Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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"WP:VPP" redirects here. For proposals, see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals).

The policy section of the village pump is intended for discussions about already-proposed policies and guidelines, as well as changes to existing ones. Discussions often begin on other pages and are subsequently moved or referenced here to ensure greater visibility and broader participation.

• If you wish to propose something new that is not a policy or guideline, use Village pump (proposals). Alternatively, for drafting with a more focused group, consider starting the discussion on the talk page of a relevant WikiProject, the Manual of Style, or another relevant project page.
• For questions about how to apply existing policies or guidelines, refer to one of the many Wikipedia:Noticeboards.
• If you want to inquire about what the policy is on a specific topic, visit the Help desk or the Teahouse.
• This is not the place to resolve disputes regarding the implementation of policies. For such cases, consult Wikipedia:Dispute resolution.
• For proposals for new or amended speedy deletion criteria, use Wikipedia talk:Speedy deletion.

See the list of frequently rejected or ignored proposals. Discussions are automatically archived after 7 days of inactivity. To keep this page's size accessible, discussions with more than about 100 comments should be split to a separate page.

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TAs overwriting redirects

So TAs aren't permitted to create articles in mainspace, only drafts which then get submitted to AfC. But they can overwrite redirects, which seems functionally the same (ig they can't troll with article titles)? Should that be allowed? What prompted this was looking at Axios512 (talk · contribs)'s creations and seeing IPs had overwritten a lot of the redirects they'd made, I don't know if these were socks but it does still look like something that can be abused to mask authorship and avoid WP:G5 deletions Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 11:36, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

AIUI when a redirect is removed, the new article appears in the Special:NewPagesFeed queue for Wikipedia:New pages patrol to review. Therefore such pages aren't going to be overlooked. A look at RecentChanges shows that this happens a handful of times per day, that about half of them get promptly reverted, and some others get reverted fairly soon. But a few survive, and that's okay. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:56, 15 September 2026 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 206#Proposal: extend ACPERM to IP editors overwriting redirects, which was derailed mainly due to implementation concerns. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 04:15, 15 September 2026 (UTC)

• I think this is fine per the previous discussion. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:24, 16 September 2026 (UTC)
• Great point. We shouldn't let logged out users create new articles. FaviFake (talk) 11:25, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

  Letting logged-out users create articles is why Wikipedia:Articles for creation was created in the first place. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:58, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

  Yes. They should at least go through that process if they want to overwrite redirects. FaviFake (talk) 16:05, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

  I'm not convinced that's necessary. A one-size-fits-some bureaucratic process, such as blindly dumping all such articles into the AFC process, is really just going to create needless pain and strain on AFC. I suggest letting the NPP crew figure out which ones need additional attention. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:24, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

  blindly dumping all such articles into the AFC process
  That's not what I'm suggesting. I'm saying TAs should not be able to remove a redirect, just like they're unable to create a new mainspace page. FaviFake (talk) 16:41, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

  Do you mean "We should set up something in the Special:AbuseFilter to prevent TAs from editing existing pages in ways that remove redirects" or do you mean "If a TA removes a redirect, we should just delete it because they're breaking The Rules™", or something else? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:59, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

  The former! FaviFake (talk) 17:03, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

  The 2023 discussion on this shows a 50–50 split, plus concerns about whether it would have unwanted side effects (e.g., a TA might not be able to revert redirect-related vandalism). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:40, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

  Good point. I guess we'd need to implement something like a 30-day window where a TA can overwrite the redirect. FaviFake (talk) 21:08, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

  So if the vandalism is older than 30 days, only registered editors can reverse it? Katzrockso (talk) 18:44, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

  Yes. I can't think of a better system right now. FaviFake (talk) 18:45, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

  Can we allow a TA to overwrite a redirect if their edit is a revert? That leaves open a workaround, but only one that's already available now. Certes (talk) 21:22, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

  Uuuu that's good! TAs can only remove a 30-day-old redirect using the undo function. FaviFake (talk) 21:54, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

I am not sure I agree fundamentally that overwriting a redirect is the same thing as creating an article in all cases. Are there issues with the current review of those pages by new page patrol? Gnisacc (talk) 19:16, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

No, the NPPers see these like any other unreviewed article.

I think the concern is what if they accidentally overlook it? And then someone has polluted Wikipedia's mainspace with an article that might be suboptimal, or sounds promotional. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:19, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Onus for maintenance templates

In the article Deep State, a user has placed the {{AI-generated}} tag on the article, with the reason field stating, Wikipedia:AI noticeboard/Archive 4#Quickdrew and possible AI hoax edits to contentious US politics topics (WP:WWT is useful). I found this to be less than informative, and so opened a talk page discussion asking what passages or sections are suspect so I could help review. The response has frequently been a variant of, "Use a tool and figure it out", including references to some nonstandard tools, and an insistence that the tag should remain.

My question is: who has the onus of identifying problem areas when it comes to maintenance tags? I note that WP:WTRMT specifies they shouldn't be removed until the identified problem is resolved, but what if the problem is never identified? Discussing with the editor is proving challenging, so I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction here. EducatedRedneck (talk) 17:08, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

The person adding content always has the burden of substantiating it. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:10, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

This doesn't seem to be about content. What seems to have happened here is

• Editor A states an article includes AI-generated text by placing a tag on it
• Editor B looks at the article with the goal of cleaning up the highlighted problem, but doesn't see any obviously AI-generated content.
• Editor B asks editor A to clarify
• Editor A says "figure it out yourself" and repeatedly refuses to explain what the issue is.

That is, in my opinion, not acceptable. An editor placing a maintenance tag on the article should be required to respond to good-faith queries about that tagging. If they do not do that, and other editors are unable to see the problem, then those editors should feel free to assume that the problem no longer exists in the article and remove the tag.

In the case of AI, our policies are explicit that external tools must not be relied upon to determine whether a page is or is not AI-generated (although they may be used to assist in making a determination based on factors observed by a human). Accordingly it is not acceptable to require another editor to use an external tool to understand your tagging. Thryduulf (talk) 17:23, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

I agree. I think the burden of a maintenance tag is on the editor who places the maintenance tag - and I also think the editor who places a maintenance tag also should do some of the work to address the reason for the tag, especially if it may be something easyish to do (such as finding a citation, or nominating a page for deletion if there are no references). - Enos733 (talk) 17:32, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

Could we not use the word “Onus” for this? That term has a specific meaning here on WP, which does not relate to this situation. When there is a problem at an article, EVERYONE has a responsibility to help fix that problem. Placing maintenance tags is part of that process… but so is responding to questions when others are not clear as to why the tag was added. Communicate! Blueboar (talk) 17:50, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

Agreed. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:36, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't think the tag is at all confusing here. The problem is very clear: a significant contributor to the article is suspected of inappropriate AI use, and we can only be confident that the article is free of AI-generated material once that editor's contributions have been removed. It seems to me that Kowal has explained this quite clearly on the article talk page, and it's not at all the case that anyone has to use WWT to see what parts of the article are problematic; all that is needed is to look at the diffs. It's not practicable to ask AI cleanup people to deal with the problems at the same time as they place the tag, since very often they are tagging multiple articles at once. Dionysodorus (talk) 17:38, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

To clarify, is it your understanding that this level of burden applies to all maintenance templates, or is AI cleanup a special category? Is that documented somewhere as a guideline, or is that a guidance gap that should be filled? Also, thank you for your response; I obviously disagree, but that makes a dissenting voice like yours all the more important. Thanks for taking the time to give your opinion and help clarify things. EducatedRedneck (talk) 17:42, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

In my understanding, the whole point of maintenance templates is to allow editors to indicate problems with articles that need to be fixed, but which the editor placing the template does not have the time or ability to fix immediately. If editors had to fix the article themselves when adding the template, there would be no need for us to have maintenance templates at all.

The fact that it is AI cleanup doesn't change the principle of how maintenance templates work, but the nature of AI cleanup does in practice make it almost impossible for editors involved in cleanup to deal with problems as soon as they see them, since the nature of AI cleanup is such that large numbers of articles often have to be gone through and tagged all at once, and the problems with articles are often somewhat complicated (as in this case, where multiple contributions from long ago need to be gone through and removed). Dionysodorus (talk) 17:50, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for the detailed response. I really appreciate it!

I suppose I'm confused about the difference (or lack thereof) between performing the cleanup, which I agree is not practical to do, and identifying what must be cleaned up, which is something that I only believe is required when asked. (I.e., I place a POV tag on an article, and if someone asks me, "Hey, why'd you put this here?" then I need to explain at least some of which parts are NPOV or else let the tag be removed.) To be clear, I'm not demanding they do the work immediately (or there'd be no need for the tag), only that, when asked, they identify what portions are problematic. Otherwise, I could put AI-generated tags on any article, refuse to elaborate other than "It has lots of WP:AISIGNS", and the tag would stay even if nobody else could find any AISIGNS. This is why I'm so confused; can you point out where I'm getting mixed up? EducatedRedneck (talk) 17:57, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

But Kowal has actually explained to you exactly what the problem is. There is one user, Quickdraw, who has clearly been engaging in AI use across that user's contributions. That user has written a large part of this article. Therefore, someone needs to go through and delete all the bits of the article that Quickdraw has written, because they are probably AI-generated. Indeed, they are clearly at least partly AI-generated, as can be seen most clearly from the communication intended for the AI, cf. WP:COLLABCOMM, in this diff. There is a vast amount of this problem going on on Wikipedia, and Kowal is heavily involved in the AI cleanup process, as you can see if you look at WP:AIN. For this reason, the tag needs to be left until someone actually has time to deal with the problem. I might have a look and see if I can in a moment. Dionysodorus (talk) 18:04, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

Thanks again for responding. While I'm not convinced, I'm much more confident that leaving the tag was the right call. I feel that there's a big difference between "a user used AI and did a large part of this article" and "here are the diffs of their work that need to be reviewed." The first one I can't do much with. (That diff is over a year old, and I don't use many tools.) The second is something actionable by anyone. That said, your view is reasonable, and I see how you get there. Thank you again for taking the time to explain. EducatedRedneck (talk) 18:13, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

I feel that there's a big difference between "a user used AI and did a large part of this article" and "here are the diffs of their work that need to be reviewed."

It takes less than 1 minute to do this without tools. Here they are. This isn't even an especially hard case because Quickdraw's edits are concentrated in one period of time, and every intervening edit between the ones they made is either removing content or making cosmetic tweaks to it, so you can just compare the revisions before and after they started editing.

And I don't mean to be rude here, but if you're not willing to spend 1 minute looking at the edit history, then maybe you should just move on. Gnomingstuff (talk) 22:20, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

If you look at the top of a history page, there's a linked tool "Find edits by user". If you have an editor's name, you don't even have to look through all of the history page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:42, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

That's not a feature I was aware of. I'm not super technically proficient, as I'm sure you can tell, and reactions like this are making me want to help out less. I wanted to help, so I asked which parts of the article were suspected of AI use. I didn't need a list of signs, only, as I said repeatedly, some indication of which portions of the article need to be reviewed. Once I had that, I could have read through them, verified sources, etc. If they had issues, they could be removed. Otherwise, they could be kept having been determined to be good by a human.

You've provided that list. It took a minute, you claim. Less than the time Kowal2701 spent arguing. I don't understand why they didn't just do that. Frankly, what I'm hearing from you and them is that I messed up so badly, I should just not even try to help in this arena. That hurts, and I don't understand, but perhaps me not understanding is the problem. I'm sorry I seem to have aggravated you and them so. EducatedRedneck (talk) 00:49, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't think anyone's blaming you for not understanding the processes around AI cleanup: they are a bit on the complicated side. However, what we are saying is that Kowal did in fact attempt to point you to the relevant documents, and that it is difficult for anyone to work effectively on this kind of cleanup without a certain amount of basic willingness and ability to look through diffs and that kind of thing. If you want to participate in cleaning up AI-affected articles in a way that is actually helpful, then you do need to be willing to do a bit of detective work in the page history for yourself.

In this respect, AI cleanup isn't really unique: after all, all forms of cleanup require some kind of technique or skill, for instance in finding and adding references, or applying the manual of style, or whatever. Likewise, in the case of AI cleanup, looking through the diffs for yourself is really the most basic first step for anyone who wants to clean up any given article. The most helpful thing you can do if you want to clean up an article with AI problems is to do that for yourself, and then to remove the problematic material, if you feel confident that you can identify the problem and know how to address it appropriately. If you don't feel confident doing all that, that's absolutely fine, but in that case it's most helpful if you don't raise too many objections that will take up the time of the editors who do understand how it works. Dionysodorus (talk) 01:38, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

Frankly, what I'm hearing from you and them is that I messed up so badly, I should just not even try to help in this arena

Not my intention, apologies that it came off that way. Otherwise can't really put it better than Dionysodorus above. Gnomingstuff (talk) 05:03, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

This is also a good meta example given the diff EducatedRedneck linked above. If you look at that diff, it shows that Quickdrew added the following to the article: Here’s a revised version that maintains neutrality by acknowledging that deep state allegations have varied in accuracy—some being unfounded conspiracies, while others reflect genuine concerns about entrenched power structures. So the fact that you are still "not convinced" tells me that one of two things has happened. Either:

• You didn't actually look at the diff
• You do not currently know enough about AI-generated text to weigh in on whether something is AI-generated or not.

Gnomingstuff (talk) 22:31, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

Can you link to the diff? I don't think I actually linked to any in this discussion. The only thing I linked to was a quote of the tag, which goes to an archive, which does not mention Deep State. EducatedRedneck (talk) 00:51, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

The diff was actually posted by Dionysodorus. You responded, "While I'm not convinced, I'm much more confident that leaving the tag was the right call."

If you looked at the diff, one would hope you were convinced that the content was AI-generated. Davidwbaker (talk) 01:32, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

I am not disputing that it was AI generated. I don't recall ever asserting that it was not, and I wish people would stop assuming that's my stance. I was and remain unconvinced that the tag was adequately explained, but per above, I don't have to be convinced, I just have to step back. EducatedRedneck (talk) 02:04, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

Got it, thanks for the clarification. Gnomingstuff (talk) 02:41, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

@EducatedRedneck -- I never assumed you were disputing the content was AI-generated. You asked for someone to point you to the diff, I thought I'd be helpful and do as you asked. I assumed good intent. I said that if you looked at the diff, I hoped you were convinced it was AI-generated. Maybe you've looked at the diff, or maybe not. Whatever your convictions are on various matters, I'm assuming good intent. I'm sorry if I've troubled you. Davidwbaker (talk) 06:21, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

I find it's a bit more complicated than this. In reading Talk:Deep state#AI Usage, one editor feels they have substantiated the problem by pointing to a thread that explains the issue and identifies the editor whose contributions need to be reviewed, and then suggesting a procedure for conducting that review. The tone was pretty gruff and I understand why OP was put off by it, but I wouldn't reduce the response to "figure it out yourself". —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 17:46, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

My concern is that the Deep state article isn't mentioned in that archive. It is uninformative with respect to what parts of Deep state require attention. Does that change your opinion? Either way, thanks for replying and helping to clarify. EducatedRedneck (talk) 17:48, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

The linked discussion says all of this user's edits display the gamut of WP:AISIGNS and goes on to say that many of their edits are in articles related to the Trump administration, QAnon, etc.; Deep state is reasonably associated with that topic area. The archived WP:AINB post also includes a link to Wikipedia:AI noticeboard/2026-08-05 Quickdrew, where Deep state is listed along with an indication of the status of the review and a list of diffs. On the article talk page, Kowal more or less said that every edit by the named user needs to be reviewed. They could have been nicer about it and included a direct link to the tracking tool (Wikipedia:AI noticeboard/2026-08-05 Quickdrew) or provided or pointed to other suggestions for evaluating and addressing suspected AI-generated edits. AI cleanup is a challenging area. There is a group of editors who spend a tremendous amount of time and energy on it. I am grateful for their work. I do sometimes find their engagement on the issue with other editors terse and their processes opaque. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 18:27, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

That makes sense. I'm still not 100% on board, but I'm convinced enough that I feel good about not reverting the tag. Dionysodorus has solved the underlying dispute, but I really appreciate you taking the time to explain your view to me. It makes sense and while before I was flummoxed, now I at least understand it. Cheers! EducatedRedneck (talk) 18:46, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

Totally understandable. Good on you for seeking help, engaging with different views, and ultimately moving the actual cleanup work forward. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 18:50, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

I agree that the basic expectation that an editor should be able to identify and specify the problem if a maintenance tag should apply here. Katzrockso (talk) 17:39, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

• I agree, the burden would normally be on the user adding the tag, if a template has only recently been added then BRD might well apply. Template:POV does give reasons when the template can be removed in the "When to remove" section. If the tag is notability then AFD should be used if the tag is disputed. Yes I know things are different with people with a COI and new users who remove tags might be expected to get consensus to remove but I'd say in general if experienced users disagree then in general the burden should be on the tagger. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:47, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

Wow, not even a courtesy ping, while also misrepresenting my position. FTR articles are only presumptively tagged sometimes when presumptive removal is invoked, it's the logical extension. It's done for articles where the cleanup is more time-consuming, i.e. when the content needs to be preserved in some form (like when the prior revision was terrible, when it's a creation with large edits from others, or when the addition is an important aspect of the topic). What is good about this, is it it distributes some of the work across the wiki to local editors, instead of the entirety of AI cleanup left with a handful of people, but if no local editors fancy doing it, it'll get done when people start clearing the backlog (here that's Category:Articles containing suspected AI-generated texts). What is bad about this is that people don't like having a garish tag on their pet articles, which is apparently a bigger concern than PAG violations likely being present. If you remove the tag without cleaning it up, you're effectively enshrining the LLM-generated content in the article. LLMs specialise in plausible nonsense, something "looking alright" is not enough, the content needs to be reviewed for WP:V (primarily). It is hard work and it sucks, but the wonderful thing is: you don't have to do it if you don't want to!

And yes, I'm burnt out if you couldn't tell. I'm doing this ~50-60 hours a week, postponing job searching and living off savings, because I care about this fucking project. So no, I don't have any patience for people demanding to be spoon-fed. I still don't know what they wanted (was it diffs? a list of all the sentences? me to review it and tell them all the problems I find?). I've stopped for the day and probably tomorrow anyway. Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 21:08, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

Please read the WP:LLMPRV that you linked. It does not mention maintenance tags. It refers only to PRODs and reverts. Also, I'm really feeling like you're coming off as hostile. I wanted to review the portions of the article that were claimed to be AI. I'm sorry you're burnt out; perhaps a WP:Wikibreak is in order? WP:You are not irreplaceable; the project will be just fine until you've rejuvenated enough to return. EducatedRedneck (talk) 00:39, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

Well, no, not really, there is no one else who wants to do this sort of job. AI removal is done by a handful of people and if they're gone there's no guarantee anyone will do the task; if they were, they'd be doing it now. See User:Pppery/The iceberg. PARAKANYAA (talk) 13:39, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

So there are a number of complications here:

• There are indicators, that text is AI-generated, but they are not the things that need to be fixed. But if you point out the indicators, people will assume that if you just tinker with the wording then the issue is solved. (There are also usually a lot of indicators if an article is being tagged, so if you point out every one it will generate a huge wall of text.)
• Similarly, WP:BEANS applies, the worst case scenario here is handing people a guide to covering up their AI misuse, people already do that with the AI signs page as it is
• People seem to think AI-generated tags are exempt from WP:AGF. If someone adds an AI-generated tag to an article, they do a lot of AI cleanup, they specify the diff/user the tag is about, and there is literally a noticeboard thread about someone's use of AI -- which, if you read it, includes a mention of that person making an article about the nonexistent "Margo Largo Accord" which was near-unanimously deleted -- then it feels like that is enough information to trust that the person who tagged it knows what they are talking about.
• At a certain point people need to actually, you know, read. If there was no context whatsoever that would be one thing, but if someone provides a link to the diff in question, a link to the WP:AISIGNS page (and usually the specific sections of it that apply), and a link to a noticeboard discussing someone's AI use, then it feels like a bare minimum assumption that if someone wants to argue with the tag they should at least read those things first. After all, the person tagging it did.

Gnomingstuff (talk) 22:13, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

I wonder if we could improve the documentation. Help:Maintenance template removal#Specific template guidance does not sound very helpful to someone seeing this for the first time. Perhaps more of a checklist would be handy? For example:

"Step 1: Check that all the cited sources actually exist. Sometimes a link will be broken, so if it appears non-existent, please check (e.g., by searching for the source's title in your favorite web search engine).

Step 2: Check that the cited sources directly support the text as written in the Wikipedia article. For example, if the Wikipedia article says it's a seaside town with a historic church building, but the source only mentions the beach, then an AI may have hallucinated the bit about the church. Remove things that no source supports.

Step 3: Look at ..."

(or whatever you want for the steps). I think it needs to be something like Help:Referencing for beginners or Help:Introduction: enough to do most of the ordinary and important work, but not mentioning every possible thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:35, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

I gave it a re-write, let me know what you think. -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 05:12, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

I think it's an improvement. I expanded a little bit of it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:01, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

I feel our entire culture around expectations, duties and requirements of maintenance tags is too loosey goosey.

If you toss up a banner-type tag, you, the adder of the tag, should be obligated to own framing it on Talk of that article within x days. If you don't, anyone should be thoroughly encourage and free to rip it down. The re-addition of same tag within x days (far shorter) without obligated explanations on Talk should lead to the tag getting ripped down again and any re-addition treated as disruptive.

Nature of the tag shouldn't matter. You put up a notice, you should be made to own it. — VPP (t/c) 18:46, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Some tags, like Citation Needed, are self-explanatory. I agree that tags like POV or LLM need to have enough explanation for future editors to tell whether the issue has been resolved, but it doesn't have to be on the talk page. Filling out the reason= parameter is sufficient. -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 19:32, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Unfortunately there are users that have stated that they will remove {{ai-generated}} tags if the reason isn't stated in the tag itself, the edit summary and on the talk page. So to avoid driveby untagging, everything needs to be filled out in triplicate. The tags are still removed though. There is an edit filter tracking it now, but that's an extra task for someone to do. ‑‑gurkubondinn 20:33, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Unfortunately there are users that have stated that they will remove {{ai-generated}} tags if the reason isn't stated in the tag itself, the edit summary and on the talk page. While I haven't personally encountered this behavior, IMO persisting in removal of tags that have the reason= parameter filled out after you have been asked to stop should be sanctioned as disruptive editing. And I say this as someone with thousands of edits in which I removed dead or unexplained maintenance tags. -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 20:42, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

I agree that some tags are self-explanatory, so the nature of the tag does matter, and an adequate |reason= should often be sufficient otherwise. I don't think an additional talk page post should always be required though of course editors placing the tag should be expected to respond to any inquiries about it. The response to questions or challenges should be reasonably thorough and aimed at helping others contribute but there is a limit. If the disputing editor doesn't know how to accomplish the necessary review or is unwilling or unable to follow the suggested approach, that should not default to removing the tag. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 00:48, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

Part of my worry with this is always the notion that some articles will bear tags indefinitely.

Would it be unreasonable to expect the "tagger" to always have a qualified change/boundary by which they have to accept tag removal...? So things are never squiggly and to make all editors always play with their card hands showing. — VPP (t/c) 01:45, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

I mean, the tag says the article contains AI-generated text, so the boundary would be the point where it no longer contains AI-generated text (i.e., the text has been rewritten, stubified, or removed) Gnomingstuff (talk) 01:49, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

Sure, the AI one or certain others are usually binary/bright line. I meant more the ones that are a bit subjective. — VPP (t/c) 01:52, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

We don't want articles to be tagged forever but that is primarily because we don't want the (purported) problem to persist forever. The tagger should have a good sense of what a resolution will look like. But the specific cleanup approach and final product can take many forms. As much as the tagger has a responsibility, an editor seeking to remove the tag should also be able to demonstrate that either the issue has been resolved or the tag was not appropriate in the first place. I appreciate the problems of drive-by tagging and fuzzy/subjective problems but I'm not sure we can define a strict approach that will satisfy everyone. If there is disagreement then editors should seek more input. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 14:19, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

A talk page consensus should always be sufficient to remove a tag, and the tagger should not be able to veto its removal if they can't or won't explain the issue in a way that convinces other editors that it is necessary. If they try to prevent such a consensus (e.g. by stonewalling a discussion) then that should be treated as disruptive editing. Thryduulf (talk) 14:49, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

if they can't or won't explain the issue in a way that convinces other editors that it is necessary

If you're going to try to bulldoze an entire gaping loophole into the AI policy it would be courteous to at least say that's what you're doing. As usual, imagine doing this with any other policy or guideline. "Well, I don't believe that this is actually the entire collected text of Harry Potter books, I don't care what Google thinks and I don't believe that the google.com link you have provided is actually Google so I'm not clicking it, and moreover I think that it's actually OK to have the entire collected text of the Harry Potter books in the article so stop talking to me about "copyright". Gnomingstuff (talk) 15:55, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

First, please assume good faith. Second, I'm not actually try[ing] to bulldoze an entire gaping loophole into the AI policy. Third, one person not looking at evidence is the exact opposite of "can't or won't explain". Fourth, nobody is going to get consensus to host a copyright violation. Fifth, not everybody who has a different opinion to you is attempting to harm Wikipedia. Thryduulf (talk) 18:03, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

I agree with this statement as written but maybe we will disagree about the interpretation of particular incidents. If the tagging editor describes a fairly typical process and even suggests tool to aid in review and cleanup and the disputing editor doesn't know how to complete the task, that is not stonewalling. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 17:36, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

I was not attempting to describe a particular incident, and don't understand why I gave that impression? Thryduulf (talk) 18:04, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

I think people are assuming your comments are directed at the situations that have happened recently (one of which is at ANI right now I think) where people have essentially tried to override WP:NOLLM by local consensus and advocate for known LLM content to stay up. I can see how someone could read your comment above as supportive of that, even though I can also see how that might not be your intent. -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 19:42, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any relevant current relevant cases other than the one mentioned in this thread. However, I believe that editors at an article should be able to arrive at a consensus regarding what text is acceptable in that specific article. NOLLM is there for practical reasons (i.e. ensuring text is well written and supported by sources, etc) not an ideological drive to remove any trace of LLMs from the encyclopaedia, regardless of what some people would like it to be there for. So if there is a consensus that text in a specific aritcle is well written, is supported by the cited sources, etc, then that consensus is not contrary to NOLLM (and even if it were, a consensus that keeping given text is better for the encyclopaedia than removing it, then that's why we have IAR). Thryduulf (talk) 20:29, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

I'm only just now seeing this thread, but prior to my own commentary, I'll note that this largely matches my views on the matter. Even if the ONUS is on those adding content to substantiate it, that doesn't give users a right to throw out effectively baseless accusations in the hopes that something sticks, because, in some cases, their real issue is something within the text that they dislike but can't justify removing on its own. On something like NOLLM, I'd argue the charging editor has a responsibility to (if requested) provide some analysis that substantiates their claim, as otherwise it effectively serves a blank check to remove anything someone personally disagrees with without cause.

CSGinger14 (talk) 20:58, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

FWIW I completely agree except for cases where WP:LLMPRV applies. I'm not aware of any bad-faith tagging though? Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 21:03, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

In the generic case, they should provide some analysis. It may not be a detailed account of every single problematic passage but they should be able to point to specific examples and describe what they think should be done. Pointing to a specific guideline or discussion post and defining the problematic edits/content without identifying each instance (e.g., "every diff by this editor") may be sufficient. The tagging editor should make a good faith effort to help other editors validate the problem and participate in the cleanup. But other editors' failure to understand how to accomplish the review and cleanup does not necessarily mean that the tagging rationale was insufficient. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 21:43, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

An example test: if someone fixed the issue but forgot to remove the tag, it should be possible for an editor working through the backlog years later to determine that that happened. If it's impossible to tell whether the problem has been fixed since the tag, then the tag didn't have enough info in the first place. For LLM tags that means identifying the editor and/or diffs that inserted the suspect text. It would also help to have at least some indication of why they are suspect, but I think some people are setting that bar too high (certainly if there's an AI noticeboard section then linking to that section is sufficient). -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 22:07, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

If the tag is old and I am confident that I know how to assess the issue and that it is resolved/does not apply, I would remove it. I would leave a clear edit summary and depending on the details I might leave a more detailed message on the talk page. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 06:35, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

The problem is that people generally do provide that analysis, but if someone doesn't read it, believe you, or give a fuck, then what's the point?

A recent example is Talk:Tbilisi#Probable_AI_generated_text, which I stumbled upon three separate times in over a year due to stumbling three separate times upon its blatantly obvious AI-generated text. But the tag kept getting removed despite my pointing out exactly whose edits were the source of the tag, and though they claimed the text was reviewed it clearly was not, because not even the most trivial and easily noticeable things (e.g. markdown formatting) were fixed. Gnomingstuff (talk) 14:27, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

That's an issue, but it's not the one we're discussing here. Thryduulf (talk) 14:30, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

I think that is the issue a lot of us are discussing here, because that's the issue most of us are actually seeing in our watchlists. If we want to discuss the issue of effectively baseless accusations in the hopes that something sticks, because, in some cases, their real issue is something within the text that they dislike but can't justify removing on its own what is there to discuss? We all agree that people shouldn't be using NOLLM as an excuse to throw baseless accusations at non-LLM content they dislike, and no one here is doing that as far as I can tell. At least, I haven't seen that happening. It would help me understand where you are coming from if I could see some examples of the kind of behavior you consider problematic happening in the wild, because otherwise it's hard not to keep drifting back to assuming you are talking about the behavior of the people in this thread in the articles that are linked from this thread. I'm not saying this to be snide-- I genuinely do want to understand your position and if people are using LLM tags on content that isn't LLM just because they don't like that content I genuinely do want to know about it. -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 20:28, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

I'm trying to distinguish between three different scenarios:

1. The tagger responds to questions with evidence and explanations, other editors engage with them in good faith but ultimately the tagger's view is not in accordance with the tagger's view
2. The tagger responds to questions with evidence and explanations, but other editors ignore that and/or don't engage in good faith.
3. The tagger does not respond and/or does not provide evidence or explanations.

Examples of all three have been provided in this thread. Thryduulf (talk) 22:15, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Another example is Open energy system models, which I eventually gave up on. ‑‑gurkubondinn 14:31, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

What's wrong there?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Open_energy_system_models#Sources_added_since_Dec._2022 — VPP (t/c) 20:33, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

It seems like there was no convincing evidence that there was any AI generated text in the article at all. I agree that there didn't seem to be a problem there. Katzrockso (talk) 22:00, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

The evidence is that the person literally said themselves that I might occasionally run a sentence or two through DeepL Write more recently to see if the text could be better framed. Like... they said it... themselves................

This is the kind of infuriating refusal to get the point I am talking about. Gnomingstuff (talk) 18:07, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

First, I am capable of reading and was able to read that comment posted by them. What's important to note is that:

1) They did not confirm to using any DeepL text in the article in question. The idea that if someone once used DeepL to translate something, that every article they every contributed to must be immediately tagged without even identifying one single actual problem with the article is ludicrous.

2) At the time the tag was first added, rewriting a sentence with DeepL was not strictly banned.

3) Even with this "admission", there is no clear identification of the actual content that needs to be remedied. Are editors supposed to trawl through every edit to find the one sentence that could have been rewritten using DeepL?

Johnjbarton cleaned up the article. The only text added by RobbieIanMorrison that he flagged was this edit , which doesn't appear like AI to me or Pangram. Katzrockso (talk) 01:10, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

They did not confirm to using any DeepL text in the article in question. The idea that if someone once used DeepL to translate something, that every article they every contributed to must be immediately tagged without even identifying one single actual problem with the article is ludicrous.

I really genuinely hope no lunacy is in place that we are flagging any/all contributions by anyone who ever said "I'm Spartacus" to using AI for anything here. Because that would indeed be outright unhinged. — VPP (t/c) 15:49, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

The source audit said taht couple of sources were poorly summarized and the same user had tagged sentences as failing verification. Anyone can look at the article's page history, there were lots of WP:V failures found.

And did we read the same talk page? Plenty of AISIGNS were pointed out. Like I said, I've given up that page, and I have no idea what state the it is in now. I have no interest in reading all of the gish galloping again. ‑‑gurkubondinn 16:11, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

I really genuinely hope no lunacy is in place

And this is what I mean about how people doing AI cleanup are apparently exempt from WP:AGF and people can apparently just say whatever out-of-pocket shit they want to about the process Gnomingstuff (talk) 17:50, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Well, no, and apologies... of course not. I'm just surprised there is (is there?) a formal endorsed position that we weren't doing scarlet letters for an increasingly omnipresent technology layer that we can't even see at times now. — VPP (t/c) 17:58, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

A reasonably competent editor can easily convince others that they have stopped using AI, assuming that they have actually stopped. Usually these are new users that didn't know any better but responded well when the guidelines were pointed out to them. Just follow AIN for a while, this happens all the time. I dislike this (somewhat relentless) assumption that AIN is apparently some lunacy board where everyone is spending their day writing scarlet letters to everyone we come across. ‑‑gurkubondinn 18:08, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Part of it may be that the rest of us often seem to come across the more absolutist comments, like the one on this page that proposed we should even (apparently) try to neutralize people finding valid sources via AI. It makes it hard to understand where and what the actual evolving consensus is around all this, and if it's still cogent and aligned with all the rest of stuff like 5P. — VPP (t/c) 18:11, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Who is "the rest of us"? Is "the rest of us" in the room with us right now? Or are you trying to make your own personal opinion seem more authoritative by pretending everyone else shares it? Gnomingstuff (talk) 08:13, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure what exactly you're trying to say (are you accusing VPP of lying?) but multiple people have repeatedly and explicitly cited statements that are "absolutist" that some other editors seem unable to see. Thryduulf (talk) 11:01, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

This discussion is edging towards personal attack territory… I suggest everyone take a break. Blueboar (talk) 12:11, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Also, people are talking past each other somewhat, and the discussion seems to have moved away from the initial question of where the onus lies for AI and other maintenance templates. I wonder whether the whole discussion could reasonably be closed and archived at this point. Dionysodorus (talk | contribs) 12:32, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

"Multiple people" is not the same as "the rest of us." "Multiple people" means that there are at least two people with a dissenting opinion. "The rest of us" means that everybody else has a dissenting opinion. Gnomingstuff (talk) 17:19, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

With the exception of a small handful of people (including you but not only you), everybody does seem to be able to see that absoluteist comments do get made. Not everybody in the set agrees with what weight they carry, but that is not the claim VPP made. Thryduulf (talk) 20:51, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

Why to agree, when it's already clear that the onus goes to the editor who adds the tags?

Anyway, the more serious issues are:

A. Indiscriminate and blind use of AI and other Tags

B. Not using the Talk page

C. Not Responding

D. Misguiding

I have evidences of these issues. As for example, an editor tagged for speedy deletion due to AI text. Second editor removed the nomination for speedy deletion due to AI usage. They tagged untagged many times. Finally CSD was removed because there was no usage of AI. The some editors don't use even common sense (pardon me for little bit bitter words), a draft declined due to lack of references two years back, and being many times edited can never be an AI text. (Draft:Competency_Demonstration_Report). The editor changed his allegation over and over again.

Extremely serious case: Draft:Devkund_Math.

My first contribution is Draft:Competency_Demonstration_Report create more that two years back. Since then, i regularly learn about Wikipedia, policies, and editing. I recently created an article Kalpavrisha_Dham. I struggled a lot. One editor told lack of references. I supplied more. Come to the point now. I started working for Draft:Devkund_Math. I created the article all at once with enough citations. An editor reverted it to draft saying the use of AI. I convinced him and he agreed now that "I seemed to me". Just assume the severity of the issue. Editors are using AI tag on doubt basis. This is not expected by Wikipedia. To publish it again, I requested him to reconsider his action. After he did not reply, I requested many other editors to look into the matter. The editor after a lot of time, replies that he has responded to me at my user talk page. I again requested him. He suggested now to use AFC. I did. Now other editor declines saying lack of reliable sources. JyotiTheLightHouse (talk) 20:13, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

Cleanup done

@EducatedRedneck and everybody else: I've just gone through the article myself and done what needed to be done, and so have now removed the tag. Hopefully the whole issue is now resolved. Dionysodorus (talk) 18:29, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your work, and especially you discussing and getting us closer to being on the same page. Cheers! EducatedRedneck (talk) 18:40, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

RfC: Permitting or prohibiting AI in creating/formatting Wikitext

Since I clarified that the original discussion was not an RfC and was also getting off-topic (sorry, Gurkubondinn), here we are. The discussion yielded an unclear result, so I figured I would just move ahead with a clearer RfC. Hopefully consensus will be clearer. Courtesy-tagging original discussion participants: @Gnomingstuff @SuperPianoMan9167 @Katzrockso @NicheSports @LWG @Fermiboson @Thryduulf @InfernoHues @Chipmunkdavis

Should WP:NOLLM be updated to explicitly permit or explicitly prohibit the use of AI/LLMs to create/format Wikitext (hereafter referred to as "WT")?

Option 1 — No change to NOLLM.

Option 2 - Add some form of explicit exception to PERMIT the use of AI to format WT, with the caveat that the user is responsible for ensuring it is non-disruptive and publishes without error.

Option 3 — Add some form of explicit prohibition to PREVENT the use of AI to format WT.

This RfC also invites discussion as to the wording of an exception or prohibition — MWFwiki (talk) 22:12, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

Note: This isn't an WP:RFC. Merely putting the letters "RfC" in a section heading does not create an RFC. The purpose of the RFC process is to advertise the discussion to uninvolved editors. If you don't follow the process outlined at WP:RFC, then that advertising never happens, and it's not an RFC. I have removed the misleading "RfC" label from the section heading. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:09, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Resolved. — MWFwiki (talk) 21:13, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Option 2 or Option 3 — I feel we should go with option 2 or 3, as I don't care for the current ambiguity and I fail to see how a clearer guideline in either direction could cause issues. If it does? We can always gain consensus to change it back. — MWFwiki (talk) 22:12, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

Bad RFC. Sigh. This is just a broader version of the citation RFC that just closed. -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 22:18, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

Per the the closer's commentary: "Nevertheless, the discussion did not establish consensus on whether WP:NOLLM currently prohibits all LLM-assisted citation formatting or whether accurate, carefully checked citations should attract sanctions. While this RfC rejected adding a written exemption, it should not be read as resolving either of those questions" — I would argue that, at least in-part, this is one of the questions this RfC seeks to resolve, as citations are WT. It also asks if explicit prohibition is not the best course of action. — MWFwiki (talk) 22:22, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

I guess if we need another whole RFC to determine that no consensus for change 5 days ago means consensus for status quo now, then Option 1. I still wish we could just have a couple scoops of ambiguity tolerance in our morning cereal and not open RFCs every time we think of an edge case. Options 2 and 3 will both cause problems and have little to no benefit. -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 22:32, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

Please do not ping me to a discussion I have been active in less than 24 hours ago and whose existence I am clearly aware of. Gnomingstuff (talk) 23:30, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

Why would I assume you to be "clearly aware" of an RfC on a different page and in a RfC you have never been "active in"? Regardless, I'm happy to respect your preferences moving-forward. — MWFwiki (talk) 23:45, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

Nevertheless, Option 1. The simpler the guideline, the better, and frankly "Don't use AI" would be an improvement on what we have now, because it would put an end to the endless attempts to undermine the guideline at any possible perceived weak point. Gnomingstuff (talk) 23:32, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

"'Don't use AI' would be an improvement on what we have now[...]" — unless I'm misunderstanding you, then don't you mean option "3"?  — MWFwiki (talk) 01:12, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

How does adding more clauses to the existing guideline make it simpler? —ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · email) 01:21, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

It makes the guideline technically "more complicated" as one is adding text to it, but it makes the enforcement practices easier (it codifies that the only use of LLMs are in the explicit exceptions) and takes-away an oft-used excuse that individuals like to seemingly use when confronted over AI use. It doesn't need to be overly-verbose. "LLM-use to produce or format wikitext is prohibited." — MWFwiki (talk) 01:26, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

I mean option 1. I'm not actually proposing to rewrite the guideline, as much as I think it would improve matters. Gnomingstuff (talk) 06:43, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

I think "re-write" is a strong term. The prohibition could be a small blurb, "LLM-use to produce or format wikitext is prohibited."  — MWFwiki (talk) 18:15, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Option outcome of Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC: AI use for generating citations within articles, lest everyone repeat the same points made there and in subsequent discussion again. CMD (talk) 23:36, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

Option 1 per Gnomingstuff and the previous rfc. —Leaf.Sheap ⇖ /.°°.\ ⇗ (They•Them) 00:05, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Option 1 - per Katzrockso in the original discussion linked. InfernoHues (talk) 00:34, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Option 1 – The stalwarts at AINB are overworked and burnt out. They don't need their time consumed by endless relitigation of previous RFCs. —ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · email) 01:20, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Option 1. No change. We don't need to incentivize people to do it wrong (as explicitly allowing it would entail) - but if you do it right no one will ever notice! This is not an issue! PARAKANYAA (talk) 01:30, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Maybe we can add after the bit on LLMPRV on a new line

Editing Wikipedia is often challenging at first; newcomers may find help pages and this brief summary of policies and guidelines useful.

Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 08:25, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

I'm gonna boldly add this along with Editors generally should not edit a Wikipedia edition whose language they are not proficient in (see Meta:List of Wikipedias for all existing language editions). as I think I'd do it anyway regardless of the result of this RfC (been meaning to do something similar ). Anyone should feel free to revert and discuss at WT:NOLLM Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 12:18, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

FWIW option 1, this'd get wikilawyered about a hell of a lot and lead to AINB cases getting bogged down even more than they already do, for otherwise minimal benefit Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 12:50, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Option 1 - per Claudine, Gnoming, and everything else that's been said in all of the other discussions. ‑‑gurkubondinn 08:33, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Option 2 per my comments above and in the previous RFC. Policies and guidelines should mean what they say and say what they mean. Thryduulf (talk) 10:09, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Option 1 - Is the current guideline perfect? No… but… we have been over this again and again. It reflects current consensus. My suggestion is that we give it time… we need to see it in action and chart its flaws. After (say) 6 months to a year we will better know what needs to be amended. Blueboar (talk) 12:16, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Option 3 or option 1, and it would be nice and further Wikipedia's unique approach to AI to not allow AI posts on talk pages or in discussions. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:22, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

it would be nice and further Wikipedia's unique approach to AI to not allow AI posts on talk pages or in discussions Just FYI this is already more-or-less the case. -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 17:07, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Option 1 per LWG above and at the original discussion NicheSports (talk) 13:55, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Option 3, the less AI the better. It may start with formatting, then... As they say First They Came for formatting, and we did not speak... Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 15:31, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Option 1 or 2. Using an LLM to format wikitext is already allowed per the guideline:

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.

We could tweak this to call out formatting specifically but I don't feel strongly either way. Anne drew (talk · contribs) 19:07, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

option 1 not required. I also agree with other editors that this will only result in more wikilawyering. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:09, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Option 1 to avoid more wikilawyering. A carveout for wikitext formatting may be used by editors arguing (or being advised by LLMs to argue) that large content additions inside, say, templates would be acceptable as only "wikitext" was edited, and more generally encourage editors to rely on AI to make such changes. Minor formatting (e.g. consistently italicizing genus/species names) already falls under basic copyediting and shouldn't be an issue. Chaotic Enby (in solidarity · talk · contribs) 20:27, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Option 1 as per Chaotic Enby. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:28, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Option 1 – Does not make sense for consensus to go a different way here than it did for the citations RfC. Also little to no benefit. Every sentence added to WP:NOLLM enables more wriggling/wikilawyering and has WP:BEANS issues. Editors who are capable of using LLMs to format wikitext are already not being sanctioned, because nobody can tell that they are doing it due to the results of formatting wikitext with and without an LLM are indistinguishable when done correctly. –Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 10:11, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Option 1. Honestly, if I were to write a "nutshell" for NOLLM, it would be something to the effect of "If anyone can actually tell that you're using an LLM, you're using one in a way you shouldn't be." If a human editor really is carefully checking over the LLM output, and changing it as needed, the final result will be indistinguishable from something they wrote themself. (Why they wasted time with the intermediate step is a separate question, but in the end I don't care how the sausage got made.) If anyone is able to tell that an LLM was used to generate something, then whoever generated it is doing it wrong. So, if someone uses it to generate an infobox, and actually carefully double checks that the output is correct, how would I know the difference between that and them doing it themself? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 12:17, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

The issue is that this isn't want the policy says and as has been noted several times, this view is not universal. There are editors who do care about how the sausage is made and believe that any use of an LLM, detectable or otherwise, is prohibited. Thryduulf (talk) 12:23, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Thryduulf, in the end, what practical difference does that make? If something looks like you wrote it, it's not like I'm going to stand over your shoulder and watch what you do on your own machine. And realistically, if someone wrote a bunch of fake citations up completely by hand, that in itself would be a problem too. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 16:46, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

I completely agree with you that if you can't tell it shouldn't matter. My point is only that (a) not everybody does agree with this (as I understand it, they see it as a point of principle) and (b) the policy does not currently say that. The latter means that those who disagree with us can (and per other comments in this discussion, do) point to the policy and say it backs their viewpoint. If there is a community consensus in favour of the view you and I hold then the policy should say that. Thryduulf (talk) 17:06, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

French Wikipedia recently changed their AI policy to prohibit LLMs, except for copyediting and when the content is PAG-compliant (with lots of caution stressed). We can see how their experience with that goes ig, but yeah for some it'd be a non-starter Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 18:38, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

If a human editor really is carefully checking over the LLM output, and changing it as needed, the final result will be indistinguishable from something they wrote themself.

This. While I don't think this should be added to the NOLLM page (as per others, "wikilawyering"), if someone decides to use AI to help with their edits but review its suggestions before publishing, then the end result would not look like a LLM wholesale wrote it (and thus should not warrant a user warning). Hason-LEK-SIN ● 💬 ● 🧱 ● 🧪 01:48, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Option 1: Editors should use their best judgement as to whether they should use AI to format (but not add content) wikitext, although this should be strongly discouraged for new editors who are not familiar with many of Wikipedia's policies. If we want this change then I suggest adding "formatting of wikitext" into point 1 of NOLLM (ie copyediting), while making sure the changes it has made has been adequately/reasonably reviewed (through using the "Show changes" button before publishing). Hason-LEK-SIN ● 💬 ● 🧱 ● 🧪 01:28, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Option 2, even though I sense that we are at an impasse of insincerity. I agree with MWFwiki and Thryllduff that polities should mean what they say. The desirable solution is to minimize, carefully review, and assign editors full responsibility for Wikitext formatting that is LLM-assisted. We should explicitly carve out non-disruptive formatting from either the policy altogether (my preference) or from enforcement by banning (a reasonable fallback). I'll share process comments below.--12:56, 27 September 2026 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Carwil (talk • contribs)

Option 1: Wikipedia must not allow AI at all at any stage. I don't want any thing even least questionable.

Clear Judgement:

Research your topic, collect references, write article in your own way, read thoroughly the references before citing them. No use of AI at all. If a person has grammar and language weak, why are so many other editors for? Let them correct the grammar. JyotiTheLightHouse (talk) 20:53, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

Respectfully your proposal is unable to be enforced in this present reality and universe, so there's really no benefit or value beyond moral positioning with no effectiveness in even trying to normalize or popularize it (being honest).

How would anyone know if an editor asked GPT or another tool, "Find me WP:RS academic sources about XYZ, and why they're good for XYZ on Wikipedia," and then building an otherwise normal article about it by hand, with the tool collecting the "material" for them? How can I prevent or detect if you found the last WP:RS you added to an article by hand in Google or at the physical library, versus asking an app? — VPP (t/c) 15:56, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Also how would you tell if I checked the spelling with a spellchecker that used AI or with a spellchecker that didn't use AI? Especially as I don't know that. Thryduulf (talk) 20:16, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

I suppose we could tell if we had you etch it with a chisel and hammer upon stone with a trusted witness at minimum seeing the livestream. Make sure you also don't engage in folly like asking GPT to "tell me more about XYZ" that you're curious about on the train to work, in case you may edit about XYZ later in the evening - as someone invariably says in one of these, got to keep the contamination more or less at bay.

I just we had actual real standards that were plausible, as the integration of these tools is increasing by the month. — VPP (t/c) 00:42, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

It's very plausible to not use AI. I manage to not use AI every day. Until 2023, billions of people managed this as well. Gnomingstuff (talk) 08:07, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Sure, but expecting ideological purity doesn't keep us in editors in the real world where these things are increasingly shoved at us without transparency for non-technically savvy people, and does the longevity and ultimate fate of the site outrank any of our ideologies?

We have to deal with the world we live in. This is why I keep asking these "Are we sure we're right?" kind of questions in these. I'm not sure and I suspect we're shooting ourselves in the face possibly. — VPP (t/c) 16:07, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

I see the existential threat of AI to Wikipedia as sort of a reverse Pascal's wager. If LLM capabilities drastically improve in the next few years, Wikipedia will become unnecessary, since people will be able to just ask their LLM for the sorts of information Wikipedia currently provides. At that point the ultimate fate and longevity of Wikipedia doesn't matter: mission accomplished, all humans have access to all published human knowledge, we can all quit editing and go garden or hike or play Candy Crush or whatever floats our respective boats. But if LLM capabilities don't drastically improve in the next few years, the AI bubble will eventually pop, and in that scenario it will be incredibly helpful if we have preserved a repository of human-written and human-curated information for people to turn back to once the AI is gone. -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 17:38, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia will become unnecessary, since people will be able to just ask their LLM for the sorts of information Wikipedia currently provides.

The thing is that LLMs if you investigate their training relies absurdly heavily on us. Our content is the direct baseline feeder system for those. — VPP (t/c) 17:43, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Brilliant, in that case add "At least our volunteer hours helped make some tech bros rich" to the top right square of the payoff matrix. -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 19:47, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

I know. I don't like it. But it's also the reality we're stuck with, and if the overall consensus is "fuck off LLM", then that's what it is, but every iterative jump on their capabilities as of now is going to drive them to be further integrated all over if loser rich people think it can make them richer. This is going to be argued endlessly here. My only position is that whatever standard we have needs to be realistic versus what is happening in the world, versus what we want to have happening in the world. Ideology is of no value if it can't achieve anything. — VPP (t/c) 20:12, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

this assumes that iterative jumps are inevitable, and there's no reason to think that -- GPT-6 has completely shit the bed in terms of quality/detectability, it's kind of funny how instantaneously it reverted to being obvious Gnomingstuff (talk) 14:51, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

I am pessimistic about many things but optimistic there will always be a demand for human-written content, regardless of how "good" AI becomes. The project has no purpose other than meeting that demand. NicheSports (talk) 17:57, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

(Niche beat me to this) It's also product differentiation, there's the possibility that human writing will have some sort of premium attached to it, and that there'll always be demand for this even if greatly reduced. LLMs also provide their info in a (mostly) contextless environment that's very unnatural, and they'll always hallucinate some of the time. At least w Wikipedia it's content production process is intuitive which makes it easier for readers to treat critically, and it cites its sources anyway. Wikipedia will likely lose the traffic wherein people are just looking up a fact (admittedly most of our total traffic), but retain traffic wherein people actually want to read and learn about a topic (also serendipity, dependent on new features that help people explore the wiki). Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 18:05, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Option 1 or option 3. There should be a clear line drawn between asking an LLM to suggest minor corrections or stylistic improvements for the human editor to review (which is fine), and asking an LLM to reformat or rephrase text (which in some cases may open up the possibility that the LLM may introduce errors or hallucinations). My understanding of NOLLM is that it currently permits the former and does not permit the latter, which I think is appropriate. I would not object to rephrasing the guideline in such a way as to make it clearer that AI cannot be used to reformat, rephrase or add references to human-written text. Dionysodorus (talk | contribs) 01:01, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

Option 1: Why is this RfC necessary? It's become clear that LLMs can't be trusted for anything, even for minor stuff. Lazman321 (talk) 16:02, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

The RFC is necessary because not everybody shares your opinion. Thryduulf (talk) 18:14, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

Do you think we can trust the hallucinating LLMs with formatting wikitext? Lazman321 (talk) 20:11, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

Exactly how much are we assuming AI hallucinates exactly, these days? Which model, which vendor, which thinking level, commercial or free? — VPP (t/c) 20:23, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

All LLMs hallucinate. All of them. The only reason I'm not voting option 3 is because I'm concerned with how we'd be able to enforce it. Regardless, you're better off formatting wikitext manually than having to oversee the output of any LLM. Lazman321 (talk) 20:31, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

"The only reason I'm not voting option 3 is because I'm concerned with how we'd be able to enforce it." - Frankly, this should not be a consideration. Anyone can raise this concern about any proposed policy addition or modification. How we enforce a policy comes after. We adapt to our needs. Regardless, enforcement would be simple, in my view: either an editor admits to LLM-use in wikitext formatting or they (the LLM) leave obvious tells. That's a violation. If neither of those situations occur, then it's not a problem because no one knows, anyways. An explicit policy prevents wikilawyering from either way. As I have pointed out, there are those that already believe this is prohibited. This RfC will actually serve as community consensus that this practice is NOT prohibited if it is closed as option 1 (likely) or NC, as many folks have indicated, so.  — MWFwiki (talk) 00:26, 4 October 2026 (UTC)

Do you think we can trust the hallucinating LLMs with formatting wikitext? Yes, if the output is checked by a human and, if necessary, corrected. While every LLM is capable of hallucinating, not everything output by an LLM contains hallucinations. Thryduulf (talk) 22:40, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

Option 2: As much as I hate AI on this site and as a writing aid more broadly, I think this is one instance where it offers some measure of necessary accessibility to editors. My concern is its use by inexperienced ones, who will almost certainly be unable to discern what if any mistakes the system has made before ultimately publishing the contribution. Nevertheless, systems like Wiki markup are a nightmare for people with visual processing disorders.

With that in mind, I'd argue that WP:ACCESSIBILITY takes precedence, though we need to really think about the way this would actually be implemented. Perhaps a caveat stating that such rules only apply to extended-confirmed editors, or some other pre-qualification?

CSGinger14 (talk) 07:21, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Option 1, failing that 3. It's Wikitext. It shouldn't require LLMs to format properly. XtraJovial (talk • contribs) 10:30, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Option 1 as the only viable option; LLMs seem to not be particularly good at Wikimarkup to begin with. This is like asking if a shark can swim backwards. (I don't read the passage that Anne Drew points out as allowing use of it for Wikitext; I read that more as allowing it for simple SPaG issues.) —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{Look out it's Jimothy!} 18:13, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Option 1. LLM usage in such a context simply causes far more problems than it is worth. 'Caveats' achieve almost nothing, when they are so frequently either not read, or used as an excuse to engage in practices they are supposed to prohibit. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:03, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

Option 1 as Option 2 nullifies the most obvious and commonly used AI tells (triple `s, markdown, WP:AITABLE, etc). All of these are essentially formatting tells, and any change allowing AI for markup would provide AI users with a very convenient excuse. In fact, I would be fine with Option 3 as a second choice, since we get this excuse too much already. Personally, I would find it very suspicious if someone has enough time to "write" their own content addition, but not to learn WP:VE. Somepinkdude (talk | contribs), in solidarity 20:24, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

Discussion regarding wording of a proposed exception or prohibition

Prohibition proposal: "Use of an LLM to produce or format any form of Wikitext is prohibited. For example, this prohibition includes but is not limited to: utilizing an LLM to wikilink, create citations, create infoboxes, etc."

Exception proposal [to become point "3" of NOLLM: "LLMs may be utilized to assist users in generating Wikitext, to a limited extent, and all work must be checked thoroughly before final publication. Such exceptions include basic and simple tasks, such as adding Wikilink bracketing, crafting an infobox, etc. Users are still responsible for 'hallucinated' or otherwise false content and are responsible for ensuring all of their inserted content publishes without error." — MWFwiki (talk) 22:20, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

My issue is that wikitext needs to be clearly defined if not wikilawyered. Is everything we type not technically wikitext too? Katzrockso (talk) 01:08, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Well, we could call it wiki-markup. But WT is defined at Help:Wikitext. We could just wikilink "WT" to there. Or we could use its definition in the exception. "Text which formats the page." But indeed, your question is yet another reason we need to clarify the guideline, as people can argue "all text is wikitext" or that "all wikitext is text."  — MWFwiki (talk) 01:23, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Many word processing programs (e.g., Microsoft Word) are now also embedding LLM-based AI functionality, as are email platforms, social media platforms, and so forth. Are we going to get to a point where any kind of application that contains a spellchecker will end up being prohibited because they are accomplishing the task with AI rather than a traditional spelling library? BD2412 T 01:25, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Well, I would argue that this is already covered (as an exception) under the current wording of NOLLM. Basic copy-editing, spell-checking, etc. If you are asking whether I think a prohibition on the use of an LLM in formatting WT would contradict the current exception, no, I do not. Otherwise, why have explicit exceptions at all?  — MWFwiki (talk) 01:34, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

It's covered if you actually use it for "copy-editing, spell-checking" etc.

E.g., if you copy paste a proquest header (citoid usually does not work with proquest), with the source details (title/publication/date/volume/issue/page/location/author/etc) into an LLM and ask it to format it into wikitext cs1 templates and make no other changes, then check it after. I've tested this out offwiki and it worked basically perfectly and any hypothetical errors would be easy to catch (LLMs tend to make stuff up less when they're working directly with a small amount of text you give them). I see no problems with that basic usage, and there's no way to tell the difference - unlike with generating new prose.

However, explicitly saying it is allowed will make some people who don't know any better use it to generate full citations, which is totally problematic, and to defend themselves against sanction that way. PARAKANYAA (talk) 13:57, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

I was discussing prohibiting (formatting wikitext) in the thread you replied to. Again, if the concern is your last sentence, why have explicit exceptions at all? It's either used well and it's no problem and no one knows... or it causes an issue. Very generally speaking, at least. The current guideline is already overly-ambiguous and ripe for wikilawyering  — MWFwiki (talk) 18:13, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Because having no exceptions will make people go the opposite way and attack people for mundane, correct uses that are baked into all spellchecking programs. If you use a modern program with a spellchecker you are "using AI" - the problem is letting it rewrite larges swathes of text. PARAKANYAA (talk) 14:01, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

The issue is proving it, short of an admission. LLMs are getting better, slowly, but they are getting "better." A year ago, it was extremely obvious when an LLM was used. I feel those days are waning (though they are not completely gone, to be clear). Regardless, having no exceptions isn't on the table, so I suppose the point is moot. My argument is simply that virtually nowhere else is having clearer, less-ambiguous guidelines an issue. Funnily enough, the way this RfC is heading, its consensus can be used to show that there is no prohibition against formatting wikitext, the community simply does not want to codify it... nevertheless, the consensus is there.  — MWFwiki (talk) 18:49, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

There is no prohibition against formatting wikitext, the community simply does not want to codify it... Precisely this: acceptable types of formatting are already de-facto permitted under the current guideline, so codifying an exception accomplishes nothing except encourage wikilawyering in support of unacceptable types of formatting. If you have to ask which side of the line a particular use case falls on, it probably falls on the prohibited side. In the rare case that someone is asked to stop using LLMs even though they would have used them responsibly, the mild inconvenience to that person is a more than worthwhile cost to pay for the streamlining of the slop cleanup process. It's just like our rule about disclosing conflict of interest: COI editors are required to disclose their COI. Yes, they could theoretically make non-controversial edits to their pages without disclosing, and if their edits really are non-controversial they are unlikely to be sanctioned for it, but the COI guideline doesn't and shouldn't say "you don't have to disclose as long as you only make totally non-controversial edits", nor is it acceptable to waste our time arguing that your particular undisclosed COI editing was fine. -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 20:20, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Personally, I'm leaning towards codifying a prohibition, but that is neither here nor there. Maybe I'm dumber than I thought, but I just can't wrap my head around not wanting to codify an exception that there is clearly consensus for... while simultaneously arguing (not you) that wikilawyering will be an issue if we clarify the guideline. I understand your COI analogy, but we decide these things independent of each other.  — MWFwiki (talk) 21:02, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

As I've discussed in my essay on addressing problems without creating new specialized rules, it's impractical to codify all guidance. As far as reasonably possible, it's better to lay out general principles to be followed. As I discussed previously, the general guidance is that guidance about content is about what the reader sees: the rendered HTML output. There's no special exception for one type of tool being used to generate the underlying wikitext. Guidance on using wikitext (like how to format lists) explicitly refers to wikitext. isaacl (talk) 22:02, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

this slope is so slippery it has ceased to be a slope and is now just straight oil Gnomingstuff (talk) 03:10, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Was it ever realistic for anything like a hard ban to be viable? — VPP (t/c) 18:41, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Reading these evolving discussions I'm more worried over time that we're being ideological rather than realistic. Your examples of AI-native tooling getting embedded into so many products is a perfect example. — VPP (t/c) 18:40, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Most writing-related guidance on English Wikipedia focuses on the rendered HTML output, rather than the wikitext source, since that's what affects reader experience. Historically, tools have generated wikitext through a deterministic process, whether it is using templates, Visual Editor, or off-wiki tools filling in skeletons based on some data source. With a generative tool, though, the result is produced through a black box that no one explicitly programmed. If there is a consensus that the risk of users not verifying the result is greater that the benefit of using such tools, then it's not clear to me how to carve out a set of allowable uses in a practical way. Although it might be the case that a user is less likely to check the result of a generated infobox than a single verb tense change, I think there is a point where the probability of that user checking a mass set of grammar and spelling changes starts approaching the same level. isaacl (talk) 18:10, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Process comment: As with the prior RFC on LLM-assisted citations, we have a substantial set of editors !voting to keep the policy as it is (Option 1 here; No on the prior RfC) with the understanding that non-disruptive LLM-assisted Wikitext formatting will not get anyone in trouble. And we have another substantial set of editors arguing to keep the policy as it is with the understanding that any LLM-assisted Wikitext formatting should get editors in trouble. Resolving this tension is what I take to be MWFwiki's purpose in opening the RFC.

To put too fine a point on it, these are statements in this and the prior RFC that are all in the prior camp:

• PARAKANYAA: but if you do it right no one will ever notice! This is not an issue!
• Seraphimblade: Honestly, if I were to write a "nutshell" for NOLLM, it would be something to the effect of "If anyone can actually tell that you're using an LLM, you're using one in a way you shouldn't be." If a human editor really is carefully checking over the LLM output, and changing it as needed, the final result will be indistinguishable from something they wrote themself.
• Hason-LEK-SIN: If someone decides to use AI to help with their edits but review its suggestions before publishing, then the end result would not look like a LLM wholesale wrote it (and thus should not warrant a user warning).
• From here on, from the citation RFC Fermiboson: In practicality, anything they did which we are unable to tell was done with an LLM is permitted, and anything they did which we are able to tell was done with an LLM is not.; we are swamped enough with the rate of obviously bad AI edits that, quite frankly, we are happy to let your slightly sloppy wikitext formatting go
• InfernoHues: My rule-of-thumb is that if I can tell that an LLM was used, it's likely a violation of this guideline. How would you know an LLM was used for wikitext unless a hallucination/errors occurred?
• Katzrockso: If it was perfectly accurate and introduced no issues, I would argue whoever is strictly enforcing the guideline is putting the letter of the guideline over the spirit to the detriment of the encyclopedia., seconded in this by HTGS
• SarekOfVulcan: If you check it thoroughly enough so that you're sure there's no error, you're not going to get flagged, and if you don't, you should be.
• Mycetae: I would not expect a well formatted, error-free citation to raise any eyebrows unless there is something else going on.

The impasse that we stand in is that some editors believe that no written change (Option 1) means that the policy is effectively Option 2 (in competently executed cases) -- presumably those quoted here -- and others believe that no change means the policy is effectively Option 3. I'm not sure how to get out of this impasse, but do think that we should use this RFC to do so.--Carwil (talk) 13:02, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

Our votes for status quo aren't motivated by a misunderstanding of what the status quo is, they're motivated by the understanding that the status quo includes some useful ambiguity and reasonable restraint in enforcement while leaving no excuse for defending AI text when it is challenged. This status quo is better than what we'll get if we adopt either of the other options proposed here. -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 14:12, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

That's not the issue. The issue is that two groups of people are voting to support the status quo based on different interpretations of what the status quo allows. That is not "useful ambiguity", that is bad policy that allows for inconsistent enforcement and biting of good faith editors. Thryduulf (talk) 14:36, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

I just re-read all the votes and I'm not seeing this "substantial set" of editors with the "status quo is option 3" interpretation? Every single Option 1 voter appears to broadly agree with my position. -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 15:42, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

It seems pretty clear that Gnomingstuff's !vote (plus comments here: Wikipedia_talk:Writing_articles_with_large_language_models#Proposed_reword) is based on reading Option 1 as implying that Option 3 is already in effect; their opinion was seconded as well. Numerous examples in the citation RFC. Ditto this essay.--Carwil (talk) 16:53, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

I can see how you could read it that way, but based on my experience of Gnomingstuff's cleanup activities and comments re sanctions on ANI, I don't there's actually much gulf between our interpretations of the status quo. Gnomingstuff is of course welcome to correct me if I'm wrong. I would argue that WP:YESLLM is broadly consistent with all the Option 1 votes, especially Seraphim's nutshell "If anyone can actually tell that you're using an LLM, you're using one in a way you shouldn't be." That essay also doesn't really address the question posed here (wikicode formatting) except to say that if your "formatting" is introducing new words to the article text, it's not just formatting (which I think we all agree on here). -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 00:12, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

I have no idea what you are talking about re: ANI but my stance is pretty much identical to PARAKANYAA's, with the added point that since there is often a language/competency barrier with people who use AI, we do not need to carve out more exceptions to be misinterpreted (which already happens all the time with people claiming their substantive rewriting is just "copyediting"). Gnomingstuff (talk) 13:58, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

I have no idea what you are talking about re: ANI maybe I'm misremembering the venue but I seem to recall you contributing to discussions of sanctioning LLM-using editors and I can't remember you ever calling for sanctions on an editor who was just using the LLM for non-semantic tasks like formatting wikicode. -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 00:03, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't usually call for sanctions in general unless there's a behavioral issue as well, like if someone is continually lying or sealioning about it Gnomingstuff (talk) 10:17, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

Also see my comment here regarding Gurkubondinn's statements (which I think I shared with you, already, and I apologize if that is the case) which led me to start this RfC. Clearly there are editors that believe option 3 is the status quo (and are supporting option "1" in-support of that status quo). Tagging @Carwil — MWFwiki (talk) 19:45, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Honestly, I'm really gratified to see that Gnomingstuff might have the same general intuition here, though I walked away from our 9 September conversation with the opposite impression. I really, really get the concern about wiggle room being an invitation to un-monitorable content. But I also think a lot of long-time contributors, myself included, take the letter of prohibitions and the possibility of a ban after many years of contributing as very serious signals. Clarity matters to us. I, for one, am not contributing with the kinds of tricky Wikitext formatting edits that I could do (and did do) before WP:NOLLM was passed (like this one). Let's try and get creative about how to enable this understanding without opening the floodgates for slop. Maybe an autoconfirmed status as stage gate? Maybe a formal limitation on banning that requires actual damage to the content of the encyclopedia?--Carwil (talk) 23:06, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Let's try and get creative about how to enable this understanding without opening the floodgates for slop. Maybe an autoconfirmed status as stage gate?

See below. Hason-LEK-SIN ● 💬 ● 🧱 ● 🧪 23:47, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

a lot of long-time contributors, myself included, take the letter of prohibitions and the possibility of a ban after many years of contributing as very serious signals. Maybe I'm naive, but it's hard for me to imagine anyone in this conversation advocating for a ban of someone who was editing in good faith, doing no damage to the encyclopedia, and willing to follow the discuss part of Bold, Revert Discuss when challenged. -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 23:51, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Given that people have seriously argued that all AI use is, in and of itself, damaging to the encyclopaedia and that using an AI to edit Wikipedia is evidence of bad faith, I truly can see people advocating for the banning of editors using LLMs. Thryduulf (talk) 00:12, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

Then again the general vibes on AI to a sizable amount of people on the internet (not just people on the encyclopaedia) is "any AI use is bad, just get rid of it already" (keyword: any). Sigh, if only they knew it was not just for LLM chatbots and AI generated media/"slop" (after all, it is other humans that are producing the slop, so, who to blame?). Hason-LEK-SIN ● 💬 ● 🧱 ● 🧪 00:17, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

The comment I was referring to was not Gnomingstuff's, but Gurkbondinn's. My point was to support your argument that there were indeed additional users arguing that LLM use is currently prohibited. However, Gnomingstuff similarly indicated they want LLM-use prohibited while simultaneously arguing the guideline should not be changed. It seems obvious to me that the desire is to keep things vague so that the policy may be wielded on a case-by-case basis. I'm fine with that, personally, but I argue that even that must be codified. Something like "generally, any LLM-use, admitted or otherwise, is subject to local consensus if called into question." My contention is that there should be no ambiguity in policy and if there is, the reason for the ambiguity should be explained.  — MWFwiki (talk) 01:57, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

The reason for the ambiguity is that "generally, any LLM-use, admitted or otherwise, is subject to local consensus if called into question." will result in endless time-wasting arguments of the sort WP:YESLLM is trying to preempt, often with one side of the argument itself being walls of LLM text, but maximalist prohibition is not desirable if a lesser prohibition can prevent the slop. If we are going to clarify anything, I would focus on the clause generate or rewrite article content and consider saying something like some uses of LLMs that do not alter the article content (such as converting an existing citation from one format into another, or wrapping an image in wiki code to make it float left on the page) may be permissible, however the editor using the LLM must review the output and ensure that the LLM has not gone beyond its directive and altered the article content in any way while doing these tasks. Such non-semantic uses of LLMs should be totally indistinguishable from a human accomplishing the same task, since there is no stylistic element to tasks like plugging human-specified information into a Cite X template or pulling syntax from Help:Extended image syntax to make an image have a human-specified position on the page. If they are distinguishable as LLM output, then they probably haven't been adequately reviewed. -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 02:43, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

People have overwhelmingly !voted for the status quo, approaching WP:STICK here Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 06:18, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

Can you please stop putting words in my mouth? If I wanted to !vote something else, then I would have done that. Gnomingstuff (talk) 10:21, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

I didn't indicate you meant to !vote anything else; could you please point-out where I did that? I had asked you earlier, admittedly. When you write things, your words are subject to interpretation.  — MWFwiki (talk) 21:24, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

Sure let's go through this one by one:

• unless I'm misunderstanding you, then don't you mean option "3"? No, if I meant option 3, then I would have said option 3. There is no possible way to "misunderstand" 1 as 3.
• It seems obvious to me that the desire is to keep things vague so that the policy may be wielded on a case-by-case basis. I did not say this, nor do I think this (in fact I think the opposite, interpreting things on a "case-by-case basis" results in nothing but sealioning), nor is it a charitable "interpretation" of (really just making-shit-up-about) my words.
• It seems pretty clear that Gnomingstuff's !vote [...] is based on reading Option 1 as implying that Option 3 is already in effect. No, if I thought Option 3 was already in effect, I would have said that. As for my "comments here: Wikipedia_talk:Writing_articles_with_large_language_models#Proposed_reword", my comments were to tell you to stop vagueposting about unnamed individuals and attributing supposed radical opinions to them.

Gnomingstuff (talk) 17:16, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

People are referencing WP:IAR, it doesn't matter if NOLLM is interpreted as prohibiting using LLMs for formatting in all contexts or only when someone else can tell, the result is the same. This seems like textbook WP:CREEP to me Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 06:49, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

( peanut gallery comment) Just to make sure everyone is on the same page, AI here refers to LLMs. Technically, AI is used to power other tools on Wikipedia, such as reverting vandalism (ClueBot) or the Editor Suggestions tool (example), but that usually falls under machine learning and aren't usually as problematic as random editors asking LLMs to generate content since they are more refined and controlled. Hason-LEK-SIN ● 💬 ● 🧱 ● 🧪 23:08, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

I think the WP:NOLLM page may need to be restructured in a way that says:

1. If you are a new editor, DON'T.
   • If you are scared that the output you will give will be full of grammatical errors, or if it might not be allowed, be bold and do it it yourself. Someone will visit the page and help you fix it later, or revert it painlessly and tell you about what was wrong. Your human input is more valuable than AI generated content. I swear, I saw the "human input" part on one of our guideline pages before...
2. Once you have edited Wikipedia for long enough (typically extended-confirmed users), you are allowed to use AI for:
   1. Rough translation of articles to English,
   2. Basic copyediting, or
   3. Any other minor formatting fixes.
   • However, you should always review the output of the LLM before publishing your edits, to ensure that the content is still supported by the works cited (ie the meaning of the text has not changed).

Optionally, I also believes WP:AI needs to be a bit more detailed on how AI could be helpful other than writing articles from scratch (for example, Google AI Overviews), but that's another whole can of worms for another day to ensure that AI is still used "alongside our human knowledge/creativity, and not a replacement". Hason-LEK-SIN ● 💬 ● 🧱 ● 🧪 23:47, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Option 2 — with a narrow exception. I support explicitly permitting the use of LLMs to assist with Wikitext formatting, provided that the underlying substantive content has been independently written or verified by the editor.

There is an important distinction between using an LLM to generate encyclopedic content and using it as a syntax/formatting tool. For example, converting already-written prose into Wiki markup, formatting an existing citation into a citation template, correcting template/table syntax, or fixing markup errors does not necessarily involve delegating the creation of encyclopedic content to the LLM.

I would therefore support wording along these lines:

Editors may use LLMs to format or transform Wikitext syntax for content they have independently written or verified, provided that they review the output before publication and remain responsible for its accuracy, functionality, sourcing, and compliance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. This does not permit using an LLM to generate or substantially rewrite the substantive content of an article.

The key safeguard should be the distinction between formatting/syntax assistance and substantive content generation. An editor should remain responsible for checking every resulting edit, including citations, templates, links, and markup. This would also avoid treating all AI-assisted editing as equivalent when the actual nature of the assistance is quite different. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BasNamRahegaAllaKa (talk • contribs) 05:53, 29 September 2026 (UTC) BasNamRahegaAllaKa (talk) 05:54, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

Struck comment from sockpuppet. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:03, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

I don't think that's the right way of looking at it. To me it appears like the camps are in agreement that if LLM-use can be detected then you are violating the guideline. If it can't be detected, then who cares whether the guideline is to be interpreted as prohibiting or allowing it? Regardless of what the guideline says, for cases of LLM-use that we cannot detect the outcomes will always be the same as if we had chosen Option 2 here. –Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 21:03, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

There are actually more than just two camps, very broadly in no particular order:

1. LLM use should not be permitted at all as a matter of principle, whether we can detect it at all is not relevant. If someone admits to using it that's a violation and should be treated as such, even if we wouldn't have known if they'd said nothing.
2. LLM use should not be permitted at all, but if we can't detect it then it's not worth worrying about (but don't tell anyone that)
3. LLM use should ideally not be permitted at all, but if we can't detect it then it's not worth worrying about, and policy should be open about this.
4. LLM use should not be permitted at all, and it's ok if are inconsistent about how we treat stuff we can't detect and policy should allow this inconsistency.
5. Only LLM use that is actually problematic should be prohibited and policy should explicitly allow non-problematic uses, whether they are detectable or not.

Thryduulf (talk) 23:07, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

I think I'd see it a lot like the sockpuppetry policy. It is, for example, forbidden to use a sockpuppet to evade a block or ban. We realistically know, though, that if someone got blocked/banned, really did learn from that and changed their ways, and never got up to their old tricks again, chances are very good they'd never be caught (and realistically, that's probably going on as we speak). Nor would catching such an actually reformed sockpuppeteer particularly be a priority. But I would not want the sockpuppetry policy to say that, or to encourage it; it's just the reality of the situation. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 23:38, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

That's fair. I disagree on a couple of points, first the sock-puppetry policy does not leave it ambiguous as to whether that is permitted (it makes it clear it is not) even if it isn't usually enforced that way - the LLM policy does not make it clear either way. Secondly I don't think either policy should work that way - we should be explicit that if you aren't causing problems then you won't be blocked on a technicality so that those who do sanction on a point of principle know that this is not the community consensus. My main point above though was that not everybody is on the same page regarding what is desirable. Thryduulf (talk) 01:04, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

On the other hand, if you discovered a sock puppet editing uncomfortably close to their old ways and they dragged you through a long argument where they first denied that they were a sock puppet and forced you to prove that, then argued that their socking should be overlooked because they've changed and forced you to show a bunch of diffs proving they haven't, and then finally argued at length that their sockpuppetry is justified because they disagree with whatever policy led to their original block in the first place, your patience would probably wear thin, and if people who walked in on the tail end of a couple interactions like that proceeded to open multiple RFC saying that policy needs to more clearly state that we should only block sockpuppets who do bad things, that would be understandably frustrating. -- LWG ^{talk (VOPOV)} 02:24, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

There are exactly four possible scenarios here, none of which require an ambiguous policy:

1. Their contemporary editing is unproblematic and it's not clear they are a sockpuppet.

   No need to do anything - nobody benefits from sanctioning unproblematic editing.

2. Their contemporary editing is problematic and it's not clear they are a sockpuppet.

   Deal with the problematic editing as if they were a new user doing that. Bringing socking into it will not help.

3. Their contemporary editing is unproblematic and it is clear they are are sockpuppet.

   No need to do anything - nobody benefits from sanctioning unproblematic editing.

4. Their contemporary editing is problematic and it is clear they are a sockpuppet.

   Deal with them for both the problematic editing and for being a sock.

None of these circumstances requires ambiguous policies, inconsistent enforcement or policies to mean something other than what they say. The project gains no benefits from any of those things in any of those circumstances.

I understand that this will sometimes be frustrating to some editors, but policy does not and should not allow us to sanction editors just because they are frustrating. Thryduulf (talk) 10:20, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

An edit is policy compliant based on what lands in the edit window and is saved. — VPP (t/c) 02:46, 4 October 2026 (UTC)

I have no idea what you are trying to say here, nor how it relates to my comment? Thryduulf (talk) 11:25, 4 October 2026 (UTC)

Sorry - what I meant was you seemed to be getting at. At the end of the day, if what is "saved" is policy compliant, there's almost no possible way to sanction an editor for such an edit based on whatever happened to get that edit created before it reached Wikipedia, if the editor simply chooses to not say "how they work".

It's that implied nebulous thing here that makes me uneasy in so many of these comments. "No AI anywhere in the entire thought process pipeline," and "editors can be stopped if they seem TOO good at the Wikipedia game" or some similar vibes. I don't know what to make of it. — VPP (t/c) 21:01, 4 October 2026 (UTC)

The thing is that editors do sometimes disclose that they used AI at some point in the pipeline. I believe that everything other than what is saved should be completely irrelevant, but some other editors do not and believe that AI use at any point in the pipeline can and should result in sanctions. Thryduulf (talk) 21:11, 4 October 2026 (UTC)

the prohibition is on LLM-generated content, i.e. text produced by an LLM, there's nothing nebulous about that. Because LLMs are typically used habitually, AI cleanup tends to be focussed on a user's contributions within a certain time period rather than just individual edits in isolation. By extension, the focus is sometimes on how the LLM is used, in an effort to understand what we're looking at and ig address the crux of the problem. It's completely fine for people to use LLMs in their workflow for copyediting or research (along w other uses that aren't generating text), we even have an essay giving advice about those things, I'm not aware of anyone who thinks any kind of LLM use should be sanctionable and it seems to me like you're projecting (?) Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 21:22, 4 October 2026 (UTC)

The only nebulous thing is the subject of whatever you are vagueposting about. Name names. Provide names and diffs of the people who are producing "similar vibes" to editors can be stopped if they seem TOO good at the Wikipedia game or No AI anywhere in the entire thought process pipeline.

Can't do it? That's because "so many of these comments" are not saying this. The only people who have said anything close are Laxman, JyotiTheLightHouse (which is somewhat weird since there is evidence they are contributing AI-generated content themselves), and people who are not participating in this discussion like EEng. See, look how easy it was for me to name names? See how easy it is to not vaguepost? Gnomingstuff (talk) 13:55, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

Honestly my camp would be somewhere between 2 and 3:

LLM use should ideally not be permitted at all, but if we can't detect them (can't tell they used LLMs), then it's not worth worrying about (but don't tell anyone that).

I'm emphasising the underlined point because, as what @Chaotic Enby said, to avoid more wikilawyering (using a portion of the rules in a literal manner that goes against the rule's intended message), noting that a carveout for wikitext formatting may be used by editors arguing [...] that large content additions inside templates would be acceptable as only "wikitext" was edited, and [...] encourage editors to rely on AI to make such changes. Note: quotation edited for emphasis. Hason-LEK-SIN ● 💬 ● 🧱 ● 🧪 10:51, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

There is currently no agreement about what the rule's intended message is: Some believe the intent is to prohibit all AI use that isn't explicitly allowed, whether detectable or not. Others believe the intent is to prohibit prohibit only problematic AI use, with undetectable uses not being problematic. The current wording allows for people in both groups to claim that their interpretation is the correct one. Enforcement is thus inconsistent.

Separately there is also disagreement about whether explicitly allowing and/or not explicitly prohibiting something will or will not encourage people to wikilawyer about it and/or encourage people to do it. Thryduulf (talk) 11:16, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

While that makes sense in principle, I don't think it should be codified in an actual rule, very much for the reason you underline. People using LLMs are not necessarily the most qualified at realizing whether their LLM use will be detectable (or, more crucially, at spotting the errors their LLM use might introduce), and we don't want to give them false confidence that they can just sneak by.

In a way, all of our rules already operate that way: if you're editing about your company without disclosing it, but it's just fixing a broken template's formatting and no one will catch it, then it's not worrying about. But we don't make an exception for undisclosed paid editing about editing templates or wikitext, as it will only encourage people wanting to fudge company sales numbers in the infobox or add their manager in the "Key people" entry. Chaotic Enby (in solidarity · talk · contribs) 16:45, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

The comment I responded to said that there are editors voting to keep the policy as it is with the understanding that non-disruptive LLM-assisted Wikitext formatting will not get anyone in trouble. And we have another substantial set of editors arguing to keep the policy as it is with the understanding that any LLM-assisted Wikitext formatting should get editors in trouble. What I disputed was that is any difference in practice between the two camps that the comment I'm responding to have presented, not that there are different camps when it comes to how to phrase the guideline or even how the guideline should work, it was only in response to the comment I responded to. –Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 10:58, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

There is a very much a difference in practice between "doing this won't get editors in trouble" and "doing this should get editors in trouble" in this case because, as policy stands, an editor admitting to AI use but which is not detectable otherwise will sometimes get into trouble and sometimes won't depending whether the review thinks editors doing that should get into trouble or not. Thryduulf (talk) 11:10, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

But there isn't anything in the wording about whether it is detectable. To use an analogy, if you admit to fraud and no one would've caught it otherwise, you still suffer the consequences for it. The fact that undetected fraud will otherwise go unpunished doesn't matter in that calculation, beyond the fact that <not legal advice>if your goal is to not get caught, it's an odd calculation to confess to fraud that you know no one would've found out about otherwise</not legal advice>. Chaotic Enby (in solidarity · talk · contribs) 16:50, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

Plus, the determining factor in whether someone’s AI use is “detectable” is not always editor competency or advances in technology (GPT-5.6 on have actually kind of faceplanted into really obvious tells compared to predecessors) but whether the handful of people actively doing AI cleanup have gotten around to them yet.

For instance, in the LLM paste log are by now hundreds of people whose AI use is confirmed but “has not been detected” because there is too fucking much of it and only 24 hours in the day. Gnomingstuff (talk) 17:41, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

Which is precisely why I would rather not actually add any wording to the guideline about LLM-use being okay if nobody can tell you're doing it. An exception specifically for editors formatting Wikitext with an LLM with an output identical to what you would have done themselves and who then admit to doing it for some reason (which as I stated below is not something we should sanction regardless of what the guideline says) is going to encourage people to use LLMs more and then wikilawyer about it. –Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 22:17, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

I have thought of someone admitting to it out of the blue (I was going to include a clarification about this in my reply to you but I seem to have forgotten to do so), but I don't see it like you do here becaude I view an editor admitting to breaking a policy or guideline with no detectable impact on the Wiki, so no clean-up work and really nothing to actually be "fixed", as a simple case of WP:IAR; last I checked we don't enforce rules merely for the sake of enforcing them. Unless there is actually a problem with the substance edits there is nothing to sanction. –Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 22:09, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

There are two problems with this:

1) There is no way to violate WP:NOLLM without having a detectable impact on the Wiki.

2) If someone is unwilling to follow guidelines that they know full well are guidelines, then they probably shouldn't be here as they are demonstrating that they do not care about what people are asking of them. This is uncontroversially true with every other policy and guideline, and yet for some reason people think that the AI guideline is an exception. Gnomingstuff (talk) 21:10, 4 October 2026 (UTC)

1. The whole context of my comment is that there are editors who disagree with you, and that I think it is a disagreement with no practical relevance. You say that NOLLM cannot be violated without a detectable impact on the Wiki, others say that if you got an LLM to format wikitext exactly like you would have yourself then it is a violation to copy and paste that text instead of typing it out yourself.

2. I would argue that I'm treating NOLLM perfectly in line with other guidelines by saying that the purpose of the guideline is more important than the exact wording, and that common sense exceptions exist because of that. That's what it says at the top of every guideline page after all. That does not mean that I advocate for a relaxed view of NOLLM; none of what I have said entails giving any sort of excuse to an editor who has been detected using an LLM, nor more ammunition for wikilawyering. –Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 09:56, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

RfC: Allow autoconfirmed users to archive MfD pages, instead of being bot exclusive.

Can the MfD guidelines be changed to allow autoconfirmed users (or above) to archive non-controversial discussions? 🐴🌀^{[citation needed]} 04:26, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Reason

I have tried to archive pages by myself, but I might get into a bit of trouble, considering the guidelines mentioning that only bots can do it. I'm making this RfC because if this does get allowed, we wouldn't have closed discussions on the MfD page just sitting there, and would make newer discussions get more !votes, instead of being overshadowed by older closed discussions.

Thanks for cooperating in my RfC. From, 🐴🌀^{[citation needed]} 04:26, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

This RfC is premature. Before starting an RfC, try discussing it at WT:MFD. Axolitl (talk | contribs) 05:20, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Not to mention that RFC's should start with a neutral statement of the issue and not advocate for one side or the other. Also, this RFC was multi-posted at Wikipedia talk:Miscellany for deletion#RfC: Allow autoconfirmed users to archive MfD pages, instead of being bot exclusive.. This all started at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Issue with redirecting an MfD because the user was prevented from completing an MFD closure by an edit filter due to not being extended-confirmed, and then moved to this thread on my talk page. Graham87 (talk) 05:34, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Yea, I might have accidentally added too much requests on multiple pages. 🐴🌀^{[citation needed]} 06:06, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

I closed the RFC that was opened at WT:MFD per WP:MULTI. Chess enjoyer (talk) 06:31, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Oh, also, the relevant page is Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Administrator instructions. Graham87 (talk) 10:59, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

"Can the MfD guidelines be changed to allow autoconfirmed users (or above) to archive non-controversial discussions?" is a neutral question. The RFC process does not prohibit the OP from explaining why they're making a proposal, including giving reasons why they think the proposal is desirable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:11, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

I'll concede those points. I'm used to reading one-sentence RFC statements with more of the explanation in the initial !vote, but I realise now that that's not the only way. Graham87 (talk) 06:53, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Responses re Allow autoconfirmed users to archive MfD pages, instead of being bot exclusive

• This doesn't seem needed. Let the bot do its job in a predictable fashion. CMD (talk) 06:53, 20 September 2026 (UTC)
• Allow. Some people are more bothered by visual clutter than others. For the majority of Wikipedians who read fluently (and most of us do; the nature of Wikipedia means most editors are above-averagely literate and comfortable with large amounts of text), this is a non-issue. But decluttering has real benefits for some people, including but not limited to people with specific disabilities. There is no reason to prevent a Wikipedian from manually cleaning up if it helps them.—S Marshall T/C 09:37, 20 September 2026 (UTC)
  • @S Marshall: Closed discussions are already collapsed in show/hide boxes. As an example that works at the time of writing, see the entry for "September 18" in this edit of mine (which was ironically nixed by the archiving bot). Graham87 (talk) 10:12, 20 September 2026 (UTC)
    • I understand that. What I don't understand is why we should stop this volunteer from working in the way he wants to. Is he doing some kind of harm?—S Marshall T/C 13:13, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

      As a collaborative project, though, the preferences of one volunteer shouldn't be imposed upon all others. If a daily archiving cadence fits everyone else's workflow, then it's reasonable to stay with it. The custom CSS provided by OutsideNormality allows for individuals to decide to hide the sections in question. isaacl (talk) 17:21, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

      Indeed. Especially in this sort of case when a volunteer is working in an area they almost certainly don't understand sufficiently. To continue with the construction site analogy I used below, it's like radically reshaping a long-established construction site based on the whims of a rookie employee on their first day on the job. Graham87 (talk) 06:30, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

  • decluttering has real benefits for some people, including but not limited to people with specific disabilities. There is no need to manually archive the page (forcing everyone else to trawl through the archives to find the outcome of a recently closed discussion) when the following CSS I whipped up just now seems to work (although only for Parsoid, and doesn't remove empty section headers):

    section:is([aria-labelledby="Current_discussions"], [aria-labelledby="Old_business"]) section .mw-collapsible {
      display: none;
    }
    

    OutsideNormality (talk) 16:44, 20 September 2026 (UTC)
• Don't allow/leave it alone. Let the dedicated bot do its job as they have for many years now, since 2010. The XFD pages (and particularly those besides AFD) are not for inexperienced users to peruse and this sort of activity is highly unusual. Universal accessibility is very much essential in a completed building, not so much on a live construction site where only qualified workers tend to go. By this I *don't* mean that our accessibility guidelines shouldn't apply to non-article pages, just that unless we hear a complaint from an experienced Wikipedian who regularly peruses MFD (or if there's a significant minority who are put off by the discussions being live on a page for a little while), we shouldn't change how things are done. And, as I noted at the admins' noticeboard discussion that started this whole thing off, there's abuse filter 174 that stops non-extended-confirmed editors from removing MFD templates in the first place. Graham87 (talk) 10:26, 20 September 2026 (UTC)
  • As a counterexample, if we had an RFC saying "a few regular and experienced Wikipedians have complained that XXX Wikipedia namespace venue is impossible to load because of page size; let's explore solutions to make it easier for those people", I'd have absolutely no problem with that. But that's not what we have here. Graham87 (talk) 10:31, 20 September 2026 (UTC)
• No - We have a bot that does this. If you would like to propose that the bot act more frequently, that's fine, but it looks like the bot comes by after ... one day? Hard to think of a case where we'd need to move faster than that -- it's not like MfD is particularly busy these days. If the issue is readability of text clutter, that's more the fault of the voluminous instructions at the top of WP:MFD. It should be easy enough to create a custom page or propose to separate the list and the instructions. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:40, 20 September 2026 (UTC)
• Manual archiving imposes a burden on everybody that sees the diff and then goes to verify that the discussions were in fact archived correctly, instead of just being disappeared or having their results on the monthly archive page misrepresented. And there are people who check, because why else would someone do that when there's a bot to do it? And even if there were no Petty Nefarious Plot, there's plenty of room for error. It'd take a very extraordinary situation to be worth ignoring this rule, on the order of dozens of closed discussions from the same day. —Cryptic 00:30, 21 September 2026 (UTC)
• No Why make onlookers wonder if manual archiving was done correctly? What about time wasted when there is a disagreement about whether manual archiving was appropriate? Let the bot do its job until consensus shows there is a problem. Volunteering is good. Imposing one's ideas on others is not. Johnuniq (talk) 09:25, 21 September 2026 (UTC)
• No. Don't fix what isn't broken applies to too many proposals these days, this one included.Katzrockso (talk) 02:08, 26 September 2026 (UTC)
• "Allow, I am in favor of anything that deprecates the rampant, out-of-control, absolute plague on my existence that is archive bots Gnomingstuff (talk) 17:04, 2 October 2026 (UTC)
  • This particular bot archives in only very specialised venues and doesn't even close discussions, therefore making them uneditable (that's what editors, mostly admins do); it just removes them from pages. Also, I know you like undoing problematic edits from talk pages, but miscellany for deletion pages are exceedingly unlikely to be subject to the problems you're targetting. I think that archiving bots are sometimes overused or used too aggressively, but having witnessed many unusual forms of manual archiving over many years, I'd much rather that they existed than contemplate a return to a Wikipedia without them. Graham87 (talk) 12:21, 4 October 2026 (UTC)

Does the subject-matter-expert exception apply for a self-published review piece?

The background lore here is at Talk: Algospeak (book)#languagejones. But the core disagreement is based around the subject matter expert exception. Would a WP:self-published review by a subject matter expert be considered a WP:reliable source for the purpose of a review? guninvalid (talk) 18:53, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

A review is an opinion, and everybody is a reliable source for their own opinion. Primary sources are perfectly acceptable sources for attributed opinions. The question should be whether the review is DUE for inclusion? Has languagejones' review been noted by independent sources and/or by Aleksic (the author of the reviewed book)? That said, it could be argued that Aleksic and languagejones are peers in the field of online popular language videos so it would be a peer review rather than an academic review, which begs the question - is languagejones notable? They don't have an article (Taylor Jones is about a baseball player) - that could mean the answer is no or it could just mean nobody has created one yet.

If they are notable and the review has received independent coverage and/or a response from the author then I'd say the case for inclusion is very high. If they aren't notable and there has been no coverage or response then the case for inclusion is weak imo. As the review video only came out yesterday or the day before the coverage may be "not yet" rather than "no" (but that's WP:CRYSTAL). Thryduulf (talk) 19:23, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

WP:SPS covers this, if the expert has been previously published by an independent source as expert in the field then their selfpublished work might be considered reliable. He has a PhD in the relevant field and does appear to have published several journal articles particularly in regard to AAE. But as Thryduulf points out, the issue isn't reliability it's whether the content is due inclusion. Also be careful as BLPSPS would apply if the content is about the author rather than the book. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:04, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

On your last point, the video contains claims about both the author and the book, and some claims that are not easily pigeonholed as one or the other. Thryduulf (talk) 20:19, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

SPS is one of the few policies that's strict in the language it uses. Opinions may vary, but I wouldn't use it for anything that could be considered BLP related. So I would avoid using it unless it's for content that's clearly only about the book. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:52, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

WP:OCLOCATION

Hi, is it against WP:OCLOCATION to include any New Jersey-related categories in Odeya Rush's article? A related discussion can be seen at Talk:Odeya Rush#Categories. Thanks in advance, Thedarkknightli (talk) 05:47, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

For further context, it was suggested that a conversation be started regarding changing OCLOCATION, if that is what is desired. I think it is clear that Rush's being raised in Jersey is not defining as to her career. voorts (talk/contributions) 13:20, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

The core problem is that editors who have a strong connection to (X place) often think being born and raised in (X place) IS defining… usually because they consider being raised in that place defining for themselves. Blueboar (talk) 15:46, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

Yes, that's what the guideline says. The question that these editors are asking is whether it should say that. voorts (talk/contributions) 15:47, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Capitalization of Internet § Request for comment: Should a capital "i" be used for "Internet"?

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Capitalization of Internet § Request for comment: Should a capital "i" be used for "Internet"?. Qwerty123M (talk) 08:46, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Towards a guideline on infobox contents

I'm thinking about what information an infobox should contain, and in what level of detail.

Infoboxes are fraught topics on Wikipedia. For the benefit of anyone newer, and as a reminder to others, I ought to link WP:ARBINFOBOX and WP:ARBINFOBOX2 here.

We already have a rule about infobox contents which is MOS:IBP. I think the key sentences are the third and fourth, which say:

The less information that an infobox contains, the more effectively it serves its purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance. Some infoboxes need to use more than a handful of fields, but information should be presented in a short format wherever possible, and should exclude unnecessary content.

I think we don't consistently follow that guidance at the moment. We tend to allow infobox bloat and giving needless amounts of detail, and that's particularly a problem when viewing infoboxes on mobile screens.

I would like to propose three possible changes for your consideration. They aren't mutually exclusive.

1. Infoboxes should have a reasonably prominent "collapse infobox" button in the header.
2. Infoboxes should have a "skip to text" button that takes you directly to the first paragraph of prose.
3. Except in biographies, infoboxes should give people's names as surname-only, wherever it would be unambiguous to do so.

The third rule would have obvious exceptions for people with non-standard name format.

What would this look like?

Military conflict

Collapse infobox - Skip to text Battle of Dunkirk
Part of the Battle of France in the Second World War
"Soldiers from the British Expeditionary Force fire at low flying German aircraft during the Dunkirk evacuation" – Soldiers were strafed and bombed by German aircraft
Date 26 May – 4 June 1940 Location Dunkirk, France Result See aftermath
Belligerents
United Kingdom France Belgium Netherlands	Germany
Commanders and leaders
Weygand Blanchard Prioux Abrial Lord Gort Bertram Ramsay Brooke Adam Tennant	von Brauchitsch Göring von Rundstedt von Kleist von Kluge von Bock von Küchler
Strength
approx. 400,000 338,226 evacuated	approx. 800,000
Casualties and losses
Estimated total casualties 61,774 killed, wounded, or captured French 18,000 killed 40,000 prisoners 3 destroyers British c. 3,500 killed c. 41,000 prisoners 63,879 vehicles including tanks and motorcycles 2,472 field guns 6 destroyers 23 destroyers damaged 89 transport ships 177 aircraft destroyed or damaged in total 127 belonged to RAF Fighter Command.	Estimated total casualties 20,000 killed or wounded 100 tanks 240 aircraft in theatre 156 aircraft on Dunkirk front
Civilian casualties: 2,000 (1,000 killed in air raids, at least 1,000 lost on the HMT Lancastria)

Sources

Song

Note that the two McVies are disambiguated by their initials.

"Collapse infobox - Skip to text The Chain"
Song by Fleetwood Mac
from the album Rumours
Released	4 February 1977
Recorded	1976
Genre	Rock
Length	4:28
Label	Warner Bros.
Songwriters	Buckingham Fleetwood C. McVie J. McVie Nicks
Producers	Fleetwood Mac Ken Caillat Richard Dashut

Sources

Context

This proposal was inspired partly by a discussion with User:Emiya1980.

Your thoughts, please?—S Marshall T/C 11:32, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

Discussion

Off the top of my head:

1. How would this interact with MOS:COLLAPSE?
2. A "skip to text" button wouldn't make much sense in contexts where the infobox and prose are side-by-side, this would need to be a narrow screens only thing, mobile only is probably a reasonable proxy for this if the former isn't possible (I think the latter is but I'm not sure). It seems reasonable if it is possible, but I think "skip to prose" or something would be better than "skip to text" as most of most infoboxes are also text.
3. While this might work in articles where everyone mentioned in the infobox uses a "firstname surname" name and there are no repeated surnames or people best known by a name other than their surname, but there are going to be very many articles where that isn't the case. Any infobox that mixes full names and surnames could very easily get confusing. It will also lead to inconsistencies between articles, work needed if someone needs to be added to an infobox for whom surname only isn't appropriate when previously everyone was, and potential disputes around edge cases (e.g. does two people with Spanish names who share the same first surname but have different second surnames mean that firstnames should be used or both surnames, what about any other people in the infobox?). All this for something that doesn't actually save that much space, makes me think this is not the best idea.

Thryduulf (talk) 12:11, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

I don't normally edit in this area but my read of MOS:COLLAPSE is that this is allowable, if somewhat discouraged, as long as article content is not collapsed by default and certain other principles are adhered to. I know some infoboxes have sections that are in fact collapsed by default, which is described at MOS:COLLAPSE. I most often see this with {{Infobox Chinese}}, for example the usage at Cantonese and Hong Kong. I find this approach sensible. I say that as someone who is quite interested in the collapsed content but realizes it is over the top for many readers. If collapsed sections are allowable, I don't see why a reader-driven option to collapse can't be provided. Alternatively or in addition, collapsed sections could be introduced into more of the most bloated infoboxes. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 02:12, 4 October 2026 (UTC)

• See my second example where I address the repeated surnames point. I am unconcerned about whether we phrase it as "skip to prose" instead of "skip to text" and I have no preference there. Non-standard name formats would be an exception for the time being.—S Marshall T/C 12:32, 2 October 2026 (UTC)
• Oppose: I’ve already explained my reasoning for why I oppose the “surnames-only” approach to infoboxes (specifically with regards to the Battle of Dunkirk page) . Moreover, For similar reasons, I don’t think the other two proposals sound like good ideas either. Emiya1980 (talk) 18:43, 2 October 2026 (UTC)
• One thing that we do badly imo is political party infoboxes and the |position= parameter (|ideology= used to get bloated with policy positions but that's less common now). IBP says An infobox is unsuitable for nuance or detail and should generally avoid prose or prose-like statements. If information cannot be simply stated in an infobox without explanation or qualification, it probably doesn't belong in the infobox.. Yet we frequently engage in synthesis wrt a party's position on the political spectrum, where if sources disagree on the position we synthesise them to say X to Y (eg. centre-right to right wing). It's also just intellectually bereft, there's no framework for establishing a party's position on the spectrum and scholars usually avoid using such terms/reductions (if they do, it's just a passing mention), so we end up relying on media sources. So much community time gets wasted on disputes about this parameter, idk whether we should have stricter rules (a la Template:Infobox military conflict's |result= parameter) or just deprecate it entirely. Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 13:41, 3 October 2026 (UTC)
• Whatever we do, can we find some way to stop people from including every single technically applicable ideology in the type= or ideology= parameter, even when they're 99% synonymous and don't appear in the body of the article. Like yes I'm sure the neo-Nazi group is anti-LGBT anti-black anti-immigration white nationalist white supremacist. Do we need to specify all of them in the "summarize major aspects box"? Can that not be logically and most defilingly conveyed by the broadest, most common descriptor used by sources? Do we need to shove as many bigotry adjectives into the reader's eyes as is humanly possible? It's like every article like this and trying to remove even 1 massively redundant one is like pulling teeth. This is not what infoboxes are for. PARAKANYAA (talk) 00:22, 4 October 2026 (UTC)

  If anyone wants to see what I consider the magnum opus of infobox cruft, please see this nightmare (warning, sensitive topic vis-a-vis violence and bigotry) This article was like this for years. PARAKANYAA (talk) 00:27, 4 October 2026 (UTC)

  However, I strongly oppose 3. Terrible idea. Why would we do that? Full names are a basic fact. PARAKANYAA (talk) 00:30, 4 October 2026 (UTC)

• A name restriction is not going to run into all sorts of issues for the "Non-standard name formats" (not a great euphemism). However, a collapse/skip to talk, I assume for mobile, seems a great idea. CMD (talk) 01:59, 4 October 2026 (UTC)

Surnames

One downside of using surnames only is that it makes it harder to search for people. A fairly common occurrence is that a non-notable individual—or someone who is probably notable but doesn't have an article yet—is mentioned in multiple articles. For example, an actor or producer who is credited in many works that have Wikipedia articles. The names may also appear in the body of the text but sometimes appear only in the infobox. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 14:56, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

I don't think omitting first names is really the solution here. Where an infobox is excessively lengthy, in my experience the problem is usually the inclusion of unnecessary fields, not a few extra first names. In the example infoboxes you give specifically, the existing infobox for "The Chain" looks fine to me (and checking some other songs at random, I can't find one I'd consider clearly too long). The one for Battle of Dunkirk could stand to be shortened, IMO, but abbreviating the names of the commanders won't make a huge difference; the two obvious areas to trim it are to tighten up the list of commanders (none of the French officers, nor Walther von Brauchitsch, appear to be mentioned in the body of the article – are they all important enough to need listing in the infobox?) and the enumeration of casualties (for instance, do we really need to list both the total number of British planes destroyed or damaged, and the number of RAF Fighter Command planes destroyed or damaged, as separate entries?)

In my experience, the worst offenders for overlong infoboxes are politicians' articles, where every office they have ever held takes up multiple rows of text – at least four for the name of the office, the dates, and the person's predecessor and successor, and in many cases more. Again, reducing names to surname only would not make a significant impact on the problem, and would come at the cost of making them less legible at a glance – when I see that David Cameron was preceded as party leader by Michael Howard I instantly know who that is; if I only saw Howard it would take me slightly longer to process as I remembered who that was. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:57, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

This is a good point. Removing surnames seems at odds with the aim of allowing readers to identify [and make sense of] key facts at a glance. All the piped links will also add a lot of markup. This makes it just that much more cumbersome to edit the most bloated infoboxes. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 16:55, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

Collapse/skip infoboxes

On the desktop/wider screens, what's the point in skipping to the text? We're talking about "skipping" to text that is already visible. Just to be clear, here's what a Wikipedia article with an infobox looks like:

A screenshot of the Wikipedia biography of Annie Rauwerda

"Skipping" from the infobox to the beginning of the text means "skipping" to the other side of the screen, at the same height. We're talking about having a big button at the top of the infobox, where it says "Annie Rauwerda" in big, bold text, so we can "skip" to the first line of the article, where it says "Annie Rauwerda (/ˈraʊ.ərdə/; born November 27, 1999) is an American internet personality, journalist, and comedian known for Depths of Wikipedia".

In other words, the proposal appears to be a button to "skip" to text that is (a) already visible to the reader, (b) looks to most readers like it comes before the infobox, and (c) won't actually move anything on the screen, so it will seem like the button is broken.

The mobile site is a completely different set up. For one thing, the layout there is first paragraph–infobox–second paragraph, so you'd have to decide whether the point is to get back to the first paragraph or to skip past the infobox so you can actually get to the second paragraph.

Maybe if you could describe the actual problem, in somewhat more detail than "We tend to allow infobox bloat and giving needless amounts of detail", we could find a sensible solution. Try the user story format, e.g., "As a reader using the mobile site on a small iPhone, I have to scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll to get past all those numbers in {{chembox}}, and my arthritis starts acting up before I can even get to the second sentence in Limonene." WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:42, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Permit usage of LLMs for user pages and image captions

Hi, one suggestion for Wikipedia is to permit usage of large language models for editing their own user pages if they have an account, or for image captions for multimodal LLMs like GPT-4o, with human checking.

3 Possible options for the suggestion:

- Option 1: Status quo (same as WP:NOLLM right now)

- Option 2: Permit it, while checking it.

- Option 3: Prohibit it. FoxTPNL (talk) 23:04, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

I have removed 'RFC' from the title above, because this is not a valid RfC - no prior discussion has taken place. I'll also note that 'it' is two entirely different proposals - one regarding user pages, and another regarding image captions. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:22, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

Prior discussion is not required before starting an RFC. However, you do have to actually start an RFC, which involves a lot more than just typing 'RFC' in the section heading. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:46, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

4: No, no, and let's have a moratorium on proposals to make our already-way-too-permissive-in-practice guidelines even laxer in any way. —Cryptic 23:30, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

• Meh… I would say “option 1 - status quo” for user pages (I just don’t see the point of using an LLM on one’s user page - except in the limited ways we have already discussed to death) - and I would lean towards “option 3 - no LLMs” for image captions (Too many hallucinations). Blueboar (talk) 23:35, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

Is there a particular image caption that prompted this discussion? CMD (talk) 23:42, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

• I'd say option 2 for user pages (not including userspace drafts or other pages intended to be moved outside userspace) - if you want to use an LLM to write your own userpage then as long as it's clearly not article and complies with general policies on what you can and can't have on a userpage, then I see absolutely no reason why you shouldn't be allowed to. Regarding image captions, why should they be treated differently to any other bit of article text? Thryduulf (talk) 00:05, 7 October 2026 (UTC)
• WP:NOLLM applies to articles, not user pages. So Option 2 is the status quo. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:43, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Seems like two very different questions tangled up into one? I'm not sure about user pages but I'd say Option 1 for image captions. Todepond (talk) 08:05, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

"Overview" sections and MOS:LEAD

Following discussions at WT:FA and about a proposed bot task (joined by @Phuzion, Zackmann08, Nikkimaria, Z1720, Ian Rose, and Johnbod:), I would like to establish broader community consensus concerning sections entitled "Overview".

The problem: WP:LEAD says that "The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic", while MOS:INTRO specifically instructs editors to "Provide an accessible overview". However, roughly 55,000 articles have a section entitled simply "Overview". When such a section serves as a general overview of the article's subject rather than covering a clearly defined subtopic, it duplicates the function assigned to the lead section by the Manual of Style.

Current solution: The guideline and basic solution seem pretty clear. Such sections should be merged into the lead and/or other appropriate sections, or retitled to describe their actual scope. This is also precisely the rationale of Template:Overview section, created by User:Sdkb as a maintenance template for articles where this problem exists. That template states:

This overview section duplicates the intended purpose of the article's lead section, which should provide an overview of the subject. Please merge it with the introduction, move its content to other sections, or retitle the section to give it a clear scope.

The template is included in Template:Introduction cleanup templates, which is itself linked from Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section, and is also listed at Wikipedia:Template index/Cleanup. However, the template was created with no discussion I am aware of either before or since, and its actual use has remained extremely limited. Currently, only about 30 articles out of the affected tens of thousands include it.

Proposed advanced solution: The immediate reason for seeking broader consensus is that I subsequently proposed having a bot add {{Overview section}} to all the relevant sections in all articles with such headings (i.e. to all such headings in main space), as nobody has so far been able to identify any case where such a section might be warranted and not be pointless (either being a second lead or just being mistitled). However, before a large-scale tagging operation, it is best practice to verify clear community consensus - hence this post.

In particular, it would be good to affirm the following:

1. A section entitled "Overview" that provides a general overview of the article's subject and thereby functions as a second lead is inconsistent with the division of functions described at MOS:LEAD.
2. Such a section should normally be merged into the lead and/or appropriate body sections, or retitled when its content actually covers a more specific topic.
3. {{Overview section}} is an accepted maintenance template for flagging cases where an "Overview" section duplicates the function of the lead and should be used where that problem is present.
4. Therefore, all such sections should be tagged with this template.

Thoughts? In particular, it would be good to see if anyone can find any false positives, i.e. any cases where an Overview section might be warranted aside from the lead (which, after all, is the MOS-mandated overview section). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:52, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

I have not come across an Overview section that was ideal. That said, I would not put lead merging as the primary possible outcome, text is often better distributed within the body, so I'd prefer a tweak to place that last before widespread use. CMD (talk) 02:26, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Fair point - fine with me. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:31, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

As people have said at the bot request, dumping a template at the top of 55,000 articles is probably not a good idea. Most of them will be there for years. Typically, sorting this out will just involve fiddling with headings rather than actual text changes. Is it really worth it on a mass basis? Johnbod (talk) 02:36, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

I don't necessarily object to tagging 55,000 articles. The tag exists for a reason. Without it, people may not realize there is an issue needing fixing. For example, without the thread that started this, I never would have even known that Overviews were a no-no... Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 02:39, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

(edit conflict) At first blush this seems ok, but I think it needs a little more thought first. My first thought was to wonder whether there are any false positives? A very superficial search found one that probably is: Statistics of the COVID-19 pandemic in Thailand#Overview and one (Earnings before interest and taxes#Overview) that might or might not be, or at least definitely should not be merged with the lead (I have no idea if the section could be better titled). Neither of those sections immediately follow the lead, so that is probably worth looking at in more detail (a sample size of two is not sufficient, but I have no idea how to restrict a search based on where in an article a section is).

This should definitely only apply to sections titled exactly "Overview". Longer section names containing the word (e.g. Overview and Scrutiny#Overview and Scrutiny in England) do not seem relevant to this issue. It's possible this will miss some (e.g. a section titled things like "article overview", although there don't appear to be any sections with that exact name in the mainspace), but if so there shouldn't be many. Thryduulf (talk) 02:59, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

On this latter point, Second-wave feminism contains sections "Overview in the United States" and "Overview outside the United States". It's not immediately clear to me how they relate to the overview section issue? Thryduulf (talk) 03:07, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Well, indeed. But these are rather typical in that the word "overview" could just be cut. Johnbod (talk) 03:19, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Looking at a few from this search sometimes it could be cut, sometimes it can't be (e.g. renaming Game theory#Overview and terminology to just "terminology" would be misleading). In other cases it could be renamed or removed, but there doesn't seem to be any benefit to doing so, eg. Dependent territory#Overview of inhabited dependent territories is an accurate description of that section, more accurate and useful than "List of..." and selecting a synonym for "overview" seems like pointless busywork for no benefit. Thryduulf (talk) 03:29, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

To be clear, the bot would just be tagging the sections, most of which appear to be problematic for one reason or another, then human would eventually determine whether we need a merger to lead, or another section, or retitle. And yes, the bot would only tag pure "Overview" section, not any variations, to avoid the expected slippery slope. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:29, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

If an article has an overview section, at least to me that should show intent of how the article is structured, or how the reader should use the article, not repeating the lede. That said, our article writing style and aspects related to summary style and size, this really shouldn't be needed, the structure should be immediately apparent from headings. Masem (t) 03:06, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

I think this would have too many false positives. For instance, let's look at Roblox. An overview section that's about a dozen paragraphs describing what Roblox is. The rest of the article has 20 odd paragraphs dedicated to the history, then there are a few paragraphs describing significant but non-essential aspects of Roblox, then we have 8 or so paragraphs of what people think about Roblox. The overview section is warranted in that case IMO. It could be renamed if one so desired, but not really a maintenance tag issue. An article I am the primary author of, Neuro-sama, also uses essentially the same structure. 1brianm7 (talk) 03:42, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

@1brianm7 Then that's just bad choice of heading name. Overview means the lead. If you think the sections are valid, how would you retitle them, keeping mind what MOS:INTRO says? The purpose of a the lead is to provide an overview, an article doesn't need two sections that have the same, implied or explicit, heading. Based on what I see in the two articles you linked, the correct heading would likely be "Characteristics", although it is also clear some content is redundant to other sections. For example, in Neuro-same, the Overview starts by saying the character was created by Vedal; the very same claim is then repeated in the next paragraph on History, and is already in the lead. Effectively that article has a lead, then a second longer lead, then the body. One lead (one overview) per article should suffice. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:35, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

It might be a bad choice of section heading, but that indicates that we shouldn't mindlessly apply the same maintenance template to all 55,000 articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:50, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for opening this and for the ping, Piotrus! I don't have a strong view about this as a bot task — as others have noted, there are likely to be a meaningful number of situations where all that's needed is changing the heading (in which case the disruption of the banner is probably a net negative weighed against the actual issue) and perhaps a few straight-up false positives. We have to weigh that against the many many situations where the banner would be fully justified.

That said, if we don't ultimately find consensus to tag by bot, I do think this is an excellent AWB task, and I hope some editors are inspired to take it up Sdkb ^talk 04:47, 7 October 2026 (UTC)