Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 80

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Potential RfC around Master thesis reliability

Our current policy says that:

"Masters dissertations and theses are considered reliable only if they can be shown to have had significant scholarly influence. Some theses are later published in the form of scholarly monographs or peer reviewed articles, and, if available, these are usually preferable to the original thesis as sources."

I think that this is a bit silly considering the fact that we regularly cite local news and other sources that are often seen by fewer people than the average thesis, and are in general subject to less scrutiny. This has come up a few times in at the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard over the years, and there is normally a strong contingent of editors that argue in either direction, for many reasons. I will ping any of them here and cross-post this discussion, but I think there might be enough interest in at least loosening these restrictions to something more along the lines of:

"Masters dissertations and theses are **presumed** reliable only if they can be shown to have had significant scholarly influence. **If this can not be shown, they should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. ** Some theses are later published in the form of scholarly monographs or peer reviewed articles, and, if available, these are usually preferable to the original thesis as sources."

This would allow the use of good and well researched thesis, particularly in history and other liberal arts fields, to be evaluated on merits, rather than on number of citations, which puts papers about more esoteric or niche subjects at a disadvantage.

Pinging @Dreamyshade, @Phil Bridger, @Dclemens1971, @TarnishedPath, @Narutolovehinata5, @Simonm223, @Yesterday, all my dreams..., @Mackensen, @GordonGlottal, @Generalissima, and @Agnieszka653, who all contributed to the previous discussion.


Kingsmasher678 (talk) 05:00, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

@Kingsmasher678, do you have any links to other prior discussions? TarnishedPathtalk 05:47, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
Some previous discussions on RSN in the past few years:
Related from RSN talk page:
Dreamyshade (talk) 14:03, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
Masters thesis are essentially self published sources. They are reviewed by a committee, but their quality is inconsistent. They also vary by country, department, and institution. Committees are often not deeply reading a thesis, and will pass people if it is "good enough" even with problems still in the document. Stuff slides through the cracks. If we allow the general use of thesis, there will be serious problems with unreliable information being cited. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 06:04, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
I'd recommend that we evaluate masters theses on a case-by-case basis using RS guidelines in general, instead of broadly considering them reliable (too generous) or considering scholarly influence to be the only relevant criteria for reliability (too restrictive). We can productively use a wide range of news articles from news publications of widely varying quality because we have the guidelines of WP:SOURCEDEF and WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. I believe that a well-researched history masters thesis on a relatively narrow and well-scoped topic, from a department that specializes in that topic area, can be a sufficiently reliable secondary source for non-controversial claims in non-contentious topic areas.
I'd suggest a change like this to WP:THESIS: "Masters dissertations and theses are considered reliable only if they can be shown to have had significant scholarly influence, or on a case-by-case basis if carefully evaluated under reliable source guidelines in general." Dreamyshade (talk) 14:52, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
Just expanding on this suggestion with a couple of selected quotes from the past discussions I linked above:
  • March 2024: "The situationality of reliability is a great point, and it's about more than just individual reporters. The fact that a masters' thesis isn't at all usable for media and drama interpretation, but a rushed, insignificant capsule review in Rolling Stone is, is sheer lunacy." (@Theleekycauldron)
  • May 2023: "It's a bit odd to me that we treat thesis papers as if they were all deprecated (worse than Fox News!), when many of them are actually pretty excellent; their only problem is inconsistent quality depending on uni, supervisor, and field. Some thesis papers are complete nonsense or fringe, but it's unfortunate that we often treat all of them as borderline radioactive." (@DFlhb)
Dreamyshade (talk) 19:00, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
Comment: I would put the average thesis only slightly above an undergraduate research paper in terms of quality. I've seen some truly excellent Reddit posts, doesn't mean they are reliable. A thesis is fundamentally still a learning exercise where a student learns how to conduct research, and how to write in an academic voice. With news sources, we can at least debate trends in bias from the publication, a thesis is a one off from an unknown individual. The journalists hired by a News agency are not writing an article to learn how to write articles, they have presumably passed some screening process to borrow the reputation of their agency. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 02:03, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
It's this, and more. A news organization's standards and practices are brought to bear on every article published. With some exceptions, reliability largely derives from the publication itself and not the individual journalist. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 14:46, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
I used to mark masters theses. No committee for the ones I marked. And they were only part of the degree. Doug Weller talk 08:58, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
Having written a Master's Thesis that made a significant historical error that slipped by because it was tangential to a main point of the thesis, they are a mixed bag and need to be very carefully used. Viking metal uses one because it's some of the earliest scholarship that presaged a (relative) explosion of scholarship of that genre ten years later. Much of that late scholarship references the thesis.----3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 00:35, 9 May 2026 (UTC)
  • I share the sentiments of GegSage in that the quality of master items are often highly inconsistent. Once in a blue moon we get a master thesis such as the 1978 thesis by Chu which became a serious item via Chu spaces. But I personally can not recall another case that comes anywhere close. In many cases if a professor is top class in his field and has a tough character, he will check the thesis carefully. But in 80% of cases the committee members just go along with what the adviser says. They may need him when one of their own students is standing up to defend his PhD thesis. The role of departmental politics should not be ignored. And do you think the committee members have time to read the thesis page by page? No way. And in many cases if committee members are from another department they just sit there to collect the small fee they get for attending. I still smile when I recall attending the PhD defense by another student. One of the outside committee members was a world class fellow who has a well known discovery named after him. He was a few years before retirement at the time. He sat there and literally read that day's newspaper as the student made his presentation. At the end he asked a simple question that showed he had no idea about the thesis, which was outside his department. We all knew he came there just to get the fee. So in my view theses quality is as random as a roulette table outcome. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 06:56, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
    Comment: Personal anecdote, I'm pretty proud of my master thesis. My entire committee was very involved and one member was fairly recognizable in the field, it won regional awards, has been cited by at least one peer-reviewed publication, and consistently has a relatively large number of weekly views on ResearchGate. I don't think it should be cited on Wikipedia. My methods were good enough, but amateur. I've considered trying to get the results peer-reviewed, but would want to conduct the entire study again to address several issues I ran into. I've never seen a thesis that I'd consider good enough to meet the threshold for "reliable," and I've read quite a few exceptional ones. That said, I'm the outside committee member for a defense today, and hope to be proven wrong. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 07:40, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
    GeoSage, let us all be reminded that some roulette table outcomes are wins, and sometimes big wins. Chu was a big win, and your thesis was a win. But that is how roulette tables work. As for your thesis meeting today, please be sure to take a newspaper, just in case. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 08:08, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
    They brought doughnuts, they bribed me for full attention. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 01:37, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
    @GeogSage Curious, would you consider your thesis mostly a primary source or a secondary source, as defined by WP:PSTS? Broadly, it seems like some masters theses are mostly reporting and discussing new results from a study or experiment (often in scientific fields), and some are mostly synthesizing and interpreting existing source materials (often in humanities fields). This is part of why I'm interested in revising WP:THESIS to allow case-by-case evaluation of whether a masters thesis can be a reliable source - the secondary type is more likely to be a useful reliable source for Wikipedia citation purposes. Dreamyshade (talk) 16:05, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
    Dreamy, your categorization of master theses into 2 groups is based on your experiences. John Tukey would frawn... We have no data to support that assumption. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 16:56, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
    Thesis has a rather extensive literature review which would be secondary, followed by the experimental methodology, results, analysis, discussion, and conclusion, which is primary. As proud of my literature review as I am, I do not think it should be cited. The sources I cited would be much more appropriate to use. Something I'm guilty of in it that I see often in others is using the thesis to be edgy from an academic perspective, and to use it as an opportunity to soap box about a hot take or opinion. While I don't necessarily disagree with the opinions I advanced, I don't think it was as supported by the literature as I thought it was. Masters thesis are usually written by people just out of undergraduate course work, and they are often closer in quality to a good term paper then a peer-reviewed publication. The thesis is a step towards learning how to write well, do research, and contribute to the literature. During the course of writing one, students are given feedback from their advisors, but ultimately the final decisions are left to the student. There isn't editorial oversight, and the professors are generally trying to make the process as painless as possible and not trip the student up if something goes really poorly. A bad article is rejected, a bad thesis will be polished a bit and the student will move on. A Ph.D. dissertation is where the requirement is contributing to the literature in a meaningful way, and most of the time in the U.S. the good parts of a dissertation are published in journals, so it is unnecessary to cite the dissertation itself. If a masters thesis is actually really good, then the student is often encouraged to clean it up and submit to a journal as well, at which point we wouldn't need to cite the thesis. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 23:05, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
King, to get more responses you may want to put links to here on some project pages. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 08:04, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
  • These days it is rather standard to get thesis content (MSc and up) published in peer-reviewed article form, which then makes the material reliable by our standards. If that does not happen, it may be due to the author being busy with the next thing, but in my experience there is also a good chance that the reviewers agreed that this was good enough for a degree, but not good enough to enter the body of research. In other words, the current guidelines seem correct to me - be careful with hanging anything on a thesis source if the material was not published as a proper article. Having said that, I'm not sure how applicable the notion is to older theses; the "build your thesis as a future journal submission" approach is a relatively recent trend, and probably does not apply to (my guess) material from the 80s or earlier. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 10:57, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
    I agree that this shift from thesis-in-itself to quasi-journal article is worth taking into account. Practices likely vary by field as well. Toadspike [Talk] 13:41, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
    Agree that a journal article (from a reputable journal) is distinct from a thesis. Blueboar (talk) 14:22, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
    +1 and I would treat most journal articles from reputable journals as WP:BESTSOURCES. The question becomes one of reputation. We all know about the Frontiers journals and the Journal of Controversial Ideas as journals with minimal or negative reputations so it's not just non-predatory = good but, in general, if a thesis is published in a journal then we can just use that version. Simonm223 (talk) 19:04, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
    Agreed, and I think this goes without saying. We evaluate journal articles by the standards for journal articles. The credentials of the lead author or first author may occasionally be a consideration but we would not evaluate the reliability of a journal article as though it were a master's thesis. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 23:32, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
    Elmidae, I think your point about the student intentions is valid, but needs more detail. Some students do a master degree because they intend to go on to a PhD. Some others do it because it improves their chances of getting a better job in industry. This second group does not gain a lot by getting things published. And of course it is all highly dependent on the ability and intelligence of the student. The very clever students (yours truly included) figure out how to "work the system" and move on to a PhD without writing a master thesis. So, in a sense, the most clever master theses are never written. I generally do not trust master theses unless they have been published in an RS source. But then we would NOT need the thesis. So let us only reply on RS journals. I see no point in the RFC. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 14:31, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
"presumed" is used in some specific ways on Wikipedia, I would be strongly against using it here.
There is variability in the quality of master thesis, and I don't think the current wording takes that into consideration. So many of them will be of far higher quality than most websites that are regularly used for referencing. I'm unsure about the particular wording though, "If this can not be shown, they should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis". I think it should reflect that it's the editor wanting to use it that needs to show why it should be used. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:43, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
Actively, I agree, specially about your last sentence. We would need a super WP:BURDEN criterion. As I said above to Elmidae, I would prefer not to have any references to master items not published in an RS journal. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 14:38, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
Comment: I would be okay with the ability to ask for an exception to use a thesis, however I would not want to greenlight it as general practice. It's hard to prove something isn't reliable, and it is really hard to get people to avoid using bad sources as it is. On a talk page I've pointed out an article failed the RS noticeboard, is in a predatory journal, and is likely 95% AI generated, and they still argue for its inclusion because it has been cited several times (I suspect many of those citations are equally dubious, but haven't checked). If using masters thesis becomes generally accepted, instead of only as rare exceptions, there will be a lot of time wasted trying to demonstrate why a thesis is not a good source. I also suspect there will be a lot of hurt feelings when students try to anonymously insert their thesis into an article, and get it eviscerated by editors. Even if it isn't the student, I would feel a bit bad ripping into a thesis someone else tried to get cited on the off chance some poor grad student stumbles upon the discussion. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 23:41, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
This would be acceptable to me. What would you recommend for wording? Kingsmasher678 (talk) 23:48, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
Generally, if someone is going to use a thesis as a source, the burden should be on them to prove that:
  • No better source exists
  • The thesis is of high quality
  • The thesis satisfies a need within the article, and is not just superfluous information.
  • The thesis is used to describe or describe something objective/factual/quantitative, not speculation or interpretation by the author.
Generally, if something is notable enough to include on Wikipedia, there will be other sources, which would make this a very rare occurrence. I'd suggest the thesis first pass the reliable source noticeboard, at the very least. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 23:51, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
I think this is reasonable. Having the policy in place that allows the source to pass the noticeboard is my goal. Kingsmasher678 (talk) 23:56, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
Also maybe have a tier list for the reliability of the journal itself? Are masters's theses published in journals like Nature or just PhD's? This may be a dumb question but my only experience is with PhDs. Agnieszka653 (talk) 00:01, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
Masters thesis are usually published on Proquest, or something equivalent. Same with dissertations. After they are published (or sometimes before), they can be trimmed and worked into a format for a journal. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 00:10, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
I don't think they should need to be preapproved, that sounds a bit to much like having to ask for permission to edit. But if challenged the editor wanting to use a master thesis should be required to show that it's a suitable source. This is meant to be an exception not a green light. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:17, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
I think when it comes to masters thesis, I would rather see them all considered unreliable then to be allowed unless challenged. I've dealt with this recently, as an example, on the third RfC in the last 6 months on the Dead Internet Theory talk page, the user opened it with a table of sources they scraped off of Google Scholar. They did not vet these sources, at all. The RfC moved forward considering them as evidence, and I had to spend hours checking each source for reliability. The damage to the RfC is done, people don't go back and check their statements, and honestly most editors are probably just going with their gut most of the time anyway. Allowing masters thesis puts the burden of checking documents that might be hundreds of pages long on the person challenging it, not the editor that wants to see it included. Most of them are not appropriate sources, if an exception has to be made for edge cases, it needs to be carefully implemented. Most people don't check the sources others are adding in any great depth as it is, it could be really easy to get a thesis published at a disreputable university, add something to a page, and have it sit for years. The most serious issue is it risks citogenesis situations. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 19:20, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
I'm in favor of something like this. But maybe we should join it with a special rule against any user citing their own thesis, whatever other circumstances apply. Because I think it will be a particular problem with MA theses. GordonGlottal (talk) 14:12, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
Honestly, impossible to enforce rules should not be put on the books at all. If a source is good, then it doesn't matter who is adding it. We don't know the names of editors, and while it is possible to dox them, that goes against the rules (and for very good reason). If a rule like this is put on the books, it just leads to impossible to prove accusations that get in the way of discussions about content. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 19:37, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
I agree we shouldn't have a special rule for MA theses. And WP:SELFCITE already covers this. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 21:05, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
  • In general, I tentatively support using them, but only in genuinely obscure fields where there are few or no better sources in English, and their status should be clearly disclosed. And perhaps no COI use as per GordonGlottal (not just the student, but profs and pals). Johnbod (talk) 14:51, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
    We do have the COI guideline of WP:SELFCITE, which I'd consider sufficient to address the concern about self-citation. Dreamyshade (talk) 14:56, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
    J.B. how well can we evaluate these "very obscure" fields, with close to no sources in English? By definition they are hard to understand and evaluate. I do not like walking in the dark with my eyes closed. Do you? Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 15:07, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
    We have editors with expertise in obscure fields, obscure topics, and languages other than English. We also have editors with general experience in a field who can competently pick up and improve related material without necessarily having prior background in a specific sub-field. Dreamyshade (talk) 16:26, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
    Indeed we do, and if they come along and upgrade the sources, that's great. But usually they won't. Johnbod (talk) 01:37, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
    Luckily, there is no deadline. Kingsmasher678 (talk) 01:38, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
I like Dreamyshade's proposed wording. Echoing the points above, they can be useful if there are no better sources available, but should only be used on a per-claims-basis and not for anything even approaching WP:EXCEPTIONAL. I've used some occasionally for blind spots in the literature and have found that those tend to have several cites in peer-reviewed scholarship (according to Scholar), which makes usage a lot more comfortable. Have even seen unpublished theses used in historical scholarship. Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 15:16, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
I would ideally like to include master's theses I am an inclusionist by nature. However echoing some of the other points above, I think it's hard to pick and choose what master's theses are worth citing and which ones are questionable. Considering that so many graduate degrees are pushed through every year the quality of these publications can very widely which I think is one of the major issues here. Agnieszka653 (talk) 16:29, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
Agnies, I agree. It is a roulette game. But I have already said that. So let this be my last comment here. I am done on the discussion here. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 16:59, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
As a Masters holder in the humanities myself, I agree with what most of Greg Sage says. Sometimes a thesis has as much rigor and value as a professionally published work and sometimes it does not. The point of a grad school thesis is different from that of a published article. The candidates are there to demonstrate that they can research and write in a certain way. It's not always about the content of the text, so the thesis, even if reviewed by professionals, is not getting the same kind of attention as an article composed for publication. Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:51, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
NOTE: My general comment is more that everything said against masters theses is also applicable to many of the other sources that are regularly cited. We have decided that our editors are competent enough to determine reliability in that case. There is no reason the same can not be done for this one. Kingsmasher678 (talk) 19:34, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
I think the issue is some of us are not competent enough--hence why we have the RS noticeboard. Like I stated above I would love to include more sources and I actually don't agree with the tier list, the reason the RS noticeboard exists is to (theoretically) prevent not only mis and disinformation from permeating the platform but to also prevent ideologically abuse--as in prevent bad actors from abusing certain sources to fit an ideological narrative. I think unfortunately higher ed particularly the social sciences and liberal arts (though it is now permeating the hard sciences too) has issues with research being skewed to fit a certain world view. Also there is the Replication crisis where experiments are having issues with being repeated by different research teams where they are NOT achieving the same results. Since a Master's Thesis is usually an academic or newly minted professional's first foray into scholarly writing and research I'm not sure we should treat these sources as reliable for this reason. Agnieszka653 (talk) 20:51, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
This makes sense for certain types of theses, like hard science one in chemistry an the like. It is not a concern for history, as long as we use common sense in the ways that we do for all other sources. If we want to raise the bar to meet these requirements in all situations, fine, but it is not fair to act as if the rest of the common sources we use, like newspapers and the like, don't have those same issues. In those cases, we use our brains and minds to figure out how to balance biasis, and there is no reason not to do the same here. Kingsmasher678 (talk) 21:12, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
I would actually argue its the other way around. I actually trust masters theses in chemistry and physics way more than I would those in history because the latter is not supposed to be based on subjectivity. Newspapers are supposed to be much more reliable as well because they are (ideally--not saying it's great all the time) supposed to be reporting on current events--ie facts. Can be facts be subjective? Can two different journalists have completely different interpretations of a breaking news story? Yes. It's a lot harder though to deduce this in a masters thesis where an extremely obtuse liberal arts or social sciences field could have very few scholars who may have a shewed view of a topic with very little outside pushback. In the hard sciences your masters thesis should be based on quantifiable results produced over years of observable results from carefully constructed experiments based on other scientists previous work. Agnieszka653 (talk) 21:25, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
In the hard sciences your masters thesis should be based on quantifiable results produced over years of observable results from carefully constructed experiments based on other scientists previous work. Reality is that in the hard sciences, they are usually based on one or two experiments that were done in the last two semesters (or often, the last semester) of grad school. The first year of a masters thesis is mostly coursework and some literature review, generally ending with a proposal. Students just don't have the time or money to be very rigorous, and unfortunately because time is a limiting factor, often have to stick with the results they get the first go around without following up with additional experiments. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 23:47, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
Oh. that's unfortunate I worked in a lab for many years that only had PhD students and post-docs so that's probably where my skewed perspective is coming from. Agnieszka653 (talk) 23:59, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
That'll do it. Ph.D. is another beast entirely, 4 to 6 years instead of 2, and the requirement is generally that you make a novel contribution to the body of knowledge. Depends on the discipline, university, and department, but it is common for it to essentially be three journal articles that are loosely related sandwiched between an introduction and conclusion section. In these cases, the core chapters have passed peer-review or something like it (I've also seen book chapters used in a dissertation that were not peer-reviewed but did have editorial oversight outside their advisor/committee). Much higher bar then a thesis. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 01:33, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
I don't find the comparison to other types of sources like news articles fitting. Reliability is a factor of the types of claims for which a source is (generally) reliable and the underlying standards and practices that confer such reliability. News stories are not usually reliable for claims about ancient Egyptian pharmacology or comparative religion novel rating scales for storm damage. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 23:48, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
I lean against this proposal. The provision that master's theses that cannot be shown to have had significant scholarly influence […] should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis doesn't add much guidance and would seem to just open up more disputes. I didn't read every linked discussion in its entirety, so I may have missed something, but it appears that in most cases the thesis is determined to be unusable and in a few it has been given a pass based on some exceptional set of circumstances. I think it should continue to be uncommon that we cite a master's thesis, that has not been cited or discussed in other literature, for a factual claim that is not found in any other sources. I'm open to the idea that there are exceptions, for example areas where there are systemic gaps in the literature and the thesis was supervised by a recognized authority in the field. I would think there should be a high bar and these should perhaps include in-text attribution. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 00:09, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
Mostly, I just want to find a way to allow the use of theses that study understudied things and area, like the history of environmental disasters in Appalachia. There are often very serious and life changing events that get little or no coverage outside of the rare theses or the like. This whole thing cam up when I was writing the article about Bumpus Cove. The only half decent, and collected, coverage of the whole superfund site located in the cove is in an extremely well written master thesis. I had to spend HOURS digging through newspaper archives to find enough to source the article, and it is still a bit shaky. That seemed very stupid to me, so it ended up here, and RSN and DYK and on the article's talk page.
The policy clearly needs a bit more flex, I just don't have the experience to really nail down how much. Kingsmasher678 (talk) 00:19, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
I hear you. And you've done a great job navigating all these discussion forums and policy considerations, laying out the issues, and, I think, gaining at least some support. I'd be more comfortable allowing a one-off exception for Bumpus Cove than loosening up the guidance. (Note—I have not reviewed the Bumpus Cove issue closely enough to confidently make that assessment, so this should not be taken as a firm endorsement.) —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 01:19, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
I second that--and I agree it makes sense for that article--and articles like it. Agnieszka653 (talk) 01:22, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
@Myceteae and @Agnieszka653, I appreciate that! I have to say that I would prefer some sort of process that others can follow. I like what @GeogSage said above:
Generally, if someone is going to use a thesis as a source, the burden should be on them to prove that:
No better source exists
The thesis is of high quality
The thesis satisfies a need within the article, and is not just superfluous information.
The thesis is used to describe or describe something objective/factual/quantitative, not speculation or interpretation by the author.
Generally, if something is notable enough to include on Wikipedia, there will be other sources, which would make this a very rare occurrence. I'd suggest the thesis first pass the reliable source noticeboard, at the very least.
Kingsmasher678 (talk) 01:37, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
Comment: The double describe was supposed to say "describe or explain." I need to proofread better. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 01:39, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
That criteria sounds reasonable to me. I wonder if a good next step could be writing an WP:ESSAY that summarizes this discussion to provide informal context and suggestions for interpreting WP:THESIS for masters theses, as a reference for future discussions on RSN. Could also add a version of the checklist I used in this discussion about the Bumpus Cove DYK. Dreamyshade (talk) 14:00, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
An essay is a good idea. It would help to workshop and refine this over a longer period of time and with more test cases. The essay and its talk page could serve as a repository of links to relevant discussions. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 14:09, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
I think @Dreamyshade's analysis here did a good job of this. The provision that it satisfies a need within the article is important and gets and gets at other potential issues related to notability and neutrality (specifically WP:DUE and WP:PROPORTION). —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 14:01, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
So we have a bit of an egg and chicken problem here though. Because for a master's thesis to fill that need we'd need to establish encyclopedic significance absent the master's thesis and that would imply better sources already exist in which case why not just cite them instead. In other words: if the only source is a master's thesis we can't really establish relevance. Simonm223 (talk) 14:13, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
Some locations are notable like the Bumpus Cove example. Per Wikipedia:NPLACE. Kingsmasher678 (talk) 14:25, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
Yes, I'm very aware that Bumpus Cove is at the root of this discussion. My question is rather about how to establish that the Master's thesis is needed there if it's the only source for the information it contains. It's a circular establishment of relevance: the master's thesis becomes the argument for its own necessity in inverse proportion to the number of other sources that exist. And that's problematic as a source inclusion criterion. Simonm223 (talk) 14:28, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
Another example I'm thinking of is Isla Vista, California, which, like Bumpus Cove, is a census-designated place. It is undeniably notable, especially due to significant secondary coverage especially post-1970, but there are few reliable sources available about the earlier history of the place, especially 1910s-1960s. See the local university's list of resources about Isla Vista history - the best sources available for pre-1970 history are largely self-published works and theses written at the neighboring university, including several masters theses and one PhD dissertation published in 1994. The article's early history section is poorly cited at the moment, but I want to work more on it at some point, and if I had to limit myself to the dissertation, the section would miss out on depth and balance. Dreamyshade (talk) 14:43, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
This raises additional issues. The difference between these cases is instructive. At Bumpus Cove, the MA thesis is used as a citation 13 times. In 7 of these instances, it is supported by at least one additional citation. Overall, my impression is that the thesis fleshes out important details but is not the sole source in terms of verifiability/reliability, notability, or neutrality. For Isla Vista, California, if there is a 60-year time period that is only covered in master's theses and is systematically underrepresented in generally reliable sources, this suggests we should not devote substantial coverage to it in our article. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 17:02, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
There is secondary coverage available in newspaper and magazine articles, but the historical material is largely derived from research published by students - for example, this 2026 news feature quotes the person who wrote a 1987 masters thesis and 1994 dissertation, which is great because she really is the best expert on this material. As another example, this 2025 news feature is mostly a synthesis of previously published research, along with some primary source research done by the author, who is a knowledgeable community member without formal training. There are also government reports with some summaries of early history. I can cite these materials as supporting sources, but they're not necessarily more reliable for factual information than the masters theses. In general it wouldn't be WP:DUE to write a particularly lengthy section about the early history of this place, but I do want the material to be substantive and use the best available sources. Dreamyshade (talk) 18:31, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
I would be wary about over-reliance on primary sources and master's theses but I can appreciate that for local history sourcing is limited. WP:INTEXT citation might be called for here. It's difficult to assess reliability or due weight without looking at specific article content and the how sources are used. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 19:34, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
Comment: Comparing a government source to a masters thesis, the issue is institutional accountability. A government source is backed by the government, and if it is incorrect then we can point to that as an issue. A peer-reviewed publication has the reputation of the authors institution and the journal to back it up. A news article is backed by the agency that published it. A masters thesis is essentially self published, and while a bad one might reflect poorly on their advisor, the point of the thesis isn't to create sources but to teach a student how to do research. Universities are not staking their reputation on the quality of individual students thesis work, and students are told they are the only ones responsible for the statements written in their document. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 19:54, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
I can speak to geography as an example. A region might be notable, but specific details about that region might not exist, or be difficult to find, in the literature. A thesis written by a student about that region might contain something about it that might satisfy a need. It could be something as simple as "_________ region, known locally as __________" where the local name is demonstrably known to us from unacceptable sources like social media, but not in a reliable source. Once we find the fact in a better source, we can swap the thesis for that. Generally, I'm not in favor of adding them at all, but I can see where it might be useful in some situations, and if we are going to do it would want it heavily restricted to ensure it remains an edge case. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 19:44, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
Yes, it's a real problem. I didn't want to get too off-topic but this issue really is at the intersection of all these inclusion criteria/considerations. I think it's possible there can be a situation where:
  1. A subject is notable
  2. A particular aspect of the subject is important enough to warrant coverage, perhaps even so much so that omissions would run afoul of DUE/PROPORTION
  3. A high quality master's thesis is the best source for specific details
But it's a tough case to make and should be a high bar. Bumpus Cove appears to be a special case that may clear that bar but I'm not convinced we should open the flood gates. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 16:10, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
I'm kind of in the same place. I know at RS/N I was pretty rigid about Bumpus Cove but that was because that's the reliability rules we have in front of us. Based on this extensive discussion it seems like an edge case. My concern is that we don't want to be building policy from the edges in. Simonm223 (talk) 19:34, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
  • I like the comments by WhatamIdoing and David Eppstein in the 2025 discussion on dissertations, especially the comment "the key question isn't "Is it reliable?" but "Is it reliable for this claim?"" In that vein, I don't think blanket prohibitions or even discuragemnt of finished theses and dissertations matter, it is whether there are no better sources for the claim exists. (And I would strongly hesitate to use only a master's thesis for determining notability, but again extrordinary circumstances may arise). --Enos733 (talk) 16:22, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
@Theleekycauldron I noticed you expressed an opinion about this here, thought you might be interested. Kingsmasher678 (talk) 17:28, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
@PARAKANYAA and @Cremastra from here. Kingsmasher678 (talk) 17:31, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
The problem with theses is that they vary so much. However, I dislike the status quo of what is effectively total prohibition. I think it would be beneficial to be given more latitude; maybe a presumption that masters' thesis are no consensus off the bat rather than generally unreliable. It varies wildly by field, so I think making it more case by case would be reasonable, as in some fields masters theses are respectable contributions with overview and in others they are effectively worthless to cite. PARAKANYAA (talk) 17:35, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
COMMENT: I would encourage people to send this to anyone they think may be interested. I would like to have as much imput as possible before starting any sort of official RFC. Kingsmasher678 (talk) 17:35, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
Information Note: Notice placed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Higher education. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 17:57, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
Comment: I think there is certainly an issue of variability with master's theses and the level of scrutiny they undergo. One issue is the wide variation in expectation for a master's thesis, in particular (in the UK at least) the difference between research master's and taught master's (including integrated master's). A taught master's thesis is basically an extended essay on a project, with most of the marks being from examination on taught courses, while a research master's thesis is the basis for most of the marks for the degree and is examined in a similar way to a PhD, with external examiners reading the thesis. A taught master's thesis is therefore only slightly higher than a final year bachelor's project and I think the presumption that these are not reliable is reasonable. A research master's is, in contrast, often supposed to be work of publishable quality and a much stronger argument can be made for treating these as reliable. In the UK, institutional research repositories will normally hold research master's theses but not taught master's theses.
However, the same variability also applies to doctoral theses, with some doctorates (particularly in the US) awarded for taught programmes. The general advice at WP:THESIS includes "If possible, use theses that have been cited in the literature, supervised by recognized specialists in the field, or reviewed by independent parties." At the moment, only the first of these is considered to make a master's thesis reliable, which seems over-restrictive. The implication of the policy as currently written is that it's okay, even if not preferable, to cite a thesis from a taught professional doctorate (such as a US JD) that has been supervised by a non-specialist and has not been reviewed by an independent examiner, but that a research master's thesis supervised by a recognised specialist and reviewed by an external examiner is considered unreliable unless it can be shown to have had "significant scholarly influence". Such a division in how we treat theses based on what an institution decides to title its programme does not seem particularly useful.
I think the 'treat on a case-by-case basis' idea has some merit, but requires guidance. I would suggest that for a thesis to have been reviewed by independent parties is a minimum bar for all theses (not just master's theses) to be considered reliable, and that research master's theses that have been subject to external review and that are expected to be work of publishable quality should be considered reliable in the same way as research doctoral theses (with the onus on the person wanting to use the thesis to demonstrate this, in the same way it currently is). Robminchin (talk) 21:45, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
I think this is a misread of the situation. The bulk of the guidance, including the portion you quoted, applies to Completed dissertations or theses written as part of the requirements for a doctorate. Only the last two sentences apply to Masters dissertations and theses, which have more restrictions on use. In the US, professional doctorates like JD and MD do not include a dissertation, so the guidance doesn't really apply. As I just learned, the use of "thesis" vs. "dissertation" for master's vs. doctoral degrees is opposite in different countries. Perhaps the guideline could be improved by specifying doctoral theses and masters theses. You're right that terminology varies even within each country, from program to program, and that we can't rely on something simply being called a "thesis". —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 23:02, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
There are JD courses in the US that have a (sometimes optional) thesis component, e.g., There are also other places that have non-research doctorates with thesis requirements below those for master's degrees, e.g.,. In an international encyclopedia we can't rely on doctorate vs masters any more than thesis vs dissertation as a discriminator of the level of a work.
As currently worded, a thesis produced after two years of research and subjected to external review for an MPhil is unreliable, but a 5 credit-hour internally marked thesis for a JD is acceptable. This clearly needs major revision, not just tinkering. Robminchin (talk) 01:01, 9 May 2026 (UTC)
True, fair point. That is quite different from a dissertation (US usage), and I read doctoral theses as meaning dissertations here but I see that it is open to different readings. I read it as clear that the first part would not refer to a thesis in a professional doctorate program in the US but strictly speaking, as worded, it is open to different readings. As I read it, a US JD "thesis" or master's or doctoral "capstone" is not explicitly addressed here. I see two separate (but intertwined) issues here that might be handled differently. One is to possibly clean up the wording and the other is to decide if there is going to be a change in the standard. If the reliable sources standard is not changing, then it's just a question of confirming everyone's current understanding and clarifying the wording as needed. Although it's not clear doctoral dissertations or JD theses have been a source of controversy in the past. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 02:05, 9 May 2026 (UTC)
As I understand it, the current policy allows limited usage of master's theses/dissertations, based on specific circumstances and good-faith vetting by the editor. In addition, the policy indicates a preference for secondary publications. At first, I thought it was adequate, but am beginning to change my mind. It might be helpful to change the phrasing to “good-faith vetting”, " strengthening the concept of researching the source before using it. Should we also note that such sources would not count toward notability and should not be used to support the majority of an article's content?
We should probably discuss how such works can serve as both primary and secondary sources. A master’s thesis or dissertation might have a limited distribution, but is not self-published. Although there is an assumption that such works are always primary sources that present original research, many serve as secondary sources that provide analysis or summaries of the works of others. Wikipedia recognizes the potential for this dual role, noting that newspapers, for example, can be a secondary source. Such clarification could limit how these sources should be used, but could also strengthen the case for how they could be used. Rublamb (talk) 16:08, 9 May 2026 (UTC)
I agree largely with these issues raised and I'm unsure how to proceed. My sense, based on this discussion and the others linked, is that the guidance has served us fairly well despite real ambiguity in the terminology, unclear applicability to certain degree types, and some disagreement about the current scope. I worry about WP:CREEP, bogging down the guidance with a lot of minutiae about terminology and special circumstances—or adding vague guidance about good-faith vetting or a case-by-case basis—and potentially creating more loopholes or disputes. To be clear, I find my own objections here rather unsatisfying. tl;dr: You raise good points and I don't know what the right answer is. A key question for me is whether these issues have been a locus of recurring disputes. As for the primary vs. secondary source discussion, I'm not sure it is the critical test here, especially if we get the rest of the guidance right, although it may be worth mentioning and linking to existing guidance on this. If an MA thesis contains primary research that goes on to be widely cited and considered a major contribution to the field then we can probably use it, with the usual caveats that secondary sources may still be better. On the other hand, a master's student's secondary analysis of prior literature is generally unusable unless it's been published or cited elsewhere. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 18:19, 9 May 2026 (UTC)
I think that Myceteae has it correct above in some of their responses: If the only place where we can find information is in weak sources then that information (probably) doesn't belong in a Wikipedia article.
With that said, I have no objection an editor using a Master's thesis that can be demonstrated as being sufficiently reliable (which is the same position I hold for any kind of source). But I think the current approach of defaulting to not presuming that a Master's thesis is reliable is the correct one given what we know about how they are typically written and reviewed. So I'm not convinced that our current policies and practices need to change. ElKevbo (talk) 22:18, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
On "If the only place where we can find information is in weak sources then that information (probably) doesn't belong in a Wikipedia article", who is "we" here? We (in this discussion) are essentially talking about what to do when we find an average WP editor, more than likely only using sources available online (and of course in English) has found a masters thesis and used it. What are "we" to do? Of course "we" could ideally conduct a full library etc search (multilingual if necessary) for better sources, but "we" probably won't. Johnbod (talk) 03:31, 9 May 2026 (UTC)
"We" would be the reliable source noticeboard and the article in questions talk page. I think including a thesis should be hard to do, and the burden to prove an exception should be on the editor wanting to include it. If we find any source in a more traditionally acceptable medium, we replace the thesis with it. Alternatively, we just don't use masters theses at all. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 03:36, 9 May 2026 (UTC)
Comment: My own Master's thesis was a research thesis. It was reviewed by two academic reviewers, one in the UK and one in Australia. (The PhD was reviewed by three, all experts, all overseas.) It is cited more often in books and articles than the PhD and required just as much work. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:14, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
If a thesis is cited in peer-reviewed books and articles (such as yours), it meets the threshold of significant scholarly influence. Mine won an award from an international organization in the field--I think this would qualify as proof of significance/reliability, but maybe not of influence. However, one person in my cohort didn't even meet the minimum length, was not passed by peer reviewers, and go the degree anyway. As noted above, all works are not equal. There are a few dissertations that I have used as sources for Wikipedia articles because the author is widely accepted as the leading authority in a particular subject, often publishing on the topic as a professional (but with fewer details than found in the thesis or dissertation). Considering this, some changes to the wording of the policy might be beneficial, but maybe not as broad as allowing a case-by-case analysis, as that will totally depend on who is reviewing these. Maybe wording such as "significant scholarly influence or other external evidence of scholarly reliability" might open up usage, but would not invite every editor to make their own determinations regarding a thesis. Rublamb (talk) 00:40, 9 May 2026 (UTC)
Comment: The amount of work that goes into a document has little to do with how reliable it is. Awards have little to do with how reliable they are, especially if the awards are for presenting the research and not the document itself. We could cite the scholarly sources that have made the choice to cite a thesis, but should generally avoid citing them. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 01:59, 9 May 2026 (UTC)
I understand your sentiment, but you are making an assumption that a secondary scholarly source replicates the contents of the thesis. The caveat here is when an editor lacks access to a better source. As I said above, there are rare cases where a scholar's thesis and dissertation become the definitive source on a subject. The best examples I can think of are works about specific architects that have yet to receive treatment in a book (and probably never will). The sources used for the thesis or dissertation are largely archival, with the thesis or dissertation providing analysis and an amalgamation of facts. A book or article might cite the thesis regarding a building or the architect, but they are unlikely to replicate the biographical content or the comprehensive analysis of the architect's style and contributions found in the dissertation or thesis. Yet, the dissertation or thesis might be heavily cited in a nomination form for the National Register or Historic Places (which are heavily used as sources in Wikipedia), making it important when it comes to identifying and recognizing significant structures in the U.S. I know I am going very specific here, but my point is that there are cases when this type of publication is appropriately used as a source. Our current policy allows for such usage.
FYI: In my case, the award was for the paper, without a presentation. Thus, the award consisted of a review by a panel of international experts in the field. I was also approached by a publisher to convert it into a book. However, my thesis is unlikely to be used as a source in Wikipedia; I was just using it as an example because there are numerous such awards out there that can be used to help determine the credibility of a thesis or dissertation. Rublamb (talk) 15:04, 9 May 2026 (UTC)
In these exceptional cases where no other source exists, we can have a discussion and make exceptions. Some barrier should exist to keep the exception from becoming the norm. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 17:09, 9 May 2026 (UTC)
I agree, these represent exceptional cases. And, again, this gets back to the issues of notability and due weight, in addition to reliability. If an architect is wiki-notable enough to have a standalone article and the only source for key biographical details or unique interpretations of their style is a master's thesis. And, yes, this is a different standard than a biography published by a reputable book publisher or in a peer reviewed journal. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 18:31, 9 May 2026 (UTC)
Georg, I agree their use should be the exception and should never be the "go to" source for anything. I actually feel the same way about doctoral dissertations. I provided these examples as a possible reason to allow their use in a limited way, since there was some pushback on that concept. In terms of the wording under discussion, isn't this type of analysis (primary vs. secondary sources, reliable vs. unreliable) covered in general guidelines for sources in Wikipedia? Rublamb (talk) 00:22, 10 May 2026 (UTC)
In general, a thesis is covered on Wikipedia:Reliable sources under WP:THESIS. I think the language used there is too lenient, and that in general, most fall under WP:SELFPUB. Fundamentally, they are reviewed by a committee, but that review is just to ensure it meets minimum standards to pass the defense. The student is responsible for the content of the thesis, and copies generally need to be paid for by the student out of pocket. To publish on ProQuest, it is often a requirement to be under the open-access license which the student generally needs to pay for out of pocket. They often include both primary and secondary information, but more importantly, they are ultimately self published by individuals who are going through a very rushed learning exercise. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 01:59, 10 May 2026 (UTC)
Wearing my librarian hat here: A thesis is not self-published; it is technically published by the academic institution that binds, catalogs, and stores the document. APA Style says, "A dissertation or thesis is considered published when it is available from a database such as ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global or PDQT Open, an institutional repository, or an archive." Note that there is a middleman/publisher between the author and access to the publication, which is different from publishing and selling your own book. In the old days, the fee for a copy of a thesis/dissertation was shared between the university library and the vendor--the author was not part of the conversation. Today, the thesis is supposed to include a copyright page, with the author signing an authorization for the library to distribute copies through a vendor. Once ProQuest gets involved with digital or microfilm copies, the publisher is considered to be ProQuest. You could say that ProQuest is not a reliable publisher of scholarly works, as it makes no review for quality. However, many general nonfiction books are published by reputable houses, with the scholarly side of the book only receiving a narrow review with regard to its accuracy. Such firms have also been known to hire general writers, rather than experts, for a series of books. These books are not scholarly but are used as sources in Wikipedia without question.
Rushed is relative--one semester of research and one semester writing is a longer time than is spent on many nonfiction books that are considered reliable sources. It is certainly more time than is spent on newspaper or magazine articles that are considered reliable sources. I have seen an event happen, with books from reputable publishing appearing on library shelves within 3 to 4 months. And that was before AI!
Are we getting overexcited about a minor issue. How often do people use a thesis or dissertation as a source? Their general lack of availability through a Google search probably limits their use. I guess it depends on discipline. I would rather see a thesis citation than no source or a random Internet source. However, ask me again in twenty years when there are shelves full of AI-crafted and reviewed theses.... Rublamb (talk) 03:06, 10 May 2026 (UTC)
  • ProQuest doesn't check the work you publish, they explicitly tell you that before they take your money. There are a number of Vanity press that will publish things for you and enter it into a database. ResearchGate will make anything available you want in a database as well, in fact I tell my students to upload their conference posters onto it, and it even generates DOI numbers for them (Every poster I have ever presented is on ResearchGate with a DOI, they even show up if you search well enough on Google Scholar). There are Degree mills that will give anyone a paper that says "Master."
  • I've recently seen them attempted to be used on dead Internet theory, and have seen them on other pages. Google Scholar readily shows theses.
  • In the context of research, they are usually quite rushed. Students are busy, and generally have a graduation date in mind, limited funding, and job offers. I had to hurry through my thesis and defend over a Summer session because I had been accepted into a Ph.D. program, I had to defend my dissertation over a Summer because I had accepted a job offer. On my dissertation, I was forced to cut two publications out as my committee didn't think they would be ready in time to defend (5 instead of 7, with a minimum of 3, so it wasn't a problem, but it wasn't as complete as I intended in my proposal). This is pretty normal from what I've observed, people don't have the time or energy to dedicate to these that you would expect from other original research.
  • I would rather not include content then have it poorly cited. I have read a lot of theses, and something that I have noticed across all of them is that students like to slip in hot takes that are tangentially related to the main topic. This is something that is expected as they experiment with the idea of having an expert opinion, but the result can be pretty damaging if we green light theses as acceptable sources.
GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 05:06, 10 May 2026 (UTC)
Yet, we're allowed to use news sources and magazine sources with wild abandon. The review that goes into a masters thesis is usually going to be above most news organizations, and more of an expert quality work than any news source, but news sources are generally reliable and masters theses are generally unreliable. Absurd. PARAKANYAA (talk) 19:17, 10 May 2026 (UTC)
The review that goes into most masters theses is three people who are offering suggestions a student should do to meet minimum standards. Most of the time, only one or two committee members offer substantial feedback. The people want the student to pass, and students will often ignore some of the suggestions and as long as it isn't to outrageous no one will stop them. A news and magazine source will have editorial oversight, and importantly, if it publishes enough slop we can exclude it. A thesis is a one off, and most of the time it is by a person who is unknown. There isn't really any organization that is accountable for a really bad or inaccurate thesis, and few people will ever look over a document after the student pays to have proquest host it. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 00:24, 11 May 2026 (UTC)
Accountability is a big one. There was a discussion not too long ago at RSN about a major blunder by The Times. There was an initial call to downgrade their 'generally reliable' status but the overall sentiment was that one error did not sully their entire reputation and that their response, which included pulling the article and issuing an apology, demonstrated their overall reliability. The overall news ecosystem also contributes to reliability. For the controversy surrounding The Times, the fact that other outlets reported on and verified the true facts shows how news org's hold one another accountable and gives us multiple sources to assess the reliability and neutrality of individual pieces of reporting. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 15:29, 11 May 2026 (UTC)
  • I'd be interested as to whether the comments above are based entirely or near-entirely on experiences of masters theses written and reviewed in the Global North. I suspect that might well be the case. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:14, 11 May 2026 (UTC)
    I know that what constitutes a masters thesis can vary by country, but I haven't seen a trend where the Global south is substantially different overall. What is the difference in your experience? GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 12:02, 11 May 2026 (UTC)
    Rather negative, I'm afraid. A number of bad experiences especially with theses on Central Asian history. Barely-veiled polemical nationalistic screeds masquerading as a scientific analysis, no doubt "reviewed" (if at all) by a tick-box committee.
    That said, having read more of the 10k words above, I wouldn't be totally opposed to a change which allows limited use of masters theses on obscure topics with the caveats that their due weight should not be over-represented and that they have limited bearing on notability standards. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:08, 11 May 2026 (UTC)
    I've read some poor theses from various places, and unfortunately there is one country (shall remain nameless) I've read several from, yet never seen a good one. Didn't know there was a broader trend people were noticing. I've graded a lot of student work, generally a thesis is about on par with a long final paper. I teach my students how to make a ResearchGate and generate their own DOI, it is not difficult for a student to post a term paper on there and make it look really professional, but we should not be using those. A thesis is pretty much just graded work, and pass/fail at that. They are hosted at the school library and published on ProQuest, but that is not much different from uploading to ResearchGate. I think this is true across most countries; however, some may have looser standards than others. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 13:23, 11 May 2026 (UTC)
    Do you think the academic institution makes a difference? Rublamb (talk) 17:41, 11 May 2026 (UTC)
    No, at least not meaningfully in a way we could model. The department matters a lot, and presumably the countries University system. The saying I've been told repeatedly is that there are exactly two types of mutually exclusive masters thesis: Perfect, and finished. That philosophy exists as long as there are students on a short time line and faculty wanting to kick them out the door so they can bring in the next cohort. The emphasis is always on "good enough," and if it is really good then students are encouraged to go the extra mile and polish it for review after they graduate. A thesis is very much functionally just a massive term paper. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 18:22, 11 May 2026 (UTC)
  • If my current experience in the (physics) academia with master's theses is anything to go by, it is that they are in general not reliable. The current guideline is fine as it stands and needs no change. JavaHurricane 17:11, 13 May 2026 (UTC)
  • Comment: I've been thinking of this for a while now, and think that a major issue is people are not really understanding what a thesis is. Rather then thinking of them as a scientific publication, they should be viewed as an assignment that is graded pass/fail by three professors and then self-published by the student as a requirement for their degree. Fundamentally, it is closer to a term paper then a scientific article, and just like a term paper, if it is good enough the student can get it peer-reviewed at which point it has external checks by parties without an interest in seeing the student succeed.
GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 20:23, 14 May 2026 (UTC)
Comment: Not all master's degrees are in science, and different subjects have different requirements. For example, a history thesis or dissertation requires a thorough analysis of prior publications on the topic. That, in and of itself, is a significant amount of research that would not be included in a typical term paper. Other subjects do not require a literature review. A chemistry or physics thesis might involve an experiment, while a geology thesis might involve field work. The latter is highly unlikely to be involved in a term paper. As someone with two undergraduate degrees and two master's degrees spanning science, social sciences, and the humanities, I find it baffling that anyone would say that a thesis or dissertation is the equivalent of a term paper. Term papers are 10 to 15 pages long, and often have limits of no more than 20 pages. A thesis or dissertation is usually 60 to 100 pages, although some subjects will allow as few as 40 pages. I never spent an entire semester conducting research for a term paper or an entire semester doing nothing but writing one. Nor did I ever write a term paper that involved a written review and oral discussion with a cohort of peers, along with one-on-one consultation from two faculty members. Furthermore, I can remember when term papers could be handwritten! My point is that term papers are usually rushed, written at the end of a semester while a student is juggling other classes and exams. A thesis or dissertation is/should be more considered, more comprehensive, and more of a passion project. Are there graduate students who crank out crap--absolutely. Are there varying degrees of reliability within theses and dissertations--absolutely. But to say that all theses or dissertations equate to term papers is akin to saying that all theses and dissertations are great sources. The truth is somewhere in between.
Also, dissertations and theses are not self-published; although the student is the author and holds the copyright, such works are published by the university that accepts, binds, catalogs, and stores them. This is a well-established academic and library cataloging standard that pre-dates the era of computer publishing. Rublamb (talk) 22:45, 14 May 2026 (UTC)
I hold three degrees, have sat on committees, and have read theses across multiple disciplines. Theses are certainly big papers, but not much different from a typical term paper, lab report, or similar assignment. They are definitely the largest single assignment most people are likely to do, but that is because they are the last assignment you turn in to complete the (often terminal) degree. The 100+ page thesis is usually rushed, with the bulk written at the end of the final semester, while students are juggling other classes, exams, and TA/RA work. While they have large page counts, that is often double spaces, and sometimes even printed single sided. I have a minor in history, and have written multiple 20 page literature reviews for those classes, if I bound them together, it would easily exceed the length of my masters thesis. I have done field work for physical geography and geology classes that involved written lab reports that were as long as the results section of my thesis. In fact, my masters thesis has content from multiple term papers I wrote in it, as we were encouraged to do work related to our thesis in those classes. Masters theses are something that take a lot of work, and are definitely a passion project, but that does not make them a reliable source. Fundamentally, a theses is a big assignment that spans multiple semesters and is required to receive the degree, typically graded pass/fail by three professors.
Vanity press publishers also accepts, binds, catalogs, and stores publications after receiving payment from the author, Universities are not much different. There might be checks related to format of the thesis before the University accepts it, but content is not considered by the publisher and the student bears all responsibility for the final product.
I think you're confusing the pride and effort that goes into creating a document with reliability as a source. As you stated, there are varying degrees of reliability, and graduate students do crank out crap. Professors are on the students side, they don't want to fail a student and are likely to overlook issues that would get a paper rejected from an academic journal. The thesis is a learning experience more then a demonstration of ability, and that is kept in mind when evaluating them. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 15:37, 15 May 2026 (UTC)
I had to have five members on my PhD dissertation committee. I was able to bring in someone from another university in the state system so that I could have two members on the committee who had some idea of what I was writing about. Donald Albury 17:59, 15 May 2026 (UTC)
A dissertation is not a master's thesis; five on a committee for a dissertation is the norm, thesis is three. In terms of dissertation, classically if it was a really good dissertation, the student would turn it into a book (an example of this is Theoretical Geography by William Bunge). Today, it is much more common to do the three peer-reviewed publications sandwiched between a unifying introduction and conclusion chapter, although it varies. One of my chapters is still needing to go through peer-review (it has been returned with minor revisions I still need to make), I would not recommend anyone cite the content of it on Wikipedia until it is in a journal, and I'm very proud of that chapter (it won a national award and several regional awards). On that one for example, four of my five committee members are co-authors. I led the work and did 95% of it, but fundamentally, dissertations, like theses, are judged by people who are biased in favor of the author. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 23:11, 15 May 2026 (UTC)
My point is that even for a PhD dissertation only two members of my committee were qualified to evaluate what I was doing, hardly a selling point for the reliability of the work. Donald Albury 13:11, 16 May 2026 (UTC)
How is the one editor at a tiny hometown newspaper supposed to be more qualified than that? Kingsmasher678 (talk) 14:56, 16 May 2026 (UTC)
Qualified for what? One would assume that if a thesis is being cited, it is as a scholarly work, rather than as something one would expect to find in a local newspaper. As always with citations, context matters. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:05, 16 May 2026 (UTC)
WP:CONTEXTMATTERS is the core reason why I'm interested in a tiny bit of wiggle room for evaluating citations to masters theses using RS criteria beyond scholarly influence. We have a lot of articles that merit a quite high standard of sourcing, including many scientific topics with strong peer-reviewed literature available, and there's rarely a good reason to use a non-peer-reviewed masters thesis on those articles unless it has significantly scholarly influence. We also have a ton of articles about small populated places, which may be notable under WP:NPLACE rather than WP:GNG, where most of the secondary sources available are local newspaper articles. That's the kind of article where I'm interested in the option to cite a history masters thesis from a regional research university that provides helpful synthesis of past government records, newspaper articles, oral history interviews, etc., on a topic of local interest. Dreamyshade (talk) 16:03, 16 May 2026 (UTC)
Comment: A Wikipedia I originated was mentioned in a "Letter from the editor" section of a peer-reviewed publication, specifically that "the page deserves to be opened and read." The Wikipedia page is not a reliable source because it was mentioned, and even if it was cited would not transform the Wikipedia page into a reliable source. A journal article (or several) citing dubious content doesn't necessarily elevate that content to reliable either. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 05:20, 18 May 2026 (UTC)
Well it depends on the type of claim being cited. We would not cite a small-town local paper for a bold new archaeological discovery or a novel chemical synthesis. For details about local festivals or the mayor's race, it would be a good source. For local history, its might depend on the specifics. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 16:14, 16 May 2026 (UTC)
Exactly. It really does come down to the credibility of the source for a specific subject. Historically, we have trusted certain newspapers and magazines because of their editorial standards and reputation for having qualified staff. Journalists for reliable publications are trained professionals who studied their craft in college and adhere to professional standards. The local paper might be great for an article about a hometown hero or local history, but it would not be the best source for national news. Someone above, another editor noted that the academic institution does not make a difference with theses and dissertations. However, the publisher’s reputation (the university) is supposed to be part of the source evaluation process. A student writing a thesis or dissertation for a well-regarded department at a highly selective academic institution should have a higher level of reliability than a thesis from a lower-ranked institution or department. That does not mean that all master's work from an Ivey League school is fantastic, but this does provide some reasonable guidance when considering such sources. Rublamb (talk) 17:04, 16 May 2026 (UTC)
Universities are very clear that they are not responsible for the content published in a thesis. The only evaluation given by the University itself is usually related to format. University department rankings are largely arbitrary, and programs that are well regarded because of faculty research may not give as much attention to their students as you might think, while smaller programs you've never heard of might give almost all of their attention to students. Especially at the masters level, it will be very hard to tell just based on the program. Each thesis needs to be considered individually for reliability, independent of the institution and advisor as we know the institution doesn't check content, and don't know how involved the advisor was. Such consideration needs to start with with the assumption a thesis is not a reliable source unless proven otherwise, with a high burden of proof needed. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 21:46, 16 May 2026 (UTC)
A peer-reviewed publication might have been read by three peer reviewers, if you're lucky. It depends on the journal, the desperation of the handling editor, the subject-area, and the laziness of the reviewers. A thesis probably has been read by some examiners, who might be independent-minded, depending on how over-worked they are, how close to the student's supervisor, and in an external examiner's case, how long they had on the train on the way to the exam. It's really hard to decide which is better-reviewed, a thesis or a publication. I'd say this has to be case-by-case. Elemimele (talk) 16:31, 21 May 2026 (UTC)
A term paper might also be read by the professor, this doesn't mean a term paper is a good source, even if it gets an A and the student publishes it on arXiv or ResearchGate. Fundamentally, a thesis is not aiming at creating a resource for reference, it is a demonstration of a students capabilities and the final assignment necessary to get a master degree. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 03:24, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

I propose a “Link Circle” visualization for Wikipedia articles, where the current page sits in bold font at the center and all connected articles branch outward in a circular diagram. Articles that link to the page would appear as red nodes, articles this page links to would appear as blue nodes, and articles that do both would appear as purple nodes. Each surrounding node would be clickable, allowing readers to jump directly into those articles. This simple, color‑coded design would make Wikipedia more explorable, help readers discover related topics, and provide a clear visual sense of how each article fits into the broader web of knowledge. The little contributor (talk) 15:29, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Where are you suggesting that these visualisations should be placed? AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:43, 25 May 2026 (UTC)
I’m suggesting that these visualisations be placed within the existing ‘What links here’ tool. Instead of just showing a plain list of linked pages, the tool could display them in a circular, color‑coded diagram that makes the connections easier to explore. The little contributor (talk) 16:01, 25 May 2026 (UTC)
I suspect that most readers would prefer a compact text-based list. Your proposal adds no information that such a list can't already provide, and a list does so in a manner that makes looking for a specific entry easier. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:34, 25 May 2026 (UTC)
The usual response to such things (that seem like nice ideas but whose advantage over the current way of doing things is not immediately apparent) is to simply say "do it yourself". Do you, or does someone you know, have the technical ability to make at least a prototype? Phil Bridger (talk) 21:49, 25 May 2026 (UTC)
Similar sorts of visualisations do exist, see eg or . It would be possible to make it work the way OP suggests, although whether it would work as a what links here replacement instead of a standalone site is a different question. CMD (talk) 22:58, 25 May 2026 (UTC)
Someone did this ~15 years ago to see how User_talk: pages interconnected. It was interesting (SandyGeorgia was at the center) but not exactly legible. There were just too many pages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:07, 27 May 2026 (UTC)
Thanks for raising those points, @AndyTheGrump:. I agree the list format is efficient for targeted searching, and I wouldn’t want to replace it. My suggestion is for an optional visualization alongside the list, which adds distinct benefits: it makes clusters, hubs, and isolated nodes instantly visible, supports intuitive exploration of the “web of knowledge,” offers clear educational value for visual learners and newcomers, complements the list by serving broader exploration while the list remains best for precision searches, follows precedents from other platforms that use network visualizations effectively, and is technically feasible since it would build on the existing What links here data rather than requiring a new dataset. In short, the visualization doesn’t replace the list but complements it, offering perspectives the list alone can’t provide. The little contributor (talk) 07:51, 26 May 2026 (UTC)
Please do not propose changes using llms. CMD (talk) 08:23, 26 May 2026 (UTC)
thx for the feedback, i will stop using llms. i just used them to polish my ideas only. but the idea is mine. The little contributor (talk) 08:55, 26 May 2026 (UTC)
I'm not sure it would be as intuitive as you would like. Graphs of Wikipedia data can get big fast and if you want labels displayed it can become visually busy. Take your link to Purple for example. That would have over a thousand red nodes around the circle (if you limit it to links coming in from article namespace 0) and hundreds of blue nodes. And if you display edges, it can be visually confusing, even if you bundle them. I use graphs sometimes to do stuff but they can quickly get out of control and be more confusing than lists. Sean.hoyland (talk) 11:19, 26 May 2026 (UTC)
It reminds me of reblog graphs for Tumblr, which I heard about recently. ~2026-31819-56 (talk) 11:06, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

Expand WP:NEWLLM for userpages

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I propose that WP:NEWLLM should get expanded to forbid all LLM-generated content in userspace, except when it's part of a userspace draft or is being used to serve as an example of LLM usage, and is explicitly labelled as such.

I had this idea while looking at this userpage revision, which would most likely be deleted under the current rules if it were in mainspace.

What do you all think? GrinningIodize (talk) 00:11, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

What problem is this trying to solve? Thryduulf (talk) 00:17, 29 May 2026 (UTC)
AI slop in userspace, as the Wikipedia is not a dumping ground for LLM-generated content; see also Wikipedia:NOTWEBHOST. GrinningIodize (talk) 00:21, 29 May 2026 (UTC)
How will this proposal solve that problem? The example you give (a COI disclosure) is very much unrelated to NOTWEBHOST. And I can't think of anything that would be a notwebhost violation if it were AI generated that wouldn't be if it wasn't, with the possible exception of drafts of encyclopaedia content, which (a) we already have policies about and (b) are explicitly excluded from your proposal. Thryduulf (talk) 00:27, 29 May 2026 (UTC)
If you look at the example and scroll down, you will see that there is a userpage chock-full of WP:AISIGNS. GrinningIodize (talk) 14:48, 29 May 2026 (UTC)
There are two possible ways to think about the problem this might solve:
  • What the OP would like is to ban LLM use everywhere, and since the "ban it all" proposals have failed, then we'll take a salami approach: Just not in the mainspace. Also, no AI-generated images. Also, not on talk pages. Or in discussions that happen on non-talk pages. It's terrible in the Wikipedia: namespace, too. And drafts can't be approved until it's removed. And – did we miss anything? Oh, right, not in the User: space, either, or anywhere else.
  • What's actually a problem: Some User: pages should be deleted per Wikipedia:User pages#Deleting others' user pages. Some editors don't know that's possible, though, so they start looking for a 'technicality'. Or they both dislike the page and realize that it doesn't meet the rules for deletion, they might look for another opportunity (e.g., could it be a copyvio?).
No matter what's intended here, I don't think that a COI declaration should be deleted, and I don't think that communications to other Wikipedia editors, from someone from a non-English-speaking country, is sensible. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:49, 29 May 2026 (UTC)
If you look at the actual link I provided, there is a bunch of AI slop immediately under the COI notice, which is what I'm concerned with. GrinningIodize (talk) 14:50, 29 May 2026 (UTC)
Correction: The whole thing is a COI notice, I stand corrected. GrinningIodize (talk) 14:51, 29 May 2026 (UTC)
Situations like this are actually a great opportunity to give a polite notification about LLM policy in a non-confrontational way. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 00:22, 29 May 2026 (UTC)
Not too convinced that this is a problem in and of itself, especially since userpages usually have a lot of latitude in what is permissible and the potential for AI-assisted spamming is much lower. Chaotic Enby (in solidarity · talk · contribs) 00:47, 29 May 2026 (UTC)
Believe me, I'd love to eliminate all AI slop completely, but I'm not prioritising removing it from userspace pages that are not indexed by search engines. As TBUA suggests, this can be a teachable moment for an inexperienced user. (Also, I'm wary of entering yet another tiring, extended discussion about revising NOLLM, so soon after the last one.) —In solidarity with Wiki Workers United · ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · email) 01:18, 29 May 2026 (UTC)
Why should we be concerned that it would most likely be deleted under the current rules if it were in mainspace? What harm does an AI-generated self-profile do? In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 16:09, 29 May 2026 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a dumping ground for AI slop. GrinningIodize (talk) 16:10, 29 May 2026 (UTC)
The relevant part of that sentence is Wikipedia is not a dumping ground. We have well-established policies and guidelines about what is and isn't appropriate to have in userspace, and I'm not seeing any reason to treat AI-generated content any differently to human-generated content in this regard. Can you give some actual examples of content that would be fine to host in userspace if it were human written but not fine if it were LLM-generated? Thryduulf (talk) 16:18, 29 May 2026 (UTC)
  • sigh* Fine. I give up. My proposal is silly and ill-thought-out. Would someone please close this discussion? GrinningIodize (talk) 16:20, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Folks, how about this example then (link)? The user copied the content into the declined LLM-content/influenced Draft:Rick Devens (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs). —George Ho (talk) 00:51, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

That was unambiguously a draft of mainspace content, which is explicitly excluded from this proposal and not a NOTWEBHOST violation even if it weren't. Thryduulf (talk) 01:04, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

except when it's part of a userspace draft

...I should've read the idea carefully. George Ho (talk) 01:30, 29 May 2026 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

ChatBot for newcomers to explain how to edit,create and guidelines etc..

Is there is an existing bot for newcomers(registered users)for help regarding creating new draft or articles , editing articles regarding Usage and guidelines to the wikipedia and other projects.. If it is not ;can we create a one or framework for email to be sent respectively or notification by automatic bots explaining all these ..in their talk pages.. Spbvj (talk) 17:55, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

Not yet, but we have Wikipedia:Guided tours, which I'm working on, which can help with that! Chaotic Enby (in solidarity · talk · contribs) 18:17, 1 June 2026 (UTC)
We do not currently have this program and the odds of an automated welcoming program being adopted are zero. You can help welcome newcomes by helping them directly. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 14:02, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

Possible API addition

A dictionary API to get alternative words of the same meaning. Example: I don't know crimson right click, then select alternative meaning. Red, other words. Now i know what this article is trying to tell me. Its often the case that most people understand the consent of an ideas but not the words that try to represent those ideas. Alternatively this could also be its own built in system but getting something already made seems easier. Im definitely a robot (talk) 21:54, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

You can probably get a web browser plug-in or similar tool that will offer this feature on all websites. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:17, 30 May 2026 (UTC)
Yes Im sure but i was hoping for this to be for everyone natively as some people wont add things that would help them. and its often kids or older people that have the most trouble. Im definitely a robot (talk) 22:21, 30 May 2026 (UTC)
I think most people would want a dictionary feature that is native to their browser, because they'd want to look up words on other sites, too. isaacl (talk) 22:27, 30 May 2026 (UTC)
Yes, I'm sure your right that people would want to add it but some people that would appreciate having it still don't sadly. Im definitely a robot (talk) 22:33, 30 May 2026 (UTC)
I don't think it should be Wikipedia's responsibility to fix browsers. People can ask at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing for instruction on how to install extensions already. In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 22:44, 30 May 2026 (UTC)
I don't think it should be Wikipedia's responsibility to fix browsers either but I think it should improve its quality of life if it can. Allowing everyone a great experience no matter what there situation or current knowledge might be. In addition extensions could pose a security risk to a user as some extensions have been used to deliver malware. Im definitely a robot (talk) 23:02, 30 May 2026 (UTC)
This information sounds to be in scope for Wiktionary where entries can have a synonyms section. So the information there is more structured for this kind of use. But perhaps the tool could be useful for editing Wikipedia. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:19, 30 May 2026 (UTC)
Oh really that sounds like it could work well, If Wikipedia could be right click, then select alternative meaning from Wiktionary that would be even better. I would be happy if it was used in any context, editing Wikipedia including. thank you for your input. Im definitely a robot (talk) 22:27, 30 May 2026 (UTC)
Where would this information come from? In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 22:27, 30 May 2026 (UTC)
Any free and reliable source like a dictionary API or like Graeme Bartlett mentioned Wiktionary. Im definitely a robot (talk) 22:30, 30 May 2026 (UTC)
I don't see a need for why this has to be built-in to Wikipedia. 🫀 Crash // Organhaver ( it / he | talk to me, maybe? ) 22:55, 30 May 2026 (UTC)
One reason that I would pose is to assist in the easy of learning for anyone as even common knowledge can be unknown for some. Having yet another tool to make learning easier can keep someone engaged longer without simply moving on or right clicking and using first result on googles AI definition as over 50% of people will google's AI overview as there final answer. Im definitely a robot (talk) 23:10, 30 May 2026 (UTC)
Many browsers have plugins, such as Wiktionary Search for Firefox. (I have not tested that one.) As others have pointed out, these have the advantage over a Wikipedia-hosted solution that we don't have to bother writing it they work equally well on other websites. Certes (talk) 22:37, 3 June 2026 (UTC)

On deleting drafts about non-notable subjects

If an editor thinks that a page in the WP:Draft namespace needs to be deleted, then they have to send it to MFD per Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion#Information on the process, rather than to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. However, MFD editors do not attempt to evaluate notability; that happens at AFD – and Draft: pages can't be taken to AFD. There is, effectively, no way for a Draft: to be directly evaluated by the community for notability (and deleted if it's found to be non-notable).

Our usual plan for a non-notable subject is:

  • Decline the draft (as many times as it's submitted), citing a lack of sources, and
  • Hope the editor will just give up after a while, so the draft will be auto-deleted.

But sometimes that doesn't work, and I think that this would sometimes be a better approach:

  • Decline the draft, citing a lack of sources, and
  • If it gets re-submitted after it's been declined ~three times, and the AFC reviewer's main concern is notability, then the AFC reviewer has the option of sending it straight to AFD, where it can be deleted as non-notable (or determined to be a notable subject and endorsed for a move to the mainspace).

I don't think this would happen very often. I think it would be better than moving the page to the mainspace first, just so we can send it to AFD. I don't think that sending it to AFD for a definitive notability determination would take more of the community's time than sending it to MFD (where the results are likely to be citing the essays Wikipedia:Drafts are not checked for notability or sanity and Wikipedia:Leave useless drafts alone, rather than addressing the fundamental question of whether it's a suitable subject for an article). I think that in a few cases, it might actually take less of the community's time to go to AFD than to go through many AFC resubmissions.

But I think this should be an occasional option, mostly used for borderline cases, rather than an automatic action. What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:33, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

We have the option to reject drafts, instead of declining them, if the lack of notability is clearly established (rather than just the lack of sources showing notability in the draft's current state). Additionally, lack of notability is not permanent, and drafts may be left to incubate until, e.g., lasting coverage is established.
Ultimately, an AfD for each non-notable draft would be a lot more of a drain on community resources than letting them be, in my opinion. Chaotic Enby (in solidarity · talk · contribs) 20:39, 9 June 2026 (UTC)
"Rejection" is one editor's opinion, and that opinion may be disputed. It also doesn't happen very often, as AFC reviewers are mostly nice people who would rather leave the door open to the possibility of success instead of dashing someone's dreams.
I agree that "an AfD for each non-notable draft" would be a problem. What I'm asking about is whether "an AfD for a small number of repeatedly declined non-notable drafts" might be occasionally worthwhile. In particular, when "letting them be" isn't an option because they keep getting re-re-re-re-submitted for review, maybe AFD could save the AFC folks some time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:25, 9 June 2026 (UTC)
If the drafts have been declined by multiple different reviewers for notability reasons then that seems like exactly the kind of situation where rejection would be appropriate. JoelleJay (talk) 13:13, 11 June 2026 (UTC)
Of course, back in the old days when draft space didn't exist and articles were developed Wiki-style in mainspace we didn't have this problem. Articles on notable subjects were kept, and those on unnotable subjects were deleted, both via AfD. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:59, 9 June 2026 (UTC)
Is “Just let it sit in Draftspace until automatically deleted” not working? Blueboar (talk) 21:36, 9 June 2026 (UTC)
We have a few drafts that get resubmitted many times. "Hope the editor will just give up after a while" relies on everyone being able to take a hint, and that's not realistic. For example, the first page I found with Special:RandomInCategory/Declined AfC submissions is Draft:Claudette Groenendaal (an athlete), which has been declined seven times so far. A (very) few more clicks takes me to Draft:Beta Squad (some YouTubers), which has been declined four times already and has been re-submitted for a fifth try. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:10, 9 June 2026 (UTC)
Perhaps I am confused on process… how is an automatic deletion different from a AFD deletion when it comes to dealing with resubmissions in draftspace? Blueboar (talk) 22:51, 9 June 2026 (UTC)
In that scenario, {{db-repost}} may be an option (depending on the details, of course). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:28, 9 June 2026 (UTC)
If a draft gets resubmitted many times without any improvement and the editor is not listening to people telling them not to do that, then take it to MfD and mention the disruption and/or place some sort of restriction on the editor, e.g. maybe a page block. Resubmitting the same draft over and over with no improvement is disruptive - usually at least one of CIR, NOTHERE, or ICANTHEARYOU. However it also matters how frequently the nominations happen - once every five months is much less disruptive than once every five days. Consider also what feedback is being given - does it actually explain in plain English what the problem is or is it just a generic message full of jargon? Thryduulf (talk) 23:09, 9 June 2026 (UTC)
MFD doesn't consider whether the subject is notable, so taking it to MFD doesn't solve the problem. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:29, 9 June 2026 (UTC)
I understand why you are saying MFD is the wrong venue… but not why an AFD is necessary. How would an AFD solve the problem? Are editors allowed to endlessly resubmit when auto-deleted, but not allowed to resubmit after an AFD? Blueboar (talk) 23:59, 9 June 2026 (UTC)
Yes.
Auto-deletion is without prejudice to re-creation or simply getting a WP:REFUND and picking up where you left off. Deletion via AFD puts some limits on re-creation. Deletion via AFD isn't a "no, never!" result, but it does allow deletion when exactly or very nearly the same thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:24, 10 June 2026 (UTC)
Got it… thanks for explaining. Blueboar (talk) 01:00, 10 June 2026 (UTC)
It's true that MFD doesn't normally consider notability of drafts, but it does consider tendentious resubmission. Taking your putative draft there really will solve the problem. —Cryptic 22:15, 10 June 2026 (UTC)
One reason to keep these drafts around is for training purposes -- I use drafts all the time to analyze patterns in AI-generated text and a major problem with that is that stuff keeps getting deleted. Gnomingstuff (talk) 00:40, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Unless I'm misunderstanding, the fundamental problem is that these drafts are wasting a lot of time for AfC reviewers. An alternative solution would be to allow AfC to kick a hopeless draft out of its system and refuse to have anything else to do with it. There would only be two paths forward: either the draft sits in draft space doing no harm, and probably gets autodeleted six months after its creator finally loses interest - or the creator moves it to main space in which case it can be AfD'd as normal. This might involve slightly less effort overall (not all hopeless drafts have to go to AfD). The difficulty is how to avoid the problematic draft being reinserted into AfC, but I doubt this will happen often. Elemimele (talk) 09:12, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

That path already exists (rejecting drafts instead of declining them), although your last point still stands. Chaotic Enby (in solidarity · talk · contribs) 09:26, 10 June 2026 (UTC)
The other problem with the rejection→deletion pathway is that it's just one person's opinion.
I'd like a path that allows "AFD as normal" without first moving the draft to the mainspace. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:06, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

I take it there is a real problem here but I don't know that this is the right solution. Drafts ending up at AfD is likely to cause confusion or outright irritation. This can be addressed through editor education but if it's truly an uncommon occurrence it is likely to confuse and frustrate each time and may backfire if there are procedural objections. There would need to be clear criteria as to the number of failed AFC attempts or other factors that would make a draft eligible for AfD rather than MfD. Perhaps the AFC process needs to be tweaked to encourage rejecting rather than declining certain articles. And/or perhaps MfD needs to be amended with deletion guidance for these situations but I take it that is an uphill battle. It does seem unreasonable that unacceptable drafts can be hosted and resubmitted indefinitely because no deletion forum or process will address them. —Myceteae‍🌈 (talk) 03:24, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

MfD does address unacceptable drafts that are repeatedly resubmitted. All it requires is someone to take it there, but an AfD solution would also require this. Thryduulf (talk) 09:40, 11 June 2026 (UTC)
The problem @WhatamIdoing presents is that MFD editors do not attempt to evaluate notability and even go so far as to cite essays saying that drafts like this should not be brought to MFD. I rarely participate at MFD so I'm assuming the characterization is accurate and I haven't seen others here dispute the basic premise. Maybe the problem is that nominators haven't provided the proper arguments and framing by specifying that the deletion rationale is repeated declination (or rejection) at AFC. I assumed folks had already tried making better arguments but if not, that should obviously be tried. The brief guidance at WP:MFD#Before nominating a page for deletion says: drafts are generally not deleted solely due to lack of demonstrated notability or context. I take it that generally and solely are doing a lot of work here. WP:NMFD elaborates (emphasis added: Failure to demonstrate that the topic meets notability guidelines is not considered sufficient reason to delete a draft, unless it has been repeatedly declined and resubmitted at AfC without improvement (with a couple of explanatory notes linking to this RfC and this one). My preference is that MFD handle these. That seemed reasonable to me on its face and is supported by the available guidance. If these are just not being nominated, then they should be. If the nominations don't properly spell out the deletion rationale, nominators should start there. But if the problem is that MFD editors decline to delete these because there is disagreement about the proper venue or deletion rationale, then something else needs to change. —Myceteae‍🌈 (talk) 14:16, 11 June 2026 (UTC)
There are basically two desirable outcomes: An unwanted page gets correctly deleted, and a wanted page gets correctly kept. I think that AFD is more likely than MFD to make a correct decision in the second case, partly because of the efforts of Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting and Wikipedia:Article alerts, which make it more likely for a person with some relevant subject-matter knowledge to see the discussion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:32, 11 June 2026 (UTC)
This is a helpful clarification. AFD as a sort of court of appeals to make a more definitive determination of notability (and other issues). Another strength of AFD is that it sometimes inspires multiple editors to contribute directly to improve the article, which may result in a draft that has previously languished under one editor's control finally becoming publishable. I'm starting to see the logic though I still have some concerns. —Myceteae‍🌈 (talk) 22:54, 11 June 2026 (UTC)
As someone who spends a significant amount of time in strange geologic holes on this site, I have 3 articles sitting in my user space or email that are notable topics I discovered through deletion sorting and article alerts. I just need to fix issues with them. That is very nice to have… Kingsmasher678 (talk) 02:04, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

Revision history statistics

The page information external tool "Revision history statistics" shows editor activity measured in several different ways. What is missing is any count of article text deleted. When an article is overlong and full of questionable content (uncited, off-topic, hyperbole, etc.), deleting material may be more important than adding new content, yet it is given no recognition in the statistics. This seems to be an omission. ThoughtIdRetired TIR 21:25, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

Which tool are you talking about? Can you post a link? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:35, 9 June 2026 (UTC)
I guess they're talking about the Xtools page history (linked as "page statistics" on the history tab), e.g. for the random article I got. It shows the top 10 editors by added text and by authorship, but the only thing related to deletion it shows is the single edit that resulted in the greatest reduction in page size. Thryduulf (talk) 20:58, 9 June 2026 (UTC)
Yes, was just putting together the answer:
At the bottom of Information for "Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)" you see "External tools", the second one down is "Revision history statistics" with the link . ThoughtIdRetired TIR 21:06, 9 June 2026 (UTC)
So you're starting at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Feng_shui&action=info#External_tools which links to https://xtools.wmcloud.org/pageinfo/en.wikipedia.org/Feng_shui which says that @Hipal has made 57 edits, but it's not until you click through to https://xtools.wmcloud.org/topedits/en.wikipedia.org/Hipal/0/Feng%20shui that you can see that the net effect is removing about five times as much as they've added. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:14, 14 June 2026 (UTC)
OK, we can see the amount of deleting that one editor does, but not the activity of an efficient editor who deletes a lot of material in a very small number of edits. In your example, Hipal has made 57 edits and so appears in the list for you to investigate further. Suppose another editor had deleted much more text, but overall made just 5 edits; the deletion activity would be completely invisible.
Furthermore, there is no clue in that Hipal has made any deletions. You have to do a manual search to find the information that you have highlighted.
The point I am making, if it needs reiterating, is that this tool tells us all about those who add text to Wikipedia and nothing (readily accessible) about those who delete material that should not be here. Reporting added text, when an encyclopedia is meant to be concise (summary style), is perhaps a little off-key when not balanced with showing deletion activity.
We know that deletions happen, from the ups and downs of the graph of article size (at the bottom of the page linked immediately above). The questions "who does this?" and "what do they delete?" are difficult to answer without laborious study of an article. ThoughtIdRetired TIR 08:25, 14 June 2026 (UTC)
https://xtools.wmcloud.org/pageinfo/en.wikipedia.org/Feng_shui#top-editors shows the first 20 by default; if you want to see the full list, then a link is provided immediately after the 20th entry. If you click it, it expands to 200; if you click it again, it expands even further. Every editor of that page is listed, but you have to click to reveal the less frequent ones.
I agree that Wikipedia:XTools does not highlight the information you're seeking. You could ask the volunteers who created and maintain it to add more information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:52, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

Problem with newcomers leaving Wikipedia

Sorry, if this is not the right place to ask this. This is not an idea (but it may lead into one). In Polish Wikipedia we have a project led by Wikimedia Polska called WP:NOWI (nowi in Polish means new, but in a form that implies people) where we're working on increasing retention of Wikipedia users. We can share what we did and what the effect was when the project ends if someone is interested.

My question is if this is not a problem in English Wikipedia and what you do to make more newcomers stay?

We've noticed that some users don't contact their mentors when their article is reverted. We assume that they didn't know why and just left the project. The same happened when the article was proposed for deletion (in PL called DNU) and the person didn't contact their mentor. Those are our hypotheses. If someone is interested, my analysis in Jupyter Notebook is on my GitHub (sorry, the comments and README are in Polish).

Did you notice anything like this in EN Wiki? Is this a problem you also want to overcome? jcubic (talk) 20:06, 3 June 2026 (UTC)

This is a major problem on enwiki. In my personal opinion, it's among the biggest problems we face. Mentorship especially doesn't seem to have much effect. I currently have about 800 mentees assigned to me, I get about one question every few days, and none of my mentees have reached an edit count of 500. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:36, 3 June 2026 (UTC)
Given that the number of editors who reach 100 edits is quite small (according to Wikipedia:Wikipedians, about top 1% of all users, top 2.5% of users who've made at least one edit), I didn't expect the mentorship program to have a huge effect, though I hoped it would have a small one. For reference, the number of editors who reach 500 edits is about top 0.25% of all users, and top 0.75% of users who've made at least one edit. isaacl (talk) 02:02, 4 June 2026 (UTC)
I think it does have a small one, but my impression is that the vast majority of new account creations aren't created with "I want to be a Wikipedian" in mind. Those I see on my talkpage usually make one comment and then disappears, but not all. Many newbies want to do something they probably can't, COI-thing or whatever, and when they learn that, they bugger off. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 03:54, 4 June 2026 (UTC)
The idea many people decide one day that "I want to be a Wikipedian" seems a bit silly to me. That is something that people might decide after getting a taste of working on Wikipedia. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 04:23, 4 June 2026 (UTC)
It took me 7 years to start making passable edits! There are definitely some of us who did not know how Wikipedia was actually going to go for them. Momonowa (talk) 15:52, 15 June 2026 (UTC)
I personally made my account to correct a typo here and there when reading Wikipedia. It took 3 years before I dived in deeper and became a daily-editing "Wikipedian" Athanelar (talk) 06:29, 16 June 2026 (UTC)
There are some major issues with retention for sure, but I think solutions fail to grasp how the majority of people end up being editors, and how Wikipedia policy gets in the way of that. Most people don't decide one day to start editing Wikipedia as a hobby, they have a goal in mind or want to fix some small mistake/omission.
For example, Wikipedia:Conflict of interest means we often discourage people who are most interested/knowledgeable in a topic from editing it. While this is often for good reason as it could otherwise be promotional, most cases of COI I've seen have been from people who were very obviously new editors and therefore very sloppy. Rather then trying to salvage their work and gently nudge it into compliance (if possible), COI slams them. If you look at the page for COI, it states COI is a problem because:

On Wikipedia, editors with a conflict of interest who unilaterally add material tend to violate Wikipedia's content and behavioral policies and guidelines. The content they add is typically unsourced or poorly sourced and often violates the neutral point of view policy by being promotional and omitting negative information. They may edit war to retain content that serves their external interest. They may overuse primary sources or non-independent sources, and they may give too much weight to certain ideas.

I propose this isn't necessarily because of COI, but because these editors are new. I got accused of COI on one of my early articles for a person I've never met (at the time, I was going through the textbooks on my shelf and trying to make pages for authors who appeared more then once in my collection), mostly for including stuff that wasn't necessarily noteworthy or standard on other bios (in hindsight, with more then 12000 edits, partly because the other editors were not very nice). Wikipedia policy, MOS, and the grey area where certain things are unwritten standards is hard to learn. The bait that could draw many new editors, making or expanding an article for someone or something they are connected to, ends up biting them and framing their early edits as bad because of COI, not because they are new editors learning the process. People don't want to necessarily start out on articles they have no "interest" in, but maybe after working on such an article, they would decide to stick around. I point this out partly because the COI policy seems to be counter to WP:OUTING policy (demanding people declare a COI very well could put them in the awkward position of needing to choose between lying, and outing themselves), which is much more important in my opinion.
Other issues pertain to the general culture around Wikipedia. For example, people who are used to spending time on Reddit might not realize until it is to late that common internet behavior/language is frowned upon or even blockable on Wikipedia. While the rules around civility are certainly important, the policies and rules (as well as how they are enforced) are very White, western, and neurotypical, and force conversation to be more like a BBQ with the HR department or a white collar company then how researchers organically collaborate IRL. Even if new editors aren't blocked/banned, the gamification of these rules can leave a bad taste in their mouth and cause them to leave. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 03:49, 4 June 2026 (UTC)
When mentees ask me about creating articles, especially if COI seems likely, I always add an if about COI (and explain it in plain English instead of using acronyms like COI). There's also been an occasion or two where they seemed competent enough that I mentioned they might consider editing as a hobby. I doubt they'll take me up on it, but it might be a numbers game. And to your other point, we really need to enforce WP:BITE very strictly. However much we endorse WP:CIVIL, WP:BITE needs to be a few degrees higher. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:53, 4 June 2026 (UTC)
I agree, bite needs to be more seriously considered. I've tried taking a "blunt" approach when I see a new editor making a mess if they push back, but this is mostly because experience says if I don't broadside right away the discussion gets out of hand. Essentially: "You're edits are not appropriate because _________. I suggest you read ____ before making changes." I believe we are too quick to apply penaltlies though, and that we probably need to be a bit more adult when it comes to dealing with difficult personalities in general. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 22:16, 5 June 2026 (UTC)
A lot of people will turn up at Wikipedia because they know something about a subject, and spot an error. This is a good entry-route, but can lead to bruising interactions with other editors. We need to be careful about accusing people of conflicts of interest merely because they are experts. WP:EXPERT is more applicable than WP:COI but both are sometimes brandished thoughtlessly. EXPERT also doesn't match the reality of articles on specialist technical subjects. We need to avoid throwing acronyms at new editors because it makes it look as though we care more about wikilawyering than making the encyclopedia good ("Ha! You may know about photosynthesis, but what do you know about WP:XYZ?? Back off newbie! I have wikiknowledge of which you can only dream..."). In the coming few years, we'll need to be careful about accusing newcomers of AI: it's increasingly difficult to tell the difference a human imitating AI and AI imitating humans.
Another very off-putting problem is gatekeeping: it's all too common for an editor's first efforts to be reverted with a rather patronising comment that the new editor is new, and therefore doesn't know what they're doing; the current version of the article has been stable for 10 years, and therefore all change is wrong. In fact, of course, the current article has been stable for 10 years because its creator has politely bludgeoned into submission anyone who attempted to change it. The determined newbie editor will come back and say that contrary to the accusation, they actually do know about the subject. Their further efforts are then reverted again, this time with a link to WP:EXPERT, and a comment that whatever they know to be Right is Wrong because it's merely what they Know. You either know too little, or too much... So they come back a third time, this time citing good secondary review articles, and it gets reverted again, on the grounds that (a) the review articles are irrelevant because they discuss a subtly different concept to the exact subject matter of the article, and (b) with a polite suggestion that the newbie editor is unqualified to edit the article because they show bias by using reviews of which they are aware (and that might have been written by someone with whom they are acquainted). At this point, the average newbie will decide that Wikipedia articles are vanity-items for their creators, and the whole thing is a waste of time. Elemimele (talk) 16:57, 9 June 2026 (UTC)
Showing no evidence for this and with the understanding that it may have been hashed out to death in the past, my impression is that there are a few trends in the project that gradually increase friction for newcomers by making it more difficult to make substantial edits that stay sustained in the article. Without edits that are sustained, newcomers lose the important sense of self-efficacy (that they can translate free time spent editing to impact on an article) and then they quit.
Examples of these trends:
1. Instruction creep: More policies, a bigger precedent body, and a more mature editor culture (in terms of unwritten rules, etiquette, etc.) means that the skill floor needed to make a substantial edit stay sustained gradually increases.
2. Less collaborative editor culture: In a normal organization where employees can't easily leave their job, less collaborative, tenacious people can and do get pushback for not being good team players. On wikipedia, the job is free time. That means that it's easier to quit than to push back on an un-collaborative person. The result is that on Wikipedia specifically, those editors tend to survive more, on average. Over time, the average long-time editor is more tenacious and in my eyes less willing to collaborate because the environment silently rewarded tenacity: If making the other person silently give up and go away is rewarded (because you get your way), then that's the editor base that you'll get after a long enough period. By now, I think that the average newcomer is far less tenacious than the average long-time editor, so the result is that in an inevitable disagreement, the long-time editor gets their way and the newcomer leaves.
3. Less open culture: Extended confirmed restrictions are an example of this. I think this one is a lesser issue than the ones above because it's focused on specific topic areas, but it still contributes. It's hard to reconcile the myth of "an open encyclopedia" with the fact that most hot-button topics are practically locked to newcomers. For a casual newcomer, getting 500 edits seems like a herculean task if they extrapolate from their first edit, which may have taken a few minutes to read the article, notice some mistake, and then fix it. If I was told that I need to spend e.g. 500* 4 minutes = 33 hours to be able to edit some article, I'd think lol k and go do something else with those 33h of free time.
How to fix: #1 and #3 are frankly complicated. #2 is difficult because of a scale surveillance and enforcement problem: From a project-wide perspective, uncollaborative behavior is a death by a thousand paper cuts where many small unfriendly interactions make many newcomers leave. Frankly, I wonder if setting up AI that scans all editor interactions and scores people's behavior for collaborativeness might be useful, along with producing exemplars as evidence for the score. It's not technically difficult to set up, and it can just act as an alert queue for interactions that likely led a newcomer to leave (one can test that by the last few interactions of a newcomer, who they worked with and what happened). The main issue might be cost, but I think a selective trial run could be inexpensive to try out. spintheer (talk) 21:48, 12 June 2026 (UTC)
A triangular graphic representing a "hierarchy of disagreement" from clear refutation to mere vituperation, based on the essay "How to Disagree" by Paul Graham.
  • I think that we can look at Hierarchy of Disagreement to see the problem. When dealing with new editors, some experienced editors start by contradicting them and then never actually offer a counterargument. New editors respond with name-calling, and then the experienced editors respond to the new editor's tone without addressing the point. On Wikipedia, accusing someone of being an expert or looking "involved" is just a thinly veiled ad hominem.
  • I started editing Wikipedia because I found an error on a page, I was looking for citations for a publication I was working on and figured the Wikipedia article might have some useful ones. The main problem I've seen with experts is they are used to writing to expert audiences, and citing certain technical things for them is like citing the sky is blue. Then, when a citation is demanded, they don't actually know where to find it because it is so deeply engrained as common knowledge that no one in their discipline has cited the fact in decades.
  • In the coming few years, we'll need to be careful about accusing newcomers of AI: it's increasingly difficult to tell the difference a human imitating AI and AI imitating humans. I spoke to a journal editor a few years ago about AI detection, and he said they were running all the submissions through a checker and desk rejecting the ones that came back as using AI. I told him to take something he wrote from before AI was a thing and check it, and it returned with a number that would have caused a desk rejection. Turns out, academics have a way of speaking that AI is really good at mimicking as it was trained on a lot of open peer-reviewed publications. Wikipedia also has a way of writing, and AI was trained on Wikipedia. This will be a huge problem in the future.
  • The worst Wikilawyering I've encountered was on an article I originated where several editors decided they wanted it a certain way, even though I had researched policy and found the way I was doing it was acceptable. The problem was formatting and layout of the page, not even content related. A few admins were mixed in the bunch, and they essentially told me that they were doing it because that is the way they like it, and then went through other articles I made and applied the changes. They then tagged other articles I wrote with multiple tags, and nominated a page I originated for deletion that ultimately was not deleted. Really turned me off from the Wikipedia community, still sour about it, and again in hindsight, I don't think they had a leg to stand on besides 3 against 1 new editor. I'm the one who originated the pages, and I've stopped thinking about expanding them at this point because of this interaction.
GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 18:22, 9 June 2026 (UTC)
I spoke to a journal editor a few years ago about AI detection, and he said they were running all the submissions through a checker and desk rejecting the ones that came back as using AI. I told him to take something he wrote from before AI was a thing and check it, and it returned with a number that would have caused a desk rejection.
I have never seen anyone make a claim like this and actually provide proof of the text that supposedly did this.
Actually, wait, no, I saw it once. That person was a blogger who previously wrote an article about how they use AI in their writing process. Gnomingstuff (talk) 05:45, 11 June 2026 (UTC)
I used ZeroGPT on random open-access science journal articles from 2016, I checked five articles and got scores between 1% and 39% (at 35% and 39% ZeroGPT describes the text as mostly human written but containing contributions from an AI; at 4% and below it describes it as human-written, I didn't get any results between 4% and 35% in my sample). I don't know what threshold the editor GeogSage talked to was using, but the claim is certainly believable. Thryduulf (talk) 09:51, 11 June 2026 (UTC)
I believe you that you've done this, but which five? Gnomingstuff (talk) 19:08, 16 June 2026 (UTC)
I didn't think to keep a record of that unfortunately (I don't even remember which journal it was and I'm on a different machine to then so can't reconstruct it from browser history). I think I googled something like "open access science journal 2016". I know I picked studies from different fields (or what appeared to me to be different fields based on the title) and used the abstract and first section up to the maximum length allowed for free (iirc the list of articles was sorted by date). Thryduulf (talk) 19:47, 16 June 2026 (UTC)
I ran a couple of my Wikipedia articles through one of the free online detection websites during an early discussion about LLMs. One of them was declared to be highly likely to be AI-generated. (I no longer remember which one, but there may be a link in one of the talk (WT:) pages.) Now: that was then, and the detectors might be better now, and free websites are often worth what you paid for them, etc., but it made me wary of trusting them. Maybe they mostly work, but a 1% false-positive rate applied to 100,000 edits would mean 1,000 edits wrongly flagged. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:03, 14 June 2026 (UTC)
My Masters thesis is from 2019 and is considered 3% GPT with zerogpt. Within the body of the document, in more technical sections, the number goes a bit up. For example, the line "H0; There is no statistically significant difference between the performance of the" comes back as AI. A few years ago, the number was higher when I checked. Grammarly currently detects zero AI in it, but earlier this year did say there was something or other that looked like AI. One concerning thing is Grammarly only detects my Abstract as 100% plagiarism, so someone could get the rest of my thesis past it and publish it as their own if it was the only plagiarism checker. @Thryduulf, this was a few years ago now, but I believe they were using a 10% hard cutoff, but the editor would use discretion if it was lower, so a 1% detection could have resulted in a desk rejection if the editor felt it look particularly egregious. Go play with old peer-reviewed publications, if you do it for any amount of time you'll find old publications that come back as AI-written. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 05:32, 14 June 2026 (UTC)
  • I think we need to look beyond raw numbers. Do we want to retain new editors? Yes - if they are helping us to have well researched and well written articles … No - if they are producing crap. Blueboar (talk) 12:31, 11 June 2026 (UTC)
    If someone is actively trying to be helpful and willing to learn, we can teach them not to produce crap if we have some patience. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 05:33, 14 June 2026 (UTC)
    Hi. Alas the situation does not look so good with respect to technical articles. We can teach newcomers how to edit pages that do not require deep knowledge, but many of those people who know technical topics have played with Wikipedia or done serious work in the past 10 years then left. I am surprised how many have left. I did a few fixes to Theory (mathematical logic) the other day, then went to see who had edited it before. The top 3 editors who had done about 60-70% of the edits (and all seemed to know the subject) are no longer here. Two stopped a few years ago, the other was blocked for other reasons. And the wannabe logicians have made a mess of some issues. Good intentions, but low on knowledge. So the situation is highly time sensitive. As the experts get tired and leave very few newcomers have expertise to replace them. I was pleasantly surprised to see the young and bright User:JoaoFrancisco1812 do good edits, but he is an exception in the logical space. So time is not on our side. Sorry, but that is how it is. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 09:27, 15 June 2026 (UTC)
    I see a trend here. They left or got blocked, probably because of hostility (WP:BITE). On PL wiki we want to engage mentors more, so they look up the mentees instead of just waiting for questions that may never come.
    I had this idea to list all mentees and their latest edits using the template that transludes Special:Contributions.
    I plan to create a bot on PL Wiki that will keep the list in sync when new mentees join. This way mentors could, once a week, go through the list and see if anything needs their attention.
    I do a similar thing for people during trainings about Wikipedia to monitor their activity, but I do this by hand. jcubic (talk) 14:56, 15 June 2026 (UTC)
    Sorry, but that was not the trend. Please look at the facts. The user CBM was an admin and gave it up because of lack of time, he said. Then he stopped editing later. Greg Bard was blocked for copy vio. I am not sure why the other one left but fights were not the reason. They had all been long term editors and the subject of logic does not invite big and repeated fights. Now if you feel like writing a bot please see Wikipedia:Bot requests. I requested a bot to generate data about departed users so we could analyze it. It would be nice if you would write that. Cheers. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 17:33, 15 June 2026 (UTC)
    If I have working code on PL Wiki, I will think about adding it to En Wiki. Will probably write a different thread to know if anyone is interested. jcubic (talk) 17:39, 15 June 2026 (UTC)
    • One issue I've seen on issues I'm fairly well versed on is a strong Dunning–Kruger effect. If you have one expert on a topic, unless the rest of Wikipedia is willing to be open to the idea they are wrong, the expert has an uphill battle to fight. The editors who have a limited background on the topic think they have a stronger grasp of it then they actually do, and because of Wikipedia policy regarding WP:BLUDGEON, it is extremely easy for a few people to overwhelm an expert editor, and then actively use Wikipedia rules to tell the expert to shut up. Makes it pretty hard to keep motivated when you put a significant amount of time and effort into something, only to have it overruled by a local consensus that has almost no idea about what they are talking about. 1,000 editors arguing with one expert on a topic doesn't make those 1,000 editors correct, but good luck pointing that out.
    GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 17:37, 15 June 2026 (UTC)
    That is certainly true for some topics, but not all. How many novices have even heard of Tennenbaum's theorem which gets about 10 views a day. CBM seems to have just written most of that with no conflicts. I am sure everyone and his uncle has an expert opinion on psychology or economics. But in high energy physics or the obscure parts of math logic the novices do not even know how to spell the article titles. Alas some experts who joined 10 to 15 years ago have all worn out, by fatigue not just fights. And the supply of young experts is limited. The smart ones want to start a billion dollar AI company, not do anonymous unpaid work. C'est la vie. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 20:32, 15 June 2026 (UTC)
    To look at your question from a purely numbers standpoint, we can make some ballpark back of the napkin estimates to see the problem. First, assume experts are equally likely to become Wikipedia editors as the general population. Looking at the tables on Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits, only about 1 in 5 editors have made more then 10 edits. Generally speaking, even if we snag an expert, the chances of them staying around are already pretty low. Looking at Wikipedia:Wikipedians, there are 16 million accounts that have edited Wikipedia. Assume that the 2011 demographic numbers at Wikipedia:Wikipedians/Demographics still holds, roughly 20% of those will be U.S. citizens, so 3,200,000 accounts (limiting for U.S. cause the numbers are a bit easier to get). The U.S. population is roughly 341,784,857, so assuming everyone who has edited Wikipedia is still alive, roughly 0.936% of the population has an account that has edited Wikipedia. You can then apply that to say, the number of Americans with a doctoral degree of some sort is (roughly 2%, so roughly 6,835,697 people), so all things being even, roughly 63,982 Americans with a doctoral degree should have edited Wikipedia at some point. If you split this number up by discipline, the numbers will be shockingly low. Looking back at the table, 1 in 1,000 editors has made 10,000 edits, so without some outside influence, we can expect 64 doctoral level editors from the U.S. to have made 10,000 edits. Obviously confounding variables make this ballpark guesstimate have pretty enormous error margins, but even if you triple that it still is a fairly small number across all disciplines. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 21:28, 15 June 2026 (UTC)
    My friend I have never trusted napkins numbers. No can do. Sorry. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 22:49, 15 June 2026 (UTC)
    Not a fan of Fermi problems? Understandable. I was taught to guestimate as part of designing a broader experiment to answer a question. Essentially, start with broad estimate, refine the number, then use that to formulate your hypothesis. Then design an experiment, gather observations, and compare them to the initial estimate. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 22:55, 15 June 2026 (UTC)
    Another issue is that of "extremely occasional" edits by experts. Over time, I had seen some advanced and nice edits by User:Tillmo eg the creation of the page Institutional model theory which novices could not even begin to edit except for typos. But he does 5 to 7 edits per year at best! Can we get new young editors to work on those pages? I have not seen them. We are seriously short of experts. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 21:26, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

Speculation, stratified sampling and real data

Why do newcomers leave? I would not even attempt to hazard a guess. It would be pure speculation without multiple focus group studies, which we can not easily perform, given no access to the departed, so to speak. What experienced marketing people would tell you is: never guess, study the market and the participants. So we can all guess for ever, based on our limited samples of interactions, but I have no idea who will be proven right if we have access to the motives of the users. We could contact those with emails, but not so easy. So let it be as it may. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 22:31, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

I agree. I'm also curious to know why non-newcomers have also left: Wikipedia:Missing Wikipedians. Maybe the reasons for leaving are similar for both groups. Some1 (talk) 22:50, 12 June 2026 (UTC)
I did not know about the MIA page. When I looked at it my first reaction was: this needs multidimensional analysis. Then something funny happened. I looked at the multi-D page and saw that it was really short with just 2 sources and would probably make John Tukey laugh because it totally ignores his work. Then I saw that over 50% of the edits were by User:Wikiant who stopped editing in 2018! That page needs help. But the MIA page needs to go into a database so multi-D views can be used. I wonder who has time to do it. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 02:10, 13 June 2026 (UTC)
By the way, having looked more at the MIA page, I have serious doubts about the completeness and accuracy of the data there. There is a lot of data, a good deal of it entered by ip edits. A simple bot can generate that page correctly every month. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 06:12, 14 June 2026 (UTC)
That page was never intended to be comprehensive. I believe it was begun by editors who missed particular friends, collaborators or sparring partners; over the years it may have been added to somewhat more objectively or systematically, but it’s certainly unsuitable for analysis beyond individual anecdotes or ‘case studies’.—Odysseus1479 22:14, 15 June 2026 (UTC)
Indeed so. I have said above that I do not trust the data there at all. So I requested a bot to generate it correctly. Would you like to support that at the Wikipedia:Bot requests page? Thanks Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 22:24, 15 June 2026 (UTC)
...A bot that automatically emails editors with more then 100 edits who have not edited in 12 months with a survey could provide some pretty useful data... Like, worthy of a peer-reviewed publication. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 22:45, 15 June 2026 (UTC)
That is your idea, and a good one. Please suggest it where I suggested mine. Anyway, I have said all I have to say on this subject, so now it is time for you know what on my part. Have a good day. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 22:54, 15 June 2026 (UTC)
There's been a lot of research done in the past, and the main reason for a promising new editor to quit is that their first good-faith attempt was reverted. The best thing you could do to retain editors was to fix the problems they created. This means, e.g., looking at a fairly bad edit with a fairly bad source, and thinking "Oh, they're right: This article was missing information about ____. Let me see if I can find a good source and fix this up". Instead, what we mostly do is say "You didn't do it perfectly on the first try – revert!" WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:06, 14 June 2026 (UTC)
I do not know who did the research and how good they were at research. So I will still assume nothing. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 06:08, 14 June 2026 (UTC)
As an RC patroller, I think that this is a very important issue that I myself do without meaning anything about it. I'd honestly be fine going on an RC patrol tool (even one where the entire job is to revert vandalism) mainly to find bad but good-faith edits and make them good again. In solidarity, FantasticWikiUser(Ts and Cs) 13:21, 16 June 2026 (UTC)
I try, but it can be quite a bit of work, for niche articles, and for editors that may still never return. Rjjiii (talk) 04:00, 17 June 2026 (UTC)
From my perspective as someone who joined Wikipedia in 2024, newcomers are probably too afraid to make a mistake or not seem professional, as their edit mistakes are forever kept in an article's edit history. So some kind of spotlight effect or such is turning new users away. This effect is amplified if their edit gets reverted on an article about their local history and area. QuadrangleDinglePingle (talk) 07:17, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

On the 8th and 9th June, I decided to make a quick test by putting some accounts into a word processor and seeing what happened. This is what they've done.

Kaffe453 - Doing quite well. None of their edits were reverted, but they weren't welcomed either. I welcomed them just now.

Madein100 - Was welcomed and not reverted, but added links to articles over and over again.

RetlawStnaj - 2 edits, one on May and one on 8th June. No reverts, no welcomes.

Fizzymelonjuice - Did newcomer tasks without reverts on 9th June. On the 14th, they were welcomed and made another edit.

Cbbc history of 2002 - First two edits were reverted, last two weren't. No welcomes. In solidarity, FantasticWikiUser(Ts and Cs) 14:00, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

One newbie who left's perspective

I speak only for myself, but I really wasn't inclined to stick around after my bad experience with ANI and the J.K. Rowling article (in fact I resigned myself top reading due to the reception I got, especially from one particular Wikipedian). I went to the J.K. Rowling article, hoping to find out about her transphobia, and found nothing, which I thought odd for a featured article. Having been an IP editor/reader for a long while, I knew about talk pages and pages like Administratrator's Noticeboard/incidents (and enjoy reading them as well as policies. I'm one of those people who likes to see how the sausage is made), though not entirely how they worked. I read through the talk page, which was in the middle of a very contentious featured article review, and found some serious WPO:OWN issues, what I perceived as throwing out policies because they might make Rowling look bad and "it's a featured article", and what I saw as other rulebreaking. I thought I would take it to ANI to get things on track, and while it was rightly closed as a content dispute, the call to ban me from the noticeboard, the constant pestering from one user to explain how I had come across that board (IIRC. May be misremembering), and, in the aftermath, the perceived unapologetic approach to what I saw and still see as a major case of WP:BITE, instead of acknowledging that maybe they had gone too far in trying to do so, directing me to an area I had no interest in, let's just say that I wasn't exactly interested in sticking around if a newbie could be treated like that without even a slap on the wrist. That the J.K. Rowling article was ultimately defeatured did make me happy, but it was too little, far too late to bring me back at that point--Lover of lgbt literature (talk) 22:35, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

Very useful but rather obscure tool

I asked a question at WP:Help Desk#What links here and discovered a very useful tool called WikiNav that gives link statistics. A number of experienced users were also unaware of it, and some were surprised that it exists. I find the information it provides eye opening.

My suggestion is to let more users know about it. But how? Please promote it as you see fit. Thanks. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 17:15, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

Could ask @MusikAnimal to add it to the "analysis" submenu of the MoreMenu gadget, as I suggested in that earlier discussion. A lot of editors use the gadget, and it being available from the menu would immediately make it widely available and convenient to use. – Scyrme (talk/solidarity) 17:31, 10 June 2026 (UTC)
The issue is that for privacy reasons, the tool only works for popular-ish articles, and for a limited number of languages. MoreMenu can be configured to handle the language bit but it won't know if the tool supports a given article or not, so many times the link won't work. That said I do hope to maybe one day integrate WikiNav data (and a link to WikiNav for the visualizations) directly into https://pageviews.wmcloud.org. — MusikAnimal talk 19:52, 10 June 2026 (UTC)
I wonder if the "popular-ish articles" limitation is why it sometimes fails without explanation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:09, 10 June 2026 (UTC)
Let us not expect perfection as a start. Let people love it, as I do, and it will grow. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 20:12, 10 June 2026 (UTC)
Wikinav was created five years ago as part of an Outreachy internship. It won't necessarily grow. In fact, it's at risk of breaking without warning due to software rot. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:27, 14 June 2026 (UTC)
What can I say, what can I say. A very useful program is ignored, and far out projects attempted. I will use it as is anyway. I have learned a lot from it already. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 06:04, 14 June 2026 (UTC)
That is my impression. WikiNav doesn't work when pageviews are too low, but I don't know what the cut-off is, and it would be nice if it just said that rather than returning a cryptic error. —Myceteae‍🌈 (talk) 21:40, 10 June 2026 (UTC)
Sometimes, eg for Chicago, the graph fails but the data is available below. The system is far from perfect, but still better than not having it. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 06:24, 11 June 2026 (UTC)
Agreed, I find it quite useful. I've learned about its strengths and weaknesses by using it and reading what other editors have to say about it in discussions, mostly RMs. I've developed my own sense of how to use it alongside other tools but I know there are gaps in my understanding. As I suggested down below, it would be helpful if we had an essay or information page describing how it works and addressing good use cases and pitfalls/limitations. This could include a broader discussion of Clickstreams. —Myceteae‍🌈 (talk) 14:25, 11 June 2026 (UTC)
The underlying data is cut off at ten clickthroughs per page pair per month. So if there are nine clicks from A to C, and eleven from B to C, the data will only report the eleven B to C. If all pairs are below ten, then we get nothing at all. Unlike standard pageviews data, it seems to ignore any traffic through redirects (which can be significant for some pages) and is only available for 40 specific projects - I think this is the 40 largest WPs by traffic, but not 100% sure how they're selected.
I've just done a quick check on the clickstream dumps for recent months - roughly speaking in any given month about 80% of en.wiki page titles have data, but it's not consistent month on month. I would guess overall it is about 70% reliably having data and the rest being "...maybe, depending on recent traffic" (or recent page-moves, etc).
The flat cutoff of 10 pairs means that as we look at smaller wikis, they will have an increasingly higher dropout rate; one of the smallest datasets is for Malayalam, ml.wiki, and that has data for less than 30% of page titles in April. Andrew Gray (talk) 17:02, 11 June 2026 (UTC)
That clarified a few things for me, and I assume for a few other people. Personally, I am not concerned about other languages at the moment, once/if it becomes popular in English it will spread. As for what it misses, in the land of the blind..., as always. Thanks for the info. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 20:08, 11 June 2026 (UTC)
I noticed that the list of developers is at the end of the page. Do you know any of them from your WMF days? If so, you could ask. Thanks Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 06:29, 11 June 2026 (UTC)
Yes, I have noticed that it works in some cases and not others. But I have realized several things with this tool, as is. So it is much better to have it as is rather not. As for other languages, let us start with the largest Wiki, English language. A journey of a thousand miles begins with ... one language. Thanks Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 20:10, 10 June 2026 (UTC)
Well, after the attention given to that tool due to my misguided attempts the powers that be seem to have made matters simple by totally disabling it. Sigh... Long live WMF... Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 20:16, 16 June 2026 (UTC)
Well that sucks! —Myceteae‍🌈 (talk) 20:33, 16 June 2026 (UTC)
You are right, of course. But I generally do not like to directly impose on other users, hence this post. Thanks. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 20:15, 10 June 2026 (UTC)
Please see my response below. They disabled it. Let me get something to dry my tears now... Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 20:18, 16 June 2026 (UTC)
How do you know that it's intentionally disabled and not just not working for the moment/on an individual page? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:08, 16 June 2026 (UTC)
Because pages such as Berkeley Timesharing System that originally drew me there no longer work. Neither do any others I tried today. But I have learned enough, and have had enough of this... Time to move on. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 22:18, 16 June 2026 (UTC)
I don't think you should jump to conclusions like that. Services on Toolforge sometimes need to be restarted manually. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:40, 16 June 2026 (UTC)
I did say seems to. May be it was an amazing coincidence that it died as soon as we started talking about it. Anyway, I will say no more, no more. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 23:59, 16 June 2026 (UTC)
WMF has recently reduced its rate limits for some API calls. It is possible that publicising a tool might cause many people to try it out simultaneously and hit the newly lowered caps. Ideally, the frustrated tool would then explain why it is unhappy, but that may not always happen. Certes (talk) 10:25, 17 June 2026 (UTC)
Certes, as I said above, I shall make no further comment on WikiNav. But I do feel that I owe you a thank you for your initial comment on the help desk. So thank you, and I am done. Cheers. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 15:18, 17 June 2026 (UTC)
It could be mentioned at pages such as Wikipedia:Disambiguation, since it's useful for identifying primary topics. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:08, 10 June 2026 (UTC)
It is mentioned at Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Tools, under WP:DPT. It could perhaps be mentioned at Wikipedia:Requested moves (which already mentions Google Ngram and pageviews statistics). It might be useful to look at pages that link to Wikipedia:Pageview statistics and Wikipedia:Search engine test since WikiNav is useful in many of the same contexts as the tools described there. Wikipedia:Pageview statistics#External links does include a link to WikiNav but no description of the tool. —Myceteae‍🌈 (talk) 21:52, 10 June 2026 (UTC)
I learned about it by participating in a lot of RMs, where it is often used. I assume most editors learn about on- and off-wiki tools and resources in a piecemeal fashion by participating in discussions. I like the idea of spreading the word. I provide some ideas in reply above but otherwise I'm not sure what the best way to do this is. An essay, information page, or how-to guide that describes WikiNav and some of its pitfalls, à la Wikipedia:Search engine test and Wikipedia:Pageview statistics, may or may not increase visibility, but would be of benefit to the community. —Myceteae‍🌈 (talk) 21:58, 10 June 2026 (UTC)
Just chiming in to say thanks for mentioning the timeouts on the graphs and I appreciate the patience but these should hopefully be fixed now. Glad that you all are finding it useful! @WhatamIdoing is right that it's in a bit of a maintenance-mode state but we try to make fixes/improvements where we can. Isaac (WMF) (talk) 21:15, 17 June 2026 (UTC)
Thanks! It's working for me now :) —Myceteae‍🌈 (talk) 21:17, 17 June 2026 (UTC)
And let me add, I hope that WMF continues to support WikiNav. I find it quite useful and see it cited with some regularity at RM and other venues. —Myceteae‍🌈 (talk) 21:18, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

New User Tutorial

I would like to suggest adding some kind of relatively comprehensive tutorial for people who are interested in getting involved that shows where everything is. Simple things like how to make citations using the visual editor would go a long way. Something that guides through where to post and where to reply and simply what buttons to push would not only make a more welcoming environment and encourage people to register, but would also avoid mistakes and confusion. Simple ignorance can quickly escalate into conflict.

I don't know if I'm putting this in the right place right now or not because no such tutorial exists. I saw a suggestion that included this, but had no way (that I could see) to reply to it. Idacticus (talk) 06:46, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

To clarify, I'm talking about instructions on the user interface: not just what to do (and not do) but how to do it. Idacticus (talk) 06:52, 13 June 2026 (UTC)
We do have Help:Introduction, but beyond that, this seems like a good application for Help:Guided tours, which I suggested not too long ago (check it out!) Chaotic Enby (in solidarity · talk · contribs) 12:21, 13 June 2026 (UTC)
A couple of years ago I started to draft Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/Wikipedia rudiments, and I found some of the tutorials from Help:Introduction. I think they're pretty good for those looking more for a cookbook than a guided tour. The usual problem, of course, is how to get people interested in them to find them. isaacl (talk) 21:20, 13 June 2026 (UTC)
The guided tours are an absolutely brilliant idea. I hope we can get some experienced hands to write them. It's frustrating not knowing where any of the buttons are or what they do, and confusing trying to figure out how to use the various community and talk pages. I can't be the only person that gets discouraged from contributing when there's such a big learning curve. As soon as I'm confident with operating this setup, I'll write a tour. Once we have them written, it's a matter of implementing them for new users. Idacticus (talk) 00:49, 19 June 2026 (UTC)
Auto-citing a source using VisualEditor, small
This old gif doesn't show the up-to-date interface colors, but I think it will show you what you need to know about the most popular way to add a citation in the visual editor.
See also Help:VisualEditor if you want more (though I haven't looked at it in years, so I'm not sure how up to date it is). WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:32, 14 June 2026 (UTC)
That's a great one. Is there a place where I can find other helpful gifs like this? Idacticus (talk) 00:50, 19 June 2026 (UTC)
Neil Shah-Quinn (WMF) made a bunch of them when the visual editor was new. You can see the ones he made at c:User:Neil Shah-Quinn (WMF)/Visual editor.
I've heard that someone tried to make a more traditional video, but I don't think it ever got finished. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:24, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

Religion in Infobox country

There is a discussion at Template talk:Infobox country on the Religion parameter in that infobox. Rolluik (talk) 15:58, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

 Courtesy link: Template talk:Infobox country § Religion in Infobox country —Myceteae‍🌈 (talk) 02:40, 20 June 2026 (UTC)