Rationale of the proposer: The main effect would be to officially recommend using HTML superscripts and subscripts instead of Unicode subscripts and superscripts (e.g. 2 instead of ². This has generally been done on a de facto basis, for example in widely used templates like {{convert}}, {{frac}}, and {{chem2}}. I estimate only about 20,000 out of about 7 million articles use the Unicode characters outside of templates, mostly for square units of measure or in linguistic notation that should be put into a template. A lot of articles have already been converted to the HTML method, either organically or systematically.
This would also bless the exceptions for linguistic notation, which have arisen after complaints from some editors of that topic, who say these Unicode characters are specifically intended for that purpose.
The other exceptions and sections are I think just summaries of other guidelines, put in one place to help editors who are working on typography or e.g. asking the on-site search engine "how do I write subscripts?" when they really want to know how to write chemical formulas specifically. -- Beland (talk) 04:14, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support upgrading to guideline. I don't see any reason not to and this looks like good advice. However, I am also no expert on HTML/Unicode, so if some compelling issue with this proposed guideline emerges, please ping me. Toadspike[Talk]09:11, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support as good HTML/Unicode practice. However, it could be good to have input from editors who might be more directly affected by this (maybe editors who use screenreaders?) to make sure this will not cause any unforeseen accessibility issues. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 12:59, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For context, the reason Unicode characters are allowed for only 1⁄2, 1⁄4, and 3⁄4 is that these are the only fractions in ISO/IEC 8859-1; others can cause problems, according to Graham87 comments at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Mathematics/Archive 4#Accessibility of precomposed fraction characters. The only superscript or subscript characters in ISO/IEC 8859-1 are superscript "2", "3", "a", and "o". I would expect using HTML superscripts and subscripts consistently should avoid screenreaders skipping unknown characters (certainly mine reads out footnote numbers). I use a screenreader for convenience and not necessity, though, and I welcome comments from others! -- Beland (talk) 17:41, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That depends on the amount of money and volunteer time devoted to such a project. There are a variety of both proprietary and open source products that would need to be surveyed to see even how big the problem is. With no particular effort on our part, I expect the software actually in use will gradually support more characters over years and decades. Our own List of screen readers might be a good place to start. There are plenty of other Unicode characters we would also want to have supported; if someone wants to lead an effort to do this, I could make a list or even a page that could be used for testing. -- Beland (talk) 22:09, 10 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Support. Wikipedia talk:Citing sources is currently having extensive discussions about which rules apply to citations and which do not. Beland (talk·contribs) is heavily involved in these discussions. I believe those discussions should be resolved before any new related guideline are created. Failing that, I notice the essay has no mention of citations. This means whoever wrote it wasn't giving any thought to citations. Therefore an prominent statement should be added that it does not apply to citations. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:24, 20 April 2025 (UTC) The RFCs about citations have been resolved, leaving the status quo in place. And the essay does mention citations, although I didn't notice it because it wasn't very prominent. Maybe it should be in a more prominent place so an editor who comes to the essay looking for information about citations can find it. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:01, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think anyone is proposing to use Unicode superscript characters for endnote indicators? It seems reasonable for endnote contents to follow the general guidance on the use of superscript and subscript markup. isaacl (talk) 17:09, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think Jc2s5h means that if the original title of the magazine article is "e=mc²: How a simple formula change the world" (using the Unicode superscript) then WT:CITE is talking about whether it should be 'legal' to replace that ² character with a <sup>2</sup>. (What they're really talking about is whether, if one magazine capitalizes their titles as "Man In The Moon" and the next as "Man on the moon", these different approaches to capitalization can be put in the refs of the same FA or FL and called "consistent", in the sense of "consistently accepting whatever quasi-random capitalization style is used by each individual source without regard to whether it looks consistent compared to the neighboring refs", but if "copy each separate title with no changes of any kind" is accepted, then replacing a ² with <sup>2</sup> would probably also fall in that range.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:05, 26 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
HTML subscripts and superscripts should also be used inside citations. At the end of the section MOS:SUBSCRIPT#General guidelines it says: These guidelines also apply in citations [...]. This is fine. Subscript and superscript are just a matter of typesetting, replacing unicode subscripts with HTML subscripts doesn't change the meaning. Joe vom Titan (talk) 18:12, 27 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Jc3s5h, any interest in changing your vote now that WT:Citing sources#RFC on consistent styles and capitalization of titles has reached consensus against treating capitalization used by sources as an acceptable citation style? With that discussion closed and this essay noting that "these guidelines also apply in citations and template parameters," it seems clear that if promoted, it would not be an an acceptable citation style to retain whatever super-/sub-script formatting is used in the source title. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 16:06, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support with the obvious exceptions of references to characters themselves. I don't see why citations would have an exception here. Headbomb {t · c · p · b}10:50, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support elevating the essay as written to a guideline. It appears to give good practical guidelines for how to deal with most common situations, including the remark that it should apply inside citations. This is the only way to ensure consistent formatting since there are only few subscript and superscript unicode characters. Joe vom Titan (talk) 18:12, 27 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Here via WP:RFCC. There's obvious consensus to support here but I'm wary of closing an RFC on a new guideline with such low participation. I'll put it up on CENT. -- asilvering (talk) 19:34, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support, looks reasonable and sounds like it aligns with existing best practice, though I wonder if it is worth adding an explicit exception to confirm that the degree symbol ° should be kept for the normal scientific uses (temperature, arc measurement, etc), rather than using {{sup|o}}. The section about music notation using the two approaches interchangeably confuses things a bit. Andrew Gray (talk) 20:47, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No one objected to remove the degree symbol from the template or music guidelines, so I did so and converted articles using the removed parameter. -- Beland (talk) 18:29, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Although the degree symbol was historically derived from a masculine ordinal indicator, in modern usage it is not a superscript letter o, either visually or semantically, and it would be quite wrong to use <sup>o</sup> for degrees. I'm not sure why ° would be preferred to a character that is in ISO-8859-1, however. Rosbif73 (talk) 13:57, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the guidelines in MOS for degree signs never change, the recommending the template is not necessary and ° should be preferred. However, if most articles use the template and the guidelines change, then a change to {{degree}} automatically brings those articles into compliance with the new guidelines. I don't understand the last sentence, since the value of ° is the 8859-1 degree sign. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:18, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No articles use ° - all instances of that have been converted to U+00B0°DEGREE SIGN and database dumps are scanned for new instances every two weeks. It would save some work if we didn't encourage people to usethe HTML entity; it's easy enough to add from a phone keyboard or the desktop special characters pull-down. -- Beland (talk) 17:43, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If people need a way to enter special characters without touching their mouse, I would recommend {{subst:degree}} for this one. -- Beland (talk) 18:45, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I also agree that the degree symbol should be an exception, as the intended Unicode symbol is semantically different from a superscript o. I agree with Beland's change to the music template to standardize things there. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:52, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it's time to just implement it. The things people are discussing below were just suggestions by the closer, not part of the consensus; the key point is that the articles should not be left in mainspace, and even the gentle suggestion by the closer (which was in no way part of the close or consensus, and is in no way binding the way the requirement to remove them from mainspace is) has been met, since more than enough time has passed for people to review any articles that they believe were salvageable. Further steps forward can be determined after that part is implemented, but constantly re-litigating a settled RFC is inappropriate. --Aquillion (talk) 18:26, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The closing statement by @HJ Mitchell says, in part:
"However, I would urge the proposers not to charge headlong into the draftification process without further thought. A lot of people are uncomfortable with the large number of articles—a list of 1200 people from different eras and different nations is very difficult for humans to parse and I would urge the proponents to break it down into smaller lists by nationality, era, or any other criteria requested by editors who wish to evaluate subsets of articles. I would also urge care to ensure that the only articles draftified are those which clearly meet the criteria outlined, even if that takes longer or even considerably longer—we won't fix mass editing without due care by mass editing without due care. There is merit in the idea of a templated warning being applied to the articles before draftification takes place and in a dedicated maintenance category to give interested editors a chance to review. To that I would add a suggestion to check for any articles that exist in other language versions of Wikipedia."
What's your plan for breaking down the lists, avoiding more "mass editing [including draftifying] without due care", and adding warning templates in advance? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:33, 26 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Did you break it down into smaller lists by nationality, era, or any other criteria requested by editors who wish to evaluate subsets of articles? Or is it your idea that this part of the closing summary has magically expired because it wasn't done by your WP:DEADLINE? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:34, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what you mean, I ask as the quote WAID posted explicitly states it. Could you link to which criteria were requested? CMD (talk) 16:47, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The closing summary gives them as examples to be requested by editors who wish to evaluate subsets. Are there editors who wish to evaluate subsets, and have they requested these? CMD (talk) 16:59, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Firstly, why? Secondly, the discussion that was closed with the summary quoted above, this discussion, and probably other discussions in between the two.
If that is not enough for you, please take this as formal request to break down the list into smaller lists by era and nationality. Thryduulf (talk) 17:16, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Because that's what the close is looking for in quite plain language? It's a quite late request, but if you genuinely want to look through them I'll give you a couple. CMD (talk) 17:19, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I really don't understand why this is like pulling teeth? Yes, this is a genuine request to do what has been requested multiple times by multiple people in multiple discussions. Thryduulf (talk) 01:42, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is very hard to take that last claim seriously as you refuse to provide any links. Anyway, here are some to start you off. CMD (talk) 02:12, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, finally, for the lists but I don't understand why you need explicit links to the discussion we are currently having and a link to the original being referenced many times. The Australian list alone has 170 entries (which is still really too large for managability, hence the requests for nationality and era), so it's going to take a long while to do a Propper search on just them (and I'm just about to go to bed). Please be patient and remember that this could have started over a year ago now. Thryduulf (talk) 02:19, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't need links to the current discussion or the original discussion. I was asking for links to what the close asked for, for people to request specific divisions. If they didn't happen then please stop insisting they did. If the request were not made, that has nothing to do with me. I was barely involved in the prior discussion. CMD (talk) 02:35, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The "finally" is quite a particularly perplexing comment, these lists were produced less than a day after the first request. CMD (talk) 02:37, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That was explicitly framed as a suggestion by the closer, not as part of the consensus. It has no weight or force whatsoever. --Aquillion (talk) 18:27, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Chamindu Wickramasinghe – Sri Lanka – sources have been added, needs to be removed from the list. The draft note has already been removed from this article (in June 2024)
So? It is not up to those who don't think there is a need to delete/draftify the articles en-mass to work out which ones those who do believe that is a desirable course of action are referring to, let alone without the latter group having done what was explicitly noted as a prerequisite to deletion/draftification. Thryduulf (talk) 16:33, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Jay, I agree: You've had more than a year at this point to follow the directions in the closing summary and break it down into smaller lists by nationality, era, or any other criteria requested by editors who wish to evaluate subsets of articles. Time enough? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:49, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I would support draftify-ing those articles sooner rather than later, especially before Wikipedia reaches the 7 million articles mark. Some1 (talk) 14:04, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Can I point out that there's a talk page for this at Wikipedia talk:Lugstubs 2 list. I've already gone through a bunch of these articles, mainly New Zealanders, to suggest those that might be kept, those are, in my view, a merge – which retains the page history and is a valid WP:ATD – and those that might be deleted. Some have been improved. I've not gotten to all of them by any means. But that's somewhere that anyone about to make any of these a draft needs to have a look at first please. I've not done any work on these lists for a while as it's so time consuming and I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to look again, but a clear procedure for reviewing these was put in place. Ta Blue Square Thing (talk) 10:55, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
e2a: a quick look through the British and New Zealand ones suggests all are either keeps or redirects – I note a number that have had suitable sourcing added and some with suitable levels of detail, other than the ones that I'd worked through. I imagine the same is true of the Australians as well – an ATD will be available on almost every case if they haven't has sourcing added. I'm not entirely sure that the original list is really that valid from the POV of these subsets if I'm honest. It's certainly not a job that I would like to automate based on the list as it exists Blue Square Thing (talk) 11:07, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm working through the New Zealanders – 70+ done. There's an interim list at User:Blue Square Thing/sandbox3#NZ. Once I'm done (a few weeks I imagine – I have 22 left) I'll push that list to the same talk page as above
At Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cricket The-Pope has broken down the Australian list into state teams, which is really helpful. But these will take a while to get through
The instructions on the {{Special draft pending}} tag say that when sources have been added, the tag shouldn't be removed (why?), but instead the article should be listed at Wikipedia talk:Lugstubs 2 list for review.
However, so far, over the course of the last year, almost 200 articles have been individually reviewed and listed there (either with a recommendation to redirect or with sources), and this work has been ignored. The editor who wrote these instructions is no longer editing.
Should we:
Tell people to just remove the tags when they redirect or add sources? (This would require re-generating the list.)
Find some volunteers who will actually follow up on the chosen process? (I believe the process was boldly made up by one editor; I've seen no evidence of discussion, much less consensus.)
I really don't know what is the most effective way to do this. I can see the benefit to removing them as someone works on articles, but it involves removing them from two places. There certainly seems to be evidence that articles have been worked on without notes left on the talk page, so I'm not sure it's reliable to ask people to remove from two places.
It makes sense to redirect as we go though. Ultimately this is a human task – unless there's a really clever way to do it, I don't think it can be automated due to the need to redirect a huge number of the articles – in the original discussion I estimated 75% were redirects
On that subject, there was some discussion about the best way to do the draft/redirect process. MY gut feeling is that it's redundant to send articles to draft, have someone bring the article back to mainspace, and then redirect the article – the draft isn't deleted automatically and that creates more overheads. I think. A straight redirect is better I think
But it's difficult to do this when the tags are still on the articles, I agree. I would have started to do that last March, but for the process that was put in place... It will, fwiw, take some time Blue Square Thing (talk) 19:17, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If people pulled the template off the page when redirecting/improving, then we should be able to combine (e.g., with grep) the original list against the list of pages that transclude the template, to find which ones are still in need of work/eligible for being moved to the Draft: space. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:25, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Changing the template message just involves going to Template:Special draft pending and clicking the [Edit] button. However, I don't know how the opponents of these articles would feel about that. What if somebody adds a source and removes the tag, but they think the added source isn't good enough to justify keeping the article in the mainspace? They might prefer more bureaucracy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:11, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've now managed to work through all the British and New Zealand articles. Of the 50 British ones, seven need to be removed from the list as sources have been added, and the other 43 are probably redirects – although a number of them (at least 12) have significant possibilities (i.e. I know that if I could expend the time on them that they'd almost certainly have sources added). Of the 89 New Zealanders, one needs to be drafted, 40 have had sources added, and 48 can be redirected (with strong possibilities for 10 or so at least). The detail is at Wikipedia talk:Lugstubs 2 list. I'm about to start on the Zimbabweans.
Perhaps someone could let me know what they'd like me to do next? There's a list of 1,106. A great many of them will be redirects or drafts, but at the minute the note added to the top of each page stops me doing anything very much to those articles – one Charles Chapman (cricketer, born 1860) (British but not appearing on the British list for some reason) has been merged with Charles Chapman (rugby union) as they were the same person, but the article still appears on the original list. I have no idea what an automated attempt at this process would do to an article like that, but I can't imagine that any automated process will work, I can't remove the list, I don't think I'm allowed to redirect them, and I'm pretty certain I'm not supposed to remove them from the list.
Speaking only for myself, I'm annoyed by the fact that we had a lengthy discussion that came to a consensus to do something, and then didn't do it, and that we've had articles that have been allegedly pending being moved into draft space for years. I don't care much more about the procedure than that we get out of that state. * Pppery *it has begun...18:44, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So if BST removes the tags for the ones they think shouldn't be draftified, and pulls them off the list, then you're okay with that? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:46, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I tried to support it being done if someone wanted to do it. To be honest, I don't completely understand the situation, but if it helps I think the ones that @Blue Square Thing describes as probably redirects should probably be redirected? Or if the draft tags don't allow that, drafted. Enough time has gone by in my opinion if they're still unsourced -- don't know whether there was an already-fixed timeline?
If I'm understanding this correctly, I think we should just let people go through and draftify/redirect them all (except the sourced ones), removing the tags. If there are some that sources could be found for, well, new pages can always be created later with the sources. Mrfoogles (talk) 18:57, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
None of these are unsourced articles. The ones on this list were chosen because they:
were created by an editor who fell out of favor with the community, and
are sourced (only) to specific websites.
The tag was boldly created by an editor and suggests a new/unprecedented process that, e.g., claims that redirecting an article to a suitable list would still leave that redirect subject to draftification and eventual deletion. I suspect that his intention was to personally review any article that others thought was eligible to be left in the mainspace. However, he has since stopped editing, so we can't ask him how he thought this would work out in practice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:23, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Part of the problem is that you have to know where to redirect them to. Which is slightly tricky. Sometimes lists don't exist, which means we draft; sometimes you need to choose a list from options, which is OK but tricky. I can start to do that, but it takes time and is slightly difficult as it tends to rely on having accessed to a paywalled source. But it needs doing – the current situation is starting to get silly and I share the exasperation of Pppery because I could already have dealt with a couple of hundred of these
At least four have already been sent to draft and then the draft deleted. I thought the process we have here guaranteed that they wouldn't be deleted from draft space for five years? (from memory) That doesn't appear to be happening – for whatever reason Blue Square Thing (talk) 19:29, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
They were probably just draftified independently of the RfC without putting the tag on them.What about just draftifying everything you (or others) haven't already redirected or otherwise exempted via introducing IRS SIGCOV, then you can get started on deciding which other pages to redirect/exempt from within draft space? JoelleJay (talk) 16:15, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I was/am interested in working on this myself – I didn’t mean to imply with my comment that it’s somebody else’s problem. 3df (talk) 21:08, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Any that have not already been individually assessed as probably meeting notability criteria (or as being redirectable) should just be draftified. The whole point of their getting privileged draftification treatment was so that interested editors had 10x time to trawl through these articles after they were removed from mainspace: I find that there is a rough consensus in favour of the proposal, and a stronger consensus that they should not be left in mainspace. They don't get to hang around indefinitely in mainspace just because the same editors who staunchly opposed the consensus neglected to show any interest in the non-mandatory close recommendation of making more discretized lists (which are supposed to make it easier for the post-draftified articles to be parsed, not as a way for one editor to adopt a set beforehand and delay its articles' draftification by claiming they "need more time" to run through them individually). We most definitely do not need a second RfC to ratify the first one, and a year is more than enough for any editors who cared to ensure draftification is only applied to eligible articles. The rate-limiting step here cannot be the inaction of the same editors opposing draftification, that would completely defeat the consensus to remove these from mainspace. JoelleJay (talk) 20:25, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The rate-limiting step appears to be the inaction of the editors supporting draftification.
The immediate question here is, for the (small?) subset that has "already been individually assessed as probably meeting notability criteria (or as being redirectable)", how do we stop them from wrongly getting dumped in the Draft: namespace?
This would be a stupid process:
BilledMammal puts a page on his list of pages to dump in the Draft: namespace.
Alice reviews one. She decides that it does not meet the GNG and redirects it to a List of Olympic athletes from Ruritania.
Bob draftifies everything on the original list, including Alice's new redirect.
Chris un-draftifies the redirect, because it's stupid to have a redirect in the Draft: space when Alice has already determined that this athlete doesn't appear to qualify for a separate, stand-alone article and has already redirected it.
No. I am saying any that are already redirected or clearly ineligible can be removed from the list, any that are not are draftified NOW by an admin, per the consensus that these stubs should not remain in mainspace. The accidental draftification of false-positives is of minuscule concern: editors have 5 more years to go through them. JoelleJay (talk) 23:03, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Why the rush? As @HJ Mitchell pointed out in the close, it is more important to get it right than to do it quickly. There are currently multiple people actively working out what doing it right means. Thryduulf (talk) 23:38, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder whether the auto-deletion process in the Draft: space has been modified to accommodate this five-year timespan. I suspect that the answer is "no". WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:59, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
One year is not "doing it quickly". If the editors who believed certain articles ought to be exempted just never bothered to address those articles, then that's too bad for them: there was a consensus to remove the articles from mainspace and into a protected draftspace where they could be worked on, and a stronger consensus not to leave them around in mainspace for some indefinite length of time while some editors maybe work on some selection of them. You and WAID contributed like 50 comments in the RfC unsuccessfully trying to kill the proposal, now you're trying to do the same thing to its implementation. At some point this just becomes disruptive. JoelleJay (talk) 03:29, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Please read this entire discussion where all your complaints have been fully addressed and/or rebutted multiple times. I'm not trying to kill it's implementation, I'm trying to ensure that the damage to the project is minimised by ensuring that the due care the closer found consensus for is actually applied. If that takes longer than you want, then I'm sorry but the community wanted due care rather than haste. Thryduulf (talk) 03:41, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yet the consensus was that it is more damaging to the project that these articles remain in mainspace, and it certainly did not include your definition of "due care". JoelleJay (talk) 03:53, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Instead of talking about hypothetical "editors who believed certain articles ought to be exempted just never bothered to address those articles, then that's too bad for them", how about we talk about "the editors who did address those articles, and who are addressing those articles, and who have been addressing those articles for over a year now, but who have been told that they're not allowed to take the tag off or remove the articles from the list"?
This process has been badly designed, with incomplete documentation, instructions that contradict normal practices, no tools to separate these drafts with their RFC-mandated five-year time period in the Draft: space from the ordinary six-month G13 process, and an implicit dependence on an editor who is not editing any longer. One goal (i.e., boldly redirect articles that editors believe won't qualify) is simple and straightforward under normal circumstances, but it's being stymied by editors who are trying to follow the directions they've been handed, because the tag says nobody's allowed to remove it.
If we want to move forward on this, then we need to figure out things like how (e.g.,) Liz and Explicit identify Draft: pages that are eligible for G13 deletion, and how they could not have their systems screwed up by these pages, which aren't eligible for five years.
We need to get this right. I've no sympathy for people who ignored this for the last year and a half, but now that we've been reminded about it, they think it's an emergency. People have been posting on the designated talk page for well over a year, and their questions and comments have been ignored by you and everyone else who just wants these pages gone. If you don't choose to help, then that's fine, but the result is that sorting out this process is going to take longer. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:04, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hang on, we were explicitly told not to remove the hatnote and not to redirect. That was supposed to be handled sensibly – multiple reassurances were given at the original RfC and since. If someone were to draft all those with the hatnote remaining, you'd send articles which obviously meet the GNG to draft – there are hundreds that either were in the original process or that need to removed from the list – almost 50% of the New Zealanders for example. That would, in my view, be likely to be used as an argument against any future mass-draftification of articles. Any support that I was able to give to the original RfC was based entirely on the assurances received that redirects would be handled sensibly. I imagine I would feel I had been lied to if they were simply all drafted without any consideration for the process that I've been working my arse off on for periods of the last year Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:48, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The proposal says
If this proposal is successful: All articles on the list will be draftified, subject to the provisions below: [...]
Any draft (whether in draftspace, userspace, or WikiProject space) can be returned to mainspace when it contains sources that plausibly meet WP:GNG[d]
Editors may return drafts to mainspace for the sole purpose of redirecting/merging them to an appropriate article, if they believe that doing so is in the best interest of the encyclopedia[e]
}}I imagine any resistance to removing hatnotes or redirecting would be due to concerns the article would just be recreated from the redirect without undergoing scrutiny for GNG and without having the hatnote returned. Maybe it would be helpful to have a hidden category for redirects from this list and/or a talkpage banner noting they were originally part of LUGSTUBS2 on them as well as on any pages that are returned to mainspace as GNG-compliant. Anyway, I don't see why we can't just draftify the pages that haven't been worked on by you guys (or that you have found non-notable), while separately addressing redirection/removing hatnotes for those that remain. JoelleJay (talk) 17:45, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A talk page banner might be more helpful – cats can get deleted easily.
In terms of what to draft and when, it would be more efficient to redirect first where a redirection is possible. In some subsets, this is nearly all articles; in other subsets it will be fewer. It would be possible to work fairly quickly through those I think – over the last day or so I've reviewed all 170 articles on the Australian list. 147 of those can be redirected in the first instance (a number having strong possibilities); 23 need to be kept. None need to be drafted. Of the 89 New Zealanders, one needs to go to draft. The others are all redirects or to be removed from the list and kept. The same won't be true of Pakistanis, for example, where there are a lot fewer lists for redirection.
I'm not entirely sure how it would be possible to identify those that have been worked on btw. I've come across some today which other people worked up but haven't left a note anywhere about Blue Square Thing (talk) 20:09, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The practical reason why we can't just draftify the pages that haven't been worked on by you guys (or that you have found non-notable) is because you don't actually know which ones haven't been worked on.
The ones that can be redirected can be put in a new list, removed from the original list, and a banner put on their talk pages. The ones that BST et al have determined should be kept can likewise be put in another list and a banner put on their talk pages. The ones that others have since worked on but which have not been actively endorsed as demonstrably meeting SPORTCRIT can be moved to draft alongside all the other eligible pages for the individualized attention that the community decided should take place in draftspace. JoelleJay (talk) 20:50, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That makes sense. The banners are a good idea – who will create them? Can I check:
a) that we're talking about dealing with the list at WP:Lugstubs 2 list (1,106) – these are the ones that were tagged with the hatnote? This is not the same list as the one at WP:LUGSTUBS2] (1,182). I can't remember why they're different – I think everyone on the first list is on the second one. From memory I think the query was re-run and some came off it. They had probably been improved to the extent that they dropped off the list
b) where would you like me to create the lists? Wikipedia talk:Lugstubs 2 list is a bit of a mess because I've stuck so much stuff on there and the lists that are on there are messy as well
c) I think the original idea was to re-run the query again first to remove the ones that would have fallen off the list. I wouldn't have a clue how to do that. Is that something someone could do? It might save a bit of time and effort
Once we have the banners made and an idea about where to create the lists, we're good to start moving on this I think. Is it worth discussing a formal timeframe? Blue Square Thing (talk) 07:55, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Whichever is the most recent agreed-upon list should be used. We can run a new query on it, then look over any pages that no longer qualify through the query to make sure their disqualification is legitimate. I think the three new lists (redirectable, likely notable, all remaining eligible stubs) can just be put in a new talk page section. I don't know anything about making banners or running quarry queries; perhaps @Pppery has background or knows editors who do? JoelleJay (talk) 16:33, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have some familiarity with Quarry queries, but it's not clear to me what is being asked for right now. Or, one you have a clear request, you can ask at WP:RAQ (although that's largely a single-person operation too). * Pppery *it has begun...16:46, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the intent is to just run the same query as before on the current list to see if any other names now need to be removed? JoelleJay (talk) 17:07, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that would be best. It would also be best to actually deal with the ones that have been sorted out before re-running the list. Do you have a link to the query?
I'm 99% certain that the list at WP:Lugstubs 2 list is the list that had the template added to it. I know of at least two articles where editors have removed the template, but that list hasn't been edited since BilledMammal put it there, so it should be reliable Blue Square Thing (talk) 17:49, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
One of the inefficiencies in Wikipedia talk:Lugstubs 2 list#2025 procedure is that, for redirecting non-notable subjects, I think we need to remove the template from the page and the name from the list. But if we are reasonably certain that everything on the list got tagged with the template, I'd love to simplify this to "anything still transcluding the template is getting moved" (after a reasonable but short pause to get those known-non-notable subjects redirected). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:58, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've only found two without the template, and I've looked at getting on to 750 of the articles over the last week. If at all possible it would be better to use those using the template (the other two have easily good enough sourcing I think – Alexander Cracroft Wilson and Chamindu Wickramasinghe) and then conduct a check with the quarry query afterwards or run through and check them some other way. There doesn't seem to have been any mucking around with the list other than the three (not four) which were drafted early and have since been moved back to mainspace e2a: a look at the number of articles with the template, shows that there are six more somewhere where it's been removed. I'll sort out which at some point by comparing the lists Blue Square Thing (talk) 18:07, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
23 June. That goes everyone a month. If it goes a bit further than that then fine, but a deadline in this case is probabyla good diea to stop me from prevaricating Blue Square Thing (talk) 19:02, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds good to me. I've updated the directions to state that date. I've also removed instructions to edit the list itself. We can use the templates themselves to track it. (I assume nobody's spammed the template into other articles; if my assumption is invalid, then we'll have to check the list.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:00, 22 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I actually managed to do some myself yesterday morning (the Auckland redirects), but had a ridiculous day at work so wasn't able to leave a note here. It sees to work, although it's slightly trickier that I thought – need to remove the class rating from the talk page and the circular redirect from the list as well. I also added R with possibilities to the ones I did as they're ones that I think have that. Oh, and in some cases we can redirect to a section...
It would be better if we could re-run the querry that BilledMammal used in the fist instance as there are 400+ articles I've not managed to check – the Sri Lankans and Indians. But if we can't do that, I think this is the best option Blue Square Thing (talk) 04:26, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
AIUI the WikiProject banner figures out redirects automatically, so you can ignore those. We should be able to get a bot or an AWB run to handle the circular redirects. (Surely we have a bot that can do this?) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:06, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've started more work on these – it's just the class on the redirect talk page that I'm slightly worried about.
The special draft pending template still says to remove people from the list. Do we actually want to do that or does the template need changing to remove that? Blue Square Thing (talk) 17:04, 24 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Blue Square Thing, ignore the class on the redirect's talk page. A while ago, we updated Module:WikiProject banner to auto-detect redirects and ignore whatever the banner incorrectly claims the class is. Eventually, a bot will remove it (but it's basically a WP:COSMETICBOT edit, so it won't happen quickly).
Here's a potentially useful option. Many of these articles have a see also section with a link to a list. One potential solution is that if the article still meets the criteria (which will need to rechecked obvs) and if it contains such a link, it gets redirected to the list that's linked; if multiple lists are linked someone tells me and I sort it out (this is rare fwiw)
Fwiw I rather think this has been a lot more complex than everyone expected it would be. I did start working on this in March 2024, after the list was finalised. The original rfc included multiple assurances that redirects would be dealt with sensibly. I think we can do that, but I'm waiting to be told how to do it Blue Square Thing (talk) 04:21, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agree that if there is a clear and obvious redirect target then redirecting there is far more appropriate than draftspace for the article, as per WP:ATD. Joseph2302 (talk) 19:12, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it could be. It would mean that the draft article would stay as well however, which is inefficient from a storage post of view. It would involve double the work involved, as rather than simply redirecting the articles I'd have to move them back and then redirect them. Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:33, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But wouldn't you have to do such move for any articles you end up working on in draftspace anyway? Moving to mainspace and then redirecting is just one more trivial step than what was already expected to happen if this RfC got implemented. JoelleJay (talk) 17:51, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Given the numbers of articles that will end up as redirects – as above, of the 170 Australians, 23 are keepers right now and the other 147 are all redirects; not a single draft – it would be a lot more efficient for me to just have to do the redirects. I have them sorted in teams anyway, so the redirection notice will essentially be the same. Given that I've ploughed through all of those over the last 28 hours, I don't see why I couldn't manage the redirection process over a similar sort of timeframe for those 170. Having to bring back from draft first, more than doubles the time it would take – I'd have to do all the drafts first to keep the note I'd need to place in the reason box and then go through and do all the redirects by team afterwards. That's really adding to the work – all of it by hand. From a technical efficiency perspective, it must also be better to not have absolutely unnecessary drafts kicking around for five years either. All I need is for someone to work out exactly what process to go through and to have a bunch of people agree it. I'm not sure how long it would take to do work through the full 1,100 and come up with a list to draft, but it wouldn't be that long so long as I'm in the country and able to work at it Blue Square Thing (talk) 20:15, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see any reason not to redirect most of, if not all of the remaining articles as well, unless I am missing something here? Let'srun (talk) 23:54, 24 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We don't always have lists to redirect to – so, for Afghan cricketers, for example, I don't believe there's a suitable list. I've managed to redirect the New Zealanders who need redirecting and have started to remove tags from those I think we should keep, but it's a slightly complex process to do by hand. It will take a little time to get it done right Blue Square Thing (talk) 14:04, 25 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This process is now under way. I'm focussing on removing tags and redirecting. It takes a long time and all has to be done by hand. If anyone can figure out a way to automate any or all of the process it would really help. In particular, I've stopped doing anything to the talk pages – it's just taking so long. Thanks to all the people who have been cleaning them up, but if there were an automated way to do this it would really, really help matters. I'm aware that I'm leaving work for other people to do in the short term. I will try and return to the talk pages if I can do, but sorting out the articles seems like a sensible priority in the relatively little time I'll have to do this
I think the fact that redirecting was not actually easy was the entire reason why draftification was chosen in the first place. Frankly, I favoured just straight deleting them and if there's a WP:LUGSTUBS3 that will get my !vote. FOARP (talk) 11:01, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The assurance that redirection would be handled automatically was the only reason I was able to give any support to the original proposal. Unfortunately BilledMammal is away for at least most of the rest of this year otherwise that might have happened. I appreciate that people wanted to punish Lugnuts by removed their articles entirely, but there are clear ATDs in many cases and redirection would have almost certainly been the result of AfD discussions in the cases where there are realistic ATDs. So I'll keep going. If you could look through the 200+ Indian articles and see if any have had loads of sources added it'd help massively. Thanks Blue Square Thing (talk) 11:32, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The reason why I prefer straight deleting is because recreation of the content worth keeping (which is minimal) is way easier and cleaner. Redirects are cheap... to create... FOARP (talk) 14:18, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, are we redirecting the ones with no substantial edits, or draftifying them? Taking the first on the Indian list, C. R. Mohite, since they were an Umpire what is the redirect target supposed to be? List of Baroda cricketers? But then is it even verified that he played for Baroda rather than just coming from there? Draftify looks like a way easier option.
BTW to me this was never about "punishing" Lugnuts. This was about saving editor time vs a massive time sink with minimal value-creation that was negligently dumped on us. FOARP (talk) 14:28, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've redirect the first ten in the list, none of which had any source but ESPNCricinfo and so were straight-forward NSPORTS fails. FOARP (talk) 14:49, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for doing what you're doing there. I really appreciate anything that anyone else does to help this process. The key is to find the small number of articles where sources have already been added and that need to be removed. Then redirecting.
Yes, redirect to wherever is most obvious – any that cause significant problems shout and I can check on CricketArchive, which is paywalled unless you know the way around it – so Mohite played 25 matches for Baroda, but the redirect you have is just as good.
Redirects, for me, have other advantages. They make re-creation of the article as a duplicate more difficult and retain cross-wiki links (Mohite is linked from multiple pages, for example). Drafting removes those. Eventually we might get notes added to articles – like on List of Otago representative cricketers for example – which summarise careers and so on. The problem, of course, is that that takes time. More clarity over the process from the get go and a set of lists organised in some way are all things that would make that easier if we do this again. Blue Square Thing (talk) 14:55, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Honestly, we should just delete these articles and save ourselves the time, and then use the time save to create real articles. But if redirecting is how we're resolving the issue right in front of us today then that's how we're resolving it. I'll do the others in the India list after work. FOARP (talk) 15:21, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
None of the first ten anyway. For all the protestations that time was needed, in reality no-one was doing anything nor was there any obvious signs of the intent to do anything. Even if it wasn't intended, the effect of this was simply to suspend the decision for a year with no obvious improvement. FOARP (talk) 08:52, 3 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think having them sorted into lists of countries **really** helps. Knowing what sort of sources are available for each country does as well. It would be better to present future lists by country (preferably by team); I think it's much more likely that the process gets done better and quicker if we can do that. Shorter lists will help as well – give me 50 New Zealanders and I can tell you what needs to happen to them within a few weeks. BilledMammal largely not being here to shepherd the process obviously hasn't helped fwiw Blue Square Thing (talk) 10:59, 3 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
CricketArchive, which is paywalled unless you know the way around itIs there an easier way than inspect>sources>refresh>pause load? That's how I've been doing it the last few years. JoelleJay (talk) 23:06, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hitting Esc quick enough also works I believe. Or if you can still find it, I have Opera 12 installed - the last update before they moved the browser to Chromium I think. For some reason it ignores the redirects to the paywall. Obviously it's years out of date now, but it's the only thing I use it for and it seems to work Blue Square Thing (talk) 07:14, 3 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Picking a random name Arnell Horton (Arnell Stanley Horton), there is more information available about him, but even what was in the stub has not been copied to the notes field on the redirect target. Better to do this slower without losing the information. All the best: RichFarmbrough20:18, 2 June 2025 (UTC).[reply]
I appreciate that we're, at least temporarily, losing information, but there's just so much to do. I'm going to copy the lists of names on to the talk pages of the teams the redirects have been done to so that we know which ones need to be gone back to. I have no idea how long it would take to copy across as we worked through, but I might have two or three half-days available until the deadline and that'll be about it Blue Square Thing (talk) 07:14, 3 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I took a look at the Zimbabwe list. Dobbo Townshend is clearly notable. I've redirected a couple more. But most of the other ones don't have clear redirect targets and should probably be PRODded. SportingFlyerT·C00:07, 4 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The whole point of LUGSTUBS was to draftify these articles in a protected draftspace rather than going through the PROD/AfD process for each individually. JoelleJay (talk) 16:05, 4 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Update: All but the British, Indians, and Sri Lankans are just about done. I know what's probably happening to the British articles, so my calculation is that of the 805 articles that have been dealt with (excluding Indians and Sri Lankans), 695 have been redirected to a list of some kind or developed and removed from the list, I've PRODed 7, which leaves 104 to send to draft. It's about 13.7% being drafted or PRODed. I've not calculated how many have been removed from the list after having been improved or as false positives (a handful) – gut feeling says around 75–100, maybe a little less. Sri Lankan lists are scarce, so that will probably increase the percentage of drafts. I'm not sure about the Indian lists Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:41, 4 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Indians are all done 65%ish redirect or keep the article fwiw, but I didn't look too hard for places to redirect to. Just the British and Sri Lankans to do now Blue Square Thing (talk) 20:46, 6 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sri Lankans all done – just a 22% redirect rate. I think we now know how to deal with these sorts of articles more effectively if we wanted to do this again Blue Square Thing (talk) 07:55, 7 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Update: I have five more articles to work through of British cricketers. All five will either be redirects or ones that can be improved – I'm vaguely hoping one might make DYK actually... I should be done with these by the middle of next week. That should leave around 287 to send to draft Blue Square Thing (talk) 11:47, 11 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Our mission is to enrich Wikimedia projects with high-quality and diverse content related to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This initiative focuses on creating new articles, multimedia, structured data, and more, covering topics from MENA countries, communities, and diaspora worldwide.
Who Can Participate?
All registered Wikimedians are welcome to join! Whether you're an individual contributor or part of an organization, your support is valuable. We encourage content creation in any of the six official UN languages (Arabic, English, French, Russian, Spanish, and soon Chinese).
What Kind of Content Are We Looking For?
New Wikipedia articles focused on MENA topics
Multimedia contributions on Wikimedia Commons (photos, videos)
Structured data for Wikidata
Language entries on Wiktionary
Public domain texts on Wikisource
Note: Make sure your content follows local Wikimedia guidelines and licensing policies, including Freedom of Panorama for media files.
Join us in bridging content gaps and showcasing the richness of the MENA region on Wikimedia platforms!
Stay tuned for more updates and participation guidelines. Reda Kerbouche (talk) 09:08, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Per both the header at the top of this page and the editnotice, This page is for concrete, actionable proposals. As written, it sounds like the "proposal" in question here is "go create new articles", which is what we've been doing for the past two decades and plan to continue doing indefinitely into the future.
There is a lot of community skepticism of affiliate activities after we've seen numerous flashy announcements of ambitious-sounding projects filled with vague corporate buzzwords (e.g.Building strategic relationships with key stakeholders, identify growth opportunities) and funded by expensive grants that ultimately do little or nothing to improve the encyclopedia. I assume that there is more detail/planning to your initiative than is described in your note above and on the project landing page (where you may wish to fix the broken header tabs), but it may behoove your interests to craft announcements that assuage rather than exacerbate the aforementioned fears. Sdkbtalk15:00, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your feedback; it’s both valid and appreciated. And we took time to discuss all the questions with the whole team.
We understand that from a first read, this may seem like a broad or familiar call to action. However, the Million Wiki Project is not just about encouraging content creation, it’s about coordinating and resourcing communities in multiple regions (some are underrepresented) to increase content equity across multiple Wikimedia projects. If you think the details are insufficient in the landing page; we can expand it based on the feedback we receive.
We’ve seen firsthand that in many MENA countries, editors face barriers like limited outreach, infrastructure, or access to local events. This project provides logistical and financial support (e.g. internet stipends, local editathons etc.) to empower them to organize impactful campaigns.
At its heart, this project is about inclusion; bringing everyone along on this journey, even those who haven’t had the chance to participate before. While the name may highlight a numerical goal (a million contributions), our true aspiration is to ensure that every Wikimedian feels they have a place and a voice in this movement.
This project has been co-designed by experienced editors, supported by the grant committee of the Project, and built on the feedback received from the community organizers. It's an ongoing process; and we’re learning every step of the way. Abbas14:00, 3 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm confused about what this is actually about. Does create one million new contribution and content pieces mean one million edits or one million articles? Does it include images on Commons and documents on Wikisource? Why does any of this need funding? If you are paying editors, it may slow things down (on enwiki), as draft articles would have to go through the Articles for Creation review process. Toadspike[Talk]16:18, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for raising these valid questions. The “one million” target includes meaningful contributions across Wikimedia projects: new additions/articles, structured data, Commons uploads, Wikisource documents, and more. Full details are available here. To clarify: we are not paying editors for content creation. Instead, we provide microgrants to communities and affiliates who want to run campaigns, editathons, similar to other movement grants. These are needs-based, and only support logistics, internet costs, etc. We're especially encouraging experienced editors to lead these initiatives, precisely to maintain quality and alignment with Wikimedia’s standards, including AfC processes when required. Reda Kerbouche (talk) 17:36, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Why is this project restricting its support to content in "official UN languages", the majority of which have limited, if any, connection to the MENA region? Is such blatant discrimination normal practice? AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:25, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
English does make sense as the international lingua franca, and of course (Modern Standard) Arabic as the standard language used by half of the Middle East, but it misses on relatively large wikis (such as Persian, Hebrew, Egyptian Arabic and Turkish Wikipedias), which are all more relevant to the region (and likely have more native speakers who might be able to help on MENA topics) than Spanish or Russian. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 16:37, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your questions @AndyTheGrump and Chaotic Enby:; it's important to clarify this point. At this stage of the Million Wiki Project, we’ve chosen to focus on contributions in the six UN official languages (Arabic, English, French, Spanish, Russian, and Chinese). This was a strategic decision made by the organizing team and the grant committee to ensure consistency in tracking, reporting, and coordination across different regions and communities. The choice is based on practical reasons:
These languages already have strong foundations across many Wikimedia projects.
They are widely spoken or used in official or educational contexts in several MENA countries.
They provide a shared framework for documentation and collaboration with international partners and communities.
The scope of the project is limited to the mentioned languages; which reflects the priorities and capacity of this phase. However, we will consider other languages as the project evolves. Reda Kerbouche (talk) 17:43, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW - for most parts of West Asia and North Africa you're far more likely to be able to communicate in French over Hebrew, Farsi or Turkish. Oh... and Russian these days will stand you in pretty good stead in the Gulf. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 03:34, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with @Sdkb that the project page does read as corporate-written (or possibly AI-written, with little concrete difference between both). It could be good to clarify it in more concrete terms on the landing page, although there seem to be more detail on meta:The Million Wiki Project/FAQ (to reply to @Toadspike's query, it seems to count new page creations on all projects). Concerningly, neither that page nor meta:The Million Wiki Project/Funding Guidelines talk about how this meshes with our policies on paid editing, despite repeatedly talking about "transparency". Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 16:29, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Original Media:** Photos, audio, or video content taken or created by the uploader(s).ChatGPT very often generates bullet point lists of the form **Short Title:** Longer explanation of what is meant by the short title. (as it uses **this syntax** to bold text). This very much looks like a remnant of that syntax that wasn't correctly removed, especially since the asterisks don't seem to be referenced anywhere. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 21:36, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's quite concerning. Jtud (WMF), the WMF Grants team should probably be aware of this whole thread (if you're not the right point person, I'd appreciate you forwarding this or letting us know who the right person would be). Sdkbtalk19:18, 24 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
All major decisions, structures, and policies were drafted by human contributors — the grant committee members — many of whom are seasoned Wikimedians; we made sure no policies were breached. As everybody does, we consulted AI tools to proofread the English draft, e.g. grammar checks and language structure. We understand the importance of human tone and accuracy in Wikimedia spaces, and we truly welcome community edits to improve clarity or remove awkward phrasing or markup remnants. cordially Nehaoua (talk) 17:22, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
From Meta:The Million Wiki Project/Eligibility Criteria: This effort covers a wide range of countries, including Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen, as well as topics relevant to their diaspora communities worldwide.. There is an obvious omission here, which I hardly need spell out. Can I ask why the 'MENA' region appears to have a hole in it? AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:35, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Given how Iran, Israel, and Turkey are all missing, while Somalia is there, it looks like the list of Arab League members was used for some reason (although for some reason Djibouti and the Comoros were excluded but not Somalia). Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 16:40, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Combined with the requirement that submissions be in a UN official language, I'm not sure this looks like an evenhanded approach to the Middle East. Wehwalt (talk) 17:37, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It isn't. Not remotely. And given the issues the English-language Wikipedia already has with partisan editing with regard to many 'Middle East' topics, the last thing we need is to look like we are endorsing such a perspective. This ill-thought-out project should never have been approved in the state it is. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:37, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This ill-thought-out project should never have been approved in the state it is. – They should make this the collective slogan of wikimedia projects. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸21:31, 25 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That could be said about Wikipedia itself, especially when it started, but kinda still today. Good thing that ill-thought-out project didn't need anyone's approval to get started.
My fellow editors, I never cease to be amazed at the reflexive and vehement opposition so many of y'all have to experimentation and ideas and change in general. It's a wiki, for fuck's sake, it's supposed to be iterative, not perfection. Levivich (talk) 20:34, 10 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Other than Arabic, Farsi, Pashto, Urdu, Kurdish etc is written using Arabic script. It is *the* most representative script across the entire region, including other scripts would not be "even-handed". Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 03:51, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@AndyTheGrump and Chaotic Enby:, we understand that geopolitical or regional classifications can differ. For example, countries like Turkey, Iran, and Other countries, while geographically part of the broader Middle East, are classified under different regions by the Wikimedia Foundation’s regional structure (e.g. CEE, Northern & Western Europe).The countries listed were selected based on a few practical factors:
Existing connections with local Wikimedia communities and affiliates
Participation in the WikiArabia conference
Inclusion in the League of Arab States, which formed a cultural basis for our first project phase
That said, this is not a political exclusion (it's a reflection of community capacity and scope). We’re open to expanding this framework in the future as our network grows. Reda Kerbouche (talk) 17:51, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I know, Iran is very much classified as MENA by the Wikimedia Foundation. Also, that wording of "Turkey, Iran and Other countries" is a bit weird given that there was only one other country mentioned.It could be much better to present it as a contest about Arab countries, not about MENA countries. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 20:19, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Reda Kerbouche I'm looking for a specific answer here, if possible: would Israeli participation be welcome? Could they be included in the project upon request, either by the their chapter, a wikiproject, or individual editors? FortunateSons (talk) 08:04, 10 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would guess that all the countries on the list are more underrepresented on Wiki than Israel is. I completely support the WMF focusing its efforts on areas that are underrepresented, although who knows what they are thinking here. (t · c) buidhe21:49, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Reda - sorry that you had to face this intense scrutiny all at once, it's really worth trying to get the community on board before launching stuff like this, then these issues will be dealt with in advance. One more point, you say "we are not paying people for editing" (paraphrase) but the funding page says "Contributors performing significant verified work (e.g., high-quality editing, multilingual translation, metadata curation)." I'm fine with that (a lot of people might not be), but concerned that you gave a different answer. All the best: RichFarmbrough21:16, 2 June 2025 (UTC).[reply]
It perhaps would have been better received had it been posted at WP:VPW or WP:VPM, since this is really just an announcement to the community about an available resource rather than a proposal for the community to implement. signed, Rosguilltalk14:15, 3 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry again for the bother, but I haven't gotten any response on how the payment might work regarding our paid editing policies. It could be good to clarify what is meant by contributors being paid for "significant verified work". The FAQ page (item 19) currently states that funds could go to targeted contribution campaigns, is there any information about what they might be? How much involvement do the project's partners (which I assume are providing the funding) have in the selection and organization of these campaigns?As you state that the project is committed to transparency in its funding, it could be great for Wikimedia volunteers to have more information about these points. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 22:41, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Should the Wikipedia logo be changed for one day to commemorate the 7 millionth article? To the right is the modified version of the last millionth's logo.Catalk to me!02:39, 28 May 2025 (UTC) Edit: Chaotic Enby has created a logo that better resembles the one used in the last million. 23:54, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This. The serif font, yellow/gold gradient, and banner border are all weird. I know Wikipedia is known for having a long-outdated look (and some of us are proud of this), but if we're creating something new to represent our progress it should look...new. Toadspike[Talk]06:38, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Changing the logo would probably take at least a couple days, maybe a week or two, because of needing to get consensus, then needing to write a patch and deploy it. Those are not fast processes. Would folks still want this if it's weeks after the 7 millionth article date? –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:18, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Readers aren't necessarily checking the exact number, so celebrating the milestone even a few days/weeks late would still be just as meaningful in my opinion. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 11:42, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A better source of inspiration?Meh, that logo isn't especially modern or elegant – I especially second Toadspike's more detailed remarks. While a serif font could be okay (assuming we're going for Linux Libertine Bold), the border on the text, and the yellow-white gradients, all look tacky and not very professional. If we really want, a variant of the other 6 million logo would look more elegant.The circumstances are also less than ideal, as, from what I understand, the 7 millionth article came in the middle of a batch of 200-something mass created city council articles, which isn't really what we wish to encourage.Edit: with a cleaner logo, support – although I still believe that the circumstances are less than ideal, it is still a strong message to show that Wikipedia is still just as thriving. Raw article count shouldn't be encouraged for editors, but these flashy logo changes are mostly destined to readers (and potential readers), and the communication opportunity is pretty good. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 09:49, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure there are non mass-created articles in the final 1,000. At a slight topical shift, if we want to encourage quality, we're currently at 6,741 FAs. A bit of work to go to catch up to a 0.1% total article rate, but we could also celebrate 7,000. On a longer view, we could begin planning for the big 10k FA, presumably with a much longer lead time than we had for this. (Although in both cases only if this doesn't pressure the FAC coords, who presumably should treat potential milestone FAs the same as any other.) CMD (talk) 09:58, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A logo with a more fitting styleSadly, the 6 million logo above wasn't available in a SVG version (besides a lower quality autotraced one), although I've tried to make one in the same style for 7 million articles. Feel free to make any improvements to it! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 11:18, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support this version. Thank you for creating it, Chaotic Enby! I agree in principle with the "quality, not quantity" folks, but the two are not mutually exclusive. 50K GAs and 10K FAs are milestones we should reach soon, which we can also celebrate with a logo change. But we celebrate easily-understood milestones to encourage readers to become editors, and article count is the most easily-understood milestone of all. Toadspike[Talk]12:56, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support this version. I think that changing the logo for a brief period of time is a great way to advertise the progress done so far. Quality would be way harder to advertise in my opinion (Since it is way harder to shorten into one number and to objectively measure) Madotea (talk) 18:05, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose in favor of Wikipedia celebrating quality over quantity for a change, which is even more important in the age of AI. Generating a lot of text is not an accomplishment in and of itself. Levivich (talk) 12:02, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Btw I'd probably support marking major milestones like 10M and 25M articles, but I don't support changing the logo every 1M articles. It's WP:EDITCOUNTITIS to keep track of such small intervals--the encyclopedia grew by 16%, from 6M to 7M. Wow, big deal. Levivich (talk) 16:56, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The interval isn't the passage of time, it's the article count. We already celebrate the passage of time: Wikipedia's 20th birthday was celebrated and its 25th will be celebrated next year. Sure, change the logo for those anniversaries. But our article count increasing by 16% does not seem like anything worthy of celebration to me. When you have 6 million articles, adding another million is not a big deal. Even less so when we hit 8 million. I'd rather we reserve logo celebrations for actually-meaningful milestones, like 5,000 FAs, or 500,000 women biographies, or a million articles about the southern hemisphere... take your pick, there are plenty of meaningful milestones to choose from. "16% increase in article count" isn't one of them, IMO. Plus, it sends the wrong message: that what we're about is article count. Given that every year there will be new notable topics (new notable events, new notable works, etc.), article count increasing is a given; it's not an accomplishment in and of itself. Levivich (talk) 19:21, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Anything like this or Wikicup that encourages simple creation without any expectation of quality is bad behavior. How many of the 7M articles are GAs or FAs? Its less than 1% of the total article count which is not a good look if we're just praising simple creation. Masem (t) 12:05, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
0.69% GA or FA, although GA is likely bottlenecked more by reviewing time than it is by content creation. CMD (talk) 12:45, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
How does the Wikicup encourge simple creation without any expectation of quality? Points are only awarded for quality articles (GAs, FAs, etc.) and for DYKs. Cremastra (u — c) 12:36, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I still feel that the Wikicup encourages rushing processes along to earn points during the limited time the cup is held. Any type of gamification of wikiprocesses can be a problem. Masem (t) 17:24, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No comment on the oppose, but as to the WikiCup comment the opposite is true. I and the other WikiCup judges have been disqualifying entries rather frequently for not being of high quality. I do get the gamification concerns though, but claiming the Cup "encourages simple creation without any expectation of quality" is false. Epicgenius (talk) 20:09, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Gamification is a great tool. Backlog drives can make good progress on or clear out a backlog, and also serve as a great recruitment tool and raise WikiProject morale. Definitely a net positive, imo. Outliers can be dealt with via ANI and/or a re-review system. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:28, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. We shouldn't celebrate an editor dumping nearly 200 identical poor articles in violation of WP:MASSCREATE just so they can claim the 7 millionth article. The less attention we give to this, the better chance we have to stop such silliness. Quality over quantity seems more apt than ever here. Fram (talk) 14:46, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Despite having more articles, our pageviews have not really changed - existing in a range of 7 - 8.5 million since 2015. While it's possible that without an expansion of articles we'd be even lower, I am skeptical that our readers actually care about our number of articles. Instead I think it makes us as editors feel good. I think there's a way to make the editing elite feel good without changing the logo, and also agree with the general focus on quality of information for our readers rather than focusing on the quantity of articles, and so I oppose this logo change but support other ways of celebrating the milestone. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:09, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
According to Wikipedia:Statistics#Page views: Most articles have very low traffic. In 2023, 90% of articles averaged between zero and ten page views per day. The median article gets about one page view per week. Because the top 0.1% of high-traffic articles can each get millions of page views in a year, the mean is about 100 times the median. If that % still holds true today, it would mean that ~6,300,000 articles of the 7 million articles average between 0 and 10 page views a day. Some1 (talk) 23:37, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support we can find time to celebrate, and though 7 million articles of varying quality is arbitrary, all milestones on a volunteer encyclopedia are probably a bit arbitrary. and ChaoticEnby's work looks nice. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 17:16, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Given the fractious nature of the post-7 million discussion and the incentive structure that led towards it, and perhaps very pertinently due to it being seemingly impossible to identify the actual 7 millionth article given how rapidly things are in flux, I have come around to leaning oppose towards celebrating a specific article. I'm not at this moment opposed to celebrating "7 million articles" in the plural, but it should be clear that the proposal is not to "commemorate the 7 millionth article". CMD (talk) 20:13, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Mild oppose Would have little impact and celebrates the wrong thing (article count vs. quality) North8000 (talk) 21:00, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Conditional Support, upon consensus on which article to represent the 7-million articles milestone at Wikipedia talk:Seven million articles, and that the chosen article is of acceptable quality. There is a shortlist of articles which may represent the milestone. While some may have started as stubs or start-class articles, the respective authors of the shortlisted articles and other editors have started on improving the quality of the articles, possibly in hopes of their article getting chosen at the end of the consensus building exercise. There is no rush to push the logo out. – robertsky (talk) 04:08, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"The English Wikipedia has reached 7,000,000 articles with [chosen article]" seems like a misleading statement then if we don't exactly know what the 7-millionth article is and are just choosing one to represent it. Some1 (talk) 12:04, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Out of curiosity - what is the current count of GA & FA articles? Are we anywhere close to a milestone on those? If so… THAT would be something that is much more meaningful to celebrate. Blueboar (talk) 17:00, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We're at 41,835 GAs, 6,741 FAs, and 4,655 FLs (for a total of 53,231 quality articles). I'm guessing the next big milestones would be 50,000 GAs, 7,000 FAs and 5,000 FLs, and the latter two would be reachable in one or two years (although I doubt enough readers care about lists to celebrate it on the main page). Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:19, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Edited the 6 million red logo to be 7 million. Font for the red banner is Roboto Condensed, and then bolded, if anyone else wants to do it (I have no idea how to properly photo edit.) Red 6 mil logo but for 7 milARandomName123 (talk)Ping me!21:24, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support. We have to celebrate the small wins. This is good PR, attracts press attention, puts Wikipedia in the news, reminds people of the website that is secretly funneling ChatGPT's wisdom. The next 8M milestone may be 6-7 years away, and that's if the project survives – it most likely will, but don't take it for granted. Levivich makes a reasonable point above about celebrating quality instead, but it's not easy to communicate a milestone like 50,000 good articles to the intended audience ("are the other 6.5M articles bad?"). Featured article milestones are a better sell, but our count of FAs is embarrassingly low. – SD0001 (talk) 21:57, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
On PR: I'm unsure about the design style of the logos put forward. They are inconsistent with Wikipedia/MediaWiki's design style, though I certainly cannot make anything better. Aaron Liu (talk) 03:26, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My proposal went with the Linux Libertine font, which is the one used in Wikipedia's logo typography (although bolded for better readability, so the letter shapes slightly differ). That's the main reason why I didn't want to copy the exact style of the "6 million" logo. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 13:07, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"50,000 good articles to the intended audience ("are the other 6.5M articles bad?") What happened to the other 0.45 million? :P Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 21:59, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
SupportChaotic Enby's version for up to a week (seven days for seven million?) While I'm definitely in the quality-over-quantity camp, I think it's worth making a (not-too-gaudy) statement that can be appreciated by the media and casual visitors – we're still here, we're still creating and improving content, and we're still mostly human. For the same reason, if we do have a special logo it should be up for more than 24 hours – it may be easy for us insiders to forget that people who care about Wikipedia don't necessarily visit the site every day. – ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · email · global) 02:04, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support I like the red 7 million logo, and I like seven days for seven million. This is a fun tradition, and its a little victory to celebrate! We should be proud of what we've accomplished! CaptainEekEdits Ho Cap'n!⚓03:57, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Changing to oppose. The moment has passed. I'm very disillusioned here. How could we not make a simple logo change happen in time?? We did it easily, and with no fuss at six million. We took like... a day, and nobody raised a fuss. At any rate, with Vector 2022, we need a square logo (sans the Wikipedia subtitle), in an svg, which nobody has even created. So chock this up as a dismal and upsetting failure. When we hit 8 million, I'll make sure to do this like 6 months before we think we'll hit that number, so we have enough time for everybody to complain and do like three close reviews. Super disappointing. Where'd our spirit of fun go? CaptainEekEdits Ho Cap'n!⚓05:17, 4 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support Variety is the spice of life and so celebrating this with a splash is a healthy sign of continuing vigour. I'm not fussy about the format – the key thing is to show that we're still alive and kicking.
Editors who prefer quality to quantity can celebrate that too but the numbers there are not so good. Currently there are just 6,743 FAs and 41,837 GAs and my impression is that those numbers don't rise so steadily. So, we should count our blessings and celebrate what we can.
Ugh. A fine demonstration of Wikipedia's unreliability; the English language Wikipedia has 7,009,558 articles (and Wikipedia as a whole has 65,083,629). What's celebratory to some is self-congratulatory to others, and this does beg the question "but are they any good?" NebY (talk) 12:04, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support each million articles is a huge milestone (considering each one has to hold its own weight). I think either ChaoticEnby's version or the one initially proposed would work.
Support red or pink ribbon versions. This is an important milestone that should be celebrated! Yeah, many (maybe even most) articles aren't of great quality, but should that really matter? Wikipedia will always be a work in progress, and said progress should be recognised wherever possible. Loytra (talk) 18:25, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support but make the text on the ribbon gold. I have been waiting for this for ages, Finally I am here for an event that I am not blocked for! Toketaatalk18:28, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - maybe including a casualty count would make it more interesting - x articles, y editors imprisoned, z articles taken down by court order. Maybe y is zero-ish for English Wikipedia and z is one-ish (temporary). More impressive than 7 million articles in a way. Sean.hoyland (talk) 18:44, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Notably, something needed is going to be showing of community consensus -- such as a closed discussion finding as such. — xaosfluxTalk20:59, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The community already did this for the 5M and 6M milestones and so there's an existing consensus and tradition. Andrew🐉(talk) 21:27, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You might want to cut and paste this bullet and its replies into an "implementation" sub-heading. I agree that getting someone to formally close the discussion would be a good idea (maybe list it at WP:ANRFC?). Do we know which of the multiple proposed logos achieved consensus? Do we know how many days the altered logo should be up for? –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:37, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@CaptainEek: "solid support"? By my rough count it's a little less than 2/3 supports and 1/3 opposes, with a fair number of weak on either side. I'm not outright opposed, but I think it's a stretch to say "solid" given Wikipedia's notions of consensus. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 22:12, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Goldsztajn at a rough count of 20 to 8, that seems solid to me, and it's going to take some time to get the ball rolling. Like, if you were in a room of 28 people, and 20 of them were on one side, even if they were grumbling, you'd say "clearly they have the majority". CaptainEekEdits Ho Cap'n!⚓22:20, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
They don't do it 3/7 days in a week? I didn't realize how much slower the process is these days. I guess the lesson for 8 million is to plan out a logo change ~ten thousand articles before it happens. CaptainEekEdits Ho Cap'n!⚓01:12, 31 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd concur with the 20 support, but I count 12 opposes (including my Meh, but not Chaotic Enby's) that are more on the oppose side than the support side. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 00:36, 31 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW - the last print edition of Britannica had 40,000 articles, I'd be less grouchy celebrating 7 million Wikipedia articles *and* more GAs than the last print edition of Britannica had articles. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 02:40, 31 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support and it makes me a little sad that even something this tiny and cute is being dragged into the deletionist hellpit. I guarantee no reader is going to look at the logo and think "wow, these articles must suck and/or be created by the Wikipedia scapegoat." Gnomingstuff (talk) 16:39, 31 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support: I think we’re probably due for a discussion about how and whether to celebrate x millionth article milestones going forward. However, I say we should celebrate this milestone with a logo change, even if for one last time. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 23:21, 31 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am not opposed to this, but I would point out that the new Vector skin's Wikipedia logo is quite small nowadays. If we implement the same logo design as in years past, it might not be legible anymore. Mz7 (talk) 02:47, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and on the subject of Vector 2022 the logo actually consists of three separate images (logo, wordmark, tagline) which are specified separately in the config file (whereas legacy Vector still uses one file). So you will need to change the logo proposal to fit in that format. * Pppery *it has begun...03:05, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, what if we just temporarily change the tagline away from "The Free Encyclopedia" to a ribbon that says "7 Million Articles". Sounds like that is possible and would be the cleanest solution. Mz7 (talk) 03:09, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ehhh, I really dislike that design. I would rather the ribbon text be illegible than adopting a yellow Wikipedia logo with font that looks like we're back in the 90s (lol). Mz7 (talk) 03:03, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support for a week, as a tradition that shines a positive light on Wikipedia's progress. I prefer the ribbon style, with Chaotic Enby's version as first choice for its SVG format, but I would rather see any commemorative logo implemented than to have this discussion deadlocked any further. — Newslingertalk11:07, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose In favour of Wikipedia celebrating quality over quantity. Why should we strive to i-don't-know-how-many stubs without serious content? The Bannertalk19:07, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support. It is still a notable achievement. We won't have a perfect encyclopedia where each and every article is GA-grade until the Sun burns out, but I think we can certainly celebrate 7 million articles. It is a good way to communicate to casual readers about the number of articles that Wikipedia had. SunDawn (talk) 01:43, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support fun times. The "quality over quantity" argument is specious. Only 7 million things for the entire history of the universe are found to be notable? Our quantity is on the low end. Furthermore it infers nothing about quality, they are not mutually exclusive traits. -- GreenC01:55, 3 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Here's the square!To clarify, I did resize it to be square at one point, but the MediaWiki documentation did mention that there were exceptions to the "square rule" if the logo had text underneath (in which case 135x155px seemed appropriate). The square thing appears to be for the logo alone (without text) in new skins like Vector 2022, and I just uploaded it separately. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 08:43, 4 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, creating three URLs with 200 words each shouldn't be treated as superior to creating one URL with 600 words. It's already hard enough to maintain quality control without telling people that having the first edit in the article history is somehow more meaningful. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸18:14, 4 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose A large chunk of new articles these days are WP:CORPSPAM, and that is a major cottage industry with rather limited tools to fight it, so celebrating articles purely based on sheer quantity rather than quality adds fuel to what is already a raging forest fire. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 08:16, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There appears to be consensus for this. Do we know which of the multiple proposed logos we should use? Do we know how many days the altered logo should be up for? Once details like these are decided, myself or someone can write a patch using the procedure at meta:Requesting wiki configuration changes#Changing a wiki's logo. We shouldn't wait too long though. This thread is already getting kind of stale, and we are drifting away from the 7 million achievement with each passing day. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:10, 10 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There's heavy enough opposition there should probably be more than a glib statement that there is consensus. I'd like to see a more formal close. Wehwalt (talk) 11:54, 10 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say this whole 7 mil milestone stuff is getting stale now. Once the main page banner gets taken down, we're beating a dead horse with this logo change, imo. Some1 (talk) 12:05, 10 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I came here with the intention of closing this discussion, but after reading it I have some strong thoughts and am not going to supervote. Perhaps the below will be useful when we get close to eight million.
There should have been a hard time limit set for the end of the RfC.
There should have been an agreed-upon design ready to go. That first design is, with apologies to its creator, not good. It looks more like a price tag than the professional logo you'd expect from the world's largest encyclopedia. No one should be surprised by/angry with those early concerns/opposes.
There should have been an agreed-upon amount of time that the logo would have been live, or at least one proposed in the OP.
Even though there's something like 2:1 support in the raw number count above, I can't help but wonder how many people who !voted early would now agree with CaptainEek and others who are saying "it's too late"... because it is. As I write this, it's nearly two weeks late. Shame on us, frankly. Ed[talk][OMT]02:56, 11 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed on all points. We could probably take the main page banner down now; it's been up for a good while. Better luck in 6 years or so. Mz7 (talk) 21:12, 11 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We could already get the next steps ready for the next GA or FA milestone, as they might come much sooner than 8 mil articles (and put more emphasis on quality). Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 22:13, 11 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
"Basic" is not a good description of the topics this board is for - to me "basic" implies simple, uncomplicated questions about fundamentals rather than anything to do with subject matter. Questions relating e.g. policy belong on the policy village pump regardless of there complexity, questions unrelated to the subject of the other village pumps belong here even if they are very complex. If the length of "miscellaneous" was an issue (and I'm not convinced it is) then surely the obvious thing would be to change it to "misc"? Thryduulf (talk) 11:32, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think "miscellaneous" is fine. If we were going to change it, "basic" is not at all correct. "Other" would be more accurate. Anomie⚔11:54, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to propose that we reimplement the births and deaths of people of people born after 1980. As a reader, I've always enjoyed reading about which famous people were born in a particular year, and I was hoping that we could bring this back. I could say that there are too many people to be included, but if we set clear criteria on who is included and not included, I think would be better. Interstellarity (talk) 01:29, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My browser would struggle to load such massive pages. The death lists are already split into months, with reduced citations. Catalk to me!02:04, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
How is it determined who gets to go on those pages anyway? The only guidance I've found so far is Wikipedia:Timeline standards#Births section which states There may be other restrictions as to who may appear, but absent other consensus, the person must have a Wikipedia article. That text was added by Arthur Rubin with this January 2017 edit that also changed "The Births section list all births in that year" to "The Births section lists births in that year". The edit summary cites a "consensus at WT:YEARS" but I haven't been able to identify the relevant discussion in the archives. I did find a link to Wikipedia:WikiProject Years/criteria#Births and Deaths that states in its entirety At the least, the person must have an individual Wikipedia article. "Death of John Doe" or "Murder of John Doe" does not qualify. Possible exception for the birth of twins or multiples.
The essay Wikipedia:Recent Years exists but is marked as inactive and it's not clear how much consensus it has. That states it applies only to the years 2002-2025. The Births section states One method of determining which births could be included is if there are Wikipedia articles in English and at least nine non-English languages about the individual in question. Prince George of Cambridge, for example, has several non-English articles on him, listed on the left sidebar. Although inclusion may then be automatic, it will not necessarily be permanent. and the Deaths section reads Persons who are internationally notable are included, as demonstrated by reliable sources. Heads of state or government (other than interim/acting leaders) are typically considered internationally notable..
If you go back long enough (c.2005), I remember once seeing a recommendation to always add newly created articles to the relevant year/day pages! If we kept that up now, there would be 18,000 entries on some of the 1980s pages.
I had a poke through the WT:YEARS archives as well and I think this may be one of those practices that emerged without an explicit discussion about it - certainly we must have been being selective by the time we hit 2-3 million articles in 2010, just on practical grounds. Andrew Gray (talk) 22:34, 4 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi all - not sure whether this is possible but it would be nice. I see a lot of latitude and longitude coordinates given to impossibly precise levels of accuracy - buildings and structures given with coordinates like 41.572947546321°N, 125.462903749248°W. While I like accuracy, this pinpoints a building to within 1/1000 of a micrometre - which is probably overkill. Is there anyway of automatically truncating such precision to, say, six decomal places? That would still give precision within about 20 centimetres, which is close enough for any practical coordinate purposes. (PS, I'd prefer if they were all in ° ' ", but that's probably just me and not worth doing). Grutness...wha?03:59, 3 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's the fault of whoever added it like that and you are welcome to change it. It's hard to do automatically, though, since the proper precision depends on the size of the thing that is being located. A building is worth more digits than a river, etc. Maybe a bot could be written for certain types of articles that the bot can recognise, but I'm not sure it would have few enough false positives. Zerotalk07:33, 3 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Most of these will be copied directly from services like Google Maps which displays the location you click to 5 decimal places but puts about 15 decimal places on the clipboard. e.g. on it's minimum zoom level I got 51.23262708044534, 0.23095125460548796 despite 1 pixel making tens of kilometres of difference at that latitude.
The first step to fixing over-precision is to identify the scale of the issue. For example get a bot to list all the articles with coordinates more precise than 6 decimal digits (or the equivalent in DMS). There is likely to be some way of cross-referencing articles with Wikidata to group them by the "instance of" property. Thryduulf (talk) 09:18, 3 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My thought would have been to trim down some overly-precise examples and leave an edit summary referring to WP:OPCOORD or the coord template documentation. When other editors see it some may take note and make similar edits. However, the guideline seems a bit technical and I suspect that some editors would find it easier to understand "If it's the same size as a football field use X level of precision" - perhaps it would be helpful if OPCOORD also included a precision/object conversion chart equivalent to the xkcd table. EdwardUK (talk) 15:13, 3 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ideally yes, but rows need to be worded carefully. Going back to the structure example earlier, there are some bridges that have a rather extreme length dimension, however we are still going to want coordinates that are within its width dimensions and approximately midway down the length. 184.152.65.118 (talk) 16:14, 6 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is also rather technical and suggests that there is no suitable precision for an object ~100m in size located further than ~37° from the equator. Thryduulf (talk) 01:16, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know how it could be less technical. It's closely analogous to a Blackjack strategy quick-reference card, which any teenager could handle. It's a simple two-dimensional table lookup, eliminating the need for any arithmetic; the arithmetic was done when the tables were created. Does an editor need help determining that 35 is closer to 30 than to 45? Or 35.41899175, even? If so, maybe coordinates aren't a good place to spend their efforts. Coordinates are all about numbers. (Most likely, the editor is working on coordinates because they like numbers. We rarely like numbers unless we're good with numbers. I speak from experience, as that's why I spent multiple years of my life working with Wikipedia coordinates.)there is no suitable precision for an object ~100m in size located further than ~37° from the equator. Sorry, I don't follow. That precision will be d° m' s.s" or d° m' s", depending on how much further than 37° from the equator. Or, in the other format, d.dddd. Both are derived from the tables at OPCOORD, like the rest of COORDPREC.Regarding coordinates, like so many other things, we need to beware of overthink, of over-engineering. Perfect is the enemy of good. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 08:53, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Re the suitable precision argument, if d° m' s.s" is suitable why is it coloured red in the table? I interpret red to mean that that precision should not be used for objects of that scale at that latitude. If that interpretation is right, then there are several combinations of scale and latitude where no suitable precision exists (e.g. 50m above ~37°, 100m below 57°, 10km at any latitude). If my interpretation is wrong then the table needs a key or some other explanation of what the colours actually mean. Thryduulf (talk) 14:22, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The colours appear to be meaningless, and are used only to differentiate between each level of precision - it should be possible to change them to something else that does not suggest yes/no in the way green/red can do. EdwardUK (talk) 16:58, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The colors improve the aesthetics, and that's important. Colors make the tables more inviting, less intimidating. But that's secondary to the usability enhancement. With an all-white table, it would be significantly more difficult to see minor differences between cells on the same row. That's why the Blackjack strategy quick-reference card uses colors in a similar way.I'm not married to red and green. Any two complementary pastels would do, and that could easily be changed lest a user looks at the tables and sees traffic lights. (Or they could just read the instructions above the tables. The tables are derived from those at OPCOORD only if the instructions are followed.) ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 18:01, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think it would work better if each level of precision had its own colour across rows, so the overall table would resemble a topographical plot. isaacl (talk) 18:17, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Four different colors for the dms table and six for the decimal table? Struggling to see the improvement. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 18:33, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The colours would have an independent meaning easier to intuit. That being said, the change to two colours with higher contrast helps in creating visual diagonal bands, also tying the same precision levels together across rows. isaacl (talk) 21:42, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's less confusing in one way, but I only know that the colours are there to distinguish the different precisions. This needs to be noted in the key to the table. Thryduulf (talk) 20:17, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I was about to say that we also need to avoid putting "meaning" into coordinates where the meaning is known only to Wikipedia editors. Then I realized that's exactly what we're doing with any kind of variable coordinates precision. How many readers will find and read this discussion, COORDPREC, or any other guideline, do you think? One has to wonder who's benefiting, and how. Is coordinates precision just a fun exercise for Wikipedia editors who like numbers? Is it a case of the aforementioned over-engineering? Should we sack OPCOORD and COORDPREC in favor of some fixed precision, in a rare simplification of Wikipedia editing? Perhaps coordinates need re-imagining, but that's a different discussion (scope expansion bad). Or, perhaps this is an appropriate place for that discussion; I see comments below moving in that direction.In my opinion, it's about time for a new subsection containing a specific proposal for standard precision (both decimal and dms). I'm not inclined to create one, but I would !vote in it. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 01:29, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for watching my thinking evolve in real time. I hate it when that happens. I should throw it all away and start over with a clean sheet of paper, but I'm damned if I'm going to discard the product of all the effort I put into it. Sue me. :D And, if standard precision fails, COORDPREC is my fallback position. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 13:01, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The OP's suggestion is good. I don't think we have anything on Wikipedia that warrants precision to less than 20 centimetres, so a bot could easily truncate to 6 decimal places. Articles where lower precision is needed (such as cities or countries) can be taken care of manually. Let's not let the best be the enemy of the good. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:44, 6 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If we have a reliable source that cites the coordinates to greater precision than that we should keep them. I sort-of remember Geni mentioning that this is the case for some museum exhibits. Thryduulf (talk) 23:11, 6 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wikivoyage imports ("copies", not "dynamically transcludes") coordinate data from Wikidata when it's available. Wikidata stores the lat/long data as degrees/hours/minutes (12° 3' 45"). Wikivoyage uses the decimal format (12.345). One result of the automated conversion is that I've seen a few that look like "12.34500001". This is false precision. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:13, 7 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There must be articles on smaller objects, but I don't know that latitude and longitude would be appropriate. Are there any articles on individual electrons? I guess not, because they are indistinguishable particles, but we can work up from there. Phil Bridger (talk) 08:32, 7 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
From my layman's knowledge of quantum mechanics I would say that they don't exist any more, having been destroyed by the process of detection. I may be wrong. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:48, 7 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that even with objects as small as the Strawn-Wagner Diamond, 20cm is likely close enough - unless we want to go around altering the coordinates every time the cabinet is dusted! Even then, 7 digits would put it within an inch. We don't need anything listed to 12 digits unless we start getting articles about specific atoms, and they vibrate so... that way lies madness. Grutness...wha?12:33, 7 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, especially since most GPS systems are only reliable to a level of about 3 m/10 ft. More than four digits is dicey, and more than five is like reading a 19th century recipe, seeing that it calls for "one pat of butter", and weighing your butter out to the tenth of a gram. The resulting 4.7 grams of butter isn't a wrong answer, but "about five or so" would have been fine, too. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:36, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also agreed.
Even if we assumed for the sake of argument that objects on museum display at this sort of size (or even slightly larger, such as the Ain Sakhri figurine or Aineta aryballos in the British Museum) can have their locations known with precision to the millimeter, and assuming for the sake of argument that their locations remain consistent to the millimeter over the medium-to-long term: how frequently do readers need to know the location of such an object more precisely than to the nearest foot?
Even if these coordinates were actually accurate to twelve decimal points I can't see any real downside to automatically truncating to six d.p.; given that we can be almost certain that they are not in fact that accurate there is at least some benefit in not conveying false precision with little to no downside that I can concieve of. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 09:52, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
English Wikipedia doesn't specify a specific font to be used for article text. It just uses the one configured in your browser for sans-serif text, so you can change your browser to use a different sans-serif font. isaacl (talk) 21:59, 6 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note that you can even set your browser to use a serif font in situations where the site calls for a sans serif one. I've got mine set to use Times New Roman in all situations. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:09, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Important, do not remove this line before article has been created."
Not sure where to post this so posting here. I'd like to request an exception to WP:COSMETICBOT to remove 250ish hidden HTML comments (<!-- Important, do not remove this line before article has been created. -->) from mainspace articles. List of articles. This HTML comment is usually left over from the draft process and can be removed. I did some spot checks and found a couple articles that were never drafts that had this, such as Battle of Jahra and Supreme Constitutional Court (Egypt), so I am not sure how the comment got in there. Maybe someone cut and paste moved it from draftspace. Anyway, thoughts? Is this OK to clean up with WP:AWB? –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:00, 16 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The former certainly seems like something that could be added to general fixes without an issue, the second would need to be supervised as it's plausible that it is there for a reason in some cases. In both instances though, I would oppose making the edit in the absence of other changes to the article unless it is causing some actual layout issue/problems for screen readers. Thryduulf (talk) 10:37, 16 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, I had looked at before but decided it was also very common for non AfC left over issues. Possibly it would be OK to remove if it was on a line with nothing other that white-space. KylieTastic (talk) 12:10, 16 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Personally I'd be fine with this. For just 250 articles it won't create any watchlist spam, and a full unneeded HTML comment is a more significant nuisance than most cosmetic edits. Sdkbtalk17:14, 16 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
