Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

Back in 2006, political userboxes were userfied per WP:Userbox migration as a result of the Great Userbox War. Since then, it appears that a lot of them have popped up again in the Template namespace. Also, the index page for WP:Userboxes/Politics by country, which had been userfied following MfD in 2009, was moved back to Projectspace in 2020 by a now-indeffed user, apparently without discussion. I was would revert the move, but then 16 years is a long time for consensus to possibly have changed, so I thought I'd ask here first:

1. Is current consensus in favour of allowing political userboxes in the Template namespace? Where is the line drawn for those that should only be in Userspace?
2. Is it acceptable that WP:Userboxes/Politics by country was moved back to Projectspace in contravention of the 2009 MfD?

I recently posted this at WT:Userboxes, though it that page doesn't appear to get a lot of traffic, so also asking here. --Paul_012 (talk) 10:58, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Any content that's "inflammatory or substantially divisive" is not allowed in userboxes, per the guideline at WP:UBCR. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 22:53, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That describes userboxes that are not allowed, period. My question, however, is about userboxes that are only allowed in Userspace and not Templatespace. The relevant guideline is under WP:UBXNS, which is rather vague. The convention was developed way back in 2006 and doesn't appear to have been clearly documented. --Paul_012 (talk) 14:22, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just curious as to what is sufficiently divisive to be banned. This user has an “anti-UN” user box, in addition to multiple pro-2nd amendment userboxes. They popped up in the anti-AI discussion using a signature saying “Hail Me” and crosses that are similar to the Iron Cross. This was addressed on their talk page; where they disclaim any connection to Nazism, but refuse to remove the crosses. 173.177.179.61 (talk) 20:46, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I failed to see why the ✠ have to be connected to Nazi Germany. I failed to see why multiple pro-2nd amendment and anti-UN statements are regarded as supportive to Nazism. I would again claim that I have no love for Hitler and Nazi Germany. I refuse to remove the ✠ from my signature as I didn't think that it is a symbol of Nazism. If you feel that the ✠ are sufficiently divisive to be banned you can go to WP:ANI for that. Have a good day. ✠ SunDawn ✠ Contact me! 10:57, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify, I do not think the anti-UN and pro-2nd amendment userboxes are supportive of Nazism of themselves. But including them, along with several pro-Trump userboxes makes it clear you support fascist causes. Hope that helps clear things up! 173.177.179.61 (talk) 11:44, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I second this comment. 208.87.236.180 (talk) 11:46, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is at least the 3rd time I've seen someone bring up the iron crosses. At what point do we get to call a dogwhistle a dog whistle? Sock-the-guy (talk) 17:17, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Sock-the-guy and IP editor 173... this is the wrong venue for discussion of a specific editor, if you believe action should be taken then make your case, with evidence, at AN or ANI. If you don't believe action should be taken then stop talking about it. Thryduulf (talk) 17:26, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, I’ll restate my original question then. Is a userbox for being “anti UN” sufficiently divisive to be removed?

For clarification, I have only been browsing these boards for a couple weeks. I saw that this user was asked to adjust their signature, but there was no comment about the userboxes, so I was unsure if they were allowed or not.

I don’t know how to file an ANI unfortunately. That said, I’m not really interested in helping out a community that is pro-Trump, so as a queer Canadian, I guess I’m outta here. 173.177.179.61 (talk) 17:54, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If User:SunDawn wants people to assume that they support fascist causes, then they are quite welcome to keep their signature, as long as they don't complain when people call them out on it. Black Kite (talk) 18:42, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The swastika predates the Nazis, but if you buy it in your signature you will end up having to explain why all the time. In the same way the iron cross predates WW2 but is now heavily associated with the Nazi's use of it, don't be surprised if people are offended by it's use. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:03, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I mean the other option for using the Iron Cross is generally to show allegiance to outlaw biker clubs. But this all seems something of a digression from the key question of the thread. Simonm223 (talk) 13:47, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies if this isn’t allowed but I ended up commenting on this thread before & after I registered. So for complete clarity, the IP above (173.177.179.61) is me. ExtantRotations (talk) 16:00, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

All Userboxes should be moved out of template space. If you find one, move it.

The unresolved question is whether political Userboxes should be moved out of Wikipedia?

If Wikipedia:UBXNS is vague, fix it. Userboxes don’t belong in template space. Userboxes are Userpage content and are not real templates. SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:31, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've never heard of any guidance to that effect. Presumably you don't mean to include Babel boxes? But what about user group userboxes? WikiProject membership userboxes? Legitimate areas of expertise and/or interest? --Paul_012 (talk) 14:51, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) All Userboxes should be moved out of template space. If you find one, move it. is this just your opinion? It's not something I've ever heard before and doesn't seem to match what is written at WP:UBXNS,

If Wikipedia:UBXNS is vague, fix it. this is what they are explicitly seeking to do. Thryduulf (talk) 14:53, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Userbox migration SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:15, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's a historical page that proposes moving some userboxes to userspace and which explicitly eschews being a policy or guideline, it does not support your statement. Thryduulf (talk) 22:43, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It describes the rationale and the practice, and it still occurs, and is often an MfD result. In my opinion nothing needs fixing, if someone doesn’t like a template space userbox, Userfy it to User:UBX. SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:19, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

is this WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT? --cheesewhisk3rs ≽^•⩊•^≼ ∫ (pester) 19:30, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No. SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:27, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For me it's same shit, really. They can be probably deployed as templates, they can be coded, they can be in Template: or User: namespace (not projectspace though, because that IMHO is supposed to be somehow related to Wikipedia's functioning). It's like arguing over whether we want to put our luggage in locker 26 or 38 when they are the same size. The only thing that really matters is the userbox's content.

There is a userbox discussion going on (at MfD) and I see some support for blanket removal of all political userboxes, userspace, templatespace or elsewhere, essentially per WP:NOTADVOCACY, WP:NOTSOCIAL and as being generally not conducive to editing.

And I suggest that we consider that option as well.

Also, unwritten conventions like the one described just above me suck. If it is a convention that actually has much influence on outcomes, it ought to be a rule. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 22:13, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Holy shit… I’m going to be real for a second. I’ve been hanging around reading things for a bit still cause I was like “well okay… maybe I jumped off the handle… it’s not like anti-LGBT userboxes exist, right? I mean, that would be crazy offensive.”

OH! Oh wait they do and people have to argue politely and civilily as to why it might be considered upsetting to realize the person editing the same niche article as you disrespects you on a fundamental human level. 173.177.179.61 (talk) 00:01, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Controversial Userboxes don’t belong in ProjectSpace because that gets read as implying official Wikipedia status. They don’t belong in TemplateSpace because they don’t function as templates, and because template gnomes don’t like them there and are template-deletionists. They do belong in userspace because they are a form of user expression. If they are idiosyncratic, keep them in their creator’s userspace. If they are broadly used, put them under USER:UBX.

Let’s make this decades old practice “the rule”. SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:29, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think a clearer definition is needed for "directly collaborative in nature," as currently stated. Logically, it should be fine for a userbox (even in Templatespace) to say "This user is interested in the history of Nazism," but not "This user identifies as a Nazi." The former identifies the user's area of interest in contributing to Wikipedia; the latter is just plain inflammatory (or a bad joke). Requiring such wording may be a way to draw the line. On the other hand, it might be opening a loophole for people to exploit. Anyone got better ideas? --Paul_012 (talk) 06:55, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

1. I would prefer, even if it is a small preference, for project supporting Userboxes to be organised in Projectspace, not Template space. I think many would belong in a WikiProject.

2. I suggest NOT seeking to define a good and proper userbox. This could be constraining on future good ideas. Instead, I suggest that if someone wants to challenge a userbox as not being for the benefit of the project, that they consider migrating it to userspace, to the authors userspace or to User:UBX. If definitions are wanted, define unacceptable Userboxes. This has already begun. SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:13, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I note the userbox in the MFD linked earlier is already in the author's userspace. But since it touches on an area where we have many people intent on promoting the victimhood of certain groups, it's getting a lot of delete votes based purely on that activism. Perhaps we really do want to ban userboxes that take positions on divisive social and political issues, but that environment (or any where discussion is going to be dominated by people throwing around WP:NONAZIS or its various clones) is not a good place to make a reasoned decision. Anomie⚔ 12:05, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I’m sorry, I’m having trouble understanding your argument. Is your claim that LGBT people are “promoting victimhood” by voting to delete a userbox that reads “This user does not support the LGBT ideology” and that the delete votes are therefore insincere? They seem to come from genuine users. I don’t think it makes a difference who is placing the votes so long as they arent breaking rules. 173.177.179.61 (talk) 16:51, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, you're misinterpreting basically everything there. And this isn't the place for a political discussion. Anomie⚔ 17:10, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, would you like to explain why you think only the Delete votes are due to activism? 173.177.179.61 (talk) 17:13, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No. Anomie⚔ 17:55, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

AGF be damned. LightNightLights (talk • contribs) 11:01, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'll be honest. I deleted all the userboxes from my user page a while back. This was principally because of two reasons: one - they'd got rather multitudinous and some of them were a snapshot of who I was nearly two decades ago more than now and two - the political userboxes never brought me anything but grief. I'd be supportive of a blanket elimination of political userboxes from Wikipedia full-stop. Frankly it would probably improve general adherence to WP:AGF even if it meant that we would lose the opportunity to occasionally have a bigot out themselves before they disrupt the encyclopedia meaningfully. Simonm223 (talk) 13:50, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would support the deletion of all such boxes. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:34, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be neutral to deleting all such userboxes. They can be useful to get an idea of someone's interests or possible biases. But I'd oppose deleting only the ones for positions an angry mob opposes while keeping the ones for their side, since the angry mobs seem to have difficulty distinguishing between actually-bad and just-expresses-an-opposing-viewpoint. Anomie⚔ 16:01, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I worry that "political" may be conflated to end up supporting the removal of anything queer-related. Could we have assurances in any official thing that that wouldn't happen? Sock-the-guy (talk) 17:03, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I support a total ban on political infoboxes. Addressing your concern, it's one thing to say "This user is queer" in the infobox. I'd question their judgment of posting their sexual orientation on the Internets, but if they really insist, there isn't much we can do. Just like editing under real-name identities - questionable practice but allowed.

It's another to say "This user feels queers are being discriminated against" or even "This user supports LGBT rights". The first is an open invitation to a shitshow; the second is quite innocuous in most Western societies but this is a political statement nevertheless and has nothing to do with editing Wikipedia - and it may be very controversial in, let's say, Pakistan. Also, consider this for comparison: "This user supports LGB rights", which will inevitably start all sorts of drama over transgender editors. Yeah, just sit back and get some popcorn.

If you are interested in queer topics on Wikipedia, "This user is part of WikiProject LGBTQ+ studies" is a great way to signal your editing preferences. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 18:27, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is exactly my concern, thank you for the transparency Sock-the-guy (talk) 18:44, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The ideal solution would be to remove connotation of politics from the rights of people, but that'd be difficult to implement because it isn't only on Wikipedia, this is across society. --cheesewhisk3rs ≽^•⩊•^≼ ∫ (pester) 19:37, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would support the ban of political advocacy Userboxes. SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:56, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It appears from this discussion that there may be some support for banning political infoboxes (or "political advocacy" infoboxes). Before we proceed to further discussion, if it is ever needed, please tell me, among these userboxes, which kinds of userboxes would you be in favour of disallowing, if any?

I tried to sort them by categories so that it's easier to analyse them.

• the A cluster is political. A is "this user supports country X", which would seem to endorse a certain position in the conflict, e.g. Israel-Palestine, Pakistan-India, Armenia-Azerbaijan, Ukraine-Russia etc. A1 just lists party membership, without any further indication of political beliefs. A2 endorses/opposes particular politicians or personalities reasonably connected to politics. A3 lists the user's ideology. A4 indicates user's attitude to a certain political phenomenon. A5 indicates a user's attitude to countries or supranational bodies.
• B cluster is social. B is about LBGT issues (note: only in cases like: X should (not) have rights, should (not) serve in the military; it's not about declaring your sexual orientation), B1 is about opinions on marriage, B2 is about abortion, B3 is about censorship
• C groups causes that may appear uncontroversial.

A. This user supports Palestine/This user supports Israel

A1. This user supports the American Solidarity Party/is a US Anti-Federalist, member of the Republican/Democratic/Labour/Liberal/Swiss People's Party...

A2. All userboxes in Category:Politician user templates or Wikipedia:Userboxes/Politics by country (e.g. was against Assad/Ivan Duque/Juan Manuel Santos/Alvaro Uribe/Rodrigo Duterte/Stephen Harper/Justin Trudeau; Bernie Sanders for President Trump's the best; admires Amelia Andersdotter, Anna Politkovskaya, etc.

A3. This user is an anarchist, progressive, liberal, conservative, Communist, anti-Communist supports Hindutva/Pan-Slavism/MAGA (errm, I meant this), opposes monarchy, supports DEI, denies global warming...

A4. This user ardently opposes the alt-right/futarchy/believes that the alt-right is killing the US Republican Party/that white nationalism is Anti-American/demands that Azerbaijan release Armenian POWs

A5. This user supports a South-East Asian integrated community through ASEAN, against the EU/is Austro-European/supports the EU, Brexit templates, was against Euromaidan, against the UN... like 90% of the Category:Political user templates

B. Supports rights for queer people, gay people; does not support LGBT+ ideology due to legal, religious and moral reasons.

B1. Supports/opposes polyamorous marriage/supports cousin marriage/equal marriage for all/marriage only between one man and one woman/believes that marriage should be religious/is against extramarital sex/is generally against divorce

B2. Basically all templates in Category:Abortion user templates except User:UBX/Abortion, Template:User WikiProject Abortion and User:The Homosexualist/Irrelevabortion

B3. against most/no/all forms of censorship

C. Against dictators/terrorism/racism/oligarchy/slavery

C1. This user supports animal rights, Indigenous rights

Note that any infobox of the style "This user is part of WikiProject" or "This user is interested in" or "This user is gay" is not in the scope as it either directly refers to Wikipedia activity or else is not a political statement. Also note that it is for now more of a brainstorm to see which formulation of the userbox guideline will be potentially in play. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 20:33, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• If you ask me, I believe every single one of these is inappropriate. We don't get to endorse, or not endorse, people's political views or social views with political relevance. This is not our goal. Therefore, we either need to allow them all or ban them all. I totally understand the people's outrage when a guy posts a "this person is a proud Nazi" or "this person believes we have to straighten up the gays" on their userpage based on the notion that "this is clearly disruptive" but the thing is, it is only disruptive if people notice it, and the current guidance simply says "wait and see until a bunch of editors drag you to MfD" instead of just "don't do it". People who post such things are either trolls - a not-so-easy block for less obvious cases - or genuinely believe this and will go like "Wikipedia is biased and libtards rule there". To the fullest extent possible, Wikipedia should be apolitical and this is a way to do it. The benefit to keep these userboxes is minimal; the potential harm and waste of time - pretty big. Imagine a ARBPIA RfC where an editor looks up a userpage and see something like "This person supports Israel". Do you think the pro-Palestinian editor will never think along the lines of "he should not be editing here because he just said he's biased?" Szmenderowiecki (talk) 20:57, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The conflation of support for human rights with discrimination in this makes it impossible to support. Sock-the-guy (talk) 20:54, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to announce support for human rights, you have plenty of options. Twitter, Bluesky, Blogspot, Wordpress, your local city hall, etc. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 21:02, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This was not meant to be "support all or nothing". You are free to propose which infoboxes are appropriate or inappropriate within a category. In fact, that was the whole point - I need feedback. If we are speaking of B, which I think was one of your key points you mentioned to me, AFAIK LGBT rights is a political issue in quite a large part of the world (the T part is in particular is in the vogue in the Western world, there's even an ArbCom case request about it). My position is clear on this, and because this is a controversial issue (it shouldn't be, but it is), I could not put it into the C cluster. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 21:13, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• As far as I'm concerned, every single one of the listed examples violates WP:SOAPBOX and is a misuse of Wikipedia. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 21:00, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• If political userboxes such as the ones listed above were banned, what's stopping editors from writing political statements on their userpages instead e.g. "This user supports/opposes _____."? Is there really a difference, for example, between having a userbox that says "This user supports Palestine" vs having an image of the Palestinian flag on their userpage with a message saying "I support Palestine"? Some1 (talk) 21:20, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I believe that if we decide that userboxes like these are inappropriate, it would be automatically inappropriate to write their content in plaintext. Arguing that it wouldn't be inappropriate would be wikilawyering. Also see WP:UP#GOALS ("Extensive personal opinions on matters unrelated to Wikipedia, wiki philosophy, collaboration, free content, the Creative Commons, etc.") and WP:POLEMIC. That said, you make a good point. Updating WP:UP is probably a good idea. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 21:39, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• I would say allow them all. This isn't (exactly) about free speech; it's legitimate to say "you can say what you want just not here". That said, it's sometimes useful to know where people are coming from. As long as it's a simple statement of position (even a radically unpopular position) and doesn't devolve into disruptive argumentation, I think it should be allowed. --Trovatore (talk) 23:03, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• All of these are appropriate if they are written in a straightforward way that is not an attack. They are useful to indicate the bias or worldview of the editor. Perhaps there could be a way to classify the political biases of editors by how they edit. But far more difficult for the casual observer to determine in general. For it to be soapbox material it should be very prominent and the main feature of the user page. Claims of discrimination and violation of human rights by the existence or use of a userbox are unfounded, as boxes do not take away any rights or do anything that discriminates. It is also more useful to have userboxes rather than use of plain text as that would ensure that text used meets our standards for decency, and also make it easy to find who uses that box. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:29, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I mean, the existence of pro-discrimination infoboxes does make it clear to the individuals who are being addressed that they are not wanted here. Putting the burden on the targeted individuals to enforce rules will lead to a reduced number of them that stick around. ExtantRotations (talk) 01:29, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  At most, it suggests that there are some people who don't want them here. Which is always going to be true. There will always be some people who don't want you here. --Trovatore (talk) 02:36, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Personally, I decided almost 20 years ago to remove the closest things I had to political user boxes from my userpage [1], so, yeah, I don't think such things should be on a user page, but I am hesitant to make that a hard rule for others. - Donald Albury 00:33, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• While I don't use such userboxes, it's certainly far too broad a brush to do anything about these as a broad category. "political userboxes" is essentially and "political opinion" (in a box), and a "political opinion" is just an "opinion" because everything is political. We can't really have a "C groups causes that may appear uncontroversial", as that it an inherent contradiction. If something was uncontroversial, it would not be a "cause". If it's a cluster by cluster whack, there should be care to nix all opinions, even those widely agreed on by the community. CMD (talk) 00:53, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• This seems to be escalating way beyond what I expected when originally asking. But what exactly do we mean by banning userboxes anyway? Like Some1 mentioned, it shouldn't stop people from writing the same statements directly on their user page. What about manually formatting them in boxes, without making them into transcludable templates/subpages? If that's allowed, then nothing should be stopping people from copying manually formatted boxes from other people's talk pages either. Deleting the index pages might add an inconvenience and discourage people from using them, but I don't think there's a realistic way to stop people from seeking them out. Maybe that's why the original solution from 2006 was just to userfy them. --Paul_012 (talk) 07:05, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • One issue with the userfication solution is that it largely amounted to much ado about nothing, as the userboxes hosted under User:UBX/Userboxes or anyone's user subpage are still performing the same function. Maybe they (and others that we think should be removed form Templatespace) should all be subst'ed. This would allow more diversity in users' self-expression and hold them directly accountable for the content they have on their userpage. I don't know if this will cause a significant increase in storage requirements; would appreciate if someone could do the numbers. --Paul_012 (talk) 07:44, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Userspace pages don’t speak for Wikipedia. This is a big thing for controversial Userboxes. Userfying diminishes the pecived problem. Subst’ing would work similarly. SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:18, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  In my opinion, “banning userboxes” would mean taking things in line with the username policy, whereby certain items would be eligible for immediate deletion or ban rather than allowing them to hang around until someone challenged them.

  For clarity’s sake, I am also the IP further up this debate that asked about specific userboxes. In my opinion, I think “political userboxes” is a bit of an incorrect target. I do not have a problem with “political support” userboxes such as “this user supports Trump”. As much as I disagree with that statement politically, I don’t think it is designed to be inflammatory. But if the point of Wikipedia is to improve collaborative work, then it is counterproductive to allow userboxes that champion arguments Wikipedia itself deems as biased or false. ExtantRotations (talk) 15:54, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment most of this discussion, I don't want to touch with a ten foot pole. However in opposition to the maximalist view here, I do think some ideological userboxes are helpful as an easy way for editors to disclose possible sources of bias, which is part of WP:DGF. -- LWG ^talk 16:47, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I agree with LWG.

  My current rule of thumb is that if a rule would require changes to User:Orangemike, then I don't want that rule. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:01, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• allow them all - although I hadn't expected to be cited as an example, I agree with LWG and WhatamIdoing that they serve as a method of full disclosure. I thus acknowledge my belief systems and my preferences, and fully expect people to take them into account when giving my edits the scrutiny we all deserve. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:48, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  We already have established Wikipedia:No Nazis as a deletion reason for Userboxes, Userboxes that you won’t find any more. Do you mean “go no further”? SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:31, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment Not going to frame it as a !vote (yet), or for any option, but I'm somewhat supportive. It fuels disruption that could've otherwise been prevented, and for little gain. The benefit of disclosure does not seem to me like it outweighs the other costs. Furthermore, if it's so valuable, is a possible conclusion that we must all disclose our political positions on user pages? Surely not. Therefore, this argument doesn't move me very much. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like this type of disclosure only becomes relevant when a problem (such as POV pushing) arises. However, if the problem has been identified, it is superfluous- barring exceptional cases. Dege31 (talk) 22:11, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have received a mail of a user whom I know for many years (not personally though) and who is mainly active on other Wikimnedia projects. Without giving too much detail, their account got caught by an IP block (only on the English Wikipedia, other projects are fine). The administrator who imposed the block is barely active or inactive. What would be the best course of action to proceed? I am willing to help them but I am obviously not a CU and I am not sure how appropriate for me would be to give them an exemption? If not, what it the best place for them to request the exemption? Thanks. Ymblanter (talk) 10:33, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Appealing a block says: The preferred way to appeal a block is to place {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}} on your talk page ... — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 10:41, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, but this is not an account block, this is just a technical issue. The account is in good standing. And I am not sure they want to associate it with the IP in public. Ymblanter (talk) 10:52, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, sorry. Comes of drive-by checking of my watchlist while making a coffee. — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 11:05, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Unless it is a CU block, it should be fine to grant IPBE, because the blocking admin could not have possibly matched a registered account with the background IP without CU rights. Some accounts may get caught mistakenly. (Non-administrator comment) —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 11:02, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If only every user experiencing an IP block was collateral. Technically and in policy, admins retain the ability the grant IPBE, and in some cases that's entirely appropriate. It is advisable to consult a checkuser, and that's strongly recommended by policy, because checkusers have a unique perspective on the risks associated with any address or user (they are also well placed to 'fix' any blocks). Admins however often have good judgment about their fellow users. I see two ways forward (ignoring the OTRS and UTRS routes by the user themselves): either do it yourself and mention it to a checkuser, or ask a checkuser to look first and do the granting. You might also decide it's not worth doing either. The main question you need to ask is what is the probability that the IP block is aimed at an account operated by that user. Knowing there are often delays with the other routes, I'll offer up the option to email me. If you do decide to grant IPBE, please grant it for no longer than necessary. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 11:16, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I forgot to mention, WP:SPI#Quick_CheckUser_requests is a designated venue for such requests, mainly for admins. Options for the user are listed at WP:IPBE. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 16:46, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot everyone, it is a clear way forward. Ymblanter (talk) 21:11, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just saw this. As a CU who does a lot of IPBE grants, I'd say to admins that they should give only limited-period grants: no more than 6 months, and preferably only 3 months. Please, please admins, do not give indefinite IPBE; if you think a user should have IPBE for longer than 6 months, refer them to a checkuser. And now having said that, I should go and work on the backlog. Risker (talk) 00:54, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Came here to say basically the same thing, and also that just about any checkuser ought to be willing to handle this sort of request privately by email for users who don't want to plaster their IP all over an unblock request. I certainly am, and frequently do. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 00:57, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What's supposed to happen at the end of the short-term IPBE? Ask again (and again and again)? I've heard that editors using Apple's Private Relay frequently need IPBE, and that Google Chrome was planning a similar IP-anonymization think. That could be a lot of editors making a lot of requests. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:29, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

IPBE grants be can applied incrementally, just as blocks can be incremented. I've been through phases of extending up to 3 years. Most IPBE situations really are short term though, and not, for example, infinite. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 22:05, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Google dropped their IP-anonymization plan in mid-2024 for Chrome, but "VPN by Google" is still in place for Pixel phones since the Pixel 7. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 16:57, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Orphan includes a link to an external tool (edwardbetts.com/find_link). Is this within policy? It seems a little dodgy to have links to external sites embedded in places where people won't be expecting to be taken off-site. For reasons I don't understand, this link doesn't render with the normal northeast arrow icon which indicates an external link. RoySmith (talk) 14:59, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The plainlinks seem to be coming from way upstream in the box wrappers at Module:Message box. This EL has been in that template since 2017. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:22, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I turned back on the link for when this is called in general, see User:Xaosflux/sandbox152 for output, but there are layers and layers of other box wrappers that may be suppressing this, such as Template:issues. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:54, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Back to the original question, seems like there are two questions here @RoySmith:?

• Should article message boxes suppress external link indicators (to actual external links)?
• Should article message boxes use external links at all?

For the former, I don't think we should suppress indicators. Not sure on the later. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:58, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For sure, we shouldn't hide the external link indicator. I can't see any plausible reason why doing so is a good idea. I won't pretend to fully understand how plainlinks works, but this seems like a fix which should be done at some higher level so it applies to all external links in boxes.

As long as it's clear that it's an external link, I think I'm OK with external links in message boxes. RoySmith (talk) 18:56, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• External links should be visible (both normally and in this specific case), so people can decide whether they want to switch to a different website/different privacy policies.
• I'd slightly prefer not using an external/non-WMF website in this (general) circumstance.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:50, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Using "plainlinks" turns off the EL indicator, in my edit to that template I changed the higher level call to not suppress the indicators, then turned it back on for that internal link that for technical reasons has to be formatted as an external link. From a technical perspective, this may be needed else where when there are boxes that are wrapping boxes and the parent link turns off all indicators. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:06, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

External links should definitely be visible, possibly excluding interwiki ones. I don't think it is appropriate in most cases to have non-interwiki external links in message boxes (or, more generally, outside of tables, infoboxes and "external links" sections where they are clearly expected), and any tool linked there should be WMF-maintained or community-maintained at the very least. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 21:51, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, to complete this discussion, I really propose to create and use a template named Template:Concise date that:

• Takes as input "Full date" like "February 24, 1955" (Birthdate of Steve Jobs)
• Gives as output:
  • Just year: 1955, by parameter y (default output)
  • month and year: February 1955, by parameter my
  • decade: 1950s, by parameter dec
  • century: 20th century, by parameter cen

All these outputs would have a tooltip indicating "full date" by template Template:Tooltip. This way, the leading sentence of all articles like Steve Jobs article would have only tooltiped year, which makes it much more readable than the existing one.

Myself is a volunteer to implement Template:Concise date. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 12:13, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you want to "complete" that discussion when consensus was clearly against doing anything? Phil Bridger (talk) 12:36, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Phil Bridger I noted in that discussion that:

We are humans (not computer) and humans better understand concise date. This is a property of "human mind" and according to cognitive psychology human mind uses prototype and sketch.

See, the leading sentence is like the sketch of a drawing, so it should be very concise.

• If a computer (printer) wants to print a picture, then it begins with pixelling from the bottom of a page to its top.
• But, if a human wants to print a picture, then he should use sketching.

Readability of improves by sketching in the lead sentence. The same as what we do in the introduction of IELTS writing exam. Do you disagree? Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 12:46, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you said that, but others did not agree. I myself do not at the moment agree or disagree, but can see that consensus was clearly against you. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:35, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I like it, but note that {{concise date|February 24, 1955|cen}} should render as 20th century CE, since 1901 <- 1955 <= 2000. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 12:43, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Chatul You are right! I corrected that. Thanks, Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 12:47, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is a non-starter per MOS:NOHOVER. Use of your proposed template should be prohibited in mainspace and discouraged elsewhere. —Kusma (talk) 13:19, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Kusma So we should consider a tradeoff between "Readability" and MOS:NOHOVER. I think "Readability" wins the tradeoff. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 13:24, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I should note that Wikipedia uses hover in many places, like Template:circa. And Template:Tooltip has 466169 applications. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 13:32, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Abbreviations are allowed explicitly at MOS:NOHOVER, but tooltip use needs to go down, not up (besides issues with screenreaders, tooltips are also pretty terrible on mobile). We can't make trade-offs that reduce accessibility, and we really shouldn't make such trade-offs to implement your idea against widespread opposition. —Kusma (talk) 13:38, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia gets about three times as many mobile views as it gets desktop views (source: [2]). Mobile users simply have no way to access tooltips. Here readability would be impaired and not improved (or at any rate we would hide some information), for about three readers out of four. — Alien  3
3 3 13:45, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, so it cannot be implemented this way, tooltip is not an appropriate technique.

But I think unlike rules that exist in IELTS and academic articles, Wikipedia original writers (from 2001) were not concerned about "Readability problems" of leading sentence and leading paragraph of articles.

So please vote for using "concise year" policy for leading sentence of articles. This "concise year" policy says

• Leading sentence is preferred to use concise year
• Full year is better to be mentioned in the Infobox or in the other sections of that article, like birth and death sections of that article.

Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 13:58, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For the same reasons I (and almost everyone else) opposed your proposed policy last time, I also oppose it this time, regardless of the method proposed to implement. Thryduulf (talk) 17:30, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do not understand the why behind this. JackFromWisconsin (talk | contribs) 21:21, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with others that this should not be used nor encouraged. Per recent consensus, we should not be discouraging full dates in the first place. I was not involved in that discussion but in skimming it now, I concur with the seeming unanimous consensus there. Full dates of birth are standard for an encyclopedia and are easy to gloss over for readers who don't care about them. The guidance at MOS:HOVER provides further reasons why this particular solution should be avoided. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 19:17, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Alien333@Kusma What about using footnote? Do you agree with using footnote for this template? For example:

Steven Paul Jobs (1955^[a] - 2011^[b]) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. .

Is that good? Are there any rules on Wikipedia about not using footnotes? Because I think we have no other choice to implement the idea. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 14:06, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why do this? Full dates can be supplied in an infobox and/or in the text (at least for articles that are not about a living person). Doing so in footnotes from the lead sentence seems terribly redundant. Donald Albury 16:35, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Donald Albury I propose to discuss this idea with a skilled IELTS examiner, and ask them to comment if "concise year idea" improves readability or not. Thanks, Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 17:19, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

doesn't look too good, i think. this is just moving info that would normally be placed on the infobox elsewhere, which would make it harder for the average reader to find it. this obviously means that i think it becomes less readable as a result consarn _{(grave) (obituary)} 17:28, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This looks terrible and does not seem helpful. We just choose not to implement your idea at all. —Kusma (talk) 17:44, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

MOS:BIOFIRSTSENTENCE already says If specific day–month–year dates for birth/death are given elsewhere in the article, then a simple year–year range may be sufficient to provide context., so it's fine to have "John Doe (1900-1980)" if the full dates are already in the infobox. No tooltip or footnote is necessary. I'd support modifying MOS:BIOFIRSTSENTENCE to make this the default rather than an option. Levivich (talk) 18:01, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's sounds like a much better option than what has been proposed. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:10, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose modifying MOS:BIOFIRSTSENTENCE in this way. DOB is a standard piece of information that readers expect to find in an encyclopedia article. That the MOS allows some flexibility but does not encourage omitting the full DOB is appropriate. Footnotes are one solution when consensus determines that an abbreviated DOB is preferable at a particular article but their proliferation should not be encouraged. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 19:22, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Opposed - I see no benefit to the proposal. Full dates are not a problem. Further, I would point Hooman Mallahzadeh to WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Blueboar (talk) 23:37, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose: we've been through this before. Full dates are fine. Please drop the stick. Cremastra (talk) 03:49, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Even though I still guess "explanatory power" of these two "competing topic sentences":

  1. Steven Paul Jobs (1955 - 2011) was an American businessman.

  2. Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman.

  for 90% of readers is the same, and then apply Occam's razor (choose the simpler one). To prove this guess, I need some psychological test.

  But according to consensus and implementation problems, I forget about the idea. Please close the discussion. Thanks for your attention. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 05:46, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]