Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

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It is a serious matter

I am a simple article writer on the Persian Wikipedia. Unfortunately, Wikipedia administrators. Those who are senior. Most of them have leftist or Islamist beliefs and hide this. And they do not allow us, neutral article writers, freedom of expression. I wish something could be done. Rashidi8080 (talk) 08:49, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We cannot help you with issues on the Persian Wikipedia, which is a separate project from the English Wikipedia. You will need to discuss your concerns there, using whatever forum that they have to do so. 331dot (talk) 08:50, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It may be a serious matter, but, as 331dot says, it is not one that we can deal with at the English Wikipedia. If you have a very strong case, and it is not listened to at the Persian Wikipedia, it is possible that you may get some redress at Meta:. But I think that is unlikely at a Wikipedia as large as the Persian. Phil Bridger (talk) 09:04, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In former times you could appeal to the founder at User talk:Jimbo Wales but I'm not sure that that is useful anymore. Might be. Couldn't hurt I guess. Herostratus (talk) 18:56, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nation names

It is English language Wikipedia policy, largely defined, to use English language word for some nations, even if they've requested otherwise. The most obvious example is Côte d'Ivoire, the name used by FIFA, still known as [[Ivory Coast]]. The argument is that usage dictates policy, and I don't know how much usage changes that policy. A recent example is Czechia, which is stil [[Czech Republic]] (though an article such as this year's Berlin Film Festival uses Czechia and this hasn't been edited, interestingly). I think we all know the talk page of the Turkey article is now a daily request bonanza of editors asking it to be renamed Türkiye.

Is there any chance of the policy being reexamined? I notice, obviously, that Eswatini was changed from Swaziland. There is inconsistency and I wonder if that inconsistency will ever be resolved doktorb _words^deeds 13:01, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The policy is WP:COMMONNAME (part of Wikipedia:Article titles), there is no specific policy about the names of nations. As someone who has followed relevant move requests for a few years, I don't think there is inconsistency, and I have not seen any real enthusiasm to either ditch the article title policy, or create specific carve-outs. CMD (talk) 13:06, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @Chipmunkdavis I think Turkey vs Eswatini shows there is some inconsistency. But obviously I know that editors tend to be cautious about policy changes like this. I'm just curious (and with Czechia being used in some articles unedited I wonder if these things will change organically.). doktorb _words^deeds 13:13, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Swaziland was moved to eSwatini in 2018, in an RM that included a survey of RS that found that the common name had changed to reflect the name change. Further discussion later moved it to Eswatini. RMs for Turkey have included surveys of RS that have found that the common name has not significantly shifted. The inconsistency here reflects real-world inconsistency, it is not an en.wiki creation. It also is not restricted to country names, take Indian cities. Mumbai appears to have been the main article since before article history was fully worked out, which was only about half a decade after renaming. On the other hand, Bengaluru was only moved late last year, a decade and a half after its official renaming. Pondicherry has not been renamed Puducherry, although this may be partially disambiguation. Why was Swaziland changed much faster than Turkey? Hard to say, but English is an official language in Swaziland so perhaps its writers had more cultural pull. Do these change organically? Yes, Timor-Leste was only recently moved, and its RM cited a spike in 2024 in the use of "Timor-Leste", which, as far as anyone has theorised, was due to the pope travelling there late that year. CMD (talk) 13:28, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Our consistency lies, rightly, in applying WP:COMMONNAME. That Eswatini has become the common name fairly fast may indicate that "Swaziland" was not mentioned often or embedded in global-north consciousness to the extent of "Czech Republic" and "Turkey". NebY (talk) 13:36, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes there are a few that are actively debated and there is no one answer that will satisfy everyone. A few. One thing we want to watch out for is nationist special pleading. I'm not saying that that is a major problem. But sometimes. It isn't a mjor problem regarding Türkiye, for instance, but still I would expect that naming to be favored by Turks, who would likely be somewhat nationalistic, not in a bad or toxic way, but in understandably wanting to not use a foreign name for their country. But we really don't care what a native Turkish speaker prefers much more than what a native Humgarian speaker prefers, or shouldn't, and we care more about what native English speakers prefer, or should. We are supposed to be ice-cold neutral about these things. Granted that there will always be political feelings around these things, that is normal, but not a feature.

IMO diacritics are a complication (not all agree). I have no idea how that ü is pronounced, nor ı, and can't be bothered to learn and for good or ill that applies to most readers, who pronounce "straße" as "strabe" and "kanał" as "canal" and just blip over others. Granted the camps for "use diacritics generously" and "use diacritics sparingly" are divided about 50/50 last I knew. Herostratus (talk) 00:09, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just shoot me

Trying to work on article relating to Israel. I am finding it less pleasant than french kissing an alligator. I think we need to have a banner like this on some articles:

Hi! We see that you have accessed an article relating to Israel or Palestine. You should be aware that this article is probably being fought over by two groups of Wikipedia editors who hate each other's guts and are unwilling to listen to reason. Consequently, if you read the article, you will end up knowing less than when you started. (See: knowledge reduction)

We suggest that you instead click the random article icon now, as even reading about a phone booth in Arkansas or a guy who played two baseball games in 1872 or whatever comes up will surely be infinitely more useful in your daily life than getting between these two groups of editors, and you are less likely to be knifed too. Bye!

Herostratus (talk) 05:50, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's a good idea but will likely only lead to the ire of editors being directed even more fiercely or towards others/the creator of said banner(s). See: any time someone is told to cool off and work on something else (here or elsewhere). Recon rabbit 14:58, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The only topic notices I can find are Template:Contentious topics/Arab-Israeli editnotice and Template:Contentious topics/Arab-Israeli talk notice that appear as an edit notice and on the talk page, respectively, and the user talk page CTOP notice. Nothing as bluntly honest as yours. Progress was made at WP:ARBPIA5 in getting some of the hateful/unreasonable editors out of the topic area, but there are still plenty more. All we can do is to be active at WP:AE and tell administrators that the community wants long-term pov pushing to be sanctioned more severely, especially in this topic area. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 16:14, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Right. We do have {{POV}} for article pages. Problem I am having with that is my colleagues on the article we are engaging on are like "No, we can't have that tag. No sane, reasonable person could believe that the article is POV" (altho it is actually quite POV, or at any rate arguably so). So I mean if we did have a tag -- alright, not like the one I wrote about, but something along the general lines of "Because of the topic, this article may not meet our usual standards for neutrality and veracity" or something -- it would have to be placed by some outside agency, such as members of the admin corps or something. But that's not an admin function and would be viewed poorly, with perhaps some justification.

We do have {{Recent death}} which has

This article is currently being heavily edited because its subject has recently died. Information about their death and related events may change significantly and initial news reports may be unreliable. The most recent updates to this article may not reflect the most current information. Please feel free to improve this article (but edits without reliable references may be removed) or discuss changes on the talk page.

which is kinda-sorta similar in way, at least in that it warns about possible unreliablity. But people are usually on one side or the other of a clear DEAD/NOT DEAD line where there's no arguing over whether the tag should apply or not.

Oh wait we do have {{Unbalanced}} and {{cherry-picked}} and various kinds of POV templates. But all those have the same problem: "Article is fine, removed per WP:BRD, make your case [which we will never, ever accept or even bother to read] on the talk page." I mean we could have a rule that everything in Category:Israeli–Palestinian conflict gets tagged. Some won't rate having it but some do, and it gives a clear GO/NOGO line. (Yeah then you coulg get "This article doesn't belong in Category:Israeli–Palestinian conflict so I am removing the category and the tag" even if it does belong. But unless it really is a marginal case that might not be super easy. IDK.

Oh well. Governance here is pretty much Rube Goldberg. I hope the Foundation doesn't feel they have to come in and basically take over editorial oversight, at least on this subject. But, entities that are unable to govern themselves find themselves governed by someone else sooner or later. So maybe. Herostratus (talk) 02:07, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

{{POV}} should be used as a link to active discussion. If there's not an active discussion on the talk page, then drive-by POV tags should be removed. But if there is an ongoing discussion at the talk page, it belongs on the page per WP:WNTRMT and I'd support a pban or a topic ban against people who keep removing it. But again, the most efficient way to handle this is to have these people removed from the topic area, which many admins are too scared to do. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 02:53, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Scared of what? Herostratus (talk) 03:23, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Scared to impose topic bans at WP:AE on the basis of WP:TENDENTIOUS POV pushing. (They can also impose them unilaterally, but that should only be used for egregious offenses rather than long-term issues.) Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 05:39, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Because of being brigaded and scolded by one "side" or the other? Herostratus (talk) 04:42, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Aftermath" sections

aftermath noun the period that follows an unpleasant event or accident, and the effects that it causes

I'm not sure if it's limited to specific domains on Wikipedia, but I often see subsequent events and news under a page section titled "Aftermath", even if the page is not about a disaster, accident, etc. For example, 2020 United States presidential election § Aftermath and 2024 United States presidential election § Aftermath. Is there an alternative meaning of aftermath that is not necessarily preceded by negative circumstances? Or is this a case of Wikipedia misuse that could end up speaking it into existence? —Bagumba (talk) 06:51, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Collins says "an important event, especially a harmful one", and gives an example where the "event" is "the Soviet era", so it is not necessarily preceded by negative circumstances (opinions on the Soviet era may vary). That said, your examples seem to indicate a use here as more of a synonym of "impact"/"effects"/"legacy", which is definitely out of proportion to the dictionaries defining it as predominantly linked to negative events. CMD (talk) 07:09, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Legacy" or "retrospective" is often more appropriate describing second-order analysis and long-term effects, but I ruminated and flipped around thesauruses and there would seem to be no formal English word that has a similar sense when it comes to summarizing the short-term ramifications of an event. Remsense ‥ 论 07:57, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sports championship pages sometime use "Aftermath" to document how the winner and loser fared afterwards e.g. 2019 NBA Finals § Aftermath. Sometimes I wonder if it's just a WP:COATRACK, but it's rarely about the "Legacy" or a "retrospective" of the event itself. —Bagumba (talk) 10:23, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For the 2019 NBA Finals#Aftermath example, I would probably use "Post-series developments" instead of "Aftermath". Some1 (talk) 23:08, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agree that it is probably the most appropriate word for short- or medium-term effects of events, including battles, disasters, accidents, and I often use it in that way myself. In my experience "Legacy" is more often used for bios to cover longer-term impact of a person's life and work, I'm not sure how often it is used for events, I certainly haven't seen it used much for war-related events. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:40, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Great Tea Race of 1866 uses "Afterwards" to head the section that says what happened to the ships mentioned (and some captains) after the race. "Aftermath" seems to me to be entirely inappropriate in that situation. Whatever such a section is called, it really counterbalances any "Historical background" (or similar section). ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 11:49, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Section names should normally be a noun or noun phrase, but Afterwards is an adverb. —Bagumba (talk) 11:57, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Desperate times call for desperately taking measures? Remsense ‥ 论 12:00, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Normally" gives some latitude, surely. Given the struggle here to find the right word, is that latitude needed? ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 19:35, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Afterward or Afterword seem distinctly plausible, especially in the singular. Maybe Postface? The first two are potentially a hair over-narrative-y, the latter potentially not enough so?

(Maybe it's a bit of a generational distinction, perhaps even one mediated by younger people having grown up reading Aftermath sections on Wikipedia?) Remsense ‥ 论 11:58, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to suggest sequelae, but that seems to have been hijacked by the medical profession and since nobody learns Latin now, the specialised meaning is fixed as the sole one. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 14:01, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd love a better word to describe relevents as a result of the big thing implied by the topic. Eg in various SCOTUS cases, events that occurred after the decision. Wording like Legacy or Impact doesn't seem to make sense when we are discussing events after the fact. Masem (t) 14:05, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Impact" would be more encyclopedic, but imagine they often are reduced to WP:EXAMPLEFARMs instead of a summary of consequences. —Bagumba (talk) 07:36, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think "Aftereffects" or "Consequences" would be more suitable for subsequent events that were directly attributable to the occurrence of the event. In the case of sporting events where the section is used to describe the next time the teams made the playoffs, I think that content should be removed, as it is not a direct consequence of the event, and is better covered in the team's article (or a spinout article on the team's history). isaacl (talk) 16:41, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"What happened next" may be essential for completeness, but not "after effects" or "consequences" of the article subject.
For example, suppose there was an article on Emigration from Scotland, 1750-1930 (there is a reasonable case for such an article – it covers the demographics of when people left in large numbers and, in total, matches the dates used by sources, the end date being the economic depression in the USA). A closing "what happened next" paragraph would not be a result of the events in the article – covering, among other things, post WW2 emigration and present day events. But without some brief summary mention of emigration after the period, it leaves the subject in a contextual vacuum, making it difficult to understand the significance of this huge outflow. As already suggested above, this would be mirrored by a "historical background" section which covers the "beforehand". The "after" is equally essential for an understanding of the subject. Clearly if the "after" is a big enough subject for its own article, that is a different situation.
(I am aware of Scottish diaspora but that covers a different aspect of the same story.) ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 08:20, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, whether or not such a section should exist is subject to editorial judgement on what best serves coverage of the event in question. isaacl (talk) 16:35, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If there is a better word I have not found it. Legacy is good for long-term consequences, but that is not aftermath, which is shorter term. Consequences or after effects is along the lines of legacy, and is also not quite the same, as something can happen in the aftermath that is relevant but not necessarily a consequence. Afterward/Afterwards seems inappropriate for a section heading. Aftermath does have a connotation of a negative event, but not exclusively as shown by the Soviet example. PARAKANYAA (talk) 03:31, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Aftermath does have a connotation of a negative event, but not exclusively as shown by the Soviet example.: I'd argue that aftermath there was meant to imply a negative, as the Soviet Union is often portrayed negatively by Western media. —Bagumba (talk) 03:57, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If there is more events to cover after the main subject of the article, then I feel a topic-specific heading should be used, rather than a generic one. isaacl (talk) 04:35, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

Is it permitted to remove the "External links modified" sections from Talk pages? Hej Simon (talk) 12:40, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 13:51, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay! Hej Simon (talk) 13:56, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Seven million articles

Seeing as we are probably about less than two months away from reaching 7,000,000 articles, I created Wikipedia:Seven million articles, based off of Wikipedia:Six million articles, and updated what I could. If anyone else thinks there are enhancements to the page, please feel free to add to it! Cheers, « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 17:36, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Many editors think that stubs should be merged to other articles. As one of the dwindling number of editors that remembers paper encyclopedias, where most articles consisted of one or two sentences, if that, I happen to disagree, but I seem to be in a minority. Please be aware that such people do not regard large numbers of articles as something to celebrate. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:22, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is a good thing than you did prepared this text for this article that was not published yet.

Maybe it was not wrote yet.

My point of view is the next. This page is acceptable.

I saw only a minor problem.

It's wrote : "* Wikipedia in more than 350 language editions with over 64 million articles in total."

There are 341 active editions when I'm writing this message. I don't know if it's better to take into accounts only the active Wikipedias. Anatole-berthe (talk) 06:52, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:UPSD Update

Following Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_201#URLs_with_utm_source=chatgpt.com_codes, I have added detection for possible AI-generated slop to my script.

Possible AI-slop sources will be flagged in orange, thought I'm open to changing that color in the future if it causes issues. If you have the script, you can see it in action on those articles.

For now the list of AI sources is limited to ChatGPT (utm_source=chatgpt.com), but if you know of other chatGPT-like domains, let me know!

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:13, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Riad Salih: this may be of interest to you. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:45, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Non-free licenses for PD-USonly works

I've got a file that's {{PD-USonly}} but also available under a non-free Creative Commons license. I'm sure there are readers outside the United States who'd benefit from knowing that reuse is allowed, albeit with restrictions. Unfortunately, the only relevant licensing tags I can find are {{Non-free with NC and ND}} and {{Non-free file with no derivative works license}}, which assume the file has a non-free license tag.

Is there any good way to tag files with these licenses without putting them in Category:Wikipedia non-free files? Should we modify these templates so they can be used with PD-US files, or maybe create alternate versions of them? hinnk (talk) 08:20, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How about just stating the licence without using a template? If there are several of them, then it could be worth having a teplate set up. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:13, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's gonna end up being more. A lot of material archived by the National Library of Norway (and still under copyright there) is available as CC-BY-NC, so anything pre-1930 may end up falling into this category. hinnk (talk) 22:46, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Random drive-by talk page posts by IPs

Talk pages of articles get a large number of random drive-by talk page posts by IPs, consisting of single words, nonsense or complete gibberish, which may normally be presumed to be test edits. But some pages seem to attract disproportionately more than others. Can anybody suggest why Talk:XXX and Talk:XXXX get so many of these? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:32, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Redrose64, a bunch of Xs is associated with porn and forbidden topics. That's catnip to people with certain immature and disruptive personality traits. Cullen328 (talk) 22:54, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How ridiculous

The featured article for today is about a single planned edition of an annual competition that never happened. Am I the only one who finds this absurd? 2601:644:8184:F2F0:A15D:AF8E:82A5:35DA (talk) 01:21, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's part of a historical event that was postponed by a historical event: it's notable for being a long-running tradition that couldn't be allowed, with tonnes of evidence and context to justify its importance. Sometimes what doesn't happen is as important as what does. doktorb _words^deeds 02:11, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For the lazy, The Boat Race 2020. It's not compulsory to read it. Johnuniq (talk) 02:15, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is an unwritten law of Wikipedia that The Boat Race must receive maximum exposure on the main page, even when it does not happen. Cullen328 (talk) 22:57, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]