Hello, you are about to read a lie announcement. https://tosdr.org says Wikipedia can delete our accounts without a notice nor reason, but we know deleting accounts is a technically impossible action in all WMF wikis including Wikipedia and bans/blocks are only applied as a last resort to save wikis. That's an obvious lie. I wrote a comment and sent an e-mail to them but i could not get answer and text is not changed. I also cannot find an "edit" link to delete that lie. Also Wikipedia has "Grade-B" privacy to them but we know Wikipedia has a very strict privacy policy and it's more private than DuckDuckGo (it's "Grade-A"). They are exaggerating the "bad" things on our Privacy Policy with a huge amount and they are not showing the "good" things on our privacy policy. What we can do to remove this lie and write a correct privacy grade? RuzDD (talk) 22:04, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@RuzDD: People lie or misinform on the internet with astounding regularity. The answer is probably "nothing". 🌺 Cremastra (talk) 22:09, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I just joined two weeks ago and already I feel insulted by this. Wikipedia is a source of knowledge, not a place for hate! Something more should be done about this. 3.14 (talk) 00:39, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

tosdr.org appears to be correct. The page Wikimedia Foundation Terms of Use contains the text we reserve the right to suspend or end the services at any time, with or without cause, and with or without notice. -- GreenC 22:31, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@GreenC Is "suspending or ending services" the same thing with "deleting accounts"? RuzDD (talk) 22:56, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I mean, for example you can stop your apache without cleaning your database. RuzDD (talk) 22:59, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The TOU doesn't say accounts are "deleted", you are correct. I think it is technically possible to delete an account. Edits are renamed to a generic placeholder name. I've seen that before although it's been a while, and I don't know if it's still done. It's an obscure thing and I doubt that is what tosdr had in mind. Probably tosdr is equating a permanent ban with deletion, in effect the account is made inoperable, either way. -- GreenC 01:02, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Deleting accounts is a technically impossible process if you don't have access to the database, and of course you can do everything you want if you have access to the database (is it in control of Jimbo Wales?). Of course, database owners will not delete accounts, so i think "technically impossible" is not a wrong definition. RuzDD (talk) 09:56, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: Permanent bans or blocks does not make accounts inoperable at all because for example you can continue to using your custom CSS and JS files when reading articles. RuzDD (talk) 10:00, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It is possible to globally lock an account, which outright prevents logging in to it. But I don't TOSDR was referring to any specific technical action on Wikipedia, merely regurgitating what the TOS says as it is designed to do. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 00:55, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But, it will not delete the account from the database, right? Also, i can't see something like "we can delete your account without a reason nor notice". RuzDD (talk) 01:33, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No, accounts can't be deleted. But that's standardized terminology on the TOSDR site and is close enough to be accurate anyway. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 01:43, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I could not see something like "we can delete your account without a reason nor notice" in our terms of service. Forgot to say: i received a reply a few days ago but that's not satisfying because it came too late for the laws (just for reference, nothing is implied) and also another citation is not showed (existing citation is invalid). RuzDD (talk) 02:22, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think RuzDD's question is the relevant one. Specifically, they seem to have interpreted "we reserve the right to shut down the entire website" (which is what I think that sentence is about) as being the same thing as "we reserve the right to delete your account".

We could use an article on the right to delete. In the GDPR definition ("right to obtain...erasure of personal data concerning him or her”), you can "delete your account" by resetting Special:Preferences (e.g., by removing your e-mail address and personal pronouns). This is never done by anyone else. In the CCPA definition (see https://www.oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa#sectiona, third question), the information potentially relevant for a right-to-delete request is: username, password, e-mail address, personal pronouns, and maybe the IP addresses that you post from (which are kept only temporarily). Of those, they would have clear exceptions for refusing to delete all except the e-mail address and pronouns ...and you can delete those yourself, any time you want, but this is never done by anyone else.

Probably they don't have a category for "Website could disappear with no warning" or "You can't delete your account, but there isn't really much of an account to delete". WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:32, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and i think they must not write anything about this if they don't have a correct category. RuzDD (talk) 02:57, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also, this arcitle does not exists... RuzDD (talk) 02:58, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Disclaimer - I am not a lawyer. Regarding the phrase I believe people are referring to: we reserve the right to suspend or end the services at any time, with or without cause, and with or without notice - it's important to read the context in which that originates. This is Section 13 (Termination) of the WFTOU. There's a boatload of legalese in this, so I'll post the entire statement and try to provide proper context:

If your account or access is blocked or otherwise terminated for any reason, your public contributions and a record of your activities on or in relation to the Projects (including any correspondence you have sent us) will be unaffected (subject to applicable policies), and you may still access our public pages for the sole purpose of reading publicly available content on the Projects. In such circumstances, however, you may not be able to access your account or settings. However, regardless of any other provision in these Terms of Use, we reserve the right to suspend or end the services at any time...

Terms of use, sometimes interchangeable with terms of service, serve (or at least, attempt to serve to the fullest extent provided by law) as an individually binding agreement between user and provider, notwithstanding exceptions in which a user might receive a severed agreement - "If you have not signed a separate agreement with us, these Terms of Use are the entire agreement between you and us". Thus "the services" in this case do not specifically reference the user's ability to access the website, nor does it reference WMF's management of the entire website as a whole. It is in reference to the entirety of any form of participation granted to the user/contributor from WMF.

Although they do promise to continue providing access to public pages or providing a record of public contributions and activities, they are not beholden to maintain that in perpetuity, nor does the termination clause provide any limits on the extent to which they can and cannot withhold services; it is deliberately written to be open-ended. When you have a statement that is this broad, unless the company has provided an explicit waiver in the text of either the TOU or the PP that excludes them from deleting an account without notice, they can indeed delete an account without notice. The privacy policy provides limits to how long Wikipedia can retain data for, but it doesn't exclude them from ever removing data. _{Duly signed,} ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 15:10, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@WaltCip I think there's another point: service also includes data transmission from WMF to the user. So, not giving data to a user can be considered as "ending sesrvices", but giving data to user but not the ones about the account can not be considered as "ending services" as i understand. TOS says "If your account or access is blocked or otherwise terminated..." but that's only says what will happen if that's happened, not this can be happened as i understand. So, i think (but i don't give any law advice) they can't delete accounts.

Anyway, even if TOS says "we can delete your account without notice nor reason", the info on the TOSDR is still unacceptable because their citation only includes "we reserve the right to suspend or end the services at any time, with or without cause, and with or without notice.". RuzDD (talk) 15:43, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Today's featured article on the main page is, again, about an Alexander McQueen collection. Right below it, the first Did you know... article is about an Alexander McQueen collection.

"Wikipedia is not for sale", but is it up for manipulation by able marketers? Or what is going on here? BuonoPasto (talk) 01:52, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Did the possibility of "one editor working within their particular interests" cross your mind at any point? Cursory examinations of the evidence would seem to support this theory, boring as it is. Remsense诉 02:06, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I agree this isn't an ideal situation, ideally the main page shouldn't give excess weight to individual subjects. The accusation of deliberate promotion seems undue though, I think this is just a coincidence. The TFA and DYK sections are worked on by different teams with separate scheduling systems. It would have been a good idea to have spotted this and shifted the date of the DYK hook IMHO and something to think about going forward. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 02:11, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

BuonoPasto if you want different content featured, then you're welcome to find an article that needs to be improved and fix it up so it can get nominated for the main page. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:06, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think think Wikipedia is reliable? And when and how. Outside you often hear about admins reverting falsehoods, tho thats obviously an oversimplification. On niche subjects? On known ones? I as someone who edits niche non_western cultures can tell you that modernizing ancient situations with exact dates and works of synthesis as sources is a problem. But overall, is wikipedia reliable? Encyclopédisme (talk) 14:59, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

According to Wikipedia, Wikipedia is classified as "generally unreliable". Personally, I'm not sure that's a reliable source. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 16:02, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

More to the point, wikipedia is a WP:TERTIARY source. In theory, there's nothing in wikipedia which isn't sourced to some other reliable source, so there should never be any reason to cite a wikipedia article. Just cite the underlying WP:RS directly. Well written wikipedia articles are often a great way to get a broad understanding of a topic. But you always need to dig deeper to get down to definitive statements of fact. RoySmith (talk) 16:26, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You never know, the moment you look at an article, even a WP:FA, somebody might have slipped some unreliable/hoaxed content in. So like most Wikis it's unreliable. Theoretically, some timestamped versions of article may be reliable; ISTR there was a push a few years ago to have some medical articles peer-reviewed as good. Bon courage (talk) 16:52, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia cannot guarantee the validity of the information found here. We have an article on this topic (Reliability of Wikipedia) - which may or may not be reliable itself :D For a more general response - most of our articles that list facts have references, which you could then follow up with if you want to establish the reliability of a statement. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:32, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's pretty good in parts. Which parts those are, opinion may differ. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:45, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes but only the pages I edit. LegalSmeagolian (talk) 16:24, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reliability is often a function of how good the citations are: formatting, metadata, archive URLs. Without quality citations, it's hard to verify, or it simply looks so sloppy it gives the appearance of unreliability - and appearance counts for a lot. Many editors don't cite at all, or leave bare links, or sloppy free-form cites without templates. It seriously degrades the reliability of the of the project. Furthermore I have found from personal experience, you have to revisit every citation every couple years to make sure it's still in good shape. URLs still working, can the templates be improved based on your evolving knowledge of best practices. It's a never-ending process. Unfortunately most editors write it down one time, consider it "done" and walk away - always chasing the new. If editors spent more time maintaining, rewriting, improving, the content they already wrote, and did so on a regular basis. I try to go through every article I wrote on a regular basis, checking every citation, and even though I've checked them multiple times over the years, invariably I keep finding new ways to make improvements with each pass. They get better and better that way, over many years. -- GreenC 15:26, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think the answer depends on what the word reliability means to you. For example, in Wikipedia:Reliable sources, in practice, the definition of reliable basically means "source that other editors agree (either passively or actively) to let you cite in support of a given claim". We have some criteria that are useful for predicting the general cases (e.g., scholarly papers are more likely to be accepted than social media posts), but no criteria except WP:Published is an absolute requirement. A self-published, self-serving social media post is 100% acceptable if the statement to be sourced is "In a Spacebook post, Chris Celebrity immediately denied any involvement". WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:39, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

By reliable, I mean you can trust it, to whatever extent possible. On the wikilaw, other language wikis (i.e Fr.wiki, es.wiki, de.wiki) have different Guidlines. I remember having a big debate on the French wiki because of the use of an editorial, considered a primary source. The conclusion was that the author, a well respected expert, Alain Duhamel, was a political ennemy, and therefore a primary source. On the german wiki, if academic sources are a available, journalistic ones are ignored altogether. Encyclopédisme (talk) 17:49, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In the french case the Argument was that since it wasn't an article, but an editorial, Duhamel, right-wing, (it was about Mélenchon) couldn't be used (the editorial of duhamel couldn't be used). I would agree with that, I just gave it as an exemple. Cheers. Encyclopédisme (talk) 17:52, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Here, we sometimes have to remind editors that Secondary is not another way to spell good. You can USEPRIMARY sources, as long as you use them sparingly and carefully. An editorial by Duhamel could be used to say, e.g., that Duhamel criticized Mélenchon in an editorial piece. The editorial is WP:Reliable for that; after all, one could not read an editorial by Duhamel, in which he criticizes Mélenchon, and still wonder whether Duhamel has criticized Mélenchon.

But: it is not enough to have a reliable source; the information must also be appropriate for the article, give WP:Due weight to different viewpoints, of encyclopedic relevance, and so forth. We might say that it's a reliable source, and therefore a WP:Verifiable statement, but that it still does not belong in the article. One cannot include every single time that a politician is criticized for something. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:15, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I left a question in Talk: China, but there is no answer yet. Please answer a lot. Mamiamauwy (talk) 12:48, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Someone has now replied to you there, and that is where the discussion should continue. Donald Albury 17:39, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

DataCite launches first release of the Data Citation Corpus: https://makedatacount.org/first-release-of-the-open-global-data-citation-corpus/

This appears to be a large database of citations taken from open source journals. The first iteration is citations that contain DOIs.

It is funded by Wellcome Trust serious backing. The first version is available as a data file: https://makedatacount.org/data-citation/

You can explore it visually with a dashboard: http://corpus.datacite.org/dashboard -- GreenC 15:04, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia is currently not a source of the citations, which has pros and cons, for Wikipedia. Cons because hey, what about us. And pros because it can be a reliable source in creating/modifying citations on Wikipedia (reliable in the sense it has not been influenced by Wikipedia). -- GreenC 15:02, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I wonder how much that duplicates the citations in Wikidata. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:40, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a full list of codes of languages and their WD codes? Eurohunter (talk) 14:59, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know of a list of language tags and their wikidata qids. You might try assembling such a list.

https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Special:WhatLinksHere/Property:P220&limit=5000 will return the first 5000 wikidata items that have ISO 639-3 code (P220) (the remaining 3000+ are available on a second page). You could take that list and match the qid title against the list of ISO 639-3 tags and names listed in Module:Language/data/ISO 639-3.

There are similar properties for ISO 639-1 code (P218) and ISO 639-2 code (P219) and there are Module:Language/data/ISO 639-1, Module:Language/data/ISO 639-2, and Module:Language/data/ISO 639-2B.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:50, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Check this video on YouTube and see how it's identifying itself with Wikipedia. Does Wikipedia take action over stuff like this? Largoplazo (talk) 04:03, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't looked at it, but you can always ask trademarkswikimedia.org about potential misuse. Once you alert them, if they're concerned about it, they'll handle everything for you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:42, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the lead. Largoplazo (talk) 22:09, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to the efforts of meta:Wikimedians of Los Angeles members the meetup Wikipedia:Meetup/Los Angeles/February 2024 was a success. I can only hope that the other meetup in Southern California this month in San Diego (Wikipedia:Meetup/San Diego/February 2024) will be a success as well. All are invited. RightCowLeftCoast (Moo) 11:15, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello everyone! The Wikimedia Foundation has just posted the draft objectives for our product and technology work in next year’s annual plan. These represent the high level direction for our infrastructure work next year, and we’re asking for your ideas and feedback to shape our thinking. Later on in the planning process, we’ll share some draft key results (the measurable change we’ll aim to achieve) and a full draft annual plan with many of the details about our operations, budget, and work across departments. Long story short, we’d love to hear from you, and there will be further opportunities in the coming weeks. Thanks for your interest. KStineRowe (WMF) (talk) 17:21, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hey all,

This "infrastructure" plan is about:

• what newcomers and experienced editors need
• content creation and translation
• how much emphasis to put on Wikipedia vs other projects
• content curation and admin tools (e.g., CAPTCHAs, our increasingly impractical over-reliance on IPs to block IP-hopping abusers)
• Community Tech and the need to support volunteer developers (e.g., the people who write and operate Wikipedia:Bots)
• changing reader behaviors and expectations (e.g., reading Wikipedia via other sites, videos, AI/LLMs, chatbots?)

It's also about the things that aren't mentioned, such as:

• Commons
• Wikidata
• any of the other sister projects
• mobile readers (66% of our page views) and editors on mobile devices (much smaller percentage)
• our request to change the default size of images, which would require several months of re-sizing images
• whatever else is on your mind

What you need to do is:

1. Go to m:Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan/2024-2025/Goals/Infrastructure
2. Find the section that seems most relevant to your concerns, and read it.
3. Go to the talk page and post your comments (good or bad, but do try to be practical/constructive).
4. Check back later to see if there are any follow-up questions or comments.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:39, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This looks like a heap of corporatese and buzzwords that talks big and communicates nothing. I have left feedback accordingly. 🌺 Cremastra (talk) 01:00, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

IMO "high-level" would be a fairer description, but they're generally grateful for any feedback at all. It's discouraging to spend a month in meetings, write thousands of words, and then get no response at all (followed, all too often, by someone popping up months later to say "You never told anyone about any of this!").

@Cremastra, I see that you objected to them using the word content. That presumably refers to whatever is covered by our Wikipedia:Content policies and guidelines, but if you can suggest a better word, it might well be adopted. If nothing else, it might help the translators, who have to figure out which of several meanings is the relevant one. (Are you feeling content about our content?) WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:37, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Can somebody give me a link to the page dealing with various party colour templates? Thanks! Mbakkel2 (user talk) 21 February 2024 02:26 (CET)

Mbakkel2, I think that the last big discussion about that was Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums/Archive 24#RfC about party colours. User:Thomediter, User:Howard the Duck, or User:Number 57 might be able to answer your questions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:11, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You can edit Module:Political party/A and all other letters. Howard the Duck (talk) 20:35, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello all,

Community Tech will be deploying the Edit Recovery feature (previously proposed as the Auto-save feature) to English Wikipedia following tests on test.wikipedia.org. It will be available for use by Thursday, 22 February 2024, as an opt-in user preference applicable to wikitext editor.

Edit Recovery was voted the #8 wish in the Community Wishlist Survey 2023. Edit Recovery allows for restoring edits when a browser is closed, or crashes or a power or network outage occurs during editing.

Turn on the feature by selecting ‘Enable the Edit Recovery feature’ in the Preferences ‘Editing’ section. Please give feedback till 31 March 2024 on the feature’s talk page.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Community Tech. –– STei (WMF) (talk) 12:29, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@MusikAnimal (WMF), mw:Help:Edit Recovery says this will work on "the" wikitext editor. Which one(s) will it work in? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:13, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It should be any wikitext editor, except the 2017 editor as it already has an edit recovery feature. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 20:06, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, thank God. Finally. I guess after 23 years is better than never. jp×g🗯️ 21:50, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Supreme Court of Alabama just ruled on Friday that frozen embryos have the same rights as children. I'm surprised there are not more specific articles on this, but I just updated Personhood and did some cleanup. That article is still a mess, though, and has several cleanup tags. If anyone is interested, now would be a good time to fix it up, in case it starts getting millions of page views as this debate becomes hot. -- Beland (talk) 00:43, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This seems like an WP:UNDUE issue. The judiciary of one sub-national government issuing a ruling doesn't change anything about the academic understanding of the concept. The article already gives disproportional coverage to unborn personhood as opposed to general personhood and to the ideas of specific nations as opposed to the actual concept as a whole. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:02, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Today is Thursday, so anything is possible, but this was a weird one. A page I was looking at rendered in Vector 2022 for no reason that I could detect. I tried reloading the page. That didn't help. I went to some other page thinking I might have turned on V22 by accident, but no; other pages were fine, it was just this one. Eventually, I did a force refresh (which I believe flushes the browser cache for just that one page) and got back to normal. By "normal", I mean "not Vector 2022". I remember looking at the URL bar and didn't see anything unusual there. Anybody have any clue what might have been going on? RoySmith (talk) 22:04, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]