Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

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BAG nomination

Hi! I have nominated myself for BAG membership. Your comments would be appreciated on the nomination page. Thanks! – DreamRimmer (talk) 14:04, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

UK to require age verification for adult content

"The UK announces that, as of July, any site that allows adult content — including social media sites — will have to age/identity verify all users, or face enforcement action by the British government." - [1]

Pass the popcorn... Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:29, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh yeah, face enforcement. That's where you get Siri to check your older brother's face. And it checks he's still alive by poking his tongue out and saying spin, bro. 2A00:23C7:518:7B00:216C:A32E:70C7:3F80 (talk) 11:45, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Texas is trying to do this, too. https://www.texastribune.org/2025/01/15/texas-porn-site-ban-us-supreme-court/ 331dot (talk) 14:15, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing new here. Virginia's had this for a couple of years. I'm unaware of any jurisdiction that's pursued Wikipedia over this, if it's concern over that that motivated this thread. Largoplazo (talk) 14:45, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ofcom's guidance is online here. Please point out the part that exempts Wikipedia. Or Wikimedia Commons. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:21, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please point out where anyone claimed that such an exemption exists. Largoplazo (talk) 15:37, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Florida's law applies to websites on which more than one-third of the material is "harmful to minors",[2] so WP will not be affected for now. Donald Albury 18:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Texas's is at least a bit more limited. It seems the UK wants age verification for any site where a child might possibly see something "harmful to children", including any site where users can post content (even if no "harmful" content is ever posted), while Texas's law (which is already in force, BTW, but is being challenged) is only for sites where over 1/3 of the content is pornographic. Anomie ⚔ 14:57, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm guessing the WMF is aware of this? 331dot (talk) 16:23, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like a reasonable guess. You could ask them? 🤷 Anomie ⚔ 21:25, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What's the UK's definition of "adult content"? The article makes it clear that the main concern is about kids watching pornography, and it's not clear how they're planning on implementing anything. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 16:58, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Rosguill: The guidance is online here. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:11, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that page seems to be even more explicitly focused on "pornography", so this may not end up impacting us based on what I can see. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 17:52, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

from one of the PDFs linked there, "Pornographic content is defined in the Act as “content of such a nature that it is reasonable to assume that it was produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal.”". Which WP immediately would not be in violation since we specifically do not allow for such images and moderate those off. — Masem (t) 17:59, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't the Commons be affected? There are some pornographic content and categories on that site (e.g. c:Category:Erotic photography). Some1 (talk) 18:13, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is certainly some instances of erotic photography that would meet an encyclopedic need, but I do think that category appears to be used for ppl just dropping their personal erotic photos in there, and probably should be dealt with. Masem (t) 18:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep in mind that the inclusion criteria for Commons isn't that the media meets an encyclopedic need, but an educational need. An image could be inappropriate for Wikipedia's needs, but could still be useful, for instance, in a class on erotic photography as part of an MfA photography program. Photos of Japan (talk) 23:28, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, but I'd hope it would be identified that way. Masem (t) 00:31, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Usually people upload first and only discuss the educational merit of media if its nominated for deletion. Out of scope explicitly excludes low quality pornographic content, but I'm not sure how the community evaluates what constitutes that. My comment though was mostly concerning how it's a wiki faux pas to imply being unsuitable for Wikipedia makes something OOS for Commons. Photos of Japan (talk) Photos of Japan (talk) 03:46, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Debbie Does Dallas#Legacy. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:26, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We live in the real world, not some sort of libertarian utopia (or dystopia). Part of being one of the top sites on the Internet is that we have to take our reponsibilities seriously within the law. The WMF has done that in India and other places (in my view sometimes in the wrong way), and will do so in the UK. Just please nobody propose [redacted per WP:BEANS]. I hope that the WMF will take legal advice, but make the final decision themselves on whether to follow it. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:49, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How to request user talk page access revocation

What's the approved way to request the removal of a blocked user's access to their talk page when you see them using it only to rant, carrying on the behavior that got them blocked in the first place? Largoplazo (talk) 00:59, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:ANI. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:24, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Largoplazo (talk) 01:27, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

AI-generated comments?

I'm not sure where is best to ask about this, but as someone who works on film articles and participates on their talk pages, I am seeing a lot of comments that seem AI-generated, being lowercase and half-nonsensical. I detail this more here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film § AI-generated comments? Any thoughts from anyone, or recommendation of another page to post about this? Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 22:38, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Those don't seem AI-generated to me. If you see stuff like that, just revert it. If it continuously comes from one IP, then you can raise that at WP:AIV or WP:AN/I. It looks like this is all from the same IP range. CMD (talk) 02:18, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. AIs usually have perfect grammar. –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:47, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

They're probably not "AI" in the LLM sense. But they do fall into a category of unconstructive drive-by talk page edits that started in 2022. Some are AI prompts, some appear to be text-to-speech or Siri/Alexa/etc prompts, some seem to be bot-generated (which these seem to be.)

When you see them nuke them on sight (which the Wikipedia policy WP:NOTFORUM allows) and nuke them ASAP because if they go into the archive (which is out of people's control, everything is bot-archived nowadays) then people will yell at you for following policy. Gnomingstuff (talk) 20:34, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This matter seems well-explained by User:Photos of Japan here (permalink), if others want to know. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 17:12, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Succession boxes

Which WikiProject deals with succession boxes? GoodDay (talk) 22:06, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Succession to what? A political office? A peerage? Something else? Blueboar (talk) 23:34, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Political offices. GoodDay (talk) 00:18, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is Wikipedia:WikiProject Succession Box Standardization, though said to be semi-active. PamD 06:26, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Quite a bit of tumble weeds in that WikiProject. A politics-based WikiProject might be best. GoodDay (talk) 06:29, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

New essay on recentism

After seeing years worth of (what I believe to be) misuse of WP:RECENTISM as an essay, I've created an essay for responding to it, WP:CRYRECENTISM. Hopefully it speaks for itself, but my core problem is that RECENTISM is sometimes used in a way that allows people to completely dismiss all sourcing on something recent, which doesn't reflect what RECENTISM says (it doesn't even describe recentism as a bad thing!) and contradicts WP:NPOV. Obviously we have to be cautious about giving undue weight to recent events, and sometimes it's true that something recent is so undue relative to the topic as a whole that it should be included entirely - but these arguments ultimately have to be made using sources (or the limitations and lack thereof), not just by bludgeoning people with all-caps links to essays. It feels like WP:RECENTISM has become a go-to argument for anyone who wants anything recent excluded for any reason, which isn't really constructive because it doesn't reflect policy, provides no real room for discussion or compromise, and implicitly allows people to just ignore any degree of coverage in a way that contradicts WP:NPOV's requirement to use sourcing as the basis for weight. --Aquillion (talk) 18:30, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not a bad essay… but it leaves me with a question: would you say that RECENTISM could be a valid argument for temporary omission rather than exclusion? ie, arguing that it is too soon to add some bit of material, and that we simply need to wait a bit - so that we can properly determine how much (if any) weight to give it. Blueboar (talk) 19:17, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes? But it has to engage with the sources on some level. I've sometimes said "there's not enough sourcing yet, let's swing back later", which is certainly a fair argument. My problem with WP:RECENTISM is that it's frequently used as an argument that ignores current sourcing entirely, which I don't think is appropriate (or policy-compliant.) The main point of the essay, I think, is that WP:NPOV means you have to engage with the sourcing somehow, even if it's just to say "sorry, this requires a very high threshold and these sources aren't enough"; there has to be a level and type of sourcing that would allow for immediate inclusion, otherwise we're deciding article content based on our guts. Arguing for temporary omission without regard for the sources would still have the same problem. --Aquillion (talk) 19:37, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Can you give some examples of where this has caused a problem? Phil Bridger (talk) 20:07, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If this is the conclusion reached by WP:RECENTISM, then I'd say it's reason to improve the recentism essay rather than using it differently. I wrote an essay in the past that's something of a counterpoint: User:Thebiguglyalien/Avoid contemporary sources. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:29, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Insisting that a recent event should be excluded simply for being recent, without further explanation or analysis, is not helpful to building an encyclopedia."

The problem with this essay is that strawmans WP:RECENTISM. Recentism addresses a real issue: certain subjects are perennially in the news and every news spike of them leads to content added to their article until they are inundated with material that is of no lasting interest to the reader. Recentism doesn't reject content just because it is recent, it asks people to provide justification for including content beyond just the fact that it was covered by a flurry of news sources. Photos of Japan (talk) 02:27, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Universal Code of Conduct annual review: provide your comments on the UCoC and Enforcement Guidelines

I am writing to you to let you know the annual review period for the Universal Code of Conduct and Enforcement Guidelines is open now. You can make suggestions for changes through 3 February 2025. This is the first step of several to be taken for the annual review. Read more information and find a conversation to join on the UCoC page on Meta.

The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. This annual review was planned and implemented by the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, you may review the U4C Charter.

Please share this information with other members in your community wherever else might be appropriate.

-- In cooperation with the U4C, Keegan (WMF) (talk) 01:11, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"1987 [[SFRY|Yugoslavia]] film": Short description of related articles, tried wikilink /mobile/

Related articles at Lepa Brena has second item 'Hajde da se volimo (film series)' with description below: "1987 [[SFRY|Yugoslavia]] film".

I could not find a source for tried wikilinking, while the article itself has no short description template and Wikidata description was not good ("1987 film by Aleksandar Đorđević"; now changed to "1987–1990 Yugoslav film series"). Expect refreshed import from Wikidata in a while, and/or find where exactly is "1987 [[SFRY|Yugoslavia]] film"? 5.43.67.103 (talk) 03:50, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]