The end of the article would be better, but what do you think about enhancing that classification section to point at sub-articles for the lists of genres and sub-genres instead?Wakelamp (talk) 21:36, 28 January 2018 (UTC)Reply
The outline is great. Do you see any benefit in repeating the same information on the science fiction page? I have read through some of literature, genres of literature, fiction, genre fiction and they all seem to have similar problems in terms of duplication, too much information in sections, arbitrary division and takeover by fans. I am a bit stuck on what to do Wakelamp (talk) 09:40, 30 January 2018 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 4 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hi, I could only answer your questions at Wikipedia_talk:Categories_for_discussion with "I don't know", so I am leaving them to others. Wikipedia:Category_intersection seems to have been written around 2006, so many CfD regulars will like myself not have been around. However looking at the page statistics at https://xtools.wmflabs.org/articleinfo/en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Category_intersection, the two major authors still seem to be editing, so you could ask them. I would recommend a neutral question like what happened to Category intersection, rather than asking why it failed. If they are willing to answer you could try some follow up questions. TSventon (talk) 00:59, 9 November 2021 (UTC)Reply
It's also important to remember that early Wikipedia was significantly influenced by the larger wiki culture of the 90s which was very hostile to requiring registration, that is when registering was even possible (see e.g. Ward's Wiki or it's later spinoff Meatball). While the old guard have long since been subsumed and few current editors have direct experience from those times, echoes from that formative period persist to this day. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 03:52, 19 August 2022 (UTC)Reply
90's wiki culture. I first used ARPANET and UNIX in the '80s, so I understand (and often even agree) with the open source/free mindset.
Old Guard "While the old guard have long since been subsumed and few current editors have direct experience from those times, echoes from that formative period persist to this day." That's what I was interested in, and what you have kindly provided. I now think WMF is solely motiviated by not wanting a reduction in editors, and maybe thier (OMG) branding as "the encyclopedia anyone can edit". My concern was that it is very much in their interest for new editors not become part of the old community.
Anonymous experienced editors If there was a way for an editor to choose to post or edit incognito using their exisitng account would you use it? Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk)
Just letting you know I've seen this. I'm mostly inactive these years, but I feel like I owe you a response here, so I'll try to address this at some point in the next few days. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 02:00, 20 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
I don't think the information from those trials will be all that useful. The English Wikipedia has a much more robust system of edit filters, and a very large group of users dedicated primarily to RCP.
Not sure what to add here, but a free and open internet that anyone can use without registering for anything is still a fine ideal. I do wonder if we ever crossed paths on usenet.
In fact I think you have this backwards. The WMF would for a variety of reasons like to see the currently dominant generation of editors (who largely registered in the 2005-2010 period) be swept away as they perceive them, rightly or wrongly, as essentially reactionary and a fundamental barrier to what they see as needed progress. Occasionally you'll even see the WMF obliquely (or not so obliquely) imply that the problems with editor retention are fundamentally tied to this group enforcing its cultural expectations on new users. I could go on about this but there are plenty of active editors who are much better positioned to fill in the details.The old guard I refer to arrived much earlier mostly as a result of some slashdottings starting in mid-2001, and while they were important in creating many of Wikipedia's formative values, were completely subsumed by the massive growth in editors that took place from 04-05.
No. It's important to remember that IP editing is no more incognito than registered editing is, in fact it is often much less so (admitting that VPNs are becoming ever more common especially in work-place settings, and given that the vast majority of paid-for-VPN IPs are not blocked, many edit through them without even being aware of doing so). Further registered users can sort of already do this with SOCKLEGIT privacy alts, so it's no big change from current practice. Staying unregistered forever has multiple purposes, not only is it a political statement, it also shows solidarity with other unregistered users, and ensures that I experience Wikipedia in the same way that the vast majority of editors do.
Given the way the internet has evolved over the years I'm pretty much resigned to an eventual ban on IP editing. Truthfully, a lot of things haven't exactly gone the way hoped, and this eventuality is among the least of them. When that happens I'll cease to edit, not that anyone will notice; so it goes. Be well, 74.73.224.126 (talk) 02:20, 23 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
The Web team at the Wikimedia Foundation has been working on Vector 2022 for the past three years, collaborating with the English Wikipedia community as well as other wikis to ensure that the skin performs better qualitatively and quantitatively for readers and communities than the previous Vector skin. The goal of the new skin is to create a more welcoming and easier to use experience for readers and editors across the wiki. For more details, see our new FAQ.
For the past couple of months, we have collected thoughts from the English Wikipedia community on what changes need to be made to the skin prior to it being considered ready for deployment. Our next step would be to start an RfC to assess whether the community considers Vedtor 2022 ready.
Prior to the beginning of the RfC, we wanted to draw your attention to the current conversation and encourage your feedback on the skin.
Our results from Vector 2022 at a glance
The sticky header makes it easier to access tools that editors use often. It decreases scrolling to the top of the page by 16%
The new table of contents makes it easier to navigate to different sections. Readers and editors jumped between sections 50% more than with the old table of contents
The new search bar is easier to find and makes it easier to find the correct search result from the list. This increased the amount of searches started by 30% on the wikis we tested on
The collapsible sidebar allows readers and editors to choose whether they want to see the main menu or not. Our testing shows that this allows people to better focus on their current task - reading with a collapsed menu, or editing with an open menu
The language switching menu makes it possible to switch languages without scrolling
The user menu collects all user links in a single place, making it easier to understand what each link does. In testing, 71% of surveyed editors reported positive experiences with the new menu
Latest comment: 3 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Personally I would like a new Wikipedia:Volunteer_Fire_Department, but I am not sure whether there is much appetite for change .... yet @jayden446 @cactistaccingcrane. I did a rough user journey for WP, and I have been posting ideas one by one, but I don't think there is much interest... yet. The one that shocked me that people thought that merciless was better than dispassionate:-(
My major hope for change would be new editors, but our systems, guidelines, and community nomas stop them from being involved and actively gets rid of 100 k i think per year.:-( workWakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 08:01, 29 August 2022 (UTC)Reply
Agree:-(. Add in that 500 fish a month with one ref are good , but a female bio with only 2 refs will bring disaster.."-) I am hoping that data may convince people, but I think a news letter going out to all active editors would help to encourage people to stay, (becuase as a community we have a lot to offer, and VA needs a few many good people), and making people aware would allow us to balance WMF, and to have change reflect the editor community.. Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 15:20, 4 September 2022 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 3 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Thank you for supporting the NPP initiative to improve WMF support of the Page Curation tools. Another way you can help is by voting in the Board of Trustees election. The next Board composition might be giving attention to software development. The election closes on 6 September at 23:59 UTC. View candidate statement videos and Vote Here. MB04:13, 5 September 2022 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 3 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
.....
Just adding that the statement you added at the top (Usage under [...] Section B. House Rules...) doesn't check out - the rules you link state that You will not [...] copy..., i.e. they don't grant any Wikipedia-compatible licensing rights. As such, the entire content of the page was a copyright violation and therefore had to be deleted. firefly ( t · c ) 10:13, 5 September 2022 (UTC)Reply
@FireflyThank-you: I read the not competitors clause not the one above. (it's an annoying site as you have to enter a current salary and review (which you can;t change for a different purpose
Latest comment: 3 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
In re this question, there are more volunteer devs than WMF devs. The WMF devs do more of the work on MediaWiki and core extensions, but that's because a volunteer dev might have a few hours a week (or less), and WMF devs have all day to work on it. If you're interested in seeing details, then https://github.com/wikimedia/mediawiki/graphs/contributors lists the top 100 (by number of separate commits). There are similar lists for each code repository.
(I never learned Fortran, and I might not confess to Cobol if I ever had learned it, but I used to use leftover 80-column punch cards for phone messages and grocery lists.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:52, 26 September 2022 (UTC)Reply
Thank-you for your replauMy preferred used of punchards was making card towers using sticky tape..... OK I just found that IBM made a building inspired by them. I sm s bit hesitant about programming for WP as it is so complicated, and I don't want to break anything. I have just started learning python as i am playing with GPT-3, and want to try web scraping.
The famous "fold, spindle or mutilate" line: I wonder how many of the young folks have ever used a spindle? I learned from the office stories to treat the spindles the respect, so I never spindled my hand along with the paper. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:16, 5 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Please remember to sign your talkpage posts using four tildes (~~~~), including at ANI. You may want to redo the pings from the thread on Subtropical-man, as those wouldn't have worked, both because you didn't sign it, and also because you used a colon : instead of a pipe | to separate the template name from the first field. Cheerio and happy editing! Mako001(C)(T) 🇺🇦 06:16, 22 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 3 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
A mainspace page need to be written so it indicates WP:GNG or WP:SNG are passed, along with basic WP:V, WP:NOR being satisfied and not falling under WP:NOT. Your page appears to be a personal essay, it even starts with your username. I have moved it to userspace- was it a mistake? Thanks. VickKiang(talk)05:43, 24 November 2022 (UTC)Reply
Most Awesomely cool!!!!! I was so pleased to meet a Wikipedia editor, that I was inspired to posted on the facebook group "Wikipedia weekly" asking if anyone is interested in a meet up/edit fest thingy at a library.I have two yes, but I have been advised to post on a few different places for Australian Wikipedians,so if I get enough numbers,I will try to arrange something for January/February, and will advise you in case you have the time and the inclination to attend:-) Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 08:11, 4 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
@Apriljennifer Very late notice, but Wikipedia Australia have organised a Meetup for 8/12/23.
I am just back from. the Wikipedia conference in Brisbane which was awesome. They give out scholarships to attend. Lots of people passionate about women's and indigenous representation, geographic features, and a few with trains which was your interest.
I suggest you might like to join the Wikipedia Australia Facebook group. The three women paid by WMF are awesome!
Latest comment: 2 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
WP:ELPOINTS does not provide authority for linking to an external site simply to identify a person. Per WP:BRD you should not have reverted my reversion, but should have opened a discussion on the talk page. Please revert your reversion and if you still want to follow this, open a discussion on the talk page. -- Elphion (talk) 19:10, 7 December 2023 (UTC)Reply
See my response at White Witch. IMHO, WP:BRD is worth the effort to keep WP on an even keel. If silence is the result, well, "Silence gives consent". After a decent pause, append a paragraph noting the silence and reinstate the disputed edit. -- Elphion (talk) 17:36, 8 December 2023 (UTC)Reply
Dragoniez/ToollinkTweaks adds more and customizable links next to users in page history, logs, watchlist, recent changes, etc.
Firefly/more-block-info optimizes the display of rangeblocks in contribution pages. Doesn't work outside the English locale of any wiki, unfortunately.
NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh/AjaxLoader makes paging links (e.g. older 50, 500, newest) load without refreshing and makes you realize how slow your internet actually is.
Ahecht/RedirectID adds the redirect target to all redirects. For all the WP:NAVPOPS haters. (Do these exist?)
Dragoniez/MarkBLockedGlobal: Remember the "strike blocked usernames" gadget? Now you can use a red, dotted line to highlight rangeblocks and global locks!
Jonesey/common(pictured) has some styles to overhaul your Vector 2022 experience. It reduces padding everywhere, and makes the top bar animation faster.
Aaron Liu/V22 is a fork that narrows the sidebars instead of upheaving them, reverts the January 2024 dropdown changes, and restores the old page-link color for links that don't go outside the current wiki.
Nardog: SmartDiff is a spiritual successor to Enterprisey/fancy-diffs. It makes the page title part of links in diffs clickable, along with template and parser function calls. Unnamed parameters can be configured per template to also be linked. All links are styled based on the normal CSS classes of rendered links.
For the paranoid: Rublov/anonymize replaces your username at the top of the screen with the generic "User page" text. Remember, it is your duty to persuade everyone that editing is an honor.
/AjaxBlock provides a dialog box for easy input of reasons while blocking users.
/Selective Rollback(pictured) provides a dialog box to customize rollback edit summaries and does them without reloading the page. Seriously, why doesn't MediaWiki already do this?
/flickrsearch adds a portlet link to search for uploadable flickr images about the subject.
/randomincategory adds a portlet link when on Category pages to go to a random page in the current category.
Vghfr/EasyTemplates adds a portlet link to automatically insert some of the most common inline {{fix}} templates.
Yes, we're just doing 'em as we go now. Thanks for reading through this looong issue, if you did! I'm sure this'll send a record for the longest issue ev-ah. You may need to wait even longer for the last issue, as our reserve of old-y and goodie scripts have ran out... We encourage you to try and do some of the requests or improvement tasks. See you in Summer, hopefully!
Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello everyone, and welcome to the 27th issue of the Wikipedia Scripts++ Newsletter, covering all our favorite new and updated user scripts since 2025! Boy, does it feel good to kick off the year with an issue. Yep, it's been a year since we cleared out the 2022-2024 backlog with issues 23 and 24! Good times. Though in this case "a year" just means... 6 months? 😯 The salience of whatever joke I was planning to make here has vanished speedily. Aaron Liu (talk) 21:00, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Got anything good? Tell us about your new, improved, old, or messed-up script here!
WikiTextExpander by Polygnotus, is this edition's featured script. At the click of a configurable hotkey, this script will find and replace or link a configurable list of phrases within the selected text in all source editors (even in the comment/reply field!). Besides allowing the quick insertion of templated messages, this script greatly mitigates the WP:WTF? problem by providing both the legibility of familiar words and the convenience of shortcuts. And to those asking, the capitalization of "Wikitext" as "WikiText" was a necessary sacrifice for far-more-memorable acronymy.
CanonNi: AlertAssistant has been fixed and rewritten using OOUI instead of Twinkle's Morebits. Such modern, very tool. (Do note that the maintainer has since become inactive.)
NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh/AjaxLoader has been updated to use modern JS APIs that replace the browser's URL bar with the link you clicked on to load in place. The "back" (and "forward") buttons also work now. Cool, innit?
andrybak: Unsigned helper no longer shows an error when the message to sign was added in the earliest 50 revisions of a page's history. This is especially relevant to pages with short histories.
BilledMammal/Move+ needs updating to order list of pages handle lists of pages to move correctly regardless of the discussion's page, so that we may avoid repeating fiasco history.
In breaking m:Tech/News, Gadgets can now include .vue files. This makes it easier to develop modern user interfaces using Vue.js, in particular using Codex, the official design system of Wikimedia. Codex icons are now also available. The documentation has examples.
Appo/Globstory integrates OpenHistoryMap, updating the map whenever hovering/clicking on a location or year, the latter of which changes the map to be (hopefully) accurate to the year selected. It's pretty interesting.
linkinfo Somewhat similar to WP:NavPops, Awesome Aasim/linkinfo(pictured) provides a collection of links to replace the right-click context menu, presented beautifully.
PreviousDiscussions provides a link to search for your username on subpages of another user's userpage and talkpage conveniently.
Twineeea/noRedLinks brings you to the "read" instead of the "create" tab when you visit a red link. Contemplate life's mysteries as you stare into the blank! Deeply.
No, this is not going to be the enduring tradition of S++ for the future. This was meant to be a joke for the special occasion on the first day of the fourth month but was delayed by four months because I'm lazy.
Sending pings is meant to be related to new signatures. So if you add text with no signature, there should be no ping. Sometimes it is best to experiment, and ask other users what happened or how it showed up on their device.-- Toddy1(talk)11:43, 13 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
I use them about 20 hours per week. (got to get a better hobby:-)).
My interests at the moment are all based on reducing conflict and making wikipedia easier to use.
Would you like to work with me on the use cases? I have been putting it off, as there didn't seem to be much interest. I reaaaaly don't want it to be a solo work/essay, as that achieves little and these things get better when there are more ideas
Thank-you for the link to the AI resource page. I will add a use case of AI as error checker to start on the talk.
Just to check how far off planet wikipedia I am, do you help needed because of poor UX design, gaps in policies, unclear processes, or lack of integrated prompts? Wakelamp (talk) d[@-@]b12:38, 3 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Wow, 20 hours. Do you consider yourself a power user of chatbots?
Ah, reducing conflict. World conflict? Or just here on Wikipedia?
Hmm, use cases. Would that be for editor chatbot use? Or LLM-driven tools? Or both?
Ooh, an AI essay. What's your goal pertaining to AI use cases?
I didn't grasp your last question. Please reword it.
There is lots to talk about: I'm interested in 1) compiling a comprehensive list of AI use cases, 2) setting up a local AI here at home, and 3) setting up a mirror of Wikipedia and experimenting on it with AI. Are you game?
Have you started a page on Meta-Wiki yet, where we can discuss these and other things?
@The Transhumanist I am trying to understand how humans fit into the equation - what things does it do well. It's worrying my friends and family.
Prompts - there is belief that you should think out and optimise your prompt first. I think the best process is exploratory (you ask a series of questions and then use the responses to ask related questions) and then annealing(?) (you give feedback on each question and ask it to summarise the prompt at the end. Then start again)
Tone. How does a chatbot's affect me me. I really don't like using Gemini, because it's answer is often to complete, and enforces the median opinion
AI and Wikipedia.
When can we become transhuman:-)
Providing a help page for editors on using chat boxes is a cool and worthwhile idea. Another way of stating my question is, when would an editor access the page? And the reason why an AI is needed.
I hope that makes more sense, as it's one am in Australia and my brain isn't at its best.
Did the use cases make sense? I really want to list down all the high level processes and then ask whether AI would help, or is it a UX issue.
And I copied you on the meta discussion, because I thought you might like to know more details about the points you commented on. Wakelamp (talk) d[@-@]b13:49, 4 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Yes, I'm interested. I'll pop over there as time allows.
What are your family and friends worried about?
What are you worried about?
As for transhumanism, we are transhuman right now. Ray Kurzweil correctly points out that we have been enhanced by computers already: a human using a computer is more capable than a human without one. Human+. The main difference between enhanced humans now and those of the future, according to him, will be that future humans will have embedded computer components, rather than holding them in one's hand, wearing one on one's wrist, or wearing them on your head.
Regarding tone... And writing style... And quirks... I've often wondered if I have picked up any mannerisms in my writing from interacting with LLMs. It would be funny if someone worked with an AI so much that their writing became indiscernible from that of a chatbot's. Then the articles they wrote on Wikipedia would be flagged as written by a chatbot, all the time.
Each of those aspects of a chatbot's replies (tone, writing style, and quirks), can be moderated by the user in one's prompts. Chatbots can answer in any tone that you want them to, in any style (including the styles of specific authors, like Shakespeare, or speakers/actors, like John Wayne), and for quirks, you can point out and have the chatbot refrain from those.
Concerning using AI to assist in Wikipedia activity, keep in mind that on Wikipedia, there is a major effort underway to persecute anyone using a chatbot to generate content. So, it is safest to keep chatbot use offline (that is, off of Wikipedia). If you publish something that a chatbot generated, even if you edit it first, some quirk or piece of misinformation may bleed through, and you could find yourself before a virutal firing squad. Metaphorically and exaggeratedly speaking, of course.
They can't (and don't particularly want to) police your uses of chatbots that don't edit the content. Things like checking citations for their actual existence, checking references for accuracy, fact checking articles, and finding new references; analyzing articles to spot errors, gaps in coverage, and LLM-generated content; to check tone, neutrality; suggest improvements; for summarizing discussions; using the chatbot as your personal Wikipedia help desk, and so on.
That brings us to prompts. Prompts are only limited by the limits of the chatbots, meaning that chatbots are increasingly able to handle anything you throw at them. There are a great many techniques on prompting chatbots. Pretty much anything you can think of. You can even have the chatbot write prompts for you. And you can have a chatbot prompt you at the end of its answers, to facilitate iterations (like when writing multiple chapters, or completing a series of steps). I wouldn't stick to one method.
Concerning thinking out and optimising prompts, consider these things: 1) That's one possible approach; the article prompt engineering provides several others, and there are many more than that, 2) Trial and error (experimentation) improves prompts over iterations via the feedback of how well or how bad they worked, 3) Recording prompts allows you to reuse them later, edit them, trade with friends, or even publish them or place them in a central repository; prompts can get complex, like a software program (which is why they call designing prompts "prompt engineering"), and so rewriting them each time from memory becomes problematic, 4) It's hard to brainstorm the best prompts on one's own, because chatbots are advancing so rapidly—the ceiling of what constitutes "optimized" keeps rising fast—conferring with others or at least with the chatbots on the best prompts and prompting techniques is highly advisable, as is collecting prompts, libraries of prompts, and guides on writing prompts, 5) nobody knows the extent of what chatbots can do, because emergent abilities are being discovered every day; this also applies to what chatbots can handle—they catch me off guard frequently, and 6) Because of the way chatbots follow instructions, chatbots can be configured to your preferences via preprompts, much in the same way that the developers have done with the chatbot before you talk to it; prompts are modular, and can be mixed and matched.
We are excited to announce WikiLoop DoubleCheck v5 — a complete ground-up rewrite with direct revert, Twinkle-style patrol features, real-time ML scoring, and three ways to review (web app, userscript, Chrome extension).
Latest comment: 2 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
An automated process has detected that when you recently edited The Almighty Johnsons, a link pointing to the disambiguation page James Griffin was added.
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