Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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Should WP:Demonstrate good faith include mention of AI-generated comments?

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.

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Using AI to write your comments in a discussion makes it difficult for others to assume that you are discussing in good faith, rather than trying to use AI to argue someone into exhaustion (see example of someone using AI in their replies "Because I don't have time to argue with, in my humble opinion, stupid PHOQUING people"). More fundamentally, WP:AGF can't apply to the AI itself as AI lacks intentionality, and it is difficult for editors to assess how much of an AI-generated comment reflects the training of the AI vs. the actual thoughts of the editor.

Should WP:DGF be addended to include that using AI to generate your replies in a discussion runs counter to demonstrating good faith? Photos of Japan (talk) 00:23, 2 January 2025 (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.

Rate-limiting new PRODs and AfDs?

Hi, I was recommended to post this at the village pump by a a comment here.

There has been a recent issue where dozens of PRODs and AfDs (about 80 of them last month) of pre-Internet-era track and field Olympians were all created in a short timespan. For comparison, the usual rate that these get created is one or two per week. The rate is of particular importance here because unlike most processes on Wikipedia, there is a one-week deadline for most PRODs and AfDs, so when many are created all at once it can be difficult to properly address them in time.

While it's true that some of these articles were created by User:Lugnuts without SIGCOV references, it's also true that significant coverage exists for most of them -- to quote User:WhatamIdoing at the above linked thread, At some level, we all know that there is local coverage on every modern Olympic athlete, because (a) local newspapers always run the 'local kid does well internationally' kinds of stories, because articles that combine national pride, local people, and good news sell well, and (b) every time someone has actually done the work of getting access to paper copies, they've found these sources.

A similar situation happened about four months ago, and the solution was just to procedurally revert all of the PRODs: User_talk:Seefooddiet/Archive_1#109 proposed deletions in a couple of hours?

Because finding pre-Internet newspaper sources for non-English speaking countries can be labor intensive, is there a policy solution to the above problem? --Habst (talk) 20:45, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

I don't think this is something we can solve with more rules.

Making 109 PRODs in one hour is just silly, and there's no amount of regulation that will stop people from doing silly things. I do understand this kind of rate is frustrating, but I think creating and enforcing rules about the rate of nominations will create unforseen problems. You can't stop people from being silly, but you can trout them after the fact. Cremastra (talk) 21:56, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

You can also WP:TBAN them after the fact. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:30, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

109 PRODs in one hour sounds like a WP:MEATBOT issue. There is no way you can evaluate that many articles in that amount of time, so the first step would be to deprod with the summary that no WP:BEFORE was done and the article needs a full evaluation. Thryduulf (talk) 23:36, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

Note it's possible, if unlikely, that the tagger spent significant time researching the 109 articles individually before tagging them all at once. A single rapid tagging session does not by itself indicate WP:MEATBOT. Anomie⚔ 13:23, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

For small groups of closely related articles that is possible, but it's not at all plausible that you'd research that many before nominating them - you'd tag them as you go. Especially if you are not doing a group nomination. Thryduulf (talk) 14:34, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

This is mostly something that can be dealt with informally through current P&G (disruptive editing applies to all sorts of things). For larger deletion projects, it would be preferable to either bundle them or start a community discussion, depending on the nature of the articles. With that said, note that per WP:NSPORTS2022 Proposal 5 there's already consensus to delete any sports bios that do not currently have significant coverage in the article, overriding WP:NEXIST and WP:BEFORE. These deletions aren't indefinite, they're just until someone gets around to finding significant coverage. I'd also ask about whether local coverage is "significant" as opposed to routine; if all athletes have local coverage regardless of notability, it's unlikely to be significant. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 00:23, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

I have a relevant discussion open at WT:NOT about the definition of 'routine'. We're just getting started, so things may change, but from early comments, it appears that 'routine' is frequently understood to have no particular relationship to 'significant coverage'. SIGCOV is how many (encyclopedically useful) words/facts were written. 'Routine' is that if every ____ automatically gets (e.g.,) one article printed about it the next morning, then that is the routine. ("____" is a relevant large category, like "film" or "sports game" or "election", not a small category like "films starring Joe Film" or "FIFA World Cup finals").

With these two models, it is possible for routine coverage to provide SIGCOV. And if you agree or disagree with that, then I invite you to join that discussion and tell us so. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:39, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

This sort of thing in general is a matter of good old common sense, no ammount of policy will help here. If you need one, WP:BULLINACHINASHOP would be it. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:37, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

• Absolutely not, not unless a similar rate limit is applied to article creation. At the moment an editor can mass-create a ton of articles very rapidly; to avoid a WP:FAIT situation, it is obviously necessary for another editor to be able to challenge those articles equally-rapidly. Regarding the evaluation of articles, above - often when people do this, it's in response to discovering such a mass-creation. In that case all the articles can reasonably contain the same crucial flaw that means they shouldn't have been created; I continue to assert that WP:BEFORE is advisory and optional (otherwise it would invert WP:BURDEN, which obviously places the burden to search for sources on the people who add or wish to retain material - you can't add something and then insist other people do that search before deleting it.) But even for people who try to insist that it is mandatory, it only requires "reasonable" searches, and when dealing with mass-created articles it is reasonable to simply evaluate the method they were created by and therefore examine them all at once before mass-prodding or mass-AFDing them. Obviously such mass actions are meant to be taken cautiously but we can't forbid them here, since they're sometimes clearly necessary. --Aquillion (talk) 12:36, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

  Editors can't mass-create more than 25–50 articles per day without getting written permission (and nobody's actually done that for years). If the goal is to mirror creation limits, then that suggests a rate limit of 25–50 AFDs per day. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:55, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

  Years, huh. —Cryptic 15:39, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

  Redirects aren't articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:57, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

  That's a limitation of the data available. Manual inspection of the results reveals plenty of instances where the created pages are mostly non-redirects. Example. —Cryptic 16:29, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

  Disambiguation pages aren't articles, either. BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:32, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

  Can Quarry filter by Special:Tags or edit summaries? Excluding any edit with "Tags: New redirect" or an edit summary containing words like redirect or disambiguation would help. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:00, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

  "Editors can't mass-create more than 25–50 articles per day without getting written permission (and nobody's actually done that for years). " ??? Where do you get that idea from? See e.g. User:Ponor, who created 235 articles between 02.27 yesterday and 06.10 today. Fram (talk) 12:32, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  From WP:MASSCREATE, which says "large-scale" creations require written permission in advance, and adds that "While no specific definition of "large-scale" was decided, a suggestion of "anything more than 25 or 50" was not opposed."

  If Ponor has not received permission under this policy provision, then any concerned editor can take the violation off to ANI, with the possible results including mass deletion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:47, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  I also note that Ponor appears to be using a script (PAWS) to facilitate the masscreation. Cremastra (talk) 20:23, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  So not "can't" but "aren't theoretically allowed to, but nothing's stopping them". There is no rate limit like there is with account creations and so on. Fram (talk) 11:07, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

  On the very rare occasions it is actually desirable (it's never "necessary") to mass-delete articles then we have processess for that - namely group AfDs and in extreme cases RFCs. PRODs should never be used en-mass because PRODs are explicitly only for uncontroversial deletions, and mass deletion is always controversial. And anyway it should never be easier to delete an article than create one - our goal is to build an encyclopaedia not to delete one. Thryduulf (talk) 15:02, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

  mass deletion is always controversial Is that a guideline or your opinion? I was reading this because in December I proded a bunch of articles a single editor had made in a short period of time and I think most of them were deleted. I do not recall anyone mentioning this to me at the time Czarking0 (talk) 04:29, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

  How many is "a bunch"? On 18 December 2024, I see five articles that you prod'd but that did not get deleted. They were by two different editors, writing about two unrelated subjects. Two or three articles per editor/subject is not "mass deletion". Something like 25–50 articles, all on the same subject, and especially if it were all of the articles on that subject or if the prod statement had a lousy rationale (such as "No ____ is ever notable" – something an experienced editor like you would never claim) would be mass prodding.

  Reasonable people could disagree on exactly where to draw the line between those two extremes, but I don't think that, say, five articles on the same subject would count. And if the article is unsourced and qualifies for WP:BLPPROD, then any editor who runs across it should either promptly make it ineligible (i.e., add a source) or prod it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:26, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

• I think there needs to be proportionality here, and specifically that the effort required to delete an article should be proportionate to the effort spent in its creation. Lugnuts stubs were created at extremely high rate, often several per minute, from databases. Therefore they should be proddable at an extremely high rate; but they aren't, because we have editors who insist on laborious and time-intensive processes that have the practical effect of making them ludicrously difficult to get rid of.

Per policy, we're expected to be very firm about the use of high quality sources for biographies of living people. Lugnuts' creations very largely consist of undersourced, unmaintained, unwatchlisted BLPs and in my view they represent the most ghastly risk to the project. I continue to feel that the best thing we could do with Lugnuts articles is purge them all. In due course, good faith editors who will actually curate and maintain them will be ready to bring the appropriate ones back.

Of course, on the day that happens, I'll be hitting the slopes with my good buddy Satan.—S Marshall T/C 23:08, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

• I think this is a fairly specific issue that is better addressed on a case by case basis

Czarking0 (talk) 04:32, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

• You'd like to address 93,000 extremely similar articles one by one because...?—S Marshall T/C 10:26, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  While the articles may be similar the subjects are not necessarily so. It is very significantly more important to get things right than to do them quickly, so we need to take the time to assess what the correct action for each article is. I'm not advocating individually in every case, but any grouping must be done carefully and thoughtfully. Thryduulf (talk) 12:18, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  I would agree with you if the subjects were similar, but they are from wildly different countries and time periods. Just because the article format or length is the same doesn't mean the subject matter is. --Habst (talk) 12:43, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  These would be the editors who insist on laborious and time-intensive processes to whom I referred. The time should have been taken at creation, because these are biographies. It was not. Lugnuts made these very rapidly from a database, and they read almost identically. I do feel that it is for those who advocate keeping them to review and watchlist them all.—S Marshall T/C 14:46, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  How much time should have taken at creation is irrelevant now they have been created. What matters now is that two wrongs don't make a right and those who wish to review articles before deletion be given the time to do so. Thryduulf (talk) 15:15, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  You've had years. How much more time will you need?—S Marshall T/C 16:30, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  Assuming your figure of 93,000 articles is correct, and an average of 10 minutes to do a full and proper BEFORE and add make any relevant improvements to the article (I don't know how accurate this is) comes to 645 days, 20 hours. That's about 1¾ years of volunteer time assuming no duplication of effort, no time spent pushing back against proposals to just delete the lot without adequate review, no time spent on other articles, no time defending articles improved (but not sufficiently to someone) from PRODs/AfDs, no time discussing articles on talk pages (e.g. merge/split proposals), no time dealing with vandalism, no time improving articles to more than the bare minimum standard, etc. Thryduulf (talk) 16:43, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  There are exactly 93,187. Lugnuts' autopatrolled rights were removed in April 2021, so the community has been well aware of the magnitude of the problem with his creations for about four years. I would like to comply with policy by being very firm about the use of high-quality sources for these biographical articles. But I can't: no venue exists in which I'm allowed to be firm. If I tried to mass-PROD or mass-AFD them then I would be told off for being disruptive. The whole quagmire is unfixable in any rational or acceptable timescale, which is why I keep saying that the incredible number of unwatchlisted biographies represents the most ghastly risk to the project.—S Marshall T/C 16:56, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  The whole quagmire is unfixable in any rational or acceptable timescale that depends entirely on your definitions of "rational" and "acceptable". In the view of myself and many others, any way forward must allow time to properly review each article, search for high quality sources in the place they are most likely to be found (which may be offline and/or not in English) and (where applicable) add them to the article. Anything shorter than that is neither rational nor acceptable. Thryduulf (talk) 17:06, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  And that's why I say that "no venue exists in which I'm allowed to be firm."—S Marshall T/C 17:39, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  Then create them after the sources are found. Would you still believe we should leave them be if someone used bots to create articles for all ~10 million people listed on IMDB? Also going to note (somewhat in response to S Marshall) that as I said above, this was addressed at WP:NSPORTS2022 where it was decided that sports biographies must have sigcov in the article. So any without already-existing sources in the article are fair game. This includes but is not limited to the articles in Category:Sports biographies lacking sources containing significant coverage. There's already consensus for this. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 18:45, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  @Fram @S Marshall @Thebiguglyalien, according to the OP, "NEXIST and NBASIC override NSPORTS2022" and "SPORTSCRIT #5 does not apply" to athletes who meet a subcriterion, which is why he has been deprodding every Lugstub and insisting editors have to have checked all local offline archives to prove no SIGCOV exists at AfD. This has been a problem in particular for non-English subjects, where he often dumps search results that he hasn't even translated as evidence of "coverage" and obliges others to translate them all, after which he will claim that various sentences and sentence fragments add up to BASIC. See also this ongoing headache, and this, and this. JoelleJay (talk) 02:14, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

  He's not deprodding every Lugstub – its mainly only ones that have a high chance of being notable (I've seen hundreds of Olympian PRODs recently, many of which are probably notable, get deleted without anyone attempting to take a look into it) – nor is he insisting editors have to have checked all local offline archives to prove no SIGCOV exists at AfD. All we want is that some archives be searched – its very frustrating when we're having some of the all-time greatest African athletes deleted because no one is checking any relevant places. What's wrong with listing coverage of a subject that one can't translate themselves so that someone who can speak the language can hopefully see if its sufficient for notability? BeanieFan11 (talk) 02:35, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

  If All we want is that some archives be searched then why wasn't searching all Czech newspaper archives available at Charles University, or all Al-Anwar and Al-Ahram and Akhbar Al-Usbo and Addustour newspaper archives, or any of the other archives in dozens of other AfDs enough? BEFORE does not even hint at recommending a local or even nation-specific archives search, so you are demanding WAY more than is expected at AfD ON TOP of ignoring a global consensus requirement. JoelleJay (talk) 03:09, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

  I'm more talking about the many African and Asian subjects being deleted, rather than the one Czech athlete for which the argument was in part that the sources were sufficient (even if you disagreed). I'm going to go through the last few Olympian AFDs that have been deleted/redirected and note if a relevant archive was searched: Mohamed Al-Aswad? No. Bohumír Pokorný? Yes, but no one was willing to look at the coverage. Kamana Koji? No. Sami Beyroun? No. Alfredo Valentini? No. Artur Elezarov? No. Faisal Marzouk? No(?). Piero Ferracuti? No. For many of these, there's not even evidence that any search anywhere is being done. Suggesting that someone should look for sources from that subject's nation is not "demanding WAY more than is expected". BeanieFan11 (talk) 03:18, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

  It absolutely is demanding way more when there is literally nothing in BEFORE that suggests anything close to what you are asking for. JoelleJay (talk) 03:51, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

  However, as I've stated in other threads, I do think prods/noms should provide evidence that a search was done in the native language. But it's not editors' faults that potentially notability-demonstrating sources are not verifiable; we don't keep articles on other GNG-dependent topics just because no local resources are accessible. I've asked WMF numerous times, including in several on-wiki discussions, to put their considerable largesse into media digitization efforts in underrepresented countries, but they would rather spend it on ridiculous unvetted grants and on attempts at enshittifying the platform. JoelleJay (talk) 14:35, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

  Wikipedia:Notability (sports) § Basic criteria (with one exception) describes how the individual bullet points at Wikipedia:Notability § General notability guideline are interpreted in the context of sports figures. Thus it serves as an overall framework for the sports-specific guidelines for presuming the existence of suitable sources which demonstrate that the general notability guideline is met. This framework is also suitable for sports without sports-specific guidelines. It's not a case of one overriding the other, but the two complementing each other.

  The one exception is the last bullet item in Wikipedia:Notability (sports) § Basic criteria, which is a documentation requirement that doesn't really belong in this section as it isn't a criterion for evaluating if the standards for having an article are met. Nominally, it does run counter to Wikipedia:Notability § Notability is based on the existence of suitable sources, not on the state of sourcing in an article, but it's an exception that was created by consensus agreement, and is really a "document this when you create an article" requirement, rather than a way to determine if an article should theoretically exist by English Wikipedia's standards. For better or worse, Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators § Rough consensus doesn't require evaluators of consensus to discount opinions that run counter to guidelines, so it's up to participants in deletion discussions to convince each other of the more compelling argument. isaacl (talk) 22:38, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

  As I explicitly stated earlier, what should be done before creation is irrelevant now they have been created. Every discussion about NSPORTS2022 and similar has found either no consensus for or explicit consensus against mass deletion or deletion without review, so no there isn't consensus for that. Thryduulf (talk) 19:37, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  what should be done before creation is irrelevant now they have been created – Not true. We could absolutely revert to the status quo ante, but people make a stink about it whenever the solution is raised. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 20:24, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  I agree with this. Cremastra (talk) 20:25, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  Reverting to the status quo ante is a method of dealing with the situation we find ourselves in now, we could apply that regardless of what was or wasn't done before creation. I will continue to oppose that solution as deleting articles about notable subjects just because someone also created articles about non-notable subjects is very much cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. Thryduulf (talk) 20:46, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  Reverting to "status quo ante", aka mass deleting everything a Very Naughty Editor™ created, means deleting Muzamil Sherzad, which had 16 refs at the time of creation.

  I found this article by glancing through the first page of Special:Contribs for the pages he created (it's mostly redirects).

  The benefits of deleting this article would be:

  • We'd really show that already blocked Very Naughty Editor™ that we're so mad about his bad actions that we'll even delete his good ones.
  • Indiscriminate actions – unlike writing a 368-word-long article with 16 refs – don't require editors' time, effort, or thought.

  The cons are:

  • Readers won't have the information.
  • Removing good information is against the mission.
  • Indiscriminate actions are against the community's values.
  • We're Wikipedia:Here to build an encyclopedia, not to grandstand about how awful the Very Naughty Editor was and how just blocking him is not good enough.
  • It's illogical to say that we want to promote the creation of well-sourced articles, and then propose deleting some well-sourced articles. (By that "logic", if you miss any questions on your math test, the teacher should mark everything wrong, including the once you answered correctly.)

  I would like to prevent the creation of badly sourced articles. But since nobody's given me a working time machine, that can't be done for Lugnuts' articles. The options available to us are:

  • Review them one by one (cons: lots of work)
  • Mass delete them (cons: see above)
  • Stop caring about whether some usually unimportant, usually accurate, and usually low-traffic pages exist, and do something that you think is actually important with your time.

  This is fundamentally the "fast, cheap, good" problem. At most, you can get any two of those qualities. So if you say "I want to solve the Lugnuts problem quickly and with minimal effort", you are effectively saying "I want low-quality results from this process". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:20, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  Or we could just delete the ones that don't currently have significant coverage, like I said above. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 23:01, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  Which requires manual review, which is the opposite of mass deletion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:01, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

  Which is what the original Prods did, apparently. They manually reviewed the articles, saw they had only had non-significant coverage (sports-reference.com), and prodded them (e.g. [1][2][3]). And still they are accused of mass deletion. You can't have it both ways. Fram (talk) 11:15, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

• I think it's far worse than WAID makes out. Reviewing them one by one would be the least rotten option, if we could review them, find they're crap, prod them, and move on. But we can't. We're barred from prodding them at a rate that would get the job done in the next decade, because we'd overwhelm the self-appointed proposed deletion proposers.—S Marshall T/C 23:06, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  25 a day would cover every article Lugnuts created in almost exactly one decade. (I assume the ~90K article count does not include his 75K redirects.) The prod folks are unlikely to complain about 25 in a day. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:04, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

  The 77,502 redirects aren't included. For the 10 years without a day off that it will take to clear this backlog, who will watchlist and maintain these poorly sourced biographies?—S Marshall T/C 08:43, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

  Bear in mind that there are also all the articles that Carlossuarez46 created from databases. Those aren't biographies so they're less appallingly risky, but the volumes are extremely high. PROD can only cope with so much, and it's not reasonable to make PROD sclerotic for that long.

So even if I could, by working for ten years solidly without a day off, clean up Lugnuts' mess, he would still need his own personal CSD criterion. Something like "article that's sourced only to databases", so it covers Carlossuarez46 as well.—S Marshall T/C 10:20, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

That CSD criterion isn't viable, because it conflicts with WP:NEXIST and is therefore controversial. The notability of a subject isn't determined by whether someone has already added a suitable source. If "didn't add a good source yet" were a viable CSD criterion, then Category:Articles lacking sources could be emptied by bot. That might be no skin off my nose – WPMED's articles are all sourced now – but it would be controversial, and thus not a candidate for CSD. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:20, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

"Who will watchlist and maintain these" – the same people who do now; the same people who would do so if they had better sources.

Also, keep in mind that it doesn't have to be you spending 10 minutes x 25 articles x 3650 days to either add a decent source or suggest a WP:PROD. A couple dozen editors could each do one a day. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:22, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

If this is the path we choose to go down, we might as well update WP:MASSCREATE to clarify that your articles will be allowed to stay up if you violate it, no matter how many you make. I should have some fun with five-digit or six-digit mass creation. I know for a fact that it will be basically impossible to get rid of them once I create them. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 19:55, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

I mean, it shouldn't be too hard to write a bot to scrape databases for new species articles, the majority of which are already written by lazy editors who can't be bothered to write beyond "a is a species of b described by c in d" and who should honestly be blocked at this point. Cremastra (talk) 20:05, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

As I have previously demonstrated, you can write a whole lot more than a single sentence from a species database – including the addition of non-database SIGCOV sources.

If someone would like to do this, then they need to follow the WP:MASSCREATE procedure. Also: We're missing quite a lot of insect articles, but we have almost all the mammals already. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:13, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

Why should they be blocked if their creations are perfectly within the guidelines.... JoelleJay (talk) 14:38, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

MASSCREATE is a behavioral rule, which means you are more likely to get blocked for violating it than to have content deleted for violating it. You might have noticed that Lugnuts is blocked. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:09, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

The reason why Wikipedia works is because of proportionality. Edits can be reverted with less effort than it took to make them. That's how it's possible to have an encyclopaedia that anyone can edit; we can fix things with a reasonable amount of labour.

This violates that principle. It's a free gift to griefers and bad actors. As soon as you've got an autopatrolled account, you can create two or three articles a minute, and they'll take (on Thryduulf's estimate above) 10 minutes' labour just to go through the WP:BEFORE.

BEFORE is the right principle when it protects people who care, and try. If you spend an hour researching and drafting an article then a ten minute BEFORE is perfectly fair.

It's not the right principle for people who splurge out thirty articles in thirty minutes.

The answer to Lugnuts and Carlossuarez46 is definitely fast and cheap, not good. They created fast and cheap so good's unviable.

They need reviewing individually but there's got to be a proportionate workflow. It has to be glance, see if there's a non-database source, draftify if there isn't, move on. It cannot possibly be prod-deprod-triptodramaboards-argue-tag-detag-argue-AFD-DRV-argue. And the people who advocate the long-winded process need to be the ones responsible for watchlisting and maintenance.—S Marshall T/C 23:52, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

In terms of preventing future such problems, I think the answer is that we need to stop people when they're in the "first hundred" range, and not wait until they're on the multi-ten-thousands.

Carlossuarez46 was yelled at in March 2021 because articles he created in ~2008–2009 (example) did not comply with a guideline that was adopted in December 2012. Yes, it would be nice if those articles were in better shape, but it's also unfair to tell people that they've done a bad thing because they didn't predict how the rules would change in the future.

I just added two sources to that article, BTW. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:14, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

Okay, but now that we've shut the stable door, the horse still needs to be caught and returned. We still need to agree a reasonable and proportionate workflow for dealing with the lugstubs we have, and "do a full before for each one" isn't it.—S Marshall T/C 08:12, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

Oh, did we only have a guideline or policy from 2012 on that articles had to be verifiable and truthful? E.g. not creating articles claiming to be about villages when they weren't about villages at all? Carlossuarez was "yelled at" because "we have one-sentence articles hanging around for years where that one sentence is an outright falsehood."[4] Please don't write alternative truths to support your position. That there were occasionally correct articles among the thousands of dubious or outright wrong ones is hardly an excuse. Fram (talk) 08:52, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

Specifically, I was paying attention to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive332#Suggested block for Carlossuarez46, where editors say things like "One of the worst periods for Carlos's article creation activities appears to have been in July 2009". WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:33, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

... nothing there supports your previous claims. The very next post beneath your quote here says " As far back as 2009 Carlossuarez46 has been completely dismissive of anyone who suggested that his article creations were questionable, consistently refusing to acknowledge that his mass-productions include errors or fail to demonstrate verifiability and/or notability. " This was the kind of reaction they gave back in 2009. But sure, Carlossuarez is the one being yelled at unfairly, and somehow this spin means that these current ProDs are unacceptable. Fram (talk) 12:28, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Well, I think that when multiple people in a 2021 discussion mention article creations in 2009, then they (i.e., those editors, but not necessarily all editors) are probably talking about edits made in 2009. You are not, however, required to agree with me about that or anything else.

My point is this: The community finally intervened in 2021. We wouldn't have had these problems if the community had taken this action in 2009. What can we do now to avoid future problems?

Or: Do you want, in 2030, to be talking about how User:NewBadJob started producing badly sourced articles about possibly non-notable subjects in 2025, but we ignored it at the time, so now there are not only thousands of Lugnuts stubs and thousands of Carlossuarez46 stubs to deal with, but there are also now thousands of NewBadJob stubs to deal with? I don't. I'd bet "dollars to doughnuts" that you don't either.

So what can we do now to stop that? For example, should someone who noticed an editor regularly creating 50+ non-redirect articles in a single day maybe inquire at ANI about enforcing WP:MASSCREATE on that editor's creations? Should there even be someone regularly checking for that behavior? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:41, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

...How is any of this relevant to the post you are responding to?

You said (emph mine) Carlossuarez46 was yelled at in March 2021 because articles he created in ~2008–2009 (example) did not comply with a guideline that was adopted in December 2012. Yes, it would be nice if those articles were in better shape, but it's also unfair to tell people that they've done a bad thing because they didn't predict how the rules would change in the future. @Fram refuted this with the fact that editors in both 2021 and 2009 were complaining about the CS articles failing V and N, PAGs which far predate 2012. JoelleJay (talk) 21:08, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Subazama, California, as he wrote it in 2009, appears to have complied with both WP:N and WP:V. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:34, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Support - As we saw with the mass Lugnuts deletions, many of the articles had sources out there and were able to be fixed if you just looked. But despite there being WP:NORUSH, the articles just HAD to be drafted ASAP. It can take me hours to days to write various articles and if you are able to nominate dozens a day, you are probably not doing the proper research. Foreign articles also need extra care since you have to search in different languages and databases.

I also do think something needs to be done with Lugnuts being brought up time and time again. It's just harassment at this point and despite nobody being able to WP:OWN an article, it sure seems like many people think he does.KatoKungLee (talk) 13:13, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

I think that the complaints about Lugnuts show a breakdown in the community. We're no longer in this together. Instead, some of us see WP:IMPERFECT contributions as a burden being foisted on to us. He gets to make an article, and now I'm stuck watching to see whether anyone vandalizes it? (The article I expanded yesterday has averaged less than one edit per year. Most of them were bots/scripts, and zero touched the article's content.)

Perhaps we're feeling the strain more than we used to? We used to spend a huge amount of time – perhaps as much as a third of active registered editors – manually reverting blatant vandalism. The bots have taken over most of that, so perhaps that has given us enough space to start complaining about things that are at the Paper cut level rather than the serious injury level? When you spend your day reverting poop vandalism, then a new article that contains no vandalism at all might seem particularly good. When you almost never see blatant vandalism, maybe the problem of a single-sentence stub seems more burdensome. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:44, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

Testing the waters: Overturning USPLACE

Yes, I know this is at perennial proposals, which is why I'm not jumping straight ahead to an RFC, but WP:USPLACE, the guideline that determines the titles of settlements in the United States, is fundamentally at loggerheads with the five criteria:

• Recognizability: Large cities that are not usually associated with their state may astonish readers who see the page name connected to the state (for instance, when I hear Louisville, I don't think of it being in Kentucky). Yes, this is a double-edged sword, as people with no knowledge of the city might not know of it, but this can easily be solved with textual disambiguation. For instance, 2022 Ürümqi fire says in its lead sentence: On 24 November 2022, a fire broke out... in Ürümqi, Xinjiang, China, because the average reader will not recognize Ürümqi as being in Xinjiang or China, yet no disambiguation is present in the Ürümqi article. We could easily use this in the lead sentences of articles concerning these cities. Also, the short descriptions and previews of the articles with USPLACE disambiguation, which include the state, are redundant to the disambiguation in the title.
• Naturalness: Readers are likely to search Louisville instead of Louisville, Kentucky just because of typing efficiency, and in articles, the short form is usually linked to (example: in Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport). This satisfies both subcriteria in the Naturalness section.
• Precision: In cases where there is a primary redirect, such redirect is unambiguous if a hatnote is added, as is present on Boston, Cleveland, and most of the other 26 undisambiguated city articles. If the title was ambiguous in any way, there would be no primary redirect.
• Concision: Raleigh, North Carolina is almost three times longer than just plain old Raleigh, which redirects there already, so moving the much longer name to the shorter name breaks nothing and makes Wikipedia more efficient.
• Consistency: Another double-edged sword. The argument for consistency is clear: not a single other country uses USPLACE. Yes, consistency has been used by supporters of USPLACE to argue that it goes against consistency to have some articles using commas while others don't. However, we don't worry about that in any other country: we have Valence, Drôme but Biarritz not Biarritz, Pyrénées-Atlantiques. There's no reason we need to treat the US different from literally every other country.

The argument is that appending the state is part of American English. That is not even remotely true. No source describes American English as such (see American English, which does not mention the comma convention at all) and other articles that use American English, such as Agua Prieta, whose article uses American English and with the town just across the border, even so, the article is not titled Agua Prieta, Sonora, which would be the title if the comma convention were part of American English. Yes, the AP Stylebook recommends the comma convention. But if we followed the AP stylebook, then we'd be ending quotes with ." instead of "., our article on the Salem witch trials would have to be moved to Salem Witch Trials, and our article on Gulf of Mexico would have to be moved to Gulf of Mexico/Gulf of America. Simply put, USPLACE violates our guidelines on article titles.

Furthermore, many editors oppose USPLACE, as can be shown by the three RMs opened in the last month, all of which unfortunately failed, on removing the state name from Brownsville, Lubbock, and Redmond. Even some of the oppose !votes in those RMs and others expressed dissatisfaction with USPLACE, with one editor calling it peculiar and another saying they were personally opposed to it. Consensus can change, especially when consensus is determined to be in conflict with policy. Thank you for considering my request.

—🐔 Chicdat  ^{Bawk to me!} 19:11, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

I can't see what the arguement is. We gave naming conventions for most of the world. In the case of Brownsville there us clearly two places on wikipedia with that name, so we need to distinquish them and the US has a lot of places with the same name. If we didn't have these conventions, based upon some of the arguments raised, Boston, Lincolnshire should be just plain Boston as it is the original - which is just silly. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 19:48, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Yes, but that's true of lots of topics. Having the larger area name is something we do for disambiguation, and like anything that we disambiguate, there can be a primary name. We even do that geographically; we have an article on Paris and don't feel the need to specify it's the one in France and not Paris, Texas. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 19:57, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

But we should not have "Primary pages", as how can we determine what is primary? Boston, Lincolnshire or Boston, Massachusetts, or the 16 places in the US or the 34 other places around the world? Paris should be Paris, France. Even Britannica has it as Paris (national capital, France) so we are following normal conventions. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 20:17, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Interesting viewpoint, however, it is not the consensus of Wikipedians, who believe that it is much more convenient to have a primary topic, with such a high consensus that it became one of our policies and guidelines. Feel free to open an RM at Paris asking to have it moved to Paris, France, however, in accordance with the primary topic guideline, it will likely fail. 🐔 Chicdat  ^{Bawk to me!} 20:22, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Concensus? In Bios it isn't. Take John Smith, there is no primary article. What is the primary article is conjecture, which leads to edit wars. Clearly making something clear and simple is easy, and falls in line with what Encyclopedias have done for years. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 20:28, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Not everything has a primary topic. John Smith is such a vague, common name, that of course there isn't one. But Boston, Mass., not Boston, Lincolnshire, is clearly the primary topic and thus does not need a disambiguator. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:30, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

So how is Boston MA the primary? The tea party may have taken place their, but that is a page on its own? Boston, Lincolnshire has a history of over 1000 years, while Boston MA is named after the UK town by settlers from their? I would say neither are primary, as they are amongst how over 40 world wide. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 02:05, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

• Boston: population of 675,000 in the city proper, and 4,900,000 in the Greater Boston area.
• Boston, Lincolnshire: population of 45,000 in the city proper, and 67,000 in the borough.

I'd say that having 15 times as many residents in the city and 70 times as many in the surrounding area is good evidence towards being primary. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:32, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

We do it all the time in bios, when there's a clear "primary" topic -- i.e., the one that most of the people entering the name are looking for. Consider, say, Robin Williams, which takes you right to the comedian, even though Robin Williams (disambiguation) shows you eleven other Robins Williams. Over 13,000 page views a day for the comedian's page, and less than a quarter of one percent of those end up on the disambiguation page looking for the other Robin Williams they were looking for. See WP:DETERMINEPRIMARY for how we judge this. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 05:58, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

I'm not going to go into why Boston is the primary topic, but you can read WP:DETERMINEPRIMARY and then do the analyses between the former and the latter. In any event, Boston isn't a great example since we have an exception for major US cities that don't require disambiguation. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:26, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

I think Zzyzx11 has the right idea Czarking0 (talk) 04:40, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

You might want to first look at all the archived discussions and proposals listed near the top of Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names). I count almost 30 dating back to May 2004 discussion, with the last one in February 2023. Even getting the AP Stylebook exception for the 28 or so for the larger cities seemed to be a hassle. I think it had gotten to the point in that last discussion, with over 20 years and 30 discussions with this disputed issue, that the titles are "stable" now and it would be more of a disruption for a massive change rather than keep retaining this existing style. Zzyzx11 (talk) 19:52, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Admin recall was soundly rejected for two decades before passing in 2024. Consensus can change, and it does. To Davidstewartharvey, the proposal is only for articles such as Louisville, Kentucky, to which Louisville redirects. If this proposal were to pass, Louisville, Kentucky would be moved to Louisville. And once again, no evidence that this is the style in American English. 🐔 Chicdat  ^{Bawk to me!} 20:04, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Well thats just plain wrong! Louisville should redirect to Louisville (disambiguation) as there is more than Louisville in the US - 8 in the US alone plus 1 in Belize! Davidstewartharvey (talk) 20:23, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Oh and I forgot to say, what do American reality programs for food and property do when they go anywhere? They normally flash the name up in the convention i.e. Boston, MA, which is just an abbreviation of what USPLACE is doing so it is used in American English Davidstewartharvey (talk) 21:14, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

It's not plain wrong. That is not how we deal with ambiguous names. If something is the primary topic (that is, it is either the most likely reference of that topic that someone is looking for or "itt has substantially greater enduring notability and educational value than any other topic associated with that term"), then the article is placed at that page, and a hatnote to a disambiguation page is provided. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:36, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

That would make the disambiguation page malplaced. If you think this primary redirect is incorrect, you can request that Louisville (disambiguation) be moved to Louisville. jlwoodwa (talk) 19:33, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

If Americans want to be excpetional then let's let them do it somewhere relatively harmless, like this. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:41, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Chicdat, WP:ADMINRECALL finally passed in 2024 partly because it was initially identified as part of the larger urgent need to reform RFA. I did not see that sense of urgency in that last 2023 USPLACE discussion -- everybody basically repeats all the same arguments as in the previous discussions, and it ends with no consensus. I do not think you bring anything significantly new to the table that has not already been discussed repeatedly. Zzyzx11 (talk) 20:53, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Fully concur with User:Zzyzx11's assessment. Also keep in mind that for many American attorneys and other legal professionals, the first Louisville they think of when they hear Louisville is Louisville, Colorado, because that is where the National Institute for Trial Advocacy is currently based. Most people who have heard of Louisville, Kentucky think of it only because they are fast food fans, and of course, all true fast food fans around the world love Yum! Brands. --Coolcaesar (talk) 05:13, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Which is my point about Primary that I raised, you dont instantly think Louisville, Kentucky but one of the others! Davidstewartharvey (talk) 06:17, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

I had no idea NITA was based in Louisville or Colorado. We also don't base a primary topic or decision to disambiguate on whether a small population of people associate something with a place. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:37, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with that last point. There are over 1.3 million lawyers in the United States, and that's not counting allied legal professionals like paralegals, assistants, and secretaries, many of whom have also heard of NITA because the lawyer they work for ran off to attend a NITA learning-by-doing program. --Coolcaesar (talk) 11:47, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

I would definitely be in favor of allowing more specific exceptions to USPLACE, for additional large or particularly famous cities, and for unambiguously named state capitols. BD2412 T 03:43, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

I'd go for this too, but wouldn't want to overturn USPLACE entirely. Elli (talk | contribs) 15:37, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

Reminder that someone should post an announcement at WP:USCITY too, because this topic affect far more editors than just those who watch the WP:USPLACE article. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 00:44, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names). jlwoodwa (talk) 02:13, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

• Thank you for your sound argumentation, Chicdat. I agree with your points, but as I am not familiar with the history of USPLACE I don't know how much of a trainwreck yet another RfC would be. Toadspike [Talk] 10:58, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

  I think that the fact that Palo Alto rediects to Palo Alto, California is strong enough evidence that the article should be at the former. And the best way to challenge the Louisville example stated by User:Coolcaesar would be to move the Kentucky city's article to that title and running a WP:Requested Moves request. Animal lover |666| 23:18, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

  Yes, I agree that cities where the short name redirects to the long name should be at the short name. Toadspike [Talk] 17:23, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

  Completely disagree. That someone created an article about the city in California and gave it a non-disambiguated title is not evidence that the non-disambiguated title was correct. That said, I could see an argument for saying that the redirect should point to Palo Alto (disambiguation). Blueboar (talk) 18:38, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

  @Blueboar: I'm not saying these articles should be automatically moved. I'm just trying to get the rule prohibiting such a thing out of the way before opening a bunch of RMs on those articles. If evidence can be provided that the city in California is not the primary topic for Palo Alto, it is likely an RM would fail. 🐔 Chicdat  ^{Bawk to me!} 18:41, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

  The “rule” is fine as is. Far simpler to go the other way… and file an RM arguing for an “occasional exception” when appropriate. Blueboar (talk) 19:25, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

  That would make the disambiguation page malplaced. If you think this primary redirect is incorrect, you can request that Palo Alto (disambiguation) be moved to Palo Alto. jlwoodwa (talk) 22:42, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

• My concern would be that by snipping the states we'd end up with yet another round of RMs on things like Plymouth (MA) v Plymouth (UK) or Birmingham (AL) v Birmingham (UK). Neither US city in these cases is close to being the primary use, but that hasn't stopped people wasting everyone's time over and over before. Black Kite (talk) 19:36, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

  They can still make an RM request for Birmingham or Plymouth, claiming that the UK cities are not primary topics (this would necessarily be the case if the US cities are). And if we applied USPLACE-like rules for the UK, we would be much more likely to have an edit war than allowing any real chance for a discussion (an RM would attract attention, while discussion about a redirect target would probably escape all attention). Animal lover |666| 08:31, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

  The current guideline doesn't stop that from occurring Talk:Birmingham/Archive_12#Requested_move_(2009) Talk:Plymouth Traumnovelle (talk) 03:30, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

Should we use the term "committed suicide"?

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.

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Many times this has been brought up, but no consensus has been found. Even in a Wikipedia article, it has been acknowledged that the term "committed suicide" can stigmatizing and offensive (and outdated). Related: MOS:SUICIDE, MOS 2014, WTW 2016, MOSBIO 2017, MOS 2017, VPPOL 2018, VPPOL 2017, WTW 2018, CAT 2019, VPPOL 2021, VPPOL 2023. {{Sam S|💬|✏️|ℹ️}} 19:20, 20 March 2025 (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.

Special permission to create an article

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.

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Hi. I'm Pek and I'm not allowed to create new articles. However, I would like to ask for special permission to create article about web browser that doesn't yet have an article on Wikipedia. Could I just create this one article? (Please, I'm begging on my knees.) Instabridge Browser needs it's own article. There is currently no article that I could edit to add content about Instabridge Browser. I found some sources too: #1, #2 & #3. --Pek (talk) 15:17, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

Those sources appear to be about an e-sim provider, not a web browser. CMD (talk) 15:32, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

Pek - looking at your profile, you have been editing for over 10 years… why are you “not allowed to create new articles”? Were your privileges removed? Blueboar (talk) 15:47, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

This is not where you would file an appeal to your ban on article creation. And that ban, from November 2024, makes it clear that you are not allowed to appeal for six months, and those six months have not yet passed. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 15:51, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

Ah… looked further… Nat is correct… this isn’t how you appeal a ban, Pek. We can’t help, and you shouldn’t have asked. Blueboar (talk) 16:46, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

And, as CMD said, the browser is not mentioned or only mentioned in passing in those sources. I can't help wondering what is so important about that browser that it has to have an article before Instabridge itself does. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:56, 23 March 2025 (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.

Reviewing the use of "indefinite" page protection beyond semi-protection level, and prohibiting it for all TALK pages

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.

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Understanding the need for page protection of some sort in identified controversial areas, it seems that in attempting to overcome the mayhem of more heat than light that many editors have overcorrected with very liberal use of "indefinite E-C protection" and admin protection. The due process involved in these decisions seems opaque, at least to this user. The ability to appeal such peremptory decisions is unduly cumbersome and a very uphill climb. The very idea of indefinitely protecting an article's TALK page practically excludes most Wikipedia editors from any participation whatsoever from influencing content, flying directly in the face of "an encyclopedia anyone can edit." Therefore, the notion of "indefinite" restrictions above semi-protected level should be reconsidered in general, in favor of a sunset provision (say, six months) on articles, and absolutely forbidden on an article's TALK page. Also, 500 edits seems a rather arbitrary and for newbies unreachable level of edits. Why not 200? Just asking... Kenfree (talk) 10:13, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

Can you give some examples where this has caused a problem? Phil Bridger (talk) 10:25, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

Happy to, Phil. I have mede several edit requests at the E-C protected page WP:Alison_Weir_(activist) page, the oldest of which is dated 11 January, and they are still languishing in the backlog as I write this reply. Efforts to interst E-C editors at WP:Teahouse have been unavailing. Surely Wikioedia users are not well served in such a case. Kenfree (talk) 13:43, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

A WP:RFC is a somewhat formal procedure, lots of rules/details. For example, "Include an initial brief, neutral statement or question about the issue in the talk page section..." You missed this part and went straight into arguing. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:37, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

This is merely a personal matter for User:Kenfree and doesn't require any large scale community discussion to solve it. They've been been editing en.wiki since 2011 (and still don't have 500 edits, yet). Over time they have demonstrated why they are here through their actions. In their sixth edit (2011), they characterize another wikipedian thusly: It is very difficult to accept that the editor who chose the single excerpt from the Green Book did so in good faith. In their ninth edit (2011) they complain a whole slew of late Cold Warriors are making a very unfair characterization of RT. In 2014 they edit warred on RT (TV network) and got blocked for it. On May 25, 2024 at 12:59, User:Kenfree returned after seven years to make their last mainspace edit. Since that time, they've stayed strictly on talk pages and noticeboards, usually discussing their inability to edit EC restricted topics. They turned their attention to Talk:Alison Weir (activist). They've tried to make their case (on the merits) at Help desk, an EC-protected edit request on 03:45, 11 January 2025, again at help desk on January 20, then on Teahouse to fret about how much time it was taking for an EC request to be processed. They filed another help desk request on January 27, canvassed an editor to help them on February 4, accused another of edit warring, pinged the help desk again on February 9, once again on Feb 25, and finally talked directly to an admin on March 8. Over and over it's been explained to them that if they were to put in the minimum effort (they are currently 92 edits short of 500), this wouldn't be an issue for them. They are quite interested in arguing about extended-confirmed permissions on a few contentious topics and not anything else. I'm wondering when assuming good faith for a low edit-count but longtime editor becomes merely facilitating a bad actor. All this help desk and EC banter seems to be covering up a perverse form of WP:PGAME. In any event, their desire for permissions doesn't extend far enough as to actually make effort to earn them. BusterD (talk) 13:19, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

I've chosen to post this to ANI. BusterD (talk) 13:32, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

It is just because of such lengthy ad hominems by such editors that I sometimes question the good faith of such. In all these wasted words not a single one is addressed to the concern I have raised, just one long diatribe attacking me personally, cherry picking as he goes. Disgusting! Kenfree (talk) 13:36, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

By posting at ANI, I have intentionally made all my own behaviors here a valid subject for conversation. Swing away! BusterD (talk) 13:49, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

If you're going to dispute MY BEHAVIOR, you'll have to do it on ANI... BusterD (talk) 13:58, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

the issue here is your behavior, which is relevant to a thread you've started. i have to agree with buster that your lack of attempts to be productive and wanting to skip straight to an ec-protected page (as straight as something can be when you've been around since 2011, anyway) and then to attempting to rework how ec protection works can very easily come off as gaming the system, regardless of whether or not it actually is an attempt to do so

the important part aside, i don't think this needs reworking. there are several valid reasons to protect an article (persistent vandalism, disruptive editing, edit warring, technical stuff...), and most of them can just as easily apply to a talk page (or even the teahouse lmao). in such cases, it can then be deduced that certain types of editors are generally not trusted to handle delicate topics with the level of care that's necessary of it, and thus discussion is locked to editors who have proven that they're here to be productive (and me for some reason), be it by being autoconfirmed (at least 10 edits across at least 4 days) or extended confirmed (at least 500 edits across at least 30 days). if you really want something unprotected, you can just request it here. if the reason is deemed good enough (at least more than just "i want to edit it", for starters) and made in good faith, an admin can then unprotect it. this request, for example, is one i believe didn't meet either criterion, especially after the ensuing complaints over it being declined, and considering why it was protected in the first place. while i would discuss the exceedingly simple solution to this whole issue (that is, you editing more stuff), the current direction of the ani thread seems to suggest that i'm a little late for that consarn _{(prison phone) (crime record)} 16:27, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

If I wanted the page to be unprotected, I would have said so. I do not. What I want is some guarantee that protecting a page does not throw it into pemanent stasis. Fully or e-c protecting a page (and especially a TALK page) "indefinitely" is tantamount to locking it uo and throwing away the key...thus, my appeal for a sunset parameter on all such protections. Kenfree (talk) 18:11, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

it's tantamount to locking it up if you make no effort at reaching the criteria to be able to edit it. this is more like a doorknob you're just not tall enough to open yet consarn _{(prison phone) (crime record)} 18:19, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

If you (or anybody else) feels that a page no longer needs to be protected then you can request unprotection at WP:RFPP. As with all things on Wikipedia, indefinite does not mean permanent. Thryduulf (talk) 18:36, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

Ok, if indefinite does not mean permanent, then what is its endpoint? This is the whole concern I am raising: once a page is protected "indefinitely" there is no automatic review parameter, and it goes into limbo. I am arguing for the institution of such a parameter to replace the literally indefinite "indefinitely." I have suggested six months as a reasonable outside parameter on when a review should be imposed, a review open to all interested editors, not simply those already allowed to edit on the restricted page. What I am striving for here is a return to the democratic ideal that once characterized Wikipedia in its salad days: "An encyclopedia anyone can edit." Not a very limited group of editors with 500+ edits to their credit.

As I peruse the various responses here, it seems that a kind of nascent elitism is expressing itself as disdain for those editors who are not "everyday" editors. Well I am not one of those and don't expect to be...I have too many other demands on my time. I am a casual editor, and I think the record shows that from time to time, when I am using Wikipedia for research, I will make a correction or correct a typo here and there to improve readability. These good faith efforts on my part are disparaged by some commenters as "cosmetic." To each his own. If someone can point to a Wikipedia policy that privileges or shows preference for everyday editors over casual editors, please indicate here...otherwise this is a useless distinction IMHO.Kenfree (talk) 18:53, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

The end point is when protection is not required. As noted, a review can be initiated by anybody at any time by simply asking for one. Thryduulf (talk) 18:58, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

Some after endpoint at Template:Contentious_topics/list#Previously_authorised. Of course, they might start up again. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:11, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

No, the issue here is NOT my behavior, the issue is whether the current tendency to, in my opinion, overprotect some Wikipedia pages (especially article TALK pages) serves the inclusivity mission of Wikipedia. You keep TRYING to make it about my behavior, but it's a red herring, and the way you have characterized my behavior, which I won't dignify with a refutation, as a strawman. Kenfree (talk) 18:59, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

i wouldn't agree that it's a red herring. as detailed by cullen in ani, you specifically bringing up this specific issue in this specific way with your specific edits under your belt (that is, the edits at alison weir, and other articles related to the israel-palestine war) implies shenanigans might be at hand (that is, promotional editing, if not outright a conflict of interest), which if proven true, would damage your credibility in this discussion. it absolutely is something worth looking into

and in the specific context of this war, i'm also 99.69% sure that going lighter on protection in pages related to it would invite some absolutely hilarious comedians (vandals) in the mood to enact their endlessly funny jokes (the exact same boring memes over and over), people seeking to right great wrongs, and general bad-faith editors to disrupt said pages even harder than usual, so that's even more of a reason to oppose it. there's also the issue of 500 not actually being all that many edits once you get the hang of things, i guess

should also note that i wasn't implying that you were a vandal with that second paragraph, i just named vandals as an example of people who should probably be kept out of there consarn _{(prison phone) (crime record)} 19:57, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

As this discussion was never an WP:RFC (which requires listing the discussion in Wikipedia:Requests for comment/All), I've removed the potentially confusing "RFC" claim from the section heading. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:15, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, @WhatamIdoing! I had no idea that a Request for Comment was anything other than what it implies. My bad... Kenfree (talk) 19:02, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

Ridiculous suggestion. Three years ago, I lost access to this account (trashing three computers and a spell in hospital were involved). So, until I worked out how to recover my passwords, I set up an alternate account. It took me (checks notes) four days making small constructive edits to get it EC. It could have been only one day, but my stamina is not what it was. Narky Blert (talk) 15:34, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

EC requires 500 edits + 30 days. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:16, 25 March 2025 (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.