I've heard it discussed around a fair amount, and I'm sure it's one of those 'perennial proposals' that the veterans here are going to roll their eyes and say "ugh, somebody's bringing THIS up again," but I do think it bears saying. Notability is an awful descriptor for what we're actually looking for, which is presence in sources. That's 'notedness' if anything, not 'notability', and the inevitable result is that every time you tell someone you can't accept their autobiography/company's article/article about their favourite media thing because it's 'not notable,' they get their haunches up and go on a tirade about how many awards they/the thing have won and how many cool things they/the thing have done, etc. Pretty much every mention of something being notable or not notable has to be accompanied by a mandatory disclaimer of what notability means here and how it doesn't mean what they think it does. It's a thought particularly spurred on by my deletion nomination of the article Deaglán de Bréadún, which led the man himself to post a response essentially calling me a nasty person for daring to imply that him and his career aren't notable... which, of course, is not actually what we mean, despite literally saying the words "you aren't notable enough for a Wikipedia article"

So, the obvious question is; what would we call it instead? I've heard the term "Criteria for inclusion" mentioned, which I think would be a graceful solution, since you can explain that the criteria for inclusion is presence in sources etc without ever having to use the scary word 'notability.' Whatever alternative option is presented, I do think it is seriously high time that Wikipedia take the big step of retiring the term 'notability' Athanelar (talk) 00:39, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

I agree with you. Notability is a dumb name. However, there's never going to be a consensus to change it. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:55, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

And then, what would we call all the lists of "notable" people/residents/alumni/etc.? "People/residents/alumni/etc. who meet the criteria for inclusion"? Donald Albury 01:11, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

I think you could probably still keep those; the definition there would logically run in the opposite direction, they are notable because they meet the criteria for inclusion. It's not an ideal solution, but obviously cuts down on some of the logistical challenge. Athanelar (talk) 01:41, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

Renaming notability has been an WP:PEREN issue, repeated discussed without finding any term that has a benefit over "notability" that would not be disruptive (how many P&G depend on it) but would be more descriptive. And no, "presence in sources" is an indicator of notability, but not how notability is defined. Masem (t) 01:16, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

It is undoubtedly true that it would be a lot of work changing the nomenclature all over the project if we got rid of 'notability,' but I don't think "It'd be a lot of work" is a compelling counterargument. There would no doubt be a long transitional period where lingering remains of 'notability' were still all over the place; but that doesn't have to be an issue, it's not like the change has to happen overnight. We could just say "from today on, the term 'notability' is deprecated and we prefer this new term instead" and people can change mentions of it as and when they catch it. Just today I heard about the NSPORTS 2022 RfC where the definition of notability for athletes was radically changed; that too would've had far-reaching implications on the project, but that didn't stop people from doing it just because it was a lot of work ahead of them to clean up the now non-notable athlete articles everywhere. Athanelar (talk) 01:42, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

The NSPORT change did not radically change what notability was, just eliminated a very poor presumption of notability (playing one professional game) that had led to thousands of permastubs on athletes that was a constant problem at ANI.

We've been through what the downstream impacts of changing the term notability to something else as part of past discussions (because this being PEREN) and its not as simple "from now on it will be known as..." "notability" is embedded in WP culture and in coverage of how WP works, so it would be a massive shift, so any new terms must carry a lot of massive benefit to make it worth the effort to make the change. And dozens of suggestions have been made and failed to show this. Masem (t) 04:47, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

• My 9-year-old essay's time has finally come! WP:Noted not notable. (Note: It's a very, very short essay, admittedly.) EEng 01:58, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  We could put this in big letters on the notability page and all the spin-off pages like WP:42. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 04:24, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  This is also a fairly elegant solution, hut unfortunately relies on people actually clicking the link and then actually reading the words on their screen. The 'headline effect' is real when it comes to WP links. Athanelar (talk) 09:23, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  Nice essay, EEng. I especially like how the "nutshell" explanation is nearly twice as long as the essay itself  ;) —Fortuna, imperatrix 19:24, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  [1] EEng 20:16, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[]

• For reference, the last big discussion on this topic that I know of is Wikipedia talk:Notability/Archive 84 § RfC on change of name, from April 2025. isaacl (talk) 02:07, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  Much appreciated. Starting to read through some of that, I think 'eligibility' is quite a strong contender. It's an easily-understood English word already, which perfectly encapsulates the concept being described, and also would actually allow us to broaden our definition in some useful ways (because eligibility is a catch-all term that could include not only the presence of positive indicators like strong sources, but also the absence of negative indicators like WP:NOT or criteria for speedy deletion.) A subject which is 'eligible' is one that is both suitable for inclusion and unsuitable for deletion, which 'notability' does not currently encapsulate. Athanelar (talk) 02:15, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  No, eligibility is a terrible idea, because it implies a brightline yes/no answer. Notability is a greyscale, its why notability is based on presumptions and not a hardline test.

  The only real issue with notability is for editors encountering the term for the first time, and coming to learn that real-world definition of notability is not exactly the same as WP's definition of notability, but reading the P&G should quickly resolve that. Masem (t) 04:53, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

The only way to get the name changed? would be to propose only one alternative. GoodDay (talk) 02:10, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

I disagree, the bugbear for a lot of people seems to be whether we'll get consensus that changing the name is worth the effort. I think people first have to be disgruntled about the old name to be resolved to change it before we worry what the new name ought to be. Athanelar (talk) 02:11, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

Do you have a proposed name? GoodDay (talk) 14:37, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

No! God please no! This is a perennial issue based primarily on WP:IDONTLIKEIT. It’s too late and too entrenched to change and someone is just going to bitch about how dumb “eligibility” is down the line. A better proposal would be outright banning perennial proposals and requiring consensus to unban them before allowing them to be discussed again, since that would require more extraordinary reasoning than “I know this has been talked to death, but just me out, I swear”. Dronebogus (talk) 02:43, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

While I agree that changing it has a less-than-ideal cost-reward, this post (and the others before it) explain legitimate downsides to the current name besides preference. Also, a discussion to unban a perennial proposal would look almost identical to the proposal itself. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 04:28, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

A discussion to unban a perennial proposal would look almost identical to the proposal itself. Maybe so, but it would force proposers to go through the process twice, which would discourage most proposers from doing it at all and save everyone a lot of time. Additionally, it wouldn’t necessarily always result in the aforementioned situation— if a proposal was banned because it was a hot-button issue now, it might be uncontroversially removed from the list 10 years later after things cool off, without actually endorsing it. It would be sort of like the MediaWiki:Bad image list or a gold lock for proposals. Dronebogus (talk) 09:51, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

I totally agree with you and I was disappointed that there wasn't consensus to change the name in the aforementioned April 2025 RfC. But given the outcome of said RfC, I struggle to see the point of rehashing the discussion so soon as it's very unlikely that there will be a different outcome. Perhaps give it a year or two.  novov talk edits 05:24, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

• Coverage perhaps? Or renown? Or just noted ... I doubt it'll ever actually change though. EvergreenFir (talk) 05:42, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  Coverage is a distinction without a difference. Renown is far more pretentious than notability. Noted is barely even a change and couldn’t be used rationally in a sentence. Dronebogus (talk) 09:53, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

• WP:Eligibility was recently suggested by Wikipedia expert Bill Beutler. SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:00, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  Eligibility is the rename option that sucks the least, since it most accurately reflects what “notability” actually means. But “notability” still at least puts a vague idea in people’s heads (namely, is this thing/person significant in some way?) whereas “eligibility” could mean pretty much anything and could actually put a worse idea in people’s heads (namely, eligibility is whatever somebody says it is, or is some arcane ruleset known only to insiders that isn’t easily summarized). Dronebogus (talk) 09:59, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  I still think "notedness" would be better than "eligibility", as "eligibility" seems like it should include non-WP:N things such as WP:NOT and WP:BLP. Anomie⚔ 13:50, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  I don't see that as a negative. We are, ultimately, looking for a term that describes "eligible to be included on Wikipedia." In fact, some of the AfC decline notices literally use "your references do not demonstrate that this subject qualifies for a Wikipedia article" as a piped link to 'notability' anyway. If anything, having a more comprehensive term would be an advantage, since then you don't run into the tricky situations of 'well, we TECHNICALLY have enough information to presume this person is notable, but there's still not enough coverage to substantiate an article about them' amd so on.

  Eligibility includes what we now define as notability, but way more succinctly communicates the point of whether or not something should have an article. Athanelar (talk) 14:02, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  Having an all-encompassing term actually referring to just one facet seems like it would make it harder to discuss that facet versus other facets. "Ok, that meets WP:ELIGIBILITY, but it's still not eligible because it doesn't meet WP:BLP1E." "Wat?" Anomie⚔ 00:01, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  Exactly. Dronebogus (talk) 14:33, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  “notability” still at least puts a vague idea in people’s heads: but I think that’s the problem with the term. People don’t realize they are encountering a jargon term and substitute their own meaning. I’d argue that “eligibility” is better because there’s more precedent that contextual criteria will define eligibility for a particular thing; it might cue people that they need Wikipedia-specific information. (I’d almost want to try a complete neologism that people would know they don’t know the meaning of, something like “wikifiability” or “AAOEW” (Article Allowed On En-Wiki) that they’d know they don’t know.) ~ le 🌸 valyn (talk) 07:35, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  Anomie said it best with the “wiki-eligibility is not dictionary definition eligibility” example. Notability still hits the general vicinity of the right idea; eligibility doesn’t and has the potential to be more confusing. As for a neologism, I don’t support that either because (on top of being a solution in search of a problem like all these replacement suggestions) it just adds MORE incomprehensible jargon to Wikipedia— which is what this proposal is supposedly trying to cut back on. Dronebogus (talk) 14:39, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  I feel like you might have misunderstood my argument. When it comes to the one-word name for this concept, I contend that "trying to cut back on" jargon is counterproductive; any one-word name for this mess of concepts is inherently jargon. Accordingly, I think there's no point trying to change to something "clearer", but it could possibly be helpful to change to something less "clear", because it could make the term into a "known unknown" instead of "something you know that isn't so". Personally, when I want to avoid jargon with newbies, I write out a whole explanatory phrase instead (eg "our criteria for a book to have an article"); I think that's the only approach that can actually effectively cut down on jargon. ~ le 🌸 valyn (talk) 02:42, 23 February 2026 (UTC)[]

• Notability was never a good choice of name, but we've stuck with it because of the cost of changing; it's a QWERTY vs DVORAK problem. Personally I'd quite like to call it "Citability".—S Marshall T/C 09:45, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  I think the 'cost of changing' would quickly be outweighed if you tallied up the editor-hours required and compared it to the editor-hours that have been spent and will continue to be spent in perpetuity explaining to disgruntled would-be article creators why appearing on a list of the Top 100 Best Things doesn't confer notability. Athanelar (talk) 13:11, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  Don't misunderstand: I personally would support most reasonable alternative names because "notability" is still (after all these years) a misleading, dramagenic, and generally awful choice of words. But there's a non-zero cost of changing and a lot of neophobia to overcome here.—S Marshall T/C 14:40, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  Is “dramagenic” a word? Dronebogus (talk) 14:40, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  As I discussed last April, personally I encourage everyone to focus on providing more complete explanations on the standards for having an article rather than just linking to a jargon term. The key obstacle is that the community has to want to reduce its use of jargon. isaacl (talk) 16:51, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

• It is highly unlikely that the community is going to rename "Notability", this being as noted a perennial proposal that gets enmeshed in the long and complicated history and complicated current understanding of the concept of 'notability' on en.wiki. However, a creative smaller change probably worth exploring might be to create an alternative name for WP:GNG that somehow does not include the "N". GNG is the aspect of notability that best describes "presence in sources", it is the least likely aspect of notability to get enmeshed in notability politics. I don't have a perfect suggestion offhand, but creating an alternative name for GNG is a smaller task then renaming all of notability, and would capture much of the practical benefit of a full notability rename even if that full rename never happens. CMD (talk) 14:11, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]
• The community's inertia is such that a proposal to change this isn't a good use of my time or anyone else's. But I agree, and if I had my way I would want the policy not to be a near-synonym of "significant". The practical consequence I see most often is the eliding of "should we as an ambitious global encyclopedia cover this in principle" and "can we as an encyclopedia that cares about verifiability write an article about this in practice". I could go on at length, but a more prosaic name may help us a good bit, perhaps something as plain as "standard for inclusion". Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:47, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  “Standard(s) for inclusion” is by FAR the best proposed option so far; but there are multiple “standards for inclusion” beyond notability. Dronebogus (talk) 14:46, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  @Dronebogus: This is precisely the distinction that I want to make. To my mind there's not multiple standards for inclusion, because in our most overarching policy language, "notability" is used as a synonym for standards of inclusion. We do have multiple was of showing notability beyond GNG/SIGCOV. And the frequent use of "notable" to mean "has SIGCOV" therefore causes considerable confusion as well. Vanamonde93 (talk) 20:18, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  "Notability" is one commonly discussed standard, but there are others such as WP:NOT and WP:BLP. Anomie⚔ 20:52, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  @Anomie: I see those as standards for exclusion, which may require the removal of notable topics, but will never compel the inclusion of non-notable topics. Vanamonde93 (talk) 01:49, 22 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  Two sides of the same coin. You could just as well say that WP:N will never compel the inclusion of topics that go against WP:BLP, and so on. It all goes together to determine what's included, i.e. multiple criteria. Anomie⚔ 03:20, 22 February 2026 (UTC)[]

• Wikipedia jargon. We use a word with a meaning that differs from its normal English meaning. Any other word would therefore have the same issue unless we created an entirely new word like "cituated". My personal favourite is "living persons", which includes dead persons. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:42, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  I don't think that this is necessarily true; "eligibility" "suitability" and "criteria for inclusion" which have all been mentioned all transparently mean what we would want them to mean; the bar a subject has to pass to get an article. This isn't an unsolvable dilemma, it's just hard work. Athanelar (talk) 19:33, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  "Criteria for inclusion" leads us straight to one of the most common points of confusion: inclusion of an article in the encyclopaedia versus inclusion of details within an article. The criteria applied to the creation or retention of an article are not the same as those applied to the content inside it. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:36, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  Wiki notability is what I try to use to emphasize it’s a weird Wiki internal standard and not a vernacular understanding of notable. Same can be true for any replacement phrases like Wiki suitability, wiki inclusion criteria, wiki citability, wiki notedness etc ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 11:56, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• "Notability" really is a terrible name. Yes, you are correct. Toadspike [Talk] 18:49, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[]
• Yes, it is really a terrible name. The fixation that it needs to be one word is also bizarre. Neutral Point of View is not one word, Original Research is not one word, Biography of Living Persons is not one word, Article Title is not one word, etc.: so, Article Criteria, or some such. 'On Wikipedia, Article Criteria is a test . . .'; It meets the AC; it does not meet WP:AC; and done. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:44, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[]

• 👁 Image
  Comment: Unpopular opinion I guess but I like the word "notability," especially when paired with "Wikipedia:Verifiability." Notability gives a lot of wiggle room but suggests there is some minimum for inclusion, and we can adjust what that is.

GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 02:23, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[]

It’s not an unpopular opinion. I’m pretty sure the silent majority either likes it or has no strong opinion on it. Otherwise we would have changed it by now. Dronebogus (talk) 14:50, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[]

• I think some people are confusing the aim and the criteria. We really do want to write articles on topics that are notable according to its everyday meaning (that's the aim), but to achieve that in practice we have to make guidelines for notability that editors are able to follow and agree with each other about (that's the criteria). So my opinion is that "notability" is actually the best of the options mentioned so far in this discussion. "Eligibility" is way too vague (neither an aim nor a criterion) and "citeability" is just wrong (that would refer to sources, not topics). The word that has annoyed me the most, for the past 20+ years, is "verifiability", which in wikispeak means something entirely different from its meaning in plain English. In plain English, something is verifiable if its truth can be confirmed, which is why the ancient slogan "verifiability, not truth" is my nomination for the worst own-goal in Wikipedia history. Zero^talk 10:35, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  In defense of verifiability, it's purely a question of which frame of reference you're using. Sure, in everyday speech it usually means verifiable [against objective truth] but it's not a stretch or corruption of the meaning that on Wikipedia it means verifiable [against a source text]. The whole point of 'verifiability, not truth' is to clarify that the thing we're verifying against is not objective truth, merely source->text integrity. Athanelar (talk) 10:48, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  No, that was not where "verifiability, not truth" came from (I was here when it was adopted). The "not truth" part refers to "no original research". The idea is that we use what reliable sources say is true and not what we personally believe is true. It isn't a reference to objective truth. The problem with the slogan is that it was commonly taken to mean that Wikipedia doesn't care about getting the facts right, and this misunderstanding got "out there" to our detriment. And we threw it at newcomers before they had a chance to grasp that "verifiability" didn't mean what they thought it meant. Zero^talk 11:40, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  When it comes to "verifiability" I view it as "is the notability verifiable." Something can be true, but not notable. There is a lot of stuff about me floating on the internet, my existence is verifiable, however none of it meets the criteria for notability, my notability is not verifiable. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 20:01, 23 February 2026 (UTC)[]

I would probably call it "sourceability" which is somewhat more accurate. However, as said before it's one of these entrenched terms that are hard to change. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 14:25, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[]

What name is being proposed, to change "Notability"? GoodDay (talk) 14:37, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[]

Nothing currently; I'm not trying to make a proposal, just to discuss the topic. There's no point in proposing a candidate if nobody thinks it should be changed to begin with. Athanelar (talk) 14:42, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[]

No-one can decide. And most likely no decision will be made. This is such an obvious waste of time I don’t really know why I, or any of the many high-profile editors here, dignifying it with a response beyond “WP:PERENNIAL” Dronebogus (talk) 14:43, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[]

I note WP:PERENNIAL doesn't actually have this topic listed (yet). Anomie⚔ 20:57, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[]

"Notability" is fine. It means what subject can be noted on Wikipedia. I don't see a glaring problem with it. Joe vom Titan (talk) 14:46, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[]

The glaring problem is that that's an extremely unintuitive and niche use of that word, which usually means "important" or "significant" Athanelar (talk) 16:34, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[]

That's what "notable" means, while "notability" reflects how much someone is likely to be notable, which matches the intent of what WP's notability does. Masem (t) 16:47, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[]

But "importance" is subjective (my wife is important to me, the road I take to work is important to me, the band my friend started when he was 15 is important to him; none of them are notable in the Wikipedia sense). "Notability" (or at least the GNG) aims to be an objective standard that is either met or not and has little to do with what most people think of as "importance". HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:49, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[]

Also worth adding that we do "note" unnotable things on Wikipedia, just within articles rather than as standalone topics. CMD (talk) 04:18, 22 February 2026 (UTC)[]

Its far from an objective standard, which is why notability is a rebuttable presumption. Show that the topic is given in-depth coverage from at least a few independent, reliable sources (generally being secondary sources), and we'll presume that the topic can merit a full article. But there's so much variability in what qualifies as in-depth coverage, how many and what kind of sources, etc. that its far to call the test solely objective. Otherwise, we'd not have any problem at AFD with deletion.

But we do associate being notable as if the topic was important enough to independent authors to cover in-depth, that is, is the topic demonstrated the quality of being notable based on sourcing. Masem (t) 04:29, 22 February 2026 (UTC)[]

When you read that notability is necessary for inclusion on Wikipedia how is it not glaringly obvious that it is Wikipedia that sets the standards for what is notable?--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 18:09, 22 February 2026 (UTC)[]

While we’re here, why don’t we look at all the other less-than-ideal names used for rules on Wikipedia? WP:NPOV (which isn’t neutral) WP:IAR (don’t actually do this) WP:DELETION (pages aren’t deleted). I could probably find lots of examples. Wikipedia is just like any hobbyist subculture in that it has a lot of weird jargon that doesn’t necessarily mean what the dictionary and common sense say it means. “Fixing” that will just create more problems as now both newbies AND veteran editors are confused by the weird new terminology. On top of that Newbies still won’t understand what it’s meant to convey, veterans will just keep using the same terminology they always used, and eventually it will just get reverted back with the same unnecessary cost as changing it. Dronebogus (talk) 15:00, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[]

• Notability is a terrible name because it's easily conflated with "importance", which is subjective—everything is important to someone. I've previously advocated for "criteria for inclusion". HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:20, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  One word synonym could just be "Includable." GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 20:03, 23 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  It looks like we have a nice set of redirects in the Wikipedia:Criteria for inclusion line. I think that's a good thing. People can use whichever they like. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:04, 28 February 2026 (UTC)[]

• I prefer "Notability". While "criteria for inclusion" would convey the idea, it would be awkward to use regularly. None of the other suggestions above work for me. - Donald Albury 19:04, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[]

  My POV hasn't changed since the discussion last year, specifically that we should eventually change this, and that the way to go about it is to pick some other word or phrase and use both, e.g., "On Wikipedia, notability, or eligibility, is a test used by editors..." or "On Wikipedia, notability is the article creation criteria that editors use..." Then editors have a choice, and if they choose to say "It's Wikipedia:Notable" or if they choose to say "It meets the Wikipedia:Article creation criteria" or if they choose to say "I think this meets our Wikipedia:Eligibility standards", then that's fine (though it'd be preferable if the guideline suggested a single alternate name). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:02, 28 February 2026 (UTC)[]

Hey @Athanelar, I'm the person who started the last massive discussion. Good luck. The main message I came out of it with is there will be many more opposing people in actual RfCs rather than discussions; I started an RfC thinking I would have significantly more support than I did based on my experience discussing it at the idea lab. I think the only way to make this work is to make a smaller change first -- maybe some sort of movement among AfD contributors to use eligibility (linking to notability) would work to get it off the ground, but I have no idea how that would be organized. Maybe a WikiProject? Mrfoogles (talk) 20:59, 27 February 2026 (UTC)[]

• Can we at least footnote the WP:N lead sentence with an explanation along the lines of:

  (1) Wikipedia notability is largely independent of real-world notability, (2) while this is confusing, we continue to use the word because multiple discussions have failed to find a better one, and (3) alternative names (that have been considered, but not adopted) include notedness, criteria for inclusion, eligibility, suitability, admissibility, and wikinotability.

  New editors start out assuming that Wikipedia notability is at least somewhat related to real-world notability, which isn't helped by WP:N statements like Determining notability does not necessarily depend on things such as fame, importance, or popularity. While new editors don't start by reading all the PAGs, WP:N and WP:GNG are quoted so often they'll likely see them first, making it even more important these pages clarify common misconceptions. An overview of previous discussions will also be of value to more experienced editors. Preimage (talk) 06:41, 1 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Alternatively, we could remove the term altogether (in effect, making WP:N a self-referential acronym): "On Wikipedia, WP:N is a test used by editors..." Preimage (talk) 07:08, 1 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Please note that the existence of the term "Notability" is essential to a joke on the signpost. I think it was in the comix section of the last January edition. ~2026-11404-95 (talk) 19:51, 3 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• I dunno why people have complained how terrible "notability" is other than... probably it's unfair to those who may not be "notable" but might deserve an article perhaps. This is more akin to (failed?) efforts to repeal and (failed) constitutional challenges to the Affordable Care Act, both perhaps time- and money-wasting. Right? Frankly, "notability" has been fine as-is, despite hostile backlash and all, and something that consensus should practice often. Too bad certain others here wanna change it. BTW, have standards of "notability" been that low or that high? George Ho (talk) 19:55, 4 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• I like Preimage's solution of referring to Notability as a native concept abstracted from outside usage, but I like better the idea of changing the word notability. I've created WP:WOTABILITY to try to best differentiate outside notability with WP's notability. If anyone has any better idea than my sort of clunky one please share - I suspect this may be a big problem in editor retention, to have such an onerous stumbling block placed so early in editor lifetime. Embyarby (talk) 04:02, 5 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• I am not sure what is wrong with the word notability. There are lots of citable subjects that are not really notable. Citability (is that a word) does not necessarily mean that the subject alone is notable, unless of course those citations come from notable or established sources. Wikipedia has much bigger issues right now than the usage of notability for establishing subjects. Words in the Wind(talk) 21:11, 9 March 2026 (UTC)[]

While I very much agree with this, I'm not sure what singular/compound word could replace it.

At AfC, I've started to refer to Notability to newcomers as "what Wikipedia calls 'notability'", or just saying "hasn't been covered in multiple reliable, secondary, independent sources". Nothing will scare someone off for good than saying that the topic they're writing about isn't notable, or perhaps even that THEY themselves aren't notable, in the case of autobiographies (which can very easily be taken as a passive-aggressive insult!).

I do agree with @Preimage - putting something at the top of WP:N to differentiate between real-world notability would be good. Or maybe even a change to the "This page in a nutshell" banner.

I do think a newbie friendly page to the notability guidelines could work out. It would be more detailed than Help:Introduction, but less jargony than other P&G pages. Pretty much, a line-by-line breakdown of key points like WP:GNG, WP:NTEMP, WP:WHYN. EatingCarBatteries _{(contribs | talk)} 05:06, 10 March 2026 (UTC)[]

"Notability" is clearly the best option. As Masem noted, "eligibility" is awful because it implies that notability is binary, which is only true if you treat the blurry line between inclusion and exclusion like an obnoxious WP:WIKILAWYER. "Notability" clearly means notable to Wikipedia – just like events notable to Kotaku and to The Law Society Gazette will have minimal overlap. Theoretically, that concept is capturable in "Relevance", which I haven't seen discussed here yet, but (just preempting this, because the anti-"notability" camp is ostensibly desperate for any alternative) this is even worse: 1) it's a lateral move at best because we're a general-purpose encyclopedia, and 2) it would completely overload the common word "relevant" across Wikipedia.

Having read this entire discussion, the suggestion is well-intentioned but nonsensical bikeshedding. No better term has been put forward (because, in my opinion, it can't be – unless we all decide on "cromulent" and use our hivemind to collectively understand it), the concept has already been baked-in for over 20 years, multiple attempts to change it in the past have ended in failure, the definition is literally right there and plastered around any discussion thereof if there's any confusion, the consequence of misunderstanding it is excruciatingly low-stakes, most misunderstandings of any real consequence come from not reading guidelines that a word or three could never capture on their own or meaningfully encourage someone to read, and in 99.9% of cases, it comports with the lay meaning just fine anyway. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 01:28, 13 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Notability/Eligibility/whatever you want to call it should sound binary, because whether we have a Wikipedia:Separate, stand-alone article for a given subject is also binary.

(Also, did you read the literal "definition"? The one that says "Notability is a test"? Notability is not a test.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:17, 13 March 2026 (UTC)[]

"because whether we have a Wikipedia:Separate, stand-alone article for a given subject is also binary." The existence of the article itself is binary (duh), but the subject's notability clearly isn't; the criteria are intentionally vague at the margins in order to leave it up to editors. I've seen and taken part in many deletion discussions where experienced editors don't know what to do with an article – a chaotic system where a change in the editors participating, despite all being well-versed in notability criteria and presented the same information, could radically alter the outcome of the discussion. "Eligibility" masks the opinionated nature of notability – a nature which warrants intense consideration when deciding to include or exclude a "borderline" subject. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 20:09, 19 March 2026 (UTC)[]

I prefer to treat the issue of notability as; "is notable::notability has not yet been established". There will always be a grey area, border notability, where we will argue over the notability of a topic, a point where finding one more piece of significant coverage in a reliable source might push the topic over the line to notability, or an obscure topic captures enough attention in the real world to result in new significant coverage in reliable sources (I repeatedly reverted attempts of a certain musician to add themselves to Wikipedia until one day I saw that they had finally made enough of a splash to get significant coverage in reliable sources). Donald Albury 16:53, 13 March 2026 (UTC)[]

It's a silly artefact of early Wikipedia but given we can't get an implementation of Articles for Discussion despite endless agreement that Articles for Deletion is a dumb name that causes more antagonism than necessary then this will also never change. Rambling Rambler (talk) 20:12, 19 March 2026 (UTC)[]

I don’t agree that articles for deletion is a dumb name. It’s a name some people think is dumb, but it reflects the process. Articles are sometimes merged/redirected and possibly merging some or all content, but the main outcomes are still deletion or keeping. It’s still a debate on whether an article’s content is fundamentally salvageable. Talk pages are where articles are “discussed”. Dronebogus (talk) 20:02, 22 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• I disagree that what we're actually looking for[...] is presence in sources. We accept articles on subjects that we, as a community, have decided are notable. We also use "notability" as a shorthand for the guidelines we have developed over time, both general and subject-specific, to help settle disputes over whether something is notable, and that can indeed cause confusion. Still, our guidelines for establishing eligibility for an article are based on community consensus on what counts as notable. These guidelines can and do change when new consensus emerges (WP:NSPORTS2022 for example), and at least our guideline for species is hardly related to presence in sources. Streded (talk) 09:43, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  With all due respect, the community also agreed to seek reliable sources verifying a topic's notability. Without using reliable sources, how else do you think shall the community determine which topic is or is not notable? Oh, wait... What about what Wikipedia is not (supposed to be), huh? Or... how else? George Ho (talk) 19:06, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  We determine which topics are notable using the notability guidelines, including the guideline that says that all extant species that are accepted by the relevant international body of taxonomists are presumed notable. We have stubs about species that don't currently cite any sources (example), but we're fine with that because we presume their notability. We definitely need reliable sources to be able to say something about a topic, but even an article based on a single source is fine as long as the notability guidelines say so. Streded (talk) 19:24, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  To be clear, I'm not saying that WP:SPECIES is bad. I'm saying that presence in sources is a good description of the general notability guidelines, but not necessarily of the subject-specific guidelines. If what we call "notability" were simply presence in reliable sources, there would be no need for subject-specific guidelines. Streded (talk) 19:43, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  The discussion that resulted in the current version of WP:SPECIES, which I supported, was specifically predicated on the fact that for any species that is accepted in a recognized database a description of that species has to have been published. So, the notability of a species is predicated on it being listed as accepted in a recognized database. On the other hand, I will not write an article about a species for which I have found reliable sources if it has not yet been accepted in the appropriate database. See the mention of Gnathostoma mexicanum in Gnathostoma#Species for a recent example. At the absolute minimum an article about a species needs to have a citation to a recognized database that lists the species as "accepted". If you are aware of unsourced articles about species you shpuld post about them at an appropriate talk page or noticeboard, or at least tag them as unsourced. Donald Albury 00:09, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Thanks for the added context! Honestly, I was basing that on vague memory and had to look up an example, I'm not aware of any specific articles. Streded (talk) 06:40, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  That example you cited... Well, it needs some sort of expansion, IMO. Honestly, unsure whether that article's topic meets WP:SUSTAINED, regardless of GNG... or WP:NSPECIES. Indeed, WP:V#Notability and WP:NOTEVERYTHING, both policies, come into play. If it fails at least one policy, and there have been no reliable sources so far to help it comply with the policies, then the topic may fail WP:SUSTAINED. Not trying to bring you down or anything, but at the article's current state... Oh, wait... Can't use that to determine the species's notability per WP:ARTN. Nonetheless, I think potential failure with WP:SUSTAINED may override compliance with NSPECIES. Not trying to violate WP:NOTBURO or anything; just stating my analysis. George Ho (talk) 06:11, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Wow, I haven't even thought about the possibility of policies overriding the notability guidelines. It looks like I don't understand notability as well as I thought. Still, I learned something today. Thank you! Streded (talk) 06:51, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  It is not a case of policies overriding notability guidelines. WP:NOTEVERYTHING just says that a topic may be verifiable, but not notable enough to have an article in Wikipedia. The notability guidelines just give us some structure to help determine which verifiable topics are worth having an article. Donald Albury 13:29, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Could we mix notability and equity? Or is that beyond the scope? ~2026-18897-88 (talk) 18:56, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• I'm inclined to agree with you. I never liked the word "notability," partly because the word is wrong (the person who coined it probably meant to use "noteworthiness"), but partly for the reason you gave. I would put it this way: plenty of people who "deserve a Wikipedia article" are not "noteworthy" at all. Whether or not they are noteworthy is frequently neither here nor there. As to alternatives, here are some:
  • Relevance/relevant. This is vague, but vague in the right way. To say a topic is relevant is to say that it matters for some identifiable purpose. If you can't even say what the topic is relevant for, maybe it's not right for WP.
  • Salience/salient. A near synonym of "relevance," similar comments apply.
  • Consequence/consequential. Included topics should be consequential, of consequence, importance, significance. The latter are also possible, but I do not think everything in Wikipedia is, or needs to be, important. But "consequence" is marginally more expansive and vague, in the right way. One must be able to answer the question: consequential for what purpose? To whom? Etc. Such questions are better than "Who is taking note of this topic?" Larry Sanger (talk) 19:44, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  The 'problem' is that notability doesn't really track any of those ideas either; it started out that way, but it's changed. Editors would have to say it doesn't matter that it's relevant/salient/consequential for X, because the standard is coverage in published sources, and not other opinions. The exact same happens with the term notability. Dege31 (talk) 19:56, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]

What I'm understanding here is that "notability" literally means the quality of being able to be noted, but because of semantic drift, notability means "noteworthiness" to most non-Wikimedians, regardless of actually being noted or not (compare hopefully, unique). "Notedness" doesn't have this semantic drift, but I can't think of an appropriate term to replace the adjective "notable" ("noted enough"?). HyperAnd [talk] 03:43, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

It's probably impossible to rename. Invariably, we'd be seek a name that is descriptive of the criteria, and in practice it's a decision process that includes weighting and weighing multiple considerations. IMO it's wp:How Wikipedia notability works . Many say that the criteria is just GNG sourcing and predictions of GNG sourcing but it isn't that simple in practice. The closest descriptive terms might be a vague umbrella like "suitability", (we always need one word titles :-)) and immediately say that that's short for "suitability of the topic to exist as a separate article". We might need to just accept and publicize that wp:notability is just Wikipedia's name for the main complex process of deciding if it is OK for it to be a separate article, and that the name is not descriptive of the criteria, and that it certainly doesn't mean the common real world meaning of "notability". Sincerely,North8000 (talk) 19:53, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]

I have a feeling that there is a 90% chance that the answer will be no, but then 10% is 10%. Is there any hope of a policy that will limit edits by class projects? I have been wondering if I should spend the time to fix pages such as Entropy (information theory) that need help, but most edits to the page were by a student in 2021 for a class project. The rest of the edits may be appropriately described as "entropy/chaos" as well. How can I tell myself that another class project will not start in 6 months? It is a complicated subject when it relates to thermodynamics and that is where the student made most errors. Typical editors would not make large edits because it is too complicated, but students "have to" and mess up. Is there any hope of protection from class projects? Else I would just move on. Thanks Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 15:14, 12 March 2026 (UTC)[]

The problem is not class projects per se, it's inappropriate class projects and/or inappropriately supervised class projects. There isn't really any easy way to stop class projects (of either kind), as in at least many cases they are technically indistinguishable from normal editing.

The best place to discuss these matters though is Wikipedia:Education noticeboard, where folks more knowledgeable about the issues are most likely to see it. Thryduulf (talk) 16:32, 12 March 2026 (UTC) Missing word "not" added Thryduulf (talk) 21:43, 12 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Pretty sure The problem is class projects per se --> "is not class projects per se". EEng 20:37, 12 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Indeed, now fixed. Thank you. Thryduulf (talk) 21:43, 12 March 2026 (UTC)[]

If there wasn't an education program, there would a lot of class projects conducted without any coordination with Wikipedia. I was involved with the education program for a while about 14 years ago, but dropped out for reason I won't go into. I know others have had a more positive experience with the program. All-in-all, blocking class projects, even if it were possible, would not improve Wikipedia. There is the potential, and sometimes realized, benefit of adding content to Wikipedia and recruiting new editors. As long as are we open to new editors, which we must be to survive, we will have a problem with problematic edits by inexperienced editors. Maintenance is one of the perpetual tasks, and cleaning up problem edits sometimes leads me to adding new well-sourced content, which I hope is a net good for the encyclopedia. Donald Albury 16:51, 12 March 2026 (UTC)[]

If there wasn't an education program, there would a lot of class projects conducted without any coordination with Wikipedia. I think this is really the salient issue. It happens even now; I've seen editors bashing their heads against the AfC process to no avail and explaining that they need to get it published because a teacher assigned them the task of getting an article published on Wikipedia. It is absolutely a good thing that WikiEd provides an organised avenue for these kinds of teachers to arrange class projects that actually have sensible expectations and requirements. Teacher Randy in Boise High School isn't going to know that Wikipedia has internally banned class projects and is going to continue to tell his students to edit information about sword-wielding skeletons into the Peloponnesian War article whether or not we officially endorse it; and it is a good thing that WikiEd provides a means by which we can reach out to Randy and offer some guidance and quality control to his project idea. Athanelar (talk) 13:04, 13 March 2026 (UTC)[]

I think what you are talking about is not the same thing at all. This Randy, as it were, is not merely a teacher acting in good faith, but engaging in BRIGADING, treating Enwiki as a Battleground. That is much more severe and the community could act in a much less restrained way with people who do that. Even without those violations, that article would quickly be placed on Requests for page protection , which might already be enough to stop Randy’s (likely unconfirmed, certainly not EC) foot soldiers students. ~~~ Slomo666 (talk) 13:31, 13 March 2026 (UTC)[]

👁 Image
Comment: Maybe we could try limiting which pages in general can be used for class projects. Stub articles would be the absolute best use of such endeavors in my opinion. We could also try to limit GA and FA articles, and discourage B class articles. Ultimately, these are beneficial to the students, if only learning more about how Wikipedia works. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 02:10, 23 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Alleluia. At last... Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 01:57, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

I agree, especially for the case I mention above: I don’t think students should be trying to edit contentious topics that would require them to have EC permissions. Not only does it mean a lot more work responding to edit requests, but it also effectively encourages non-EC editors to contribute to ECR protected pages. Slomo666 (talk) 13:20, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Having assigned students to edit wikis for coursework in the past, I do know what you mean. Most college students today are not good writers, and many simply do not care about the quality of the article(s) edited. Before making any new policy, though, I would want this question answered very clearly: Is this really a problem? Does Wikipedia really have a lot of trouble with class edits? If not, leave well enough alone.

If so, however, I think there is a very straightforward, three-part solution:

1. It must be impressed on both professors and students that they are responsible for making the articles better, not worse. But bear in mind that often the professor will be a better judge than any active Wikipedia working on the article; do not write a policy that in effect places experts under the supervision of Wikipedians on issues of substance.
2. Introductory college and high school courses should make a copy of the article(s) and edit them either in the Draft: namespace or perhaps a subpage of the talk page. Someone should do a diff and add the changes if appropriate. Advanced, upper division college and graduate courses should be permitted to edit the article directly.
3. Generally speaking, if there is any question whether it is all right if classes to edit an article directly, let them. Do not make it hard. But if they start making trouble, move their work, as explained in 2.

Again, I'd want clear evidence that this really is a widespread problem in need of a solution. It's always best to remove rules from a bloated project like Wikipedia, rather than add more. Larry Sanger (talk) 20:02, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Thank you both for your responses. But I hope you will understand that I can have no clue as to the likelihood of a properly supervised class project. The real issue is if one feels that he is building a large sandcastle when starting on these non-trivial page improvements. Making small corrections all over does not have that problem, but major rewriting is another issue. I wonder if we could have a tag that would "suggest" to professors not to assign a page to a class. Anyway, I will mention this on the education page and see what they say. Thanks. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 22:04, 12 March 2026 (UTC)[]

So I have two suggestions:

1. Make it an FA. Students are already warned against editing FAs. (Get busy now, because most classes start in January and September.)
2. Just wait until the class is over, and revert back. A majority of students never edit again (at least not in their school accounts).

I have not had good success at warning students away from specific articles. When we shoo newbies out of Anorexia nervosa (a darling of Wiki Edu students for several years running), they just turn up at some other article, and sometimes the mistakes are worse (e.g., a series of newbies – definitely not all from Wiki Edu – that changed statements like "90% of women experience menstrual cramps at some point in their lives" to the gender-neutral but innumerate claim that "90% of people" do).

More generally: The stats show that newbie students are less horrible than newbie non-students (e.g., more than two orders of magnitude less likely to be blocked, if memory serves). The better the article, the less likely any new editor will get their necessary practice in that article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:09, 13 March 2026 (UTC)[]

What about guiding students to making/editing drafts to be reviewed or making tentative edits that can then be reviewed, like with AfC?

alternatively, creating some sort of list of assigned pages where someone supervising it would know they are editing it. You could put pending changes protections on those pages (assuming the students don’t have advanced permissions) so that the supervisor (from their school, class or from the wiki projects) or a (dedicated) admin or other volunteer can review their edits first.

I see a clear benefit in letting students learn how to use Wikipedia, how to edit, contribute, etc. Even if it doesn’t necessarily recruit them as long time contributors, it could make them better at writing and researching. Slomo666 (talk) 12:13, 13 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Students normally work in their sandboxes (because we recommended that years ago). If they are creating new articles, they often submit them through AFC. However, often they're just trying to update an article. In that case, they usually copy the article to their sandbox and make the changes there. The students review each others' work, hopefully the instructor will, and if the class is supported by the Wiki Education Foundation, then it's often checked by the Wiki Edu staff as well.

The Wiki Edu classes (but not necessarily independent classes) already post notes on the articles' talk pages and make centralized lists so that anyone can review them. Start at Wikipedia:Education noticeboard and look around to learn more.

As a general rule, students in the Wiki Edu classes are a net benefit to the English Wikipedia. Not everyone does a good job, of course, but most of them. And frankly some of our popular articles are pretty outdated and really need someone to sit down and do some boring work. For example, I think that Disease has statistics from 20–25 years ago. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:41, 13 March 2026 (UTC)[]

If they are creating new articles, they often submit them through AFC. - Just quickly on AfC: It's been some years since I've been fully up on all this stuff, but last I knew, WikiEdu students are not supposed to use AfC for the simple reason that they don't want to create a drain on the already-backlogged community review processes (same reason why profs aren't supposed to force students to go through GAN or DYK). That's what the trainings, class review, professors, and staff are for. IIRC one of the reasons for the custom sandbox banner is to take away the AfC button (and better structure the task). But also, the time to review at AfC is also kind of incompatible with the typical time constraints of a class. In general, if you see a WikiEdu student at AfC, something probably went wrong and it may be worth quickfailing and pinging staff. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:09, 13 March 2026 (UTC)[]

"students are warned against editing FAs". Where? I currently have the FA BTS which has been chosen for an assignment in scientific writing by the University of the Virgin Islands. So far no edits, but I've complained. Gotten no response as yet. Wehwalt (talk) 16:13, 19 March 2026 (UTC)[]

It's in the Wiki Edu training materials. They get told how to identify FAs and to stay away from them, and they also get lectured on WP:MEDRS, with an overall tone of "we're not saying you shouldn't edit health information, but you shouldn't edit health information". And the lecture is longer for the health-oriented classes, of which we get several a year, including one medical school(!) that does a great job. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:32, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Folks may want to check out the existing infrastructure for students if you haven't already. If you look at that student's userpage (Joycecs), there's a link to a course page on the WikiEdu dashboard. You can click around the tabs at the top to see other students in the class, articles they worked on, the professor's username, the name of staff assigned to the course, etc. So if you notice problematic edits and you're worried it might run through all students in the class, you can pull up e.g. this page to make such an audit simpler. If you find a class that has big problems, ping the staff member assigned or bring it up at WP:ENB. This class was five years ago, but clicking the professor's name will bring you to a page like this to see if they continued to run the project (in this case the class looks like a one-off). There's a step early in the process, following the idea Slomo666 mentioned, where the instructor decides whether they want to create a pool of articles to choose from. It looks like that was the case here (whether entropy was part of that pool at the start is unclear, as some classes let students assign themselves articles not on the list). If you want to see what courses are active this semester, you can see them here. Worth noting that those are just the classes that are (a) based in the US or Canada, and (b) decided to accept WikiEdu's infrastructure/guidelines. There are typically many others happening either in other parts of the world (some of them can be found on the other dashboard) or without any support (and thus harder to trace and tie to a particular university/professor). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:22, 13 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Do you know if students are allowed to make edit requests as part of their student editing assignments? I recently came across this extended confirmed restricted edit request. Their assignment is a page that is ECR protected, so obviously they are not able to edit it directly. Slomo666 (talk) 15:46, 19 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• I don’t like student/edu editing. I don’t see how it benefits the students and it certainly doesn’t benefit Wikipedia, leaving us with large-scale bad edits and not even giving us long-term new contributors. I want to see the practice banned. I don’t know how to do that exactly, but I will support anyone who agrees that using Wikipedia editing for educational assignments is unacceptable and a net negative. Dronebogus (talk) 19:23, 22 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  As others have already said, student editors are better than the general pool of new editors. I do not agree with you. Slomo666 (talk) 19:41, 22 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  The problem is that students must pass the course and their motivation is to do that. Whether their edits benefit the encyclopedia or satisfy policies/guidelines is irrelevant. Johnuniq (talk) 01:30, 23 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Exactly. And the general pool of new editors produces virtually all new regular contributors. Student editors aren’t retained. It’s not like barring anonymous contributors, where we would lose a major onboarding route for maintaining our userbase. At worst banning student editing would lose a handful of decent large-scale edits, not editors. Dronebogus (talk) 16:23, 23 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Some students actually are retained, or come back on their own, or even signed up for the class because they are already Wikipedia editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:35, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  yeah, it's a bit like WP:NOTHERE. They also often seem to get given high profile articles already in good shape, which are then made worse. The only decent work by a student I've seen is Ratho Kroonkop Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 17:13, 23 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  While I agree the general standard is deplorable, there are a few shining lights - this instructor's students did excellent work, nearly all expanding obscure stubs with good refs, exactly what we want; this was in 2017. Common features of good courses seem to be: a) they are not first years, b) they come from "good", not to say "elite", colleges (this lot were from Duke University), and c) presumably the instructor knows what they are doing. Unfortunately most college courses do not have these characteristics. Johnbod (talk) 19:28, 23 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Johnuniq, 3 words: yes, yes, yes. You have it exactly right. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 01:59, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Or not quite? Because, at least with Wiki Edu-supported classes, "pass their class" can happen without making a single edit to the mainspace, and students' grades aren't penalized for being reverted. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:34, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  I think it would be reasonable to discourage student editors from being assigned to GA/FA quality articles, since just like any other new contributor they are unlikely to be able to produce content that is better than the article's current state. On the positive side, maybe we could curate a list of articles from the various Wikiprojects whose assessed quality to importance ratio is low, and encourage student editors to take on those as "low-hanging fruit"? -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 19:22, 23 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Love that idea Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 19:29, 23 March 2026 (UTC)[]

My own observations of student editing is that it is generally of poor quality, initiated by instructors who are too slack to teach their students properly. Editing of Wikipedia that is done by those learning a subject is likely to be worse than that by those who have completed their studies. I support the suggestions above to restrict student editing. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:50, 23 March 2026 (UTC).[]

I'm doubtful that "those learning a subject" are worse editors. I think a lot of old-time editors like us write Wikipedia articles because we're learning something new. Most FAs are not written by people who have a degree in whatever the subject is. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:35, 3 April 2026 (UTC)[]

Indeed, I have not tried to write about topics I have degrees in or worked in since my very earliest days on Wikipedia. I enjoy writing about topics that I have to research and learn about. That way, I can focus on what reliable sources say rather than what I remember about a topic. Donald Albury 13:57, 3 April 2026 (UTC)[]

LWG, Alleluia... yes. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 02:01, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• I never expected that my simple question would lead to so much debate. I think Johnuniq said it best in a few words. In other words, student get formally sworn to protect "their grades, all their grades, and nothing but their grades". In many cases Wikipedia can just be a doormat on their way. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 02:10, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  I keep hearing this story, and it was occasionally true 15 years ago, but the current reality is that instructors don't penalize students for getting reverted. Yes, they have to do a certain amount of work (the amount varies by class), but they don't have to keep their preferred version in the mainspace to be able to get a good grade. See, e.g., the instruction to "Never grade student work based on what sticks on Wikipedia-Sometimes student work is reverted. This may happen for a number of reasons, but remember, nothing is ever lost on Wikipedia. You can always find their work in their contribution history." WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:40, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• As a start, Wiki Ed classes should prohibit students from creating new articles. New student editors frequently create articles that are not appropriate for standalone pages as they lack notability or are hyperspecific topics. They are very often written as essays with low-quality writing rather than in an encyclopedic style. They often include plagiarism, off-topic content, and other issues you would expect from inexperienced students being forced to do an assignment rather than volunteering like experienced editors who start with smaller edits at a time. I have see far too many AFDs of student articles that should have come nowhere near mainspace had a responsible instructor or an established editor reviewed them first. Some AFDs of problematic articles include Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Community composting, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Systemic injustice in literature, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Impact of sand loss on sea turtles, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Food waste in Barcelona (see Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/IES Abroad Barcelona/The Climate Crisis - Global Perspective, Mediterranean Context (Spring) and the instructor's other classes for how poor this instructor was at letting his students pick topics), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Environmental sustainability of vintage fashion, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Native Americans and horses. Edits to existing articles are also often quite poor as well and it would be great if WikiEd required teachers to review students' draft/userspace edits before they go live. Students usually each have their own topics, reviewed by just one of their peers, when they should really be working as teams on topics. Reywas92^Talk 03:32, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[]
• Related is Wikipedia:Editor reflections, created by Clovermoss, which includes a question about the Wikipedia Education Program. Wracking ^talk! 17:32, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[]

  I've always felt a sense of curiousity towards WikiEd as someone who started editing at 16, without any external IRL support. My personal experience with student editors hasn't been all that bad (although I remember being concerned when one popped up as being assigned an euthanasia-related article), but I've found they don't tend to be responsive to feedback. I've never had a student editor acknowledge that I exist, even if I try to provide suggestions or try to encourage them on their talk page.

  The worst experience I had regarding Wikipedia in education was when I was in Poland for Wikimania. One of our keynote speakers there said anyone who wasn't making their students edit was a loser, it doesn't matter if only 5/30 student-created articles are kept because 5 is still better than zero, and that volunteers will take care of any issues. I remember feeling quite miffed to hear that and said as much during the Q&A. That attitude is why people can have such a poor opinion of student editing. But it wasn't a WikiEd instructor who said that because this program only exists in North America.

  I plan to be doing an analysis of editor reflections in the near future, but from what I remember, people weren't nessecarily opposed to the idea itself, but had concerns about how it can be implemented. I've had only one person acknowledge they started editing because of WikiEd and a few others who started because of "rogue" professors who were doing it on their own. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 18:13, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[]

I would like to propose that all articles related to ethnicity in Afghanistan receive permanent extended confirmed protection restriction for one year.

This includes:

• all 34 provinces of Afghanistan + their capitals
• all 421 districts of Afghanistan + their capitals (if there is one)
• all of the cities mentioned in this list (if not already mentioned as a capital above)
• all of the ethnic categories mentioned in the article "Ethnicity in Afghanistan": Pashtuns (Pashtun tribes, Theories of Pashtun origin, and List of Pashtuns), Tajiks, Farsiwans (List of Tajik people), Hazaras (List of Hazara tribes, Aimaq Hazara, and List of Hazara people), Uzbeks (List of Uzbeks), Afghan Turkmens (Turkmen, Turkmen tribes, and Afghan Turkestan), Baloch of Afghanistan (Baloch people and List of Baloch tribes), Aimaq people, Nuristanis (Kalash people), History of Arabs in Afghanistan, Afghan Qizilbash, Pashayi people, Sayyid, Kyrgyz people, Gurjar (Muslim Gujjars and List of Gurjars), Pamiris (Wakhi people, Shughni people and Yidgha-Munji people), Brahui people, Afghan Tatars, Kazakh people, Parachi, Ormuri, Moghols, Jat people in South Asia, Peripatetic groups of Afghanistan, Hinduism in Afghanistan, Sikhism in Afghanistan, Jews in Afghanistan
• all historic provinces of Afghanistan mentioned here
• and articles on key ethnic and military-political figures such as all Naderi-Sayeds of Kayan, Abdul Rashid Dostum, Haibatullah Akhundzada, Ahmad Shah Massoud, Burhanuddin Rabbani, Abdul Karim Brahui and Abdul Ali Mazari.

These articles are uniquely and persistently vulnerable to a specific type of disruption: newly created accounts with an apparent ethnic or political agenda who systematically alter demographic figures, delete sourced content, or insert unsourced claims, all without edit summaries or citations. This is not occasional vandalism but a structural problem that has been ongoing for years and shows no sign of abating.

The following diffs are a small but representative sample of the disruption pattern, a real drop in the ocean of what could be documented:

• AfghanMottahid deleting sourced content without edit summary on Ethnicity in Afghanistan (diff) and Herat (diff, diff, diff), and inserting unsourced content (diff), 81 edits total, not a single source provided.
• ArashArianpour888 systematically manipulating ethnic figures on Mazar-i-Sharif (diff), Ethnicity in Afghanistan (diff), Tajiks (diff), and Herat Province (diff), and when confronted at AN, appealing to personal experience rather than sources (diff)
• Amir TJK repeatedly inserting ethnic slurs targeting Hazaras into Panjshir Province (diff, diff, diff, diff).

These are three users from recent weeks alone. I could provide hundreds of further diffs spanning years and dozens of additional accounts.

Semi-protection (autoconfirmed) is easily bypassed because accounts need only four days and ten edits to qualify, a trivial barrier for motivated editors. Extended confirmed protection restriction (30 days, 500 edits) is a meaningfully higher threshold that filters out the vast majority of newly created agenda-driven accounts while still allowing established good-faith editors to contribute freely.

The disruption is not tied to a news cycle or a temporary spike in interest but is a chronic, structural issue rooted in real-world ethnic and political tensions that are unlikely to resolve in the foreseeable future. Temporary protection has historically not solved this, and the disruption resumes as soon as protection lapses. See update below.

I'm not proposing to lock these articles against improvement. Extended confirmed editors, who are the overwhelming majority of active Wikipedia contributors, would still be able to edit freely. This proposal targets only the specific vector of disruption which are newly created single-purpose accounts. I am happy to provide extensive further diff-based documentation upon request.

Thank you. --SdHb (talk) 11:09, 21 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• I think what you're looking to request is extended confirmed restrictions, not mandatory ECP; mandatory, preemptive protection is a severe remedy that is only mandated by Arbcom in a very limited number of extremely disruptive topic areas (PIA and the caste section of CT/SA come to mind). That said, I don't think the extremely broad brush you're looking to get ECR'd above is going to fly; functionally you're asking to ECR the entire topic of Afghanistan in toto. That said, this might be better requested to Arbcomm at WP:ARCA as an amendment to CT/SA. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 19:08, 21 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Thank you for the pointer. I will file an amendment request at WP:ARCA, narrowing the scope to ethnicity-related articles and provincial/city articles with ethnic demographic content, and requesting ECR rather than mandatory ECP. SdHb (talk) 00:57, 22 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  UPDATE: As suggested by The Bushranger on 22 March, I filed an amendment request at ARCA. Multiple arbitrators suggested that VP is in fact the correct venue for this. Specifically Jenson (SilverLocust) noted that the community can create ECRs at VP, including within an ArbCom authorized CTOP. I'm therefore returning here and would appreciate further community input. Again, I'd be happy to provide additional diff-based documentation if so wanted. SdHb (talk) 23:57, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Also, based on the feedback I got at ARCA, I'm walking back on my initial asking and instead for going straight at a permanent restriction, I'd like to propose ECR for the maximum possible one year first. If the disruption carries on or picks back up after that (very likely IMHO), a permanent restriction should be on the table. As ScottishFinnishRadish put it at ARCA: "If they address it with up to a year of ECR and there are problems after then we can look at permanent expansion." SdHb (talk) 00:03, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

You do not seem to have given much in the way of substantive data justifying such a strong restriction. If matters are as you say they are, I might be able to see a need for it, but (a) we have other policies in place to remove abusive new editors, and (b) I would first wish to confirm that entrenched editors themselves have been using Wikipedia to push a POV. I'm not making an accusation by saying so, I'm simply saying that we need more information than this before preventing new people from editing. The website is already far, far too forbidding for new editors as it is. Larry Sanger (talk) 20:49, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]

@Larry Sanger Fair points, and I appreciate the response.

You do not seem to have given much in the way of substantive data justifying such a strong restriction.

I kept the initial diffs deliberately brief to avoid overwhelming the discussion, but I'm more than happy to provide substantially more. The three accounts I cited are from the last few weeks and months alone, I can document the exact same pattern going back years across dozens of additional accounts and hundreds of affected articles if that would help move things forward. Give me a day or two. UPDATE: I will need a few days more because I'm going on vacation for four days. --SdHb (talk) 20:35, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]

2ND UPDATE: I'm back from vacations and will put together more evidence. --SdHb (talk) 17:03, 1 April 2026 (UTC) []

we have other policies in place to remove abusive new editors

Yeah, destructive new editors can and do get removed and they have been, but I'm trying to solve the problem at the root. Each removal only deals with one account at a time while the underlying dynamic and destructive behaviour stays the same. One has to play police across hundreds of articles to monitor the problems. New single purpose accounts keep appearing faster than any one editor can reasonably track and report them.

I would first wish to confirm that entrenched editors themselves have been using Wikipedia to push a POV.

Established editors pushing POV wouldn't be stopped by ECR, it'd only raise the bar for new accounts. If established editors are part of the problem too, that's a separate concern worth raising independently, and I wouldn't oppose it by any means. It's just that most of the abusive behaviour comes not from them.

The website is already far, far too forbidding for new editors as it is.

I get your concern, and trust me, I would have wished these measures wouldn't be necessary. But the threshold here is genuinely modest IMO. The vast majority of good-faith new editors who stick around long enough to make meaningful contributions would clear it without even noticing. It's the hundreds of single-purpose accounts who ruin all the joy. SdHb (talk) 09:12, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]

I can't agree that extended confirmed protection is "modest." It's pretty darned strong; overkill, I think. Larry Sanger (talk) 16:03, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Type of abuse	Provinces (current and historic)	Districts (current and historic)	Cities	Ethnic categories	Ethnic figures
Replacing sourced figures with unsourced or unreliably sourced ones/Obvious vandalism	Kabul: 2026 ([2], [3], [4]), 2025 ([5], [6], [7]), 2024 ([8]), 2022 ([9]), 2021 ([10], [11], [12]), 2020 ([13], [14]), 2019 ([15], [16], [17], [18]), 2017 ([19]), 2015 ([20], [21]), 2013 ([22]), 2009 ([23], [24])	Khoshi: 2022 ([25], [26]), 2012 ([27]), 2010 ([28], [29])	Mazar-i-Sharif: 2023 ([30], [31], [32], [33]), 2021 ([34]), 2018 ([35], [36]), 2017 ([37], [38], [39]), 2015 ([40], [41], [42], [43]), 2014 ([44]), 2012 ([45], [46], [47]), 2010 ([48])	Tajiks: 2026 ([49], [50], [51]), 2025 ([52]), 2023 ([53]), 2021 ([54]), 2009 ([55])	Sayed Kayan: 2024 ([56], [57]), 2023 ([58])
Adding unsourced content/POV	Kabul: 2026 ([59], [60], [61]), 2025 ([62], [63], [64], [65]), 2024 ([66], [67]), 2023 ([68]), 2022 ([69]), 2021 ([70], [71], [72]), 2020 ([73], [74], [75]), 2019 ([76], [77], [78]), 2017 ([79]), 2016 ([80], [81], [82]), 2014 ([83], [84]), 2011 ([85]), 2009 ([86])	Khoshi: 2024 ([87])	Mazar-i-Sharif: 2022 ([88]), 2020 ([89], [90]), 2017 ([91]), 2016 ([92]), 2013 ([93]), 2011 ([94]	Tajiks: 2026 ([95]), 2025 ([96], [97]), 2019 ([98]), 2018 ([99]), 2014 ([100]), 2010 ([101]), 2009 ([102])	Sayed Kayan: 2024 ([103]), 2023 ([104]], [105], [106], [107], [108], [109], [110])
Undoing reverts/Removing sourced content (without explanation)/Edit warring	Kabul: 2026 ([111], [112], [113], [114]), 2025 ([115], [116], [117]), 2023 ([118]), 2020 ([119]), 2014 ([120]), 2013 ([121]), 2009 ([122])	Khoshi: 2012 ([123]), 2010 ([124])	Mazar-i-Sharif: 2021 ([125]), 2011 ([126], [127], [128], [129])	Tajiks: 2026 ([130]), 2025 ([131], [132], [133], [134], [135], [136]), 2024 ([137], [138], [139], [140], [141], [142], [143]), 2022 ([144]), 2021 ([145]), 2020 ([146]), 2018 ([147]), 2016 ([148]), 2012 ([149]), 2011 ([150]), 2009 ([151])	Sayed Kayan: 2024 ([152])
Behavorial misconduct	Kabul: 2023 ([153]), Panjshir: 2024 ([154], [155], [156], [157], [158], [159], [160])

@Larry Sanger: I went through a handful of randomly picked pages from each category and noted down what I found. I could've kept going forever since any other province, district, city, ethnic group or figure would've shown the same thing, and going through every single diff would've honestly taken me months. At some point there was just so much that I started picking a few examples from every other year or so, just to make clear that this isn't some recent spike but has been going on basically since these articles existed. I think what's up there is more than enough to show that this is a deep-rooted, systematic problem that isn't going away by itself. Also, the Hazaras and all Hazara-related articles are already under extended confirmed restriction per CT/CASTE. So why not the rest? --SdHb (talk) 13:50, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[]

I've spend much of my time on Wikipedia patrolling recent changes, so my sense of how much vandalism is normal might be exaggerated. But a lot of these don't look to me like unusually high volumes of vandalism. And it looks like most of these articles aren't even semi-protected. I know it's easy to become auto-confirmed, but lots of editors who aren't here in good faith aren't motivated enough to get there. Shouldn't we at least try semi-protection as a first step in case that's enough?

I'm just guessing here, but I would assume that relative to population, there are far fewer Wikipedia contributors with a focus on Afghanistan than there are for other parts of South Asia. (Due to Afghanistan having fewer English speakers, among other factors.) So when there's a contentious topic like caste in India or Pakistan, the amount of vandalism very easily gets unmanageable. With Afghanistan, I would expect that the bigger concern would be not having enough contributors, so we should be very concerned about doing things that would discourage new contributors. For example, WikiProject Afghanistan says it's believed to be inactive. But you'd know better than me, of course. Cadddr (talk) 20:37, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[]

@Cadddr Fair points, but I'd push back a bit here. A pretty big chunk of the diffs I listed above were made by accounts that were already autoconfirmed at the time so semi-protection wouldn'tve done anything for those. It'd catch a considerable slice of the problem, but far from the bulk of it. And TBPO, with topics this sensitive, if you just randomly opened any of these articles on any given day, the chances of finding something fabricated or unsourced are really high. The table above kinda speaks for itself on that front, because as you can see, this goes back 15+ years.

That said, if semi-protection is genuinely all that gets consensus, I could live with that as a last resort after a year of ECR. But I'd really rather not have to come back here in 12 months after it predictably didn't worked. SdHb (talk) 23:28, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[]

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👁 Image Please consider joining the feedback request service. An editor has requested comments from other editors for this discussion. This page has been added to the following lists: Wikipedia proposals Wikipedia policies and guidelines When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the lists. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.

Should the Articles for deletion process be renamed to Articles for discussion? 16:17, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Context: There was recently consensus to merge the proposed article mergers process with AfD. See Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Merging merge discussions with AfD. During the RfC, there was also a discussion, but no consensus, about renaming "Articles for deletion" to "Articles for discussion" if the RfC proposal passed. See Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Merging merge discussions with AfD § Renaming "AfD". voorts (talk/contributions) 21:20, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

What advantage is there to doing this? ☆ Bri (talk) 16:30, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Oh, this again. See Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Rename AFD. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 16:37, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Ah, I see. They're proposing this because they plan on merging Wikipedia:Proposed article mergers with AfD.... which doesn't sound like a good idea, but I missed that RFC. My answer is no, "discussion" is vague, all articles are for discussion, that's why they have Talk pages. If merging wants to piggy-back onto deletion, deletion is still the biggest focus. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 16:47, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

See Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Merging merge discussions with AfD, there’s consensus to merge WP:PAM into AfD, from that close As such there is currently no consensus to rename AfD. However, this result does not mean that such a consensus is lacking in the community, merely that it is not possible to discern if such a consensus exists in this discussion. As such there should be no prejudice against a discussion just on this topic in the future or even immediately. Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 16:47, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• Oppose While I also do not think that merging merge proposals with explicit deletion requests is a good idea, at the end of the day, the question in both is whether a stand alone page should exist in mainspace. If a merger is successful, then a page is deleted. I also think most AfD regulars are aware there are multiple options to a page nominated for deletion, including a redirect and a merge. --Enos733 (talk) 17:05, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Mergers most likely end with a redirect leaving the article history behind without any deletion. History merges as to delete the original page but incorporate editing history can be done but is only really for cases where content policies are important like BLP issues. Masem (t) 21:44, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Correct. I was imprecise in my language. I only meant that after a merge, a stand-alone page would no longer exist in mainspace. - Enos733 (talk) 04:36, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• Oppose. While I can understand the arguments for a name change, 'Articles for discussion' is a poor choice as an alternative. It gives no indication of what the discussion is about. We have article talk pages devoted to most discussions related to article content, and this proposal will merely confuse newcomers etc, who may think that 'Articles for discussion' is a process to open discussions on non-deletion-related issues. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:45, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  This is a sensible argument. I myself am undecided, but I hope the closer of this RfC weighs the arguments based primarily on disagreement with outcome of the merge discussion RfC significantly less than arguments that actually engage with the naming issue. Toadspike [Talk] 17:53, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  So far, I don't think anyone's done so; a couple of us mentioned the disagreement, but then discussed the naming concerns in the context of the passage of the RFC. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 18:18, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  "Notability" also confuses newcomers etc. I would be impressed if such editors found AfD and learned how to open an AfD discussion before discovering the article talk page or another editors' talk page. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:06, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• Week oppose - AfD really should be for situations where outright deletion of an article is being proposed. “AfD is not for article clean-up” after all.

That said, options other than deletion (such as merger, or “stubbify and rewrite”) can certainly be discussed while we try to come to consensus on the question of deletion/keep.

To put this another way: the proposal should be to delete… but the consensus result can go beyond just “delete/keep”. Blueboar (talk) 18:39, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

the proposal should be to delete
Nope, the proposal can also be to merge, if the nominator doesn't want to delete the article, per this RfC. FaviFake (talk) 19:43, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Support to make AfD consistent with most of the other discussion processes and to reflect that merge discussions are now handled at AfD per the recent RfC. Per Barkeep's close, the closer of this discussion should account for the comments here. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:04, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Support - Almost in opposite of AtG's comment, I think Articles for Discussion is usefully unindicative because there are a number of typical outcomes that emerge from them including merges, redirects, and deletions, and to be honest AfD can be a good first step in drawing attention to articles that have issues that have otherwise gone unnoticed and lead to sudden improvement in quality given there now actually is a deadline.

The current title "Articles for Deletion" to me is unhelpfully antagonistic in nature, as it automatically sets a tone that sounds against the article subject in the minds of many leading to discussions to become adversarial and more charged than necessary. Also, as per the previously mentioned, there are more outcomes than simply "deletion". Rambling Rambler (talk) 21:17, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• Support per Rambling Rambler, it's far from perfect but keeping it at Articles for Deletion would be incorrect. Articles for Destruction is an option Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 21:29, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  "Articles for Destruction" is even more antagonistic than "Articles for Deletion". SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 14:14, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• Support the PEREN argument against this rebame has been that processes beyond deletion like merging and redirects do not require the hand of an admin to complete. If the community has now agreed that merges should be discussed alongside deletion, then the PEREN argument vaporized and the rename makes sense. Masem (t) 21:40, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose: Using a euphemism is not going to fool anyone, we all know what AfD is for. Especially since we already have a place to put articles up for discussion, it's called talk pages. Gnomingstuff (talk) 21:53, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  lol, "euphemism"? A rough count of recent AfDs show that less than half of pages at AfD actually get deleted. There are also two other methods of deletion, PROD and SD, which result in far more pages getting deleted than AfD does. Toadspike [Talk] 00:06, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  and if we called them "proposed discussion" and "speedy discussion" that would be equally ridiculous Gnomingstuff (talk) 03:45, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  It's very confusing to have a merge nomination at a venue called "articles for deletion". Cremastra (talk · contribs) 15:59, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[]

  Very true. Iljhgtn (they/them · talk) 16:07, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[]

• Support: Since we seem to be moving in the direction of centralizing discussions about editorial preferences on articles (e.g., merging, the new RfC proposal for moving splits to AFD) it makes sense to rename the page for what it is, namely a centralized discussion hub. I suspect that the talk pages of individual articles are going to become quieter. Given that, I think keeping the deletion name is counterproductive and won’t be an accurate descriptor of the discussions happening there. ScrubbedFalcon (talk) 22:12, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  I suspect that the talk pages of individual articles are going to become quieter. Article content will still be discussed on article talk pages. Nobody is suggesting that AfD discussions should be used to determine whether a certain POV should be included or whether a source is reliable in context. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:14, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  No, I get that, but I think that centralizing editorial discussions on whether or not to have an article about topic x (and whether or not it’s actually best covered in article y, and does this section with perspective z need/deserve to be spun out) removes quite a bit of content related discussions from talk pages to a centralized location. ScrubbedFalcon (talk) 22:40, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Merge discussions are not editorial discussions because they focus on whether we should merge, not the actual merge itself, which may involve an editorial discussion (should we include this or that bit of content?) but usually is just done by a single editor. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:50, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  I think we might be using the word editorial differently. From what I’ve seen merge/split decisions go into issues of what serves readers best (having one or two, or more, articles, hence editorial preference) that go beyond the question of notability that’s at the core of deletion discussions. ScrubbedFalcon (talk) 23:01, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Nobody is suggesting that AfD discussions should be used to determine whether a certain POV should be included or whether a source is reliable in context. Well, for me, that's what the naming "Articles for Discussion" implies. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 14:21, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• Oppose - "articles for discussion" is a confusing and therefore newbie-unfriendly name because it's unclear what is meant under "discussion" (RfCs? Just general discussion about the article?). sapphaline (talk) 22:19, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose, too broad and confusing per above. —Kusma (talk) 22:24, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Support for consistency with Templates for Discussion, etc. now that merges are incorporated there too. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 22:29, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Support If for no other reason than to be consistent with Categories for discussion, Files for discussion, Miscellany for discussion, etc. While AfD is primarily for deletion discussions (just like the other XXXX for discussion areas), a great number of them are closed with a consensus in other results. If we are going to promote consistency in articles, shouldn't we also promote consistency in the underlying structure? And since there was consensus to merge WP:PAM into AFD, it is no longer officially about deletions. — Jkudlick ⚓ (talk) 22:30, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  "a great number of them are closed with a consensus in other results" - do you have any statistics? sapphaline (talk) 22:32, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  @Sapphaline A ctrl+F search for "The result was delete" in the three most recent AfD log days shows 30%, 39%, and 40% of discussions were actually closed as "delete". Toadspike [Talk] 00:09, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  This is not representative as in recent months there have been many nominations of schools that are usually redirected. For example, on 16 March, roughly 15 out of 25 redirects were schools. According to this data, a bit more than half of all AfDs are closed as delete. Secondly, redirects differ from deletions only in that history is viewable by all, and not only by admins. Kelob2678 (talk) 00:20, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  "it is no longer officially about deletions" - merging articles involves deleting them. sapphaline (talk) 22:33, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Merging is explicitly not deleting, the content is largely kept (if slightly rearranged to fit the structure of the destination article), there’s a redirect, and the page history is maintained for attribution. Also importantly, any editor can merge an article, only admins can delete. ScrubbedFalcon (talk) 22:44, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Merging also tends to leave a redirect, since people may still look for the previous title. For example, FIFA Peace Prize. — Jkudlick ⚓ (talk) 00:04, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  I meant to thank Voorts in my edit summary but fat-fingered the [Enter] key. — Jkudlick ⚓ (talk) 00:06, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Merging and leaving a redirect also preserves the edit history — Jkudlick ⚓ (talk) 00:17, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  As I learned during the previous discussion on this, MfD is actually "Miscellany for deletion", not discussion. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:55, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• Oppose Completely unclear what the core purpose is. Core tenet here is deletion, not to discuss. That is for talk pages. It is unnecessarily confusing. scope_creep^Talk 23:09, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose Because deletion is the most common and drastic outcome. The recent RfC has little relevance for the naming because, even prior to it, AfD was the standard place to discuss disputed redirects and draftifications. The addition of merge discussions to the list doesn't change much. As mentioned above, the consistency argument is countered by the existence of Miscellany for Deletion, we also have Deletion Review, where XfD outcomes are contested. Kelob2678 (talk) 23:18, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  We could also rename Deletion Review as Discussion Review and change the location for challenging RfC closes from AN to there. ScrubbedFalcon (talk) 23:23, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• Oppose. No point apparent. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:23, 24 March 2026 (UTC).[]
• Support: I agree with Masem, now that proposed merges are going to be integrated into the AfD process, the current name is incongruous. The word "deletion" carries an implication of complete removal, which merging is very much not regarding article content. I also get the feeling that if merging in AfD catches on but this RfC fails to gain consensus it'll just end up happening two years later instead.  novov talk edits 04:48, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  As far as I can tell the only thing that will be discussed at AfD regarding merges is simply whether or not the article(s) should be merged, and nothing about actually performing the merge. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 14:24, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• Support, a very simple way to make it appear a less aggressive process, especially for new users. Better encourages thinking beyond a keep/delete binary. Already good enough for WP:RfD. CMD (talk) 05:20, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Support Would be more accurate. The template placed at the top of articles should still remain red and explicitly say that the process can result in deletion (merging could be mentioned but I would leave out redirection and other less likely outcomes). If we do it this way, I don't think anyone will be confused or care about the name of the venue. Rolluik (talk) 10:29, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Support – A number of the oppose !votes aren't addressing (or even acknowledging) the reason about why this rename is being proposed; after the recent RFC, AfD is no longer going to be primarily for deletion discussions now that it's been merged with Merging. A rename acknowledges the new broadened scope of AFD – if "discussion" is too confusing (despite being used for templates and categories), then another alternative to "deletion" should be proposed. nil ^nz 10:51, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Merging has not been merged with AfD. PAM has been merged with AfD. In my view, the AfD opened under the new procedure is strictly for determining if there is consensus to merge. Actually performing the merge requires discussion that will most likely not happen at AfD. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 14:26, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• Support per above, since it now reflects the merging in of mergers into AfD. Consistent with RfD. DankJae 11:43, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose for the millionth time, no. AFD is to debate deletions. That WP:ATDs exist does not change the main purpose of AFD. Obfuscating this fact in the name of newbie coddling does them a disservice. AFD is not a "let's sit down and talk about the article" forum. That's what the talk page of the article is for. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:37, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Except as pointed out in the lede, AFDs now can be used for starting merge discussions, as a result of a different RFC. Masem (t) 12:49, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Merge discussions for determining if there is consensus to merge, not actually doing the content work of performing the merge. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 14:27, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  AFDs (well before now) that end in merges typically do not have the closing admin perform the merger but leave a notice on relevant pages about the results and let the editors do the work. Only time admims actually use the broom from AFD is to delete pages or salt redirects. Masem (t) 15:18, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• Oppose – The correct place for article discussion is on the the article talk page – and indeed, mergers will still be carried out via talk page discussion in future, as per the close of the recent RfC. AfD remains a venue dedicated to deletion and notability, and should retain the current title as such. Moreover, the proposed title is misleading as renaming (the RM process) remains outwith the purview of this process. Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 12:50, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose as too vague. "Articles for discussion" sounds like a place you can bring ordinary content disputes. Additionally, it would imply that requested moves would be debated there as well, which is currently not the case. Struck, has been discussed at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion#Follow up from RfC SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 14:08, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Support per Jkudlick Mach61 16:40, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose per "Oh, they're just discussing my article, I'll leave them to it." "WHAT?????" --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:43, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  The template, edit summaries, talk page notices, or any other notices or banners will definitely make it much clearer that it's not merely a discussion of the article. FaviFake (talk) 17:17, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Or, get that, the name of the process itself could be used for that. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:58, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  We could also just call it "AfD". The actual initialism has definitely evolved into a word of its own right, distinct from what it originally stood for. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🧸 19:03, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  But probably not for new editors, who are often the ones whose articles are deleted. Lijil (talk) 08:24, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  To a newbie, the initialism means literally nothing -- they have no way of telling what it stands for until somebody tells them.

  Though, speaking of the second point -- I wonder what percentage of newbie article creations get deleted by AFD, especially when compared to being deleted via drafticiation/G13 and CSDs. This feels like the sort of thing somebody would have tried to gather data on, and I'd be interested to know what that breakdown is, and what the breakdown is for more experienced editors. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🧸 05:16, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• Support following the recent decision to merge merges into AfD. I would actually prefer "Articles for disposition" which would be more specific than "discussion", though consistency with other XfD venues is probably preferable and the chances of reaching consensus to rename all of them "X for disposition" seem slim. Rosbif73 (talk) 17:21, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Support As per argument put forward already, it is no longer just "deletions", with the merge process now being integrated as per the RFC.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 18:48, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  It is already not just deletions because contested draftifications and BLARs are channeled into AfD. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 18:57, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Which is a further reason to be renamed Davidstewartharvey (talk) 19:56, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• Support – per Rambling Rambler's great comment. If someone wanted to merge the article they wrote, I'd guess a venue called Articles for deletion would be the last place they'd want to go. FaviFake (talk) 19:53, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• It was a months-long effort in 2005 when we renamed it from Wikipedia:Votes for deletion, and there were orders of magnitude fewer subpages to move and templates to update. Are any of the supporters capable of taking this on? —Cryptic 20:32, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  I'm sure bots will handle it easily enough. FaviFake (talk) 20:39, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  That was with bots. —Cryptic 20:46, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Well, then I'm sure the bots and APIs have improved enough in the last two decades. This is just a simple renaming task. FaviFake (talk) 15:51, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  A simple renaming task for likely several million pages. I'm trying to find a way to count (not just list) subpages in order to estimate/calculate just how many AfDs there are. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 16:08, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Would it actually be necessary to rename all those historic AfD subpages? Is there a good reason why we couldn't leave them be? Rosbif73 (talk) 16:25, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  I can't think of one, especially since there are 573,662 AfDs that would have to be moved. (My initial estimate was a little high. Lucky for me, JPxG had already made quarry:query/60987 to count AfDs, so I forked it and ran it again today.) SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 16:42, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  To put it in perspective: the maximum number of subpages that a single admin or page mover can move at once is set to 100. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 16:15, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Then we're lucky bots aren't just page movers. All I'm saying is, this task is not complicated. Just rename literally every page that starts with a certain string of text. It may be long or extensive, but it's simple. FaviFake (talk) 16:44, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  How long do you think it will take to move 581,470 subpages? A month? A year? More? (This query, unlike the one above, includes subpages of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log.) SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 16:50, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  SuperPianoMan9167, to my knowledge there is no rate limit for moving pages for bots. (There isn't for editing, and I assume that applies to bots as well.) So it could possibly be done within a day at about 7 moves a second. — Qwerfjkltalk 11:19, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Moving the subpages is the easy part. Finding and updating everything that assumes deletions discussions are at WP:Articles_for_deletion/Article_title kept us cleaning up after the move for half a year. And if the subpages aren't moved, that cleanup becomes much more difficult. —Cryptic 18:11, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  I say we could not move the ocean of nomination subpages and have WP:Articles for deletion redirect to the new page, to a section noting how AfD used to include only deletion but now includes mergers as well. (Under this, we could titleblacklist subpages under "WP:Articles for deletion/" if needed to prevent accidental creation by users and gadgets. Or just make another bot that automatically moves new creations?)
  — User:Aaron_Liu 00:47, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

  Aaron Liu (talk) 13:24, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• Oppose – I appreciate concerns about talk pages becoming quieter, but the high visibility of articles would make changing from "deletion" to "discussion" a lot, lot harder than it should. The articles aren't in the same league as "WP:Files for discussion", formerly "Files for deletion" until the merger of WP:NFCR and WP:PUF (ah... miss the ol' days). Also, I've yet to see how talk pages are less viable than they are naturally. The distinction between talk pages and AFD is already clear. No need to make this distinction a grey area or blurry, honestly. Furthermore, I'm more worried about RFCs and cleanup discussions and other non-merger and non-deletion discussions being moved to AFD if changed to "discussion". This proposal is less concrete than it should be, IMO. George Ho (talk) 22:06, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose Being nice to a newbie by telling them that their article is being "discussed" is going to crash when they see the article deleted. Be honest: it's a discussion which could conclude with deletion. It might end with a merge or some other outcome, but deletion is possible. The nominator might think they are requesting a merge but consensus might be that it is POVFORK or has some other defect, and should be deleted. Johnuniq (talk) 02:06, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Drop the rfc, per WP:I say tomato, you say .... This is a pointless rfc. Let us concentrate on content, not trivia. I think Ella would agree. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 11:33, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose "Articles for discussion" is a really vague and not particularly accurate phrasing, especially for new editors (as mentioned by Johnuniq just above me). Mind you, a lot of the arguments at the RfC that prompted this had the same problem. Black Kite (talk) 16:32, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose Unnecessary proposal using vague and imprecise language. AfD is still primarily about articles under consideration for deletion due to failing notability requirements. "Discussion" of an article could mean many things - renaming, content disputes. Merge was already an option at AfD anyway. It seems like both RfCs are little more than a waste of time. AusLondonder (talk) 17:07, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose Whether the proposal is to delete an article, redirect it, or merge it to another article, the discussion always amounts to, "Should there be a stand-alone article in Wikipedia about this specific topic?" If the answer to that question is "no", then the content of that article is functionally deleted (although some of the content may be moved to another article in case of a merge). The only functional difference to the casual reader between a deletion and a redirect or merge outcome is whether or not the page title remains searchable. - Donald Albury 18:15, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose: Chesterton's fence applies. No need for change for the sake of change. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 22:30, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose: I appreciate the rationale, but "discussion" is indeed vague. "Discussion" makes it sound like we are here to chat about them. Deletion is more impactful, and informs participants of the intended consequence. If anybody wants another outcome than deletion, they're welcome to propose one. We may as well go ahead and rename AfC to "Articles for consideration". (Joking aside, I do also have the same opinion on "Redirects for discussion" and the inconsistency there has always bothered me).ASUKITE 23:48, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• We had the same conversation 16 years ago, but despite consensus to change (include merges, rename to discussion) it was never implemented due to inertia. See Wikipedia talk:Articles for discussion/Proposal 1. I support for old times sake. Fences&Windows 00:41, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose "Discussion" is vague to the point of missing the primary purpose of AfD pages. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 01:57, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose. As mentioned "Discussion" is vague and meaningless, and everyone would still call it "articles for deletion" anyway. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 04:18, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• oh god please no when does the hurting stop ltbdl (watch) 06:18, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose: The proposed name in no way conveys the imperative and potential outcome, so would ill-serve those unfamiliar with the process. Looking at the titles of equivalent processes in other languages, I am not seeing better options. I am unconvinced of a need for change, however a format change to something like Deletion and merger discussions could be an option? AllyD (talk) 08:14, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  I think the proposal you have put forward is valid for the alternative name. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 08:24, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• Oppose. Vague, unclear, misleading, and unnecessary. Stifle (talk) 11:05, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Weak oppose. I'm not entirely against renaming AfD, considering there are various options other than deletion, "Articles for discussion" is an awful name. Like many others have pointed out, it's very vague and could confuse new editors. Also, since talk pages exist, isn't every article technically up for discussion? Rosaece ♡ talk to me! 11:25, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose per Chesterton & Andy the Grump, whose (~comprehensive) rebuttal is persuasive. —Serial Number 54129 ^{(wake up Fortuna)} 13:25, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose. FWIW and come to think of it, the reason why anybody would nominate an article for deletion is to determine whether or not it passes a specific or general notability guideline, right? Especially in cases where the person who comes across it is (un)sure the article doesn't meet the notability guideline and should be deleted; that is the essence of AfD in my opinion whether or not it ends up being kept, merged or redirected. It takes an article to maybe be worthy of deletion before it can be nominated at AfD and ends up being merged or deleted. If that is the point, I therefore do not think saying articles for discussion is suitable. Mind you, WP:GAN, WP:FAC and WP:FLC all fall within the realm of articles for discussion in a way, if you ask me. —Vanderwaalforces (talk) 14:56, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Would you prefer a name like Wikipedia:Notability determination WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:09, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  @WhatamIdoing I doubt. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 15:24, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• Oppose. Merging still results in one of the two articles being effectively "deleted." A name change is unnecesary and would be confusing. I₂Overcome ^talk 17:18, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose. I would have voted no to adding Merge discussions to AfD if I'd seen that RfC but even with that happenening AfD should keep Deletion in the name both because that's the only way to communicate to inexperienced editors that their page might get deleted, and because merging is basically deletion but with a redirect and potentially some content being put in the target article. In practice, I've seen merge weaponised as "soft deletion" a lot, too, with no content retained, which of course is not the intention. My point is they're both experienced as deletion to article creators. Lijil (talk) 08:30, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose. Merge discussions happen all the time outside of AfD. It is better to keep AfD for deletion, with the option of a soft merge/"effective deletion". There are, of course, other outcomes possible between "delete" and "keep", but I think we are far-better served by having nominations focused on deletion rather than merging. In other words, the threshold judgement for nomination should be deletion, not some soft criterion like (as an extreme example) "maybe merge some parts of this". Sławomir Biały (talk) 08:38, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  the threshold judgement for nomination should be deletion, not some soft criterion like (as an extreme example) "maybe merge some parts of this".
  The recent RfC closure clearly states that formal merge discussion shall only be held at AfD, which in practise means that nominators will nominate articles for merging at AfD. Editors who think "maybe we should merge some parts of this" must propose it at AfD, if they want a formal discussion to be held; that's not an extreme case, it's the standard process now.This is a different discussion: now that the process you described, which has been the status quo for decades, has been drastically changed, should AfD be renamed as a result? FaviFake (talk) 09:22, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  I'm just going by the process at WP:MERGE, which supports several options for merge discussion. Most merge discussions I am familiar with take place in talk space, not project space. In any case, a maximalist reading of this new process seems... like it will have unintended consequences. Sławomir Biały (talk) 09:37, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Yup, that's the old process, which has just been overturned by the RfC a few days ago. (H:M is out of date, as the template at the top says). The old formal merge discussions held in talk pages will gradually be closed and in a few months there'll be no more discussions at WP:PAM and it will be marked historical.I agree PAM was much better than AfD, but unfortunately it'll be deprecated. Given all this, which name do you prefer? FaviFake (talk) 09:42, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Ok, looked into this more. For preference, I would keep Articles for deletion. I think it won't be long before people come to their senses. I realize this is probably a bad reason for this RfC, but it's the best I got. What a mess. Sławomir Biały (talk) 09:51, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  So, if i read this correctly, what you're saying is that you'd prefer to keep the current name in the hope that other editors will overturn the RfC consensus or modify the formal merging process significantly enough that AfD will go back to primarily housing deletion discussions? FaviFake (talk) 09:56, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Not necessarily going back to the status quo ante. I think a "soft merge" outcome is also possible. Proposed merges are kept under the general umbrella of AfD, but separated (either actually or effectively, e.g., using deletion sorting). I think this is consistent with the outcome of the RfC (which, to my mind, was a little unclear what was being proposed and what the concrete outcome would be). I don't think that, when the dust settles, we will be in a place that is functionally all that different from where we are now. So I would wait before changing the process any more than the minimal amount to comply with the RfC outcome, including changes to the title of the project. Sławomir Biały (talk) 10:05, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Makes sense! Thanks! FaviFake (talk) 10:13, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• Oppose. Merges and deletions are separate things and should be kept separate. Renaming a well established process is a bad idea.  — Amakuru (talk) 11:34, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Merges and deletions are separate things and should be kept separate
  What do you mean by this? PAM and AfD are already being merged following consensus. FaviFake (talk) 12:27, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  I'm not going to support a proposal I disagree with, and looking at the comments in this thread it seems many others disagree too. I think that decision needs to be revisited as it does not have community consensus. I will probably start a challenge to 5he close in the next day or two although I am too busy to do so today unfortunately. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 13:44, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  To be clear: The WP:PAM noticeboard is being merged to WP:AFD. The WP:MERGE process is not. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:06, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  @WhatamIdoing PAM is the noticeboard, WP:MERGE describes the previous process (opening, closing discussions, tagging, etc). They're basically considered the same thing in this discussion. FaviFake (talk) 18:05, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  I don't think that it's as clear cut as that. Consider the statement that "Nothing in this close should be taken to mean that BOLD merges are impermissible, nor that editors cannot establish consensus for merging through other means of consensus forming other than AFD." We were repeatedly reassured in the RFC that bold merges and discussions on talk pages would still be permitted. It appears that the only thing that's changing wrt the traditional way of organizing merges is that those discussions will no longer be visible to readers of an article or tracked in any category. We'll be solving the "unclosed discussion backlog" by no longer tracking it or advertising the discussions anywhere. The actual problem, which is "unmerged pages", will not be improved, and may well get worse. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:41, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Fully agreed with everything you said. The more I think about it, the messier this resolution sounds. FaviFake (talk) 20:29, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Why would merge discussions no longer be visible or tracked? Articles nominated for deletion via AfD have a visible banner at the top of the article and are tracked through delsort, wikiproject article alerts and the like, and the same would apply for articles nominated for merge via AfD in accordance with the RfC. If anything, the tracking via delsort would be more visible than the current PAM process. Rosbif73 (talk) 06:13, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Bold merges have never been visible or tracked, and what the proponents of the previous RFC called "informal" merge discussions (the ones that were tagged with {{mergeto}}, tracked in a category, and discussed on the article's talk page) will stop being tagged and tracked. They will only be discussed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:50, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  What you're describing was the formal merge process. The informal process is just a few people discussing it somewhere without using any tags. FaviFake (talk) 17:04, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Merges tagged with {{mergeto}} were never informal, and I can't find anybody at the RFC page calling them such? And any merge which goes through formal discussion now will be tracked, via AfD pages. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🧸 17:09, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• Oppose per AndyTheGrump, Nat Gertler, and Amakuru ~ Lindsay^Hello 14:47, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose this. As a side note, if we're ever renaming a zillion pages (which isn't necessary to rename WP:AFD itself), please put all the XFD pages in a separate namespace (e.g., Deletion: instead of Wikipedia:). WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:05, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose net unimprovement. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 09:44, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Support like I did at the previous RfC conditioned to the success of the proposal, for the same reasons that I will simply quote: Aligning the name of AfD with the other XfDs into Articles for Discussion would also be an improvement both in terms of accuracy regarding what the process actually is, and taking some of the negative charge away from it. Putting complex merge discussions within it would help cementing the idea that the goal is not to either get rid of vs save an article, but to determine what is the best course of action for the current and potential contents of the article & Part of the point here though is to solidify the idea that deletion does not have to be the default outcome at AfD, since after all the ATDs are already a point of focus of many of these discussions. This is why there is discussion here for renaming AfD, because this process would be more about bringing problematic articles for attention and then assessing what is the best way forward. In essence, that is already what AfD is currently, and why merging is already a common avenue of resolution for these discussions. We might as well formalize what already exists Choucas0 🐦‍⬛ 17:20, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose. "Articles for discussion" is too vague. Talk pages are also for discussing articles. Sophocrat (talk) 21:23, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Oppose all proposals regarding renaming AFD. In fact, if I had known about the RFC, I would have probably opposed that one too. Why we’re all the sudden handling merge discussions at AFD is beyond me, I think the previous system worked well, but that’s besides the point. More than 90% of stuff on AFD is deletion. It’s not like RFD, where you have proposals for retargeting and disambiguating along with deletion. Plus, as @The Sophocrat pointed out, “discussion” itself is too vague and too ambiguous, and would potentially lead to a lot of unnecessary AFD nominations that would have been better suited for the article’s talk page, or the talk page of their relevant wiki project. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 23:01, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  I’ll give a few examples: You have a dispute on the title? You go to requested moves, not AFD. Have a dispute about the factual accuracy of an article’s section? Discuss it on that article’s talk page, not AFD. Got a long running dispute in the article? Open an RFC, not a deletion discussion. The point being that “discussion” is so ambiguous, that unless the AFD page is clearly marked “for deletion and merge requests only” in bold print everywhere, people will likely open up unnecessary “deletion” requests for stuff that could be handled by other pages, especially RFC. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 23:13, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Basically, why fix something that isn’t broken? And I don’t think the AFD title is broken. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 23:21, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• Oppose per Amakuru and the well-reasoned opposition to the merge in the first place presented but overlooked in the initial discussion. Neither the merge not the renaming will solve any actual problems but may make some that do exist worse. Thryduulf (talk) 23:33, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose. Likely to confuse new editors. Perhaps they would not even bother to read a user talk message about "articles for discussion", or realize that this is (probably) an attempt to delete their article. Also, would require updating quite a lot of templates, user scripts, gadgets, and brains of editors used to calling it "Articles for Deletion". Oh, and renaming hundreds of thousands of subpages. In cases where a renaming creates this much work, in my opinion there must be a very compelling reason in order to overcome the amount of work. –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:33, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Perhaps they would not even bother to read a user talk message about "articles for discussion", or realize that this is (probably) an attempt to delete their article
  Or in the case of merges, they would most likely be scared by the message and assume the nominator wants their article to be deleted, while in reality the nom just wants to move the content they wrote to a different page. FaviFake (talk) 15:26, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Rename to "articles for reasessment" or AfR That is also consistent with GAR. VidanaliK (talk to me) (contributions) 17:06, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

WP:Article assessment is limited to FA, GA, Stub, Start, A-, B-, and C-class, not deletion outcomes. Aaron Liu (talk) 18:02, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

No, Articles for Reasessment; Distinction between GAA and GAR. VidanaliK (talk to me) (contributions) 18:05, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Nah, that doesn’t work. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 18:29, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

OK. In that case, Oppose because Articles for Deletion works well with Articles for Creation and has a 20-year+ precedent. VidanaliK (talk to me) (contributions) 18:30, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

In fairness, PAM, which is being merged into AfD, which is why we're having this discussion in the first place, has also been around for 20+ years. ScrubbedFalcon (talk) 19:03, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• The AfD name is just over 20½ years old, the change from Votes for deletion happened on 1 September 2005 (contemporary discussion).
• Proposed article mergers doesn't have the same vintage. It was moved from Wikipedia:Proposed mergers in late November 2019 (RM discussion). That name arose semi-boldly in December 2005, replacing the previous Wikipedia:Duplicate articles (that title now redirects somewhere different) (referenced talk page section).

Thryduulf (talk) 19:25, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Thats a better history of the topic than mine. My point was mostly about the processes both being old I guess, not the names, but duplicate articles does redirect to merging, which is connected to the PAM process and is impacted by these changes. ScrubbedFalcon (talk) 19:36, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

👁 Image
Comment: See also the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)#What should we do with the Proposed article splits and Section moving processes? FaviFake (talk) 17:26, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• Weak support Bringing any article to AfD makes new editors feel like the article they've worked on is about to be deleted. I rarely see articles being sent to draft, things tend to be binary Keep or Delete. If there's a way to move towards something more productive then I would be for it. Most minor of complaints every damn time I type AFD I think of Alternative for Germany which I know is stupid and is 100% a me thing. Dr vulpes (Talk) 19:04, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  every damn time I type AFD I think of Alternative for Germany which I know is stupid and is 100% a me thing.
  – its not just you... ScrubbedFalcon (talk) 19:05, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  This is the first time I’m hearing/seeing or coming across AfD as Alternative For Germany. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 19:12, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  It's because the German name of that party is Alternative für Deutschland. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 19:13, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• Oppose: Regrettable shared acronym aside, I prefer clarifying that the discussions are primarily oriented towards deletion. If an editor believes a merge is needed, there's a specialized discussion process that more immediately addresses the issues relevant to such a proposal. Conversion to a redirect is effectively a deletion (though preservation of edit history is optional). New(er) editors who observe that an article is nominated for "discussion" are less likely to fully comprehend the potential implications of such a discussion from the article banner alone. I dread brigading and uninformed !votes as much as the next editor, but we should strive to keep Wikipedia editing—especially consensus-building—as accessible as possible. Best, ~ Pbritti (talk) 19:34, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  The current merging process is being deprecated per the recent RfC which is why this conversation was started, those specialized discussions on mergers are all going to be coming to AfD now. ScrubbedFalcon (talk) 19:40, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Merging is also deciding whether a standalone article should exist so I say quite close to deletion, and some article content indeed gets deleted after a merger to reflect the topic of the article merged into. Aaron Liu (talk) 00:02, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[]

• Support but also 🚴, deletion is far from the only outcome at AfD. Even before AfM was merged with AfD, article outcomes could be "rename", "redirect", or "merge". This has not changed at all. I also don't think it would be worth moving existing Articles for deletion to Articles for discussion if the title change passes. Aasim (talk) 20:08, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Note: This proposed move of a page was placed here without any notice being given on the talk page of the primary page to be moved. This seems irregular. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 20:45, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Support we need to rename AfD to articles for discussion at the very least, and if there is an even better name, fine, but it must be changed now that merges are in there. It probably already should have been since redirects and merges were common closes of AfDs forever. Iljhgtn (they/them · talk) 21:08, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose: All the other "for discussion" venues include moves; AfD would not include RequestedMoves and calling it "... for discussion" would falsely imply it does. I previously offered a name which I still support, Articles for Disposition, but I will be the first here to admit I don't see that name gaining any acceptance either. Aaron Liu (talk) 00:05, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[]
• Support: Once ago there were Wikipedia:Templates for deletion, Wikipedia:Categories for deletion, Wikipedia:Files for deletion etc. All were renamed with different reasoning, but right now this would be consistent. Apart from that, having a centralized process for deletion, merge etc. is a better thing; so I'd support it. Vestrian24Bio 10:09, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[]

  Truly an idea whose time has come. :) Iljhgtn (they/them · talk) 12:19, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[]

• Oppose as pure WP:BIKESHED and a solution in search of a problem. If it isn't broken, don't fix it. JavaHurricane 18:22, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[]
• Moral support but oppose "discussion" I think the idea is good since often AfD ends with a merge or sometimes cleanup. Perhaps change the page to "Articles for Deletion, Merge, Cleanup" or similar. I agree that "discussion" isn't the word we are looking for. Springee (talk) 22:28, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose - but this is actually a little tough. Someone above wrote that the most common outcome is deletion not merging. This is not true by my own long experience here. Many, many times (perhaps most times) the outcome is to turn the article into a redirect to the appropriate article. That is not deletion. And a lot of newcomers to an AFD don't realize that's an option. They get pulled over from an auto-generated talk page notice and simply say "delete" or "keep" or "oppose" or support." Until the first person in a discussion mentions that they want a redirect, not a delete, many don't realize it's an option. I don't agree with merging an AFD with a merge request as merges are always turned into redirects. But it should say at the very top of an AFD that the article discussion will determine a deletion or redirect of the article. We have too many new editors at Wikipedia and sometimes a deletion happens with only three editors having their say. They need to know right at the top of the template they they have a choice of "redirect." We can't assume they know. Also I noticed someone made an edit to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion and added the word "merge." That seems weird to me, so I reverted that edit from a week ago. Why would we do that? We might as well change this to AFDMR... articles for deletion, merging, redirects. And Articles for Discussion? That is pansy weak... we have enough discussion topics. This is supposed to be more direct and specific... Delete or not. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:27, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[]
• Support Merging isn't deletion. Many of the oppose arguments here appear to be unrelated to the question, and are just using it as an outlet to vent frustration about ignoring the long running discussion. If we delay things for years until everyone who is only marginally invested in Wikipedia can spend 5 years actually finding it, nothing will ever get done. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 16:17, 3 April 2026 (UTC)[]

I doubt that this RFC will be able to reach a consensus on renaming AfD to "Articles for discussion" (even if I support it) as many editors above have pointed to how vague "discussion" is and that it obscures the fact that deletions do get discussed at AfD. At the same time, there is a need for AfD to acknowledge the broadened scope following the RFC merging PAM to AfD as merges are now an expected result and purpose of AfD, which means "deletion" is ill-suited to include the whole scope of AfD.

I therefore propose that we rename Articles for deletion to Articles for deletion and merging. While this name (abreviated AfDM) is not as concise as the current name or the one proposed above, and does not fit the XfD naming scheme, I believe it is able to accurately describe the purpose of the venue (again following the previous RFC) by describing the broadened scope without being unclear as to what could happen or be discussed regarding the article. Gramix13 (talk) 00:05, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• Comment as an aside, I did consider lengthening the name to also mention redirects by naming it "Articles for deletion, merging, and redirects", but since the biggest issue with this name that I can see right now (other than whether or not merges should even happen at AfD, which again appears to have been settled by the previous RFC) was the length of the name, I opted for the one bolded above to minimize this flaw while still attempting to cover the two most important non-keep outcomes of AfD (and I'd argue that redirects could be construed as a merge outcome). I also am not expecting this proposal to generate a consensus behind it (and I fully expect others to freely point out flaws with this name before being snow closed). At the very least, I do hope that those participating in this RFC will recognize that there needs to be a better way than the word "discussion" to describe the fact that deletion/keep is now not the only descriptive outcome of AfD without widening it too far to make its purpose become unclear to other editors, otherwise this RFC could fail to generate a consensus behind the name. My two cents are that there doesn't exist a single word (let alone one that starts with the letter D) that can accurately fill this role, and that we should be willing to accept other names for the venue that can satify its purpose today. Gramix13 (talk) 00:05, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Please, no. Seeking the perfect name after many years of "articles for deletion" would only generate confusion and waste time. Johnuniq (talk) 02:06, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Just like how "notability" isn't perfect but it would waste time to find a different name. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 02:32, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Yes, all these "I say tomato, you say..." games are utter wastes of time. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 06:19, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• If I had to choose, I'd pick Articles for deletion over Articles for deletion and merging. The only viable option to reach consensus is Articles for discussion, imo FaviFake (talk) 17:23, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Which appears to not be reaching consensus. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 23:50, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• Oppose this too. Stifle (talk) 11:05, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose per Stifle. —Serial Number 54129 ^{(wake up Fortuna)} 11:14, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose as unnecessary. I₂Overcome ^talk 17:18, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose this will not help and only confuse most editors. There is no point in changing the name as of now. Dafootballguy (talk) 22:29, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose scope_creep^Talk 11:19, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose -- the idea is to first discuss whether to delete the article, and then what to do with the article if it is not deleted. But the idea of deletion should be kept foremost in your mind. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 17:14, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose. If we had to pick a new name, I would suggest^[Humor] Articles for DeletingEditingTaggingMergingRedirectingIncubatingTranswikiingStubifying, which uses the list at WP:ATD to conveniently create the the acronym DETMeRITS, which stands for what the process actually does: determining the merits of a standalone page. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 18:34, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  I can't tell if you mean this as a serious proposal, but I'm kind of into it (the acronym especially, artfully done). It also seems to address your (and others) objection to the main proposal as being to vague. ScrubbedFalcon (talk) 18:45, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  It's humorous. It lacks consistency with the other XfD venues, and the page title would be ridiculously long. Plus the acronym isn't three letters.

  The main thing that happens at AfD is deletion, because everything else listed can be performed by any editor at any time. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 18:58, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Please use the humor templates. I still think its a creative acronym, my compliments for that, limiting acronyms to three letters is overrated imo. ScrubbedFalcon (talk) 19:06, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  when you come up with a humorously long name for fun that actually ends up being better than the original proposal: SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 20:07, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  What's so convenient about an acronym that doesn't match any real word? Were you trying for "demerits"? --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 19:45, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  I think the idea is "DETermining MERITS" ScrubbedFalcon (talk) 19:52, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  Yup. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 20:03, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  My oppose above also covers this proposal too. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 23:16, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

  you know what I support DETMeRITS, no more AfD. I can't even tell if I'm joking Aaron Liu (talk) 12:06, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• Oppose because of the amount of work this would generate for low benefit (see the comments in the above section about moving 500,000 subpages). It is also not clear to me that a more precise title would be worth the loss of conciseness. –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:41, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• No this is just more wordy. Aasim (talk) 20:10, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]
• Support IF the other fails I conditionally support this IF AfD does not become "articles for discussion", we need change either way. But this is not as clean. Iljhgtn (they/them · talk) 21:17, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• Oppose, unnecessarily long. As I said previously, any discussion at AfD is to determine whether Wikipedia should have a stand-alone article on the topic, and any results other than "keep" means the effective deletion of the existing article.

Donald Albury 21:27, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• Oppose per Donald Albury (and thanks). I suppose "Alternate to Deletion" can confuse some, as indicated by comments in the subsection Wikipedia talk:AfD stats#Keep and merge should be green, which posits, "Merging IS a form of keep, just as redirect IS a form of deletion." I mentioned wording similar to the above in the main section (above it), seeking clarification, in agreement with "any results other than "keep" means the effective deletion of the existing article." This would mean the rationale is flawed. -- Otr500 (talk) 06:37, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose: unnecessarily long. Vestrian24Bio 10:09, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose I consider merging to be a form of deletion so I don't think the name is outdated. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 18:17, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose, it seems likely to create more confusion than it is worth. While AFD does have the option to eg. move or redirect, that is not its purpose; we have lighter-weight methods for those things. Its purpose is deletion and the name should make that clear. Furthermore, even a conclusion to do one of those things at AFD carries a weight that a normal discussion or undiscussed move does not; and the thrust of that weight is deletion, ie. an article cannot exist at that name. Deletion is the common thread behind what it does and should be in the name to avoid people bringing stuff there without the intent to, in some form, delete. Beyond that, a rename after 20 years would always have inherent confusion due to the huge amount of inertia and existing references to its current name - this could perhaps be defended if there was some benefit to the new name, but I'm not seeing it, only downsides. --Aquillion (talk) 17:16, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[]
• Oppose - I think it's becoming very clear that if more people had seen the RfC of merging of AFD and merge requests, it would have failed. That may need to relooked at now that we are becoming aware of what happened last week. I sure didn't see it. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:27, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[]

I missed the initial discussion, but I see that it is controversial here. I've opened a discussion on a possible alternative at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)#Merging Proposed article mergers with Requested Moves. BilledMammal (talk) 06:45, 4 April 2026 (UTC)[]

On an article I have been active on, there is already a requested move, and I have thought of a better name, however the previous requested move is still open (but a majority of the people oppose the move), can I open a new one now or do I need to wait?

• Note: I asked this on the Teahouse and was informed to move it here

The Grenadian Historian (Aka. Mwen Sé Kéyòl Translator-a) (talk) 13:20, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

I think it's best to wait until this RM is closed. Alternatively, you can propose your new idea in the current discussion and ping everyone who has commented there for their opinion. Toadspike [Talk] 13:40, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

I think I may wait a couple of days. Thanks for the advice The Grenadian Historian (Aka. Mwen Sé Kéyòl Translator-a) (talk) 15:06, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[]

I'd mention it now. There's no need to delay. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:54, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

I already mentioned it and the consensus was “wait”, most other users didn’t seem so keen that I piped up and want there to be a rest from changing the name 😅 The Grenadian Historian (Aka. Mwen Sé Kéyòl Translator-a) (talk) 17:53, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Hi, I mainly write in German WP, so I couldn't answer: A friend of mine got emailed by this company https://wiki-crafter.com/who offered to improve the article on him in English WP, presumably as a paid editing service. The friend declined. But the question remains: Are these services required to nofify Wikipedia of what they are doing? Big questionmark here. Satu Katja (talk) 11:14, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Here's the email text to my friend:

Hello,

My name is Steven Fullerton, and I’m a Senior Wikipedia & Business Consultant at Wiki Crafter. We specialize in Wikipedia page optimization, editing, and reputation management for individuals, brands, and businesses.

I came across your Wikipedia page and noticed several opportunities to expand and refine it, making sure it reflects your latest achievements, projects, and professional milestones while remaining fully compliant with Wikipedia’s guidelines.

Here’s the link to your current Wikipedia entry for your review: [… ]

Here’s how we typically help clients who want to grow and enhance their existing pages:

Expanding content: Many pages don’t fully capture a person’s accomplishments, career milestones, or contributions. We help enrich your profile with well-researched, properly cited, and neutrally written content that truly represents your work.

Updating key achievements and projects: Ensure your page highlights your most recent endeavors, awards, or initiatives in a clear and engaging way.

Strengthening credibility with high-quality sources: We audit existing citations and add new reliable sources to increase the page’s authority and longevity.

Improving structure and readability: We refine formatting, headings, and sections so your page is easy to navigate, professional, and aligned with Wikipedia standards.

Adding relevant images or media: Properly licensed visuals can make your page more engaging and comprehensive, while remaining fully compliant with Wikipedia rules.

Whether you want a thorough expansion or selective updates, we tailor our approach to your goals while maintaining transparency and adherence to Wikipedia’s guidelines.

If you’re interested, I’d be happy to share examples of our work and walk you through the next steps no obligation at all, just guidance to help you maximize your Wikipedia presence.

Looking forward to your response!

Regards, Steven Fullerton Sr. Business Consultant - Wiki Crafter — Preceding unsigned comment added by Satu Katja (talk • contribs) 11:18, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]

With regard to the English Wikipedia, you might start by reading WP:PAID. Anomie⚔ 12:27, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]

WP:SCAM is also very much worth reading. CMD (talk) 12:36, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Alas in the real world "must do" is not always binding or enforceable. My view of that policy is that banks could also put in place a policy that requires all bank robbers to disclose the date on which they plan to enter the bank, and enclose a photograph as well. The only way to stop these paid editors would be lengthy and expensive sting operations. I don't think it is easy. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 14:22, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Wiki-Crafter has been at this for several years. DMacks (talk) 02:10, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Do we have any idea if they have made any paid edits? If so 20 edits, 200, 2000, ...? Thanks Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 09:19, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]

looks like they're now doing stuff with AI, based on this email Gnomingstuff (talk) 00:11, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Our structure and practices discourage disclosure. We should lighten up a bit on those who disclose and IMO we'd get a much higher rate of disclosure and this whole area would run much better. North8000 (talk) 15:17, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[]

While I agree with you in general, this specific kind of email to potential article subjects is often associated with scams, so I cannot condone it. Toadspike [Talk] 01:27, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Agree. North8000 (talk) 16:33, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]

An interesting edge case came up over at WP:AINB; namely, Wikipedia:State media and Wikipedia, an essay in projectspace that appears to be AI generated

This is a gap in our AI PAGs currently; we have prohibition against AI content in articles now (hallelujah!), we have guidance against AI content in talk pages (hopefully prohibition later) but projectspace/essays is currently still lawless.

My personal suggestion would be that AI generated essays should only be permissible in userspace and provided they are specifically, prominently labelled as AI generated; I could happily make a banner template for this purpose.

I would be interested to hear other peoples' thoughts on this, whether my suggestion is good or if people have other ideas on how to treat AI-generated essays in projectspace. If necessary I'll run an RfC on this after this discussion, as I do think this is a hole worth plugging. Athanelar (talk) 13:59, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Why do you think G15 can't be applied to them? sapphaline (talk) 14:07, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]

As far as I know, G15 as it currently stands is mostly intended to deal with articles since it relies on 'smoking gun' indicators like hallucinated references. Given that enforcing G15 is based on inadequate human review, it's hard to say what counts as 'adequate review' for an essay. Athanelar (talk) 14:19, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]

It doesn't qualify for WP:G15; I removed the tag. I₂Overcome ^talk 14:41, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]

It does. AI-generated articles without "communication intended for the user or implausible/fake refs" are routinely speedily deleted with this rationale. sapphaline (talk) 17:47, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Then those speedy deletions are out of process. G15 does not apply to every single page generated by an LLM. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 19:54, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]

I would also be in favor of prohibiting the use of LLMs to generate or rewrite text in projectspace. There are only two namespaces I think LLM text for any purpose should be allowed in: talkspace and userspace, and only if it is disclosed and the user has a very good reason for it. I₂Overcome ^talk 14:28, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Regarding disclosure, anyone can edit a project-space essay, so why not add the disclosure yourself? -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 14:33, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]

The suggestion is to prohibit AI use in projectspace and require disclosure in userspace. I₂Overcome ^talk 14:42, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Indeed. Athanelar (talk) 14:46, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[]

👁 Image
Moxy🍁 17:19, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[]

because people seemed very irritated that I even deigned to point it out Gnomingstuff (talk) 00:10, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[]

I agree with your stance. We shouldn't have essays or other projectspace pages that are LLM-generated. I put an {{AI-generated}} tag on the page. I may nominate it for MfD later. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 20:28, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[]

I am one of the main contributors to the article including moving it to the mainspace (not the user who drafted it using AI) and appreciate everyone who has flagged the article and pointed out the issues it has in its language. In general, the main issues from the AI draft were just being overly wordy - there were only minor tweaks needed to the content to make it more precise and useful. As it stands now, I see no reason to flag let alone MfD this article when any issues that might have been missed can clearly be fixed. I am also just seeing this discussion as it was just linked-to on the essay's talk page and would hope the article can be reevaluated based on its current state and not as it was in its draft AI-generated form. Superb Owl (talk) 03:36, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

@Pythoncoder, why shouldn't we have LLM-generated essays? Wikipedia:Essays exist to share different ideas and perspectives. An essay on the advantages and disadvantages of LLM use, written with an LLM, might be particularly appropriate. Other pages in the project namespace collect information, e.g., Wikipedia:Artificial intelligence#Discussion timeline. If someone wants to use an AI-based search tool to find the rest of the links that belong in that table and wrap it in wikitext table formatting, then I think we should welcome their contribution. Most editors struggle with editing tables.

Fun fact: Years ago, the article on Lipogram was written to be a lipogram. It eventually became too much of a hassle to maintain (and some editors opposed it in principle as too much fun for a serious encyclopedia). I don't want to see ordinary pages re-written with a chatbot, but I'm not sure that a total ban is appropriate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:30, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Self-withdrawn pending discussion. thejiujiangdragon ^T/_C 19:03, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[]

If we are going to implement a ban on AI-generated content in projectspace, what's the best way to do it? I would imagine it would be to add to WP:NEWLLM, but I'm concerned about making that very elegantly-worded guideline more bloated than it needs to be. I would also be equally concerned about making a completely separate guideline for this, though. Maybe it could instead be added to WP:ESSAY as a subsection under "Types of essays" or "Creation and modification of essays"? Technically though, if we're forbidding this in projectspace then we need to forbid it for all PAG pages, not just essays; so in that case should it be added to Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines under the 'content' section? (although, as a policy page, that's a bit of a heftier thing to change.) Athanelar (talk) 01:14, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Pinging the 'aye's who might want to weigh in; @Pythoncoder @Moxy @I2Overcome Athanelar (talk) 01:15, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

I know I’m not on of the original “ayes”, but I’m going to put my two cents into this discussion anyway. On the part of prohibiting AI generated project pages, I strongly support that. Subject to exceptions for things like language translation. As for how to word it, I’d say whatever wording necessary. It should explicitly say not to use AI to create project pages (subject to the relevant exceptions of course), but the actual change could be as little as two or three words “and project space” or something like that. And while we are at it, maybe we should also discuss restricting AI in user space too, I’d support that as well on the basis of copyright violations and hallucination. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 00:23, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

I'm not convinced that an expansion to userspace would bring any benefits (this is the tl;dr).

LLMTALK covers all the user talk issues, drafts of mainspace content are covered by the existing policies regarding creating articles, drafts of projectspace content would presumably be covered by the proposal above (and I cannot see a reason to treat the help namespace other than identically to project space, regardless of what rules are or are not adopted). Drafts of both content and project space categories would presumably be already covered by existing policies, and drafts of user categories in userspace seems like far too infrequent a thing to happen to make specific rules about.

Drafting templates in userspace is something that happens, but I feel that issues of AI and templates are probably different enough that, if desirable, any rules regarding the two should be specific to templates and template drafts in any namespace (I have honestly no idea whether such rules would be desirable). My understanding (which may be wrong) is that drafts of modules are done in module space for technical reasons, and rules about modules and AI should probably be specific to modules or maybe templates and modules together if any are necessary (I'm not that knowledgeable in this area).

That leaves only userspace content intended as userspace content - copyright violations are copyright violations and whether they were generated by AI or not is irrelevant so we don't need anything additional in that regard. If someone wants AI generated text as their userpage then I don't really see why they shouldn't be allowed to tbh - if the LLM hallucinates then that's on the user to either leave or fix at their discretion. Thryduulf (talk) 01:25, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Ok fair enough. But I still think banning or at least restricting it in project space, especially when it pertains to policies and guidelines is still a good idea. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 01:44, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Yes, this is essentially my overall philosophy; let people do what they want in their userspace provided it'd not intended for publication as article or projectspace content. I'm glad there seems to be broad agreement on that, but now the question is how to implement it.

I think the best option would probably be to add it as a bullet point under Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Content (I.e., Policies and guidelines should... 'Not be AI generated) and then add similar verbiage to WP:ESSAY. Between those two changes, that covers all of the applications of project/helpspace, while leaving userspace untouched. The addition to WP:ESSAY can specify that it only applies to essays in the project/help namespace and not userspace essays.

Alternatively we add a whole bunch of extra text to WP:NOLLM explaining the same, but I'm not sure if that would be popular given how much praise that guideline got for its conciseness. Athanelar (talk) 01:45, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

One point about LLM-generated text in user space drafts. I have started importing text generated by Claude 6.4 into my user space to use in drafting articles after I have checked the text for copyvios. As I review and confirm all sources cited by Claude,[1] add citations to additional sources where needed,[2] and copy edit the text for style, I protest against any attempt to prohibit such use.

[1] With one exception, every source cited by Claude has checked out, although I often have to search to find the appropriate page number(s). The one exception was a blog that has been a dead link for 2 or 3 years, for which the only version ever archived to the Internet Archive did not contain the cited material.

[2] I have not yet refined prompts to stop Claude from using Wikipedia as a source. I try to re-use the sources cited in Wikipedia, if they are reliable, but often the Wikipedia article sections cited by Claude are themselves unsourced. Donald Albury 15:29, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

I have started importing text generated by Claude 6.4 into my user space to use in drafting articles That's not allowed. Generating article content with LLMs, even in drafts, is prohibited.

Also, you probably meant Claude 4.6. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 16:01, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Where does it say that adding LLM-generated content is prohibited? The one article developed with the help of Claude that I have moved to main space is Zamia oligodonta, with full disclosure at Talk:Zamia oligodonta#Use of Claude. Please inform me as to which policies or guidelines I have violated by posting that article. Oh, yeah, I'm dyslexic, and tend to swap letters, or in this case, digits. Donald Albury 18:13, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

The guideline to which SuperPianoMan9167 linked, Wikipedia:Writing articles with large language models, states the use of LLMs to generate or rewrite article content is prohibited, with two exceptions (using large language models to copy edit text written by editors, and translation, which is covered by another guideline). isaacl (talk) 18:29, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

I have nominated it for deletion as a clear violation of the guideline. The community will decide if an exception should be made. I₂Overcome ^talk 00:29, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[]

Asking Claude or another llm to check for misspellings/digit misspellings (is there a term for that?) is fine within the guideline. CMD (talk) 03:01, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[]

[yes this just happened to me recently but I'm just asking]

In the case Alice and Bob have discussion on one of their user talk pages, and Bob knows that Alice speaks the same foreign, non-English language as Bob, does English Wikipedia allow Alice and Bob to have small-talk/personal/not-really-related-to-Wikipedia-exactly conversations in that Language? LS8 (talk) 16:02, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[]

My gut feeling is that short non-English discussions not about Wikipedia content/policies/disputes/etc on user talk pages are okay, as long the discussion would not be problematic in English (e.g. no badmouthing other editors, no sexual role play, etc). The only guideline I'm aware of is WP:ENGLISHPLEASE but that explicitly says The application of these guidelines to user talk pages should be governed by common sense and should not supersede guidelines and policies specific to those pages.

Don't take my opinion as gospel though as it's possible others might disagree. Thryduulf (talk) 16:17, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[]

There may be a few cases where we should have reasonable expectation that the dual-language editor can help translate proper. A case may be if Bob, a new editor with weak grasp of English, has been taken to ANI, and Alice, who can read both English and Bob's preferred language, helps to interpret what's going on. In such a case, I can envision the need for Alice to translate appropriate so we know what's been said in the ANI context.

But personal chatter that doesn't otherwise violate site policies, I wouldn't expect it. Masem (t) 16:49, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[]

I have no issue with the scenario you describe and I am not aware of any rules forbidding it. Toadspike [Talk] 21:52, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Yes, but the normal situation is that if A or B does nothing useful other than chat, they have a WP:NOTHERE problem and should be warned and blocked if necessary. The problem with just chatting is that it tends to proliferate—if people find they can use Wikipedia to exchange messages or pass the time, there would be a flood that distracts from our purpose (per WP:NOTFORUM). Johnuniq (talk) 04:22, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Let's remember that people other than the intended recipient often read user talk pages. To avoid any suspicion of impropriety it's best to have a translation. Phil Bridger (talk) 08:43, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Our policies are not binary legal rules. There's a spectrum of impact and best practices. CMD (talk) 09:12, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[]

While it's nice to offer a translation, it shouldn't be treated as a requirement. Use common sense and all that. Worst case scenario, users can copy-paste the text into a machine translator. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 20:18, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[]

I certainly agree that no sanctions should be applied to Alice or Bob. I always try to use common sense, but this place is so full of wikilawyers that it's difficult. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:30, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[]

A monoglot wikilawyer who is feeling stupid and/or socially excluded because he's unable to read the discussion easily might be particularly apt to climb the Reichstag over it. It shouldn't be a big deal, and we should consider trouting anyone who complains, but these complaints might happen occasionally. People have, after all, complained about even stupider things before. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:37, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Many times recently, Israel has said they've killed someone in Iran, and there's a period before it's confirmed by Iran:

• Talk:Ali Khamenei/Archive 4 § Please wait for multiple reliable sources to report on his death, if it is real. (lots more discussion follows, continuing to the next archive page)
• Aziz Nasirzadeh (diff) (also Talk:Aziz Nasirzadeh § Death confirmed?)
• Talk:Mohammad Pakpour § How does Wikipedia BLP actually work? (no substantive discussion)
• Ali Shamkhani (diff)
• Talk:Ali Larijani § Discussion on alleged death due to Israeli airstrikes
• Talk:Gholamreza Soleimani § Death?
• Esmaeil Khatib (diff)
• Talk:Alireza Tangsiri § Death

It seems like more experienced editors have generally agreed on something like this: in a war, when one side says they've killed someone on the other side, we should wait for independent confirmation – either from a reliable source or from the other side – before stating that the person is dead in wikivoice. I think that's a good rule in general, but is there a policy/guideline saying that? Some editors have cited WP:BLP, which is relevant, of course, but I'm not sure it has anything specific to this situation.

One thing worth noting is that in a lot of these cases, there are reliable sources that presume the person to be dead if Israel has said they've killed them. These sources usually make it clear that they haven't actually confirmed it themselves, but they assume Israel is right until proven otherwise. So technically, there are multiple reliable sources saying the person is dead, but the sources haven't independently confirmed it. As SuperPianoMan9167 said here, it's circular reporting. Cadddr (talk) 05:10, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

In the particular circumstance of Israeli claims, when was the last time they made such a claim and it was proven false? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:39, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Apparently Israel claimed in May 2024 that Hussein Fayyad Abu Hamza, a Hamas military wing commander, had been killed, but then NBC News filmed him walking around in January 2025 (1, 2). The IDF then acknowledged that they had had an intelligence failure. (I found that with Google Gemini.) Definitely not as high profile as any of those Iran war killings, though.

Though it doesn't seem to me like it should matter much for Wikipedia's purposes. Any military that's fighting a war could decide it's in their best interest to lie in some particular case, or they could have intelligence failures. Cadddr (talk) 07:26, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

If the sources are reporting Israeli claims, that is not the same as the sources themselves claiming the person is dead. If they are not putting it in their voice, we don't have to either, and if they say "Israel claims..." we can do that too. Multiple sources saying Israel (or Iran, or the US, or any government) claims a person is dead is not the same as multiple sources claiming a person is dead. Loosely this can follow WP:INTEXT. CMD (talk) 07:14, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

I agree that we should be saying "Israel claims..." in these sorts of situations. (And I think that's what we've generally been doing.) But the issue is that in some of these cases, reliable sources do say in their own voice that the person is dead. Those sources usually clarify at some point that it's based on claims from Israel, but they also say without qualifiers that the person has been killed. They also tend to use the past tense.

The reason I brought this here is that with these high-profile assassinations, there are lots of people who come to Wikipedia and are understandably confused that we're still using the present tense while sites like the New York Times are using the past tense. When I revert the edits made by those newcomers, or I respond to them on talk pages, I've realized that I don't know of a specific guideline I can link that makes it clear why we need to wait for a truly independent confirmation. Cadddr (talk) 08:04, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Do they do that in the same article as they report on Israeli claims, or are they repeating it without reference to Israel in other articles? The framing is probably important. Ultimately this comes down to the tension in writing about any current event in that reporting can be wrong, which is not specific to wartime deaths. CMD (talk) 10:20, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

I think generally, they do that in the same article where they report on Israeli claims. I think I remember there being one New York Times piece where they treated someone as dead without mentioning the Israeli claims, but it was an analysis piece that was clearly meant to accompany another article reporting on the Israeli claims.

After thinking about it further, I think part of what makes these situations confusing on Wikipedia is more about the wording than the facts of the matter. Most people can probably agree that if Israel says they've killed someone, that person is likely dead (while disagreeing about the exact probability). But the sources we rely on have subtle ways of expressing ambiguity and uncertainty that don't really work on Wikipedia. Reliable sources probably aren't going to talk about the person in the present tense; either they use the past tense, or they keep it ambiguous by using the present perfect. (For example, something like "Since December, Ali Larijani has been widely considered the de facto leader of Iran." doesn't really sound like an assertion that he's alive or that he's dead.)

But on Wikipedia, we don't really have a way of keeping it ambiguous. Every biographical article starts with "NAME is..." or "NAME was...". The former sounds like an assertion that the person is alive and sounds strange if you think they're is probably dead. The latter sounds like an assertion that the person is dead. And if it's a choice between those two, WP:BLP probably requires that we treat the person as alive if it isn't certain. Cadddr (talk) 19:18, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

The problem I have with blindly trusting statements from one side (like the IDF for example) other than the possibility that they could be lying, is the fact that some high profile individuals have used decoys of themselves in the past. Not to mention the cases where some innocent bystander who just happens to look like... (insert targeted individual here). Given the possibility (and past occurrences) of mistakes, whether by accidental misidentification, or outright lying; I don't think a war is an excuse to violate BLP. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 04:34, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

In case I haven't made it clear: I totally agree, and I think it's in the spirit of WP:BLP to require an independent confirmation. My concern is that when new editors come and try to change an article to say someone is dead, I haven't been able to find a specific part of that policy that makes it clear why that's not okay. I'm imagining something like this, possibly as a part of WP:NPOV:

When one side of a major military conflict makes a claim relating to the conflict, and reliable secondary sources have reported on the claim, it is acceptable for a Wikipedia article to state the claim using in-text attribution. However, in order for an article to state the claim in Wikipedia's own voice, at least one of the following conditions should be met as well:

1. The opposing side in the conflict has confirmed the claim.
2. An independent, reliable source has confirmed the claim. If the source simply presumes that the claim is correct while reporting the claim, that is not enough; the source must assert that the claim has been confirmed.

This applies especially for biographies of living persons, such as when one side claims to have killed a person. Even if reliable sources implicitly presume that the person is dead, Wikipedia should not make the same presumption until there has been independent confirmation.

Cadddr (talk) 05:52, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

I don't think that's quite captured it. First, I think there are two problems:

• whether to give the alleged death date in the first sentence and infobox, e.g., (1980–2026).
• whether to explain the claim in full.

The standard should probably be different for the two. We're starting off with WP:PRIMARYNEWS, not a secondary source, and that realistically might be the most we have for several years. I think that explaining it can be done with whatever the WP:BESTSOURCES available are: e.g., Israel claimed in 2026 that he had been killed by drone. The problem with "confirmation" is that the opposing side might occasionally to tell lies (oh, yeah, he's dead, so you all can stop trying to assassinate him now, okay?). News outlets don't have the resources or the mandate to truly confirm the claim (e.g., with DNA testing or even simply viewing the body). Their role is to report confirmations by others, and in the case of a war, there are basically no truly independent "others" to do the confirmation.

Given all that, and knowing that there will be errors like the one listed above, I wonder if the correct thing to do is to trust the sources. When the sources presume that the person is dead, we should follow the sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:08, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

We're starting off with WP:PRIMARYNEWS, not a secondary source, and that realistically might be the most we have for several years.

Yes, you're totally right. I used the term "secondary source" carelessly. I meant to just say "reliable source".

The standard should probably be different for the two. ... I think that explaining it can be done with whatever the WP:BESTSOURCES available are: e.g., Israel claimed in 2026 that he had been killed by drone.

Agreed. I definitely think we should fully explain the claim in cases like these using in-text attribution. The only part I'm actually trying to address here is when it is or isn't acceptable to do so in wikivoice. And as I'm thinking about it more, maybe the existing language at WP:NPOV#Explanation already covers that sufficiently.

News outlets don't have the resources or the mandate to truly confirm the claim (e.g., with DNA testing or even simply viewing the body). Their role is to report confirmations by others, and in the case of a war, there are basically no truly independent "others" to do the confirmation.

Maybe this is beside the point, but I wonder if you're underestimating news outlets here. They often have sources inside governments, as well as other clever ways of trying to verify these sorts of things (e.g., BBC Verify). You're of course right that it's never 100% confirmation, though.

Given all that, and knowing that there will be errors like the one listed above, I wonder if the correct thing to do is to trust the sources. When the sources presume that the person is dead, we should follow the sources.

In most of the cases I'm talking about, what I meant by a a source "presuming someone to be dead" is just that they use the past tense to refer to that person. (I'm guessing you meant something stronger than that.) The sources usually use attribution when explicitly talking about the person's alleged death, but then they use the past tense afterwards. I don't think that means we should use the past tense. Though in the cases I'm talking about, I think it was only some of the reliable sources that used the past tense, so I guess WP:NPOV (along with WP:BLP) might enough to prevent us from doing that.

I think you may have convinced me for now that Wikipedia's existing policies are sufficient. Thanks! Cadddr (talk) 21:02, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[]

It seems to happen occasionally on the Wikimedia Forum about meta issues, but where can I discuss situations where administrators reject posts even when I point out problems with the administration? 2026mar30 (talk) 08:32, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

• Sometimes you can't. There are people who've been disinvited from Wikipedia and aren't welcome to participate in discussions about anything. There are discussions we've had to death and we don't want to hear them again. If you want to say that there's a real and systemic problem with Wikipedia's administration and have that discussion in a place Wikipedia admins don't control, then you'll find an active, engaged, totally independent, and rather sympathetic audience at Wikipediocracy.—S Marshall T/C 09:17, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

Mathematics has an RfC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you.

GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 23:05, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[]

I previously proposed amending the WP:NOTNEWS policy to no longer promote Wikinews as an alternative. At the time this was viewed as unwarranted. I was never convinced by these arguments but I think the recent WP:SIGNPOST coverage demonstrates a material change in conditions such that enWiki can no longer, in good faith, recommend editors to take their content to Wikinews. I propose amending the policy so that it reads mostly the same but with the reference to WikiNews dropped. Czarking0 (talk) 16:00, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[]

WikiNews is dead. [161] AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:05, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[]

It does need to be dropped, emphasizing that en.wiki is not its replacement (NOTNEWS still applies) Masem (t) 16:07, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[]

The Wikinews folks are looking for alternative hosting options, but I think we should remove this reference regardless of how that goes. Toadspike [Talk] 16:29, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[]

See the rough draft here

---

What do people think of the draft? It's not in its final form and maybe needs a more consistently-defined scope/better formatting, so I'm very open to suggestions. This would ideally be a guideline if we can build consensus (unless we could adapt parts of it into one of the policy pages directly), and it aims to correct common misapplications of Wiki policies like SYNTH, OR, and NPOV that I've seen confusion around in multitudes of political discussions on Wikipedia. Obviously the guideline makes a lot of strong claims that we may conceptually disagree on, so I'm happy to iron out our differences in understandings of policy as well and make changes as needed to the draft.

The draft relates most directly to WP:SYNTHNOTSUMMARY and WP:SERIOUSLYCONTESTED, so if passed we could figure out a way to restructure these to include references to this guideline. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 18:11, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[]

What would fall under can in some capacity influence article content?

And in the scenario you proposed, Is it a SYNTH violation to report that what the 70 are saying is true and that what the 30 are saying is false because we'd be making our own conclusions about how one side is correct over the other?, in my view this is a SYNTH violation. 30% is significant and per WP:NPOV we should not be taking a side based purely on the numbers. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 19:04, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[]

I respectfully disagree, which is exactly why I wrote this proposal: so that when well-meaning people like you and I disagree about whether a 30/70 issue is WP:SERIOUSLYCONTESTED meaning taking a side would be an WP:NPOV violation, we have a guideline to help us sort it out based in policy. I wasn't attempting to say in the essay that one interpretation in 30/70 is correct over the other—I brought up the 30/70 example so that people can understand the crux of the tension in these kinds of discussion. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 03:35, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[]

I don't think we need a guideline for this. Guidelines exist to stop undesired behavior. Here the targeted behavior seems to be people raising concerns about WP:SYNTH going on in contentious pages where there are lots of available sources and the sources don't agree with each other. It seems to me that in such cases it's good for the WP:SYNTH concern to be raised and discussed. If you feel like WP:SYNTH is being used inappropriately to prevent us from saying things we actually should be saying, it would make more sense to write an explanatory essay about WP:SYNTH than to propose a whole new guideline. -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 19:54, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[]

Not only do we not need a guideline, parts of this are in contradiction of existing guidelines. WP: RS/AC already exists to cover academic consensus of viewpoints. And it also documents that we cover it as a viewpoint which would mean not presented in wiki voice but attributed as a consensus opinion. --Kyohyi (talk) 20:04, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[]

WP:RS/AC is just a normal-sized paragraph and I do not believe it sufficiently explains the complexities of the issue at hand. Don't you think this topic could use more attention and explaining, even if you disagree with its current formulation? I see the same arguments being made on repeat in political debates and it seems like this reflects some form of common misconception it would be useful to write about. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 03:54, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[]

If you feel like WP:SYNTH is being used inappropriately to prevent us from saying things we actually should be saying, it would make more sense to write an explanatory essay about WP:SYNTH than to propose a whole new guideline.

I'm very open to doing an essay instead of a guideline, but whenever I mention an explanatory essay in discussions it's usually met with "well it's just an essay, not a policy, so we don't have to listen to it". That's the main reason I'd like to to be a guideline—so it's perceived as having legitimacy. But if there's other ways of creating a page perceived as legitimate that do not require it to be a guideline/policy, I'm very open to hearing ideas you may have about how we can go about this!

Here the targeted behavior seems to be people raising concerns about WP:SYNTH going on in contentious pages where there are lots of available sources and the sources don't agree with each other

Exactly. This is a guideline to prevent people from focusing on the wrong policies when these discussions come around and to help editors go about resolving these disputes in the right way. Even if you don't agree with the current formulation of this policy, can you acknowledge that this proposal addresses some type of frequent tension in the community that would benefit from being touched on in a guideline/essay to explain the complexities of when SYNTH does and does not apply? If so, what would your version of this look like?

Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 03:33, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[]

I appreciate the work you've put into this, but I strongly disagree with the premise of this proposal. I personally have a pretty strict philosophy of "if it's not explicitly stated by the source, it doesn't belong in the article". The 70%/30% example would be a massive problem, because we definitely should not be deciding truth for ourselves. We describe arguments, we don't participate in them. If something is meaningfully contested in the body of reliable sources, we do not take a side. To the example under WP:EXPERTCONSENSUS, I would have a huge problem with it if someone described something as "oppression" in wikivoice because that is a subjective and judgemental claim. I disagree with WP:CONTENTIOUSTITLE in its entirety for the same reason. For the arrests example, note that adding numbers is not considered original research per WP:CALC; even then, if someone was writing about the arrests in your example, I'd question why they need to be mentioned together if the sources don't connect them. People trying to prove that there's academic consensus for something subjective and that it should be stated in wikivoice are trying to push a POV, whether intentionally or not. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:50, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[]

Thanks for the comment!

We describe arguments, we don't participate in them I disagree. People trying to prove that there's academic consensus for something subjective and that it should be stated in wikivoice are trying to push a POV, whether intentionally or not. I agree. It is impossible to be 100% neutral when writing about political topics on Wikipedia, since neutrality itself (namely, abstaining from judgement about whether there is expert consensus there is oppression) is a political stance. For example, we do not take a neutral stance on whether the Holocaust happened: we simply report that it happened, which is taking a side. In Talk:Gaza genocide, it was decided in an RfC that we can call it "the" genocide in Wikivoice to reflect expert consensus. This is taking a stance, and the close was performed by a Wikipedia administrator (not a random inexperienced editor). So I'm curious how you reconcile your argument with precedent established in this RfC. I have other examples where a similar thing happened reflecting how stance-taking is a common thing that happens, but I'd like to focus on this particular case for the sake of argument.

note that adding numbers is not considered original research per WP:CALC; even then, if someone was writing about the arrests in your example True, and I considered this while writing. That example was merely to demonstrate that it is a spectrum where sometimes there are exceptions where synthesis is allowed, e.g. WP:CALC being an exception. I'd question why they need to be mentioned together if the sources don't connect them Fair enough. Maybe we need a better example of a situation in which SYNTH is allowed than this example. As for the 70/30 example, this was merely included to illustrate the complexity of the topic at hand, not to advise taking one side or another in the hypothetical 70/30 dispute. Maybe if an article says "a protest happened this Tuesday" and an editor looks at when the article was published to synthesize this information and report "the protest happened on 1/2/2026" or whenever it occurred. This is an example of acceptable synthesis that hopefully doesn't raise as many questions. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 03:50, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[]

We "describe disputes, but not engage in them". That is not up for debate. Please read WP:VOICE before pursuing this any further. Our job is to not take a stance on disputed topics. Anyone who tries to force such a stance into wikivoice needs to be removed from the topic area, if not the project. That includes many participants in that discussion. If they understand that we describe disputes but not engage in them and still choose to have us present one side in wikivoice, then they are maliciously pushing a POV and are an active threat to the encyclopedia. If they do not understand that we describe disputes but not engage in them, then they lack the competence to participate in a contentious topic. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 04:27, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[]

In what way is describing a dispute in a way that attributes different levels of credibility to different stances completely separated from engaging in the dispute? Every policy is a nuanced balancing act against other policies. Are you unwilling to acknowledge this? I'm not literally advocating for "engaging in a dispute in Wikivoice" — I'm saying there are situations where this in some capacity happens in the best interest of Wikipedia whether we like it or not and we have to be able to acknowledge this. E.G. titling an article the Holocaust engages in the dispute by taking the side that the Holocaust did happen and that Holocaust deniers are wrong, but this is a circumstance when doing so it acceptable. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 04:36, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[]

I'm quoting policy. Specifically the bit that's written in bold in the first section of WP:NPOV. The one that you're trying to codify a loophole for. Regarding your Holocaust example, see User:Thebiguglyalien/But climate change is real. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 04:54, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[]

I am trying to codify an exception, not a loophole, that clarifies the limits of a policy. This is exactly the right place to make this kind of proposal, no? The WP:CALC policy you quoted to me earlier is an exception to WP:NOR, so you clearly believe that creating exceptions to policies in some cases is legitimate. Why is this case any different?

You quoted an essay you wrote, so I read it and it seems like you're ultimately against slippery slopey arguments, where one side says "X is a stance, therefore Y is a stance we can take without sufficient RS", which makes me think you perceive my argument as being "the Holocaust happening is a stance, therefore we should take stances about other things without sufficient RS". But the entire purpose of the policy proposal I made is to explain when RS are sufficient enough for us to be allowed to take a stance in Wikivoice.

Sometimes it is acceptable to take a stance on a contested issue, and pointing to examples of when this turned out for the best in the past is not whataboutism because it is evidence that exceptions to being agnostic on every subject should sometimes be made, and has been the practice of Wikipedia editors broadly thus far and often for the best. Something needs to talk about this phenomenon because the confusion we are experiencing in this discussion right now trying to understand each other is a confusion I have seen in one hundred different talk pages this past year. I'm not glued to the specifics of my proposal. I just want a way for Wiki policy/guidelines to articulate this disagreement and point to a best-practice resolution process. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 05:31, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[]

Sometimes it is acceptable to take a stance on a contested issue Incorrect. If the issue is contested Wikipedia should not take sides. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 19:07, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[]

And before you ask, no, this does not mean we can say the Earth is flat. When it comes to scientific topics, Wikipedia does not promote pseudoscience per WP:FALSEBALANCE. But FALSEBALANCE is not applicable to any debates that are not of the form science/not science or scholarship/quackery (for example, politics, where every position is inherently based on opinion). SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 19:19, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[]

Calling one side pseudoscience is taking a side. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 08:01, 3 April 2026 (UTC)[]

The difference is that there is essentially unanimous consensus in the scientific community that certain ideas are pseudoscience. In these cases, the issues are not seriously contested. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 15:15, 3 April 2026 (UTC)[]

Also, User:Thebiguglyalien/But climate change is real applies again. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 15:16, 3 April 2026 (UTC)[]

• I would start with an essay, but also, I feel like you're going about this all wrong. The entire point of WP:SYNTHNOTSUMMARY is that summarizing a source is not synthesis; academic sources in particular often use sprawling and precise language which we can reasonably summarize to a shorter version without synthesis. And when many sources say something, we can summarize it, particularly in the lead or in the head of a section, without necessarily using the precise wording that any of them does - but the key point is that the wording we use conveys the gist of each source individually. WP:SYNTH is combining multiple sources to reach a conclusion that isn't in any of them; summarization is about finding a wording whose meaning encompasses what each of the sources says individually (even if it isn't the precise terminology any of them use.) So what you should be doing is writing an essay about what isn't synthesis, rather than trying to argue that synthesis is ok. Perhaps an essay about writing summaries of multiple sources, in particular. --Aquillion (talk) 17:24, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[]

In the process of summarizing information as you write an article, synthesis is inevitable. If article A and article B describe two different protests and 50 people were arrested at protest A whereas 40 people were arrested at protest B, you can use common sense to summarize 90 people were arrested at the protests, even though addition is the synthesis of two numbers to create a new conclusion. This is a straw man argument, as simple calculations are not original research. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 19:05, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[]

I think that an essay might be helpful. I suggest calling it the Wikipedia:Guide to SYNTH for literal-minded editors, and that the opening emphasize these three facts:

1. WP:SYNTH is not wikt:synthesis; do not fall for the Etymological fallacy.
2. WP:SYNTH is always a policy violation. (But wikt:synthesis is not.)
3. If it's not a policy violation (e.g., if it is permitted under WP:CALC), then it's not WP:SYNTH (even if it happens to be wikt:synthesis).

WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:50, 3 April 2026 (UTC)[]

Hi SuperPianoMan9167, nice to bump into you again.

I think WhatamIdoing is right - someone engaging in synthesis being different from a WP:SYNTH violation seems to be the crux of the issue. Piano is right that simply calculations aren't SYNTH/OR violations, but doing so is still synthesis if we are looking at the literal meaning of the word. I probably conflated SYNTH and wikt:synthesis in my proposal.

Maybe we should add a new section on Wikipedia:What SYNTH is not explaining WhatamIdoing's suggestion and once that's done, we can reconsider this guideline proposal. How does that sound? Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 07:59, 3 April 2026 (UTC)[]

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