Wikipedia talk:Seven million articles#Conclusion

{{Ping|Fuzheado|Editorofthewiki|Daniel Case|Dr. Blofeld|Nixinova|CaptainEek}}, pinging a few active editors who took part in the 6 millionth article discussion years ago. We are probably a week or so away from hitting 7 million articles. Reserving this spot for the discussion determining which article did it! « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 15:24, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

:Haha, yes. I think I guessed summer of 2023 or something, a little optimistic, I forgot to account for slowing growth! Good to see we're finally reaching the mark, {{u|Ser Amantio di Nicolao}} usually likes to see us reach milestones too! ♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:48, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

::Fascinating that in the 7 Millionth Article Pool, only ONE person chose a 2025 date and it was an anon. Wikipedia:Seven-million pool - Fuzheado | Talk 14:30, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Saw this page today and thought it may be interesting - Wikipedia:Seven-millionth topic pool. Ping @Rosiestep - Fuzheado | Talk 14:32, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

:Thanks for the ping, will be watching. - Fuzheado | Talk 12:29, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

::Thanks for the ping. Having written the 6 millionth in 2020, I'm excited to see what gets honored as the 7 millionth. --Rosiestep (talk) 14:44, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Should be interesting. I am eagerly excited. Would love to write the 7 million, but it is unlikely! ~EDDY ^{(talk/contribs)}~ 21:33, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

::::TBH I'd be surprised if someone didn't pre-write like 10 articles and use a bot to try to get the 7 millionth. Therapyisgood (talk) 20:43, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::uh, near the 7M milestones, someone just dumped 200 articles at once and it reaches 7M articles. Just a random Wikipedian^(talk) 02:38, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::Yea, per WP:BOT I don’t even think that’s within policy. What can ya say, though. ^EF⁵ 03:01, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::Yea, I am not a bot, nor I am an AI; I am an OF (old fart) and do not even know how to use Twinkle. Got some kaptcha around here? --Altenmann >talk 04:37, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::{{ping|Therapyisgood}} {{ping|JrandWP}} I tried to do something similar: I opened forty tabs on my computer, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Luis7M each with a surname article which was ready to go] and then waited for the right moment to attack, but because the growth was so slow, it still seemed to be hours to go, so I looked away for like 20 minutes, and lost my chance. Luis7M (talk) 23:59, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

• Assuming it ticks over at a reasonable time, I should be able to help out like last time. There's both an art and a science to it! CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 17:45, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

{{U|Emijrp}} noted their method for finding the 5 millionth article was this:

{{collapse top|title=Last 500 created articles, the first one in the next list is the #{{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} article ({{purge}})}}

{{Special:Newpages/500}}

{{collapse bottom}}

I have moved it to the talk page, as the main page (imho) should read more as a press release than a working project page. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 15:38, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

:Around 02:26 UTC on May 28, 2025. Just a random Wikipedian^(talk) 02:28, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::02:26, 28 May 2025 Dowhawski rural council (hist | edit) [2,312 bytes] Altenmann (talk | contribs)

::02:26, 28 May 2025 Nikolay Alyokhin (hist | edit) [726 bytes] BeanieFan11 (talk | contribs)

::02:26, 28 May 2025 Chyzhevitski rural council (hist | edit) [3,698 bytes] Altenmann (talk | contribs)

::02:26, 28 May 2025 Taraxacum angustisectum (hist | edit) [904 bytes] MallardTV (talk | contribs)

::02:26, 28 May 2025 Operators and Things (hist | edit) [6,639 bytes] Therapyisgood (talk | contribs)

::Some articles that could be the 7M ones. Just a random Wikipedian^(talk) 02:30, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::JrandWP, how was this found? — ^EF⁵ 02:33, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::I counted back from the Recently created article list, and these are the candidates. Just a random Wikipedian^(talk) 02:35, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::oh, the article should be a village (rural council) in Russia by Altenmann and it's okay. Just a random Wikipedian^(talk) 02:43, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::According to my count it's Palazhevitski rural council also by Altenmann. And there haven't been sufficient page deletions to move the counter backwards by 8-9ish articles. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 02:59, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::Honestly though, you had to be there to know the actual article. Because any later count is complicated by 1 mainspace deletion, and several cross-namespace moves. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 03:11, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::: My guess is that it'd be Chyzhevitski, but with a possibility of it being one of the others listed in the batch of five above. I did a check of the new page thing above about 15 seconds after I wrote Alyokhin and I think I counted Chyzhevitski to be 7 million, but then again there could have been a page deletion or something that may have messed the count up. I'm certain its not Palazhevitski though. BeanieFan11 (talk) 03:17, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::Its very difficult to tell when they're all in the same minute; that's what happened at six million. This is where the art part comes in: when faced with several technically possible answers, is there one of the potential options that best exemplify the work of Wikipedia? (I am working on answering that). CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 04:08, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

• Pretty sure the 7 millionth is not Palazhevitski rural council, which is for the moment listed as the milestone article. I created Nikolay Alyokhin (coincidentally also Belarus-related) the moment the count was 6,999,998, and Palazhevitski was eight afterwards, so it can't be that one. BeanieFan11 (talk) 02:59, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• Please keep in mind that in Wikipedia articles are not only created, but deleted as well. So the page count you see, e.g., on Main Page is not what you think, not forgetting about browser cache. (Although I do not know how you learned your ...998 number.) --Altenmann >talk 03:21, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• I knew it was 998 when I went to hit 'publish' since I was refreshing Special:Statistics about every four seconds or so. BeanieFan11 (talk) 03:23, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• My guess is either Khorastava rural council or Operators and Things. The count was at 7,000,038 at 2:44 UTC. Going backwards:

:2:44 UTC - 1 page created, 1 page moved to draftspace = (no. of pages at 2:44:00 UTC) 7,000,038

:2:43 UTC - 1 page moved to draftspace = 7,000,039

:2:42 UTC - 1 page created = 7,000,038

:2:37 UTC - 1 page created = 7,000,037

:2:36 UTC - 1 page moved to mainspace = 7,000,036

:2:35 UTC - 1 page moved to draftspace = 7,000,037

:2:34 UTC - 2 pages moved to draftspace = 7,000,039

:2:33 UTC - 4 pages moved to draftspace = 7,000,043

:2:32 UTC - 1 page created, 1 page moved to mainspace, 2 pages moved to draftspace = 7,000,043

:2:31 UTC - 1 page deleted, 2 pages moved to draftspace = 7,000,046

:2:30 UTC - 2 pages created, 1 page moved to draftspace = 7,000,045

:2:29 UTC - 1 page created = 7,000,044

:2:28 UTC - 2 pages created, 1 page moved to mainspace = 7,000,041

:2:27 UTC - 25 pages created = 7,000,016

:2:26 UTC:

:revision #1292643526 - Vishnyavecki rural council created = article #7,000,016

:revision #1292643521 - Yazylski rural council created = article #7,000,015

:revision #1292643514 - Shchytkavistki rural council created = article #7,000,014

:revision #1292643507 - Staradarozhski rural council created = article #7,000,013

:revision #1292643502 - Palazhevitski rural council created = article #7,000,012

:revision #1292643494 - 1955–56 Western United States floods moved to mainspace = article #7,000,011

:revision #1292643493 - Pasetski rural council created = article #7,000,010

:revision #1292643490 - Novadarozhski rural council created = article #7,000,009

:revision #1292643480 - Drazhnawski rural council created = article #7,000,008

:revision #1292643465 - Zazhevitski rural council created = article #7,000,007

:revision #1292643461 - Taraxacum akteum created = article #7,000,006

:revision #1292643460 - Dowhawski rural council created = article #7,000,005

:(revision #1292643458 - revision removed - possibly related to the article "Tidal wave gd", which was deleted at 2:31 UTC, however revision #1292643374 is also missing)

:revision #1292643452 - Nikolay Alyokhin created = article #7,000,004?

:revision #1292643451 - Chyzhevitski rural council created = article #7,000,003?

:revision #1292643446 - Taraxacum angustisectum created = article #7,000,002?

:revision #1292643445 - Operators and Things created = article #7,000,001?

:revision #1292643443 - Khorastawski rural council created = article #7,000,000?

:So, if my count is correct, determining whether revision #1292643458 was the creation of "Tidal wave gd" or not would be necessary to learn the identity of article #7,000,000. TVShowFan122 (talk) 04:14, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::So we have two 7 millionth articles if the removed revision is the GD one? Counting like that, the first 7 millionth would be Operators at 26 min, then the GD one is deleted at 31 min, rolling back one, so the next 7 millionth is the Rural Council. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 05:42, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::@ARandomName123 which rural council? CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 06:00, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::Khorastawski ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 06:10, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::I created the page at 6,999,999 articles so tidal wave is the 7 millon Jhoncena1234 (talk) 15:52, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

• My back of the envelope count came up with Taraxacum angustisectum. I think TVShow's list is accurate within two places. Here's my solution as to how to proceed. As with six million, we list a winner, and highlight the other likely options created at the same time. This year is a bit unusual as we have multiple entries by the same people. I think we give a special citation to Altenmann for creating articles on Belarusian Selsoviets. I must say however that I oppose actually giving the 7 million to any of the Selsoviet articles, as they are mass created stubs and they aren't actually useful to readers without an English transliteration of their names, a map, an infobox, or anything else; they also seem at high risk for being permastubs. The option right before Khorastawski is Taraxacum azzizii, one of several possible dandelion species articles created by MallardTV, so I think we should also shoutout Mallard for dandelion articles. Unfortunately, Taraxacum angustisectum looks like its doomed to be a perma-stub, as I couldn't find any sources about it; though perhaps someone could find its original Finnish description? I would highlight Nikolay Alyokhin and 1955–56 Western United States floods too. I think Operators and Things would make a decent choice as seven million, as it is not a stub like the other choices, and it is clearly very close to 7 million, if maybe even 7 million itself. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 05:09, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• :I beg to disagree what is useful for wikipedia users and what is not and why. I can chuckle for myself that I am writing useless articles, such as Midbarium or Barefoot szlachta, which will probably nobody read. BUT IT IS NOT YOUR BUSINESS TO TELL EVERYBODY THAT I AM WRITING USELESS ARTICLES, okay? "A decent choice for 7th million?" Really? Something what is going on here is resembling me how Hero of the Soviet Union was assigned and who will be next great Soviet writer. --Altenmann >talk 05:29, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::@Altenmann I meant no offense, sorry, though I'd rather you not yell at me. As I pointed out above, there is both an art and a science to this, and its difficult to know what article exactly was the seven millionth, so we have to choose among several options. In doing so, we have to make some judgments about what best exemplifies a Wikipedia article. This will get news coverage and be widely read across the internet. I think you deserve a mention for sure, but when given a choice between a stub and a non-stub, I'm arguing for the non-stub. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 05:35, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• :::Sure, you meant no offense, it was just a dismissive disrespect, and obviously you do not even recognize this. In other words, you are entitled to decide what is #7M, right? So a Belarusian territory is not deserving to be read across the internets, but a Finnish dandelion is. A one-liner for [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jordanhill_railway_station&oldid=41817613 Jordanhill railway station] was good for 1M, but a subdivision of Belarus is not. --Altenmann >talk 05:50, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::::@Altenmann I suggested that both you and @MallardTV be honored for creating many articles at about the right time, as a sort of special citation. I am not suggesting the dandelion as 7 million, rather, I suggest the book Operators and Things, but we're still figuring out the count, so I could be convinced that another one is the better option. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 06:12, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• :::::Just do tidal wave gd its funny Jhoncena1234 (talk) 15:53, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• : {{u|DoubleGrazing}} might be able to help with the Finnish description of Taraxacum angustisectum. Mathglot (talk) 05:31, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::Sorry, I'm not quite sure what is being asked of me, but I've tried to find a Finnish source with info on Taraxacum angustisectum, and cannot find any mention of that taxon, including in the main species databases. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 06:01, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• :::{{ping|Mathglot|MallardTV|CaptainEek}}, the original description (in Latin, not Finnish) is available at: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/10460405#page/103/mode/1up Plantdrew (talk) 20:25, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::::@Plantdrew Thank you SO MUCH. This means so much to me. MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 20:33, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• :Out of the possible 7-millionth articles above, Operators and Things certainly seems to be the most presentable article. Cakelot1 ☞️ talk 06:56, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• :@CaptainEek I have found more cources for Taraxacum angustisectum. Do expect to see some expansion. Cheers. MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 11:23, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• :I’m planning to get the flood article to GA status within a month although I disagree that we should pick the “better” article. ^EF⁵ 12:03, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::Currently expanding. — ^EF⁵ 12:09, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• :::{{ping|CaptainEek}} How does 1955 Yuba-Sutter floods look? — ^EF⁵ 12:45, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::::Do you plan to get it to DYK, maybe? I think it's nice to get it to DYK. Just a random Wikipedian^(talk) 14:09, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• :::::My plan is GA then DYK. That isn’t necessarily relevant here, though, as this is about 7M and not DYK. ^EF⁵ 14:14, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• :I should be able to get the above mentioned dandelion articles to start and C classes if needed. @CaptainEek, Looking into it, a whole lot of work goes into destubbing them but the sources are in fact out there. MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 12:07, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• Here's an approximate [https://quarry.wmcloud.org/query/94043 Quarry query] if anyone finds it useful. According to the query, Taraxacum akteum was the 7 millionth article. However, this query is likely already inaccurate, because if any articles get deleted, it will shift all the counts. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:46, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• :There are gaps in the page_id's when things get deleted. Perhaps someone can make some corrections to the data that way. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:49, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• I watched the approach of the milestone up to the point that there was about 250 articles to go. I had prepared a sandbox article which I was going to move into mainspace but it was getting late and there still seemed to be hours to go. The rollover happened after 3 am here and I'm happy to have got a good night's sleep instead. My candidate was Stuart Stanton (surgeon). I suppose I'll nominate that to DYK instead now.

: On the technicalities of the counting, note that there was a recent discussion about draftifying 1200 cricket stubs recently but I'm not sure whether that has happened yet. What if such a bulk action takes us way below 7M again? It will be ironic if those permastubs are replaced by hundreds of village permastubs, eh?

: Andrew🐉(talk) 07:01, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::{{ping|Andrew Davidson}} Yep, that's what happened to me as well. I [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Luis7M opened forty tabs on my computer, each with a surname article], just waiting for the right moment to attack, but because it still seemed to be hours to go, I looked away for like 20 minutes, and lost it. The WP:LUGSTUBS2 reaching a consesus right now would be clutch, but it is still weeks away. Luis7M (talk) 14:59, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::These are not villages and not stubs. They are equivalents of counties. Each of them has 10-20 villages. For example look at this one: Zhdanovichy rural council. Unlike crickets, these have a potential of expansion as long as someone is willing to work on them. Potentially each of them can hold info about separate villages, rather than indeed permastubs such as in bewiki: :be:Зялёная (Мінскі раён). I was going to work on these to the level of at least Zhdanovichy rural council, but meeting with this dismissive attitude I no longer give a fick and continue writing something like Yatzanu at, Fire Hunt with Beaters, or Moskalik, which nobody reads, but at least nobody denigrates. --Altenmann >talk 07:30, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Looking at the examples, these places seem to have been created mechanically from census returns. This is not a new issue as Rambot did this over 20 years ago and it was quite controversial back then too. Plus ça change...

:::There seems to be some discretion in selecting the nominal 7M article and it seems prudent to make a respectable and safe choice if there is one. This is what was done last time. See WP:WINNING...

:::Andrew🐉(talk) 08:57, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::Once again, I am not a bot and not a robotwallah. Yes, populations of villages are from census, but tell me buddy, where the heck else I am supposed to get them? From Washington Post? --Altenmann >talk 09:12, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::You are not a bot, but you did take help from some automated software, because a human can't reasonably create around 20-25 articles per minute. That's one every 3 seconds or less. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 11:46, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::{{ping|CX Zoom}} Not necessarily. For instance, at 2AM, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Luis7M I published 40 articles in 2 minutes], but that's because I opened forty tabs on my computer, just waiting for the right moment to attack, but because it still seemed to be hours to go, I looked away for like 20 minutes, and lost my chance. I assume {{ping|Altenmann}} used the same strategy. Luis7M (talk) 14:59, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::for over 100 articles though? MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 15:02, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::{{ec}} Exactly, its about picking the most "photogenic" (so to speak) article that paints the project in the best light. There's a reason at 6mil they went with a Maria Elise Turner Lauder, and not a short Olympic bio sourced mainly to databases or Auto-trolling, which both have an equally good claim to being the 6 Millionth. Cakelot1 ☞️ talk 09:12, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::Then drop the hypocrisy and say straight that you want a photo op rather than a fact. Wikipedia,... reliable source,... right-o. Whatever. Now I see where the dead horse is. I genuinely did not understand what was all this about. Now I see it is simply about PR, and of course I have nothing to say against it. Sorry for bugging y'all, bye. --Altenmann >talk 09:26, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::Altenmann is right. The article should be what it is. Not what we wish it was Andre🚐 13:05, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::We do not know what article was the actual 7 millionth though. That's the whole point here. We have a range of articles that have an equal claim to being the real 7 millionth article. Therefore, a subjective choice must be made. It is equally subjective to pick Vishnyavecki rural council as it is to pick Nikolay Alyokhin or Taraxacum angustisectum. This has been the case with each previous milestone article too, by the way (as has been shown else where in this thread). Cakelot1 ☞️ talk 13:30, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::To be clear, I think we could pretty reasonably actually calculate the real 7 millionth article; my impression is that people don't actually want that. Legoktm (talk) 14:02, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::Agreed with Andre; as someone who was up last night trying to write more complete articles, I'm slightly annoyed by Altenmann's use of automation to mass-create low quality stubs, but that kind of best exemplifies the weirdness of Wikipedia, that we have random articles about lower-level subdivisions in Belarus. And stubs are an incredibly important part of the article lifecycle! Unless someone is going to nominate them for deletion, I think they're eligible for 7M consideration (Also, "[https://www.ted.com/talks/alexis_ohanian_how_to_make_a_splash_in_social_media It's okay to lose control]"). Legoktm (talk) 13:37, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::I see your point. This is still, as much as I'm sure many of us don't want to admit it, somewhat of a PR matter. Although one article could by the true 7 millionth, there's no way to know for sure as different methods may bring different results. In the end, since this article will gain significant attention, it may end up going to whatever is deemed most "photogenic" in a way, of the options. MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 13:45, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::{{edit conflict}} I don't think anybody is saying those articles are ineligible or that they shouldn't be mentioned. We're just saying that there are a bunch of other equally eligible articles. Raymonde Verlinden was eligible for 6 million, but a decision was made to go with Maria Elise Turner Lauder instead (despite both being valid choices). Cakelot1 ☞️ talk 13:46, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::{{edit conflict}} At the end of the day no matter what you chose, it's going to be subjective. My subjective preference is for Operators and Things. For others it's Taraxacum angustisectum. And for Altenmann it is (quite understandably) one of his articles. All have an equal claim to being the 7 millionth. Cakelot1 ☞️ talk 13:50, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::@Cakelot1: except @CaptainEek did propose exactly that above, I quote: "I oppose actually giving the 7 million to any of the Selsoviet articles, as they are mass created stubs and they aren't actually useful to readers...". Legoktm (talk) 14:04, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::{{+1}} to that. It was quite frustrating working on a single article to submit and then seeing hundreds of stubs literally flood the NPF. It’s supposed to be a fun little WikiTradition, and it turned into people pumping out low-quality stuff for brownie points. Would like to see a decent article get it, since mass stub creation is neither quality or in good taste. ^EF⁵ 13:49, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::And to clarify since I’m in mobile, I’m +1ing the first part of your comment; I don’t necessarily agree with the latter. ^EF⁵ 13:50, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::I made a few articles in preparations, but it wasn't a dump. I think I released 7 in this timeframe. 4 of them I released before 7 million so the count would stop being so stagnant, but I saved 3 that had the possibility for C class or above. MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 13:54, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::That’s a lot different than running a script that mass-creates low-quality stubs in the hopes that you will win. I’m just glad that there’s pushback to it. ^EF⁵ 14:00, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::Auto-trolling was mine but I had another article in the 6M shortlist which was preferred – Castle Folds. Editors were only allowed one entry in the shortlist and this seems reasonable to discourage cookie-cutter bot batches which are not a good look. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:37, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

It is sad to see how the psychology of Wikicommunity changed in 20 years. The 1M article was [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jordanhill_railway_station&oldid=41817613 a single-liner stub], but we were celebrating and cherished it. And the same day there were, like, three hundred edits from several dozen people (including a dozen vandal IPs :-) happily cooperating to make it [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jordanhill_railway_station&oldid=42023093 a truly GREAT article]. And nobody whined that it was [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Nach0king&target=Nach0king&dir=prev a mechanical dump of hundreds of one-liners] as if it is something shameful. Heck, the whole EB1911 was dumped into Wikipedia. I remember thousands of articles about Antarctica features was uploaded. We were busily wikifying it manually, e.g., one from work, [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sail_Rock_(Antarctica)&oldid=83692961 Sail Rock (Antarctica)], and afterwards other people merged them into larger features. --Altenmann >talk 09:36, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:There's a Wikipedia:Millionth article FAQ and the contemporary discussion that selected Jordanhill railway station seems to have been at the Village Pump. The FAQ does indicate that there were similar issues back then too:

:{{tqb|Is Jordanhill railway station really the millionth title ever written in Wikipedia?
No. Wikipedia articles are constantly being added, deleted, and merged.}}The railway station was a lucky choice for collaboration because it's in the UK where there are lots of railway enthusiasts who produce lots of books and magazines in English. Belorussian bureaucracy is not so accessible or inviting.

:Altenmann has treated this as a game but what are the rules? There don't actually seem to be any formal rules for this and so you have to look at such precedents. Maria Elise Turner Lauder was the choice for 6M and before that there was Persoonia terminalis as the 5M. That was submitted in a bot batch but turned out well as it was expanded into a featured article.

:So, the pattern seems to be that it's not enough to hit the spot but that the submission has to be credible as a respectable article too. The better the topic, the better are its chances.

:Andrew🐉(talk) 10:10, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::After six iterations one would think that the process or methodology of choosing what is the x millionth article is defined. I suppose we have to be up front on what's the criteria for selecting the representative article from a pool of articles as the x millionth article. – robertsky (talk) 11:33, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::There isn't a standard method for determining this. The usual technique is to snapshot the article count and then count back through the creation log. But the pool of articles varies as a result of deletions and mergers and so this will give different results at different times.

:::For the 5M milestone, an editor wrote software to create a log which recorded the article count alongside the article creations and this was better as an unchanging record But that software has not been maintained.

:::Andrew🐉(talk) 12:18, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::Can you point me to the software? – robertsky (talk) 12:51, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::Per thread for determining 5 millionth article, its log was https://five-million.toolforge.org/creations.txt

:::::Andrew🐉(talk) 13:01, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::: That log link is dead. Mathglot (talk) 01:25, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

:Because we're now 24 years old and over half of our articles are still stubs. At least add the names in Belarussian/Russian and link to the articles on the other Wikipedias which contain more information. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:04, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::@Dr. Blofeld I tried that and was reverted by Altenmann on the grounds that the Belarusian wiki is not reliable. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 15:18, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Russian wiki is likely to have links to more sources which can be used to expand them. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:33, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

• This is a rare case where a functionally random article will become a high profile representation of the project. There is, technically, unresolvable ambiguity over the exact 7 millionth article. Exploiting this to pick a good and/or easily improbable article is a good thing for the project. We are HERE to build an encyclopaedia (which in 2025 involves a degree of PR) rather than WIN. LukeSurl ^t c 12:37, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• :It's like the 7 billionth or 8 billionth people in the world, it's just an UN representation of the first person in the world born when there are already 7,999,999,999 other people living. Just a random Wikipedian^(talk) 16:58, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

• Nikolay Alyokhin by {{User|BeanieFan11}}
• Khorastava rural council (since moved from Khorastawski rural council) by {{User|Altenmann}}
• Taraxacum angustisectum by {{User|MallardTV}}
• Operators and Things by {{User|Therapyisgood}}
• 1955 Yuba–Sutter floods (since moved from 1955–56 Western United States floods) by {{User|EF5}}
• British American Hospital by {{User|AlejandroFC}}

Looking at everything, this would be my initial list of candidate articles, pulling out one submission per user, generally looking around + or - 20 around 7M. Are there any articles I am missing? I think after solidifying the list of articles to highlight, we then move to selecting the best representation of Wikipedia, as has historically been done. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 14:13, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:I agree – with the flurry of editing around that moment, it is relatively meaningless to pinpoint one of them as "the" 7 millionth article, and it does make sense to pick one of these as our representative. In terms of quality, Operators and Things and 1955 Yuba–Sutter floods look the most promising, although I wouldn't be surprised if British American Hospital also had opportunities for expansion. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 15:07, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

• I can turn Alyokhin into a possible GA if that means I can be the writer of the 7,000,000th ;) – working on it now. BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:08, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:*It'd be an honor and blessing to have 7 million be for Operators and Things. For what it's worth I'd also be somewhat opposed to a permastub rural district being 7 million. There's some room for expansion of Operators and Things, as it's been covered in academic literature and I'm certain the plot can be expanded if I had access to a physical copy of the book. There seemed to be a rough consensus emerging around Operators and Things above, from what I gather. Therapyisgood (talk) 15:25, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:*:Same goes for 1955 Yuba-Sutter floods, but we’re obviously both biased lol. ^EF⁵ 15:27, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:*:* Let's see how my expansion of Alyokhin within the next two hours turns out ;) BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:30, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

• I was about to say that like it or it not Khorastava rural council should be the winner, something something western bias. But damn, that place is tiny, like 1200 people live there, can't find it on Google Maps, no coordinates given in the article either. Just doesn't work even as a quirky pick. Do Operators and Things. I'm sure there was probably intention (activism) behind it being published right at this moment. But it seems pretty nice, so well played. Brightgalrs (/braɪtˈɡæl.ərˌɛs/)^[ᴛ] 15:28, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• Is everyone on-board with this being the list of articles that is representative of the 7 millionth article? I'm just trying to nail down the list of pages that will be recognized as "Articles created near the same time". « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 16:07, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• :Looks good to me MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 16:09, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• Finished expanding Nikolay Alyokhin, which I think turned out nicely. ~1,000 words on a Olympic champion fencer for Belarus, which makes it the longest out of the six. I'm biased, but {{ping|Brightgalrs}} if you think the article should address western bias, then perhaps Alyokhin (also from Belarus)? BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:00, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• :Beanie's quick transformation of Alyokhin makes me support it as the option. It gives us a fleshed out Belarusian article (with a picture no less), in keeping with the theme of Belarusian Solsviets. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 17:48, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:Just at a first, very brief glance at all of them in their current state, 1955 Yuba-Sutter floods looks like the best one here. Once again, this was just from an extremely brief glance. Gaismagorm (talk) 18:23, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::Although Operators and Things sounds much more interesting, but that is just because I've heard a little bit about the book in the past. Gaismagorm (talk) 18:28, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::{{ping|CaptainEek}}, {{ping|Gaismagorm}} we're not even close to !voting yet, the method by which we determine the 7 millionth article hasn't even been finalized yet (see below). Therapyisgood (talk) 18:37, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Oops, my bad. I probably won't even vote, since I'm not experienced enough (in my opinion). Gaismagorm (talk) 18:44, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::This isn't so much a vote as a quick consensus. This is already taking longer than last year. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 19:07, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

I personally think that the list should be limited to entries that were posted at 2:26 (including under other names). The hospital and flood articles were both posted after this time at 2:27 and 2:29, respectively Spirit of Eagle (talk) 19:38, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:I agree with this MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 19:40, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:{{ping|Spirit of Eagle}} The flood article was posted at 2:26 and moved at 2:29, so your assertion is inaccurate. ^EF⁵ 19:44, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::Sorry, that wasn’t very clear. I moved it to mainspace at 2:26, visible on page logs. ^EF⁵ 19:47, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::My sincere apologies. I reviewed the logs again and you are correct. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 19:49, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::You’re completely fine, I can see how the page move creates ambiguity issues. :-) ^EF⁵ 19:50, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

it has now hit 7 million, can someone update. Ieditrandomarticles (talk) 02:29, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

Once we solidify 7 million and the runner-ups in the above section, there are a few tasks that need to happen. We need to draft the announcement itself, which will become this page. We need to prep a central notice (*The English Wikipedia has reached seven million articles; thank you for your contributions!). We need to notify the winners on their talk pages. Nothing should get posted until the conversation on this page is finalized. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 05:29, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:I'm not sure a Central Notice is the way to go here. However we have done temporary logos (there is a VPRR thread open) and we can easily add a Main Page Banner (as we did for 6MM). Here is what the MPB was [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Main_Page_banner&oldid=937704527 last time]. Unlike anything else, the MPB is something we can do quickly once this landing page is ready. — xaosflux ^Talk 09:24, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::Lol yes that's what I meant, misspoke! CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 15:13, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

So, here's a way to determine the actual 7M article if someone is interested:

1. Create a local copy of enwiki database, so that the data stops changing every 1 milisecond.
2. Count the current number of articles, and start back counting Special:NewPages to reach 7M.
3. Find the number of articles deleted after the 7M count, find how many of them were created before 7M (let's call them set D), count forward that many articles at Special:NewPages. If a set D article was deleted before the new 7M article that should've been included in the 7M count, so go back and forth until there is no set D article before the new 7M count.
4. Find all other-to-mainspace moves after the current 7M count, and check which of them were created before the current 7M count (i.e., those that haven't been counted at NewPages yet), count forward that many articles at Special:NewPages. Now, find all Mainspace-to-other moves after the current 7M count, and check which of them were at mainspace before 7M, count backward that many articles. Repeat step 3 and 4 until you reach a definitive count.
5. Check that portion of newly created redirects/dabs were articles before 7M was hit. Count backward that many articles. Now, check the portion of articles that were redirects/dabs before 7M was hit. Count forward that many articles. Repeat steps 3, 4, 5 until you reach a definitive count.
6. Now, comes the more controversial part. Should redirects at RfD at the time of 7M be considered? Technically, a redirect at RfD is not a redirect or dab, it is a content page. If there are 50 mainspace redirects at RfD (and CSD too) at any time, software will consider them all as articles. A true 7M search would need to discount those at the time of 7M, i.e., move forward the count by these many articles while repeating step 3, 4, 5, 6 until a definitive count.

Now of course, this doesn't consider the possibility of dabs without dab magic word, or typos such as "3REDIRECT Article" which will also get counted as articles. Honestly, I don't think 7M is something practically possible to count, it is safe to say that there is a considerable degree of latitude to determine what is the 7M'th article, just like the past counts have come about in the same manner. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 15:39, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:Complicated, but seems like it’d work. I say we go with the true 7 millionth, and go with another community-picked article only if the seven millionth is a either deleted or unable to be found on technical grounds. ^EF⁵ 15:42, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::Seconding this. At the end of the day, if we are advertising something as the 7th million article then we should make a good faith effort to ensure that it is the 7th million article. I understand the sentiment behind choosing an article that makes or the best “photo op” but this seems a little dishonest on our part.Spirit of Eagle (talk) 16:21, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Yeah, while having a stub isn’t best taste it’s even worse if we lie to the reader, which goes directly against Wikipedia’s purpose of truth and verifiability. Funny if by picking the example that personifies Wikipedia we also do something that goes against it. ^EF⁵ 16:23, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::That is actually a good point, assuming we have the capabilities to pinpoint it with certainty. And, if there is still some uncertainty (that can't be removed) between several articles, we can pick one of the candidates (like from the shortlist above). Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 16:33, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::This is only a static point in time. If there was an AFD that covered 500 articles and I deleted them right now, have we still achieved 7 million articles, or would it all start over? The consensus in the past milestone discussions is that pinpointing an exact mathematical figure is less important than highlighting contributions that represent the best of Wikipedia. This becomes especially true when a user uses automated tools to flood the system with one-line stubs (something that Wikipedia consensus is definitively against) for a piece of recognition that really means nothing from a user perspective. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 16:36, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::My problem is that the milestone article announcement pages do imply a high level of mathematical certainty. If we are simply choosing a representative article, we should be transparent about that fact. Also, our definition of 7th million article can be reasonably described as “the first article created at a time when there were 6,999,999 other articles on Wikipedia.” Under this definition, subsequent deletions don’t matter. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 16:45, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::{{tq|imply a high level of mathematical certainty}}: Yeah, that is something I think needs to be reworded. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 16:49, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::It's like the 8 billionth person in the world, she was chosen by the UN as a representative only, she is described as “the first person born at a time when there were 7,999,999,999 other people on Earth.” Just a random Wikipedian^(talk) 17:00, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::Good example. There's no way you could be 100% certain about the 8 billionth person because people birth and die all the time, and even city or town-level population counts in official censuses may be off-the-mark due to practical constraints. We humans decided to pick someone anyway and gave them the distinction even though we are not sure about it. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 17:04, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::But we do have a much better ability to determine our 7th million article (however defined) than the UN has to determine the 8th billion person; readers would reasonably be aware that we have some technical ability to pinpoint article 7 million. If we’re just going for a representative article, we should be clear about this. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 17:08, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::: I am getting tired to repeat again and again: I did'nt use any automated tool. Each and every article was created manually. And there were not freaking one-line stubs. And I didnt' "flood" wikipedia: I covered an information about severely underrepresented country. In the same way I created some 400 articles about Lithuanian elderships, all with my freaking hands, no bots, no twinkle, in my freaking unpaid free time. This dismissive attitude I see here is sickening. --Altenmann >talk 16:45, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::@Altenmann I respect the hustle then! Good luck man, you seem to have put in a lot of work. MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 16:48, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::Tough luck. You made a pathetic effort to be certain to have the 7 millionth article by flooding your low quality mass creations at the right time. No idea why you thought it so important to get that "distinction", but it really gives a very poor impression. Fram (talk) 16:57, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::That's what I am talking about: "pathetic effort", "flooding", "low quality"... My view is "monumental, selfless effort", "increasing wikipedia coverage in white areas", "reasonable quality given that now the official webpages of gov.by are blocked from access". --Altenmann >talk 17:07, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::If you had created a few, people might have noted the problems then and there and you could incorporate the solutions in the remainder. Now, we have 200 articles with the same User talk:Altenmann#New articles have syntax errors issues (plus the issues I highlighted, and maybe others). That's one of the reasons mass creation (bot or manual) is not allowed, to get to problems or issues early enough. Fram (talk) 17:13, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::On one of Altenmann's sandboxes last week I and another editor twice fixed the hundreds of unclosed tag issues plaguing the page and stated in no uncertain terms that closing tags were not optional, so I'm disappointed such unclosed errors have continued. That said, I'm not advocating for any deletions based on this small issue I have with the editor. Unclosed tags are the most prevalent syntax error on Wikipedia right now (1.43 million; 35k in articles, typically 1 per article now since we've been chipping away at the backlog for a few years), so while annoying, is not enough cause alone at this time (in my opinion) for any action other than a firm request for Altenmann to close all tags when contributing.

:::::::: @Altenmann, you don't have to be perfect, just do your best to use closing tags, ok?

::::::::If further creations are also devoid of closing tags, then disruptive behavior can be claimed, but at this point this discussion with a warning is enough for me. Zinnober9 (talk) 19:27, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::Yes, I will know this now. But I disagree it was a syntax error: rendering was OK (I do know there is a "preview" button). Coders must know the difference between "syntax error" (that breaks things) and "linter error" (which violates some coding style; I agree these are nuisance in larger projects). --Altenmann >talk 19:32, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:This is all well and good, except that multiple people have done the work and we've come up with at least five different answers. Years ago, back at 6 million, I asked for a better software tool (there's a phab ticket out there). But we don't have that tool. We have the hodgepodge that we do have. The hodgepodge gives us an imprecise answer, and so we have to use some judgement and discretion at the end of the day. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 17:43, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:We could always follow the example of Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by article count and WP:DENY glory by meatbot. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 18:52, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::This isn't actually a bad idea. I quite like this. MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 18:57, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::Calling a meatbot a person who put in several days over 20 years of volunteer's work for Wikipedia and created 0.1% of its articles is thoroughly disgusting. Yes, some of them are like Paliepiai Eldership, but some are like Holocaust humor or Good Citizens Need Not Fear. --Altenmann >talk 19:11, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::The term MEATBOT is describing a specific undesired (quick and repetitive) action by editors, NOT an editor themselves. See the link for more details on what that action is and why it's undesired. Zinnober9 (talk) 19:18, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::Wha..? writing many articles in a severely undercovered area is "undesired"? For you they may look "repetitive" (they are not), but in no way the work was "quick". You probably confused me with a guy who runs around and changes "theater" into "theatre" everywhere. --Altenmann >talk 19:24, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::They, from my point of view, don't really convey anything too useful in their current state. Additionally, the edits were rapid. Although you may have written them beforehand, they were still dumped all at once in an insane quantity. MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 19:29, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::: "Insane quantity" may be both an insult and a praise. I read the latter way. --Altenmann >talk 19:39, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::: You are tot the first one who accuses me of disrupting wikipedia with my new articles. Please take a look at the lower right corner of [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Altenmann&oldid=635056940 an old version] of my userpage. --Altenmann >talk 19:42, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::I'm unaware of any theater/theatre activities, and that's not my interest here. Quality over quantity is what we are requesting. Thank you. Zinnober9 (talk) 19:30, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::: You may request all you want, and I will write up to the level of my limited skills. I did live through occasions when I was reverted because of "bad English", and I will live through this one. --Altenmann >talk 19:37, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::This has nothing to do with your english skills. This is about the mass stub creation. MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 19:38, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::: I refuse to accept than many stubs is bad for Wikipedia. --Altenmann >talk 19:43, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::I'm not saying that. Stubs can be a good thing. These just don't add anything useful for the reader. MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 19:44, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::: Well, that's your opinion of a person who does not give a damn for history, geography and sociology of Belarus. bewiki, be-x-oldwiki and ruwiki have all these stubs for a long time. I noticed them and decided it is worth to do the same here --Altenmann >talk 19:46, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::Belarus is a wonderful and interesting country. I have nothing against the country, just the general quality of these stubs. MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 19:48, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::: I see nothing wrong with the quality. They provide basic info. I had no idea that placenames in Cyrillic clearly labeled as "Russian name" and "Belarusian name" will be an insulting eyesore. I could easily have spent 1 minute per page to add transliterations. And it is not late to do it now. --Altenmann >talk 19:54, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::::Feel free! I am 100% for any improvement that can be made to these, and quite frankly any other articles, Cheers and happy editing then MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 19:56, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::::::Not now. I do not feel like acting apologetically under "enemy fire". I do accept criticism, however, what I see here is not a friendly cooperation aimed at an improvement of article quality, but a concerted attempt to disqualify my contribution. Imagine that, when I added translits into a potential 7M candidate article, I was castigated here for doing this! --Altenmann >talk 20:05, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::::::I am rooting for you just as much as I'm rooting for anyone else who may get it. I only wish you the best of luck. I would not like to disqualify you and would prefer it if you stopped making baseless accusations. Best of luck to you, MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 20:12, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::::Sorry, but at this point, it is just gaslighting now. What do you think the "English" part of English Wikipedia means? We have Russian Wikipedia and Belarusian Wikipedia as well, if content has to be in those languages. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 23:17, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::Jesus, could you just be WP:CIVIL? It’s not that hard. ^EF⁵ 19:48, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::Yep, great idea. Frankly, anyone who thinks it's at all important who wrote/to have written X-amount of articles... *sigh* —Fortuna, imperatrix 20:57, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::When we actually settle on one article, there's going to be some press coverage. So it's not just inside baseball. Bremps... 22:52, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

• {{U|CX Zoom}} So using your method, what is the answer that you get? Or alternatively, if someone else wants to put in the work using that method, what answer do you get? If the method is so onerous that no one is going to implement it, then I think the discussion is really just academic. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 20:10, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• :Well, I could only point to the theoretical manner in which 7M could be found. Since my technical skills are not developed enough to generate the queries for this entire thing, I can not do anything beyond this. (I think even my PC couldn't handle the computations on the entire enwiki db.) —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 23:15, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::Is there any expert forum on Wikipedia? Could we get help from Village Pump? Bremps... 15:17, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
• :::Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) is probably our best bet for this one. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 15:36, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

I've seen both perspectives above so I'll formalize this with a discussion.

Option 1: The true 7 millionth article, by some objective, uncontestable metric, no matter if it appeals to our taste or not. Can be our standard going forward.

Option 2: A symbolic 7 millionth article tuned to what the Wikipedia community represents, but possibly at the expense of accuracy. We can also hammer out criteria for symbolic articles for 7.5 millionth, 8 millionth, and so on.

Option 3: Come up with your own idea. Bremps... 21:13, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:Option 1 or 2, depending on circumstances - I support the “true” seven millionth being posted unless it’s some sort of misspelled redirect or dab page, then option 2 would come into effect. This doesn’t apply to “other articles made around the same time”, as there isn’t a “lying to the reader” aspect of those. ^EF⁵ 21:16, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::Also, I oppose option 1 if it’s one of those mass-created stubs as they are in violation of WP:MASSCREATION and we don’t want to be showing readers policy vios. ^EF⁵ 21:17, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Change that to strong support for Chaotic Enby’s option 3 and oppose all else. Great way to clear this up. ^EF⁵ 21:24, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:More Option 2, the closest article that meets our policies/guidelines. Would want it to be as close to an "option 1" article (if not identical to) as possible. JackFromWisconsin (talk | contribs) 21:19, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::Option 3 is good too, was being non-serious on the Discord but I must've accidentally stumbled into a good idea. JackFromWisconsin (talk | contribs) 21:27, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:Option 1 as far as we can feasibly determine it (except, per EF5, if it is a misspelled redirect or a policy violating article), and, out of the possible candidates (if there are several and we genuinely have no way to figure it out), option 2.{{pb}}Another option 3 (suggested by @JackFromWisconsin on the Discord server) would be to nominate multiple articles (maybe all the ones that were published at 2:26 UTC) as the collective "7,000,000th", and either show one randomly to the reader or rotate through them. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 21:20, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::That’s actually an amazing idea. Great thinking, Jack! ^EF⁵ 21:24, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::: There seems to be about 29 articles published that minute, 24 of which I think were Belarusian councils. The others are two species articles (one stub), the flood, the book, and my article on the Belarusian fencer. Perhaps consider four – excluding the councils and the species stub – as the 'joint-7 millionth'? BeanieFan11 (talk) 21:30, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::I mean, that's basically what we did last time: we chose one, that we thought was as close as possible, and then honored the other possible candidates. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 21:31, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Though I must say I oppose choosing multiple as the seven millionth. We still need one entry that we tell the press about/put in the archives. Historically, we've only had one, because doing otherwise breaks the spirit of the thing. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 21:40, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::And this is what seems to be done for the discussion below. I can get behind this. – robertsky (talk) 02:18, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

• Good faith effort at Option 1; then go with Option 2 as a backup I think we should make a good faith effort to find the articles or articles that most likely constitute the "true 7 million" (defined as being the first article to push our article count to 7 million). If there are multiple articles that could be the true 7 million or the true 7 million is considered undesirable, we fall back on option 2. Basically, I think we should be able to make a strong argument that our selected article is the true 7 million, but allow article quality/desirability to tip the scales a bit. (To be clear, I am softening my initial opinion a bit based on others' comments). Spirit of Eagle (talk) 21:29, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• The dirty secret is that all of our picks over the years have been symbolic. With our current tech, we can't say for certain what the n-millionth article was. If someone could, we wouldn't have five different options for what the 7 millionth was, and we wouldn't be having this conversation. We used the "more of an art than a science" approach explicitly in choosing five million and six million. The solution we used last time, evident in the current formatting, is that we choose a winner as best we can, and then list the other articles created at the same time, limiting it to one per author. We don't need to reinvent the wheel here folks. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 21:30, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• Option 2 and oppose multiple selections. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 21:51, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• Option 1 get as close as possible, then if it's like a DAB page or something just go one before. Let's also establish this as consensus so we won't have this next year. The 7 millionth article itself is meaningless. Therapyisgood (talk) 21:58, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• {{U|Therapyisgood}}, 8 million likely won't occur for another 7 to 10 years based on current production rates.... « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 22:17, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• Question in terms of Option 1 what exactly is the metric that your proposing here. The reason that we're choosing an article from a set here (and at previous milestones) is that nobody can come up with a method to produce the definitive x-millionth article. As {{U|CaptainEek}} says above, multiple people have done the work and we've come up with different results. Cakelot1 ☞️ talk 22:08, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• :Option 1 is more so an affirmation that there is a right answer (as opposed to a wrong answer), and we go with selecting our criteria from there. Bremps... 22:51, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::While there may be a "metaphysically" correct 7-millionth article, there isn't actually a method that will consistently produce it without a number of assumptions having to be agreed to, which effectively means its as arbitrary as anything else. This doesn't mean you've found that "metaphysically" correct 7-millionth, it means you've just created a method to select a random article that may be the correct one (which is no less arbitrary then selecting one that is equally likely to be the one).
• ::It's like selecting the world's Six Billionth person, the choice wouldn't have been less arbitrary if they produced a formula to work it with a bunch of assumptions. It seems like we should be able to do better because we have a complete ordered database of all created article (which as far as I know the UN dosn't for people) but as has be explained there are to many unknowns here (and the WMF hasn't provided the tools to make that less so). Without any other proposals option 1 seems to be purely a theoretical, and in terms of actually doing anything, useless. Cakelot1 ☞️ talk 06:47, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:*Option 1 Just make life simple and pick whatever the 7 millionth article actually is. The 5 millionth was a stub and the community ended up expanding it into a featured article. The 6 millionth article barely even got any press. I don't think it's anything to worry about. No need to be misleading.

:~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 00:22, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

• Option 1, oppose symbolic selection because no one has a crystal ball to know how the selected article will turn out in the future. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 04:30, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
• Option 2. There is no "true" 7 millionth article. The determination of one is purely ceremonial, and we are not lying or being dishonest to readers by choosing the best-quality one that was created around the time of the milestone. Even CX Zoom's purportedly objective approach above to determining the "true" 7 millionth article is flawed. How do you determine the time at which to "freeze" the database (step 1)? What makes that time more significant than other times? We are constantly deleting articles in addition to creating them, so it is possible that we hit 7 million articles, an article gets deleted and we're back to 6,999,999, and then the next article becomes another 7 millionth article. You could argue that it should be the first article that gets the count to read exactly 7,000,000 that should get the distinction, but we have no technical ability to validate that kind of thing, especially with the fact that Wikipedia servers experience database replication lag, so even in the backend, multiple databases might disagree with each other on when exactly that 7 millionth count was crossed. We should just do what we've always done: choose the highest quality one as a means to celebrate the milestone and then move on to bigger and better things. Mz7 (talk) 04:49, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
• I'm for trying Option 1 first and then going for Option 2 afterwards if Option 1 fails. I'm not going to rule out Chaotic Enby's Option 3 proposal modified (perhaps one or two high-quality Belarusian articles to be included in that hypothetical list) either, as it does seem to be another backup here. However, this decision isn't as much of a big deal in my personal opinion (and my opinion only); the average reader isn't going to think about what is the true or symbolic 7,000,000th article—they will likely just figuratively nod and go on with their day. — 3PPYB6 ^{(T / C / L)} — 05:17, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
• Option 2 - without any proposal about how an option 1 would overcome the existing technical problems (and as has been said the method stated above certainly doesn't) we wouldn't actually be getting any less of an arbitrary pick (and certainly no more certainty that whatever it produces is the real 7M). How many articles can fit on the head of a pin? Cakelot1 ☞️ talk 06:54, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
• Option 2 - Let's not reward people who (theoretically, not pointing at any specific editor) simply tried to time their article submission so it was the 7 millionth or other such gaming of the system, let's chose the kind of article that we'd like to see more of. FOARP (talk) 13:41, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
• Comment There is no need to reinvent the wheel every millionth article. Look at what we went through with the 6 Millionth article. It's basically impossible isolate THE exact article that was the 7 Millionth. So, instead, you look at a range of possibles and pick the article that is most representative of Wikipedia. Call it subjective if you must but technically, we don't have the ability to determine, with certainty, which one article was the 7 Millionth one published. So, you give up the embrace of absolute certainty and have a discussion of representation and symbolism. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 08:16, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the multiple threads above are causing confusing discussion, often falling away from the intended topic. So I am opening this section to focus discussion in one thread to determine consensus. In reviewing everyone's approach, it appears that the following articles are candidates:

• Nikolay Alyokhin by {{User|BeanieFan11}}
• Khorastava rural council (since moved from Khorastawski rural council) by {{User|Altenmann}}
• Taraxacum angustisectum by {{User|MallardTV}}
• Operators and Things by {{User|Therapyisgood}}
• 1955 Yuba–Sutter floods (since moved from 1955–56 Western United States floods) by {{User|EF5}}
• British American Hospital by {{User|AlejandroFC}}

Note, these are all articles were determined using [https://quarry.wmcloud.org/query/94043 this tool] earlier today, looking at all the articles created +/-20 around 7 million, as well as reviewing the different methods to hone in on the final list. Of those 40 articles, there are seven unique editors (the only one I removed was Rafael Adrover because it is a cross-project redirect). I then took the article closest to 7 million for each editor, based again on that tool and the other methods presented here. I think regardless of what is determined to be the highlighted article, this is the list we highlighted to show the unique contributions of Wikipedia editors.

Now on to the 7 millionth. Based on past milestone discussions, I see this choice as purely a discussion based on consensus, involving editor discretion to recognize and highlight high quality contributions by the community. Regardless of where you stand on the topic of mass creation of short, one to two line stubs (not commenting on the worthiness or notability of the topics of those stubs), it is plain to see that the quality of these six articles can be split, with the current status of British American Hospital and Khorastava rural council vastly different than the remaining four articles. I would argue that both articles are unlikely to be greatly expanded any time soon and would thus not serve a great purpose in highlighting high quality contributions (and to be clear, I value a well-sourced, complete article over a two line stub any day).

Looking at the remaining four articles, all of them have relevant photos. All of them are fairly well written. All of them have at least a handful of sources. At this point, I am not sure how best to proceed other than a very straightforward "what's your preference". So let's talk about how we proceed? « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 21:47, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:Obviously I’m completely biased so I won’t be voting for a specific article, but I’d like to see one with at least an image and the “basics” (see also section, formatted refs, an infobox and at least ten references). I don’t think we should be going purely on length, but more on quality. ^EF⁵ 21:50, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:I've gone through the various efforts on the talk page to find the "true" 7 million; it looks like the dandelion, the Operators book, and multiple councils are all in the running. If we're only choosing one (and not going with a slate as other editors have suggested), I think it should be between the book and the dandelion. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 22:07, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Update: after careful consideration, I’m casting my vote for the book. I think there’s a very strong case that it is the true 7 millionth article slot; the fact that it’s a well-written article that reflects positively on Wikipedia is a nice bonus. I recommend that our write up give a special shout out to MallardTV’s dandelion article(s) and that he get something shiny on behalf of this discussion group; his contributions were well-written and deserve recognition even if he doesn’t get the 7 millionth article slot slot. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 03:24, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::That shout out will be its inclusion at the section "Articles created near the same time", alongside the likes of Nikolay Alyokhin, Khorastava rural council, and 1955 Yuba–Sutter floods, which are all well-written and with +5 refs. Luis7M (talk) 03:59, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::Looking at them, I have a question. Has the lead image in a million milestone article been fair use before? MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 22:15, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::There's nothing inherently wrong with fair use images; book covers are almost universally used as fair use and definitively accepted per our policies and guidelines. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 22:18, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::cool beans, I still am a fan of the dandelion (always and forever) MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 22:19, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::It looks like [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=El_Hormiguero&oldid=156957561 El Hormiguero] did actually have a fair use lead image when it snagged the 2 millionth article slot back in 2007. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 22:22, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::Honestly, between the dandelion and the book, I think I would choose the book. The only differentiating factor for me is that {{U|Therapyisgood}} created only one article that was in a good condition at the time of creation. That is not taking away from anything or anyone's contributions. It's just the only differentiating factor for me. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 22:26, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:: What makes the flood and fencer article not in the running? BeanieFan11 (talk) 22:30, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Nothing, just stating that assuming {{U|Spirit of Eagle}} approach is sound, between the two I would choose the book. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 22:32, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::::Personally, without bias, I pick the dandelion becuase if the article is to be put in any place else where an image to go with it would be good, they couldn't. All of the images in the dandelion article are free. MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 22:38, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:Excluding the rural councils, the articles who have been cited most often as the true 7th million are the dandelion and the book, and between the two, my vote goes to the book, because it has more sources, more prose, not to mention that it's been covered in academic literature.

:I know that this is not a good argument, but I would like to point out that "plant stuff/species" is already represented at the 5th-million article, so a book as the 7th million will show more variety. Luis7M (talk) 22:34, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:None of the above. Celebrate the fact that there are now 7 million articles on Wikipedia, and that fact is due to the joint contributions of the 49 million people who have created accounts over the years. Celebrating an article by someone who happened to press "submit" at just the right time to increment the counter just over 7 million is completely missing the point. RecycledPixels (talk) 22:42, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::I agree with you on this, I think its more of a symbolic tradition than anything else. MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 23:21, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::I appreciate this line of thinking as well. If not for those who wrote 1 million articles since the last milestone, this discussion would have been moot. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 23:22, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:Have the bounds been set or is anything 2:26 fair game? Jeannie Rice wouldn't be the worst choice, it has room for improvement... Bremps... 22:44, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

::Jeannie Rice is a good subject but there's a couple of issues. Firstly, you moved it into mainspace at 2:25. You then moved it to and fro between draftspace and mainspace at 2:26 but that seems to have been an afterthought. What was the reason for that?

::The other issue that, by convention, you can only have one entry in the shortlist table and you've already got the fencer.

::Andrew🐉(talk) 08:37, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Touche that the moving was odd, but I wasn't the fencer article person. That was BeanieFan11. Bremps... 15:16, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:This book Operators and Things was reprinted multiple times. For those who don't know, being reprinted is a rare event for a book, and so it suggests that the book is of above average interest to the lay readership. Even more amazingly, [https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=ti%3AOperators+and+Things&author=O%27brien%2C+Barbara according] to WorldCat it's been translated into Italian and Portuguese. If User:DGG were still with us he would tell us that really means something. Abductive (reasoning) 23:28, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:according to a quarry search from right after we hit 7 mil, Taraxacum akteum was number 7,000,000. I have added an image and could esily get it to C class within the hour. I have all the sources here I just didn't have time to put it all in before we hit 7 mil. MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 00:44, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::@Gonzo fan2007, since you seem to be the most in-the-know, what do you think of this? MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 01:16, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::: Not Gonzo, but it looks like that list has Nikolay Alyokhin at .998, which makes me doubt whether it is correct. I had refreshed the Special:Statistics page and got 6,999,998, then a second later hit 'publish' on that article, so I'm not sure how Alyokhin would be .998 unless a deletion or something was also made that very second? BeanieFan11 (talk) 01:21, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::there seemed to be a few deletions near the end, but I'm not sure MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 01:29, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::{{ping|MallardTV}} {{ping|BeanieFan11}} "from right after", bro, that was made three hours later. By then, some articles had already been deleted/drafted, and likewise, that quarry is shifted by ≈5. The true 7th million was either Taraxacum angustisectum, Operators and Things or Khorastawski rural council, while Beanie's creation was between 7,000,002 and 7,000,004... Luis7M (talk) 02:22, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::It was the middle of the night for me so my perception of time may have been off. MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 02:27, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::Could also just have been lag, given as that's when I published mine as well. MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 01:33, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::It looks like the quarry was made over 3 hours after we hit the 7 millionth article slot, meaning there was a lot of time for the article count to shift around due to deletions, redirects, and so on. Given how extraordinary close things are, I’m not sure this is really that persuasive. (I encourage you to continue arguing your case). Spirit of Eagle (talk) 02:21, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::Well, I guess I have two articles then that could technically be claimant to the 7 mil spot. One just seems to be generall accepted, while one is supported by this data. Taraxacum angustisectum and Taraxacum akteum. MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 02:26, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::Its quite evident that you are very eager for this honour, but unfortunately for you, I believe this discussion will have to be settled academically, in which case this honour will almost certainly fall on Operators and Things, not only due to its quality and sources, but also due to being extremely close to actually being the 7M.

:::::::If you really want this honour, then I will let you know that there is currently a discussion about draftifying +1100 cricket stubs created by Lugnuts. I believe they have already reached consensus to draftify them, but first they have to correct/undergo some technical stuff, so if you can help them with that, you might actually get a second chance. There is also hundreds of articles who are not ready for mainspace... Luis7M (talk) 03:13, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::In fact, the cricket stubs are now under active processing (improving our changing into redirect) and their number slated for deletion decreased from 1,200+ to 1,010 and going down. Since we have 7M+660 and going up, I am sure by the moment when cricketers are done with, we will still be left with 7M+. --Altenmann >talk 07:13, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::{{ping|Altenmann}}, when a bio is turned into a redirect, does the number of articles decrease? If the answer is yes, then it means that someone could literally process those +1,000 articles (mostly redirects) over the course of the next few hours, which coupled with the drafting of several one-line stubs with no foreign wiki, and boom, we would be set back to 6,999,500, and a second race would issue. Luis7M (talk) 07:25, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::{{ping|Luis7M}} Formally, the announcement says "The English Wikipedia has reached 7,000,000 articles" - and indeed it did. So IMO the worry about crickets is moot. After all, it will be fun t make anoither annoucement "The English Wikipedia has reached 7,000,000 articles AGAIN!" This will definitely cause some stir in the media :-), talking about publicity. --Altenmann >talk 07:33, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::{{ping|Altenmann}} Listen, if you are down, I'm down. That would be pretty epic indeed. But I need a better understanding on how to process those cricketers, because I don't want to screw anything up. Luis7M (talk) 07:47, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::{{ping|Luis7M}} I guess you have to ask developers. If they say a redirect is a killer, then you have to ask "decricketers" to take a break for a month or so; these nanostubs are here since 2015, a bit longer no biggie. AFAIK one of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Blue_Square_Thing active redirectors] is User:Blue Square Thing. --Altenmann >talk 07:59, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::::{{ping|Altenmann}}, Listen, I did not understood a single word of what you just said, but Blue Square Thing is currently very busy, so I'm sure he would really appreciate if we finished what he started, AKA redirecting what should be redirecting. If we committ, we can do it. Luis7M (talk) 08:22, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::::{{ping|Luis7M}} Sorry, English is not my best skill. Let me say it in another way. If replacing an article with a redirect decreases the Wikipedia article counter, then we may ask to postpone these replacements until the article count reaches the safe level, i.e., it will not drop below 7M after massive deletion/redirection of cricketer bios. Otherwise all this 7M hassle will repeat again. --Altenmann >talk 08:30, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::::The potential cricket merges are not large enough to be a relevant issue here, we are already 600+ over 7 million. CMD (talk) 08:26, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::::::Yes, that was my first comment about cricket in this thread (and now it is over 700+ over. :-). --Altenmann >talk 08:32, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::To be 100% honest, I’m happy for the book. I’m just glad I got to be a part of this. I haven’t slept in 48 so I’m going to bed now! MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 05:29, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

{{tq| are unlikely to be greatly expanded any time soon}} - baseless opinion. Take a look at Khorastava rural council now. And I only started digging into history and geography. And each and every "useless stub" of mine can be expanded thusly. --Altenmann >talk 00:00, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:{{U|Altenmann}} you have been warned multiple times to remain civil. Consider this a last warning before a block. Please stop commenting on editors and focus on content. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 00:06, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::I was careful enough to comment on an opinion, not on a person. Even highly respected people have ignorant opinions. So, now I cannot say that some opinion is mistaken and has no real ground? --Altenmann >talk 00:08, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::I appreciate you revising your comment above, which is still easily found in the page history. As a reminder, you have been warned. Please tone down your commentary and avoid inflammatory comments. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 00:14, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:Editing things only when people call you out on them, as you did to your comment, is far less helpful than just doing right by them the first time. A lesson we could all learn I suppose. Parabolist (talk) 01:02, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:I left a comment at the pub to this effect, to repeat it here: I boldly propose simply not selecting an article. The choice is clearly a source of conflict, and there have been concerns regarding incentives to be selected (so to speak). Against this, I do not see what benefit there is to picking an article. This is especially the case as we do not know (can not know?) what the 7 millionth article actually is, so it's a guess in the end anyway. Celebrate the overall milestone, maybe the date, without picking an article. CMD (talk) 03:25, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::It's a tradition though. MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 03:33, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::If so, not one that has a very clear process. CMD (talk) 05:36, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::I agree with CMD. Select no article. Doing so, and naming the "author", only encourages gaming. Wehwalt (talk) 13:58, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

• I agree that one of Taraxacum angustisectum, Operators and Things or Khorastava rural council are likeliest to be 7 million. At this point, each one has been somewhat improved and would be an acceptable choice. I am somewhat unthrilled with the level of activism that their authors are exerting on this page, so I suggest a third alternative: chance. Have someone uninvolved stream themselves substituting Template:Random number on this page. If its between 0 and 32 inclusive, its Taraxacum angustisectum. If its between 33 and 65 inclusive, its Operators and Things. If its between 66 and 99 inclusive, its Khorastava rural council. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 04:17, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
• :I'm sorta joining the conversation late, but I had a crazy lightbulb moment. If an article is going to be chosen by chance, you can still do so in a way that appreciates articles that have integrity or that are more "fit" to represent a milestone article. I'd like to pitch a weighted random selection. The article with the most integrity (which people can discuss), will have the highest weight. The second most-integrity-having article will have half the weight. The third most-integrity-having article will have one third of the weight, and so on. For a selection of three articles, the numerical weights can be 6, 3, and 2. Then pick a number between 1 and 11. The more integral articles are more likely to win, but at the end of the day, it's still a random chance. It's like the in-between option for choosing some article and choosing the best candidate. Diriector_Doc├─────┤^Talk_Contribs 04:32, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::Weighing the articles would take a while (and be subject to the same problem we're having here) and we're already more than 24 hours late, so I'm trying to come up with a quick solution. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 04:39, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::@Diriector Doc This isn't an NBA draft lottery and we're not going with weighted selection to make the whole selection process even more complicated. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 04:44, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
• :@CaptainEek – I'd consider myself uninvolved, so I'll pitch in with my random number: the random number is: {{Mod|(({{#time:U}}+({{#time:z}}))*(67)+({{NUMBEROFARTICLES:R}} mod (67)))|100}}, if your proposal were to bear fruit. Thanks. — 3PPYB6 ^{(T / C / L)} — 04:58, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::Alas, you will need to stream yourself doing that, i.e. on Discord, to a watching crowd, otherwise you could have just typed a number ;P I'm working on finding an admin on discord who would be willing to do that. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 04:59, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
• :::@CaptainEek – That and the fact that subst'ing {{tl|Random number}} leads to another hidden formula that just updates itself every single time I purge the cache. I obtained 83 through RANDOM.ORG, lower bound 0 and upper bound 99 (inclusive). I have photo proof, but I can also screen record myself doing it again... — 3PPYB6 ^{(T / C / L)} — 05:03, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
• :::Okay, my idea won't work like I'd hoped, as substituting random number doesn't actually just give a number, it substitutes the rng part and keeps making a different number. Hold on. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 05:03, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
• :{{ping|CaptainEek}} I strongly oppose going for chance when there is already a general consensus for the book, having received support from Spirit of Eagle, Gonzo fan 2007, Ubductive, and me.
• :Furthermore, out of the three authors in question (Altenmann, MallardTV, and Therapyisgood), the one responsible for the book has been the quietest, which shows that he has been the least eager to get this milestone. Luis7M (talk) 05:07, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::I supported the book from the beginning, so if it looks like we have a rough consensus for book, then I'm happy to get this over with! CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 05:10, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
• :::{{ping|CaptainEek}}, the only ones supporting the dandelion and the rural council are their respective authors, both of whom created multiple articles to get the 7M, and who have then been super active during this whole process. The author of the book, however, has behaved himself with much more dignity and without any shenanigans.
• :::Furthermore, the book is clearly the strongest article out of the three.
• :::D Luis7M (talk) 05:27, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::::I support the book over anything else. I think I’ve come to terms with the fact that it just beats my article. Respect to the author. MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 05:48, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::I also support the book as being both a strong numerical candidate and a genuine article without any shenanigans. I am strongly opposed to the random number idea as that would be a novel process without any precedent. The traditional way of determining consensus on Wikipedia when there is a dispute is the RfC. Andrew🐉(talk) 05:19, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:Consensus is already beginning to emerge, but I'm going to look from an article quality lens as of 05:42, 29 May 2025 (UTC) here, and according to CaptainEek's list. From what I see so far:

:* Flow of Taraxacum angustisectum seems OK. It has decently expanded sections, but using articles such as Apple or Tuber magnatum as benchmarks, there could be some expansion left to do here. This obviously isn't fair as literature on T. angustisectum is rather sparse (TWL searches yielded few results), but perhaps I can dig deeper and find out some more about it when I have more time.

:* Flow of Operators and Things seems OK as well. Sections are also decently expanded, but slightly more detailed than the article on T. angustisectum. Using another memoir, Night here, I'm looking at a few improvements being an expanded synopsis (lower priority) or analysis of the autobiography (slightly more important), but care should be taken to provide due weight to each analysis as always. Of course, due to that it is missing a few details as well (as is most recently written articles), but it does seem to have the bulk of its content complete. Literature on this was also rather sparse, but I did find a report from JAMA (incorporating this would obviously have to consider WP:DUE but that's not important as of the moment).

:* Flow of Khorastava rural council is more cluttered than the previous two articles mentioned. Literature here is also rather sparse (I did find a few sources in Russian, but I'm not too sure about their reliability here). Owing to that, the article in question does seem as expanded as I think is possible, but I could always dig deeper if I have more time.

:What am I leaning towards? In terms of quality, I'm positioning it at: Operators and Things at first, with T. angustisectum coming in at second, and Khorastava rural council at a distant third. If one were to use proposal #2 as in the thread above this, then I'm leaning towards Operators and Things here. Keep in mind this only applies to the time of writing, at 05:42, 29 May 2025 (UTC), and quality can change in the future. Thanks. — 3PPYB6 ^{(T / C / L)} — 05:42, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

• I quite like Operators and Things personally, but I think Taraxacum angustisectum or 1955 Yuba–Sutter floods, would be excellent choices too. Cakelot1 ☞️ talk 07:01, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:I prefer Operators and Things as it is the most interesting article here 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 Abo Yemen (𓃵) 08:33, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

• Strongest possible oppose to any recognition for any article created through a violation of WP:MASSCREATE, or which passes as notable only because of an SNG which may well change in future (meaning that we have the embarrassment of our 7 millionth article being deleted).

:On that basis, I'd prefer Operators and Things as a first option and 1955 Yuba–Sutter floods as a back-up. No recognition to a list of all of these or anything like that. FOARP (talk) 13:35, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

It looks like there's rough consensus for the book, so here's my draft of the template. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 05:32, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:@CaptainEek Personally, I would remove “a” from the short description. MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 05:35, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:{{ping|CaptainEek}} I have just turned Rafael Adrover from a Wikispecies redirect to a full bio, hence making it eligible to the section of "articles created near the same time", given that Adrover was created at 2:26, just 10 slots before Operators and Things, while British American Hospital was created at 2:27, at 23 slots after. It seems I will be a part of this after all.

:Furthermore, I would put MallardTV's creation at the top (as it was the closest), followed by Altenmann's, Beanie's, the floods, and Adrover. Luis7M (talk) 09:59, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::I’d personally replace the hospital article with Adrover, it’s noticeably shorter than others in the list and wasn’t created at the same minute, rendering it an outlier. ^EF⁵ 12:15, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Disagree with adding Rafael Adrover or replacing the hospital article with Adrover at such a late stage of the discussion. Adrover article is also not shown in Gonzo fan2007's [https://quarry.wmcloud.org/query/94043 SQL query] so we don't have strong evidence for Adrover other than page history's timestamp. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 13:18, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::{{ping|OhanaUnited}} Adrover does not show up in Gonzo fan2007's SQL query, but it does show up in [https://quarry.wmcloud.org/query/94043 this one], which was made just three hours later, and which clearly shows that Adrover was created just 10 slots before Operators and Things. Therefore, Adrover is much more eligible for the section of "articles created near the same time" than the British American Hospital, which came 23 slots after. Luis7M (talk) 14:52, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::Luis7M, and it's one of the higher-quality "2:26" articles as well. — ^EF⁵ 15:02, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:Looks good! Although change it from “a flood series” to “a devastating flood”; the flood event wasn’t a series. I added that during my initial research about it continuing till 1956 and forgot to remove it. ^EF⁵ 12:08, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::Remove or at least collapse the "articles created near the same time" bit, since some of them were created in apparent violation of WP:MASSCREATE. FOARP (talk) 13:53, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::None but one of the articles listed seem to violate that. Mallard only made ~7 (far from WP:MASSCREATE), I only submitted one, I think Alejandro only submitted one, and Beanie submitted one. I’d support a removal or replacement of the council one, given the circumstances. ^EF⁵ 13:56, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::{{ping|User:EF5}}, exactly, and I also only submitted one at 2:26, which was Adrover. Luis7M (talk) 14:55, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

• While certainly not mandatory, {{ping|Therapyisgood}} if we go with this would you consider at least temporarily making your userpage a redirect to your talk page? Before we drive a lot of traffic to a redlink userpage. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:52, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:{{ping|AlejandroFC}} as well? — xaosflux ^Talk 15:53, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::If not, perhaps short-term creation protection -- just to avoid disruption from random readers that may get driven here. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:54, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::{{ping|Xaosflux}} I'm open to making the redirect. I'm not so familiar with the templates, which should I use to make the redirect? Also can I get semi-protection for my userpage? Thank you so much. Therapyisgood (talk) 16:20, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::{{U|Therapyisgood}}, I just linked to your talk page instead, so that it is a blue link. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 16:23, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Thank you, if you wish to use:

::::#REDIRECT User talk:Therapyisgood

:::that's it nothing else fancy needed. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:02, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::{{U|Therapyisgood}} what {{U|Xaosflux}} is proposing is how I have my user page set. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 17:11, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::Hi, not sure what's happening here to be honest, but sure, I created a redirect. All the best. AlejandroFC (talk) 01:01, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

Should the {{tq|The English Wikipedia has reached 7,000,000 articles with}} wording be changed? Clearly it didn't "reach" nor is it the true seven millionth, we picked it out. Verifiable accuracy is one of Wikipedia's five pillars, and given a ton of people are about to view this I don't know why we shouldn't uphold standards and lie to the reader. — ^EF⁵ 13:09, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:Personally, I would put in some language succinctly describing our rational for selecting the article. I believe this article does have a strong claim to being the “true” 7 million (I wouldn’t have voted for it if it did not). I wouldn’t claim it’s totally arbitrary, just that we can’t be 100% certain that we got it right.Spirit of Eagle (talk) 13:18, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::Yes, it does have a strong claim, but saying it is the seven millionth is a stretch. Also, could someone de-squish this thread? It got stuck under the template and I haven't been able to fix it. ^EF⁵ 13:20, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::To be clear, I completely agree. Maybe say there were multiple strong contenders for the slot and that of these contenders, the book was chosen to be a symbolic representative of the group. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 13:29, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::Spirit of Eagle, that'd work. Maybe replace the "Articles created near the same time included" with "other candidate articles to represent the 7 millionth included", given all above were discussed as being candidates? — ^EF⁵ 13:33, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::Better just to collapse or link to a bigger list. FOARP (talk) 14:01, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::24 of the twenty-something articles at 2:26 (and at least a hundred more following) were Belarusian councils, so that wouldn’t work. I don’t see why we can’t have an “other candidates included” mini-list of articles that weren't WP:GAMEd and which have been discussed as legitimate candidates. The above one seems best, although per above I’d support removal of the council given the WP:MASSCREATE vio. ^EF⁵ 14:06, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::Oppose removal of Belorussian councils from the list. Invoking WP:IAR. And creating 24 articles in a single occurrence hardly falls under definition of {{tq|large-scale automated or semi-automated content page creation}} in MASSCREATE. @{{u|FOARP}}, Do you have any actual evidence to support your position that those council pages were created through automated or semi-automated process? The author [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Seven_million_articles&diff=prev&oldid=1292660307 denied] using any bots and [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Seven_million_articles&diff=prev&oldid=1292814334 others] confirmed the approach is doable by anyone without using bots. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 14:36, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::OhanaUnited, they created over 200 in a span of less than ten minutes, well over 24 or 40. The entire thing was discussed extensively yesterday, though, and we should probably drop it. — ^EF⁵ 14:37, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::: Ohana, I have no desire to, but should I wish to, I could create about 30–60 articles per minute without automation, thus about 300–600 in ten minutes, possibly more. I would prepare the articles weeks in advance each in a separate tab (using ten to twenty Vivaldi browsers), each tab scrolled down to view the Publish button, then save the whole thing in a [https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/tabs/session-management/|Vivaldi session], to clear the decks and liberate my computer for other things. When H-hour arrived, I would open all 600 session tabs in one operation. It would then take me two operations per tab to create an article: one click to publish, and one Ctrl+Tab shortcut to move to the next tab. Two hundred in 10' seems eminently doable. Mathglot (talk) 20:38, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

:At the thread for determining the 5 millionth article, there wasn't a huge debate about the "best" article. We just picked the true 5 millionth. Not sure why that would be so difficult to do now? We could probably figure it out if we really wanted to, even if that tool needs fixed or whatever. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 13:35, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::Consensus is currently against it, although both threads make it very confusing what we’re going with. ^EF⁵ 13:39, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::The program used to select the 5th million article was operating and compiling data before we hit the 5 million mark; it doesn’t look like the program would work retroactively. If anyone has some system that would allow us to pick the true 7 million with a high degree of certainty, they should absolutely be listened to. Otherwise, I think what we’ve done here is the best we are able to do. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 13:48, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::While the ship has sailed for the true 7 millionth article, lesson learned from 5 million mark is to take screenshots leading up to our next milestone (8 million) so we have a definitive 8 millionth article when it comes around. I agree with EF5 on verifiability being a cornerstone of Wikipedia. We shouldn't use "it's both art and science" as a valid justification for picking and choosing winners. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 14:21, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::Nah, we definitely should chose according to art and not according to something that's just going to be gamed with mass-created articles. It's probably no coincidence that the 5 millionth article was in a class that is typically represented by mass-created stub articles. FOARP (talk) 14:27, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::The first revision was a stub but it was expanded into a featured article. Though you're correct that the author did create quite a bit [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&end=2015-11-02&namespace=0&newOnly=1&start=2015-10-31&tagfilter=&target=Casliber&offset=&limit=500 that day] (most of them aren't stubs anymore though) ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 14:43, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::A couple editors thought that the 5 millionth article could have been one of several mass-creations about camera lenses. One of those editors commented "it's not clear to me that a camera lens is going survive deletionist attack so it might be best to pick something more defensible". Plantdrew (talk) 15:31, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::I only see one editor who thought it was a camera lens. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 15:43, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

: I would not be opposed to modifying {{tq|Articles created near the same time included}} to explain a bit more about how the representative article was chosen, maybe something like this: {{talkquote|Operators and Things was selected to represent the seven millionth article out of the articles which were created at the approximate time the project reached the milestone. Other articles created near the same time included:}} For the eight-millionth article, I see no reason not to proceed exactly as we have done here: identifying a shortlist of candidates which were created around the time of the milestone and then picking the most representative one by consensus based on quality. If we think "verifiability" is a concern (which personally I am not because readers can always just look at the talk page themselves to "verify" how we picked it), then I think the sentence we add above should resolve that concern. Mz7 (talk) 18:58, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::{{ping|Gonzo fan2007}} thoughts? — ^EF⁵ 19:01, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::My opinion is to stick with what we have for now. That said, if this change were proposed, I would recommend a new section so as to focus the discussion on the proposed wording change. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 19:08, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::Unless the actual 7-millionth article is "Operators and Things", the current wording is misleading and false. And no, most readers aren't going to check the talk page; they'll click bolded link and think "Oh cool, Operators and Things is the 7,000,000th article" and click away. Some1 (talk) 19:11, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::{{U|Some1}} have you read this page and the 6 millionth talk page? At the moment, there isn't a definitive process for identifying an exact article. Hypothetically, what would happen if Article A was created to hit 7 million, then a millisecond later, Article B was deleted, to bring it down to 6,999,999, then a millisecond later Article C was created to hit 7 million again, and then we never dipped back down below. Which article was the 7 millionth? We are literally talking about a computer processing concurrent actions and logging them as such. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 19:17, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::...which is why Mz7's proposed wording should be adopted. Some1 (talk) 19:19, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::Yea, Mz7’s clears up all the issues brought forth. ^EF⁵ 19:21, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::Since it's 3 in support and 1 against, I went ahead and made that change. Some1 (talk) 19:29, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::Some1, do you think it should be changed to "candidate articles included"? This is what was proposed above. — ^EF⁵ 19:55, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::Nevermind, I'll be WP:BOLD and do it; revert if you don't agree with it. — ^EF⁵ 19:57, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::I'd copied Mz7's proposed wording (word for word) from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Seven_million_articles#c-Mz7-20250529185800-EF5-20250529130900 his comment above]. But I think your suggestion is fine too. Some1 (talk) 20:01, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

Reading through everything above, it appears that there is consensus for Operators and Things to be identified as the 7 millionth article. The reason stated for this:

• Valid claim: the article has a valid claim to be the actual 7 millionth, having been created at the 2:26 mark. Without a program monitoring the data stream live, it appears unlikely we will definitively find an exact count.
• "Gaming the System": the community has expressed concern, both here and in the past, that creating short stubs, en masse, can be problematic. So, when given a choice, the consensus was to identify an article that was started [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Operators_and_Things&oldid=1292643445 in a good condition] by a user that only created one article in that timeframe.
• Quality: the article is well-written, sourced, and reflective of the type of quality that is desired for an encyclopedia. The recognition for 7 million articles should be focused on the article, not the original creator.

Additionally, I wanted to address a few other key points:

• Rafael Adrover was created as [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rafael_Adrover&oldid=1292643404 a cross-wiki redirect] and did not become an article until [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rafael_Adrover&oldid=1292878508 two days later].
• Jeannie Rice was [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Jeannie+Rice moved to article space, back to draft space, and then to article space] in a matter of 2 minutes. Thus, it's original creation occurred early. If an editor had moved a page to article space a few days prior, moved it to draft, and then back to article space to become the 7 millionth, I would find it highly unlikely the community would approve of such activity.
• Regarding WP:MASSCREATE, there does not seem to be a clear violation, although many editors expressed a sense that the spirit of the policy was not followed. Although creating ~25 articles in a minute doesn't necessarily require an automated process, the mechanics of it, the stub nature of the articles in question, the identification of coding errors that were brought up and not addressed prior to the creation of these articles, and the general sense that the purpose of these creations was tainted by some desire for recognition swayed the community's view to the negative.

Lastly, I want to conclude that this is no way takes away from the contributions of the editors on this page, or all the other editors who helped draft the last million articles. It takes a community to write this encyclopedia, and this community has shown its strength, both in quantity and quality, and we all should be proud of our work. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 16:01, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:{{+1}}, this is a good conclusion. Do we post, or...? ^EF⁵ 16:05, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::I am not sure of the logistics for sitewide notice of press release. I'll leave that to more experience editors, but note that generally everything should be ready to go for that {{U|EF5}}. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 16:27, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:Habemus articulum Cakelot1 ☞️ talk 16:24, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::We have an article! ^EF⁵ 16:27, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::White smoke appeared on the Main Page. Just a random Wikipedian^(talk) 16:42, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::Made me lol so hard {{U|Cakelot1}}. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 16:25, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum: habemus articulum! Eminentissimum ac Reverendissimum usorem, usorem Therapyisgood, usoris confirmati extensi numeri 37,810,350, qui articulus creavit Operatores et Res. uggh Latin cases suck... — 3PPYB6 ^{(T / C / L)} — 17:54, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:looks good to me. Is this going to be posted on the main page or..? 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 Abo Yemen (𓃵) 16:26, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::I believe the current plan is to stick {{tl|main page banner}} (probably along the lines of [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Main_Page_banner&oldid=937303148 this revision]) to the main page, see Talk:Main_Page#As we are perhaps hours away from our 7 millionth article... ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 16:32, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Done. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 16:35, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::🎉🥳 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 Abo Yemen (𓃵) 16:40, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:Good work everyone! Spirit of Eagle (talk) 16:39, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:@Gonzo fan2007 I think that the page should be at least semi-protected 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 Abo Yemen (𓃵) 16:42, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::Gonzo fan2007, I think all pages linked should be semi-ed. ^EF⁵ 16:43, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Pre-emptive protection is rarely used, as it goes against our motto to be the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. We don't semi-protect articles on the Main Page. Any issues can be reported to WP:RFPP. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 16:45, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::I think this page should be semi-ed given what just happened a couple secs ago. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 16:48, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::@Gonzo fan2007 [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Seven_million_articles&oldid=1292926550 uhh] 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 Abo Yemen (𓃵) 16:48, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::I semi-ed the 7 million page. I was referencing the actual articles themselves. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 16:49, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::Gonzo fan2007, unrelated, but the "The English Wikipedia has reached 7,000,000 articles with" issue remains unaddressed. ^EF⁵ 17:02, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::@Gonzo fan2007: Thanks for adding it, any chance you could remove {{nowrap from the wikitext? It's causing the text to go straight off the screen on mobile. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 17:05, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::It is only semi-protected, meaning most users should still be able to edit the page. The formatting is taken straight from the 6 million page, but feel free to improve upon it if you like. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 17:10, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:Congratulations @Therapyisgood Bremps... 17:32, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::Bremps, yes, congrats! Interesting read too; I'll order a copy if I have time. — ^EF⁵ 18:29, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

After being persistently insulted here by numerous people who alleged my malfeasance, I refuse being included into this list where the winner was selected in violation of the spirit of Wikipedia. --Altenmann >talk 18:23, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:I beg to differ, consensus is a cornerstone of the project. MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 18:49, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::Right, the consensus is I am a bot. Thank you. --Altenmann >talk 19:05, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:I agree that you shouldn't be included, given you didn't write the seven-millionth article. —Fortuna, imperatrix 18:54, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::Fortuna imperatrix mundi, let's not feed the WP:RAGEQUIT. — ^EF⁵ 18:59, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::Huh? Of course, somebody else was selected by a committee for this claim. But I did write all these articles that are under my name. I was accused of creating articles in violation Wikipedia rules, therefore I deleted myself. Somebody else insists on including me. Since the article was created in violation of rules, I moved it to draft space, but I was accused of disruption and threatened with immediate block. What an amusing selective application of rules. --Altenmann >talk 18:59, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:::{{U|Altenmann}}, you are beating a dead horse. Move on or take a break from this. Your contributions to Wikipedia are immediately released under creative commons, you do not own them. Your page moves to draft space, argumentative behavior, and tone have been disruptive. Continuing down this path is not helpful, and will lead to a block. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 19:07, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

:Been watching this whole kerfuffle from a distance. This is a very sensible solution and I support it, and the three rationales it is based on, wholeheartedly. Daniel (talk) 20:31, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

::To add to this, I think the whole discussion just really is what Wikipedia is in a nutshell. We had civility, consensus, discussion, quality, data, and a kerfuffle. This was an experience I won’t be forgetting. MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 21:07, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

This millionth was unusually vituperative. I suggest that for 8 million, potential winners be restricted from commenting beyond say a certain small amount. Any other post mortem reflections on how to make this run smoother next time? CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 02:37, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

:(1) We should establish a clear process for defining the actual article. (2) We should clarify beforehand whether the community will make the choice or its a simple count, regardless of quality or system gaming. (3) We should develop a tool or report that provides an actual count of articles 7,999,900 to 8,000,100.

:That said, based on current article production rates, which likely will slow down even more, we probably are still like 8 to 10 years away from 8 million. So not a pressing problem, per se. lol « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 02:41, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

::wheres the place where we can guess what date the 8 million mark will be achieved? I read somewhere that only 1 person guessed that the 7 millionth would be achieved in 2025 (the year at large!), which seems crazy to me. Ridiculopathy (talk) 02:53, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Ridiculopathy, that'd be WP:Seven-million pool. — ^EF⁵ 03:22, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

:This is a completely minority viewpoint, but I honestly don't think we should be celebrating what happened during this process at all, and neither should we strive for a repeat. This was easily the most chaotic and disruptive thing I've ever been in on-wiki, and was the exact opposite of fun for several people (who thought we'd see three ANI threads on a number!). I'd like to see the importance of the eight millionth toned down, e.g. not having a half-working banner and making it a WP:BIGDEAL to the point where people are GAMING low-quality stubs to try to get the eight millionth. You make a process a big deal, you deal with everyone wanting a piece of the importance. Some suggestions:

• No more "symbolic" nonsense which completely eliminates the entire point of this. To me, you either say the real seven millionth or be honest, instead of lying to the reader.
• Specifically warn against GAMING somewhere within the process to avoid a repeat of May 28.
• Change the big banner to a more subtle icon (like a topicon) to avoid making it a WP:BIGDEAL.
• I personally don't think limiting speech is how this should be done, but I would like to see more of a pushback against people voting for their own article, which is a realistic problem (not saying it necessarily happened here, though).
• Set a deadline for when the article should be chosen by; two days is far too many for this.

::For the next million, we need some kind of program that will mark it exactly, and then have the runners up for if it’s a spam article. That’s my opinion. MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 03:24, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

:::MallardTV, actually, thinking further, I'm going to oppose having an "eight million" celebration per the reasons I've outlined above. (sentiment is still there, though.) It's too much trouble for the community and unless definitive ways to fix the outlined issues are found I see zero reason why we need to keep doing this. Per CMD, other than "tradition" nobody's given a valid reason as to why this even needs to be done. Editing of the eight millionth article also has already significantly died down (last edit as of writing was 8 hours ago) so this evidently doesn't work as an improvement process. — ^EF⁵ 06:07, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

::::Just curious, did anyone review how this was handled for the 6 Millionth article? If you didn't (and I doubt many did) then that is the amount of attention this discussion will have for editors in 2-3 years, a group which may or may not include the editors weighing in on this topic today.

::::I'm sorry, EF5, but you can't set rules now for a future event. You can say whatever you want that reflects your opinion of how this process went (and to be fair, you should look through ALL of the "Millionth" landmarks that have happened on the project in the past 24 years) but it is up to future editors on how they want to commemorate this milestone, not us in this moment in May 2025. And given how the 7Millionth has unfolded, I doubt when the 8Millionth article gets close, that any one will return to this talk page to see what we said should happen at this future date. Give up trying to giving directives to editors in 2027 or 2028 that those editors will never read and much less obey and just focus on the current process. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 08:32, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::{{tq|I'm sorry, EF5, but you can't set rules now for a future event}} The whole point of this discussion was "Any other post mortem reflections on how to make this run smoother next time", so I don't see why I can't give reflections on how wildly this went. Sure, I can informally oppose an 8M commemoration now, hardly me "setting rules" (and is actually more me making a WP:POINT via direct discussion), but we'll see then how the mood has changed. I disagree that nobody will return to this when the time comes; this seems to have been the most chaotic and rule-bending commemoration so far and has really challenged how much of this is actually needed in my and other's eyes. And future editors can see the mood at this time and that could very well help set consensus. And overall, I still retain that this is the most chaotic (and arguably disruptive, depending on which aspect we're talking about) thing I've been involved with in my time here; take that and use it how you want. — ^EF⁵ 08:37, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

::::What if instead of highlighting article 8 million, we have a page like this that highlights the community's achievments as a whole in the past million articles? MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 14:08, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::That would work and eliminate the major issues that occurred with this installment. ^EF⁵ 18:48, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

::I agree with this, much of the discussion above felt like a few editors trying to push their own articles, instead of a community consensus. Definitely should have some rules in place for next time (maybe including disqualifying MASSCREATED stubs and trying to push your article in (nearly) every comment. Ideally its a quick(ish) conversation among a bunch of editors. JackFromWisconsin (talk | contribs) 16:51, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

:Agree with EF5, don't make it a big deal. Perhaps just don't do it. No-one has yet responded to my question as to what benefit selecting an article brings other than it being tradition, and that seems a weak reason to create a vituperative process. CMD (talk) 03:39, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

:Definitely water down the process as seen here, from someone who joined rather late. I did see cases of gross activism from some users for their respective articles, with some eventually coming to terms and some rather not. I think we need to remember this principle: is the average reader really going to care about all this? Not really. With respect to the extent, I will leave it to others to develop consensus, but in my view, we should:

:#Establish a criterion for the hypothetical 7,500,000th or 8,000,000th article to be of at least decent quality within a certain deadline (as people will celebrate 75% of the way to 10M), for example at 6~12 hours post-publication (crucially, this allows for incomplete stubs to be expanded and given a fair chance). As many others have pointed out, deleting an older article sometime along the way is eventually going to set back the 8,000,000th to the 7,999,999th and over time even the 7,980,193rd.

:#Create some sort of software to accurately ID an article's number per Gonzofan2007 in the proper moment (i.e.: at the time created). Ideally the true 8,000,000th article should coincide with the quality; if not then the previous criterion should only serve to foster more collaboration to bring up the article's status as a collective effort (as that's what Wikipedia is).

:#Limit aggressive activism for one's own article when the time comes. This could mean anything, but some suggestions are an editnotice/preemptive warning about civility/excessive activism.

:#Make it clear this isn't a big deal, and that it really is just another article created in a string of 7,500,000~8,000,000 hypothetically.

:But in light of all this, I again need to ask: will the average reader really care? Not really. So to impose these restrictions or not would only be to reduce internal disruption. In the end, what will be seen by the average reader is just a quick banner that they might not even notice. I guess that's my only true suggestion here—just to take into consideration what all this was from the viewpoint of the average reader, who would probably never venture here. I'll see how this turns out in ~2034 or so. — 3PPYB6 ^{(T / C / L)} — 03:45, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

::I asked for a better software tool in {{phab|T243696}} and was told no. Although there may be ways to automate it via clever user script or other solution. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 03:54, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

:::@CaptainEek – That's actually interesting. No wonder why this turned out so cluttered. I know nothing about JS, but someone could definitely do that (extract pageid, determine namespace and deleted status, whatnot...). — 3PPYB6 ^{(T / C / L)} — 04:08, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

::Here is an out of the box solution, a universal throttle on article creation near the landmark. -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. (talk) 15:19, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

• The process this time was much the same as for WP:6M and WP:5M and so seems fairly stable. The drama generated by Altenmann was exceptional but that sort of thing can happen in any Wikipedia activity and is usually dealt with individually. I'd therefore expect 8M to go much the same way. The main technical innovation and complication seems to be the potential impact of mass draftification but my impression is that this is unusual and so can be watched for on an ad hoc and exceptional basis.

: As there are several existential threats to Wikipedia including AI, [https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/04/25/wikipedia-nonprofit-ed-martin-letter/ politics] and legislation, we should not agonise too much about this. Best to warm up activity as the next milestone approaches and see where we are then.

: Andrew🐉(talk) 10:15, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

::Just like the live sub count in YouTube, live follower count on X/Instagram, should we need a live article count that count what article is new, maybe? I am working on this tool like Live Article Count that tracks all page creations, deletions, draftification and the removal of a redirect. That would be more accurate instead. Just a random Wikipedian^(talk) 12:15, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

Some rambling thoughts: we actually stopped tracking hundred-thousand milestones after the 600,000 mark. I’m assuming by that point, reaching another 100,000 just wasn’t as exciting to as reaching the first or fifth one. Second, according to Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub improvement, about 2.3 million (or almost exactly 1/3) of Wikipedia’s articles are stubs. Editors attempting to snag the x million slot usually attempt to do so by mass posting a ton of stub. I think at this point in Wikipedia’s history, writing solid C class articles or converting stubs to C class is a lot more beneficial than adding more stubs to the pile. On the flip side, I do really enjoy celebrating historical milestones and simply do not begrudge editors who attempt to “win” milestones (edit: within reason). (I think it’s a bit contradictory to both celebrate an accomplishment while also condemning individual efforts to get the accomplishment). Making discussions more tranquil and laying down some grounds rules on competition would of course be desirable. At this point I’m not making any long-term proposals, but any proposals would be guided by these considerations. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 14:00, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

:I think any post-mortem discussion is great to have, at least for posterity for whenever 8 million comes around and some editors want to see what happened. There's been questions about why do this. I would say for the same reason we have the WP:WIKICUP, WP:FOUR, WP:20, etc. Its nice to recognize our contributions, both in quantity and quality. The importance of Wikipedia in today's online world is growing exponentially, as a vast resource of knowledge feeding into AI and other technological advances. For those of us that have been around since pre-1 million articles, it blows my mind that we have cast such a large net and are still creating 400 new articles a day. It's fun to recognize milestones, even arbitrary ones. I think, again, this two biggest issues were the lack of an established process beforehand and some disruptive editing. Otherwise consensus came together about as easily as any other Wikipedia discussion. All that said, I'm burned out with all the 7M discussion and the AN/I thread. Unwatching the page, please ping me if you need a response. Cheers, « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 15:42, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

::I would think we should celebrate "millionth" until around 10M, and then rounder milestones. Just a random Wikipedian^(talk) 17:32, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Ok some final thoughts before I move on from the seven million article discussion. I think that we should continue to celebrate million milestones. Honestly, I like community events and being able to showcase the work of our editors. I think that we should absolutely have rules and systems in place ahead of time governing how milestones are selected to avoid this milestone's chaos. On the public facing announcement page, we should be transparent about how the x millionth article was selected. If we actually get some software that can pinpoint the next millionth article with certainty, great. If we only have the ability to narrow down the eligible articles and then use our discretion to select the winner, then also great but we should communicate this. Also, I do think we should have some rules in place regarding sportsmanship for future milestones. I don't actual mind editors competing to "win" milestones. However, I think there is a big difference between attempting to claim the milestone manually (such as by pre-writing some drafts and moving them to main space at an opportune time) and using bots to flood the playing field with hundreds of new articles within the span of minutes. Also, maybe going forward we could celebrate milestones other than article counts. Having a main page announcement to celebrate the 10,000th featured article or 50,000th good article would honestly be pretty awesome. Anyways, happy 7 millionth article everyone; I hope to see you all around Wikipedia! ~~~~ Spirit of Eagle (talk) 23:13, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

::::10k FA/50k GA is easier to know and the quality is ensured because they must pass all the discussions and the nomination reviews. Just a random Wikipedian^(talk) 04:14, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

::::Yes, I do think that million article milestones are worth celebrating. It takes years for Wikipedia to get from one million to the next in article count. If Wikipedia were gaining millions of articles every year, the million milestones would not be so significant. Fish567 (talk) 12:29, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

• We should do a minor celebration of the Wiki exceeding Xth million articles without selecting a specific article as the X millionth. The prospect of one's article getting such recognitition seems to be a perverse incentive in practice. --LukeSurl ^t c 20:51, 31 May 2025 (UTC)
• I tend to agree with LukeSurl: better to just celebrate the number rather than identifying a specific article. However, if we are going to have an 8th millionth article, it absolutely *HAS* to have been one that went through AFC/is non-stub on creation (or both), and we should make that clear ahead of time before the next wave. No more encouraging WP:Masscreate violations.

:As for what we get from this, it's an opportunity for a bit of press coverage (though to be honest I don't think there was much this time - maybe at 10 million?) and something to encourage people's efforts in general. FOARP (talk) 07:27, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

I see two major problems with the way the milestone recognition is currently implemented:

First, as User:EF5 points out, the wording on the project page (and :Template:Million milestones) is simply inaccurate. We don't know that this was the seven millionth article. We don't even claim to know it was the seven millionth article. Yet, we are telling the public that it is.

Second, the selection process is flawed and inherently leads to a bias towards the Anglosphere. The designated article is selected by "consensus", but there are no guidelines for this kind of a discussion. So, it's all just based on vibes. Besides that, if part of the criteria is that the milestone article should be immediately expanded and well referenced, then of course it's more likely that an article with an Anglo subject is going to be selected. The vast majority of English Wikipedia editors are English speakers. It's way easier for them to find sources for and write about an Anglo subject than say, an Italian mathematician or a Belarusian village council.

Going forward, if we're serious about accuracy and eliminating systemic bias, we should lay down some ground rules on how the milestone article is selected and how we present it to the public. —Surachit (talk) 16:12, 1 June 2025 (UTC)

File:English Wikipedia 5 million article log.png

:The process to determine the exact winner (not one by consensus, what's that???) is pretty simple (and an elegant solution, because it doesn't use any external tool, just MediaWiki features). It was tested in the 5 million milestone, as I stated in [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Seven_million_articles&diff=prev&oldid=1292550045 the page] (and was moved to this talk page in #Method). The problem was that nobody took a screenshot of the Special:Newpages embedded log as we did in the 5M case. I could have done it but I wasn't in front of my PC at that moment. We only needed somebody to do it, not even in the very second it happened but it would have been fine even seconds later. Regards. emijrp (talk) 19:01, 1 June 2025 (UTC)

::Emijrp, that's the issue though. It's clearly an inconsistent way to go about this and didn't end up working. — ^EF⁵ 13:21, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

• My position is that no-body should care what the actual 8 millionth article is, since it contributes to the achievement of getting to 8 million no more than the 7,963,183rd article did. If we're going to pick an article to be the symbolic 8 millionth for publicity/morale purposes, then it need not be the actual 8 millionth, and can instead be an article close to 8 million that was actually good. I therefore oppose implementing any solution for finding the actual 8 millionth as completely missing the point of what we're trying to achieve here. FOARP (talk) 09:27, 4 June 2025 (UTC)
• :How about nominal and actual as close as can be determined? Twin winners unless both are the same. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 04:19, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

:Frankly, Emijrp might have a point. At 6 million I had the newpages log open and watched it as it happened, which made figuring it out easier. This time I missed it because we hit the milestone sooner than expected due to the mass article creation, and thus had to work backwards. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 04:41, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

::Look sooner or invent software to do the looking automatically. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 04:45, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

:::It is not CaptainEek's fault that they were not spending 24 hours on the newpages log. CMD (talk) 06:35, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

{{Edit semi-protected|Wikipedia:Seven million articles|answered=yes}}

The font size for the body copy is much too large — scanning through the page feels like reading a massive header, which is rather cumbersome. The font size should be reduced for ease of reading:

-

This page currently includes the quote:

{{quote|text=Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing.|author=Jimmy Wales, co-founder}}

I feel like it's a bit misleading to include this quote here without context. It is not Wikipedia's goal to disseminate the sum of all human knowledge (WP:OBJECTIVE#Intention). I've seen people think it is because of this quote, but I don't think Wikipedia should perpetuate the misconception. — gabldotink [ talk | contribs | global account ] 06:23, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

:For at least the last 5 years, my userpage has noted that Wikipedia's mission is "to create a free encyclopedia, in a variety of languages, presenting the sum of all human knowledge." That's a moniker we use all over the place, so I'm pretty sure that is what we're up to. It is also inspirational and empowering, which is exactly the message we're trying to send. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 08:27, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

::I read it as an aspiration, rather than a quantifiable metric. CMD (talk) 09:06, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

:True, we don't want WP:INDISCRIMINATE spammers to have ammunition. On the other hand, it's just PR, and it's not like we put it in a policy document. Bremps... 19:41, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

::I'd argue that data =/= knowledge. We're obviously not collecting all information ever, we're making something useful. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 22:16, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

:::You can also semantically quibble over "sum", and I suppose in these times even the "human" part may have diverging meanings. CMD (talk) 03:51, 5 June 2025 (UTC)