Eurovision Wiki:Village pump (idea lab)

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book reading mode

what im suggesting is a mode where everything appears like your reading a book in a library, it firstly, citations and links flat out don't work, to check citations, you actually have to go to the cites page and links would be like being told to buy this other book, or you could make links and work but lets assume not, you would view articles in pages, swipe to go to a page on the left or right, the first page would be the cover, it show the title, (article name) author, (article creator), writers, (recent editors), publisher, (wikipedia) A [all categories of that article], (categories for that article) and more, i think long infoboxes should be their own page, you could also swipe down or press a button on top to close that book, then you could explore a library of books that are articles, i do think the library idea is unrealistic (?) so i think it is better to have a normal searchbar (?) Misterpotatoman (talk) 06:00, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

This feature would be extremely complex, and would almost instantly get a Wikipedia:PINKLOCK. Maybe it should be a feature just to turn off links? ~2026-11404-95 (talk) 15:14, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

Help:Printing Misterpotatoman (talk) 21:36, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

Why would anyone want the citations and links to not work? I sort of understand where you're coming from on the pages part (kind of like having an e-book), but I don't see the point of making people manually copy and paste citations into the URL bar to check the sources for accuracy. And hyperlinks are a main part of what makes Wikipedia so useful.

Sentimental Dork (talk) 23:21, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

If the idea is replicating an e-book perhaps the idea is to keep everything in black and white? Probably something any book view could handle via css. CMD (talk) 01:42, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

Searching by category with a higher depth

There should be a way to search by category with a higher depth. e.g. incategory:"Cities in Australia" doesn't give any results, because it only has subcategories. There should be a way to search within all of these subcategories in e.g. Cities of Australia at once. ChaoticVermillion (converse, contribs) 03:14, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

If you replace incategory: with deepcategory:, that will search subcategories to a depth of five: see mw:Help:CirrusSearch#Deepcategory. Alternatively WP:PetScan allows you to specify an arbitrary depth. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 07:09, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

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Thanking for things other than edits.

I had a page that I decided to db-g7 and when it was deleted, I had an urge to thank them, but I don't see an easy way. Could something be added to enable thanks for things like page creation, page deletion, moves, protection addition or removal, etc. I'm expecting that would be technically complicated, but I thought I'd drop the idea here.Naraht (talk) 20:04, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

Deletions (including speedy deletions) are logged at Special:Log/delete, and you should be able to thank the deleter from there. md m.b la 20:07, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

Or you could post your thanks about anything to the user talk page. It's not hard. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:15, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

Page creations can be thanked for via going to the page revision history and selecting the first diff. I don't think protection addition or removal is sth that should be thankable except for say creation of discussion regarding the protection status or similar (which can be thanked). Prototyperspective (talk) 18:07, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

Preventing abuse of the DEPROD system

I had recently dropped a PROD on the Yamaha RX-Z article which was removed by a temporary user. You can check the diff here. I propose that we implement a check which allows only registered editors to remove a PROD template to prevent abuse of WP:DEPROD. woaharang (talk) 09:23, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

How does knowing how to create a userid relate to accuracy of a removal? Phil Bridger (talk) 09:29, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

The editor removing the prod can be held accountable for the edits he made! woaharang (talk) 13:24, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

As anyone can remove a prod for any reason, what would be the point of looking at their other edits? If someone is creating an account, temporary or registered, to avoid a block or scrutiny of previous edits, we have policies and guidance to deal with that. Donald Albury 13:51, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

That any user can remove a PROD is a feature, not a bug. The only potential issue I see here is that neither the PRODder nor the DEPRODder left a descriptive edit summary. —Kusma (talk) 10:37, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

If someone removed dozens of prods in a couple of minutes, that would suggest abuse. But a single removal is not abuse. Use AFD if required. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:22, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

In fact the opposite is true: PROD is misused by unregistered accounts who don't know our deletion policy because PRODing is much less complicated than sending an article to AFD (especially since unregistered accounts are unable to directly create AFD discussion pages!), even though PRODs receive less scrutiny than AFDs. Helpful Raccoon (talk) 06:11, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

award for collaborating well in CTOPs

Have an idea to improve the editing environment in CTOPs. Basically, set up something like WP:EOTW where people get an award for collaborating well with a user they often disagree with, or for successfully leading consensus building efforts in a heated dispute. And editors have to be nominated by someone they often disagree with (read 'opposite POV'). This'd hopefully bridge the gap between 'POV trenches' and result in CTOPs having a handful of highly collaborative regulars, which then affects newbies entering the topic areas (and make true partisans stick out more).

Atm, our only way to encourage collaborative behaviour is through punishing objectionably uncollaborative behaviour (and barnstars, but that's rare), which is not great. From a 'game' perspective (and there's always going to be some editors who treat editing like a game, esp. in CTOPs), the status quo just encourages WP:CPUSHing and avoiding petty insults etc., while collecting evidence of their ideological enemies' slip-ups to try to weaponise conduct noticeboards and expel them from the topic area. This creates a lot of bad blood which makes the editing environment even worse.

Again from a 'game' perspective, this award would add to a user's social capital, and so incentivise people to seek it. Thoughts? Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 14:14, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

This does not seem like the best idea. There should be zero "game" perspective. Editors that treat editing like a game should be sanctioned. Just give barnstars to editors who collaborate well with others, regardless of your POV. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 16:16, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

ideally, yes, but in practice it's not black or white Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 16:57, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

At first glance it seems a good idea, but I can see gaming coming from "editors have to be nominated by someone they often disagree with". There are rarely only two "sides" to a dispute, so people would insist that this is clearly defined, and it could lead to manufactured "disagreements". Phil Bridger (talk) 17:59, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

I agree, I hope there'd be some 'panel' not restricted by legalisms determining noms, but I guess people from the peanut gallery can call out bad-faith noms/when there's similar POVs. Open to other thoughts and better ideas about the problem generally Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 18:13, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

Facilitating, incentivizing, recognition for, and rewarding positive behavior and contributions does not imply editors "treat editing like a game". Stack Exchange users also do not treat that Q&A site like a game just because they can receive reputation and badges. However, I don't know whether "award for collaborating well in CTOPs" is a good idea and have doubts about it, e.g. due to requiring time-intensive manual subjective review etc. Prototyperspective (talk) 18:05, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, I'd hope a nomination would include links to discussions which display it (there'd be a high bar), and I guess someone would scan the nominee's editing history (I was thinking AE admins would be a good fit for the 'panel' as a) it'd add prestige and b) they'll have more familiarity with CTOPs and such editors) Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 19:01, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

Editor of the Week was deliberately set up as a low-stakes recognition initiative, to avoid making it something that people would spend a lot of time arguing about. While in principle it's fine to have a high-stakes recognition initiative, personally I'm dubious that this would improve the editing environment in areas where there is a lot of contention. My preference is to encourage low-stakes approaches that spreads out encouragement to lots of people for small acts of collaboration. isaacl (talk) 02:06, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

I don't know if Stack Exchange is the best example to use. It was deliberately designed by Jeff Atwood to gamify knowledge sharing, harnessing the desire people have to level up in service of building a repository of well-written answers. isaacl (talk) 01:56, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

Didn't claim it was the best example; it's a good example and what's your point even. It works well and Stack Exchange users also do not treat that Q&A site like a game just because they can receive reputation and badges.

Btw, maybe another idea for consideration would to do sth effective about contributors who repeatedly insult others and better enable constructive deliberation on contentious topics where for example users do not address people's points, make false claims about what others say (both of which leading to "bludgeoning" accusations and difficulty for others to participate) or rule by the majority of who happens to watch the article or some noticeboard linking to the page where the subjective opinion of the majority crushes any constructive calm respectful deliberation. On a related note, I think an issue will be that users who often actually act unconstructively will get awarded with what's described here just because they also often contribute very constructively in lots of contentious topics. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:16, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

The point is that Stack Exchange deliberately made a game out of sharing knowledge, and users did indeed treat it that way, seeking to level up. That had both positive effects and negative effects. Personally, I wouldn't use it as an argument in support of a similar system on English Wikipedia. That being said, recognition initiatives don't have to work the same way as on Stack Exchange, and trying to build more esprit de corps is a good way to foster cooperation. isaacl (talk) 17:10, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

and users did indeed treat it that way, seeking to level up Disagree with that unsourced/unsubstantiated statement. Whatever they did it worked and works remarkably well. recognition initiatives don't have to work the same way as on Stack Exchange indeed. I think for a start we need better feedback & recognition than mere edit counts which do not reflect well the constructivity and contributions of users. Prototyperspective (talk) 19:23, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

It was discussed by Jeff Atwood at the time of creation, and there has been discussion online about how Stack Exchange's incentive structure led to gatekeeping and ownership behaviour. The details are not really important, since I don't think a Stack Exchange-type system is going to attain consensus support on Wikipedia. The key takeaway is that making knowledge sharing into a game can have pitfalls as well as benefits. I think Wikidata has some interesting examples of making contributing info more like a game, without any badges or levels.

I think editors should be doing more to thank others publicly, to foster collaborative behaviour by demonstrating it. I appreciate, though, that this may not come naturally to a significant proportion of the community. isaacl (talk) 02:21, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

As said, that would not make it into a game, at least for the vast majority of users. SE which I did not claim was ideal did not make it into a game either. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:32, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Let's not make barnstars be rare. In particular, I recommend The Teamwork Barnstar (for groups), the Half Barnstar (for two editors; two halves shown), and the Diplomacy Barnstar (for the peace brokers) for these situations. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:26, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Feel free to write an appreciative note on the talk pages of editors who act collaboratively, whether or not they support the same views that you do, and to encourage others to do the same. Personal notes are great, particularly when they list specific actions that are being appreciated, so they really convey your personal thanks. isaacl (talk) 23:12, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

I like this idea because it would let us make a cleaner case for who's pushing what POV, making it easier to eventually remove them from the topic area. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:53, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

I disagree with Thebiguglyalien. I don't think it would make a cleaner case for who's pushing what POV. It would only tell you which accounts have won the award. It is not possible to extrapolate much from that. And it is not currently technically possible to remove a person from the topic area. It is only possible to remove an account from the topic area. The non-equivalence between a person and an account means that removal acts as a filter that increases the concentration of people willing to employ deception and dilutes the concentration of editors unwilling to employ deception. This is why socks love to weaponize reporting systems of course because sanctions provide a very significant fitness advantage to people willing to employ deception via disposable accounts. This is where I disagree with SuperPianoMan9167 a bit. There is utility in thinking of Wikipedia as a game with payoff matrices.

I'm not sure whether the notion of 'collaboration' is the best target. First the caveats...

I'm not sure what is meant precisely by 'collaborative behaviour' or how to measure it in a sensible way. Even if we could measure/recognize it (roughly) I'm not sure we have the kind of visibility into the topic area and all of its actors to make sensible evidence-based decisions. People mostly see shiny objects and hear the noise when most of the activity in the topic area just hums along undramatically in the background.
I'm not sure that the kind of collaboration (talking?) that is being considered as worthy of merit or virtuous is an important factor in content creation in the topic area in practice since 'consensus usually occurs implicitly'. The vast majority of activity in the topic area is routine editing and does not involve conflict/disruption.
I'm not even sure whether a collaborative environment is actually better than a diverse partly adversarial environment at producing policy compliance for something like the PIA topic area where content needs to capture things from all sorts of perspectives and sources. A bit of chaos might be better at doing that over time.
I'm not sure whether WP:CPUSHing is good or bad given that the alternative to civil POV pushing is just POV pushing. POV pushing is not going to stop, and there is very little anyone can do about it without solving hard problems like the use of deception via disposable accounts. Editors in the topic area have POVs and it impacts every choice they make whether they are aware of it or not. So, for me, the number of active editors, their activity levels and their diversity of views is what matters much more than details about individual editors.

Having said all that, if there were an award, maybe it would be better to reward people for using the tools available to resolve conflict and find consensus on contentious issues. I'm thinking of RfC usage, things like that, tools intended to help people focus on policy-based decision making. It is those tools that I think have the best chance of making the topic area function better. Perhaps that was already captured by the 'for successfully leading consensus building efforts in a heated dispute'. Sean.hoyland (talk) 10:41, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not survival of the fittest. It is not a battleground between "pro-RS editors" and sockpuppets. It is an encyclopedia.

Civil POV pushing is still POV pushing, so it is bad. The alternative to civil POV pushing is not letting your opinions come out in your edits at all. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 18:17, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

I think on here we've accepted the reality that on some topics few people put several hours every day into Wikipedia for free solely because they want to improve the encyclopedia, if we tbanned/blocked everyone with a POV this place would become a ghost town. Also, presenting and analysing evidence for POV pushing takes ages. So long as there's a diversity of POVs and they all collaborate well w one another, article quality turns out good. Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 19:15, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

Article quality turns out good... if one happens to hold the POV that "wins" in that particular area. I believe most Wikipedia editors do want to write neutrally by properly summarizing the totality of sources/opinions, and do have the goal of improving the encyclopedia without tilting coverage one way or the other. But there are also many editors who are participating in bad faith by balancing articles and casting !votes in a way that strengthens their POV. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:26, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

by collaborating I mean compromising (assuming NPOV sits in the middle), RfCs are a joke in CTOPs Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 22:00, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

A lower-contrast dark mode?

I really like that users now have the option to view Wikipedia in dark mode. However, the background is pure black. This is a good thing to some people, but for a lot of people the high contrast between the black background and white lettering can cause eye strain. For me, I don't like looking at Wikipedia's dark mode because it makes my eyes feel weird. This isn't really a problem because I usually prefer light mode anyway, but it would be nice to have a dark mode to switch to at night that's comfortable to look at.

My proposal: a third mode, where the background is dark gray or a low-saturation navy, and text is a slightly more muted shade of white. Several sites have a default dark mode that looks like this, and then a separate mode where the background is pure black. I feel like lots of people would appreciate a dark mode without such high contrast.

Sentimental Dork (talk) 23:16, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

I don't know if there is an easy way to do this unless you can switch to a different skin with darker colors at night. The way dark mode works (as I understand it) is that the whole page is inverted, then things that shouldn't be inverted are un-inverted (like images). -- Recon rabbit 17:31, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

The dark mode gadget does that. The dark mode that is part of the Vector2022 skin uses a color palette and sets it based on which mode is in use. Users can override those colors in their personal common.css file, but you need to be comfortable with CSS to do this (for anyone interested, see mw:Recommendations for night mode compatibility on Wikimedia wikis § Target night mode using standard media query as well as HTML classes and mw:Recommendations for night mode compatibility on Wikimedia wikis § Use CSS variables or CSS design tokens with fallback for background and text where possible). isaacl (talk) 17:53, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

Age verification protest

There should be a banner (at least) about age verification laws, why they are bad, why they would harm free software, why digital wallets will force everyone to have Android or iOS, why some variants (like the New York one) would even ban root access to your own computer! Gugalcrom123 (talk) 17:16, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

I personally am not a fan of age-verification software either, but I don't understand what that has to do with Wikipedia? Sentimental Dork (talk) 19:37, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

They might be what we need to raise awareness. Gugalcrom123 (talk) 19:42, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

If it was directly restricting access to Wikipedia, I would agree. But Wikipedia doesn't take sides on issues or promote causes, no matter how just. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:15, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

True. But we do provide factual, neutral, non-advocacy information in articles such as Age verification system, and the better those articles are, and the more they rely on the WP:BESTSOURCES, the better Wikipedia's will understand the subject. I suggest that anyone interested in this find some very good sources and improve the related articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:31, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

It might be genuinely banning free software like GNU/Linux, which Wikipedia runs on. For example, requiring that all OSes have circumvention-proof ID checks kills it. Gugalcrom123 (talk) 14:15, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia has taken sides and promoted causes in similar situations in the past, most notably Stop Online Piracy Act#Wikipedia blackout CauliflowerMoon (talk) 04:12, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

The difference is that was an existential threat to Wikipedia. Age verification, while pointless, moronic, ill-conceived, etc..., isn't. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:33, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

Maybe not now, but age verification laws could affect Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects (especially the Commons) one day. Some1 (talk) 00:15, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

@Gugalcrom123 I doubt that anything will, or can ever, ban "root" access to your own computer. And nothing can require everyone to have either Android or iOS. Even if such things are proposed, they won't be implemented. And Wikipedia is not the place to raise those alarms, IMO. David10244 (talk) 02:24, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

Restricting page creation

Hello. I've seen a ton of trash drafts and AI garbage throughout my tenure at AfC, and I have a new idea. Temporary accounts and unconfirmed accounts can't create articles in any way whatsoever. Autoconfirmed users can only submit through AfC, ~~and extended confirmed users can either use AfC or make a userspace draft.~~ It may not do much, but a decent chunk of trash I've seen is created by unregistered users or temporary accounts. Please tell me if this is a bad idea. CabinetCavers----DEPOSIT OPINION, [valued customer] 18:28, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

The point(?) of AfC drafts (and New Page Patrol) are to prevent the public-facing encyclopedia from being filled with articles made by people who have no idea about Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Temporary accounts are already under enough restrictions. -- Recon rabbit 17:35, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

I'm thinking from the perspective of the reviewer here. From my experience, I see so many temporary and unconfirmed accounts making useless drafts that do nothing but waste our time. If TAs and unconfirmed accounts are unable to create AfC drafts, then hopefully, there will be less trash clogging the review list. CabinetCavers----DEPOSIT OPINION, [valued customer] 17:48, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

If temporary accounts are prevented from creating AfC drafts, then the people behind them will, for the most part, register an account. So the reviewer will see "a ton of trash drafts and AI garbage" created by registered users, rather than by temporary accounts. How long does it take to reject a draft anyway? Phil Bridger (talk) 18:25, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

4 clicks, so about maybe 10 seconds at most? Tenshi! (Talk page) 18:29, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

@Phil Bridger This idea was created with the assumption that at least some of the people dumping trash into AfC would not be persistent enough to get an account and make it to autoconfirmed status. Still a good point, however. CabinetCavers----DEPOSIT OPINION, [valued customer] 19:09, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

Why refer to it as people "dumping trash"? New editors' submissions are often misguided, but rarely malicious. If every draft was obviously trash, we wouldn't have a backlog. If we prevented temporary accounts from making drafts, we would be throwing out the baby with the bathwater for people who make constructive contributions, and encouraging people to make useless edits to game the system in order to create articles. -- Recon rabbit 19:15, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

I've just re-read the proposal and noticed that it said, "extended confirmed users can either use AfC or make a userspace draft". By preventing everyone from creating articles directly surely this generates a lot more work for reviewers? Phil Bridger (talk) 18:36, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

@Phil Bridger Thanks for pointing that out! If this goes anywhere, userspace drafting will be left alone. CabinetCavers----DEPOSIT OPINION, [valued customer] 19:06, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

I have to say I would support this, or a variant thereof, if it came to a formal policy proposal. I don't care if it would create more work for AfC or if it would just prompt temporary users to create permanent accounts. Our policies seem to mostly assume it's still the mid-2000s and the vast majority of users are good-faith contributors who need to be encouraged to contribute. That world is gone. We are now flooded with drive-by editors trying to troll us, or to promote their stupid company/social media account/new cryptocurrency, or to game AI summaries. Probably two-thirds of the articles I reject at AfC are mostly or entirely LLM-written on trivial subjects, startup businesses, or the intersection of two random topics ("Breast cancer in Laos"). Any speed bump we can create to slow down automated or low-effort article creation would be welcome, however imperfect. WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 22:35, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

Breast cancer in Laos is a notable subject; it's a top-10 cause of death among Laotian women, and they have the highest triple negative rate in Asia.[1] If you get such an article and can't evaluate it correctly, then please request help from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:37, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing I'm sorry if I sound rude, but the example provided by WeirdNAnnoyed was likely just 2 random subjects stapled together with no regard for whether the topic was actually notable. The spirit of the statement was that oftentimes, drafts are either hoaxes, ads, AI garbage, or an intersection of random topics. CabinetCavers----DEPOSIT OPINION, [valued customer] 12:06, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I'm sure he intended it to be two random subjects stapled together, and it turned out not to be a good example of that. But it's a good example of my point, which is that what appears to an individual editor to be two random subjects stapled together might not be a non-notable subject. This is why seeking help is a good idea. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:52, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

I wonder if the rate of Draft: creation (or page creation/whatever we can realistically measure) has actually gone up compared to a couple of years ago. It might be worth asking at Wikipedia:Request a query. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:40, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Said question at request a query was answered, saying that half of all drafts not moved to mainspace or deleted are made by TAs and unconfirmed accounts, and the other half is made by autoconfirmed and higher users. CabinetCavers----DEPOSIT OPINION, [valued customer] 14:20, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

I'll tell you what - let's just ban article creation completely. That way reviewers will have no work whatsoever to do. While we're at it let's block everyone from editing, After all, Wikipedia has been going for 25 years now, so it must be complete, mustn't it? Phil Bridger (talk) 13:17, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

@Phil Bridger There are still genuinely good drafts submitted to AfC, so people should still be able to submit articles. My proposal is just to make it to where people must be autoconfirmed to create drafts, and all things considered, ten edits and four days isn't much, but it may be enough to deter spur-of-the-moment vandalism. Also, the encyclopedia is far from complete. Just click on the random article button and chances are, you will find a maintenance tag. CabinetCavers----DEPOSIT OPINION, [valued customer] 14:24, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

@CabinetCavers The above response by Phil Bridger is sarcasm. If I can reiterate: New editors are unlikely to know that what they submit is violating a bunch of guidelines. That's what reviewers are for. We are given the tools to deal with bad-faith contributions, hoaxes, and advertisements before the rest of the world sees them. It's a good thing AfC exists and catches these things first. Even the harshest reviewers have draft acceptance rates above 30% - putting this barrier in place could lower that number simply by decreasing the number of existing submissions. -- Recon rabbit 15:05, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

~~I concede~~ Where are you getting this 30% from? CabinetCavers----DEPOSIT OPINION, [valued customer] 15:11, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Here's one example: https://apersonbot.toolforge.org/afchistory/?user=Zxcvbnm -- Recon rabbit 15:18, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you! CabinetCavers----DEPOSIT OPINION, [valued customer] 15:21, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Here's one question to think on: Are submitted drafts supposed to be "genuinely good drafts" (e.g., grammatically correct, non-promotional description that is longer than a stub), or are they supposed to be a starting point for a "genuinely notable topic" (e.g., an obviously notable subject, regardless of writing quality – e.g., the latest album released by the most famous pop star, which has a 0% chance of being non-notable)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:55, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing, from the perspective of reviewers, submitted drafts are not ‘supposed’ to anything other than documents for review that have been penned by non-registered (or registered) users who assume that Wikipedia will accept them (except of course for obvious graffiti, vandalism, and other bad faith); one should not fall into the trap of believing that notability is the only criterion.

New editors are unlikely to know that what they submit is violating a bunch of guidelines: while this is only partly true - some criteria are common sense - still nothing is being done after 25 years of Wikipedia to ensure that those editors who are determined to create an article as their first edit are properly informed at the moment of registration about what is appropriate and what is not (two similar community initiatives are currently under discussion with the WMF).

So, @CabinetCavers, no , it is not a bad idea at all. In fact in 2018 by a resounding 90% consensus of a large turnout following 7 years of resistance from the WMF, users were required to be auto confirmed before they can create an article in mainspace. Maybe it is now time to consider applying the same rule for the creation of drafts. It would not deter those who are determined to write what they genuinely believe to be an appropriate article but it would probably make those think twice who intend to paste utter nonsense and AI garbage and waste their own and everyone else’s time. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:19, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

I wonder whether "AI garbage" in drafts correlates with paid editing. I suspect that it does. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:28, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

I think my comment was clear enough - It was long but tried to keep it as short as possible without going into unnecessary minutiae. 'and other bad faith' covers it quite adequately[User:Kudpung|Kudpung กุดผึ้ง]] (talk) 00:30, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

But it affects the utility of a rule against creating drafts until you've made 10 edits. You will recall in 2018 that very soon afterwards, we had a burst of "new" accounts that posted spammy articles on their 11th edit, and then disappeared. If a Draft: requires the same, then I think the paid editors will adapt. The cost of creating an article will go up by US$1 to account for the necessity of making 10 simple edits. But we'll still get the same garbage from those same spammers in the end. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:47, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

This is exactly my thought as well - COI editors will go through the extra hoops because they are being paid to do this/have a vested interest, while casual new editors thinking "why isn't there an article about this government official/historical figure/species of tree?" are more likely to be shut out by the autoconfirmed requirement. I just now saw that CabinetCavers edited the first comment in this thread which makes me less worried but I still want to bring this up. -- Recon rabbit 14:14, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

It does. I often see blatant AI in drafts where a COI was disclosed. CabinetCavers----DEPOSIT OPINION, [valued customer] 01:07, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

@Phil BridgerI fully understand your point Phil, but in the last three years the genre and quality of articles finding their way into the NPP feed and AfC lists has changed significantly. On NPP this has had the effect of further reducing the enthusiasm of patrollers to do any reviewing. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:28, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

As a preface, we should not confuse article quality issues with the "should this article exist? issues. New folks often don't know the "should this article exist?" criteria, and other creators don't bother with that question, pushing the job on the NPP'er to search the world and see if the required coverage exists. So we have folks creating articles who have no idea what Wikipedia's requirement is for existence of an article, and others who ignore those criteria and so pushing the job onto NPP to "prove a negative" when they don't meet the ignored criteria. They also get to beat up the NPP'er when the NPP'er doesn't thoroughly do their job for them. And AFC folks often don't follow their own criteria, declining articles for quality issues, making AFC sort of a rough random route. Maybe it would help to strongly suggest and create an expectation for reading wp:notability before creating a draft, and also note to them that in most cases, it requires in-depth coverage of the subject by published sources. And also create the expectation that when creating articles which need sources to meet wp:notability that they put on the talk page which of their sources they feel are most likely to fulfill this requirement. IMO this would help a great deal with the issue of this thread, as well as helping with the NPP issues. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:53, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Sounds good to me! CabinetCavers----DEPOSIT OPINION, [valued customer] 15:22, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

I thought the original point of AfC was to provide a route for non-registered users to create articles after they were prevented from doing so directly in main space. It would be ironic if AfC became the reason to stop them. There are some people who have edited for years with IP addresses and really don't want an account; some are very productive. It would be a pity to alienate them. To my mind, it makes total sense to make it clear during article creation that unless the creator provides three good references or otherwise fulfil policy (e.g. NPROF), the article will be rejected at AfC without the AfC reviewer being expected to do any searching whatsoever. The creator then has six months to find three references. If they can't, or won't, I don't see their article as having any huge value to wikipedia. I wouldn't object to a similar rule for NPP: if your article doesn't have three references and you haven't made a case that it meets some policy like NPROF, it will be kicked into draft-space automatically, and if not eligible for draft-space because you already moved it from there, kicked to AfD instead. This wouldn't be a big burden on NPP/AfC. At worst, it's a burden on AfD, but that's why AfD exists. Elemimele (talk) 17:41, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

North8000's proposal would be the ideal one if this is taken out of this section, not mine. CabinetCavers----DEPOSIT OPINION, [valued customer] 17:52, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Your NPP idea is several levels stricter that the current reality, mine was a bit softer than that. Right now for most of the que (which is over 6 months) a NPP'er can't send any article to draft for any reason. Which just leaves AFD. And there even a creator who provides zero GNG references gets to use WP:Before to beat up the NPP'er for not doing their job for them. North8000 (talk) 19:59, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

I do think I would support a change to the rules in this respect; I don't think it should be the responsibility of AfD nominators/NPPers to do the research for an article creator who is too lazy to do so just because the topic is arguably notable enough for inclusion. We shoukd be able to say "this is includable, but not with this article." Athanelar (talk) 00:35, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

@North8000, Thank you so much for this, you have yet again succinctly reiterated what I have been pushing multiple times for action on since 2022. ...we should not confuse article quality issues with the "should this article exist? issues. New folks often don't know the "should this article exist?" criteria - because nobody and nowhere is telling them before they begin. ...other creators don't bother with that question, pushing the job on the NPP'er to search the world and see if the required coverage exists – these are the lazy 'editors' who believe that we have 100s of users just waiting to pounce on new articles and complete them. @Reconrabbit: As for other bad faith users and paid editors who will create an account anyway, we will always have these but these but by filtering out the others before they even reach the New Page Feed or AfC will permit the reviewers to concentrate on identifying and dispatching these bad faith actors. Unfortunately too much conjecture is offered by users who do not have in-depth experience of working in AfC and NPP and with a long institutional memory of these issues and anecdotal evidence. I thought the original point of AfC was to provide a route for non-registered users to create articles after they were prevented from doing so directly in main space Too many weak arguments against heightened controls are posited by users who still take the mantra 'Anyone can edit' far too literally. Correctly, it should be: Anyone can edit but there are policies and guidelines to be observed, and registration is/could be one of these. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:06, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

Yes, but my desire is that we nobble articles that are bad rather than editors who might be bad. North8000 has got a good point about NPP's getting beaten up; this is why I haven't applied for the job. Would it help if we restricted AfD's "BEFORE" requirements to pre-existing articles that have been in main-space for a while, and insist that the obligation to check sourcing of new articles is on their author (or whoever triggered their move to main-space, either by hitting "submit" on an AfC, or moving it themselves)? Also permit draftify from AfD even if the article has previously been in draft space, as an alternative to deletion? Elemimele (talk) 14:07, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

@Elemimele, ...we nobble articles that are bad ..., but there are many different kinds of 'bad' articles to nobble and behind them is a significant number of bad faith actors who need to be nipped in the bud. However, a great many new articles in the feed are created by users who simply fail to grasp what an encyclopedia is; in February this year (excluding redirects):

32.2% of new articles were created by users with < 100 edits.

Apart from that, @North8000's comment about NPPers getting beaten up is very real and probably the very reason why only a tiny fraction of the 800+ accredited reviewers are thick skinned enough to persevere; this research (still being evaluated) will explain. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:13, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Restricting new page creation from existing redirect

Part of the problem involves TAs turning redirects into full articles. We should be restricting the removal of a redirect tag. Binksternet (talk) 16:54, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

@Binksternet Certainly. CabinetCavers----DEPOSIT OPINION, [valued customer] 17:18, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

@Binksternet, @CabinetCavers This is probably a loophole that wasn't closed at the time of rolling out WP:ACPERM. It would require code written into MediaWiki that checks autoconfirmed status when converting a page from a redirect to an article. We would need some stats on how often this occurs because it would need WMF buy-in and might not be common enough for the devs to spend time on it. An idea would be to request it at the Wishlist. and see what happens. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 18:53, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

I think this could be done in Special:AbuseFilter. That would only require community approval. We would probably need some stats on not just how often it occurs, but also how often it's problematic to get a consensus for 'disallow' rather than 'warn'. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:24, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

The raw number of new editors doing this is pretty easy: 2.5 redirects in the mainspace being un-redirected per day by non-autoconfirmed editors,[2] of which 45% have been reverted already, and 10 per day by TAs,[3] of which 66% have been reverted already. (Note that if the redirect status is edit-warred over, then the same article can appear multiple times in this count.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:31, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

For comparison, about 42% of redirects removed by autoconfirmed but non-extended confirmed editors were also reverted. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:38, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

The abuse filter is what we threatened to use for WP:ACPERM if after our 7 year battle the WMF still steadfastly refused to entertain it. @Binksternet's concern is germaine and we should consider looking into it. The fist step however is to know if the occurrence is significant enough to spend time on any solution. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 19:50, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

This happens a lot in music topics. Logged-out socks of blocked accounts go to Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Redirects and ask for new redirects to be made. After the redirects are approved and created, unregistered users arrive to create the page from redirect. Here's a typical sequence from July 2024, with a Texas IP requesting a redirect in July,[4] followed by a different Texas IP creating the page from redirect in August.[5] New albums are often followed by requests for redirects for every song on the album, to make it possible for unregistered users to create the song articles.[6] Independent songs can attract the same attention.[7] The same sock farm is seen in action at Texas IP 64.189.247.245 who made many redirect requests for the purpose of sidestepping the requirement that new articles must come only from autoconfirmed users. The frequent edit warring involved in this kind of activity can be seen at the page history of Dark Brotherhood (song). Everything I listed in this paragraph comes from ban evasion by User:Rishabisajakepauler. Binksternet (talk) 20:26, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

@Binksternet, I think there is certainly potential for addressing this with an abuse filter. It figures that it should have been part of WP:ACPERM but we didn't think of it at the time. Our main objective was to reduce the the permanent backlogs at NPP (The effect of that has now largely been lost over time and NPP is in a crisis). Perhaps someone with the Abuse Filter Manager right could come up with a proof of concept before the Community's time is wasted on an RfC. So back to @CabinetCavers original post: I've been working for a while with the WMF on a possible solution that would reduce the the backlogs at NPP and RfC by nipping the junk and trash from new users in the bud. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:47, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

@Kudpung Yay! CabinetCavers----DEPOSIT OPINION, [valued customer] 11:52, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

@Reconrabbit, this wouldn't prevent TAs from creating drafts, so no baby's will be thrown out with the bathwater. Indeed, it will stop them making junk articles, but at the same time it will encourage them to produce drafts that with some TLC are likely to be promoted to mainspace rather than consigned to the rubbish bin. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:55, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

If this solution as proposed is techincally possible (remove ability to remove redirects) then I support it. -- Recon rabbit 21:01, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

I attest to the fact WP:AFC/R is abused by LTAs such as TotalTruthTeller24 among other LTAs, UPE sock farms and WP:GAMING in general. For example Draft:Charles Dumont (cyclist) was originally a redirect I created via an AFC/R request which the TA immediately turned into an article. An NPP reviewer moved it draft and is now up for G13 so I got the notice as the creator. Also because these are created under the reviewer's name, G5 is extremely difficult if later it is discovered the requestor was a WP:BMB qualifying sock because there is no transparency like with Drafts submitted to AfC. G5 is declined because sock did not create page.

There was a discussion about eliminating both AFC/R and WP:AFC/C because of the consistent abuse (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/Archive 60#Eliminating AfC/C and AfC/R) but that hobbles AGF requests. The most recent notification about abuse was a couple months ago Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/Archive 62#Creation of redirects at the behest of sock accounts. Pinging @Ponyo: because they are familiar. S0091 (talk) 21:23, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Other areas of Wikipedia

I just have a small idea. I think the section "Other areas of Wikipedia" on the main page is too small and might get missed by people trying to navigate around Wikipedia pages (not articles) Perhaps this idea might help?Robloxguest3 (talk) 20:22, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

You've certainly not the first to suggest such an idea. The issue is that nobody's ever actually agreed on what a good solution would be. novov talk edits 00:35, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps just making it bigger? Or squeeze it in at the top of the main page Robloxguest3 (talk)

21:00, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

I Support it. However, I believe that before making any visual changes, it is necessary to discuss the actual purpose of the section to avoid changes without a clear direction and discuss this at Template talk:Other areas of Wikipedia or Talk:Main Page. {{Other areas of Wikipedia}} and {{Wikipedia languages}} are the only sections of the main page without a visual appeal, and Other areas of Wikipedia is the only one with a non-centered alignment, not that this is a problem, but it is worth noting, the problem, I believe, is the link to outdated sections such as the Portal Space.Guilherme Burn (talk) 12:32, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

A dataset containing 200,000 architectural objects: is it of interest to the community?

I'm new here, sorry.

A well-filtered dataset taken from Wikipedia contains about 200,000 architectural objects from all over the world.

You can check it out here (filters by architects, style and era are available):

https://apalladio.org/architecture-around/

This is not just a Wikidata issue, as 99% of objects have a link to a Wikipedia page, a description, and so on.

Here is the entire database (SQL dump):

Github: https://github.com/MyropolskyiHennadii/ArtefactsLocation-data

Zenodo: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18955341

There's also a Java model: https://github.com/MyropolskyiHennadii/ArtefactsLocation-model

The question is: if it's interesting and useful, how do you use it properly in a wiki? Myropolskyi (talk) 13:02, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Really interesting map / app! I just wished this was possible within the standard Wikipedia app. Then more users could make use of this and learn about this as many have that app installed or install it for other reasons. Additionally, it gives people more reason to install the Wikipedia app. I think this could be made possible along with various other things if this wish was implemented whose potential I think is still not understood: W295: Filters for types of items shown on the Wikipedia app Nearby places map.

Could you upload some helpful images or ideally videos of what this webapp & mobile app can be used for and/or how to use it? I'd add them to c:Category:Wikimedia projects and maps. Prototyperspective (talk) 15:22, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. I'll try to do it in a (next) week. Not sure about video:) Myropolskyi (talk) 15:47, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

@Prototyperspective

Hi!

I'm not sure, that it is the best video, but I created it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X9ptSoZOU4

And thanks in advance.

If something more would helpfull or you have questions - you are welcome. (And I supplemented the dataset-project by presenting a description of the methodology) Myropolskyi (talk) 15:55, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

It's useful, thanks. Would be best to also upload it as a webm to Commons and then adding the video to a new wiki page about the tool. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:41, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

@Prototyperspective

Sorry, I'm new here.

Could you please explain to me more precisely what I need to do (where I should create the new wiki page and where exactly "Commons" is located)?

Thanks Myropolskyi (talk) 06:14, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

The documentation page about the tool/site could be here on English Wikipedia or metawiki. Commons is here and the upload form for the webm video (you may need to convert it to webm) here. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:10, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you. Done.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Architectural_Heritage_Map Myropolskyi (talk) 14:36, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

So... this basically shows buildings, artworks, etc. on a map. When you click on an item, you see the name and some of the Wikipedia article. Items are mostly located in Europe. For example, the entire Chicago area, home to almost 10 million people and many world-class museums, had about 8 (eight) points of interest.

I'm not sure how it could be useful within Wikipedia. However, editors at Wikivoyage might find it useful for finding attractions in a similar area. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:28, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing

I do not know, where do you find 8 items. I see 423. If editor allows images, I can set screenshot, but it does not allow me do that.

If you are using android version - you can go to app-settings and set radius more high. Or just move the map and app suggests you to refresh object. (Check on web-version)

And by the way: it is not about museums at all, it is not about POI, banks, theaters and so on. It is about architecture. Only. You are walking through Chicago and seeing 423 items.

Maybe it is not enough for Chicago, but that is what has been found in wikipedia itself for now WITH architectural STYLE. Myropolskyi (talk) 17:41, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

The mobile app has something similar (iOS; Android), idk whether @User:JTanner (WMF) would be interested? Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 19:18, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

@Kowal2701 @WhatamIdoing

Sorry, I did not understand what do you mean with "something similar".

Just in case, I've uploaded screenshots to the project, because I can not show them here.

One is for Chicago in the Android app, the other is for the web app.

In the Android app, we see about 70 objects (within a 3 km radius), while in the web app, we see 483 (within a 10 km radius).

Android app screenshot:

https://github.com/MyropolskyiHennadii/ArtefactsLocation-data/blob/main/20260311_202356_Architecture%20Around_android_Chicago.jpg

Web app screenshot:

https://github.com/MyropolskyiHennadii/ArtefactsLocation-data/blob/main/2026-03-11%2020_41_35-Architecture%20Around%20-Chicago.png

I recommend using the Google Play app for Android:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=myropolskyi.android.locations&pcampaignid=web_share

In the web application, there is an "I" icon in the upper right corner, it will show you the legend (including the number of loaded objects).

And if you still only see eight objects in Chicago, I have to ask, sorry: are you viewing the web version on your phone?

Have you tried changing the zoom level? If you're zoomed in at 500-1000 meters, you might very well only see eight objects, why not? Myropolskyi (talk) 20:13, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Sorry for not being clear, I was talking about a similar feature on the mobile Wikipedia app Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 20:18, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Please see my comment above regarding that. Prototyperspective (talk) 21:14, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

If only I could read Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 21:31, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Hey all (@Kowal2701, @Prototyperspective and @Myropolskyi, for those that don't know me Joseph Seddon, an Engineering Manager with Mobile Apps teams (and User:Seddon in my volunteer time). Firstly just wanted to say I love seeing any and all examples where people do cool and interesting things with data and content. That in an of itself is great.

@Prototyperspective thanks for noting that Community Wishlist item about improving and @Kowal2701's thanks for highlighting the idea about whether this might fit the mobile apps.

We try to keep the apps small in size because mobile data and internet speeds are still an issue for many in the world. This dataset alone would have a big impact on the apps size. We largely use API's to serve and support the features in the apps, in particular the Nearby feature.

In this instance the Nearby feature is powered by https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Geosearch which isn't maintained directly by the mobile apps teams. Whilst its certainly theoretically possible to build the feature on the client, it would require a lot of API calls and processing on device.

I think the ideal outcome would be to see how we might be able to add filters and context to Geosearch itself. Would you be okay with me updating https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T360197 to reflect that? Seddon (WMF) (talk) 09:34, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

The size wouldn't really increase because the dataset is not contained in the app but just queried by the app (Nearby Places map). I don't think it necessarily/intrinsically would require many API calls. I don't know which update you'd like to make to that phab issue I filed; maybe a comment would be more suitable but I guess probably it would be fine. I didn't mean the app should or could have the exact same thing as currently in this app here – things would look and function a bit differently so e.g. probably you could not filter by architect since very few people are looking / would use that but one could filter for architectural buildings and maybe eventually somehow filter and/or add labels for architectural styles or things like that. Filtering for architecturally notable buildings would be just one way to use that; it would be great if this was possible within the app along and integrated with other ways to use filtering. Personally, I'd use it heavily whenever I visit a new city to see additional spots of interest nearby while exploring the city. The app currently can't be used for that albeit there is a lot of potential if just some filtering was possible (the more the better because then one could personalize it further to one's interests). Prototyperspective (talk) 13:48, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

It's hard for me to judge, since I don't know how everything is set up for you.

But judging by Prototyperspective's response, the application accesses the server "as usually", and increasing the size of the database itself won't cause any noticeable slowdowns in the application's performance.

Indeed, architectural objects can be displayed based on user settings/filters: whether he wants to see them at all.

And I agree that filters by architect and period are unlikely to be frequently used; they're too specific. Furthermore, they're not as "clear" as filters by category.

One thing to consider when using a dataset is that I don't plan to stop working with the database at all in the next two years, so updates are possible.

I don't think there will be many, and I can't guarantee there will be any, but two or three updates are entirely possible.

(I mean: consider the possibility of reloading/updating the database. Here, we need to focus, of course, on the primary indexes of the tables; they have never changed and will not change, but other fields can change, new records can appear, etc. I am ready, if necessary, to agree on some necessary rules for maintaining the dataset.) Myropolskyi (talk) 16:45, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

I go to https://apalladio.org/architecture-around/ which defaults to Munich. "Search location" at the bottom of the webpage doesn't work, so I zoom out and drag to the US. I zoom in on the general Chicago area and click the blue "Search objects in this area". It gives me a little cluster of buildings, such as the Garfield Farm and Inn Museum (all of which are close together and none of which are actually in Chicago proper). I suspect that it is only searching for objects in a tiny area, and there's no way to know which area it's going to search for (e.g., it's not where the works "Search objects in this area" are showing on the page). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:54, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

It's working (at least mostly) for me. It asked to know my location, I allowed that and it centred it on what looks to me the point x=50% y=0% of the 0.01° grid square in which I am geolocated in London and it showed me an interesting selection of points of architectural interest in that area (assuming the points shown are a representative selection of all eligible points, I'd estimate circa 40-50% coverage). Zooming out it appeared to have loaded all the points in a 0.1° grid square. Moving around and clicking "search objects in this area" it appears to load the points in the 0.1° degree area that contains the centre of the screen. The further out from central London the fewer the points it has.

Search sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. I moved to the Cheddar, Somerset area and it has only two points St Andrew's Church, Cheddar, which it identifies as Medieval architecture (our article just says 14th Century), and Cheddar Palace which it lists as "Ancient Roman Architecture" and "Events: Creation (approximately):Before Christ Era (BCE), 300 - 399 years" despite it being a Saxon palace dating to the 9th century CE. I would have expected, at the very least, to also see Market Cross, Cheddar as an architectural point of interest.

I did also look in Chicago, and I saw lots of points in what I assume to be the same coverage area, including in Chicago proper. I have insufficient knowledge of that city though to estimate how comprehensive it is. Thryduulf (talk) 21:46, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

When I typed "Chicago" in the "Search location" box, nothing happened. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:18, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

The search box sometimes works for me as I would expect and other times doesn't, only sometimes autocompletes and when it does autocomplete gives some strange results. For example the first four results each time were:

Searching Template:Kbd the top four results are Template:Samp.

When I click on the Chicago entry in the search results, it centres the view on what seems to be the southwest corner of the 0.1° degree grid square containing the centre of Chicago (i.e. Lua error: callParserFunction: function "#coordinates" was not found.) which in this instance is roughly 17 miles south of the city centre), but the view is too zoomed in to see the centre of Chicago. Thryduulf (talk) 23:45, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

@Thryduulf

Yes, it can be so.

This depends on the free geolocation service (https://secure.geonames.org/...), which sometimes behaves "unreliably".

I do not even know, what I can do here Myropolskyi (talk) 12:26, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll check these places. (The epoche appears from wikipedia-pages, but from one of the synonymes, not from all of them. I mean, if en-page with date was found the first with date, then this date comes to database. It can be and it could be mistakes in such dates) Myropolskyi (talk) 12:33, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Thinking about Wikipedia:Wiki Shoot Me, from an editing side such a tool may be useful if it can identify what sites lack photos, articles (or sections in other articles), etc. From a reading side it has its obvious browsing use but that's not something we can really integrate. CMD (talk) 12:38, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Creating the "Disambiguation" and "Disambiguation talk" namespaces

I have a idea for new 2 namespaces, "Disambiguation" and "Disambiguation talk" namespaces. All disambiguation pages (and their talk pages) will go to this namespace. ~2025-42974-91 (talk) 19:58, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

What advantage over existing practice would this give? AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:59, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

I suppose it would allow disambiguation pages to coexist with a mainspace article of the same name in cases where there is both a most common use of the term but also multiple alternate uses, (so Table (furniture) could become just Table and the disambiguation page would move to Disambiguation:Table)

Whether this is a desirable state of affairs is an entirely different matter. Athanelar (talk) 16:43, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

We can already do that if we want, for example Chair and Chair (disambiguation). Anomie ⚔ 18:53, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

If we were designing Wikipedia from scratch today then maybe we would implement this and maybe not. With the current state state of affairs I can't see that this would be worth all the upheaval. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:06, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Show new users what an encyclopedia is!

Ever since I've read this talk page comment, I've been wondering about a possible generational problem for Wikipedia -- newer users, having grown up in a world where paper encyclopedias are not used much, don't have much of an idea of what an encyclopedia is -- and they may take Wikipedia's quirks and humorous areas as encyclopedic, or, if Wikipedia severely declines in popularity, have no idea of what is encyclopedic at all.

I think this has happened to some extent now -- just check venues like the Teahouse, the Help Desk, and the Reference desk for many confused people who, despite our nagging, are treating Wikipedia like an everything app and don't get why people are so hung up on this quality of "encyclopedic". Beyond simply telling the new editor what not to do, or having them read through policy, I'm wondering if it would make sense to have some sort of notification occur upon creating an account, saying something like "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia! If you're not sure what an encyclopedia is, you can look at these examples:" and then have a link to perhaps Britannica's website, or, if we wish to stay local to Wikimedia, links to Wikisource's archives of old editions of Britannica or other encyclopedias. (This could also boost Wikisource editing, but it could have the side effect of users thinking encyclopedias must be written about old fashioned topics, and could result in duplication of academic biases if that's what they pick up on in the encyclopedias).

Whatever we do, I really think we need to take this step as a clear way to show what our source of information is meant to be, something very important when people are reading more ChatGPT conversations than textbooks. ✨ΩmegaMantis✨^(he/him) ❦blather | ☞spy on me 21:55, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

This has occured to me too. Would all these people writing vanispamcruftisements be as eager to shoehorn then into Wikipedia if it was explained to them that that would be like barging into the Encyclopaedia Britannica writers' room and demanding they publish their garbage? Honestly, some of them probably would, but quite a lot might reconsider what they're doing. JustARandomSquid (talk) 22:49, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

Maybe we should, but I don't think it will make much difference. POV-pushers will still push their POVs and spammers will still spam, while good-faith editors will still think that an encyclopedia article has to be long and written in glowing prose, an idea which is disagreed with by the encyclopedias which I have on my bookshelves. Phil Bridger (talk) 23:23, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

Collector's items! Fear not; nearly half of all Wikipedia articles are stubs. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:57, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

Encyclopedias are outdated/obsolete, so I don't think we should give them any more attention than necessary. I also wonder how many new/younger users think Wikipedia is the more "serious" version of the different Fandom wikis. Some1 (talk) 14:31, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

I assume you mean print encyclopaedias, because, well, Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. JustARandomSquid (talk) 15:28, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Monobook was great at doing so by utilising an open book as page's background. sapphaline (talk) 11:55, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

This feels somewhat condescending. If I were a new user I'd be a bit put off by the implication that I don't know what an encyclopedia is. Gnomingstuff (talk) 16:56, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Collapsing infoboxes for mobile users

Article layout has been historically designed for a computer screen. Its width allows to present additional elements such as infoboxes along the main text column. This logic can't work on a narrow mobile screen, where additional elements are inserted between paragraphs. Mobile pageviews have surpassed desktop more than a decade ago, but the layout design is still desktop-oriented, with minimal considerations for mobile experience.

Infoboxes, a supplement material for the main text in the desktop version, are inserted after the first lede paragraph on a phone screen. This solution is problematic in multiple ways. The manual of style considers the lede the most important part of the article, and its priority is above any other piece of content. In practice, it is only respected for the first lede paragraph, because the majority of readers see an infobox next. With the size of infoboxes taking up to several phone screens and the amount of information inside, the comprehension certainly suffers by the time reader gets to the second lede paragraph, which is written to be read immediately after the first one. And huge infobox might be a nuisance itself, with tendency to fill it with tangential or technical data suitable for table form. Vladimir Putin, Biphenyl, Vietnam War, Mars, Arabic, Nguyễn dynasty, IPhone 15 Pro, SS United States - it's neither editors' nor readers' choice to have articles introduced with these long tables.

I doubt that current state of affairs is considered desirable or acceptable. In my opinion, generally only the infobox illustration is important enough to be displayed to mobile readers by default, and the rest of the infobox would be better hidden. I suppose it could be a viable workaround to make infoboxes a collapsible element, such as commons:Template:Wikidata Infobox, collapsed by default in mobile view. Better ideas might be suggested, but this is an important issue, and I hope it gets traction and some sort of solution gets developed. Qbli2mHd (talk) 22:03, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

In the mobile apps, infoboxes are collapsed. I'm not sure if that is a good default but there really should be a button to collapse the infobox at its top. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:45, 16 March 2026 (UTC)