references and after approval, delete the speedy deletion template. This person's article is available in Persian Wikipedia, and its notablity and  fame was confirmed by the administrators and editors of Persian Wikipedia according to the reliable sources mentioned in it. If you think this is a stub article. Add the stub template to it and let it stay. The final decision is yours. very thanks 4ipid (talk) 22:17, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

This appears to be about Draft:Najmeddin Shariati.
SafariScribe, you declined this for lack of reliable sources. There are 21 refs in the article. Every paragraph has at least one Wikipedia:Inline citation. WP:AFCSTANDARDS #6 says "Avoid declining an article because the reliable sources are not free, online or in English", so I hope that the use of WP:NONENG sources was not a factor in your decision (I have seen less experienced AFC folks make that mistake). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:26, 30 October 2024 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing, I have changed the declining rationale as I perceived it's more reasonable. Although the sources may appear reliable, but it's not everything published by them is considered reliable e.g WP:INTERVIEWS, which are mostly flowing through the cited sources. I am also seeing meaning with the recent deletion discussion, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Najmeddin Shariati. Cheers! Safari ScribeEdits! Talk! 04:10, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
@SafariScribe, Have you considered the value of a custom reason in these cases? The draft now has two identical messages at the top, neither of which says anything about interviews. (Interviews are usually reliable; the point of WP:Interviews is that when the subject is being interviewed about himself, his answers – but not the introduction, questions, or other content that came out of someone else's mouth – isn't independent. If you are interested in this subject, then feel free to join the conversation at Wikipedia talk:Notability#Can we please settle on some guidance for interviews?) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:29, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Question regarding copyright, spoiler, summary

In Japan, police in Miyagi prefecture recently arrested members of a company which post spoiler of copyrighted shows onto the company's website, and try to earn ad revenue.

Copyright holders and interest groups claim they permissionlessly transcribed character names, dialogue, actions, scenes, and plot which reveal the whole view of the story to an extent beyond quotation and is obvious copyright violation, damaging rhe right of copyright holders as it will lower the desore of people paying proper price for the content and lead to people not actually watching the movie itself.

Given that while Wikipedia is a nonprofit site, and sunmaries of fictional works on Wikipedia usually wouldn't include direct quotation of dialogue of characters inside performance, many such articles still include very extensive summary on full plots of the fictional works they are describing, and all content published on Wikipedia unless otherwise specific should be reusable for profit, is there any risks that summary section of articles currently included in Wikipedia could be deemed copyright violation? C933103 (talk) 12:37, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

The law is quite clear in making a distinction between plot summaries (even including spoilers) and the like, and actual copyright violations such as extensive transcriptions of dialogue. We are at no risk. --Orange Mike | Talk 12:54, 30 October 2024 (UTC)
@C933103, I would prefer that articles included "full plots of the fictional works" but not "very extensive summaries". When I run across them, I try to take a minute or two to remove overly detailed content.
That said, what I really dislike, and what might actually be a copyvio problem, is a "plot summary" that is just a word-for-word copy of the publisher's marketing blurb. They're unlikely to complain (free advertising!), but it's IMO a disservice to the reader, and would be IMO undesirable even if the publisher had formally dedicated that text to the public domain. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:35, 30 October 2024 (UTC)
To expand on the first point, often a more concise plot summary that succintly outlines the work's story is a lot more useful than something that is painful to read since it's weighed down with details only superfans are interested in.
Also note that WP:VGPLOT, WP:FILMPLOT, and WP:NOVELPLOT all state that plot sections should be no greater than 700 words unless there is reason otherwise.  novov talk edits 09:05, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
That is what I would like to believe that the law is clear enough, but screenshot provided by relevant party (which is censored so text cannot be read) seems to indicate the website they arrest the operator this time do not actually publish dialogues of the original work line by line, instead look like a prose style description of the original work. So I am not sure about the degree of violation on that website that lead to the conclusion of that website is considered a transcription of original work and thus copyvio. C933103 (talk) 01:51, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
In most countries, ordinary copyright violations are a matter of civil law (i.e., not criminal), so the police aren't involved and nobody gets arrested. However, it is sometimes more complicated than that; for example, if someone breaks into a computer system to copy the author's original files (=a crime) and then posts them on the internet in violation of copyright law (=a civil tort), then the police could arrest the person for breaking into the computer system, but not for the copyright violation. Also, a creative lawyer could suggest others: perhaps the circumstances suggest fraud, or perhaps it's computer piracy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:41, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
Japan made copyright violation a criminal offense since year 2018 after the signing of TTP (Now known as CP-TTP) trade pact, according to my understanding. C933103 (talk) 00:32, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry

Moved to Talk:John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry § Oscar Wilde card

— Preceding unsigned comment added by RoySmith (talk • contribs) 22:45, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

WMF disclosure of editors' personal information

Activity at the WMF Village Pump has gone up considerably since this developed, but for those who don't usually check the page: there are ongoing discussions about the WMF's decision to hand over editors' personal information to an Indian court. These can be found at Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF)/Archive 8#The Asian News International vs. Wikimedia Foundation situation and Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF)#Contacted by one of the editors. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 01:15, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I want all my edits reverted.

I know this will be completely ignored especially considering corporations who don’t care at all about user’s privacy like Google but I will say this anyway. I want all the edits I have made reverted. I want everything I have added onto Wikipedia removed.

I believe it is my right to privacy and just as people are allowed to add content to Wikipedia they should also be allowed to remove content they have added. 92.9.187.249 (talk) 22:11, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Whenever you edited Wikipedia in the past, you were informed in writing with each individual edit that you agree to our Terms of Use and agree to irrevocably release your text under the CC BY-SA 4.0 License and GFDL. That was a legally binding agreement that you accepted with each edit. Accordingly, you have no such right and no basis for making this request. Cullen328 (talk) 22:18, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
Ah yes. The good old terms and services trick. Well, I am not surprised. Well then, you continue editing Wikipedia if it makes you feel good but as for me well I am getting out of what I consider a digital rubbish can set on fire. With that being said safe travels fellow internet surfers. This is me finally signing off from this site once and for all! 92.9.187.249 (talk) 22:36, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
It is not a "trick". It is a legal agreement that you voluntarily entered into every time you made an edit, and it is essential to the success of the #7 website on earth, with page views exceeding ten billion per month. I hope that you find a hobby that will be more satisfying to you. Cullen328 (talk) 23:28, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
Not to minimize the licensing issue, but there's also a practical side to this. Let's say you created an article some time ago and over the ensuing years, multiple people continued to edit it. A good example from my own editing might be The Lincoln Project. I created it four years ago but at this point only 7% of the text is mine. Even assuming we wanted to revert everything I wrote, how could we possibly unravel that and leave anything coherent? RoySmith (talk) 23:35, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
This being an IP address, we have no way of knowing who was editing from it when past edits were made. For all we know, the person making this request only just gained access to this IP address today, and is actually asking us to remove someone else's work. BD2412 T 01:09, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
I wonder if the IP regrets not the edits, but the fact of not logging in (and thus exposing the IP address). I clicked through a handful of edits, and they seem to be quite ordinary, with no obvious privacy implications (e.g., punctuation fix). If hiding the IP address is what's actually wanted here, then it is conceivably possible that this could be accomplished somehow (e.g., Wikipedia:Revision deletion) without actually removing the content itself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:02, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
It seems to me that the IP was upset because of this filter action; OhNoitsJamie almost immediately implemented the IP's changes, but perhaps the IP did not notice this? --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 04:21, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
Sorry, revdelling 360 edits on someone's sayso is absurd. We shouldn't allow people to hide from the consequences of their actions like that. * Pppery * it has begun... 05:02, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
It is an interesting problem in that the inability to apply the 'right to disappear' might be a problem for EU editors. Reverting 360 edits is trivial compared to some 'right to disappear' actions needed; for instance, a person participating in a Clinical Trial asking that all information about them be removed from all databases - completely non-trivial, and completely doable via approved procedures at pharma companies. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:53, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Wikimedia Projects have always embraced the right to remember, for both technical and social reasons. * Pppery * it has begun... 03:15, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
I also believe that you agreed to this. If you want everything reverted, why did you add it in the first place? I am agreeing to the following terms by sending this message:
By clicking "Reply", you agree to our Terms of Use and agree to irrevocably release your text under the CC BY-SA 4.0 License and GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.
Which means that once it is put, you can't take it back, the word irrevocably in the legal terms is what is stopping you. Also, you have an IP address instead of an account, which means that again, you may be removing hundreds of people's work, and they might actually want that. Hellow Hellow i am here 16:51, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Even when people agree to something, they sometimes come to regret it later. That's okay. They're stuck with (most of) it in this case, but it's okay for them to be sorry about their past decisions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:25, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
I agree. If "irrevocably" wasn't in the legally binding contract, I would be on their side. However, it is, and so once you have added it it is too late to remove. Hellow Hellow i am here 17:40, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
And while if a company has your personal information they must delete it at your request, you gave the Wikimedia Foundation no personal information, and instead research, or fixed typos. To follow up, it is ridiculously hard to undo your edits if someone already edited over your edits. Hellow Hellow i am here 16:54, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Finally, this IP address has created several articles, which would be deleted (the creation of an article is an edit) which means that every created article by this IP address would be deleted, which is something us Wikipedians won't accept. Hellow Hellow i am here 17:00, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
The OP's request as originally worded violates Wikipedia's Terms of Use and would be pragmatically impossible to implement in general for reasons others have pointed out. But it is interesting to explore how far their request could accomplished, especially in light of the GDPR. There's a page at Mediawiki:GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and MediaWiki software that discusses some of the issues related to deleting a user's contributions and their IP addresses. A hyper-liberal interpretation of the GDPR and what private data means would make using Wikipedia impossible. For example, the OP's interpretation where all content they've added somehow involves their privacy is absurd: a typo fix in an article, for example, does not have anything to do with privacy and is not private data. WhatamIdoing's suggestion that their IP address be hidden in histories, etc., is reasonable and doable. But this redaction cannot reasonably for practical purposes extend to mere mentions of your IP address everywhere, for example, in comments by others. And the comments that we don't know if the same person made all the IP edits is a good one. Imagine if a handful of our most active editors decided to do what the OP wants, it would eviscerate Wikipedia. I am not versed in EU law but would surely hope the nature of collaborative websites are factored in to how the GDPR is interpreted by the courts and some technical common sense would prevail. Plus, I don't see how a GDPR right to disappear would overrule the legal agreement you made every time you made an edit. Without further clarification, we don't know what the OP wanted or why but it is an interesting topic to see how a "right to disappear" could actually be implemented and to what extent. Jason Quinn (talk) 13:11, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
Fortunately, most of the ambiguity around privacy of and ownership of IP addresses will go away when temporary accounts are rolled out on enwiki. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:51, 5 November 2024 (UTC)
Surprising that no one has suggested starting by removing this one. —Tamfang (talk) 20:34, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Small mistake -- room for improvement

I suspect that this new ("Talk:" page) section: Talk:Leslie_Winkle#"Oops"_#REDIRECT:_its_destination_[anchor]_has_apparently_been_re-named
might get "little or no" attention unless someone sees it mentioned in a place like this.

((uh-oh ... IF the above "attempted" wikilink does not work, then ... maybe try this instead.))

By the way, perhaps that above-mentioned "Talk:" page section -- which is brand new, right now -- might be difficult to find, in the future ... if/when it has been archived.

(Perhaps even when using the link displayed as "this", where, besides those [ill-advised?] square brackets in the section name, having been "escaped" [in some way] by using "percent-5B" and "percent-5D", it also uses a full URL starting with "https" instead of a syntax involving "double" square brackets.)

If so, then this link to the DIFF listing might help:
http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ALeslie_Winkle&diff=1255765446&oldid=1203561430

Thank you, and please forgive me if I chose the wrong place to add this "mention".

-- Mike Schwartz (talk) 16:20, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

@Mike Schwartz, when a redirect isn't working correctly, just fix the target that it's pointing to. I've repaired Leslie Winkle. Schazjmd (talk) 16:47, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
@Schazjmd : Thank you. -- Mike Schwartz (talk) 17:04, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
@Schazjmd: It's not always that simple. "Just fixing the target" can be a real problem if someone reorganizes the target article and changes sections' titles. Been there, experienced that. CiaPan (talk) 18:37, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
Let me clarify what I meant: fix the target on the redirect page. If the redirect page is pointing to a section that has been renamed, change the wikilink on the redirect page to the new section name. Schazjmd (talk) 18:44, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Open letters

I have trawled through some dark places on Wikipedia and collated Wikipedia:Open letters, I have added summaries and outcomes to the older open letters, do correct me directly there if the summaries aren't right. if there's any other open letters from the community or the enwiki community had participated to be added, go ahead (except for the burger king related ones as those explicitly said they were not from the community). – robertsky (talk) 04:08, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Fictional flag used in multiple places

This problem is not unique to the English-language Wikipedia, but I'm starting here because this is my native language. I'm bringing this to an explicit discussion here rather than just editing so that we can build an explicit consensus that I can then show the other Wikipedias.

Four en-wiki articles use File:Standard of the President of Syria.svg despite it being tagged on Commons as a fictional flag. I can think of no good reason it should remain in any of those articles, nor in any article in any Wikipedia. The articles are Flag of Syria, President of Syria, Gallery of head of state standards, and Battle of Darayya (November 2012–February 2013). It also shows up at Talk:Pan-Arab colors, which I presume is harmless. - Jmabel | Talk 01:23, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

I see a bot being viable that checks for flags (and maybe maps) tagged either as fictional (or frankly, with Commons:Template:Datasource needed) and strips them from articles. Remsense ‥ 论 01:26, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
I've seen this kind of thing in the past. I remember one user who created and uploaded to Commons dozens of fictional flags for provinces in various countries, and then added them to WP articles. Another user and I spent a fair amount of time documenting the flags were fictional and getting them deleted. (See Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Fictitious flags of municipalities of the Dominican Republic&diff=prev&oldid=353306231#Files in Category:Fictitious flags of municipalities of the Dominican Republic) fictional flags created for just one country.. Donald Albury 16:00, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
I think this is a more general case of Commons is not a reliable source. I often see people take images in commons completely at face value, including them in articles without any real source. Commons has very different rules than enwiki. They are mostly concerned with copyright and licensing, and (intentionally) make no attempt to verify that images are "real" or that the descriptions are factually correct. That's just not their job. But it is our job when we use one of their images in an enwiki article. RoySmith (talk) 16:21, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
Not exactly fictitious, but there was also the case of Flag of Vatican City#Incorrect version where we had an inaccurate flag for years which spread across the internet and out into the real world. the wub "?!" 17:14, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
I belong to an organization which has a flag. The design is described in exquisite detail in our charter ("white stripe, whose width is one-sixth of the hoist", that kind of thing). I sat down one day and carefully drew an example in a drawing app, taking pains to get the geometry exactly as described. The charter (long) predates things like Pantone, but I did consult with a commercial artist to get their input on the correct RGB values to use for the colors and attempted to get all the people who produce material for us to use these "official" versions. Eventually I gave up and accepted that people will just copy-paste from whatever is handy. Now I just amuse myself by tracing the lineage of various bits of marketing material by which version of the flag they've got. But, yeah, we should do better than that. RoySmith (talk) 17:25, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
@Jmabel, I suggest thinking about c:Commons:File renaming#Which files should be renamed?, particularly item 3, and seeing if they could get renamed to something like "Fictional standard of the President of Syria" (or "Fake" or whatever else you want). WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:44, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing: please feel more than free to pursue that.
I am glad to see there appears to be consensus to remove this from all articles. I will do so, or at least attempt to (some may be tricky because of templates). - Jmabel | Talk 17:03, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
I suspect there will be few objections to bold removal of any fictional flags. Commons has a real issue with their flag galleries, unfortunately. CMD (talk) 11:06, 11 November 2024 (UTC)
That file is now called File:Unofficial standard of the President of Syria.svg. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:10, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Redirects are cheap, but how many is too many?

I'm just wondering how others feel about this, without immediately starting an RfC or deletion discussion. @Hughbe98: as the one who created this example (but discussion is not about editor, but about edits).

We have a very small section of a page on ancient law, List of acts of the Parliament of England, 1275–1307#25 Edw. 1. Stat. 2 which is the target for no less than 24 redirects:

Is this excessive, and if so how to reduce this? Removing the uppercase / lowercase variations would halve this already... Do we have guidance on a best approach for redirect creators? In total we now have already 448 redirects to this one article[5]. Fram (talk) 17:48, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Ugh. This is what search engines are for. In the deep dark old days, we used to create these kinds of redirects because search wasn't very good. It's much better now (where "now" means the better part of 20 years) so we should just let it do its job. RoySmith (talk) 17:59, 12 November 2024 (UTC)
Do these redirects actually prevent anything desirable happening? DuncanHill (talk) 18:22, 12 November 2024 (UTC)
  • I see no problem here to be addressed. None of these individual redirects is so wrong as to merit deletion, so I don't see how the quantity much matters. BD2412 T 19:07, 12 November 2024 (UTC)
448 redirects would occupy the same storage space as a single .jpg Doug butler (talk) 19:32, 12 November 2024 (UTC)
Oh, storage space wasn't my concern. More things like issues with "what links here" being harder to navigate, more redirects to watchlist for vandalism, more work when the target gets changed (e.g. in the list above, the target is a potential article apparently, so when it gets created all the redirects need updating), more potential "wrong" results in searches (to take the most recent creation, is 13 W. 3 significantly different from 13W3, which has a different target), ...? But if people see no issue, then my question is answered and no action is needed. Fram (talk) 20:00, 12 November 2024 (UTC)
I think you are right to question this. The problems you mention are small but not zero. Exhaustively redirecting variations of words is not something I would want to catch on as a normal practice. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 14:58, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
It would be something to look at if a non-EC editor were adding a lot of such low-priority redirects, but otherwise, meh. Donald Albury 17:59, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
Redirects are cheap and usually uncontentious. Just occasionally an unambiguous redirect can become ambiguous as a new meaning arises for it. I suspect that only fixing redirects when they have become ambiguous would save a lot of unnecessary distraction and pointless make work. I used to spend quite a lot of time resolving multiple redlinks, and yes some of the redirects set up to do this would now be resolved by search. But improved search doesn't on its own resolve redlinks. ϢereSpielChequers 09:04, 13 November 2024 (UTC)
This is one of those situations where WP:CHEAP conflicts with a desire not to keep/hoard useless things. The question is: are these redirects actually useless? For most cases, I would suggest waiting at least six months, better a year, as long as the redirect is not linked from anywhere, and see if it gets any pageviews. If it doesn't, it can probably be deleted. Cremastra ‹ u — c › 13:31, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
Another way of thinking about it is, is the effort to check whether anyone uses a redirect worth less than the value of the resources freed up by deleting the redirect? My understanding was that the overhead of holding a redirect was so low that it meant any review of redirects, however cursory, was going to waste more effort than it could possibly save. ϢereSpielChequers 22:27, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
I agree with RoySmith that would should let search engines do their job, and I don't feel it's necessary to have a redirect for every variation that someone might write in an article. I don't think that does our readers any favours; having a common style helps them become familiar with it and thus more quickly recognize a citation. I agree with Fram that there are maintenance costs, and an increased risk of overlapping topics. For this particular case, is there a standard style that is generally used? isaacl (talk) 18:11, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
With legal citations, standards change over time. Any of the above variations for the particularly ancient statute in question may have been the most correct at a particular time. Even the ones that were never the most correct may have been used enough to show up in legal writings, such that a reader might see and want to look up the specific variation they have come across. Again, this is an unusually old statute. I don't see the case for deleting any specific one of these variations, and I doubt it's worth the effort to investigate whether there are some particularly low-value variations in the group. BD2412 T 02:39, 15 November 2024 (UTC)
Sure, but as Wikipedia's prose is being written now, I feel it's reasonable to standardize on something in common use today. Plus removing some of the variations wouldn't stop them from being used; it would just would mean that a wikilink target would have to be specified. I'll agree that there are more important maintenance tasks that could be done, but if someone wants to do it, I have no objection to it. isaacl (talk) 04:56, 15 November 2024 (UTC)
From the reader/searcher POV, I don't see a need for someone to spend time creating redirects from slight variations on modern names, but:
WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:06, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Real Clear Politics

Why was Real Clear Politics deleted prior to the election and then put back in to 2024 Poll averages afterward? It turns out they were the most accurate of the aggregaters. Ticketmand (talk) 23:05, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

@Ticketmand, which article(s) are you talking about? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:07, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
Nationwide opinion polling for the 2024 United States presidential election 72.241.148.122 (talk) 05:42, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
@https://open.substack.com/pub/taibbi/p/how-americas-accurate-election-polls?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=j0rzu Ticketmand (talk) 05:46, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
Welcome to Wikipedia, @Ticketmand. Have you figured out how to read the article's history page yet? If not, then Help:Page history might be useful. Looking through the history of the page, it looks like several different editors added or removed that particular poll multiple times, so whether it was in the article or not depends on when you were looking.
There are also multiple discussions at Talk:Nationwide opinion polling for the 2024 United States presidential election about the expected standards for included poll aggregators, and specifically whether to include RCP. As you can see, different people had different ideas about what's best. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:15, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
I don't think it is a reliable source. See WP:RSNP which has it yellow, "There is no consensus as to RealClearPolitics's reliability. They appear to have the trappings of a reliable source, but their tactics in news reporting suggest they may be publishing non-factual or misleading information. Use as a source in a Wikipedia article should probably only be done with caution, and better yet should be avoided." Doug Weller talk 16:45, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
My personal take: the goal of any poll is to statistically reflect opinion. As such, reliability is the wrong metric to use when deciding whether to mention a specific poll. Instead, we should judge it based on DUE/UNDUE weight (as we would other forms of opinion reporting). How often is the specific poll cited in sources? Is it “noteworthy” or not? Blueboar (talk) 17:17, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
I agree with Blueboar. In that article, they're all being used as primary sources. They are reliable for the claim being supported (which is "This poll said this on this date", not "This candidate is going to win" or "This poll is correct"). Editors should use their judgment about which ones to include, and they should take into account factors such as how much attention this or that poll is getting in independent sources. Overall, I think a certain amount of back-and-forth is just to be expected, as different polls will get more or less attention over time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:59, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

What does the arbitration committee in Wikipedia do

What does it do? Saankhyareddipalli (talk) 08:55, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee. Phil Bridger (talk) 09:16, 9 November 2024 (UTC)
1) Deals with user behavior problems that our normal consensus process at WP:ANI can't handle. 2) Deals with administrator behavior problems. 3) Deals with anything related to private, off-wiki information. 4) Deals with certain unblock requests. –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:56, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for clearing my doubts Saankhyareddipalli (talk) 10:14, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
@Saankhyareddipalli: I encourage you to read the archives of the Arbitration report in The Signpost. Unfortunately, the report has been quiescent for a while. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:17, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for clearing my doubts. Saankhyareddipalli (talk) 10:14, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Donation season again

“The internet we were promised. 21 November: An important update for readers in Australia. You deserve an explanation, so please don't skip this 1-minute read. It's Thursday, 21 November, and this message will be up for only a few hours.”

The same damn message I saw 2 weeks ago. Seriously, do they put it up for a few hours the turn it off for a few hours in alternation?

Or is there a timestamp such that each cookie-bearing individual only sees the message for a few hours (or until the Cookie Monster visits and clears their tokens)?

I deserve an explanation.

At least now it is “we ask you, sincerely” instead of “we ask you, humbly”. The fake humility used to grind my gears.

. ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 19:17, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Pre-GivingTuesday, I understand that the main US-focused campaign often runs for a few hours here and there, or perhaps a whole day, depending on what they need to test.
That said, the timing varies by country, though, so I'm not sure whether you're seeing testing at the moment or if this is the 'normal' campaign for your location. US donors often prefer to make their donations towards the end of the calendar year, but other places have other patterns. (I've heard that US editors, who are a minority of donors, tend to donate quite early in the campaign.)
If you don't want to see these banners, then go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-centralnotice-banners (or Special:GlobalPreferences#mw-prefsection-centralnotice-banners) and turn them off. There are cookies to suppress it for non-logged-in people (if you click the button to make it go away), but as of more than a decade ago, that only worked for a week at a time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:49, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Notification of a request for transwiki importer rights

A request for the assignment of transwiki importer rights is occurring at Wikipedia talk:Requests for page importation#Request for transwiki-importer - EggRoll97. To participate, please see the linked section. EggRoll97 (talk) 15:12, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Sign up for the language community meeting on November 29th, 16:00 UTC

Hello everyone,

The next language community meeting is coming up next week, on November 29th, at 16:00 UTC (Zonestamp! For your timezone <https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1732896000>). If you're interested in joining, you can sign up on this wiki page: <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Language_and_Product_Localization/Community_meetings#29_November_2024>.

This participant-driven meeting will be organized by the Wikimedia Foundation’s Language Product Localization team and the Language Diversity Hub. There will be presentations on topics like developing language keyboards, the creation of the Moore Wikipedia, and the language support track at Wiki Indaba. We will also have members from the Wayuunaiki community joining us to share their experiences with the Incubator and as a new community within our movement. This meeting will have a Spanish interpretation.

Looking forward to seeing you at the language community meeting! Cheers, Srishti 19:54, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Revert these edits from 15+ years ago on pages by IP editor on pages about Greek instruments

I don't know if here is where this should be posted. On pages about ancient Greek musical instruments like epigonion there is something about "ASTRA Project" that appears to be advertising of this project. These links were added over 15 years ago, and no one noticed. They should be removed as said previously it's advertising. Draheinsunvale (talk) 01:57, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

While I see plenty of things that could be improved in the Epigonion article, I don't think advertising for ASTRA is a problem. I couldn't find a surviving link to anything that explained what ASTRA was. Donald Albury 02:28, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
Links to www.astraproject.org (LinkSearch) were added around 2009 and are in Aulos + Barbiton + Epigonion + Salpinx + Physical modelling synthesis. It should all be removed because the reference (archived example) is not worthwhile and the original (astraproject.org) has been usurped and is now gambling spam, see WP:JUDI. Johnuniq (talk) 03:11, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Temporary Accounts - introduction to the project

A temporary account notification after publishing the first edit

The Wikimedia Foundation is in the process of rolling out temporary accounts for unregistered (logged-out) editors on multiple wikis. The pilot communities have the chance to test and share comments to improve the feature before it is deployed on all wikis in mid-2025.

Temporary accounts will be used to attribute new edits made by logged-out users instead of the IP addresses. It will not be an exact replacement, though. First, temporary users will have access to some functionalities currently inaccessible for logged-out editors (like notifications). Secondly, the Wikimedia projects will continue to use IP addresses of logged-out editors behind the scenes, and experienced community members will be able to access them when necessary. This change is especially relevant to the logged-out editors and anyone who uses IP addresses when blocking users and keeping the wikis safe. Older IP addresses that were recorded before the introduction of temporary accounts on a wiki will not be modified.

We would like to invite you to read the first of a series of posts dedicated to temporary accounts. It gives an overview of the basics of the project, impact on different groups of users, and the plan for introducing the change on all wikis.

We will do our best to inform everyone impacted ahead of time. Information about temporary accounts will be available on Tech News, Diff, other blogs, different wikipages, banners, and other forms. At conferences, we or our colleagues on our behalf are inviting attendees to talk about this project. In addition, we are contacting affiliates running community support programs.

Subscribe to our new newsletter to stay close in touch. To learn more about the project, check out the FAQ and look at the latest updates. Talk to us on our project page or off-wiki. See you! NKohli (WMF) and SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 17:39, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

My main question is: will people still be allowed to mention the IP adresses onwiki in e.g. sockpuppet investigations? If not, then this seems like a severe nuisance for such investigations. But if this will be considered a form of outing or confidentiality breach, then that should be made very clear and taken into consideration before deciding whether this is a blocker for this project or not. Fram (talk) 17:47, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
Great question. The Wikimedia Access to Temporary Account IP Addresses Policy says
When it is reasonably believed to be necessary, users with access to temporary account IP addresses may also disclose the IP addresses in appropriate venues that enable them to enforce or investigate potential violations of our Terms of Use, the Privacy Policy, or any Wikimedia Foundation or user community-based policies. Appropriate venues for such disclosures include pages dedicated to Long-term abuse. If such a disclosure later becomes unnecessary, then the IP address should be promptly removed.
In short, it's better not to do it unless you have a good reason and you do it on the right page (like Wikipedia:Long-term abuse). SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 17:55, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
Thanks, I presume any "official" page dealing with abuse (WP:AN, WP:ANI, WP:SPI, and arbcom) may be considered acceptable locations then. Of course within reason, not gratuitously disclosing IPs for the sake of it. Fram (talk) 18:06, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
Yup, exactly! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 18:12, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
My hope, although I've not seen this spelt out anywhere, is that temporary accounts will end CUs deliberately tying their own hands regarding IP socking, due to privacy concerns linking accounts to IPs. As CUs can still see IPs from temporary accounts, and IPs will not usually need to be revealed even on SPI pages, what would before have been socking that can't be technically examined (one tool among others but a useful one), will now be temporary accounts that can be listed alongside permanent accounts at SPI pages and similar. CMD (talk) 02:27, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
I believe all admins and also some power users (account age 6 months, 300 edits, opts in) will still be able to see temporary account IP addresses. So the checkuser practice of declining to link IPs to permanent accounts may still continue. –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:22, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
The opt-in is already in our preferences, even though we don't have the full system yet. I do hope the SPI practice could change though, trying to get a benefit from this shift. CMD (talk) 12:35, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
In the screenshot, a popup says "An auto-generated account has been created for you by adding a cookie to your browser."
What if the user has cookies disabled?
This is likely to alarm novice users (has the message been user-tested?). It would probably be wise to add a few words of explanation, say: "A temporary auto-generated account has been created for you by adding a cookie to your browser, in order to preserve your anonymity and not reveal your location." and changing "creating an account" to "creating a permanent account"Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:48, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
@Pigsonthewing, I believe you are looking for mw:Trust and Safety Product/Temporary Accounts/FAQ#How long does a temporary account last? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:43, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:2024 Bangladesh anti-Hindu violence § Disinformation in Introduction of the page

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:2024 Bangladesh anti-Hindu violence § Disinformation in Introduction of the page. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 04:51, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

The last time I posted about an earlier version of this discussion at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Talk:2024 Bangladesh anti-Hindu violence#Article protected, it received no response; this discussion would really benefit from additional viewpoints. Thank you. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 04:51, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Special:Export and Wikidata QID?

Hello everyone, the Wikidata for Wikimedia projects team is investigating the benefit of adding a new <tag> for a Wikidata item QID into the XML file output from the Special:Export function.
Have you used this function before? If yes, we would like to hear from you.

  • Would adding a new <tag> for a linked Wikidata item (e.g. <wikidataid>) aid you?
  • What types of pages did you export? (article, template, talk etc.)
  • What did you do with the exported content?

Please leave your comments or questions as a reply to this message, thank you. -Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 15:36, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

What does this new tag do? Blueboar (talk) 18:25, 27 November 2024 (UTC)tag.
@Blueboar The message is referring to tags in the XML file you get from exporting a page, not tags that are used in wikitext. The tag doesn't "do" anything, XML files use HTML like tags to mark up data fields. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 20:32, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
I can see this being useful to others, but the tag name (wikidataid) seems suboptimal. Could "wikidata-id", "wikidata-qid", or even just "wikidata" or "qid" be used? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:41, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
Hello @Pigsonthewing, yes it can be different, although <wikibaseitem_id> was suggested to fit with an existing schema. However, we have put the task on hiatus due to the potential consequences this addition could have on the size and time required for the weekly Wikipedia database dumps. -Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 16:55, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Avoiding conflicts with WikiEd course work

Two days ago I created an article on Ann Trevenen Jenkin, as part of WP:Women in Red's "Women who died in 2024". Yesterday there was a message on its talk page to say it is part of a WikiEd project, and I find that a student has been working on their draft article on this topic since 2 October. In the nature of student projects, they have been working step by step, week by week. Their draft is not yet fit for mainspace, and the course continues until 18 December. This must happen fairly often, when students pick notable topics which are missing from the encyclopedia but other editors spot the same gaps.

To avoid duplicated work like this, it would be very helpful if topics which are the subject of assignments in WikiEd courses could be flagged in some way, so that when an editor starts to create an article they are alerted, just as we are routinely alerted to the fact that an article on the topic has previously been deleted. Unless the editor feels that an article on the topic is needed with some urgency, they could then leave it aside (perhaps watchlisting it in case the student work needs some improvement), and choose a different topic. Could this be done? Where should I suggest it? PamD 09:37, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

I suppose that on a practical level the course tutor could create an article and then speedy-delete it G7 (requested by author) after adding the course banner to the talk page...? PamD 09:40, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
I wouldn't like to see that done. The expectation is that WikiEd should not be disruptive to the rest of the project, and should work within its normal operations. That includes that if you're drafting an article, someone else may "beat you to it"; that's a normal part of editing and something students who are learning to edit Wikipedia should be expected to deal with. They could always offer ideas for improving the newly-created article instead. Seraphimblade Talk to me 09:41, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
I didn't see it as disruptive, it wouldn't be an instruction not to create an article, but a nudge that an article was under construction so that it might be a good idea to put ones efforts elsewhere. I'll be interested to see what happens at course end, and I hope the student won't expect to be able to upload their article regardless! I suppose a difference from a normal drafting is that students are forced to work over a matter of months, while normal editors can in most cases work faster. PamD 09:50, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/University of Mary Washington/Writing and Literacy in the Digital Age (Fall 2024) has a useful scope table. AllyD (talk) 09:50, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
Yes, that's a standard course dashboard, but only useful if you know to look at it ... ah, just had a thought. Special:WhatLinksHere/Ann_Trevenen_Jenkin includes the Brigham Young course. So, if I remember, my process for starting an article will now include a "What links here" with particular care to look for WikiEd courses. PamD 09:53, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
I was going to mention "what links here"; I think that's a good idea anyway. Back in 2012 while creating Petite Suite (Debussy), I encountered a similar situation while checking links because there was an articles for creation submission at Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Petite Suite (Debussy) (requires admin goggles to view). Nowadays draftspace exists (it was created a year later) and editors do get alerts when there's a draft page at the same title as an article. Graham87 (talk) 14:59, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
It happens outside of WikiEd. Early last year I was working on an article on my user sub-page when I realized a new editor was drafting an article on the same topic. In that case, I merged what I had written into their draft. I'm not sure it is worth worrying about such collisions ahead of time. Donald Albury 15:02, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Desblock my account in Wikipedia spanish

Hi wikis,please asked to the User:Taichi (hes blocked my account and e-mail indefinitely from this https://es.m.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia:Solicitudes_de_verificaci%C3%B3n_de_usuarios?markasread=58923216&markasreadwiki=eswiki) I'm not a sockpuppet of these users. AbchyZa22 (talk) 10:47, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

But im a good faith so please asked this user Taichi AbchyZa22 (talk) 10:48, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

AbchyZa22, as this is the English Wikipedia, we have no authority over the Spanish Wikipedia. Each language Wikipedia is a separate project. If you are blocked on Spanish Wikipedia, you will have to appeal your block there; you can find instructions here in regards to that. Seraphimblade Talk to me 10:54, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
Hello, AbchyZa22. This is the English Wikipedia. The Spanish Wikipedia is a separate autonomous project with its own policies, guidelines and administrators. We have no influence or power over them. We cannot help you here. You must use the block appeal processes on the Spanish Wikipedia. Cullen328 (talk) 10:57, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
Ok, thank you AbchyZa22 (talk) 10:58, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
@Cullen328@Seraphimblade:Can't edit (http://es.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Especial:UsuariosBloqueados&wpTarget=%239201891) look AbchyZa22 (talk) 11:05, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
Sorry to hear it, but there's really nothing we can do about it. You will have to follow whatever appeals process the Spanish Wikipedia has; we can neither do that for you nor do anything about it. Seraphimblade Talk to me 11:07, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
AbchyZa22, I hope that you understand that English Wikipedia editors and adminstrators have no power whatsoever over the Spanish Wikipedia. We are not their bosses in any way. Cullen328 (talk) 11:33, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Population by tribes Guyana and Venezuela

Is there any statistics Population by tribes for Guyana and Venezuela? Kaiyr (talk) 16:02, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

See Indigenous peoples in Guyana, which has links to articles about tribes, and Indigenous peoples in Venezuela, which has population figures. Donald Albury 17:43, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

LTAs

What research, if any, has been done into the motivations of LTAs? Polygnotus (talk) 20:08, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia specifically, or more like the kind of person who would do this in general? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:21, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing: Wikipedia specifically. The reason I ask is because of User_talk:Polygnotus#808s_&_Heartbreak and then I discovered that someone had tried to have a conversation (at User_talk:MariaJaydHicky2). There are various creative ways to deal with such things, like that conversation or shadowbanning or forcing people to do a boring game for 30 seconds when their edit triggers an editfilter (which would be not too bad for someone who makes one such change a month but terrible for genrewarriors who want to change the genre of an entire catalogue of an artist).
Or perhaps we could just be less specific when talking about musical genres. I don't even know the difference between synthpop and electropop for example, and very little information would be lost if we simply used x toplevel genres (these are the options in ID3v1, perhaps better to use Eric Kemp's original list of 80 genres).
I wonder if someone (perhaps but not necessarily the WMF) had ever done any research to discover motivations and commonalities. How does an LTA become an LTA? How does an LTA stay an LTA (what dopamine reward do they get). How can we minimize the chances that they become an LTA and make being an LTA as unrewarding as possible? What can we learn from them (e.g. via an interview or analyzing data)?
I do, somewhat, understand the motivation of people who just write "poop" or blank a page, just to see if they can. But with LTAs the motivations and origin stories are quite a bit deeper. Polygnotus (talk) 00:29, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
I'm not aware of any research on LTAs specifically for Wikipedia.
I believe that there is research on Trolling (e.g., low empathy, anti-social attitudes, Online disinhibition effect, emotional sensation seeking) and on some "one-off" overreactions ("They rejected me, so I will fight them to the death", or at least until something more fun or interesting comes along), but not specific to Wikipedia.
On Wikipedia, they may not even agree that what they're doing is harmful. We had one LTA many years ago whose main "motivation" was a developmental disability. There was a long string of easily detected socks, but the itch to make the article "right" was apparently irresistible for years. My best guesses about how it stopped are either that the LTA found something else to do all day, or the parents restricted internet access.
Even getting in touch with Wikipedia's LTAs is difficult, and getting an accurate answer might be impossible. Occasionally we will have information about the person's identity, but even then, you hardly want to call someone and say "Hello, this is Wikipedia. You've got a student/employee/user with this e-mail address. Could you please block them from Wikipedia on your network, and maybe send a note home to their parents or guardians? Thanks." WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:19, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing: Thank you. Interesting. Do you think it would be a good area for someone to research? Perhaps someone at the WMF? It looks like the current approach of dealing with LTAs is not very effective, considering they can keep going for years and this one person created hundreds of accounts. I just mentioned a couple ways one could theoretically discourage LTA behaviour, and there are surely many other creative approaches (these were just the first ones that came to mind, and this was the first LTA that showed up on my talkpage). One could use a proof of work approach like Hashcash but with time instead of computational power. To me, it looks like the community could use some help dealing with this problem, and perhaps the WMF is willing to help. Polygnotus (talk) 02:47, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
There is a strong sentiment in the community that paying attention to serial vandals, trolls, and LTAs after they have been blocked/banned is counterproductive. See the essay at Wikipedia:Deny recognition. Donald Albury 16:35, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
@Donald Albury: The idea is obviously to reduce their impact and give them less recognition and less dopamine rewards. Spending hours reporting and tagging and blocking hundreds of socks is time that could've been spent writing an encyclopedia. And it would be counterproductive to not try to understand the problem, and to not use that knowledge to deal with them better. Polygnotus (talk) 19:34, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Change the license of logo Aeropostal (airline of Venezuela)

Hi ,wikis ,please any admin or bibliotecary change the license of logo (https://en.m.wiki.x.io/wiki/File:Aeropostal_logo.svg#mw-jump-to-license) ,the logo is not copyrighted peer article 325 LOTTT says in the template:PD-VenezuelaGov,the source:(https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Logo_Aeropostal_Alas_de_Venezuela_(Aerol%C3%ADnea).jpg ) ,Article 325 says any work (logos,coat of arms ,photos...) created by public sector considered to the public domain. AbchyZa22 (talk) 14:07, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

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