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Click here to start a new discussion Campaigns · 2026 courses: Summer ·Fall

Advice on use of Userpages in student projects

We've been running educational projects on Wikipedia for c.12 years with 1st Year undergraduates. These projects have run successfully at LIUC (Milan, Italy) and GEM (Grenoble). Several of these new student project draft ages have been rated B-Class when submitted for review (e.g. Croveo, Curbar Edge). The students have a well-tested and robust pedagogic framework. This includes: a WikiEd course dashboard; a separate course Moodle website (help links, detailed guides, session slides, class tests, etc.); 6 mandatory and assessed preparation tasks, including completion of the Training for Students modules, draft userpage test edits and posting of educational notices on their userpages; regular class workshops and tutor-team feedback/review meetings; detailed draft Talk page feedback during the draft project stage. They get clear guidance (not without issues!) on all the obvious things, including the use of AI, plagiarism, sourcing, page elements, style, images, copyright, formatting, etc. Up until now, these projects have been based on creating acceptable draft pages for final review and submission. Here's my question: are there any issues if, instead of creating new draft pages to develop and submit for review, they publish their final draft project output on their individual userpages? This removes some of the inevitable editorial issues related to their draft page content development (LLM, style, etc.) and unburdens the editorial review process, while retains most of the project learning aims. One downside is that Wikipedia would no longer gain the many examples of C-Class and B-Class articles created over the past years, nor have such experienced potential future contributors. I'm open to any thoughts and many thanks for any input offered on this. Limelightangel (talk) 08:19, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

Are you proposing that your students not publish anything in the article namespace? Clarinetguy097 (talk) 14:00, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure that there can be an unambiguous answer to this question, one way or the other. Some advantages of keeping drafts in user space are that (1) it does not require Wikipedia editors to review the drafts as part of the typical draft review process, so there is less work generated, (2) it saves student editors from negative reviews, and (3) it prevents situations where it takes longer than the semester for a review to take place, leaving the students not around any more to respond to reviews, in which case the draft page will eventually get deleted. (As a purely technical point, it might be a good idea to have students make a subpage in their userspace for their drafts, instead of literally putting the drafts on their userpages, something like User:Student Editor/Drafts/Name of draft article.) The disadvantages are, as you say, not having potentially good content published on Wikipedia, as well as not giving the students the educational experience of a review by a Wikipedia editor unconnected to the class. You obviously can weigh those plusses and minuses for yourself. I'm assuming from the locations of the classes that you teach that formal WikiEd guidance is not available to you, which is unfortunate. You didn't mention WP:ASSIGN, but I'll toot my customary horn and make sure that you and your students know about it and read it. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:09, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

I really don't recommend having them use their userpages for this, since that's explicitly not what userpages are for, and a passing patroller will likely just move them to draftspace anyway. Using user subpages would be fine, though. As for "Wikipedia would no longer gain the articles" - why not submit them or move them to mainspace yourself once they're done? You can always just leave the substandard ones where they are, without submitting them. In solidarity, asilvering (talk) 20:13, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

I like that idea: having the instructor take on the role of the reviewer, in this case. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:18, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

I agree with asilvering - don't put drafts on userpages. Apart from the obvious concerns, drafts are frequently placed on userpages by COI/UPE editors who seem to be hoping that that will get Google to index them. Of course this would not be what the students were doing, but trying to learn Wikipedia and their coursework at the same time is more than enough pressure; they don't need to have extra eyes on their work as well. Moving or submitting the good drafts also sounds like an excellent way to keep the students out of the AfC quicksand while retaining mainspace-worthy work. And I imagine it would give the students a little extra confidence boost to see their work actually on Wikipedia. Maybe they'd even be interested in returning and editing some more, once they see they can make an impact. Meadowlark (talk) 19:26, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

What I was worried about was using Wikipedia for hosting, but even if the works are to eventually get published, it does sound like OP is trying to evade reviews. Clarinetguy097 (talk) 22:38, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't think it's fair to say that they are trying to evade reviews. It's worth noting what it says under the last subheading at WP:INSTRUCTORS, including what it says about AfC. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:36, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

WP:INSTRUCTORS encourages instructors to approve content being moved from a sandbox into article space. Limelightangel is trying to "unburden the editorial review process." Clarinetguy097 (talk) 01:02, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

Yes. Meaning, not unnecessarily send things through AFC where they have to be reviewed by AFC folks. In solidarity, asilvering (talk) 02:19, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

The thing is, content should still be getting reviewed on the same metrics. If Limelightangel knew they were going to take on the reviews, wouldn't they have said something like "unburdens other reviewers" instead of "unburdens the editorial review process?" Clarinetguy097 (talk) 14:33, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

The part of INSTRUCTORS I'm referring to explains that AfC reviews and other kinds of review processes take place on a time scale that is incompatible with the timescale of typical class projects, and so it does student editors a disservice to make them expect to get such reviews. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:34, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

I read it as 'doesn't put an added burden on AfC' rather than 'doesn't get reviewed at all', personally - and there are plenty of articles that don't go through AfC for one reason or another in any case, so it wouldn't be all that different for an instructor to review them. Don't forget as well that New Page Patrol would be patrolling any articles created, regardless of how they were created; AfC is one line of defense against poor articles getting into mainspace (not saying that these articles would be poor, just in general), but it's not that difficult to avoid AfC. It's nearly impossible to avoid NPP and the many editors who watch over the recent changes feed (who are especially interested in articles created outside AfC). Meadowlark (talk) 02:31, 9 September 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the purpose of all this. Why have editors edit Wikipedia if the goal is not to have any publishable content? That said, I agree overall with Tryptofish and asilvering about the various considerations and alternative approaches you might take. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 14:55, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

Me, neither. The purpose of Wikipedia is to build a widely accessible and free encyclopedia. If no part of the class activity is intended to foment that goal, then why are they here? If their aim is not to build an encyclopedia, that seems like a violation of WP:NOTWEBHOST and our basic purpose. I would block the instructor, and then issue class-long blocks (90 days?) of all the students in the class, accompanied by a *very* friendly and solicitous message on their UTP explaining that the block is not their fault, that an appeal stating their desire to improve Wikipedia unrelated to their class would likely be immediately approved, and that in any case they are encouraged to return after the class is over when they will be automatically unblocked. Mathglot (talk) 23:41, 9 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't know that I would go that far but I share your general assessment that this proposal is at odds with the purpose of Wikipedia and, by extension, WikiEd (and non-sponsored similar efforts). There are student contributions that never go live for a variety of reasons. I'm not especially interested in actively policing that but it shouldn't be built into the design of a course. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 00:22, 10 September 2026 (UTC)

I generally wouldn't go that far either, but only because intent is usually so hard to determine; that's why murder trials take so long. However, given an unequivocal statement of intent in the class synoposis: This course is strictly for the instruction of our students using Wikipedia student user pages as a training platform; we have no intention of altering any actual Wikipedia articles, then, yes, really and truly block. Student contributions never going live is completely normal (probably the majority), and I have no problem with that. Mathglot (talk) 00:44, 10 September 2026 (UTC)

Although I'm an advocate for not extending special privileges to class projects, I disagree very strongly with any talk of blocking in this context, partly per WP:BITE and partly because I think it misreads the actual intent. Although I think the suggestion of the instructor evaluating the drafts, and moving the appropriate ones to mainspace, would obviate the not-here concerns, there has been a history of the students putting their work into mainspace, and the discussion here began simply with a question about the hypothetical of staying out of mainspace. So let's not WP:ABF and jump to conclusions. If there comes to be a new process for this class, in which student work gets vetted before moving to mainspace, and that gets done by the instructor so AfC reviewers don't have to, that would end up being a net positive. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:21, 10 September 2026 (UTC)

Yes, this seriously misunderstands the intent. This is an instructor thinking "I shouldn't have to inflict my C-level students' output on Wikipedia" not "Wikipedia is my free LMS". In solidarity, asilvering (talk) 02:23, 10 September 2026 (UTC)

One of the issues with evaluating this proposal is that it doesn't address what happens after pages are published on userpages. In any real-world scenario it would not be accepted as-is. Clarinetguy097 (talk) 14:36, 10 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't understand these objections to this very reasonable idea. Editors are free to practice in their sandboxes and we don't typically police them - editors or sandboxes - to demand that those editors ensure that they're also editing in article space or making other contributions that earn our approval. Sandboxes are where we explicitly encourage editors to experiment and learn. I agree that it's not likely that many of these particular editors will return to Wikipedia and become regular contributors. But surely more of them will do so if we welcome them and allow them to practice and become used to this very complex set of social and software systems instead of chasing them away for doing what we encourage other editors to do! ElKevbo (talk) 22:26, 10 September 2026 (UTC)

The objection is to designing entire courses with the explicit intent of only using sandboxes and never publishing any content to the encyclopedia. We do have policies like WP:NOTWEBHOST and if memory serves we have explicit prohibitions on hosting POV or content forks in user space. It may seem like splitting hairs but I see a meaningful difference between a course that is aimed at publishing content but where few or no student contributions ultimately go live versus one that is designed from top to bottom with the intent that students not publish their work on the encyclopedia. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 22:47, 10 September 2026 (UTC)

I see the difference too, but it seems like it could be addressed - the students could work in draft/user/sandbox space, with the intention of creating drafts that could be suitable for mainspace but without submitting them to AfC; once the course is concluded, the instructor could review them and move suitable drafts to mainspace. This would put more of a burden on the instructor, and if the instructor is not experienced (although it sounds like Limelightangel is, so this is more hypothetical) then some articles would almost inevitably be speedied, PRODded, or sent to AfD, but overall I think it would function basically the same way student drafts currently do but with less anxiety for the students and less frustration for AfC. The downside is that there would be a small added burden to NPP and potentially the deletion processes, but I think not more than normal with student drafts - especially the ones that get panic-moved to mainspace by upset students near the end of their course.

If this were to be put into action, we could possibly also find a few editors interested in improving drafts that look viable but aren't quite ready - I'd certainly be interested trying to help get promising drafts over the line. It seems to me as well that even students who have written pretty good drafts get so anxious and stressed by the perceived time crunch of AfC that they're less likely to return to Wikipedia long term. If they saw their drafts make it to mainspace without that same level of stress, maybe they'd feel that editing is fun and interesting and return after the course ends. Meadowlark (talk) 02:15, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

Instructor review and publishing suitable content wasn't part of the original proposal. If that is what is now being proposed then it is more in line with the purpose of Wikipedia. I'm not sure what happens to the leftover sandbox drafts that are deemed unworthy or publication—do these get speedy-deleted? —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 02:42, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

No, it wasn't, and the instructor hasn't yet confirmed that they would be willing to do so - it's just an idea asilvering and Tryptofish floated upthread which I also think would solve the problem. The leftover drafts is a good question; it would make things much easier if they were in draftspace and could be G13'd in due course, but if they're sandboxed or userspaced then speedy-deletion or MfD probably makes more sense. They could be in draftspace without the submission button and with a template saying it's classwork and asking other editors not to edit it until [insert class end date here], possibly? Best of both worlds then. Meadowlark (talk) 04:51, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

Asking other editors not to edit is contrary to WP:OWN, as well as the Terms every user agrees to every time they hit the Publish button, to "irrevocably agree to release your contribution" under CC BY-SA 4.0 and GFDL. Mathglot (talk) 05:21, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

Thank you so much for all your valuable input on this. I propose the following approach. As in the past 11 years, it retains the past objective and potential of creating pages fit for final publication (Clarinetguy097, Myceteae, Mathglot). It retains the positive elements related to mandatory assessed preparation tasks, tutor feedback via Talk (see, for example Talk:Croveo) and team meetings, WikiEd dashboard, class workshops, final reviews and project presentations.

After the mandatory training/preparation stage (4 weeks), they create and work in the draftspace. The difference this year: the draft page is without the submission button, with a template saying it's classwork and asking other editors not to edit it until the project end date, although feedback from other editors is welcome on the Draft Talk page (Meadowlark). Note that in the past, all draft pages have had an Educational Notice on their Draft Talk pages, but it makes sense to replace the draft page submission banner with something like this on the actual draft pages. Subject to instructor final review, acceptable drafts then get submitted for AFC review in the final month of the project (Meadowlark, asilvering, Meadowlark); the inferior drafts get marked G13 or speedy deletion at the end of the project period (Tryptofish, asilvering, Meadowlark, Clarinetguy097, Myceteae, Meadowlark).

There are clearly pro's and con's of this approach, which I hope balances some of the positives and negatives related to the process. It retains the potential to create further good pages (like Croveo, Curbar Edge, etc.), has a formal instructor filter in review/submission, and removes contentious issues with userpage use. Comments on this idea are most welcome. Many thanks! Limelightangel (talk) 10:43, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

Asking other editors not to touch it is still a problem per WP:OWN. Perhaps they could be worked on in sandboxes and then moved to Draft: space in the final two or three weeks of the course. Just a thought. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 14:43, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

You, Mathglot and Tryptofish raise a good point re OWN. Moving them into draftspace before the course ends might cause problems, though - that's got to be the time students would least want other people to edit their drafts, and also the most critical time for the instructor to untangle what work a student has done vs what other editors have done. Maybe they move to draftspace after the course ends, during the review period? This has the added advantage that any drafts not moved to mainspace will have six months for other editors to pick them up before they get deleted, and that unacceptable drafts will be deleted in the usual G13 process. Meadowlark (talk) 03:32, 12 September 2026 (UTC)

You wrote:

that's got to be the time students would least want other people to edit their drafts...

At the risk of appearing blunt, it doesn't matter what the students want other people to do, or not to do. Wikipedia is not their personal sandbox, and it's not within their power to bar other editors from editing their previous work. All editors have the same right to edit their drafts and improve them, even if from a practical standpoint user subpages (including sandboxes) are almost always left alone.

...and also the most critical time for the instructor to untangle what work a student has done vs what other editors have done.

Same response; it is not the instructors' playground either. They can't have it both ways, that is: come here for the servers, the structured platform, the guidelines, and the network of assistance offered by Wiki Ed, their content experts, Teahouse hosts, and numerous other volunteer editors who assist students purely out of a desire to build a free online encyclopedia and encourage the on-boarding of new editors on the one hand, and on the other hand post Keep Out signs when they don't want the fruits of that labor to be altered by others. They can take the entire class project offline if what they want is a hermetic workshop in which they can dictate who can touch their work and when. But that isn't the Wikipedia way of doing things. Mathglot (talk) 04:28, 12 September 2026 (UTC)

Sure, but if we're discussing having the drafts in userspace and moving them to draftspace at some point, surely it doesn't matter to Wikipedia if they're moved while the course continues or after it ends. It's a matter of weeks, after all, and there's no rush.

You're looking at this from a strong Wikipedia-first view, which I understand and respect. I'm arguing that we can make small compromises in the interest of trying to attract and retain new editors, and that it would be beneficial to minimise the stress for both students and instructors where we can do so. Meadowlark (talk) 05:42, 12 September 2026 (UTC)

A process where all sandbox contributions are either moved to draft space, published, submitted to AFC, or deleted following the conclusion of the course would seem to address all of the concerns. What we don't want is a system where having unusable contributions hosted indefinitely in user space is built in to the design. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 15:22, 12 September 2026 (UTC)

This proposal refers to having the students work in draft space. Above, I pointed out how it might be better to do this in user space, but on subpages rather than on the user page itself. I'd strongly recommend doing it in user space, to avoid the issue of WP:OWN in draft space. (Pages in draft space also are subject to automatic speedy deletion after a period of time if they don't get moved into mainspace.) --Tryptofish (talk) 20:56, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

Thanks once again. We've used draft pages created by trained students (following training and instructor topic review stages) for over 10 years (not without issues!). Of over 100 draft page projects, the vast majority were AFC reviewed and accepted, most at C or B Class i.e. they resulted in average or good new pages, better than many existing ones. Two got speedy deleted. Have I been 'doing this wrong' for 11 years? Perhaps. While there are challenges with developing on a draft page, it exposes the students to the collaborative environment, the need for platform compliance, the need for rigour with draft page content and the constructive input of other editors, including detailed and regular Draft Talk feedback from the instructor(s). It also makes these projects real Wikipedia projects as opposed to 'private play' by either instructor or students. There are clearly plenty of options for hermetically sealed activities, but these remove the key learnings and skills related to publishing on Wikipedia - and we want other editors to be constructively involved 'as and when' (as in the past in many constructive ways, including via Draft Talk/User Talk and informal draft reviews - all contributing to better student Wikipedia skills and to better draft content). It's not like they're untrained users creating rubbish, or that most of the drafts are rejected. I feel there just needs to be clear transparency for other editors related to the draft pages, and a few weeks patience with the learning curve during the project period. Limelightangel (talk) 09:43, 12 September 2026 (UTC)

For context, your course sounds like somewhat of a (wonderful) outlier in at least my experience - many student editors are not given anything like the background they need, or the understanding that other people also edit Wikipedia. (Editing to add - I'm sure there are many other well-run courses, but those are not usually the ones we hear a lot about.) Things tend to go particularly wrong when instructors let their students loose on mainspace, sometimes with AI/LLMs, and they get understandably upset that their edits are being reverted and/or they're being blocked. Other courses require students to have a draft accepted via AfC, which as you can imagine frequently leads to absolute panic from the poor students when the review takes a long time and/or the draft is declined, plus extreme frustration from reviewers who get bombarded with pleas and threats if they decline a subpar draft. I think many of us responding are remembering these chaotic and unpleasant (for everyone) experiences. Having a majority of drafts accepted via AfC is very impressive, considering AfC's usual statistics. If draftspace is working for you, there's really no need to change it! Meadowlark (talk) 10:25, 12 September 2026 (UTC)

Maybe at this point we're going around in circles, if we're pretty much back to having the students continue to work in draft space. But I think that having students interact with the reactions of other Wikipedia editors is an excellent learning objective, so long as all the timelines are aligned, and I'd be happy to see more of that. All too often, instructors have the mistaken impression that class projects on Wikipedia are about something other than coming to better understand what makes Wikipedia tick, and the editing culture is central to that. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:46, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

Expanded header template capability

Hi, Sage. Template {{Noticeboard header}} has been upgraded to take a new param |addltext= that may be of interest to ENB. (Details at WP:VPM.) For a demo of a sample upgraded ENB header look, see rev. 1374133924 of the Wikipedia:Education noticeboard/Header, and look down at the bottom next to 'Click here to start a discussion'. You can pretty much put whatever you want in that param; for a live example, see the links in the header of the WP:Mentorship noticeboard, which has a complete {{edit}} template embedded in the param value. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 02:07, 10 September 2026 (UTC)

Added new links to campaigns, and Summer/Fall 2026 courses. Mathglot (talk) 07:11, 15 September 2026 (UTC)

University of Sydney undisclosed course with mass AI use

You can join in the investigation yourself by looking at the amount of user pages with the exact same disclosure. This appears to have been going on for a while and based on one of the userpages the course appears to be WRIT6002 Writing for the Digital World. Let's go through some of the alleged students:

• User:Elaine Huang Xiaotong with a userpage that's very cryptic, whose main edit is with such beautiful prose as Through this book and his teachings at the San Francisco Zen Center, he laid the foundation for the development of Zen Buddhism in the United States and even the West, transforming Zen Buddhism into a platform for cross-cultural dialogue.
• User:Lannan Ke whose main edit is with the classic AI page header.
• User:Jahoya whose main edit is , a copy paste rewrite with While specific details of his formal education or training are not widely documented, Walker's formative years in Arizona and his love of the medium set the stage for his entry into the comics field.
• User:GutenGallo whose main edit is and, well, go read the "discovery chronology" section.

Ok, so these are all from last year, many of them (not enough) have been noticed and reverted. The problem arises when you notice their professor, User:Fransplace. Aside from the fact that 1k edits is nowhere near enough experience to run a course under wikiedu, let alone outside of it (I have been informed by a wikied member that the University of Sydney does not do wikiedu), and the fact that every single one of these students who used AI had a "great work" message posted after they published their AI generated work, and the fact that they were notified of the problem in May and explicitly told not to proceed without seeking advice from someone who knows what they are doing and have not only failed to do anything about it but barrelled ahead with this year's course, let's look at what this year's students have got up to:

• User:Zhiqing Zhang 777 - that's an AI edit summary if I've ever seen one. The edit itself isn't the worst (models have improved a lot in the past year), but while I haven't done a detailed check, I see signs of AI copyediting in it.
• User:XueyZ - I'm not gonna revert this one because it is an improvement just by virtue of how bad the original text is. However, I'm also pretty sure that's an AI copyedit.
• User:Gavinzzz - their sandbox is also pretty clearly AI generated. The most obvious short prose sign I could find in 30 seconds is they don't own any physical freight distribution assets of their own – no trucks, no storage trailers, no pallets, and no warehousing.
• User:ElsaFan0927 - summarising a quote by making it longer...

Can we do something about this before a megabyte of slop is thrown into mainspace please, instead of after? Posting now instead of later because the edits are happening literally as we speak. But if more examples are needed to provide a clear pattern, I will be happy to do so. Fermiboson (talk) 16:38, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

Crossposted on AINB WP:AINB#University of Sydney course mass AI use across at least two years Fermiboson (talk) 16:41, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

The professor in your 'explicitly told' link is actually User:Gab Mittagong. Sorry, I’m on my phone and can’t easily confirm whether they and User:Fransplace are colleagues, but it seems like it.

Thank you for posting about this here. I hope we can head off the likely-incoming slop wave. Suðurhafsljósæta (talk) 17:15, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

I reached out to the students you mentioned on their talk pages since the best outcome would be if once they realize AI editing is against the rules they stop doing it. Then there is no need to block them and we can focus on cleaning up the damage from last year. -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 17:25, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

There is a page for last year's course here that gives more details and lists the articles and users involved. There doesn't seem to be a similar page for this year's course. -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 17:31, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

I'm having a little trouble following whether or not there are currently edits being made to mainspace, but if any AI content is being put there, after the instructor was previously warned not to allow this, it may be necessary to have some blocks. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:52, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

I'm having a little trouble following whether or not there are currently edits being made to mainspace Yes. It appears from context that this is supervised/instructed by the professor(s). Fermiboson (talk) 00:47, 12 September 2026 (UTC)

To clear up some confusion (which I had until five minutes ago): Wiki Ed is the US-based nonprofit that supports education programs in the US and Canada. The global Wikimedia Education Program supports education programs globally. USyd is listed at outreach:Education/Countries/Australia#University of Sydney which names the Writing for the Digital World course and Fransplace as the contact. Frances, it is in your best interests to respond here or on the AI noticeboard as soon as you see this. Everyone else, it's currently Saturday afternoon AEST so I'd suggest allowing another 48 hours before escalating. —ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · email) 04:39, 12 September 2026 (UTC)

@ClaudineChionh it appears that m:Education/Countries/Australia#University of Sydney doesn't exist, are you sure the link was typed correctly? -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 04:55, 12 September 2026 (UTC)

Oops, it's on Outreach wiki – fixed, thanks! —ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · email) 05:02, 12 September 2026 (UTC)

Edits are continuing with what in my opinion are pretty clear AI edit summaries. Fermiboson (talk) 11:31, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

Also I'm pretty sure User:Runningbeowulf, one of the tutors, is using AI as well. Fermiboson (talk) 17:54, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

I think you are right. I just tagged Anna Funder with an LLM tag. Masterhatch (talk) 18:20, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

Ironic if true since Anna Funder is a noted opponent of AI. -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 20:24, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

I am Fransplace and am disappointed at the tone and lack of consideration in some of these sections. I may only have 1000 edits but I've been working on Wikipedia for 14 years and teaching with students to use it for all of that time. If you check our Dashboard history, students in my courses have contributed millions of words, edits and citations since we implemented the Dashboard in 2018, doing a lot of good and not having these sorts of problems. AI has landed on us unexpectedly, and in the same time our student cohort has changed to include lots of students with language problems. Despite my best efforts, students aren't always honest. Our rule is that they may only use AI for grammar checking, and improving their writing. Not for research, not for anything but grammar checking and improvement. Their ultimate aim is to improve stub articles (where appropriate and where sufficient credible information has been published to allow them to expand those articles going by the guidelines and style guides in projects associated with the stubs, and categories. In their first week of studies, they complete modules that teach and test them on all the requirements of being a Wikipedia editor. In that first week, in order for us to trace what they do, we require them to create a WikiID, write in their user page, and add a template to their talk pages. So when I give them a "well done" or "great work" message on their user pages, it's only after they have done those three basic things. Rewarded with a message not because they've written on any articles, just on their own pages to help us track them. All of these things help us also to work out who their teacher is, and be able to pull them in if they do something wrong. Your posts above are helpful because we now know that students are breaking their commitment. They are now in week 7 and have been learning about Wikipedia all of this time. Rules, things that can go wrong, etc. This week is the first week that they have been allowed to write on live article pages. We only allowed them to make brief edits to pages flagged for problems like, "citations needed," etc. I want to note too, that these students are postgrads. They are all enrolled in Masters units (even if they have mislabelled their subjects). So they are research active and know what to do. It's not as though we've let freshman students loose on Wikipedia. I apologise for this long post. We want to work with you. We are doing our best and could do with considerate and helpful advice, rather than just being attacked. Work with us, not against us please.Fransplace... Let's talk 21:26, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for engaging, we'd love to work with you rather than against you. The terse tone here is more reflective of our frustration and weariness with the volume of similar situations than of your conduct specifically. More later, I'm rather busy now. -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 21:42, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

You said, "Our rule is that they may only use AI for grammar checking, and improving their writing." That's not allowed on wikipedia, fyi. And, honestly, as a former ESL teacher from 20 years ago, you are doing your students a disservice in the real world by allowing them to use AI at all. How will they learn if AI does all the work? Masterhatch (talk) 21:42, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

Thank you, Masterhatch (talk). I agree with you and used the word 'improve' too losely. For this course, our rules state: "We will allow the use of AI to improve grammar and punctuation only. We are allowing you to use grammar checking software to revise and improve what you have already written. Though it's helpful to use grammar checkers (like Grammarly) and other software that can proofread and teach you to improve your writing, using AI to write your work from scratch is not allowed and will result in penalties for integrity breaches." We are not ESL teachers so are not teaching students to write in English. The enrolment of international students depends on them passing entry tests administered by international bodies. Fransplace... Let's talk 01:22, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for engaging here. It's a two-way street – the regular volunteer editors who frequent this noticeboard want to see students working within the policies and guidelines that apply to all editors here (and, best case scenario, stick around to become long-term editors after the course is complete), and this means their teachers need to follow updates to our policies and guidelines. The rule that's been in place for at leas six months, WP:NOLLM, is clear that:

Editors are permitted to use LLMs to suggest corrections to their own writing, and to incorporate them after human review. This is limited to spelling, punctuation, capitalisation, grammar, and other simple mistakes.

This does not cover "improving their writing" beyond correcting basic errors such as tyop/typo or they're/their, for example. And as Masterhatch alludes to, learning to identify and correct such errors themselves will enable them to continuously improve their writing without depending on technology. —ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · email) 22:01, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

I agree, ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · email) and that is precisely what we allow them to use AI for. The correction of basic errors only, with explanations of why the changes need to be made. Fransplace... Let's talk 01:24, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · email) I have worked with the Wikimedia Education Program, and the Wikipedia Education Foundation since 2013. Our course runs through the Dashboard, students complete the modules and have over the years contributed extensively to Wikipedia. Wikipedia Education foundation helped with setting up the courses, and administrations also supported and contributed to our efforts. Tryptofish (talk), our aim is to improve content and create good content. We are not rogue, we are not new. We are, as I wrote, willing to take advice, reflect and improve. I am looking through the examples from 2025 and those raised as recent edits. Fransplace... Let's talk 02:10, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

Neither I nor anyone else is saying that you are either rogue or new. As I said below, what matters is that no further AI content goes into articles. That matters, and has nothing to do with whether anyone is rogue or new. Reflecting on your students' edits is, obviously, good. But I feel like we need to hear definitively from you that, beyond reflection, edits to mainspace articles by your students is coming to a stop until such time as you can be confident that they are not making any edits that violate WP:NOLLM. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:24, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

I am in nowhere near as collegial of a mood as my colleagues as I have spent the last 36 hours awake doing your job. You gain the right to be disappointed at me when you find any more than a handful of students in this cohort with a mainspace edit who have not used AI. In fact I’m reasonably confident you won’t find any. I don’t care what qualifications your students have on paper, if they’re unable to follow a very simple rule, they’re not competent to edit Wikipedia, and if you can’t understand that then you’re not competent to teach a Wikipedia course. You have failed to acknowledge the blatant fact that no matter how well intentioned your efforts, they have been disruptive and are about to become more disruptive. The minimum response I would have expected from a responsible academic would at least contain evidence that they have read NOLLM. Fermiboson (talk) 22:55, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

I sincerely apologise that this has caused you so much work Fermiboson (talk). I am disappointed that we didn't pick up last year's cases that you have listed. I'm grateful that there is the possibility of discussing ways that we can do better. More soon, as I am late for a meeting, sorry. Fransplace... Let's talk 01:28, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

Ok, thank you and sorry for my tone, now that I have actually got some sleep. It was irritating, but I should have (and was advised to) wait until I was in a state to reply.

I can send you a list of students that were automatically flagged for having an LLM edit summary. Problem is that running the same detector on 2020-2022 shows a considerable rate of false positives (this is a known problem - human new editors write like LLMs because LLM edit summaries were trained on recent new editors) and I haven't looked through any proportion of those flagged yet. My honest opinion is that this year's course should not currently involve any edits to mainspace. At AINB we have an exponentially increasing workload and I am more than happy to turn a blind eye to whatever goes on in userspace. Fermiboson (talk) 09:33, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

In addition to WP:NOLLM, I've pointed the instructor at her talk page to WP:ASSIGN. As much as all of us want class projects to go well, the unavoidable fact is that the top priority here must be to maintain good content in mainspace, more so than making things go more smoothly for class projects. And that means no AI slop in our articles. There needs to be a full stop to students making mainspace edits in this project, until this gets cleared up. Hopefully, that stop can be implemented by the instructor, but if not, blocks may be necessary. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:10, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

Above, Fransplace said: All of these things help us also to work out who their teacher is, and be able to pull them in if they do something wrong. I feel like this needs some clarifying. It sounds like there are instructors other than Fransplace who are the immediate supervisors of the students, and that Fransplace does not know ahead of time which student is working with which instructor. This strikes me as a potential problem. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:29, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

Indeed, in my years as a student and a tutor it was always trivial to identify my tutor or the students assigned to my tutorial. I'd be surprised if student administration systems have regressed in the last ten years. @Fransplace: can you at least confirm that Gab Mittagong and Runningbeowulf are current tutors in the course, and are there any others? —ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · email) 22:13, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

Tryptofish (talk) and ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · email) this year I teach on the course with User:Gab Mittagong and User:Runningbeowulf. We know who our students are but I don't know every student by there Wiki ID. So when I saw students listed in this noticeboard by Wiki ID, I checked their talk page to work out who their tutor is and in turn, who they are on my spreadsheet. It's the system that has been working but I'd be happy to try another method if you'd be willing to share it. Fransplace... Let's talk 11:14, 15 September 2026 (UTC)

I would think not knowing your students' usernames would be a major obstacle to managing a course and assigning grades. I also believe the website's current recommendation for usernames is to not use your real name. Clarinetguy097 (talk) 13:49, 15 September 2026 (UTC)

Yes Clarinetguy097 (talk) it would be an obstacle and we do ask them to not to use their real names. During our first year, we implemented the process we use, on the recommendation of senior Wikimedia AU editors. Each teacher/instructor knows which Wiki ID belongs to which student in their group and as coordinator, I keep a master list. Fransplace... Let's talk 20:09, 15 September 2026 (UTC)

IMO it is unhelpful to continue to criticize details of how this class is set up. At this point we just need to review, revert, and block as necessary to protect the wiki from harm. It's Fransplace's business how she handles it on the course side, though obviously it would be best for everyone if she could intervene before her students get blocked. -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 20:14, 15 September 2026 (UTC)

I am happy to report that the three latest revisions by students do not read obviously as AI generated. As to the cleanup work that remains I'll report on AINB. Fermiboson (talk) 21:58, 15 September 2026 (UTC)

UCL undisclosed course?

SouthernConeNotes's edit summaries suggest that they are part of "a UCL Enhancing Content Initiative" course, but I can't find any actual documentation of said course in an appropriate location. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 19:21, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

• SouthernConeNotes (talk · contribs · global contribs · page moves · user creation · block log)

Since they don't have a user page, this will save others a click or two. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 19:26, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

Pinging @Richard Nevell (WMUK): in case this class is something Wikimedia UK is helping with. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:08, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

Same instructor, different Wikipedia experts for their courses

If an instructor is teaching two courses simultaneously, it would seem to make sense to have one Wikipedia expert for the two courses. On the one hand, that would give the Prof a single point of contact with Wiki Ed, and on the other, it avoids burdening two experts with having to go through the same get-to-know-you process and possible duplication of effort during the course, or else having to constantly monitor if there is communication going on between the prof and their Wiki Ed colleague in the other course. Basically, I see no advantage here to a ménage à trois, so to speak. (When the courses are not taught simultaneously, this does not apply.)

Currently, we have User:PedagogueAndPupil teaching these two courses in Fall 2026, with these experts assigned:

• Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Purdue University, main campus/English 202 (Fall 2026) – expert: Ian (Wiki Ed)
• Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Purdue University/ENGL522CMPL650 (Fall2026) – expert: Brianda (Wiki Ed)

It seems to me that these courses ought to be unified under a single expert. Pinging User:LiAnna (Wiki Ed), and User:Sage (Wiki Ed).

In contrast, note that the case of a student taking two or more courses is not analogous and should not be treated the same way. A student inherits the expert assigned to the course, and it would not make sense to assign the same expert to that student for both courses (even if one could, which I assume is impossible due to the db structure) because then in one course you might have one expert for 23 students in the class, and a different one for the one student who happens to be enrolled in a course that happens to be assigned to a different expert. Even if it were doable, that situation would be undesirable and quickly become unmanageable, imho, and should just be left as is. Mathglot (talk) 21:42, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

Hello @Mathglot, Agree no advantage to the ménage à trois lol. We go through all our courses to make sure Wiki Experts are consistent, but sometime a few fall through the cracks. Thanks for calling our attention to this. I'll update the Wiki Expert and give a look through our list. Appreciate you! Brianda (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:58, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

It should be something that is possible to automate so that it never happens and you won't have to make sure they are consistent anymore. Check with Sage, but I'm pretty sure that the process that assigns an expert to a course could do this automatically simply by grabbing the instructor for the course about to be assigned an expert, checking for a second (different) {{course instructor}} template on the Prof's user or talk page, and if there is a second course, retrieve the assigned expert for that course and assign it to this one. If there isn't a second course, proceed as before. But I think while you are still doing it manually or semi-, "Ménage à trois Report" would be a great name for the report you come up with detailing what you found in your consistency check. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 22:12, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

Template:Welcome mentee now automatically detects Wiki Ed students

For those interested in the WP:Mentorship program as well as Wiki Ed, a heads-up: Template:Welcome mentee now automatically detects Wiki Ed students and welcomes them specially. If you are a mentor who welcomes new users to Wikipedia, or if you are interested in the topic, please have a look at the WP:Mentorship noticeboard discussion § Template:Welcome mentee now automatically detects Wiki Ed students.

And if you are not yet a mentor, we need you; please sign up! Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 03:30, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

Looks great, thanks, Mathglot! --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:00, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Are WikiEd courses all doing peer review?

Is there a place to flag courses that appear not to be doing no or partial peer review (update: it looks like it may be a documentation issue) - Superb Owl (talk) 16:45, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

We give this as a choice to instructors in the Assignment Design Wizard they go through to create their course pages. We have pre-selected one peer review; instructors can opt instead for students to do two or zero (we do flag zero is not recommended). The vast majority of course pages follow our standard recommendations. We've also updated some of the instructions we give to student editors in the peer review exercise for this fall term, in particular to emphasize fact-claim verification as part of the peer review. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:58, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, @LiAnna (Wiki Ed) for explaining that - that's really helpful context. Do you track how many courses implement peer review? Superb Owl (talk) 20:07, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Opaque course name: École de Design/DIN1210 (Automne 2026)

The course WP:Wiki Ed/École de Design/DIN1210 (Automne 2026) doesn't seem to follow the standard naming pattern of including the academic institution and the title of the course in the name. The current title is rather cryptic, and even the course page itself doesn't mention the institution. It didn't take much to learn that this actually refers to this course in the History of industrial design given at the University of Montreal. Given that the course is listed and taught in French, perhaps the Wiki Ed course page name ought to be something like:

WP:Wiki Ed/Université de Montréal/Histoire du design industriel (Automne 2026)

and the course page should be more transparent as well. Adding Brianda (Wiki Ed). Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 09:21, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

Now that I think about it, how does the collaboration actually work for a Wiki Ed course like this one where the assigned articles (e.g., fr:Lampe Tiffany, fr:Monobloc) are on another language Wikipedia? The training modules here cannot be relied upon, because they are based on en-wiki policies and guidelines, and fr-wiki P&Gs are different. Where do student questions get posted, in English at the Wiki expert's English talk page, or in French at their French talk page? Fwiw, if anyone gets a student question in French they want assistance with, you can either loop me in, or just send the student to my French talk page at fr:User talk:Mathglot. Mathglot (talk) 09:36, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, it doesn't make much sense for this to be on en-wiki if the contributions won't be made here. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 15:00, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

I'll also not that several of the assigned articles are red links such as Femmes dans le design industriel, which presumably should be fr:Femmes dans le design industriel. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 15:03, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

For a related discussion involving a particular assignment in this course, see this student Talk page. Mathglot (talk) 22:56, 2 October 2026 (UTC)