Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Authority Control Integration

{{User:ClueBot III/DoNotArchiveUntil|1746738068}}

{{rfc|tech|style|rfcid=F6C8844}}

RfC to determine how reflinks are linked or not in the {{para|work}} field as done by bot. -- GreenC 20:05, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

User:GreenC bot (WaybackMedic) fixes broken URLs semi-manually per request at WP:URLREQ on a per domain basis. The bot is uniquely programmed for a single domain.

One of the features is incidentally adding reflinks in the {{para|work}} field for example converting {{para|work|theguardian.com}} --> {{para|work|The Guardian}}. This is done per the MOS WP:REFLINK which states

:{{green|"Citations stand alone in their usage, so there is no problem with repeating the same link in many citations within an article"}}.

This is done mostly cosmetically, when making other changes within the citation or article. It is not the bot's primary purpose, but since I am making bespoke code specific to a domain, I can easily do this at the same time.

An editor recently requested this feature be disabled. So that I may continue fixing dead links, I complied and set to feature set 2A below. However I would like to see if there is preference from other editors, and to offer a set of features available.

There are 2 choices (bot or nobot), and if bot, 4 choices how:

:1. Don't mess by bot

:2. Acceptable by this bot, within certain rules.

::A) Convert domain names to work name but don't wikilink - template documentation requires name of the work: {{para|work|theguardian.com}} --> {{para|work|The Guardian}}

::B) Convert domain name to work name and wikilink it: {{para|work|theguardian.com}} --> {{para|work|The Guardian}} -- default for the past 5 years it is low volume

::C) Wikilink existing work names: {{para|work|The Guardian}} --> {{para|work|The Guardian}} - can be high volume

::D) Both B and C - recently done for thetimes.co.uk only, that triggered the complaint due to the high volume

::E) No opinion

:3. Other suggestion. I can not guarantee other suggestions could be programmed. Thus, please include one of the above in addition to any custom suggestions. Custom suggestions without one of the above will default to #2.E the closer will sort it out.

Note: {{para|work}} could also be: {{para|website}}, {{para|magazine}}, {{para|newspaper}}, {{para|publisher}}

The complainant User:SchroCat at User_talk:GreenC_bot#Stop_linking_newspapers. Others who may be interested based on their knowledge of this tool and CS1|2: {{ping|Οἶδα|MrLinkinPark333|Pppery|Chew|Sariel Xilo|Lyndaship|Nemo_bis|Kailash29792|Random fixer upper|Headbomb|Trappist_the_monk|Redrose64|Izno|ActivelyDisinterested|Lewisguile}}

A !vote might look like Option 1 or Option 2B etc.. -- GreenC 20:05, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

• I don't see why we should stop linking newspapers, etc. Linking is extremely useful. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:08, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
• :I !vote 2B, fwiw. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:06, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• Option 2B, second choice 2D. Like Headbomb, I am a passionate supporter of linking reference works. In the current information environment, a top question every literate reader should be asking when they look at a reference is "Is this source reliable?" They should not have to blindly trust that it is, and a link to the article about it provides an easy way for them to investigate further. And there is extremely little downside, since references are out of the way at the bottom, and external links are marked as external with the icon, so the source links aren't distracting anyone (thus the guidance at MOS:REFLINK; WP:REFLINK goes elsewhere).{{parabr}}That said, as much as I urge all editors to make linking the default in their articles, it is something where we allow variation per WP:CITEVAR, and linking only one/some source(s) could create discrepancy. For the situation in B, if an article has not had enough care put into its references to specify the publication name rather than just the URL, I see no issue with updating it to our best practice. (I make a similar call in the AWB task where I correct e.g. {{para|work|New York Times}} {{right arrow}} {{para|work|The New York Times}}.) But I'm slightly more hesitant to do so for the situation in C. Sdkb ^talk 20:32, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
• Option 2B - If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But when it is, may as well kill two birds with one stone. Adding wiki-links to citations is entirely unnecessary unless you are already fixing the citation. I would, at the very least, want it to change from the URL to the name, and if we're already updating it, why not also add a wiki-link? But forcing it to be linked without changing the contents (what is suggested in 2C) doesn't feel super necessary, unless you are already updating the citations. {{pb}}The bigger concern here is seeing what should be in the work param in the publisher param. I would, regardless of how it gets changed, make sure the publisher param is moved to work. E.g. changing |publisher=New York Times to become |work=New York Times . And, of course, you can add the wiki-link to this as well when doing so. This might end up being option 3, if the bot doesn't already do this, but I need to make sure I get this comment out. Chew^{(V • T • E)} 21:07, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
• Option 2A. (Second choice option 1). It should be a decision by editor discretion at page level whether to link newspapers or not. It should not be decided by a few of people here or a bot. Having inconsistently formatted references, which is what this will lead to, is amateurish and second rate; it also clashes with the consistency requirements required for featured articles. The MOS does not require these links, and bots should not be forcing a change if editors have decided on following the MOS to keep them unlinked. - SchroCat (talk) 21:11, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
• Option 2D or 2B. One complaint in 5 years does not override the clear and demonstrated usefulness of wikilinking reference names. If volume is a concern for 2D I would support rate limiting it (e.g. a maximum number of otherwise unchanged articles per day) Thryduulf (talk) 21:29, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
• A - please, per SchroCat, or a lot of editors are in for a lot of work undoing well intentioned bot edits. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:34, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
• :Which they should not undo if there is a consensus per this discussion. Izno (talk) 21:50, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::There is no requirement in the MOS for them to be linked, so when editorial discretion follows the line of the MOS in not linking, people will (rightly) revert something that has forced inconsistency into an article. - SchroCat (talk) 01:44, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::Reverting a bot performing a job with consensus of a level that might be demonstrated in this discussion is simply disruptive behavior and would be worthy of a block. Izno (talk) 18:04, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::No it isn’t. It is editing within the confines of the MOS. If you think editing within the MOS is worthy of a block, that’s a little on the extreme side that wouldn’t stand up long at a review. - SchroCat (talk) 18:34, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::I'm not arguing about the MOS though. If a consensus is established here, you have to abide by this consensus also. Not doing so is what earns you the block. Izno (talk) 18:40, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::I think you’re misunderstanding what this is about. This discussion is about whether to allow a bot to undertake one single step: it is not a discussion that forces all those aspects of the articles to remain like that forever. If this proposal gets consensus I will not stop the bot from undertaking that task (pressing the stop button to stop it, for example, would be against the consensus, and yes, it would be disruptive and blockable). But I am allowed to edit the article afterwards in my way I wish: this discussion does not change the MOS which will continue to allow flexibility on the point that the linking is based on editorial discretion on individual articles. - SchroCat (talk) 18:47, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::::In any way that you wish is in fact not the truth, because that leads to edit warring with the bot. Good luck with your interpretation if the bot's approach becomes consensus. Izno (talk) 16:09, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::::Editing one part of something a bot does that is still within the MoS will not lead to a block, unless the admin rally wants to be dragged to ANI for overstepping any reasonable grounds of behaviour. There is nothing in the RfC that means titles can be unlinked or that all titles must be linked. The MoS says differently and there is nothing in the RfC that will change that. It’s certainly not edit warring either: it’s entirely within WP:BRD to delink the names. I’m not sure why you’re so keen to block people for editing within the bounds of the MoS and our existing editing guidelines, but I hope you try and look at this more rationally before you act. - SchroCat (talk) 16:49, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::::::As I said, good luck with your interpretation. Izno (talk) 19:59, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::::::My “interpretation” of the MoS and the project norms of editing are the commonly accepted ones. I’m not the one trying to stretch a possible consensus on one bot’s actions to cover an entirely different part of the MoS. - SchroCat (talk) 20:28, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
• At least 2A. I'm pretty ambivalent about whether something is linked in the work field and have personally disagreed with the practice in the past, mostly because people must eventually figure out what the Guardian is. Izno (talk) 21:54, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
• Option 2B, or 2D; per Sdkb and Thryduulf. Also per Chew, I have also personally not witnessed the bot adding reflinks ONLY. It is an addition made alongside a different function the bot is already performing, for example the migration of URLs from thetimes.co.uk to thetimes.com. If the bot were "fixing" every article without reflinks then that would absolutely be excessive and would have been complained about already. Instead it is merely performing a useful addition, one which is supported by MOS:REFLINK, and one within and edit that is already being performed. This had certainly already been discussed, but I fail to see how reflinks are not helpful. Look at a recent page creation like If You Only Knew (Acetone album). Not a single reflink, and most sources being ones I am unfamiliar with. I agree with Sdkb. Every reader should be wondering, "Where is this information supported?", and upon hovering/clicking on an inline citation and seeing no reflink (made even worse in the absence of URLs) readers are not helped. On the aforementioned article, I would have to copy and paste 20 work titles to even somewhat determine that these are reliable sources. I also believe most references are now being auto-generated from URLs with tools like the one in visual editor, which does not add reflinks. Οἶδα (talk) 22:25, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
• 1 or 2A. MOS:REFLINK allows repetition of wikilinks within references, but does not require them. Until that changes (which would be a different discussion), linking or not is discretionary, and consistently not linking (or other consistent approaches, like linking only first appearance) shouldn't be changed without discussion. On top of that, changing it as this bot does - on a per domain basis - would introduce inconsistency in most articles, unless one happens to cite only sources from the domains the bot is working on. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:03, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• Option 2B or 2D; the links are useful, especially for sources that users may not know about. For instance, most people who actually read the sources will have some idea of what The Guardian is, but I've edited NZ-focused articles that link to The Post which readers may not be familiar with. I personally only add links to the first mention of a work in citations, but IMO a bot adding redundant links is better than there being no links because humans have better things to do than add them to all articles.  novov talk edits 01:08, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• I don't oppose links in work fields, although I haven't been using them myself much recently, but it does feel close to a cosmetic change. It may be preferable for 2C to happen only alongside other changes. CMD (talk) 02:50, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• :I would add as well that I do not find the overlinking arguments convincing. Each reference should be fully functional as a standalone item, as that is how it will be interacted with. MOS designed for article prose will not apply in the same way. CMD (talk) 14:56, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
• 2A. I don't think it's a big consistency problem if some instances of The Guardian in the citations are wikilinked and some are not, or if The Guardian is wikilinked but The New York Times is not, but I don't think a bot should be making that call. 2A is a useful clean up, though. I would be OK with 2B if an editor specifically invoked the bot for a given article, if there's any way to do that. An edit that just adds a wikilink is not cosmetic, but has the potential to flood watchlists so I would prefer not to see 2C. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 04:06, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• 2A I don't understand why we would wikilink the Newspaper if there is a URL linking the actual article that is being referenced, which shows where it comes from. It's also not part of MOS either.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 05:21, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• :@Davidstewartharvey, as I argued in my !vote, the main reason is to help readers more easily evaluate the trustworthiness of a source. Why is an external link insufficient for that? Well, I'm sure The Daily Mail describes itself as a reliable source. Sdkb ^talk 14:32, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
• 2A, for the convincing reasons above. Tim riley talk 07:29, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• 2B I tend to wiki-link from the work/newspaper/magazine/etc. field when I'm constructing citations, as I think it helps to establish reliability, as well as providing sometimes much-needed disambiguation when titles are similar, if not the same, for several publications. That The New York Times is often referred to as The Times is a good example of why such disambiguation is needed. Dhtwiki (talk) 10:05, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• :But it you sctuslly link the article by URL, it takes you directly, so why would you need a wikilink to show who the works is? Davidstewartharvey (talk) 10:17, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::You may be assuming that the cited article remains live on the newspaper's main active site. Older newspaper articles are often to be found only on archive sites such as British Newspapers Online, Newspapers.com or Gale. The article is normally paywalled and most readers can't click through; even if they can, the link won't help them find the newspaper's main website. MichaelMaggs (talk) 13:17, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::For some publications, especially those that are less well known or are published in foreign languages and using non-Latin scripts, it's not easy to discern whether they are legitimate news sources or something less reliable. Dhtwiki (talk) 14:50, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::@MichaelMaggs and @Dhtwiki That may be the case, however, automatically linking the work of each reference, which in some cases may have been used more than once (I.e. two or three Times articles), would be overlinking. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 15:03, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::Not when it’s useful, namely in the references. MichaelMaggs (talk) 15:25, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::How can overlinking of, for example, The Times, been useful? If an article is linked to three different articles, a bit would link every single ref to it. That is overkill. Which is why it should be down to editors to link the article. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 15:44, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::To help to avoid overlinking is in large part why I voted for 2B, not 2C. Dhtwiki (talk) 15:58, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::Reflinks stand alone in their usage with regards to overlinking. Whether the bot should do it is another argument which is already being discussed here. But simply put, how many times a work is reflinked is not an instance of overlinking (MOS:REFLINK). Οἶδα (talk) 20:37, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::I fail to see how reflinks should ever be suppressed in the absence of URLs. Readers are not further directed anywhere for content or context. But as you alluded to, URLs correct that somewhat. However, in my view, readers are still lacking necessary context, as a URL is only a primary source for information about itself, without providing broader context for readers to discern whether the source they are reading is reliable. Unless a source is deprecated or blacklisted, any URL can be added. Also a lot of cited news sources have generic names (“Gazette”, “Herald”, “Star”, “Record”, “Mirror”), often cited without the added context needed to disambiguate, such as location. I understand the argument here is that the bot should not be making the decision to add reflinks, but this is what I find to be true at least with regards to best informing readers. Οἶδα (talk) 22:23, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::I also find it interesting that WP:CITEVAR states: "{{greentext|The data provided should be sufficient to uniquely identify the source, allow readers to find it, and allow readers to initially evaluate a source without retrieving it.}}" How does one "evaluate a source without retrieving it" in the absence of further context or content? Οἶδα (talk) 05:18, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::If it were the case that a link is needed to uniquely identify a source or to evaluate it, then the MOS would already insist on the need for such links. It doesn’t and instead leaves the question down to editor discretion at the level of individual articles. If you wish to claim that this is the only was to identify or evaluate a source, then you’ll need to open an RfC to change the MoS to do just that. - SchroCat (talk) 05:56, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::I was not claming that MOS:REPEATLINK prescibes reflinks as mandatory. I was merely quoting a guideline whose choice of words I found interesting in the context of what I emphasized above. You are correct though, this would require an RfC. Οἶδα (talk) 08:19, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
• Option 2B, or second choice 2D, per Headbomb, Sdkb, Thryduulf and Οἶδα. I’m particularly unconvinced by the argument that as MOS:REFLINK permits non-linking, the bot should never be allowed to do anything better, and that if it does “people will (rightly) revert”. The MOS no more says it's right to unlink than it does to link. Convenience links to newspapers and other works are extremely useful, and that utility is in my view far more important than trying to enforce essentially trivial internal consistency within a single article's source formatting. The difference, after all, is merely that the names of some works within sources may appear in blue, and some may not. So what? In the longer term, we'd serve our readers better by gradually moving towards linking all works where possible. MichaelMaggs (talk) 11:10, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• :If you wish to rewrite the MOS to insist on links, then you will need to have the discussion there to change it. At present it does not require links to be linked or unlinked: it is down to the consensus of editors at each individual article. Trying to force the issue by having a bot do it is a form of back-door instruction creep by proxy. - SchroCat (talk) 11:17, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::Bots are permitted to do whatever the community authorises them to do, in discussions such as this. Their actions must be consistent with the MOS, yes, but few would be able to operate if they could do only what is specifically insisted upon by the MOS. We're not addressing here what individual editors must or can do; only what authorisation the bot should have to do something that is generally permitted by the MOS. MichaelMaggs (talk) 11:47, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::As I've said, it's a back-door instruction creep by proxy. If this rather disruptive measure passes, I don't look forward to reverting these when I see them, but will do so. - SchroCat (talk) 12:00, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::You have voiced your opinion and it is well-understood. To be clear though, you reverted the bot wholesale, which included the main edit it was performing (migrating The Times URLs). Such a reversion would be disruptive. Οἶδα (talk) 20:41, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• : {{u|MichaelMaggs}}, you say that REFLINK doesn't imply that bots should not link; I'd like to ask you more about that. If one of two options is allowed by the MoS, but the community authorizes a bot to always apply one of those two options, that clearly doesn't contradict the MoS, but doesn't it effectively implement one of those two options to the exclusion of the other? I think the issue here is whether the assertion in the MoS that something is up to editor discretion implies that it should not be changed globally (that is, it should be decided at the individual article level). Do you see this differently? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:54, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::Yes, if what the bot is doing is authorised globally. The point of this discussion is to determine that. MichaelMaggs (talk) 15:31, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• Option 2A (second choice option 1). Linking works should not be automatic -- that is antithetical to MOS:REPEATLINK. If the work is referred to repeatedly in the article, it will create unhelpful overlinking. Instead, linking should be a decision made by the editors at each page. -- Ssilvers (talk) 14:11, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• :References are not the article. If I click on reference 3, I want a link in reference 3. If I click a link on reference 49, I want a link in reference 49. That it's linked in reference 3 is irrelevant. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:11, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::One could make the same strawman argument about wikilinks in general, but we don't link everything, everywhere. - SchroCat (talk) 15:36, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::Wholly concur with SchroCat. A modicum of common sense is wanted here. Tim riley talk 18:02, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• :{{Re|Ssilvers}} To be clear, what you said is not correct. As I stated above, and which is actually quoted in the OP, reflinks stand alone in their usage with regards to overlinking. Whether the bot should do it is another argument which is already being discussed here. But it is not correct to suggest this is antithetical to MOS:REPEATLINK. What you are referring to is the guideline for links within article sections, not for citations. Οἶδα (talk) 21:31, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::To be clear, what you are saying is not correct. It is not necessary or helpful for refs to link the names of works again and again, no matter how many times you repeat that you like it. -- Ssilvers (talk) 00:31, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::Okay I'm not sure what we're doing here. Yes, I have voiced support for reflinks in this discussion. It appears I misunderstood what you wrote here and for that I apologise. You stated rather forthrightly that repeat links constitute overlinking, but then stated that it is up to consensus. I understood "overlinking" not as a general reference to an article's "citation style", so I again apologise for misunderstanding. No need for snark. Οἶδα (talk) 04:19, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
• Option 2A (second choice option 1). Linking publications/publishers should not be automatic. We have WP:CITEVAR for a reason; it's disruptive to force a certain citation style using a bot. I had a situation with an article several months ago where there was some controversy over the linking of publishers for book citations; I see no reason why |work= can be thought to be exempt from such differences in opinions. With citation formatting, it is much better to allow human flexibility than to force-format things a certain way with a bot. We should be deferring to human judgment here. This proposal honestly feels like a backdoor attempt to force a certain citation style across a wide range of articles, contrary to common sense. Hog Farm _talk 20:11, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• :It is clear the issue is boiling down solely to WP:CITEVAR. So I must ask, to what extent are reflinks actually considered part of a specific "citation style", meaning that they can become part an article's established and consistent stylistic choice, one that must be deferred to and adhered to, with any addition/removal seen as an undue disruption warranting reversion? When I think of WP:CITEVAR, I think of everything outlined at Wikipedia:Citing sources: full citation, short citation (Harvard, MLA), general references, templates, no templates, citation order, etc. Not the "variation" of whether there are reflinks or not. Could an editor also be reverted for adding an author link to a citation because it is not "consistent" in the article or because the most significant contributor of the page decides it goes against their personal/established preference? This seems like a possibly misguided cross-application being that it is not unambiguously supported by WP:CITEVAR or consensus elsewhere. Otherwise, if they are considered a component of "citation style" or the ambiguity skews toward that interpretation, then I suppose 2A really would have to be the way to go. At least until the bot can account for an article's prevailing practice. Οἶδα (talk) 05:26, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::The broader MOS:VAR indicates: "Sometimes the MoS provides more than one acceptable style or gives no specific guidance. When either of two styles is acceptable it is generally considered inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change...Unjustified changes from one acceptable, consistently applied style in an article to a different style may generally be reverted. Seek opportunities for commonality to avoid disputes over style. If you believe an alternative style would be more appropriate for a particular article, seek consensus by discussing this at the article's talk page or – if it raises an issue of more general application or with the MoS itself – at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style." With regards to the matter of wikilinking works within references, MOS allows but does not require this be done, bringing VAR into play. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:58, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::: {{ping|Οἶδα}} Try running an article with inconsistent linkage through FAC and you'll probably see where this gets sticky. Hog Farm _talk 17:00, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::Then an RfC would be appropriate. I understand that the MOS leaves the door open to variety, but this does not appear to be a very common or contentious phenomenon on Wikipedia and as such this exact point does not seem to have been deliberated much before. If such a discussion exists, I cannot find it. In the absence of such discussions, it's hard to not bring these aspects up because CITEVAR is being cited as if a community consensus was determined to remand the issue of reflinks in citations to individual consensus. Rather than a general application of MOS:VAR. Was there ever a discussion to determine consensus for a large-scale disruption of established citation styles by the addition/removal of reflinks? I don't believe so. Again, it's not a very common or contentious phenomenon, nor have I seen bots performing these additions which would trigger such discussions until now. If this discussion indicates anything it is that the community would like a consensus on reflinks, and apparently we are not going to have it through a decision about this bot. There is enough ambiguity with WP:CITEVAR as it makes no prescriptions for reflinks (literally no mention whatsoever) nor does it confirm that reflinks are an established component of an article's "citation style", which is what I was referring to above. Οἶδα (talk) 23:18, 10 April 2025 (UTC)
• 1 or 2a: per above, and WP:CONLEVELS -- a discussion as to how to programme a bot shouldn't override the MoS, which is to leave this up to individual discretion. We already see good-natured but time-consuming bot edits from various bots which are, by their nature, unable to understand the citation practices established in an article (WP:CITEVAR), and end up acting in ways (such as repeatedly editing an article to change its established citation style) which would see a human editor criticised or sanctioned. 2B, 2C and 2D would all make this problem worse. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 20:21, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• :So then if a bot was hypothetically able to determine the "citation practices established in an article" by assessing whether the citations fully or at least consistently (greater than 50%) included reflinks, you would endorse it? Οἶδα (talk) 22:47, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::It would be easy for the bot to determine a prevailing practice of reflinks: parse all the templates and count how many have links. A bot could be more aware and consistent of prevailing practice than humans. BTW in all my years making millions of edits, not a single editor has ever complained of an edit war, it's not that kind of bot constantly running unattended across 6 million pages. It's targeted based on requests for certain domains only, and I don't usually repeat the same domain. -- GreenC 00:32, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::I suspect that's because 2B, as you note at the top, includes the conversion of the domain name to the work name, which is a useful thing to do, and because it's relatively low volume. If I had seen one of those edits on an article for which the link contradicted an established consensus, I would not have reverted; I'd have just unlinked. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:30, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
• Option 2B or 2D: as other editors above have highlighted, linking within sources can be useful; I don't think whether or not something is linked is really an citation style issue so much as many editors use automated tools for creating citations to save time which may or may not include a link for them leading to inconsistency. The fundamentals of the citation format doesn't change (ie. WP:LDR vs in-line with the visual editor) by improving existing citations with links. I've mostly seen requests for consistency (ie. either all sources link or all sources don't link) in good/featured article reviews so having an option for the bot to convert one direction or the other on demand would be useful. Sariel Xilo (talk) 21:20, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• {{U|GreenC}}, would it be possible for the bot to include an option for the requesting user to ask for all links, no links, or as you suggested above to follow the prevailing practice? That would ensure that the decision is always left to editor discretion rather than being a bot default. MichaelMaggs (talk) 04:01, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
• :eh? It wouldn’t be editor discretion, would it? That would be a single editor’s personal preference enforced across several hundred or thousand articles at any one time, regardless of the local consensus at each individual page. - SchroCat (talk) 04:11, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::With such an option, the editor has discretion to instruct a globally approved bot to follow existing prevailing practice on every page, in perfect compliance with the MOS. Though I’m not expecting that even that will be enough to change your mind, it does at least dispose of all the arguments you have enunciated thus far. MichaelMaggs (talk) 08:26, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::Sorry, but that's nonsense, and it disposes of absolutely nothing. If there is "an option for the requesting user to ask for all links", it enables a single editor to overrule the status quo on hundreds or thousands of individual pages. That's ridiculous. It would be akin to an editor ordering a bot to add (or remove) every serial comma to their own preference, or change language parameters - not just to one article but to thousands. And that's before you even think about what happens when Editor A asks for links to be added and Editor B comes along with the next request and exercises "an option for the requesting user to ask for ... no links" - ie, asking for them to be removed? This isn't a question that can be determined by this RfC - it would need a more fundamental change of the MOS before it even comes close to this. - SchroCat (talk) 08:37, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::If I understand correctly, you're not objecting to Option 3: the bot is changed so that it always follows existing prevailing practice on every page. MichaelMaggs (talk) 09:14, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::::There is no option three at present. - SchroCat (talk) 09:26, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
• I propose the discussion of a new Option 3A: that the bot is changed so that it always follows the existing prevailing reflink practice on every page. {{U|GreenC}} has stated above that this would be easy to program, and it avoids the objection of some contibutors that the editor who instructs the bot could potentially be overriding local page consensus, where that exists. MichaelMaggs (talk) 11:11, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
• :I think we should have a clear definition of what the set of "existing prevailing reflink practices" are before this can be considered. Also, a problem I see is that if the practice is being consistently followed already at a given page, there's nothing for the bot to do; and if it's not being consistently followed, it can't determine what the prevailing practice is. It would not be OK to then assume there is no prevailing practice, since a recent edit might have rendered the page inconsistent and not yet been reverted. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:29, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::I am a bit confused by the different uses of "prevailing practice" and "consistently followed" here. I believe you're saying local page consensus might not be reflected in the current revision of an article due to a recent edit. Yes, each article can have their own documented consensus for reflinks and the bot needs to account for that. But in reality, they typically do not. It hasn't exactly been a very common or contentious phenomenon from what I can find. An article's current makeup should be enough for the bot to run. If a revert is already needed then the bot can be reverted as well, at which point the bot will not perform that same edit. If anything, I was more wondering if the bot could account for pages where the reflink style is MOS:LINKONCE. Without mistakenly linking twice, for example. Οἶδα (talk) 05:27, 7 April 2025 (UTC)
• 2D Per Dhtwiki, when the work is wikilinked, I immediately know that the source is notable, and I can read its article to determine reliability before heading off-wiki. When the work is simply a URL, I am potentially left confused between sources with similar names or wary of heading to an unfamiliar site. When MOS:REPEATLINK exists to avoid a sea of blue in the article text, I agree with GreenC that the current guideline that "citations stand alone in their usage" justifies this new wikilinking function. While I can understand requesting the bot to not wikilink in citation templates that do not support it, the appeal to WP:FACRITERIA is maddening. WP:CITE's discussion of consistency in citation styles explicitly refers to the big choices over templates, not whether some works are wikilinked and some are not, even stating that "the data provided should be sufficient to uniquely identify the source, allow readers to find it, and allow readers to initially evaluate a source without retrieving it." Thanks for maintaining this useful bot work, {{u|GreenC}}! ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 16:05, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
• 2B My personal preference would be 2A, as I dislike the sea of blue that overlooking in references can cause. However other editors appear to find such linking useful, and my distaste of it is not enough to impede other editors. The flip side of that though is that high volume edits such as 2C/D also impact editors, so the lower volume of 2B seems like a sensible compromise. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:44, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
• 2A per comments above. If someone prefers the "link each one" style, go for it, but the default bot-level option should be the safest option. If a reader is curious about a reference, we generally want them to click on a URL of the article itself, not an article about the work it was published in. There are times when adding such links is good, but let humans do that, not bots. SnowFire (talk) 04:11, 7 April 2025 (UTC)
• 2B In a multicultural English language encyclopedia, linking to the Wikipedia article for the publication is a benefit for users of this Wikipedia. I know it would be for me when I check a citation to an unfamiliar publication. — Neonorange (talk to Phil) (he, they) 14:53, 8 April 2025 (UTC) —
• 2B Others have said it better, but I think having the publisher linked to its WP article is good for the encyclopedia, even it I personally don't do so consistently when creating citations. - Donald Albury 15:52, 8 April 2025 (UTC)
• :There is no option to link to the publisher and no-one has suggested that would be a beneficial step. That is not what this RfC is about at all! - SchroCat (talk) 04:26, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
• 2B citevar is not an excuse for avoiding doing something that has a clear, tangible benefit to any reader. PARAKANYAA (talk) 02:32, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:* 2D or 2B. Wikilinks are very useful in giving context to the citation. I've also found that when the values aren't linked, then there are often times typos in his field which are left uncaught {{em|because}} they aren't linked.

:Gonnym (talk) 07:20, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

::The issue you are complaining about won't be resolved by a bot adding wikilinks to correctly spelt titles. Traumnovelle (talk) 09:26, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

:::Yes they would. Linked redirects that are tagged with {{tl|R from misspelling}} appear on Wikipedia:Database reports/Linked misspellings, which then can be fixed. Gonnym (talk) 07:57, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

::::The bot wouldn't add wikilinks to misspelt names unless it was coded to recognise them, in which case it may as well just fix the spelling. Traumnovelle (talk) 23:07, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

• 2A definitely oppose 2C/2D. I've only ever once clicked on a wikilink to a work in a reference and it was an accidental click when I was aiming for the url. I have never found these useful, some readers may find them useful but I do not believe their usefulness justifies the the enormous amount of edits this bot would be undertaking to do so. Traumnovelle (talk) 09:23, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
• 2B – everything should be wikilinked. As Wikipedians, it should be obvious that wikilinks are useful – I use wikilinked source names all the time, for instance when trying to figure out the ownership and biases of the many Hong Kong newspapers. The easiest, most consistent, and only sustainable solution is to link every reference. Linking the only first instance means that whenever the reference order is changed (a very common occurrence) the link has to be moved, which is busywork that nobody should actually bother doing. Toadspike [Talk] 09:30, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
• 2D with the exception of not converting {{para|work|{{bracket|url name}}}} to a wikilink. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 13:28, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

:2B - as a reader, my preference is for the work to be wikilinked whenever it can be. This link leads me to an article where I can learn more about the publication and its reliability, which is a crucial and core service of Wikipedia. Helping readers assess the reliability of a work helps readers assess the reliability of a citation and thus the accuracy of a Wikipedia article.

:The URL to the work is not a substitute for information about the publication; more information about the publication will often be available in a Wikipedia article about the publication than on the publication's own website (which will inevitable have a pro-publication bias).

:Wikilinking the work field in every reference is important, even though that results in repeated wikilinks in the reference section. To understand why, first remember that the vast majority of readers read on a mobile phone. Next, take out your phone and browse (in default mobile mode, not desktop-on-mobile mode) to any article and click on any reference. Note how it just shows you the one reference you clicked on--it doesn't take you to the references section the way desktop mode does. If that one reference you clicked on doesn't have the work wikilinked, you won't see another wikilink on your screen. Even on desktop mode, in articles that have hundreds of references (which most highly read articles do), if the one you clicked on doesn't have a wikilink to the work, it can be hard to find that link amongst the hundreds of other references listed. For both mobile and desktop users, it's important that the work field be linked in every citation. Levivich (talk) 15:46, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

• 2A would be preferable to prevent further fighting. I appreciate the attention to cleaning up citations, but it would be jarring to introduce linking inconsistency to an otherwise stable article, all at the hand of a bot without a human to sign off on every edit. SounderBruce 00:10, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
• 2B I find these links useful, especially for lesser known publications. Helps to click them into new tabs quickly especially when reviewing an article, rather than searching for each name individually. seefooddiet (talk) 03:14, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
• 2B weakly (as it's generally useful, but not all articles that the link might go to are of equal quality), but I do object to the idea that a reversion of the wikilink added by bot could be seen as disruptive based on this RfC outcome. There is a difference between developing a consensus that says it's fine for a bot to add a link in the reference as it's usually more useful than not, rather than having a consensus that states that references should have a link. We are discussing the former, as the RfC question isn't formulated to address the latter and I also don't see the necessary advertising of the RfC (i.e. notifications to relevant MOS pages). In practical terms, anyone who wants to revert the bot addition would merely need to make a reasonable case that the link doesn't benefit the article (BRD) rather than meeting the bar of being an exception to something that editors should "generally follow" as defined in a community endorsed guideline. Scribolt (talk) 07:57, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
• 2A to make the references more human readable, but do not indiscriminately add wikilinks by bot without general agreement on citation style. —Kusma (talk) 12:38, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
• :It occurs to me that this would change {{para|work|whitehouse.com}} and {{para|work|whitehouse.gov}} to the same {{para|work}} parameter; they used to be very different. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:56, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

hello i want to mass-create china township articles i have this brilliant python code^{link redacted — Tamzin} that i spent weeks creating that mass-creates the pages and then posts them like bam bam bam and it cites citypopulation.de which is a good source for its population and demographics and exact coordinates and area and even its chinese/pinyin text. its very robust and if there's a single bit with an error or if the formatting doesn't add up its like "nope" and skips onto the next article so it never posts buggy stuff and i could red-to-blue like 90% of the china township articles with it in all provinces. i already generated 90% of a-g hebei townships (until someone threatened me) like this one this one and this one and this one and even ethnic townships with no mistakes they're all 100% perfect can i do it thankyou. i can also reprogram it so that submits them all to the draftspace for review if you dont trust theyll be up to standard for publication. Mayeva8823 (talk) 12:42, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:and yes ill be around to look at them and make sure theyre ok before theyre published i wont just leave the script on while im at college or something Mayeva8823 (talk) 12:46, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:Never heard of citypopulation.de but I can see it's popular around here:[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=%22citypopulation.de%22&title=Special%3ASearch&ns0=1] Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:44, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

::It may be popular, but is it reliable? From a quick look it seems to be the work of one person. Phil Bridger (talk) 14:58, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:::Some hits at RSN [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?fulltext=Search+the+noticeboard+archives&fulltext=Search&prefix=Wikipedia%3AReliable+sources%2FNoticeboard&search=%22citypopulation.de%22&ns0=1], including Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_339#citypopulation.de. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:03, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

::::Not reliable. Some of the UK tien and cities quote census results but they don't match. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 16:29, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:Absolutely opposed. Mass geostub creation has wasted more cleanup time around here than almost anything else. How are you going to demonstrate that these are real settlements which really are at the locations given, and really have the names supplied? If you are willing to go over the output of this script and check it, one by one, then I might reconsider. But given that someone else is going to have to do just that, I have to object. We have spent several years cleaning up the US mass creation spree, and we're nowhere near finished. China is surely a much larger project, and verification is surely going to be more difficult considering the PRC's location falsification. Also, haven't we already agreed we aren't going to do this anymore? Mangoe (talk) 16:02, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

::Total agreement! Mass creation should be banned. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 16:30, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:::Yes, we had bad experiences with GNIS, but that doesn't mean that every country has equivalently bad databases. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:17, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

::::I also think we should keep in mind the systemic bias aspect. A stub is better than nothing, and often for non-Western countries, the choice is between having a mass-generated stub or having nothing. I'm not saying this alone is sufficient reason to let OP go forward, but it leaves a sour taste in my mouth for us to say that we were willing to permit and then spend the effort to clean up mass stub creation for U.S. municipalities but that we're not willing to do likewise for China. Sdkb ^talk 19:29, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::An inaccurate or completely false stub is worse than nothing, and we've had too many problems to assume that any source is reliable enough. And I'm sorry, but even where the databases are relatively good, we still have to interpret them properly. I don't think it is unreasonable to expect some degree of human verification on everything we publish, and for geography that means checking to see that it's really there. The choice is never between having a mass-generated stub or nothing, and our experience here is that database dumps for third-world countries have been particularly bad precisely because of the poor quality of information about them. Mangoe (talk) 19:58, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::Looking at what this now blocked editor has added today, he has just added stubs based upon an unreliable website which reportedly use census data, which probably do not meet WP:GEOLAND. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 20:33, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:What do you mean by "threat"? The closest I can find is {{slink|User talk:Mayeva8823#Rapid recreation of many articles}}, and {{u|Chaotic Enby}} was not threatening you there. jlwoodwa (talk) 16:41, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

If a bot could be coded to be consistent and accurate with decent facts using PRC sites it would actually be beneficial long term and reduce inconsistencies. We do need the articles on township divisions. But it needs to be done right and ideally a start class article or meaty stub. I would allow this editor to generate an example and we can survey it. But use direct government sources, not that website. If all you add is a population figure and create short stubs I oppose. They've got to be informative and accurate if using a bot.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:44, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Since I got a question on my talk assuming otherwise, just to clarify, I've blocked Mayeva for account security reasons ancillary to this thread, but this is not a for-cause block related to their editing. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 20:18, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

: Not advocating for or against, but one might look into Qbugbot, which created about 20k insect articles, and Lsjbot, which has created ~3M articles in Swedish, Dutch, Cebuano, and Waray Wikipedias.

: Mathglot (talk) 05:50, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

::I think the Swedes decided to stop Lsjbot because problems. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:01, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

::I think it's terrible what has happened to Cebuano and Swedish Wikipedia, so many bot generated articles renders them soulless. But for missing places where there is generic data I think long term it works out better if started consistently with a bot. Spanish municipalities are a mess and some still without infoboxes, basic data and maps. They should have been generated consistently back in like 2006. Somebody competent with coding bots should sort out China.♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:57, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

:::I don't know about China in particular, but we've had issues with setting bots to work using official census data that turned out to include a lot of statistics tied to census dropoff locations that are not standalone places. In particular, this was a problem for Iran and Russia, with the former listing gas stations and convenience stores as census locations, and the latter assigning arbitrary geolocations in rural areas where there are no distinct populated settlements. I would be very hesitant to do any automated locality-article creation unless the datasets have first been vetted by editors fluent in the language and familiar with the country in question, and at that point the benefits of automation in terms of time saved would likely be marginal. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 15:57, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

::::Lsjbot is possibly the worst thing that ever happened to Wikipedia. Because of it we have about 10 million out-of-date, rotting stubs that are full of bogus information from low-quality self-published databases and will never be updated or maintained. Even worse, the 10 million junk articles have polluted Wikidata and other projects due to efforts to synchronize content (e.g. Joopwikibot on Vietnamese Wikipedia). So now in Wikidata we have entries for places and taxa that never actually existed but are impossible to remove since they have articles in 3 or 4 different wikis (two of which are ghost towns), all created by Lsjbot. Please don't let this happen again. Nosferattus (talk) 18:26, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::Agreed that Swedish wiki bot articles are hideous and that there are potential problems. The Demographics bloat in US place articles are also hideous due to the generic bot generation and 2010 and 2020 updates. But with a country like China, articles run the risk of being a mess and inconsistent without at least some sort of organized manual approach. Any thoughts {{u|Markussep}} ? For me I want to see consistency with data and infoboxes, but loathe seeing hundreds of articles in categories which all read the same. It makes us look soulless and like a database. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:43, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

: I think this would work if the articles were created in a liminal space such as draftspace, project space, or userspace, and then promoted to mainspace upon some minimal review. BD2412 T 18:55, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

::Yup, just said the same thing. Ideally a bot which can mass generate basic entries with consistent data in the WikiProject space and then an editor or two gradually manually working through them writing unique content for each and gradually creating in the mainspace would be better. At the very worst, meaty stubs which are consistently formatted and sourced with government data and sites and which are individually written on top of the raw data, no generic soulless articles allowed.♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:59, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

:::For the interested, [https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2025-04-15/wikipedia-cebuano-lsjbot-ai-article-generation-non-english/105123090 Wikipedia's largest non-English version was created by a bot. Generative AI poses new problems]. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:46, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

I have a system I would like to suggest. How about picking a few of the simplest and most frequently used templates or luas and designating them as something like "Standard Lua" or "Standard Templates"? These templates or luas would use the same scripts and syntax in all language versions and sister projects. Whatback11 (talk) 15:01, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

:I've left a note at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) about this discussion as folks there are likely to be interested/knowledgeable. 15:08, 12 April 2025 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thryduulf (talk • contribs)

:That could be interesting (I'm thinking of templates connected to a Wikidata item), but the issue is that it might require a lot of standardization as each project might have its technical ecosystem already adapted to specific variants of these templates. In my opinion, the benefits of intercompatibility outweigh the cost of changing the syntax of frequently-used templates on many projects.{{pb}}One point where this has already been done is citation templates, where foreign-language parameters are often interpreted correctly when copy-pasted from one language version to another. However, these are implemented as aliases for similar parameters, and don't imply that all the versions of the citation templates must function the same way "under the hood". Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 16:21, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

:phab:T121470 is an old request. There are other connections there that you can look at. Izno (talk) 16:37, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

:This is being implemented as [https://www.wikifunctions.org WikiFunctions] {{tq|In the future: It will be possible to call Wikifunctions functions from other Wikimedia projects and integrate their results into the output of the page.}}, which has... an interesting approach to things. The wiki-functions are already available on the Dagbani wiki. Aaron Liu (talk) 18:10, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Our spaceflight articles seem to continue to call the paying passengers without duties on recent spaceflights "crew", despite the fact that this doesn't match the normal meaning of the word. While this glorifying of what these actually do (spend 1 minute in actual space, have no duties at all on board), is uncritically repeated by too many news reports, I don't think Wikipedia should contribute to such incorrect promotalk. We clearly use the distinction in every other type of article (e.g. for airline crashes, we list "crew" and "passengers" separately), and no one would dream of calling themselves crew simply for boarding a plane or train. Can we please bring back some accuracy to our spaceflight articles as well? Fram (talk) 16:48, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

• Personally I agree, but what matters is what terminology sources use and how. It's possible that "crew" in reference to a spaceflight means "anyone on board a spacecraft" while with aircraft it means "those tasked with operating the aircraft". 331dot (talk) 16:57, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
• We could use quotes around crew, as did you. O3000, Ret. (talk) 17:05, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
• :WP:SCAREQUOTES might be a reason not to. Sdkb ^talk 17:45, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::I don't think that applies in a case where the word is used metaphorically. We're not making an accusation. O3000, Ret. (talk) 17:53, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
• I agree with Fram (which doesn't happen often!). Six people who take a boat on a pleasure cruise are no "crew" and nor are these people. In the same way that we don't uncritically repeat other neologisms from press releases, we shouldn't stretch the plain-English definition of a term here and there's nothing in policy that binds us to the exact wording used by the sources. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:28, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
• I'm inclined to agree here, but I would like to know a little more about how much safety training etc. is involved for paying voyagers on spacecraft. Another way to look at the promotionalism concern is that these companies may want to minimize how much preparation is required to make the flights seem more routine than they actually are yet. Sdkb ^talk 17:49, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

:Might be worth using the NASA definition Mrfoogles (talk) 19:22, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

::{{tq2|Crew. Any human on board the space system during the mission that has been trained to monitor, operate, and control parts of, or the whole space system; same as flight crew.}}

::{{tq2|Passenger. Any human on board the space system while in flight that has no responsibility to perform any mission task for that system. Often referred to as "Space Flight Participant."|source=[https://nodis3.gsfc.nasa.gov/displayDir.cfm?Internal_ID=N_PR_8705_002C_&page_name=AppendixA NASA Procedural Requirements 8705.2C, Appendix A: Definitions]}}

::I don't know if those are the right NASA definitions, but using NASA definitions or other scientific/academic expert definitions, rather than promotional media spin, seems to be the better choice for wikivoice. Levivich (talk) 20:03, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

:Have you got an example as to when this comes up? Can we not just say that eight people were "on-board" rather than give them a job. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:07, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

::Every article about a human spaceflight names the participants, currently called the "crew". Having passengers not involved in the operation of the craft is a relatively recent development. 331dot (talk) 20:11, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

:First let me say that I know everyone working on these articles has been doing so with good intent and every effort at NPOV, it's just that language evolves very quickly sometimes and there may not be good models on how to write about very recent innovations, and thus Fram has identified a received weakness in existing published matter on this topic.

:In any case: If you pay for a ride you are a passenger; if you get paid for going on a ride, you are crew.

:I personally think we should use Fram's first phrase in his subhed and just should call them space tourists. Why? Because they're not even passengers on a journey to a destination in the sense that the spaceship is going from a port on Earth to a port on the Moon. They're going on a canned tourist cruise to see whales in the bay or look at that famous rock formation or view the reef by glass-bottom boat, and then return from whence they began. Similarly, people who pay for passage on submersible trips to shipwrecks should be referred to as deep-sea tourists.

:FWIW, there is already sitcom-theme-song canon law on this issue:

:The mate was a mighty sailing man,

:The skipper brave and sure.

:Five passengers set sail that day

:For a three hour tour, a three hour tour.

:So yeah I vote passengers over crew (although I would personally prefer tourists over both although I'm simultaneously concerned it has a slightly disparaging connotation).

:jengod (talk) 20:50, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

::You mean Tina Louise and Jim Backus weren't crew members? O3000, Ret. (talk) 21:15, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

:::For those three hours, they were just passengers. But then the weather started getting rough... oknazevad (talk) 18:04, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

::We call Dennis Tito a "space tourist", Donald Albury 22:59, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

:::Did I mention that I'm an official part of the crew of planet Earth? O3000, Ret. (talk) 23:01, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

:::Tito was a space tourist, who was a member of the 3-Man SM-24 mission crew*, people can be multiple things at the same time. (According to NASA [https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=2001-017A NASA - NSSDCA - Spacecraft - Details] JeffUK 17:25, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

::You still call people on boats passengers though even if the route is a circular sightseeing one. Same goes for other forms of transport, cf. Mount Erebus disaster. In this case I think passengers is the best term  novov talk edits 00:52, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

:Wait, does this mean that the flight was "uncrewed"? We have been using that term for robotic missions. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:04, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

::We could say the Blue Origin flight earlier today was "unmanned". (Duck and run.) Donald Albury 01:23, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

:I would just urge some caution here. I wouldn’t count the passengers of the New Glenn flight as crew. It’s a fully-automated capsule on a suborbital flight. They get basic training on “safety systems, zero-g protocols, and execute mission simulations”. They’re tourists/passengers.

:However, the occupants of the recent Fram2 mission trained for months and while the Dragon is highly automated, it’s not fully automated. They still had a lot to learn. They’re definitely a crew.

:The problem with the term spaceflight participant is that the Russians define pretty much everyone who’s paying them for a ride as a spaceflight participant… including those who undergo extensive professional training and for whom conducting scientific research is the primary reason for their spaceflight. RickyCourtney (talk) 07:03, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

:They are as much made crew by the safety briefing as my going to muster drill on a cruise ship makes me a member of its crew. If they are a) not paid for their services aboard ship and b) take no real part in controlling the craft or operating onboard equipment, I don't see them as crew. That being said, there is always going to be a gray zone.Wehwalt (talk) 13:10, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

{{block indent|em=1.6|1=Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spaceflight. Sdkb ^talk 17:50, 14 April 2025 (UTC)}}

I dropped a note about this discussion at Talk:Blue Origin NS-31#"Crew" or "passengers", which has so far fewer participants but a quite different point of view... Fram (talk) 13:25, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

:Crew is clearly the common term. NASA refer to the 'participants' on a missions who's only purpose was tourism as 'crew' here [https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2007/06/Soyuz_TM-34_crew_with_l-r_Yuri_Gidzenko_Roberto_Vittori_and_Mark_Shuttleworth The Soyuz MS-20 and Expedition 66 crews - NASA]

:The [https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2007/06/Soyuz_TM-34_crew_with_l-r_Yuri_Gidzenko_Roberto_Vittori_and_Mark_Shuttleworth European Space Agency] refer to the 'tourists' amongst the crew here too.

:'Crew' is clearly just 'the people on board' when talking about spaceflight. Maybe that will shift if the distinction between 'crew' and 'passengers' continues but it hasn't yet. The recent 'all-female crew' aboard the latest Blue Origins flight are referred to in all reliable sources as 'A crew', as are the crew-members of all previous blue origins flights. JeffUK 17:11, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I am going to drop out of this convo now bc I realized I might reinforcing or enabling misogynist presumptions that "if a bunch of women can do it must not be hard work." And that's absolutely on me because I have long-standing bitter POV feelings about Lauren Sanchez dating to So You Think You Can Dance. ANYWAY, my take is that the bifurcation is very clear and has been so since humans first started offering to ferry other humans across the river on janky rafts:

If you pay for a ride, you're a passenger. If you get paid to give a ride, you're crew. Participation in tasks onboard is not the determinant.

If we have reliable sources stating that someone paid money or items of equivalent value (publicity valued at X?) to go on a space trip or were sponsored to go on a space trip, they are passengers (and space tourists).

If we have reliable sources stating that someone is getting paid money by any space agency or rocketship-owning private company to go on a space trip, they are crew.

If we have no reliable sources about the financial/funding arrangements that determined which people are getting onboard a rocket ship, it seems fine to fall back on the default and current practice of using crew. But also don't let marketing practices and publicity stunts fool you.

This debate is a legacy of the Space Age when all space flight was quasi-military, government-sponsored, and "exploration." The transition to commercial space flight and private exploitation of extra-atmospheric travel is obviously well underway and will require a transition in perspective, including perhaps additional skepticism about motive.

Good luck on your debate and I hope you all have a wonderful April!!

jengod (talk) 17:57, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

:Space tourists are barely one step up from luggage and are not crew, are not astronauts, are not exceptional except perhaps in the size of their bank accounts. Simonm223 (talk) 20:13, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

::Some might qualify as “experiments”… so “equipment”. :) Blueboar (talk) 20:17, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

::Participation in tasks onboard is absolutely a determinant.

::I’d argue that if you have an active role in the operation of the craft, you’re part of the crew… even if you’re paying for the privilege.

::If you’re paying to be there and you’re just along for the ride without any active operational duties (and knowing what to do in an emergency doesn’t count)… you’re a passenger. RickyCourtney (talk) 00:21, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

:::As Jengod says, choosing the moment that Blue Origin first send an all-female contingent into space to start referring to them as 'equipment' does not pass the smell test. All the relevant articles make it very clear that they are paid participants, and describes them as 'tourists' so I really don't see a reason to rush to change this immediately. JeffUK 08:58, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

:We don't need specific rules for this, we should follow what the reliable sources say, regardless of what we think about what they say as we do in other situations. If reliable sources disagree, either just go with the majority or note and/or explain the disagreement as we usually do. Thryduulf (talk) 09:46, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

• We should follow what reliable sources say, but perhaps we do need clarifying guidance that this doesn't mean we have to or should follow the particular wording they use. That's mimicry, not neutral point of view. It's not so unusual for otherwise reliable sources to use terminology in an incorrect or misleading way, especially in niche topics. This is a good example of that. If reliable sources say that a person did something that meets the commonly understood definition of a 'passenger', then we can and should call them a 'passenger', even if the source itself (for whatever reason) uses the word 'crew'. – Joe (talk) 10:15, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• :I think what we do already is a perfect balance between those. We refer to the people on board as 'Crew' in aggregate, then describe the role of each crew member (Tourist, Space Participant, Payload Specialist) etc. JeffUK 08:52, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::The word crew implies assigned duties. A passenger has no assigned duty. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 13:57, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::Some airline passengers are given assigned duties. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 09:50, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::That sounds rather odd to me. Passengers on a ship, train, etc. aren't usually described as crew members or part of the crew in aggregate. – Joe (talk) 09:23, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

: As a matter of convenience it can be useful to describe the humans on board a 'crewed spacecraft' as the crew of that spacecraft. We just don't have readily available terms like 'passenger spacecraft' or 'human-occupied spacecraft' in common use. (— 𝐬𝐝𝐒𝐝𝐬 — - talk) 03:03, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

:: How about 'autonomous spacecraft' or 'pilot-less spacecraft'? -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 13:57, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

:::We already have autonomous spacecraft. Also known as uncrewed spacecraft or robotic spacecraft. CambridgeBayWeather (solidly non-human), Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 00:30, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

• I support the principle of using "crew" for people who operate the spacecraft, and "passenger" for those who have paid for the privilege of going into or near space, or had it gifted to them, and who do not operate the spacecraft. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 10:43, 24 April 2025 (UTC)
• :On commercial flights, stewards are considered crew but do not operate the aircraft. Similarly, on military aircraft there are important crew members who do not operate the aircraft. Isn't the situation with spacecraft analogous? There are people who operate the spacecraft, there are mission-critical people who do not operate the spacecraft, whom I would consider crew. I would use passenger for those who do not have any assigned support role. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 13:53, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

{{User:ClueBot III/DoNotArchiveUntil|1748055670}}

{{rfc|style|rfcid=E30D20D}}

I would like to formally understand what the community would think of a date-fixing bot. Such a bot would fix dates in articles to conform either {{tlx|Use dmy dates}} or {{tlx|Use mdy dates}}. To be clear, this bot would not revert any good faith changes that add content and dates of the wrong format; instead, it will just change the date format. In my opinion, there are a few different ways such a bot could be implemented (or not):

• Option 1: no bot, everything stays as is
• Option 2a: a supervised bot (so every edit is manually reviewed before publication) that would have to pass BRFA to be implemented. I think this would alleviate any concerns of the bot creating errors based on context (such as changing date formats in quotes, links, references, etc.)
• Option 2b: an automatic bot that does something similar in proposal 2a, but wouldn't actually have its edits be checked before implementation
• Option 3: some other solution; no guarantee that this is actually feasible

Thanks for your consideration – PharyngealImplosive7 (talk) 02:35, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

:I'm an extensive user of a script that automates date style fixes. My experience has been that it's crucial to spend time reviewing the edits both to fix errors and to ensure that I am not making a purely cosmetic edit (e.g. by only changing dates in citations which are automatically rendered in the preferred style identified by a "Use XXX dates" tag). I have some doubts that it would be possible to create a date-fixing bot that wouldn't have the same issues, so I I would be unlikely to support 2b. That said, I'm happy to hear from those with more techincal capability.

:On a procedural note, is the goal here just to see if this effort is supported by the community? Any bot created would still need to go through BRFA, right? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:41, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

::Yes, the goal here is to see whether the community supports the creation of such a bot. A BRFA would still be necessary to ensure the technical competence of any bot. – PharyngealImplosive7 (talk) 03:18, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

• Option 1: no bot, everything stays as is. Experience indicates that bot edits that are supposed to be manually reviewed don't actually get reviewed. Just look at the never-ending complaints at User talk:Citation bot. --Jc3s5h (talk) 02:44, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• Strong oppose option 2b. There are many examples of contexts where dates should never be altered, articles about/discussing different date formats, including but not limited to direct quotations, version numbers, timestamps, and things that look like dates but aren't. Many, probably the vast majority, of these will not be able to be correctly identified by bot. If something supervised is desirable (and I am presently unconvinced it is) then adding to something like AWB would seem a more useful and safe option. Thryduulf (talk) 03:32, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• It's difficult to evaluate this in the abstract. I could theoretically be persuaded to support 2a or even 2b if the error rate is shown to be low enough, but we can't know the error rate until implementation gets farther along. If fixing dates to conform with an article's tag doesn't turn out to be feasible, I think there might be potential in having a bot assist with identifying articles to tag with formats based on their categories. Such a bot would have to be tuned to handle exceptions, but I think it could be tailored to an uncontroversial set that'd still be quite large. Sdkb ^talk 04:30, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• :I guess you raise a chicken-and-egg type problem: you want to see the error rate, but to start a bot trial we need consensus first. – PharyngealImplosive7 (talk) 06:42, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::A supervised bot working on a limited sample of pages, with human review, could be a good way to evaluate whether such a bot can actually be fit. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 10:59, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• Option 1, because option 3 has already happened. The dmy and mdy templates already transform citation display. CMD (talk) 05:00, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• BAG note... 2B is a non-starter per WP:BOTPOL. All bots have to go through BRFA, and a bot like this would definitely need testing and review. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 07:21, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• This RFC is probably for Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/PharyngealBOT, which is currently on hold pending a consensus discussion like this one. Anomie⚔ 11:34, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• Option 1 no bot. This proposal assumes that all {{tl|Use dmy dates}} and {{tl|Use mdy dates}} tags are correct and should be enforced throughout the article. It ain't so. Yesterday I spent too long checking and reverting a new editor's mass additions of these tags, almost all contrary to MOS:DATERET and/or MOS:DATETIES, seemingly made without having read Template:Use mdy dates/doc or Template:Use dmy dates/doc, and otherwise inappropriate. A bot of this sort would have made that a considerably more tedious task.{{pb}}Dates within quotations should never be changed. The technical difficulty of doing this, catching quotes between quotation marks as well as in {{tl|blockquote}}, has defeated other autoformatting attempts and I see no suggestion here that a solution has been found. NebY (talk) 09:11, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• :Would your concern be somewhat alleviated if the bot checked that the "use xxx dates" template was on the article at least 6 months prior to the revision it checks? – PharyngealImplosive7 (talk) 19:15, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::Not really. Many of the tags I corrected yesterday were on low-traffic articles; many of our articles are, and the tags are invisible to readers and to editors reviewing the article in reading mode or editing a specific section of the article; and even those editing the lead may have no reason to pay any attention to the tag. I was also reminded yesterday how long errors can survive, when I examined and corrected a factual error in the text of a high-traffic article (105,213 page views in 30 days); that one had survived over 3500 edits since 2011. NebY (talk) 19:39, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• Option 3, have a supervised trial, similar to option 2a (with human review) but on a limited sample of pages, to evaluate the error rate and find out whether it is fit for deployment. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 11:02, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• Option 1 Uniformity is a vastly overrated condition. It's small value, if any, is not worth the downsides of having a bot mess with dates. North8000 (talk) 13:22, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• Option 1 Thanks for thinking about this but experience shows that automated edits lead to disruption. As outlined above, exceptions exist and many good editors become highly agitated when bots repeatedly fiddle with article style without an understanding of context. No significant benefit would result, for example, from protecting readers from the horror of encountering "April 1, 1725" in an article on a British monarch. Johnuniq (talk) 04:19, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• Option 1 As per Johnuniq, to many issues with bots, and would hate to see American dates on pages fir any article that should be DMY.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 06:30, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

{{User:ClueBot III/DoNotArchiveUntil|1748149267}}

{{rfc|style|rfcid=CFC697A}}

Is there support to upgrade Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Superscripts and subscripts to a guideline? 04:14, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Rationale of the proposer: The main effect would be to officially recommend using HTML superscripts and subscripts instead of Unicode subscripts and superscripts (e.g. {{char|²}} instead of {{char|²}}. This has generally been done on a de facto basis, for example in widely used templates like {{tl|convert}}, {{tl|frac}}, and {{tl|chem2}}. I estimate only about 20,000 out of about 7 million articles use the Unicode characters outside of templates, mostly for square units of measure or in linguistic notation that should be put into a template. A lot of articles have already been converted to the HTML method, either organically or systematically.

This would also bless the exceptions for linguistic notation, which have arisen after complaints from some editors of that topic, who say these Unicode characters are specifically intended for that purpose.

The other exceptions and sections are I think just summaries of other guidelines, put in one place to help editors who are working on typography or e.g. asking the on-site search engine "how do I write subscripts?" when they really want to know how to write chemical formulas specifically. -- Beland (talk) 04:14, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

• Support upgrading to guideline. I don't see any reason not to and this looks like good advice. However, I am also no expert on HTML/Unicode, so if some compelling issue with this proposed guideline emerges, please ping me. Toadspike [Talk] 09:11, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• Support as someone who is reasonably knowledgable about HTML/Unicode.  novov talk edits 09:49, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• Support as good HTML/Unicode practice. However, it could be good to have input from editors who might be more directly affected by this (maybe editors who use screenreaders?) to make sure this will not cause any unforeseen accessibility issues. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 12:59, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• :For context, the reason Unicode characters are allowed for only {{frac|1|2}}, {{frac|1|4}}, and {{frac|3|4}} is that these are the only fractions in ISO/IEC 8859-1; others can cause problems, according to {{u|Graham87}} comments at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Mathematics/Archive 4#Accessibility of precomposed fraction characters. The only superscript or subscript characters in ISO/IEC 8859-1 are superscript "2", "3", "a", and "o". I would expect using HTML superscripts and subscripts consistently should avoid screenreaders skipping unknown characters (certainly mine reads out footnote numbers). I use a screenreader for convenience and not necessity, though, and I welcome comments from others! -- Beland (talk) 17:41, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::Yes, exactly this. Graham87 (talk) 03:51, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose. Wikipedia talk:Citing sources is currently having extensive discussions about which rules apply to citations and which do not. {{User|Beland}} is heavily involved in these discussions. I believe those discussions should be resolved before any new related guideline are created. Failing that, I notice the essay has no mention of citations. This means whoever wrote it wasn't giving any thought to citations. Therefore an prominent statement should be added that it does not apply to citations. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:24, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• :I don't think anyone is proposing to use Unicode superscript characters for endnote indicators? It seems reasonable for endnote contents to follow the general guidance on the use of superscript and subscript markup. isaacl (talk) 17:09, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• Support with the obvious exceptions of references to characters themselves. I don't see why citations would have an exception here. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:50, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Hello Wikipedia editors,

I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve created a provisional project page aimed at organizing efforts to improve and expand coverage related to Judy Garland—her extraordinary career, her lasting cultural impact, and her place in classic Hollywood history.

This initiative invites passionate editors to collaborate on enhancing articles about Judy Garland and the broader context of musical cinema and classic film. Whether you’re a film buff, a musical theatre enthusiast, or someone interested in the nuances of biographical research, there’s room for your expertise in this project.

Why Join This Initiative?

• Judy Garland’s legacy deserves more thorough and systematic documentation.
• Articles related to her life and career can benefit from improved research, quality upgrades, and expansion.
• It’s a great opportunity to work together and foster collaboration within the Wikipedia community.

Explore the Project Page: Check out the provisional draft, where you can find goals, activities, and ways to contribute: User:Jorge906/WikiProject_Judy_Garland

Your participation, feedback, and suggestions are invaluable as we build this collaborative effort. Whether you’re interested in drafting new content, refining existing articles, or organizing edit-a-thons, every contribution matters.

Feel free to share your thoughts on the draft project page or reply to this post. Together, we can create a meaningful space to celebrate Judy Garland’s influence while enriching Wikipedia’s coverage of film history and musical performance.

Thank you for considering this opportunity to contribute—let’s make a difference together!

Best regards, Jorge Lobo Dos Santos (talk) 10:09, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

:See Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide - proposals for new Wikiprojects should be made at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals. AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:25, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

::thanks. Jorge Lobo Dos Santos (talk) 10:29, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

:::It's good to have a goal to work on a particular set of articles collaboratively, even outside of a formal WikiProject, although there needs to be a list of articles for that to work. I would advise against relying on AI-generated text for such a project, as llms can easily misunderstand Wikipedia's goals, for example not being great at understanding aims such as WP:IMPARTIAL and other parts of WP:NPOV. CMD (talk) 10:31, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

:Jorge, I wish you luck, but fear that you will need a lot of it. The scope of your proposal seems very narrow. Please read carefully the advice given at the page Andy linked. Phil Bridger (talk) 10:35, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

I have proposed to clarify which MOS guidelines apply to citations. Please see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Proposal to clarify which MOS guidelines apply to citations. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:14, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

{{atop|1=Further discussion should take place at {{section link|Wikipedia_talk:Growth_Team_features#Add_the_templates_“More_citations_needed”_and_“More_citations_needed_section”_to_the_Suggested_edit_template_list}} to avoid a talk fork. Sdkb ^talk 06:55, 23 April 2025 (UTC)}}

At the page MediaWiki:GrowthExperimentsSuggestedEdits.json, for the “References” task, I’m noticing that the templates “More references” and “More references needed section” are listed there, instead of the far more widely-used templates they redirect to (“More citations needed” and “More citations needed section”). This has resulted in the vast majority of the articles/sections suggested on the “References” task being entirely unsourced, which would be more difficult for newcomers to fix. The “references” templates have around ~3000 transclusions combined, while the “citations” templates have hundreds of thousands of transclusions, resulting in a lot more suggestions. Simply adding the two more widely-used templates to the list would likely result in a lot more newcomers attempting to do the task, and greater newcomer retention on Wikipedia.

(I wasn’t sure where to post this, so sorry if this is the wrong topic for the village pump.) ApexParagon (talk) 21:12, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

: WT:Growth Team features would probably the proper venue. Support doing this by the way. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:21, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

::Added there ApexParagon (talk) 21:29, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

{{abot}}

{{Moved from|Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)#Grant move-subpages to template editor user group|To gain a wider consensus here before filing a phab ticket. – robertsky (talk) 14:21, 24 April 2025 (UTC)}}

At Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests, a request was made to move {{tl|Myprefs}} to {{tl|Preferences}}. While the requestor could move the template, the rationale for filing was because there are a number of subpages to move as well and moving a number of subpages can be error-prone.

Given that current practices for Template development oblige everyone to use at least 3 subpages, /docs, /sandbox, /testcases, if a template editor chooses to move a Template, they may run into similar situations more often than not.

In the request, @Pppery raised the idea of granting move-subpages right (Move pages with their subpages) to the template editors, and I find that it is a good idea and template editors are a group of trusted editors already. This would reduce the friction template editors who are not page movers face when moving templates on their own. – robertsky (talk) 18:43, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

:If there is a way of restricting move-subpages to the template namespace then this is an absolute no-brainer. If there isn't then I still think on balance it will be a positive - the number of template editors who would abuse this in other ways is going to be extremely small. Thryduulf (talk) 18:54, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

::I agree. If really needed we could tag rapid bulk moves in mainspace with an edit filter, but as you say I doubt that's how rogue template editors would choose to disrupt a wiki. Aaron Liu (talk) 20:04, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

::I don't think the namespace limitation is necessary or a good idea. Firstly template editor is a much higher trust position than page mover - if we trust people to make edits that could break millions of pages we should trust them to be able to move pages. Secondly a lot of templates are not located in the template namespace - lots of templates are in the user and wikipedia namespaces, for example. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 08:25, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

:Agree with this too, either limited to the template namespace if possible or in general. I don't think pagemove vandalism by template editors is really a concern, or that it would raise the bar for granting template editor. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 20:11, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

::Agreed. Subpages are disabled in the main namespace though, therefore so are subpage moves. Graham87 (talk) 06:43, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

:Add me to the group of people that agrees with this whether or not it's limited to just the template namespace; template editors can do a lot more harm than moving subpages if they want to disrupt Wikipedia, and I doubt we'll run into many issues with template editors moving subpages against policy. Skarmory (talk • contribs) 00:09, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

:I'm okay with this, though I think limiting to the template-space as a social constraint (doesn't need to be a technical one, just revoke template editor from those who can't follow the namespace restriction, as it proves they can't adhere to the requisite guidelines) would be a good idea. If they need to move other types of pages, I doubt most template editors would have much trouble asking for page mover anyways. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 03:54, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

::I do not think that there is an easy way to prevent template editors from moving subpages with edit filter. If there's any side effect of a template editor with the right moving articles nomally, it would probably be moving of archive subpages of the accompanying talk pages in a single move, which I wouldn't begrudge as well. – robertsky (talk) 12:22, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

:::It would be possible with an edit filter, though not necessarily worthwhile. Presumably template editors can be trusted not to click the box to move subpages when moving a mainspace article or a page in another namespace than Template or Module. TPEs without the page mover flag would be limited to 8 moves per minute (the page move rate limit for non-page movers), so it's not like they could cause too much of a problem even if they went rogue anyways. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 22:34, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

::::Just to confirm: A single move of all the subpages with the move-subpages right counts as one move, not the number of subpages, right? Aaron Liu (talk) 22:46, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::From a technical standpoint, yes. It's up to 100 subpages at once according to T16356 (anything past that needs to be manually moved I think?), which means a malicious actor could theoretically move 800 pages a minute with move-subpages, but for trusted editors like TPEs, I doubt they'd be doing that kind of thing. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 00:16, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

: Do we have sufficient consensus to request this be deployed on Phabricator now, or does this need to be moved to some other venue as the ideal lab is an odd place to obtain consensus for something? * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:29, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

::I'd either move the discussion to WP:VPPRO or put a pointer there back to here and add links to the discussion from Wikipedia talk:Template editor and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Templates, and give the 'crats a heads-up at WP:BN that we might be increasing their workload. After doing that I'd give it at least another 3-4 days. Thryduulf (talk) 18:38, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

:::Question: Would you mean AN? Crats don't grant template editor (at least not as crats, they would as admins, I suppose). EggRoll97 ^(talk) 21:28, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

::::yes, I think I was conflating this with the electadmin proposal. Thryduulf (talk) 02:59, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

:I agree this is a good idea. Sending requests like that to RM/TR is inefficient, since I'm pretty sure non-template editor pagemovers can't move template-protected pages, so an admin would have to do it, and requests in the admin section tend to take a while to get done. I agree with EggRoll97 that we can say "please don't use this to do mass-moves unrelated to templates", though enforcement would be case-by-case and not via edit filters or other tools. Toadspike [Talk] 09:18, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

::Er.. RM discussions for Templates, if move consensus is found, may still come RM/TR's way, especially if pageswapping is required, but TEs effectively can effect the move of Templates listed on RMTR with ease now if no pageswap is required. But I would encourage the TE to apply for pagemover rights if they enjoy being on RM/TR. – robertsky (talk) 14:41, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

:::There's probably far more moves that require moving subpages but not swapping. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:43, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

:{{small|Note: Topic moved to VPP for further discussion. Pinging @Aaron Liu, @Chaotic Enby, @EggRoll97, @Graham87, @Pppery, @Skarmory, @Thryduulf, @Toadspike for awareness. WP:AN has been notified. – robertsky (talk) 14:35, 24 April 2025 (UTC)}}

:I am jumping the gun here, planning on a succesful closure, ha!

:# Do we notify existing TEs about the change? If yes, all 189 of them (as counted on Wikipedia:Template editor)? Or we revoke some first based on Wikipedia:Template editor#Criteria for revocation? There may be bots or alternate accounts (for testing maybe?), so those can be excluded from the alerts.

:# And how? a one time special Mass Message?

:# The change can also be updated in the admin newsletter and Signpost, but not all TEs subscribe to them (neither do all admins).

:# WP:AN will definitely be notified as well once the change is in effect.

:# WP:Template editor, WP:User rights, and other pages (are there?) should be updated accordingly as well.

:– robertsky (talk) 15:36, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

:: Personally I don't think any kind of notice is necessary. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 15:44, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

::Probably just AN and VPT or some other relevant noticeboards. Mass message is a bit far. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:47, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

:::Chiming in possibly a bit late to say that 68 of the 189 template editors already have the page mover right, if [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ListUsers?username=&group=extendedmover&wpsubmit=&wpFormIdentifier=mw-listusers-form&limit=1000 this is a list of page movers] and I did my "find duplicate lines" text processing correctly. If we haven't seen any problems with those 68, the other 121 probably won't cause much trouble. I support this proposal as someone who already has both rights, but who has to clean up incomplete template moves from time to time. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:30, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

• Support move-subpages is restricted because one can easily make a big mess with it. Template editors are trusted on technical matters, though, so I see no cause for concern (the level of trust for template editor is generally higher than that for page mover, especially regarding technical matters). Oppose restricting this to template-space for that reason as well. If someone without the permission wants to move a page with a bunch of subpages, they can do it manually (there's no policy against someone doing that); there's no reason to inconvenience our template editors with that. Elli (talk | contribs) 19:16, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

:Support with template restriction. Not necessarily in template space, just a restriction to using this right only for template moves. As for Elli's concern above, from a technical perspective, sure, they could move a random page with subpages manually, but they'd quickly run into the 8 page moves per minute rate limit. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 22:31, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

::Okay, but what's the point of having the restriction? The restriction on doing this isn't high-trust; it's just to prevent people from making a mess. We know template editors won't make a mess. Elli (talk | contribs) 23:02, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

:::You have a point. My insistence on the template restriction is fairly weak. I just don't see necessarily why a template editor should be using this outside of..well, templates, given that we have page mover as a more general flag for move-related things. In any case, whoever ends up evaluating consensus here may feel free to consider this perhaps neutral, or the weakest possible support on the template restriction. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 02:10, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

We had consensus at WP:LUGSTUBS2 way back in March 2024 to draftify a bunch of articles, which was never implemented. Is it finally time to implement it now? * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 14:26, 24 April 2025 (UTC)