Wikipedia:VPM

New Google search announced

The new Google search has been announced a few days ago (their blog, but also reported by virtually every major source). This would basically mean that already this year our audience would shrink from being part human, part AI to being fully AI, no humans will read Wikipedia. This probably should have some consequences for what we are doing (you know, tastes of AI and humans are still different, though they seem to be converging very quickly). I have not seen this being discussed in the Wikimedia universe, and I would appreciate some links if someone is aware of such discussions. In the unlikely case it has not been discussed, we probably should start a discussion here. Thanks. Ymblanter (talk) 11:26, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

The Google to Wikipedia reader is not the only type of reader, and they're really not the kind of reader I write for. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:06, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

My reading of the blog: "blah blah agentic coding blah blah intelligent search blah blah AI Mode blah blah Gemini 3.5" etc. Really there's nothing new announced that doesn't already exist in Gemini itself. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 16:58, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

tastes of AI and humans are still different, though they seem to be converging very quickly That's because you're projecting the tastes of humans onto nonhuman things. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 17:01, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

You may be interested in "Emotion concepts and their function in a large language model". Sean.hoyland (talk) 17:25, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

Meh. Still seems to just be anthropomorphism: Note that none of this tells us whether language models actually feel anything or have subjective experiences. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 17:29, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

Also, Anthropic has a strong incentive to claim that their models have become sentient, because then they can make money off of marketing themselves as "promoting AI welfare". (Yes, I am an AI skeptic.) SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 17:32, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

To understand these models’ behavior, anthropomorphic reasoning is essential. is the part I thought might interest you, anthropomorphism as a tool for alignment. Aside from just trying to understand what is happening inside these networks with their interesting circuit structures, it seems to be about finding ways to align the values and preferences that influence their behavior with ours. I'm a skeptic by nature and training, but I think it's okay to use familiar words as stand-ins for emergent behavior that we don't understand produced by a bunch of vectors. Sean.hoyland (talk) 18:28, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

My understanding they are going to get rid of the search feed, so that people would not be able to get to the websites in one click. This pretty much means they will not be getting to us. There are ways around this, for example (just throwing up smth) supporting DuckDuckGo which is currently does not provide the search of a quality comparable to Google. I am sure there are other solutions, but if we do nothing we just lose 99% of our direct audience. Ymblanter (talk) 17:32, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

It seems timely to explore the consequences if Alphabet abandon the longstanding arrangement that Google indexes and presents Search links to websites.

While incoming traffic to WP and other sites is the first victim, there are other consequences. Take the longstanding understanding that new unpatrolled pages are unindexed; avoiding hoax/nonsense from being surfaced was in everyone's interest when search accuracy was the thing, but in this new sloppy world, is that exclusion being respected by LLM bots, including those using the Enterprise API?

And for editors here, Findsources for Notability checking is primarily linking Google Search. Is that sustainable if it returns Gemini slop? Would appending udm=14 maintain the prior norm? Or should it be parameterized to the user's preferred search engine? Or seek a Wikipedia Library type arrangement with Kagi, for example? AllyD (talk) 11:13, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. This is indeed one thing, another thing is that whether a page looks nice to a human (and whether it is the case for desktop/mobile, different resolutions etc) becomes largely irrelevant, only the content. May be not even interlinking the pages. Ymblanter (talk) 16:04, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

And, as another consequence, I understand that it looks like red tape for some users, but Commons becomes more important under these conditions than Wikipedia (in any major language). Ymblanter (talk) 16:08, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

I disagree, if we did this we would just be exacerbating the problem. I don't think giving up on our human readers is the answer. ~2026-35582-22 (talk) 20:56, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

It says You’ll continue to get a range of results from Search, just like you do today. That does not sound like "they are going to get rid of the search feed, so that people would not be able to get to the websites in one click" to me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:59, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Google for years has been moving away from delivering a list of blue links in response to search queries. But the refreshed search engine, which runs on the company’s new Gemini 3.5 Flash model, represents what may be its biggest shift yet toward AI and away from traditional search? Just a random article from my feed. Ymblanter (talk) 06:48, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Probably "will not be able" is too strong, if they are determined they will. But most will be not even interested at clicking at the links. Ymblanter (talk) 06:50, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

I think this is the main threat: People will not be interested in clicking on the links, because they'll get their question answered without needing to click. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:52, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

I thought this is pretty much what I said, but may be I was not clear enough.--Ymblanter (talk) 06:43, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes, exactly that. "When people search with AI, they're less likely to click through". Google's AI Overviews are already causing Wikipedia to lose traffic. If and when Google makes "AI mode" the default search mode (or makes searching on Google similar to chatting with an AI chatbot), then that'll pretty much spell the end of this project. Some1 (talk) 00:50, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

My reading is this is what they are going to do this Summer, and this is not yet the end of the project because the LLMs need to get the information elsewhere, and Wikipedia is still the best source of structured information which is still being added on a regular basis, but, as I said in the opening statement of this thread, we will have to adapt to the fact that we will not get any human readers, only LLM readers.--Ymblanter (talk) 06:47, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

They're not getting rid of the search feed. They're introducing "agents" that will "autonomously crawl the web on your behalf". SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 14:55, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

AKA Google's own version of OpenClaw. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 14:58, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

My main worry is how AI manipulates information on controversial topics. I have tested this with queries like "Gaza genocide" at various times in the last 2 years. I prefer just regular web search and access to the open web. But in 50 years, the new generation might not know what the open web is.... 🐈Cinaroot   03:44, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

According to Google's own AI, "Users, tech critics, and researchers have documented a measurable decline in Google Search quality ... from a mix of aggressive monetization ... and the disruptive introduction of AI features." Certes (talk) 15:29, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

I think the complaints about Google Search are correct, but I think it's more complicated than that. I've used DuckDuckGo as my main web search engine for a few years. I find that the quality is adequate for most everyday, low-stakes purposes (e.g., finding a business's website or looking up a word/place/product that's mentioned in something I'm reading). But I find Google to be better if I'm looking for more complex things (e.g., a specific news article whose title I have, finding something relevant when I ask for information from slightly wrong keywords). What's annoying with all of them is that when I search for exact phrases (e.g., a quotation from a source), they may not find the thing that I want, and they always throw in things that I don't want.

Earlier this month, I switched to having Wikipedia be my default search tool, and I've been surprised at how well that's going. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:13, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

That's an interesting idea, though obviously not great for finding reliable sources. I use DuckDuckGo (Bing with a false beard) but it's also going down the AI route, presenting "Learn about..." summaries as if they were Wikipedia leads. Certes (talk) 09:17, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Humans will continue reading Wikipedia, in the same way they will continue reading many other websites (the sites that will be really damaged by this will be minor ones that almost nobody knows, and it's a pity anyway).

Wikipedia is the largest reference work ever written, and also the most read one (yes, this will continue to be so, since LLMs and search engines are not written works). Even if, eventually, most people don't want to read more than three lines of AI-generated content, the ones who choose to retain their brains despite having AI available, would want to continue reading, and Wikipedia is a very interesting work to be (of course, partially) read.

AI summaries are very useful to get quick facts, and they are no problem, since WMF's money doesn't come from clicks. When you need detailed information or a permanent written work whose content doesn't change every time you perform the search, you click on the link (that still exists, even in Google's AI mode) and come here.

Two Wikipedia essays that I think can help you to highlight why Wikipedia is not just a tool to search for information, as search engines or AI-powered search are, but it is information in itself (disclaimer: they were both written mostly by me):

• Past and future of Wikipedia
• The hidden encyclopedia that resides in the article histories

MGeog2022 (talk) 12:27, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

I thought I should link this meta-wiki page here, it is very relevant.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2026-2027 ~2026-35582-22 (talk) 20:52, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

RFC: Alma mater vs Education in Infoboxes

Should we remove the uses of |alma_mater= from infoboxes in favor of |education=? --Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 18:53, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

Background

There are currently 10 infoboxes that use |alma_mater= in their code. Most of these also have |education=. This seems very confusing and un-necssary to me. When does one use |alma_mater= vs |education=? I am proposing that we simplify things and remove |alma_mater= entirely, merging any existing values with |education=. In the event that a given Infobox does not have |education=, I am proposing replacing |alma_mater= with |education= for consistency. This will not be a trivial task. Bots can certainly help, but ultimately will likely require a lot of manual edits.

Important note, {{Infobox sportsperson}} & {{Infobox person}} have dozens of wrappers calling them so this issue will affect hundreds of thousands of pages.

Editing anonymously

Hi, I want to change my username due to serious social problems my original name has made for me. How can I do that? Thanks, Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 07:14, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Changing username. Note this will not change past signatures and other places your current username may have been mentioned. CMD (talk) 07:20, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis Thanks for your guidance; I sent a request there, you can now archive the thread. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 07:54, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

2026 Labour Party leadership election (UK) has an RfC

2026 Labour Party leadership election (UK) has an RfC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Qwerty123M (talk) 11:36, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Note: The RFC is actually about Wikipedia:Superfluous bolding explained. The full location is: Wikipedia talk:Superfluous bolding explained#Request for Comment: enforcement. The RFC question is: Should this guideline be applied to every article? Are there any considerations we need to make for how this guideline is applied on different topics? @Qwerty123M, please be careful when leaving RFC notices to clearly state the page where the discussion is taking place/the page that the RFC applies to. Editors always need to click the link to "the discussion page" to see the full details but many editors quickly scan Village Pump (and similar venues) to see whether a topic is something they would be interested in and listing a completely unrelated page is unhelpful. —Myceteae‍🌈 (talk) 15:22, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

For anyone interested in the approach to bolding specifically with respect to the linked article, that discussion is at: Talk:2026 Labour Party leadership election (UK)#Bolding in lede. —Myceteae‍🌈 (talk) 15:23, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Full launch of the Image Carousel feature

Hi everyone,

Following two weeks of the feature being in beta, the Reader Growth team is planning to roll out the Image Browsing feature to make it easier for logged-out mobile web readers to discover images in Wikipedia articles. This feature, which will go live this week, is part of our investment in reversing Wikipedia's decline in readership and satisfying the surveys of global internet users who report "more images/photos" on Wikipedia as a top reader request.

The feature will add a carousel of an article's images just above the article lead paragraph. The feature will only be shown on articles with three or more images larger than 100px in both width and height, and only on mobile. The carousel is configurable by editors, who can decide to exclude images from the carousel or exclude articles from the feature entirely.

We added the following improvements to the feature in response to community feedback:

• Controls for editors to exclude specific images from appearing in an article's carousel. To exclude individual images from an article, editors can add class=noviewer, which will also exclude that image from being shown in MediaViewer, or class=notpageimage, which will do the same and, in addition, exclude that image from use in thumbnails shown in search or link previews.
• Controls for editors to exclude specific articles from getting the carousel at all. To remove the image carousel from an article, editors can add the magic word __NOMEDIAVIEWERCAROUSEL__.
• A setting enabling logged-in users to turn off the image carousel for their account. This can be found by opening the hamburger menu at the top of any mobile web page to go to Settings → User preferences → Appearance.

Community members helped us find these bugs during the beta period, which have been fixed:

• The image carousel needing to be suppressed when viewing diffs or revision history
• Special characters in src causing images to be dropped from the carousel incorrectly
• Instances of broken image exclusion logic
• Errors causing article pages not to load

We are also grateful to everybody who has commented in a VPP discussion Image Browsing, and image hiding or has taken an interest in this project thanks to that discussion.

We started testing this feature in November 2025, originally with six wikis (Arabic, English, French, Indonesian, Vietnamese, and Chinese). Results were promising. We saw a high portion of readers tapping to engage with the carousel (7.8 - 8.7%, compared to the typical <5%) and statistically significant improvement in the percentage of readers coming back to the wiki after seeing the feature. We followed this up with a beta rollout in which we resolved 16 bugs as ~700 people tested the feature. We now feel confident that a full rollout for logged-out readers on mobile web will help more people enjoy reading Wikipedia and looking at images. After we deploy, we'll continue to monitor data and your feedback.

As we roll out to all logged-out readers, we invite you to try out and share your thoughts on the following experiences for logged-out readers on mobile web:

• The image carousel
• Option for editors to exclude specific images from the carousel for an article
• Option for editors to remove the carousel from an article as needed on a per-wiki basis
• Option for logged-in readers/editors to set their preferences to remove the carousel for themselves across all pages

We welcome thoughts on the opportunities you see with Image Browsing and consuming multimedia on wiki in general at the project talk page.

Thank you! On behalf of the Reader Growth team, briefly covering for its product manager SherryYang-WMF, --SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 01:31, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

This post does not explain how editors are expected to add said classes to images. In the wikicode? CMD (talk) 02:59, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Hey, yes, in the wikicode - VE doesn't have any input field for adding classes. These classes look just like parameter values, so for example: [[File:Foo.jpg|thumb|Caption|class=notpageimage]]. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 13:18, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

You are aware that the image carousel doesn't "add more images" (what readers apparently wanted), just puts in a very obnoxious place, pushing the actual encyclopedic text down to prettify things? Please make this opt-in, not opt-out, and don't push WMF-designed layout over the layout created by the page writers.

It seems as if you have put more value on "what do readers want" (and then, like I said, not even translating this correctly to a change) and less on "what do people actually use Wikipedia for", where the #1 was "o fact check something", followed by learning, keeping oneself informed, and so on. For fun / to pass the time were way down the line. Why then has it been decided that making it more fun, more like a pastime, and less like a place to fact-check something, to learn something, was the way to go?

Added to this are all the issues with the Carrousel itself, as outlined in my reply to the announcement of the Beta test. Please don't roll this out, or at worst do it as an opt-in. Fram (talk) 13:46, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

I agree with Fram. This should be opt-in, at least for logged-in users. I didn't know that this was being introduced, noticed it on a few pages today and thought it was a bug. I find it distracting and doubt that it will motivate anyone to contribute to Wikipedia or at least read more articles. If someone added something like this to a page I'm watching I'd immediately revert it as "not an improvement". — Chrisahn (talk) 10:04, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

I use View It!: an editor's gadget which similarly places a band of potential images at the top of a page, to make it easier to identify and add images. It does detract from viewing a page, but using it is an editor's voluntary and purposeful choice. Unlike this new reader(/viewer) tool.

Fram made the important distinction, that a survey finding of a desire to "add more images" is not met by pre-presenting images already in the article. Commons category pages are the way to provide more images appropriate to a topic, but don't appear to have been considered in this WMF initiative? The Commons category box is currently down in the External links section. Perhaps a button link could be added to the lede - subject to on-wiki consensus - rather than this carousel. Commons cat links are simpler, meet any demand, enable editor control to minimise mis-presented and inappropriate images, and avoid the clunky wiki-code workaround (which surprises me, in that I thought WMF encourage VE for editing?) AllyD (talk) 13:58, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

@SGrabarczuk (WMF) You wrote there's a setting to turn off the image carousel, but I can't find that setting anywhere. Not in the Appearance tab. I also checked the Gadgets and Beta features tabs. What's wrong? — Chrisahn (talk) 10:14, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting this @Chrisahn. We realized we had a bug with the setting, which should now be fixed. It sounds like you were looking in the right place but just in case it's helpful to you or others, you can go to the hamburger menu at the top of mobile web pages to find Settings > User preferences > Appearance (toggle itself reads "Enable image carousel on the mobile site" and switching it off will mean you never see the carousel from your account). SherryYang-WMF (talk) 15:40, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! The option is now available. — Chrisahn (talk) 16:32, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

If this isn't made opt-in for logged-in users, at least there should be a link or button next to the image carousel to turn it off. I guess there will be a significant number of long-time users who won't like this distracting and space-wasting feature, and they shouldn't have to waste their time searching for the off-button. — Chrisahn (talk) 10:37, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Reminds me of Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 228#Un-hidable(?) new UI decoration taking up lots of screenspace, where a WMF gadget was launched without making it easy for users to disable it. — Chrisahn (talk) 10:41, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Has this been documented or discussed anywhere? It seems like a strange use of developer resources to force these galleries of contextless images into millions of articles without consensus from any editors actually maintaining these pages. I place images in particular sections to provide information to readers; this is not accomplished by dumping all the photos, diagrams, and whatever else at the top of the page. I'd like to highlight Wikipedia's image use policy (specifically WP:GALLERY): Generally, a gallery or cluster of images should not be added so long as there is space for images to be effectively presented adjacent to text. Not to piss in the Wikimedia developers' cereal, but have they even taken this potential violation of "a widely accepted standard that all editors should normally follow" into consideration at all? ArcticSeeress (talk) 12:54, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Also, these galleries prominently display non-free images outside of the context they were originally presented in in the article. This seems like a pretty cut-and-dry violation of Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria, a "policy with legal considerations": Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the article topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding. These galleries do not "significantly increase readers' understanding" in any meaningful way. ArcticSeeress (talk) 13:09, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Oh no... legal issues :( ~2026-21916-69 (talk) 19:30, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Comment from Foundation Legal Hi all, I want to clarify on the copyright point that this feature likely does not change copyright analysis for fair use images, especially in the US and for the English language Wikipedia.

Foundation Legal did review this tool before it went out and our view is that a feature like this, where the change is a new way to display material on the same page it was already illustrating, likely does not change our overall copyright obligations. As you all have noted, community policy is more strict than copyright law itself, but they are connected, so we hope that sharing our analysis is useful to you all in considering this type of feature. We have also been speaking with P&T about broader international considerations and they are also thinking about the feedback from this thread and looking into proposed adjustments. We wanted to share our thoughts on the legal point in the debate, and you can expect more info on this feature sometime next week. LRGoncalves-WMF (talk) 16:59, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

"A setting enabling logged-in users to turn off the image carousel for their account. This can be found by opening the hamburger menu at the top of any mobile web page to go to Settings → User preferences → Appearance." I can't find this setting and i dislike this feature immensely, how can it be turned off? Ploffy (talk) 14:18, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

You can hide it with this in your CSS:

.mmv-carousel {display:none;}

The feature will still be loaded and use resources. It will merely be hidden by the browser. A post 30 minutes ago at mw:Talk:Readers/Reader Growth/Image Browsing#Where's the setting to turn this off? says: "There was a bug in the release that prevented the user preference from displaying. We've deployed a fix and it should be available shortly via Preferences > Appearance." PrimeHunter (talk) 15:31, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

@Ploffy apologies for the confusion and thanks for letting us know we did have a bug for the setting. The toggle should now be available at the location mentioned above (Settings > Preferences > Appearance). SherryYang-WMF (talk) 15:47, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Thank you, it works now Ploffy (talk) 18:04, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

@SGrabarczuk (WMF), all features that affect content should be put to the community (ie. as a WP:PROPOSAL) and not forced on wikis like this (obv it would be nice if most changes were subject to community consensus, but can't have it all can we). Going to repeat what I said about the new icons re why it was done in this fashion: If the answer's that the team working on it were effectively forced to [force it on wikis] by strong incentives to meet deadlines etc., that's an abject management/systemic failure. Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 15:34, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

@Kowal2701 I second this. Major changes to the site should be proposed and voted on to get consensus from users, rather than forced upon users.

Dreamweaverjack (talk) 02:21, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

• So, I can see how having a carousel of images might be beneficial in a few articles… but presenting images out of context can be seriously detrimental in other articles. A lot depends on the topic. Is there any way to have an article by article “opt in” on this feature (rather than as a user preference)? Blueboar (talk) 19:42, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

  For starters, a lot of articles about X have images along the lines of "this is a Y, commonly mistaken for X" or "Z, accused of having done X but later exonerated". For example, one can easily imagine article about a group of criminals prosecuted and brought to justice by a courageous district attorney, and then a smiling photo of him shows up in the carousel for "1992 Wetumpka child stranglers' ring" et cetera. jp×g🗯️ 19:13, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

Why has Wikipedia been updated so that every article has a series of photographs at the top of the screen.

None of the existing users of were surveyed before these changes were implemented, or were informed that they were coming.

I use Wikipedia to discover information, in the same way that I would have used an encyclopaedia book in the past.

I don’t use it to specifically view the images in the articles.

If Wikipedia wants to be seen as a professional encyclopaedia, then it needs to look professional, which this doesn’t. It looks very amateur at best.

Are there any plans to allow this feature to be reverted back in the near future?

Ironically one possible reason for the drop in site views is the changes to the layout and format implemented by the reader growth team of Wikimedia which has alienated many users.

Dreamweaverjack (talk) 02:08, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

I largely agree with you, but it's not quite true that no users were informed that this was coming. For example, there was this detailed discussion a few weeks ago. But I agree that the feature should have been announced more prominently and I think it should be reverted for now. You can add your !vote at the Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC on the new Image Carousel feature. — Chrisahn (talk) 02:21, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

No, the "carousel rollout" has mostly arrived without warning. It's pure cringe with no rhyme or reason. Mostly, it distracts readers from the article and its infobox. This must be one of the dumbest ideas Wikipedians have come up with in a while. One example of a truly wretched carousel: the article Atlanta, where the two prime images at top of article on my smartphone (not my laptop) are: (1) a recent skyline photo and (2) an interior photo of an 1864 slave-auction house. Every city has unsavory history, but why is Atlanta's dirty old laundry (and nobody else's) showcased at the top of the article like this? The image is quite pertinent under "History", but not reprised as one of only two big lead-in, top-carousel photos. At the very least, this is poor judgment, but I question the entire carousel project. Mason.Jones (talk) 03:16, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

I've created {{no image carousel}} to wrap the magic word with a category, for tracking purposes. Danski454 (talk) 11:11, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

FYI, Special:PagesWithProp/nomediaviewercarousel will list pages having the magic word, with or without that template. Anomie⚔ 19:38, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

RFC about AI-generated content in Wikimedia Commons

You are invited to participate in a request for comment on Wikimedia Commons about a policy update for AI content. This may affect files that are uploaded to Wikimedia Commons for use on this project. Thank you. Codename Noreste (talk) 17:11, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

So, should someone make a list of images from articles like AI art that may need to be reuploaded locally and tagged {{Do not move to Commons}} to avoid violating our policy at WP:WATERMARK? Anomie⚔ 22:22, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

I already do this for Signpost images whenever we cover AI (and thus illustrate it in the article); for a few years it has been the case that they will be unexpectedly deleted from Commons. Presumably, if there were more actual policy to this effect there, this practice would have to broaden. jp×g🗯️ 11:36, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

@JPxG: c:Commons:Undeletion requests/Archive/2026-06#Files deleted by The Squirrel Conspiracy. I'm sorry Commons had ignored its own "in use" policy when those were deleted. The image policy here says "Free images should not be watermarked, distorted, have any credits or titles in the image itself or anything else that would hamper their free use", is any kind of annotation/watermark/etc considered to be something that "hampers free use"?
From a quick glance (I could have missed something) for AI art only File:Sunset Valley (FLUX 1.1 Pro Raw).webp would be affected. If such an image included for example some dragons and unicorns, it wouldn't be affected. Perhaps something like that could be an alternative to uploading locally for that particular image. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 22:07, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Anomie, JPxG, what would be the path to follow to propose an exception to WP:WATERMARK? If the RfC becomes policy and my health permits I'll consider trying that. The RfC includes a 1-year grace period for existing files, we could tag affected files to delay watermarking to allow time for a local proposal to reach a conclusion and/or to reupload affected files locally.
If you do end up reuploading files locally you may wish to try XwikiXfer which handles both the reuploading and changing the filename in articles with a few clicks. If you need some features in XwikiXfer to make your life easier I'm always willing to look at the possibilities. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 18:49, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

A discussion at Wikipedia talk:Image use policy and advertised at WP:Village pump (policy), or vice versa, would probably be the way to begin. After initial feedback, if things seem promising, an actual RFC at the same location might be called for. Anomie⚔ 19:42, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

Anomie, I hope I did this correctly. This is just to discuss the idea and get a sense of whether it might be worthwhile to create an actual RFC in case the Commons RFC passes. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 01:51, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Looks correct to me. Anomie⚔ 10:57, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Good article criteria/where necessary

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Good article criteria/where necessary. Qwerty123M (talk) 02:12, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

False claim of user rights on user page

Moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) § False claim of user rights on user page

 – Cut from here, and pasted to there. —George Ho (talk) 00:47, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Hundreds of Pakistan constituency stubs

I found a category full of hundreds of constituency in Pakistan: Category:Pakistan constituency stubs. Many of them are single sentence, though some have information on past elections. I doubt many of them are notable or expandable beyond better sources election results. What should be done with them? I tried asking WikiProject Pakistan [1], but I got no response. ScienceD90 (she/her) (talk) 13:06, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

@ScienceD90: Straight to AfDing. We can decide there whether to keep, redirect or delete them. CONFUSED SPIRIT(Thilio).Talk 13:20, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

I have no experience with AFD, and I do not see any process for making a mass nomination like this. How would sending them to AfD actually work? And will every single article need to be tagged? ScienceD90 (she/her) (talk) 13:30, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

I nominated them, I could use some help with tagging all of them: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Constituency LA-33 ScienceD90 (she/her) (talk) 16:08, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

• Hi. I am redirected here after a concern raised by ScienceD90 at the WT:PAK. I would say delete those stubs, and merge necessary info only in any main article. Thank you. M. Billoo 17:36, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

• I see the discussion has been closed, but the AfD notices on a bunch of articles are still up can you (or someone else) remove those notices?Giulio 14:54, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) § Upcoming migration to Parsoid

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) § Upcoming migration to Parsoid. , with instruction for its migration next week MSantos (WMF) (talk) 09:34, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

template inside template or not

when editing template:valve i notice several counter strike level page dont have valve template.

https://templatetransclusioncheck.toolforge.org/index.php?lang=en&name=Template%3AValve

when i try to edit one of them i notice there is also Template:Counter-Strike series

so i have an idea instead of adding valve template to cs level page, why not add cs series template to valve template

• but is it correct?
• is there better alternative?
• is there even example of template inside of template?
• does templatetransclusioncheck work?

i dont find anything about this on Wikipedia:Navigation template, Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates#Navigation templates, search result

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=wp%3A%22template+inside+template%22&title=Special%3ASearch&profile=advanced&fulltext=1&ns0=1

my options

1. replace counter strike section with cs series template
2. remove level page link on valve template
3. add "more..." and link to cs series template like in template:linux (is this even recommended?)

Lokiretro (talk) 10:32, 27 June 2026 (UTC)