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The proposals section of the village pump is used to offer specific changes for discussion. Before submitting:

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Transclusion of peer reviews to article talk pages

Hello,

First time posting here.

I would like to propose that peer reviews be automatically transcluded to talk pages in the same way as GAN reviews. This would make them more visible to more editors and better preserve their contents in the article/talk history. They often take a considerable amount of time and effort to complete, and the little note near the top of the talk page is very easy to overlook.

This also might (but only might!) raise awareness of the project and lead to more editors making use of this volunteer resource.

I posted this suggestion on the project talk page yesterday, but I have since realized it has less than 30 followers and gets an average of 0 views per day.

Thanks for your consideration, Patrick (talk) 23:07, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't see any downsides here. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:55, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Support; I agree with Voorts. Noting for transparency that I was neutrally notified of this discussion by Patrick Welsh. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 21:04, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

• This is a great idea, it's weird that it isn't done already. Toadspike 21:13, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

So far this proposal has only support, both here and at the Peer review talk. Absent objections, is there a place we can request assistance with implementation? I have no idea how to do this. Thanks! --Patrick (talk) 17:23, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

It might be useful to have a bot transclude the reviews automatically like ChristieBot does for GAN reviews. AnomieBOT already does some maintenance tasks for PR so, Anomie, would this task be a doable addition to its responsibilities? Apart from that, I don't think any other changes need to be made except to selectively hide or display elements on the review pages with <noinclude>...</noinclude> or <includeonly>...</includeonly> tags. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 17:28, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Since ChristieBot already does the exact same thing for GAN reviews, it might be easier for Mike Christie to do the same for peer reviews than for me to write AnomieBOT code to do the same thing. If he doesn't want to, then I'll take a look. Anomie⚔ 22:41, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't have any objection in principle, but I don't think it's anything I could get to soon -- I think it would be months at least. I have a list of things I'd like to do with ChristieBot that I'm already not getting to. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:54, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

I took a look and posted some questions at Misplaced Pages talk:Peer review. Anomie⚔ 16:14, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

• Support, I've submitted a couple of articles for peer review and wondered when I first did it why it wasn't done on a sub-page of article's talks the same way GAN is. TarnishedPath 02:24, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Support -- seems like a good idea to me. Talk pages are for showing how people have discussed the article, including peer review. Mrfoogles (talk) 20:51, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Support. This would be very, very helpful for drafts, so discussions can be made in the Talk pages to explain a problem with a draft in more detail rather than only showing the generic reason boxes. Hinothi1 (talk) 12:56, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Good Article visibility

I think it would be a good idea to workshop a better way to show off our Good, A-class and Featured articles (or even B-class too), and especially in the mobile version, where there is nothing. At present, GA icons appear on the web browser, but this is it. I think we could and should be doing more. Misplaced Pages is an expansive project where page quality varies considerably, but most casual readers who do not venture onto talk pages will likely not even be aware of the granular class-based grading system. The only visible and meaningful distinction for many readers, especially mobile users, will be those articles with maintenance and cleanup tags, and those without. So we prominently and visibly flag our worst content, but do little to distinguish between our best content and more middling content. This seems like a missed opportunity, and poor publicity for the project. Many readers come to the project and can go away with bad impressions about Misplaced Pages if they encounter bad or biased content, or if they read something bad about the project, but we are doing less than we could to flag the good. If a reader frequents 9 C-class articles and one Good Article, they may simply go away without even noticing the better content, and conclude that Misplaced Pages is low quality and rudimentary. By better highlighting our articles that have reached a certain standard, we would actually better raise awareness about A) the work that still needs to be done, and B) the end results of a collaborative editing process. It could even potentially encourage readers who become aware of this distinction to become editors themselves and work on pages that do not carry this distinction when they see them. In this age of AI-augmented misinformation and short-attention spans, better flagging our best content could yield benefits, with little downside. It could also reinject life and vitality into the Good Article process by giving the status more tangible front-end visibility and impact, rather than largely back-end functionality. Maybe this has been suggested before. Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree. But thoughts? Iskandar323 (talk) 15:09, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

With the big caveat that I'm very new to the GA system in general and also do not know how much technical labor this would require, this seems like a straightforwardly helpful suggestion. The green + sign on mobile (and/or some additional element) would be a genuinely positive addition to the experience for users - I think a textual element might be better so the average reader understands what the + sign means, but as it stands you're absolutely right, quality is basically impossible to ascertain on mobile for non-experts, even for articles with GA status that would have a status icon on desktop. 19h00s (talk) 16:43, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

While GA articles have been approved by at least one reviewer, there is no system of quality control for B class articles, and no system to prevent an editor from rating an article they favor as B class in order to promote or advertise it. A class articles are rare, as Military History is the only project I know of that uses that rating. Donald Albury 17:16, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

I totally agree we should be doing more. There are userscript that change links to different colours based on quality (the one I have set up shows gold links as featured, green as GA, etc).

If you aren't logged in and on mobile, you'd have no idea an article has had a review. Lee Vilenski 20:15, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

A discussion was held on this about two years ago and there was consensus to do something. See Misplaced Pages talk:Good Article proposal drive 2023#Proposal 21: Make GA status more prominent in mainspace and Misplaced Pages:Good Article proposal drive 2023/Feedback#Proposal 21: Make GA status more prominent in mainspace. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 04:20, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

@Thebiguglyalien: Is that feedback discussion alive, dead, or just lingering in half-life? It's not obviously archived, but has the whole page been mothballed? So basically, there's community consensus to do something, but the implementation is now the sticking point. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:57, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Basically, most of the progress made is listed on that feedback page and the project has moved on from it. There were a few options, like the visibility one, where it was agreed upon and then didn't really go anywhere. So there are some ideas there, but we'd basically need to start fresh in terms of implementation. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:16, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

• Tracked in Phabricator
  Task T75299
  You're barking up exactly the right tree, Iskandar323. Regarding showing the icons on mobile, that's a technical issue, which is tracked at phab:T75299. I highlighted it to MMiller (WMF) when I last saw him at WCNA, but there's ultimately only so much we can push it.Regarding desktop, we also know the solution there: Move the GA/FA topicons directly next to the article name, as was proposed in 2021. The barrier there is more achieving consensus — my reading of that discussion is that, while it came close, the determining factor of why it didn't ultimately pass is that some portion of editors believed (wrongly, in my view) that most readers notice/know what the GA/FA symbols mean. The best counterargument to that would be some basic user research, and while ideally that would come from the WMF, anyone could try it themselves by showing a bunch of non-Wikipedian friends GAs/FAs and asking if they notice the symbols and know what they mean. Once we have that, the next step would be running another RfC that'd hopefully have a better chance of passing. Sdkb  06:50, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

  It's great that I've got the right tree, since I think that's a village pump first for me. It seems that the proposer of that original 2021 discussion already did some basic research. Intuitively, it also seems just obvious that an icon tucked away in the corner, often alongside the padlocks indicating permission restrictions, is not a high visibility location. Another good piece of final feedback in the GA project discussion mentioned earlier up this thread by TBUA is that the tooltip could also been improved, and say something more substantial and explanatory than simply "this is a good article". On the subject of the mobile version and the level of priority we should be assigning to it, we already know that per WP:MOBILE, 65% of users access the platform via mobile, which assuming a roughly even spread of editors and non-editors, implies that 2/3 of contemporary casual visitors to the site likely have no idea about the page rating system. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:31, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

  my reading of that discussion is that, while it came close, the determining factor of why it didn't ultimately pass is that some portion of editors believed (wrongly, in my view) that most readers notice/know what the GA/FA symbols mean This is not my reading of the discussion. To me it looks as though a major concern among opposers is that making GA/FA status more prominent for readers is likely to mislead them, either by making them think that GAs/FAs are uniformly high-quality even for those which were assessed many years ago when our standards were lower and have neither been maintained or reassessed, or by making them more doubtful about the quality of articles which have never gone through the GA/FA process but are nonetheless high quality. By my count at least ten of the 15 oppose !voters cite this reason either explicitly or "per X" where X is someone else who had made this point. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 16:18, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

  I've also encountered a fair few instances of older, lower standard GA articles. But I also think greater visibility (effectively also transparency) could also benefit in that area as well. If GA status is more prominent, it provides greater cause to review and reassess older GAs for possible quality issues. Also, most of the worst GAs I have seen have come from around 2007, so it seems like one sensible solution would be for GA status to come with a sunset clause whereby a GA review is automatically required after a decade. Maybe I'm getting a little sidetracked there, but this sort of concern is also exactly what I mean by greater visibility potentially reinjecting life and vitality into the process. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:15, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

  I think you're right about that being the most major source of opposition, but most major is different than determining — I don't think those !voters will be open to persuasion unless the quality of GAs/FAs improves (which, to be fair, it definitely has somewhat since 2021). But the "they already know" !voters might be more persuadable swing !voters, and it would have passed with their support. Sdkb  19:02, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

  @Sdkb: So, is there any way to poke the mobile issue a little harder with a stick? And do you think it is worth re-running the 2021 proposal or a version of it? What format should such a discussion take? Is there a formal template for making a proposal more RFC-like? Iskandar323 (talk) 12:59, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

  I think that's a fair reading of the discussion. But, I suppose the best way to be more transparent is to tell a user that it has been rated GA after a peer review, but that doesn't mean that the article is perfect... Which is what GA (and FAs) also say. Lee Vilenski 19:54, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

• My radical proposal would be to get rid of the whole WP:GA system (which always came across to me as a watered-down version of WP:FA). Some1 (talk) 16:31, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

  Why? TompaDompa (talk) 16:38, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

  It is a watered-down process from an FA, but it is also the first rung on the ladder for some form of peer-review and a basic indicator of quality. Not every subject has the quality sources, let alone a volunteer dedicated enough, to take it straight from B-class to Featured Article. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:17, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

  That's literally the point of it. Lee Vilenski 19:52, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Replace abbreviated forms of Template:Use mdy dates with full name

I propose that most transclusions of redirects to {{Use mdy dates}} and {{Use dmy dates}} be replaced by bots with the full template name.

Part of the purpose of {{Use mdy dates}} is to indicate to editors what they should do. Thus, readability is important. I propose all of these redirects be replaced with their target which is:

1. More easily understood even the first time you see it.
2. Standardized, and thus easier to quickly scan and read.

The specific existing redirects that I suggest replacing are:

• {{Mdy}} → {{Use mdy dates}}
• {{MDY}} → {{Use mdy dates}}
• {{Usemdy}} → {{Use mdy dates}}
• {{Usemdydates}} → {{Use mdy dates}}
• {{Use MDY}} → {{Use mdy dates}}
• {{Use mdy}} → {{Use mdy dates}}
• {{Dmy}} → {{Use dmy dates}}
• {{DMY}} → {{Use dmy dates}}
• {{Usedmy}} → {{Use dmy dates}}
• {{Use dmy}} → {{Use dmy dates}}
• {{Use DMY}} → {{Use dmy dates}}
• {{Usedmydates}} → {{Use dmy dates}}

1. I would probably leave alone the redirects that differ only in case, namely {{Use MDY dates}} and {{Use DMY dates}}, which are sufficiently readable for my concerns.

Daask (talk) 20:30, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

In principle I like this idea (noting my suggestion to bring it here). My only concern would be about watchlist spam, given that, while this may not technically be a cosmetic edit, it's only a hair above one. But there's only a few thousand transclusions of these redirects, so if the bot goes at a rate of, say, one per minute, it'd be done in a few days. -- Tamzin (they|xe|🤷) 21:09, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

It looks like most or all of these are already listed at Misplaced Pages:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects, so whenever anyone edits an article with AWB, they'll already be replaced. No strong view about doing so preemptively.

However, if our goal is to ensure that these templates are actually meaningfully used, then we have some bigger fish to fry. First of all, even the written-out form isn't sufficiently readable/noticeable — many newcomers may not know what it means, and many experienced editors may miss it if they aren't happening to look at the top of the article. Ideally, we would either offer to correct the date format if anyone enters the incorrect one via mw:Edit check (task) or we'd include it in an editnotice of some sort.

Second of all, roughly 2/3 of all articles still don't have a date tag, so we need to figure out better strategies for tagging en masse. There are surely some definable groups of articles that are best suited to a particular format (e.g. all U.S. municipality articles I'd think would want to use MDY) that we could agree on and then bulk tag. Sdkb  21:50, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Ideally, we would either offer to correct the date format if anyone enters the incorrect one via mw:Edit check (task) or we'd include it in an editnotice of some sort.This could also feasibly be done with a regex edit filter, which is better than Edit check in that specific case as the latter doesn't work with the source editor as far as I know. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 07:01, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

However it's done technically, it will need human supervision as some instances shouldn't be change, e.g. in quotes and the titles of sources. Thryduulf (talk) 07:08, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

A filter could only flag an issue, not fix it. And any time a user gets a warning screen when they click "publish", there is a significant chance they will abandon their edit out of confusion or frustration, so we should not be doing that for a relatively minor issue like date format. -- Tamzin (they|xe|🤷) 07:11, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I do believe that just flagging it would be better than giving an explicit warning (that might scare the user) or automatically fixing it (which, like Thryduulf mentioned, might not be optimal for direct quotes and the likes). Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 07:17, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Concur with Tamzin — the main point of Edit Check is to introduce an option to alert an editor of something without requiring a post-edit warning screen, which is all edit filters can do. The ideal form would be a combo of a flag and an automatic fix — for instance, dates not detected to be within quotes would be highlighted, clicking on it would say "this article uses the MDY date format; would you like to switch to that? learn more convert". Sdkb  16:38, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

That could be great indeed! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 22:14, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Courtesy pinging @PPelberg (WMF) of the Edit Check team, btw, just in case you have anything to add. Sdkb  05:11, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

It's definitely a cosmetic edit, in that it only changes the wikitext without changing anything readers see. But consensus can decide that any particular cosmetic edit should be done by bots. As proposed, there are currently 2089 transclusions of these redirects, 1983 in mainspace. Anomie⚔ 14:21, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Agree with this. Also regarding many newcomers may not know what it means (in reference to the full template names): as a reminder, we do have to opt in to display maintenance categories, many of which are far less scrutable to the uninitiated. Categories can be clicked on for explanation.As to the proposal itself, I don't really see the value in bypassing a bunch of redirects. Redirects exist to be used, and there's nothing wrong with using them. Blowing up people's watchlists for this type of change seems inconsiderate.Articles without a prescribed date format are a non-issue. There's no need to implement any standard format at every article, and I augur that an attempt to do so would create far more problems than it would solve. Folly Mox (talk) 16:15, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

It is a problem (albeit a small one) if an article has some dates MDY and others DMY or YMD, per MOS:DATERET, since it introduces inconsistency. Tagging the article with its preferred format helps retain it, so it's something we should ultimately strive for (particularly at GAs/FAs, but also in applicable categories as I suggested above). Sdkb  17:14, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Knowing how much each is transcluded, and relative to the most-used cousins, would be a valuable point to include in this discussion.

The more valuable change of sorts with respect to these templates is that they're clearly metadata. It would be great if we could move them over to mediawikiwiki:MCR, though IDK how much effort it would take to get that done. (And perhaps along with the settings for citations and English variety.) Izno (talk) 22:32, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Forbid Moving an Article During AFD

There is currently a contentious Deletion Review, at Misplaced Pages:Deletion_review/Log/2025_January_19#Raegan Revord, about an article about a child actress, Raegan Revord. Some editors think that she is not biographically notable, and some editors think that she is biographically notable. There is nothing unusual about such a disagreement; that is why we have AFD to resolve the issue. What happened is that there were a draft version of her biography and a mainspace version of her biography, and that they were swapped while the AFD was in progress. Then User:Liz reviewed the AFD to attempt to close it, and concluded that it could not be closed properly, because the statements were about two different versions of the article. So Liz performed a procedural close, and said that another editor could initiate a new AFD, so that everyone could be reviewing the same article.

This post is not about that particular controversy, but about a simple change that could have avoided the controversy. The instructions on the banner template for MFD are more complete than those on the banner template for AFD. The AFD template says:

Feel free to improve the article, but do not remove this notice before the discussion is closed.

The MFD template says:

You are welcome to edit this page, but please do not blank, merge, or move it, or remove this notice, while the discussion is in progress.

Why don't we change the banner template on an article that has been nominated for deletion to say not to blank, merge, or move it until the discussion is closed? If the article should be blanked, redirected, merged, or moved, those are valid closes that should be discussed and resolved by the closer. As we have seen, if the move is done in good faith, which it clearly was, it confuses the closer, and it did that. I have also seen articles that were nominated for deletion moved in bad faith to interfere with the deletion discussion.

I made the suggestion maybe two or three years ago to add these instructions to the AFD banner, and was advised that it wasn't necessary. I didn't understand the reason then, but accepted that I was in the minority at the time. I think that this incident illustrates how this simple change would prevent such situations. Robert McClenon (talk) 06:06, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Seems like a reasonable proposal. Something similar occurred at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/2025 TikTok refugee crisis. AfD was initiated, then the article was renamed, an admin had to move it back, and now it has been renamed again while the AfD is still ongoing. Some1 (talk) 06:32, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for the information, User:Some1. Both my example and yours are good-faith, but taking unilateral bold action while a community process is running confuses the community. I have also, more than once, seen bad-faith moves of articles during AFD. An editor who is probably a COI editor creates an article that is poorly sourced or promotional. A reviewer draftifies it. The originator moves it back to draft space. Another reviewer nominates it for deletipn, which is the proper next stop after contested draftification. The originator then moves it back to draft space so that the AFD will be stopped. Sometimes an admin reverses the move, but sometimes this stops the discussion and leaves the page in draft space. I think that any renaming should be considered within the AFD. Robert McClenon (talk) 06:52, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

"Renaming" and "draftifying" may be technically the same operation, but they are quite different things. I don't mind outlawing draftify during AFD, as it pre-empts the outcome, but fixing a nontrivial typo or removing a BLP-noncompliant nickname from a page title should be done immediately by anyone who notices the problem, independent of whether the page is at AFD or not. —Kusma (talk) 09:15, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose. Improving an article during AfD is encouraged and we must resist anything that would make it harder. Following the proposal would have meant a cut and paste move/merges would have had to happen in order to use the existing draft, making the situation more difficult to understand than a clear page swap. —Kusma (talk) 06:49, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Support, the AfD deals with notability, and moving can impact the scope and thus the notability. In that specific case, during the AfD, sources from both could've been considered, as AfD is about the sources that exist rather than the current content of the article. Not sure how a merge would've made it more difficult to understand than what actually happened. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 06:55, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

It would have hidden the actual revision history for no benefit whatsoever. —Kusma (talk) 07:25, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

When merging, the other article's history should be linked in the edit summary for attribution anyway. The benefit of avoiding the massive confusion for the closer (and the later deletion review) far outweighs the need for a few more clicks to find the history. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 07:41, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

If people are discussing version A before 13 January and version B after 13 January, this may result in confusion for the closer. But the confusion arises from people discussing two different versions of the article. I am all for clearly stating in the AFD when anything like moving or merging has happened, but outlawing moves is not solving the unsolvable problem that articles can change during an AFD. —Kusma (talk) 09:11, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Inclined to support as a draft swap seems rare, and seems somewhat at odds with the stated principle that AfD is about notability, which would not differ between a mainspace article and a draft article. In situations when there is a draft, the AfD could come to consensus to use the draft, or to keep on the topic and the draft can be moved in post-AfD. That said, regarding blanking, I have seen articles at least partially blanked due to BLP or copyright concerns. Those seem correct actions to take even during an AfD, and I suspect other instances of blanking are rare enough, and likely to be reverted if disruptive. CMD (talk) 09:31, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

• Weak oppose forbidding the kind of move made here. We encourage improving an article during the AFD, and separately it is often said during AFDs that an article should be TNT'ed and started over. Replacing the article with a new version, whether through moving a draft or simply rewriting it in place, is a valid (if hamhanded) attempt to do both of those things to save an article from deletion. Support forbidding moving the article to a new title with no content changes, as that could be disruptive (you'd have to move the AFD for one, and what if it gets reverted?). Pinguinn 🐧 10:57, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

  You do not have to move the AFD (and you should not, it is unnecessary and causes extra work). All you need is to make a note on the AFD what the new page title is. Of course you should almost never suppress the redirect while moving a page that is at AFD. —Kusma (talk) 14:06, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon Look at the timeline again, in the Revord case it did not happen while the AFD was in progress. The swapping happened while the afd was closed keep. The afd was then reopened. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:58, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I can see the benefit of forbidding moving between namespaces, but this proposal would also catch simple renames. I've seen plenty of deletion discussions for articles with simple typos or spacing errors in their titles, where the nominating user has not corrected things before nominating. We should not forbid moving them to the correct title. Phil Bridger (talk) 13:49, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Simple renames (to fix typos, etc.) should be okay, but moving an article, for example, from Biden crisis (AfD on July 19) to Withdrawal of Joe Biden from the 2024 United States presidential election (moved July 21) (which also changed the scope of the article) while the AfD is still in progress should not IMO. Some1 (talk) 14:58, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I agree, which is why this should be left to human judgement and consensus rather than forbidding things. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:33, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't see the benefit of retaining poorly worded article titles for seven days or more. I'd support against moving namespaces during an AfD, but not all renaming.

This could actually cause an issue if someone was to move an article to a title that someone else wants to move an article to (in case of an obvious PRIMARY TOPIC/Dab change). Lee Vilenski 14:57, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose There are some rare cases this is a problem, but I have seen many/most cases it is helpful. In the given example, let's say the move was disallowed and the article was deleted. Now wait a few weeks and make the article again with the new content. People will complain no matter what. You've got to be reasonable. If there was a major effort to redo the article it should be discussed during the AfD. -- GreenC 18:27, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
• Based on the comments above I think the best we can get will be a policy that requires any change of title be clearly and explicitly noted in an AfD, supplemented by a guideline that discourages controversial and potentially controversial changes in title while discussion is ongoing. Any change that would alter the scope of the article or which has been rejected by discussion participants (or rejected previously) is potentially controversial. On the other hand, a suggested change that has significant support and no significant objection among discussion participants is usually going to be uncontroversial. Thryduulf (talk) 19:02, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

  I think I agree. That seems to reflect current practice. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:54, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

• How about we limit such moves to admins? If there is an overriding good reason to move a page as part of editing and improvement of the encyclopedia, it should be movable. BD2412 T 22:20, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

  Not sure that restricting editorial/content choices to the discretion of admins is a good thing. While it will definitely help in case of overriding good reason, it also means an individual admin can enforce a potentially controversial choice of page title for their own reasons, and can't be reverted by another editor. And, of course, there's the wheel-warring aspect to that.An alternative could be to limit such moves to closing the discussion with a consensus to move – that way, we still limit spurious moves even more, but the editorial choices are still made by the community. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 22:29, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Would the described swap be possible without special tools? I know that the title of this thread is "move", but that was more (and much harder or impossible for a regular editor to undo) than a move. North8000 (talk) 22:34, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

A page mover can do this kind of swap too, but editors without either permission cannot. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 22:38, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

• Comment. I would be chary of preventing this completely. There are quite a few cases where it rapidly emerges that the article is clearly at the wrong title (eg a transliteration error or a woman who exclusively publishes under another form of her name) so that the results of searches for sources are completely different between the two titles; moving the article even mid-AfD might be a good response in such cases. Espresso Addict (talk) 05:33, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

I note that the text of the AfD notice used to read "Feel free to improve the article, but this notice must not be removed until the discussion is closed, and the article must not be blanked. For more information, particularly on merging or moving the article during the discussion, read the guide to deletion." until it was shortened in March 2021 by Kusma and then further shortened by Joe Roe in October 2023. Espresso Addict (talk) 05:47, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

If you can find a concise replacement for the text that actually gives pertinent information, please do edit the notice. —Kusma (talk) 08:31, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

I think sometimes clarity is more important than concision. Espresso Addict (talk) 09:44, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

If the text is restored, the guide to deletion should feature the promised information more prominently. —Kusma (talk) 10:02, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Given that the current basis for the recommendation against moving is the relatively weak wording in WP:AFDEQ (While there is no prohibition against moving an article while an AfD or deletion review discussion is in progress, editors considering doing so should realize such a move can confuse the discussion greatly), highlighting this specifically in the template seems out of proportion. Perhaps we could revisit that if the consensus here is to strengthen the guidance, which would also allow us to be more concise (i.e. "do not move this page"). – Joe (talk) 18:37, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

It might be beneficial to tighten up that wording; something like An article should not generally be moved while an AfD or deletion review discussion is in progress, as it can confuse the discussion greatly. However articles may exceptionally be moved if a clear consensus emerges during the discussion to change the title. Espresso Addict (talk) 00:09, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose. Moving an article to a new title can be confusing during an AfD, but otherwise good edits are good edits. In particular rewrites or replacements by drafts to address concerns raised in the discussion shouldn;t wait because they can make clear that a reasonable article can be (because it has been) created. Eluchil404 (talk) 06:09, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
• Weak support I think this should be formally discouraged, but I don't think we should ban it entirely. Certainly some moves during an AfD may be tendentious. SportingFlyer T·C 06:11, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
• Strong support This has been a problem for years. The solution is simple, there is no requirement to make such moves during an AfD duration, there is no downside to this proposal. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:30, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose as a blanket rule, and strongly oppose this wording. Even if it is not intended as a blanket rule, and even if there are "obvious exceptions" as detailed above, wording like this will cause people to interpret it as one even when those "obvious exceptions" apply. "Well damn looks like the New York Times just reported that the shooting of Dudey McDuderson was a hoax, but sorry, we can't fix the title, template says so." (Example chosen since it's a plausible WP:NOTNEWS AfD.) Gnomingstuff (talk) 19:46, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

If it's that clear and obvious that something needs to be fixed, then obtain consensus for it at the AfD (and if you can't, then it's not "clear and obvious"), speedy resolve it (close and re-open as needed, or even some sort of partial consensus for one aspect) and then do it. But we still can't do renames when we don't yet have agreement as to need and new target. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:12, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

What I am saying is that wording like "please do not blank, merge, or move it, or remove this notice, while the discussion is in progress" will result in people arguing "the template says don't move it so don't move it, no exceptions allowed." Gnomingstuff (talk) 00:08, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

The problem is less moving things during an AfD as moving them unilaterally, without consensus. We can surely demonstrate that during an AfD, or quickly, in order to resolve and close it, if it's that clear. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:03, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose (except as to unilateral draftification). Renaming should be left to editors' judgment. This includes their judgment of whether the new name is likely to be controversial, or whether any past or present discussion is actually related to the new name and shows opposition to it. In other words, ordinary principles of WP:BOLDMOVE apply. There should not be a general prohibition or consensus-in-advance requirement, nor should editors revert moves solely "procedurally" because of AFD. (Editors can of course revert if they disagree on the merits of the name.) Reader-facing improvement efforts should not be held back by an overriding concern for internal administrators' confusion. That's getting priorities backward. Adumbrativus (talk) 01:21, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
• Hard cases make bad law. I don't know if that's always true, actually, but this discussion does strike me as an overreaction to an extremely unusual set of facts. --Trovatore (talk) 04:44, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Proposal to prohibit the creation of new "T:" pseudo-namespace redirects without prior consensus

Around this time last year in 2024, the phabricator ticket T363757 created a brand new alias for the template namespace. From this point on, it is possible to get to any template by appending the letters "TM:" to any search. If I wanted to reach the centralized discussion template, I could always type TM:CENT and it works like a charm, for all templates on the site. Back in the day though, typing in 8 characters to reach a page became somewhat exhausting, especially for titles that might need to be navigated to frequently. As a helpful tool, a pseudo-namespace called "T:" was deployed, to quickly let people reach pages in the template namespace. (Nevermind the fact that "T" apparently ALSO stands for the talk namespace (T:MP) and template talk namespace (T:DYKT)). Regardless, in practice, pseudo-namespaces are great tools for navigation, but they have a flaw in the fact that the software does not really support them. All pseudo-namespace redirects occupy mainspace, which means that any PNRs which exist should be maintained with care and diligence, to avoid interfering with regular readers searching for articles.

Anyway, among the four PNRs currently in use today, "T:" has been, by-and-large, the most controversial among the rest. While CAT:, P:, and H: all have some usage in different circumstances, according to WP:Shortcut#Pseudo-namespaces, "T:" titles are for "limited and specific uses only". Generally speaking, the only reason to justify the creation of a T: title, is for a template that sees regular use and maintenance by members of the project. If it's not a template one would need to return to on a regular basis, there's no need to occupy mainspace with a "T:" title, further adding to the obfuscation of other genuine articles that also start with "T:", such as T:kort, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, and many others according to Special:PrefixIndex/T:.

In regards to controversy, T: titles have been the subject of persistent RfDs since 2009, with variable results. Several RfCs have been held relating to pseudo-namespace redirects, including one from 2014 that suggests that "new T: titles should be generally discouraged", in Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy)/Archive 112#RFC: On the controversy of the pseudo-namespace shortcuts. Yet, despite the multiple RfCs and RfDs, new "T:" titles continue to crop up regardless. Whether that be from people who mis-interpret or misunderstand pseudo-namespaces, or for anyone that might not've noticed WP:Shortcut saying "T:" titles are for "limited uses only", these are frequently monitored and the number always grows.

In any case, with the advent of the ] alias, there is little to no need for new "T:" titles. It is not important enough to shrink a two-letter namespace, into a one-letter namespace, so there's really no reason to have NEW titles that start with "T:". In 2022, the "WikiProject:" pseudo-namespace was added to the disallow-list for new article titles. I don't think that "T:" as a starter should be added to such a list, but I don't think there should be any new ones of this type now that ] is a safer alternative that works for 100% of all templates, and doesn't affect mainspace searches.

I propose that on WP:Shortcut, "T:" is moved to a new classification indicating that new titles should not be created without prior consensus, and/or that "new titles do not enjoy broad community support", i.e. the category that the WikiProject prefix is listed at currently. (For that matter, I think that the WikiProject prefix should be removed from Shortcuts because no pages contain that prefix anywhere on Misplaced Pages; at least not any from the last 3 years). I also propose that "T:" be removed from the shortlist on WP:PNR, because I feel that contributes to the creation of new T: titles, and we should not encourage the creation of T: titles when TM: now exists. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 22:17, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Question: Is Special:PrefixIndex/T: all there is? I support at least a moratorium (consensus needed) for creating new T:, and also reeval existing T: in light of the new TM: alias. -- GreenC 14:45, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes, that's all there is. —Cryptic 23:22, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

I would also support a moratorium outside of the DYK space. I note other main page uses are currently up for discussion at Misplaced Pages:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 January 16#T:Pic of the day and etc., which would leave just DYK. Ideally if T: is deprecated, the DYK instructions would shift to TM: as well. I'll create a note at WT:DYK pointing to this proposal. CMD (talk) 15:57, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

• Support I've always found "T:" titles confusing. In particular, I never understood why sometimes it worked (i.e. T:DYK) and sometimes it didn't (T:Cite journal). At some point I gave up trying to figure it out and just resigned myself to typing out "template" all the time (and occasionally typing "templare" by accident). I wasn't even aware that TM: existed.It's absurd that there should be namespaces, aliases, pseudo-namespaces, all of which have slightly different behaviors (not to mention Help:Transwiki). You should be able to understand what something is by looking at it, i.e. if it has a ":" after it, it's a namespace. So yeah, I wholeheartedly support getting rid of T. Getting rid of the existing T links may be painful, but it's pain we will endure once and be done with. That's better than continuing to have something that's inconsistent and confusing forever.

I ran into this recently when writing some code that handles matching template names. It turns out that if I give you a link foo:bar, you can't know if the "foo" part is case sensitive or not if you don't know what namespaces are configured on the particular wiki it came from. That's just stupid. RoySmith (talk) 16:25, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

PS, as a follow-up to You should be able to understand what something is by looking at it, I suggest people watch Richard Feynman's comments on this subject. When I'm seeking wonder and amazement at discovering a deeper understanding of the world around me, I can turn to quantum mechanics. I'd prefer wiki-syntax to be a bit less wonderous. RoySmith (talk) 16:49, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Support – if we already have TM: as a perfectly functional pseudonamespace alias that automatically redirects to Template:, we don't need to encourage the use of T: which only works for hardcoded redirects and adds another level of confusion. After the moratorium, we can leave DYK some additional time to shift to TM: if needed. (edited 15:14, 22 January 2025 (UTC): mixed up alias and pseudonamespace again) Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 17:10, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose. "TM:" is not an intuitive redirect for "template", and longstanding usage - which I use frequently - is for "T:", e.g. T:ITN, T:DYK etc. If need be, we should tell the software to use "T:" universally for templates rather than "TM:". Using it for "Talk:" doesn't really make sense either, it's very rare to need a shortcut to a talk page, whereas templates are frequent targets. We should also add "TT:" for template talk. Editors drive how we work on the project, not suits at the Wikimedia Foundation.  — Amakuru (talk) 19:49, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

  Despite your claim, the decision wasn't made by suits at the Wikimedia Foundation, but by this very community here at VPP (link), where "TM:" was chosen over "T:". Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 20:15, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

  Even the code patch was written by a enwiki volunteer and the deployment was done by another volunteer developer lol. The claim of suits at the Wikimedia Foundation has no basis here. Literally nobody from the WMF was involved in this. Sohom (talk) 06:15, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

  What one person finds intuitive isn't always necessarily what another person finds intuitive. But the link Chaotic Enby posted above shows there's a consensus that TM: is a suitable alias, so I don't think we should reinvigorate that debate. The question here isn't whether we like TM, it's whether we should get rid of T now that we have TM. Cremastra (talk) 20:56, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

• Support. I agree we should not make new T redirects and stick with one abbreviation, TM, which behaves consistently and predictably. Adumbrativus (talk) 06:02, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
• Support per Adumbrativus. JuxtaposedJacob (talk) | :) | he/him | 23:20, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Support. As Utopes points out, the advantage from writing "t" compared to "tm" is one character, however, the cons far outweigh them. Gonnym (talk) 09:22, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

• Note, listed this on TM:CENT. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 22:04, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
• Support: T: had a historical reason to exist, but whether a shortcut would exist or not was always frustratingly inconsistent. Now that there is a clean & reliable replacement, we ought to stop adding to that historical baggage! Mlkj (talk) 23:35, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Replace links to twitter / "X"

Would it be a good idea to build a scraper and a bot that scrapes tweets and then replaces the link to the tweet to a link to a site populated with scraped tweets? That way we don't send traffic to Twitter or whatever its called these days. Polygnotus (talk) 00:38, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Wouldn't scraping be a copyright violation? —Jéské Couriano v^_^v 00:48, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

@Jéské Couriano: I do not know (I am not a lawyer). I do know Google cache and the Wayback Machine and various other services that would also infringe on copyright, if that is copyright infringement. If the Wayback Machine can archive tweets, we could ask it to index every tweet and then remove every direct link to twitter. Maybe meta:InternetArchiveBot can do this and we only have to supply a list of tweets and then replace the links? Polygnotus (talk) 00:52, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Google Cache is defunct and to avoid copyright issues the Wayback Machine removes archives on request. It also no longer works with Twitter. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:51, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

No. Misplaced Pages is not the place to try to attempt to voice your concerns with Elon Musk. Unless or until the site becomes actually harmful itself, more than others (i.e. scraping user data or similar), then there is no need to replace those links. Nobody is advocating for replacing links to Reuters, which requires you to sign up for an account and accept email ads/etc. to read articles for free. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 01:00, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

until the site becomes actually harmful itself, more than others It is already, right? WP:RGW is about WP:OR and WP:RS, so it is unclear why you linked to it and it appears to be offtopic. Reuters, which requires you to sign up for an account and accept email ads/etc. to read articles for free. It does? I have never seen that (but I am using ublock and pihole and various related tools). Polygnotus (talk) 01:05, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Why should Misplaced Pages be concerned what websites get traffic? If it's about the political views or actions of its owner or its userbase, then that's absolutely against the spirit of "righting great wrongs" in a literal sense, even if it's not what's specifically covered in WP:RGW. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:00, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

~~Agree that it's better not to send traffic to Twitter, but I don't know if Twitter is exactly getting a lot of traffic through Misplaced Pages, and in any case linking to the actual tweet (the actual source) is important.~~ Other users suggested archives. I oppose replacing links with links to a scraper, but I wouldn't oppose replacing links with links to the Internet Archive, for example -- something reputable. Mrfoogles (talk) 21:22, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

The disagreement of some editors with Twitter and Elon Musk do not constitute a reason for getting rid of it.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:33, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Was this idea prompted by the banning of Twitter/X links by subreddits on reddit? https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/22/24349467/reddit-subreddit-x-twitter-link-bans-elon-musk-nazi-salute I'm not opposed to the idea of doing this on Misplaced Pages (replacing the links with an archived version of the tweets), but it does come off as somewhat like virtue signalling, considering that links to Twitter/X aren't commonly found on Misplaced Pages. Some1 (talk) 00:04, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Personally I'm not sure it's a good idea, but I don't think it's just "virtue signaling". Obviously the effect will not be enormous, but it will help slightly (all the subreddits together, even though they're small, have some effect) and it's good to have sort of statements of principle like this, in my opinion. As long as the goal is to actually not tolerate Nazism, rather than appear to not tolerate Nazism, I don't think it's virtue signaling. Mrfoogles (talk) 20:48, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

@Polygnotus what is the specific reason you are suggesting this is something that should be implemented? I'm a terrible mind reader, and wouldn't want to make presumptions of your motives for you. TiggerJay (talk) 01:21, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

There is clear and obvious value in ensuring all {{cite twitter}} or {{cite web}} URLs have archive URLs, what with Musk's previously shortly-held opinion about the value of externally accessible URLs. Other than that, I see little reason to "switch" things. Izno (talk) 22:23, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Most archiving services don’t work with Twitter anymore. Archive.org doesn’t and archive.is does it poorly. The only one that works consistently is GhostArchive which has been removed before over copyright concerns. For similar reasons, existing Twitter mirrors like Nitter are either defunct or broken. This would amount to removing all Twitter links then. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:35, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

This however wouldn't be terrible. Simply removing all links to Twitter would be valuable for multiple content reasons in the direction of WP:WEIGHT, WP:OR, and so on. Izno (talk) 22:38, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

There is already tight guidelines on where and how tweets can be used in articles, and I don't think that it is any more prevalent than it is from any other primary source website. While the use of such primary sources need to be closely monitored in any article, there are places where its inclusion is appropriate and helpful, but it certainly is on the rare side of things. I also would proffer that if the main reason to prevent having links directly to twitter is some sort of virtue signaling we're going to get into a world of problems as the values and moralities of people in Wiki differ greatly. Should we then drop all links to Russian websites to support Ukraine? What about when it comes down to PIA issues or other areas of great contention? This would be murky waters that is best avoided all together. TiggerJay (talk) 22:47, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Unless you want to remove WP:ABOUTSELF broadly I don’t see the reason to apply it to Twitter instead of every other social media website there is. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:48, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Having to build and maintain our own scraping service would have high costs in terms of software engineers to build the service, then software engineers to maintain it forever. We'd also basically be reinventing the wheel since FOSS organizations like Internet Archive already do scraping. Would recommend continuing with the status quo, which is linking to Twitter, and having Internet Archive do the scraping in case the main link dies. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:34, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages village pump
• Misplaced Pages proposals