Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

The miscellaneous section of the village pump is used to post messages that do not fit into any other category. Please post on the policy, technical, or proposals sections when appropriate, or at the help desk for assistance. For general knowledge questions, please use the reference desk.

Discussions are automatically archived after remaining inactive for a week.

« Archives, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81

An improved dashboard for the Content Translation tool

Hello Wikipedians,

The Language and Product Localization team has improved the Content Translation dashboard to create a consistent experience for all contributors using mobile and desktop devices. Below is a breakdown of important information about the improvement.

What are the improvements?
The improved translation dashboard allows all logged-in users of the tool to enjoy a consistent experience regardless of their type of device. With a harmonized experience, logged-in desktop users can now access the capabilities shown in the image below.

Does this improvement change the current accessibility of this tool in this Wikipedia?
The Content translation tool will remain in beta; therefore, only logged-in users who activated the tool from the beta features will continue to have access to the content translation tool. Also, if the tool is only available to a specific user group, it will remain that way.

When do we plan to implement this improvement?
We will implement it on your Wikipedia and others by 24th, March 2025.

What happens to the former dashboard after we implement the improvement?
You can still access it in the tool for some time. We will remove it from all Wikipedias by May 2025, as maintaining it will no longer be productive.

Where can I test this improvement and report any issues before it is implemented in this Wiki?
You can try the improved capabilities in the test wiki using this link: https://test.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:ContentTranslation&campaign=contributionsmenu&to=es&filter-type=automatic&filter-id=previous-edits&active-list=suggestions&from=en#/

If you notice an issue related to the improved dashboard in the test wiki, please let us know in this thread and ping me, or report it in Phabricator, adding these tags: BUG REPORT and ContentTranslation.

Please ask us any questions regarding this improvement. Thank you!

On behalf of the Language and Product Localization team. UOzurumba (WMF) (talk) 17:56, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the update! —Ganesha811 (talk) 21:03, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This isn’t related to the improvement, but about the content translation dashboard, do you know if there’s any way to get it to stop autofilling new paragraphs with the foreign-language text? Currently when I click “add paragraph” it automatically copies the French text, presumably as an alternative to machine translation, which I must then delete. It would be useful to be able to disable this, as en WP has disabled machine translation, and obviously having French in the final En article is not helpful. Mrfoogles (talk) 15:31, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Mrfoogles, there is a feedback button in Special:ContentTranslation. You might try using that.

Alternatively, perhaps some system could be set up to allow trusted users access to machine translation, which would help with (e.g.,) links. Send me an e-mail message if you'd like to know how to get machine translation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:27, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Misrepresentation of Wikipedia

Google is misrepresenting Wikipedia with its answer to the search "how did james cook die". When I performed this search, the fourth simple textual response said
"He died of tuberculosis on 22 August 1779 and John Gore, a veteran of Cook's first voyage, took command of Resolution and of the expedition. James King ..."
This is headed up with the Wikipedia logo and the url to the article. The first search hit is Wikipedia with the correct cause of death, linking to Death of James Cook, whilst the erroneous "tuberculosis" is taken from a misreading of James Cook.

My immediate reaction is that Google are misrepresenting Wikipedia with this incorrect reading of a perfectly well-written article. What is the response of Wikipedia to this sort of thing? ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 20:11, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia has no responsibility for and, moreover, no control over Google or any website or anybody misrepresenting or misinterpreting what they read on Wikipedia, especially when Wikipedia itself doesn't have consistent information. It's a combination of "not our problem" and "who has time for that?". You can always send a correction to Google yourself, but good luck with that. Google Nick Lazzarini (a dancer), and Google will present the beginning of Wikipedia's article on him and then inform you that his spouse is Elizabeth Lazzarini. This information appeared in his article when a vandal put it there in January 2014 (also changing his birth year to 1944 in a subsequent edit), and stayed there till someone removed it in January 2015. Here we are 10 years later, and Google hasn't gone back for a refresh.

I sent Google a correction years ago but obviously nothing came of it. Largoplazo (talk) 20:51, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just to be clear, there is nothing wrong with the facts stated in either Wikipedia article dealing with James Cook. This is simply a case of google's AI not being very intelligent. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 08:06, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have contacted Google about the James Cook issue. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 08:15, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is a 'large gap' between the date and the actual cause of his death in the James Cook article. This probably led to the error. Secondly, ", who" instead of ". He" in the 'Aftermath' section might have prevented the error. Riteze 12:22, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

W._B._Yeats has an RfC

W._B._Yeats has an RfC for possible consensus. Infoboxes have been a highly contentious topic in the past so getting more comments would be helpful to help find a consensus. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. It can be found under the heading RFC: Infobox writer proposal. - Nemov (talk) 14:43, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback wanted on Wikidata in Watchlist and Recent Changes

Hello everyone,

We are looking for a few Wikipedians to speak with us about their experiences looking at Wikipedia watchlist and recent changes lists. We are especially interested in your understanding and interpretation of the information displayed when the edits are caused by Wikidata.

The format will be a roughly 1-hour long interview with our UX researcher and conducted in English, compensation is available.

If you would like to participate, please register your interest as a reply to this post or on our Talk_page and we will shortly be in touch.

Thank you, - Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 12:50, 25 March 2025 (UTC) (posting on behalf of the Wikidata for Wikimedia Projects team)[reply]

Wait… I thought we had consensus that edits should NEVER be caused by Wikidata. Or am I misinterpreting what is being discussed? Blueboar (talk) 13:18, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So can I claim compensation for talking about nothing for an hour? Phil Bridger (talk) 13:26, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ha, well we certainly wouldn't fill the hour with silence, but would have a series of questions and visuals about the information that is currently shown from those watchlist entries caused by a Wikidata edit. You absolutely do not need to be a Wikidata-expert to participate, but we do welcome a cross-section of experience. Feel free to reach out with any more questions -Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 13:49, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

These entries caused by Wikidata in your Wikipedia Watchlist or the Recent Changes list can be triggered by a number of ways, including but not limited to:

adding, removing or changing
- a language link
- a badge
- Wikidata item label, description and/or alias
- a claim (Property and/or value-pair)
connecting or disconnecting an article to a Wikidata item

Wikidata edits in the watchlist are not visible by default. To include them, you can toggle them from your preferences/watchlist/advanced options section.

Alternatively, a toggle can also be found under the Filters dropdown in the Type of change section, directly from your Watchlist/Recent Changes page. -Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 13:43, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It won't take up an hour, but as an initial piece of feedback, enabling the watchlist toggle means every wikidata change is displayed separately, as opposed to the (default) article behaviour of only showing the most recent edit, which can absolutely wreck watchlists. For example, if I currently enable the toggle, my watchlist is a wall of changes to wikidata:Q9027, apparently because Nordic Council is on my watchlist(?). CMD (talk) 15:38, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the feedback @Chipmunkdavis. Just curious, do you also use the 'Group changes by page in recent changes and watchlist' feature (from Preferences > Recent Changes)to counter that? Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 15:53, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well no, I didn't. Why is an option for watchlist customisation in the recent changes tab rather than the watchlist tab, and why is its default setting the opposite of what would be implied by the existing watchlist toggle "Expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent"? Questions and anecdote for the UX team. I might give it a try with that enabled. CMD (talk) 15:59, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Great questions, alas I don't have the answers for you, but I do hope that function improves things for you if you try it out, thanks again for your thoughts. Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 17:13, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My watchlist is ok on desktop, where the multiple changes to a Wikidata item are rolled up under a clickable right-pointing triangle, but I know what you mean on my phone/Minerva, where I spend more time these days and where the watchlist can be an unsummarised mass of property value and reference changes to a single item. That's where I look forward to discussing th euser experience... AllyD (talk) 16:01, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have this disabled because I don't edit Wikidata anyway, but also because it is mostly useless (as in, you know something has changed, but that's the end of the useful information). If I would get instead of "(diff | hist) . . Dm Michael Buxton (Q133464990); 03:08 . . AntiCompositeNumber (talk | contribs) (‎Created claim: Property:P106: Q1642960)" the actual values of the P and Q numbers, I might have an idea whether I should check if I were so inclined. And then there are pure errors, like this appearing twice in my watchlist. It's also confusing that "(diff | hist) . . Dm Wikipedia:Authority control (Q76); 14:03 . . Prototyperspective (talk | contribs) (‎Created claim: Property:P12361: barackobama.bsky.social)" is given as a change to Authority Control, when it is a change to Barack Obama (yes, Obama = Q76, but that's not really something I know for every article on my watchlist).

I thought this option was restricted so only changes which impact enwiki were shown (say, things which would appear in an infobox), but this is no longer the case?

I have no idea what the line "(diff | hist) . . Dm User:Andrawaag (Q31); 18:28 . . RVA2869 (talk | contribs) (‎Set [nl] aliases: Koninkrijk België, Belgie, BE, BEL, 🇧🇪, be)" does in my watchlist: the diff goes to [1]. Similarly, I get 6 changes like "(diff | hist) . . Dm User:Saarik (Q95592946); 08:06 . . Saarik (talk | contribs) (‎Removed claim: Property:P8687: 45)" which are changes to a Wikidata article, not a Wikidata user page([2])

I get "(diff | hist) . . Dm Help:Authority control (Q414110); 09:28 . . Ham II (talk | contribs) (‎Changed [cy] label, description and aliases: Akademie der Künste Berlin, amgueddfa yn yr Almaen, Academi Celfyddydau Berlin, Academi y Celfyddydau, Berlin, Academi Celfyddydau, Berlin)" which is not a change to Help:Authority control but this.

So I stopped looking for further issues and now know again why I disabled this years ago already. Fram (talk) 16:32, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh wow, thank you for all the feedback and examples, this is very helpful. Addressing the techno-babble and jargon to those unfamiliar with Wikidata terminology is something we would like to improve. Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 17:21, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

More than 29,000 accounts compromised

WMF and User:AntiCompositeNumber has discovered and locked more than 29,000 compromised accounts. See m:Special:Log/WMFOffice. GZWDer (talk) 10:50, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Additional information? How were they compromised? What kind of damage was done? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:08, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, please. A simple statement like "accounts using 2FA were not affected" would be helpful. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:05, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all. Yes, this is something we (WMF) are aware of and responding to. You can find more information on the Meta-wiki page m:Wikimedia Foundation/March 2025 discovery of account compromises; please add any questions on the talkpage there, keeping in mind that we cannot share some details for wp:beans/security/etc reasons. Also yes, confirming Bri is correct that accounts with 2fa were not affected. Thanks, Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:17, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

File:Liverpool FC.svg

Hi ,why this user publicated this logo (File:Liverpool FC.svg) for 2 articles, regarding the Wikipedia:Non-free content ,for logos used for 1 article but why the user publicated this logo for 2 articles?? (Google translator) AbchyZa22 (talk) 13:53, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

CAPTCHA

Somebody needs to shout this out loud.

MOST ASSISTIVE READERS CANNOT PASS THE NEW CAPTCHA TEST, BLOCKING ALL SUCH EDITORS FROM THEIR ACCOUNTS. PERSISTENT RANGEBLOCKS COVERING THINGS LIKE THE VODAFONE GATEWAY PREVENT EVEN IP ACCESS FOR MANY.

In protest, I am totally off-wiki from this moment on, unless and until this abuse of the disadvantaged ends. So no point in your replying to me personally. (Though I have passed a suggestion for a workable captcha to phabricator).

— Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:36, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the details of the new captcha test, the affected screen readers, and the phab ticket. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:45, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Presumably the appropriate Phab link is phab:T6845#10686296, which is a new comment on a very old ticket. Anomie ⚔ 13:11, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Per phab:T6845#10686370, sounds like they're about to turn it off. –Novem Linguae (talk) 13:28, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hey @ScottishFinnishRadish, I wanted to clarify that this particular change wasn't related with the tests. It was a separate decision, more like a one-off, that's also why we didn't check all accessibility consequences and rolled back that easily. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 23:26, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think that this should serve as a reminder to many people (including me) that accessibility is not a "nice-to-have" afterthought, but that systems are unusable to many people when it is not designed in from the start. Phil Bridger (talk) 14:16, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hey everyone, thanks for the comments above. We implemented CAPTCHA as a quick security measure: T390197 IPReputation: Support showing a CAPTCHA on Special:UserLogin and T379178 Support captcha as part of login flow (not just on "badlogin"). Given that it has an accessibility tradeoff, we did decide to roll it back. We will try to figure out a better way of securing logins keeping accessibility in mind. Thank you! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 18:16, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the prompt rollback. As something to work towards, may I suggest offering the alternative of 2FA by sending a confirmation code to the account's registered email address. Not perfect, as email is nowadays frowned on as less secure than phone nonsense, and some editors may not have registered, but better than what we have at the moment. Even more basic but a key part of the UX should be to add an accompanying caption stating that it is only a temporary measure; this would help inform those few who are locked out, meaning they will take it with far better grace than, say, I did. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 17:58, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As it happens, we're working on that now and hope to have it deployed in some form soon, hopefully later this week T390437: Deploy Extension:EmailAuth. :)

I'm sorry for the issues we caused with deploying the CAPTCHA in this way, and thank you for speaking up about it. KHarlan (WMF) (talk) 18:54, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Edit count of users blocked as LLMs increasing 10x per year

Please see this WT:LLM discussion.

Cramulator (talk) 01:37, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Can I get credit for predicting this at Wikipedia:Eleventy-billion pool#2038 with my predictions for January 19?-Gadfium (talk) 02:53, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome templates

I love all of them V1kor0to (talk) 05:12, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Awesome job on the front page today

I really enjoyed the front page today. It's hard to get wordplay like that, and to have pretty much all the topics be so silly really made my day. Thanks to the folks who worked it, y'all knocked it outta the park. Wackogamer123 (talk) 02:42, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's just the DYK section on the front page that's April Fool's, right? Yeah, I see a couple funny ones in there :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:15, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What if it all just ended…

Imagine if, one day, this encyclopedia were to go dark, if the Wikimedia project came to an end permanently. All the articles, all the discussions, the debates, the conflicts, the memories buried within its page all of it, gone forever.

How would you feel, after dedicating hours, months, even years of your life to it? After sharing so much knowledge, debating countless topics, forging connections with contributors from all over the world, what would remain, if Wikipedia suddenly vanished without a trace? Would it be sadness, nostalgia, or perhaps a quiet, lingering emptiness?

Riad Salih (talk) 11:37, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure that, in the long term at least, those who only read would find something else to read, and the editors would find something else to do with their time. There would still be a need for some sort of online encyclopedia, but it would probably be very different. Phil Bridger (talk) 11:49, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As part of the open source movement, if Wikipedia were to disappear, someone would surely fork it quickly using meta:Data dumps, and then folks would head over there. The work we've done is likely quite resilient to any kind of disappearance, attack, etc. –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:07, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure there would be copies around from the regular data dumps. What would be hard to rebuild is the financial, infrastructure, and technical support supplied by the Foundation. There would also be the problem of making the public aware that a new clone was a legitimate successor to WP (depending on what might happen to the Foundation, the name "Wikipedia" might not be available for use). Donald Albury 15:37, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've worried about this recently, in light of the current abandonment of the rule of law in the US and the purge of everything and everyone contrary to the Administration's views. I hope that if they don't already replicate the site and its database to servers outside the US, say in Ireland or Denmark or Spain, that they're now arranging to do that. Largoplazo (talk) 13:31, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Foundation has several data centers around the world, although the ones outside the US are used for edge caching. Donald Albury 15:28, 1 April 2025 (UTC) Edited 15:41, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]