Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Make PC2 no longer available to admins

Currently, we block all WP:Tor exit nodes such that any user wanting to edit through a Tor exit node would first need to contact a administrator and obtain the WP:IPBE user right before making any edits. (i.e. convince a admin that you will edit constructively and not sock, which is a much higher bar than typical autoconfirmed). However, currently MediaWiki artificially extends the period of time a user needs to edit for to be autoconfirmed to be atleast 90 day with a edit threshold of 100 edits. Given the way we currently handle Tor IPs, adding this extended time period seems counter intuitive. Would it be a good idea to remove the 90 day, 100 edit barrier for WP:AC users (especially those who have been granted IPBE)? (cc @W00zles and @Stwalkerster who were involved in the request, and @Risker, who I know has a lot of institutional knowledge of why certain features were implemented v/s weren't) -- If the community is okay/open to the idea of reducing/removing the WP:AC time/edit extension, I'll file a phabricator task to reduce the period! Sohom (talk) 20:07, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm generally supportive, but a couple of points. Global IPBE (torunblocked) can be granted by stewards, even for accounts which don't exist on this wiki. In those cases, and in some cases on this wiki, the bar can be very low - often we'll just take a look whether we believe someone is in China, or Iran, or wherever. No edits required. That said, having a high bar for AC doesn't really add much in today's environment. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 20:34, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I support this motion. I will admit that this directly benefits me as a Tor editor. Failing the accepting of this proposal, I would ask that the tools that check for autoconfirmed to be unified. A lot of sources don't agree with the autoconfirmed status of Tor users. The MediaWiki API returns that I am confirmed, but the internal tools such as Special:UserRights indicates to me I only have IPBE. My Preferences page also disagrees with the API. W00zles (talk) 21:58, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Some groups are actually assigned in the database, while others are implicitly assigned at runtime. It appears that TorBlock changes the implicit assignment based on the source of the incoming request, so you when using Tor you'll see the higher requirements being applied even when you look at the implicit groups of other users who never use Tor. OTOH, if you're making the API request via Tor and it's not applying the higher requirements, that's probably a bug. Anomie⚔ 22:18, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Z@Anomie, I think the problem here is that they see very different results compared to me, if I make a query through the API, I see them as autoconfirmed, whereas when they try to edit a page that has a autoconfirmed restriction, they can't. If the answer is "keep the extended period", then we need better tools as administrator to know that this restriction is being applied. Sohom (talk) 13:37, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not certain what your proposal is here, so I'll give two answers. I think I'm opposed to reducing Tor autoconfirmed status below non-Tor status especially if GIPBE allows Tor editing, but I don't have any reasons why we shouldn't equalise it between Tor/non-Tor while a blanket ban on non-(G)IPBE Tor users exists so I'm weakly supportive of that. stwalkerster (talk) 22:28, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify, I want it back to normal levels that any other non-auto-confirmed user would face. Sohom (talk) 13:32, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I support. Tor requires IPBE, which isn't exactly an easy feat for a new user. I don't see much of a reason to have the higher bar these days, with the global ban on Tor. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 15:20, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Responding to ping. Tor is a form of open proxy, which is generally banned throughout the Wikimedia world for a lot of complex reasons. There are attribution issues, there is the longterm dramatically higher rate of vandalism, and there is the simple fact that Tor historically was used regularly by two groups: vandals and activists of various stripes. I genuinely do not know if the extended period for autoconfirmed applies only to those using Tor, or if it applies to all users with IP block exemption. (Logically, it should apply to all accounts with IPBE, because there is no "special" permission above that to enable access via Tor.) All known Tor exit nodes are blocked globally, and pretty much have been since the "no open proxies" global policy and philosophy was introduced. In response to EggRoll97, I can honestly say that probably 1/2 of IPBE requests coming in through the central checkuser VRT queue are from comparative newcomers; in about 5-10% of cases, we actually have to create their accounts for them. It's really not hard to find us or to ask for it.
  I'd suggest that the real debate here is whether the no open proxies policy needs to be revisited, in light of (often justified) concerns about personal internet security throughout the world, not just regions with authoritarian governments. I realize that doesn't really answer the subject of this thread, but on reading things through, I can't tell if this is a local issue or a global one; and given my personal opinion on autoconfirmed is that I'd rather increase the requirements for everyone, I'm probably not the best person to weigh in. Risker (talk) 15:43, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  My recollection of the discussion is that there was seeming consensus for 7 days/20 edits, but (as I recall), the devs went with 4/10, as a preliminary test. Perhaps enough time has gone by to revisit this. - jc37 04:24, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• I should clarify, my main reason for calling it not an "easy feat" is the specific case you mentioned, which is that they would need to go through the VRT queue. That's already a lot just to get an account created, involving manually contacting CheckUsers (I don't believe there's really an automated way to just submit a request to the CU VRT queue). I know it probably doesn't sound like a lot of work, but comparatively to just creating an account as normal, that's a much more involved process.

  Side note, I do think it probably would be good to start discussing autoconfirmed being bumped a bit, the low standard may be intentional, but it feels far too easy to game autoconfirmed socks with the current requirements. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 16:21, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I can say in my personal experience attempting to get my account usable was a real challenge. I had to go to an admin in real life and ask them to confirm me. I never got a response from the stewards when I made the IPBE request after getting my account made for me over Tor, leaving me with little ability to do anything.

  I am not opposed to a raised autoconfirm requirement due to vandals but I do think, as mentioned in the other reply thread, it should be equal at a minimum between IPBE and not. W00zles (talk) 23:10, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Per the generally positive outlook, I've filed a RFC below. -- Sohom (talk) 14:56, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please consider joining the feedback request service. An editor has requested comments from other editors for this discussion. This page has been added to the following lists: Wikipedia policies and guidelines Wikipedia technical issues and templates When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the lists. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.

Background, currently, we block all WP:Tor exit nodes such that any user wanting to edit through a Tor exit node would first need to contact a administrator and obtain the WP:IPBE user right before making any edits. (i.e. convince a admin that you will edit constructively and not sock, which is a much higher bar than typical autoconfirmed). However, currently MediaWiki artificially extends the period of time a user needs to edit for to be autoconfirmed to be atleast 90 day with a edit threshold of 100 edits. This is enforced by the the TorBlock extension which was added some time in 2008. Since then, our policies have shifted, in the current day, due to our No open proxies rules, editing through Tor exit nodes are typically always blocked locally (and many times globally). Due to this, the bar for editing through Tor proxies has become "request the IPBE userright" + the aformentioned extended autoconfirmed userright. Given this, I would like to propose that we remove the special extended time period to get autoconfirmed for Tor users, and instead equalize the bar for recieving the autconfirmed userright for both Tor and non-Tor users. -- 14:56, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

• Support, per what I have said above, getting IPBE userright is not a small task for users with no edits to show (since the bar often used is "has constructive contributions/will not edit disruptively" which is hard to show when you are blocked from making any edits). As such, the bar for getting IPBE is a higher one than to be autoconfirmed (which for normal users is 4 day and 10 edits) and given that IPBE is basically mandatory to edit through Tor, it does not make sense to create another meaningless hurdle here. Note that this proposal does not preclude (and is mutually exclusive from) discussion about increasing the level required for autoconfirmed users for everyone. -- Sohom (talk) 14:56, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per Soham Datta, the proposal and the preceding discussion. There is no reason to treat tor and non-tor users differently in this regard. Thryduulf (talk) 17:06, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Support * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:08, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Support, Being on the receiving end of this policy, it's difficult to do useful work that would be expected of a typical editor. W00zles (talk) 23:11, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. The current rule is unnecessary given that IPBE provides a higher level of gatekeeping. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 03:50, 10 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per all above; a leftover rule from an earlier time that is a needless layer of beuraucracy and woild be better off gone. CoconutOctopus talk 17:50, 12 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 20:06, 12 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. Using any other VPN through IPBE probably doesn't suffer from this issue. If we believe that autoconfirmation needs to have higher thresholds for people editing from blocked addresses, then that should be the criterion, not the use of a specific anonymization service. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 21:38, 13 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  How would that work? Just setting autoconfirmed to X for anyone with IPBE? Interesting idea. Though I think admins get that by default as well. I think it's worth discussing. - jc37 04:29, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @Jc37, In essence this would just be a mediawiki configuration change which removes/resets two configuration values to 0 (which previous defined the elevated cap for Tor users) Sohom (talk) 15:10, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello everyone. I have been creating stubs and expanding existing articles on beetle species for a while. They range from very short, to start class (I guess). If they are very short, they always include: a taxobox (with all relevant info, including all synonyms), distribution of the species and host plant/prey (if known). It seems I create articles at a pace that has raised some eyebrows for some fellow wikipedians. See: User_talk:B33tleMania12 and Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(species) to read all about it. What I am requesting is permission to add beetle articles like I am doing (which may include a range of these very short articles). I was told that the normal daily limit is between 20-50 articles per day. I guess that if I could get a waiver to create about 100 per day, that would at least make clear to everyone that it is ok what I am doing. That being said: I am now working on a source that allows me to create these very short basic stubs. I do intend to get back to making more sizeable articles after that, see for examples all species articles I created for this genus Cephaloleia (but I might in the future like to work on a list of these basic stubs again if I find a good source). B33tleMania12 (talk) 22:26, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I dont make automated or semi-automated articles. I use a template in notepad which includes the static info. That is why the request is not a pure MASSCREATE request. B33tleMania12 (talk) 22:29, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And to add some more, this type of article is what people are opposed to Draft:Agoniella_horsfieldi B33tleMania12 (talk) 22:37, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is okay. The subjects are all notable per Wikipedia:Notability (species), and there is basically no chance of them being deleted. A spot check shows that he's citing two sources in each stub. The {{Taxonbar}} links indicate that most of these have another half-dozen reliable sources available. Unlike other species, there doesn't seem to be an authoritative, comprehensive database for beetles, so I'm glad that he's checking them individually. Looking at articles such as Brontispa cyperaceae, even the shortest ones provide basic information (name, type, family, location, what it eats), plus the usual {{Speciesbox}}. Articles such as Gonophora whitei provide even more (that one even qualifies for WP:DYK).

"The normal rate", or at least the normal maximum under WP:MASSCREATE, is 25–50 articles per day. I think B33tlemania12 recently created about 100 or so articles in one day. That's a lot, but reviewing these is so much quicker and easier than for, e.g., BLPs, that it's IMO not unmanageable on our end. I have seen discussions about the creations, and none of the comments are about an unfair load on page patrollers.

Based on prior discussions, I believe that any complaints will take one of two forms:

• People who want everyone to Wikipedia:Beef up that first revision will be unhappy that some of these are only a few sentences long, even if the creator goes back to expand them later – which the creator seems to do when sources are available.
• People who (incorrectly) think that systematic article creation (as opposed to hopscotching through whatever catches your eye) turns Wikipedia into a database. WP:NOTDATABASE is about not putting unexplained raw data into an article; it's not about writing an ordinary sentence about whether we know what a given beetle eats.

As someone has unilaterally draftified a few of these, I want to say that there is no point in sending these through AFC; species articles are evaluated only for notability, which means that species articles get kicked right back out into the mainspace. (AFC's job is not "protect my delicate eyes from all these WP:UGLY little stubs"; it's job is to determine notability of the subject, rather than the beauty of the current revision, and to get pages moved to the mainspace as soon as the AFC reviewer is confident that the article is unlikely to be deleted if it's sent to AFD.)

I don't think that either of these are valid reasons to prevent or slow down the creation of these articles. IMO these are decent, if usually brief, articles on obviously notable subjects, and the creator should be encouraged to continue creating articles with a minimum of two cited reliable sources. If someone wanted to create, say, 500 articles a day, then I think we should have another discussion, but for anything in the 500 a week range, I think we're just fine. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:22, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

" The links indicate that most of these have another half-dozen reliable sources available. " Nope. E.g. Aspidispa maai has 8 links in the taxonbar, but at least two of them (Wikidata and iNaturalist) are not reliable sources, others are not independent of each other: Open Tree Taxonomy is an automatic representation of data from GBIF, also included in the taxonbar, similarly Catalogue of Life is a rehash of ITIS, and ITIS is already a reference in the article anyway. I wasn't able to access BioLib (thanks to AI scrapers overload), but the others are at best interdependent databases, not a series of reliable independent sources. Fram (talk) 13:45, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sources don't have to be independent of each other to be reliable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:14, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, but we don't count them as multiple sources (e.g. multiple newspapers reposting the same Reuters report = one source). The Taxonbar doesn't indicate what you claimed it did. Fram (talk) 08:50, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The notability of a species doesn't depend on how many sources exist.

Those links overlap, but I think most of those sources also contain some unique information. For example, in Aspidispa maai, the first link in the taxonbar has very little information, but gives the family's common name of 'leaf beetles'; the second link says that it's an accepted species, which isn't in the first, and doesn't say anything about the common name, which is; the third link says it has bilateral symmetry, which isn't in either of the prior ones, and so on. Unlike the example of a Reuters or other wire service article, they are not simply duplicates of each other. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:30, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your first sentence is a rpeply to nothing. The "first link in the taxonbar" is to Wikidata, which is not a reliable source. Like I said already. The second link is another wiki, again not a reliable source, third one is one I had no issue with, and then you "and so on" the ones I actually did discuss to indicate that your "another half dozen reliable sources" was incorrect (three wikis, one other already used as a reference, so immediately you are down to 4 anyway; and then something like the "Catalogue of Life" entry[1] is just a copy of ITIS, the exact same data presented in a different layout; this is not "another" reliable source, this is two instances of the same database (just like opentree is a gbid copy, not a new source). So the taxonbox on this article gives us two new databases. Fram (talk) 15:57, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, for this subfamily, there will always be at least three reliable sources (if you include ITIS and its 'copies' if you want to classify them as such). That is: 1. World Catalogue of Hispines, 2. The original description of the species (this must exist for it to be an accepted species) and 3. ITIS. For most, more will exist, but I think these three would be enough to get it at least at the level of Aspidispa maai (which could be longer if I would have included more detail about the species description, but I think that would make it too technical and I don't want to add words just to make a certain imaginary threshold. I do copy the full species description from old sources sometimes, because they are written in such a way that make it hard for me to rewrite (I do try to make proper sentences though, which is often not the case in the original. All of that being said: I wont be able to get access to point 2 sources (the original description) if they are behind a paywall or in a language I dont understand (and if google translate isnt able to make me understand). However: even if that part of the article would be missing (for now or worst case forever), as I understood it, these would still be acceptable articles. So the debate is not IF I am allowed to make them, but at which pace. At least, that was the intention of the discussion. To add to this (I wont use any user names to spare them the ) but I have seen other articles being added constantly that are lower quality (bare URLs, only one sentence, etc.) and I have looked at the Talk pages for these users, and there is no discussion (sometimes suggestions to improve, that are not followed by that user, at which point nothin happens), so I am wondering what that is about. Besides not following the suggestion to merge species into genus pages and making too many in a short amount of time, I have (I think) taken to heart every comment made by others to improve the articles. Anyway: I think there will be no end to this discussion and I don't know how this works now.. the question was if I could make more than the normal daily limit. So far, there is not a clear answer I think? B33tleMania12 (talk) 17:37, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I was not commenting on the request you made (although I would prefer in general that much more often similar short articles would be combined into lists, by all editors), I was commenting on typical clearly incorrect statements by WhatAmIDoing. Requests like yours should be discussed on their actual merits, not on misconceptions from other editors. Fram (talk) 08:21, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My first sentence ("The notability of a species doesn't depend on how many sources exist") is a reply to your comment that we don't count them as multiple sources – as if that could be a problem, given that WP:NSPECIES does not require multiple sources.

I ignored Wikidata in counting the links, because obviously we don't use wikis as reliable sources. I'm not sure where BioLib falls in the WP:UGC spectrum. The website says "Unlike other systems such as Wikipedia users are not directly changing content of BioLib but the added data is added as "unconfirmed" and our administrators review it first before accepting it among verified data". This constitutes "editorial oversight", to use the wording in WP:V and WP:RS, but is it good oversight, or rather perfunctory? Someone would have to know more about that site than I do. At first glance, though, I wouldn't describe it as a wiki myself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:41, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the above that this seems OK. Being efficient and systematic are not problems. It sounds like enough care is being taken to avoid bad information being included in the encyclopedia, which is the most important thing. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 15:36, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I likewise agree. People may prefer longer articles, but these are longer than the alternative, which, unless you are prepared to write about the subject yourself, is of zero length. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:41, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thanks for your input all. I do not know how much time must pass to come to a conclusion, but I am going to at least move the drafted stuff back to Live. B33tleMania12 (talk) 12:04, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is fine. Especially with species articles, stubs are much better compared to the longer articles of AI slop that we have been getting en masse in this topic area lately. Gnomingstuff (talk) 17:09, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• I do question whether having separate articles on every species of beetle is the right approach (I would probably go with a list), but that is more a quibble with the notability guideline itself and not with the rate at which the articles are created. THAT is more an issue of not overwhelming new article reviewers. If they are comfortable with this, I don’t see a problem. Blueboar (talk) 17:12, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. If all the content you have for an article is this then please do not create a new article. Consider adding it to a list instead, as I have suggested to you multiple times. I do not understand why editors want to create so many low quality articles. You should get more satisfaction from writing a featured list and this would serve readers much better. In my opinion 25 new articles in a day is plenty, and allowing more means that editors will not be giving due attention to the new articles they create — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:26, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  It is not the only thing I have, but like I said numerous times also: it is easier to first make the page at the right place (i.e. get the taxonomy right) before adding more detail. If I add more info right away, I have to do a dive into taxonomic changes for each individual species. The source to expand the article you just mentioned would be this: Wayback Machine, but I would like to get the species pages added first, so I don't waste time adding species that have now been placed in synonymy, moved to other genera, etc. B33tleMania12 (talk) 08:40, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Do we have any statistics that show how likely a separate article is to be expanded, as compared to an entry on a list? Intuitively it feels to me that a separate article is much more likely to be expanded. Phil Bridger (talk) 10:51, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  The point of comparison would be what articles are created from a redlink on a list (or unredlinked item?), rather than expansion on the list itself. CMD (talk) 13:01, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Depends on the list? A table-formatted list, or one with descriptions for each item, might see expansion. A list of bare names (see Aspidispa#Species, for the example Martin gives) is unlikely to be expanded in the list. I guess the answer to your question is: B33tleMania12 made that list of redlinked species, and is now turning the red links blue, and Martin recommends that they should go make the list...that they already made. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:25, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  What was my question? CMD (talk) 17:22, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I don't think it's a good idea to tell editors what kind of contribution "should" be satisfying to them.

  Also, Martin, the time to say that people should make lists instead of short articles was in Wikipedia talk:Notability (species)/Archive 2#Proposal to adopt this guideline (where that view was rejected). These aren't "low-quality articles". These are "short" articles. 16% of Wikipedia's articles have three sentences or less. 38% of Wikipedia's articles have two refs or less. These are not weirdly short outliers compared to the rest of Wikipedia's articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:15, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Yeah, and I'd rather that admins didn't restore potential copyright violations[2] added by an editor with a history of source fraud, socking, and nationalist POV stuff, after being told they were likely copyright violations,[3], and I'd also really like it if their most recent article creation didn't have a bunch of close paraphrasing of a tourism site (ad) that they split from the main article, but I guess those were more satisfying? Beetle guy's article contributions are higher quality that than, anyway. If they want to make these articles, then I say let them. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 09:39, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm with Martin, I don't support this but I also don't necessarily oppose it. It's worth noting that you've been denied autopatrolled twice, most recently in August, so I don't know if mass-creating would be the best idea. ^EF⁵ 13:11, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To be fair, one of those denies was down to the fact that the editor creates articles that 'are easy reviews' (which did strike me as an odd rationale!) and the other was that the editor hadn't created any long articles (when they clearly create very short ones). It appears to me that many, many of these species type stubs are out there and the bar for creation (ie: not applying WP:GNG to the letter) appears to have long been set low for species stubs, no? Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 14:20, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The GNG doesn't apply, because Wikipedia:Notability (species) is the relevant guideline. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:16, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's not that odd a rationale if you consider why autopatrol exists. It is a means of reducing the work involved in new page patrolling, rather than a hat to be collected. Phil Bridger (talk) 15:47, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough, but an editor creating hundreds of valid species articles (and I couldn't find one that NPP had rejected/tagged/draftified) could - and I believe should - be autopatrolled, even if each article isn't a huge overhead to review. But, hey, that's just me... Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 16:10, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I did not ask for autopatrol myself, so I was not aware that I was 'denied'. I do not care for myself either, but I guess it would help others. Anyway: it seems reasonable not to give autopatrol too soon. You never know how that might turn out in the end. B33tleMania12 (talk) 16:32, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• It's fine I bet the boys and girls at New Page Patrol love you... The articles are indeed valid (and have been universally patrolled as such by NPP) and a nice, easy new page review at that! Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 08:39, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  haha yes, I must send them a huge thank you note one day B33tleMania12 (talk) 08:41, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose this is a WP:PAGEDECIDE issue and here the answer is often "no". Instead of aiming for completion, we should ask: do these articles help the reader? And the answer is no, because the reader wants an encyclopedia article, which is not what they're getting. Wikispecies is a worthy project, but it's not this project. Microstubs which have very little hope of expansion aren't helpful; they're an annoyance. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 21:45, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• I have a few suggestions for this. First, you could create pages in draft space and submit them for promotion. Second, as some have suggested above, you could start with list articles creating summaries of this information with many redirects pointing to those lists. BD2412 T 22:32, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  AIUI redirects from (extant/non-fossil) species names are generally not wanted. See, e.g., Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 August 12#Batillipes acaudatus and Template:R from species to genus. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:42, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @WhatamIdoing Species to genus redirs are fine if there is, as BD suggests, actually information at the target. What generally get deleted is when the genus article is just a list of species which redirect back to the same article, with no actual information anywhere. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 22:58, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Sure, that is all possible. The way I wanted to work is create a basic stub and then use a source to expand them. Because this seems to keep going forever. I also refute the claims above that these 'can never be expanded'. So (as I already did before), I spend some extra time fleshing some out. If these are still not satisfactory, then I guess I am done with Wikipedia and wish future editors good luck with the bureaucrats. For the work I did the past hour on expanding: User contributions for B33tleMania12 - Wikipedia B33tleMania12 (talk) 22:43, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. I have frequently encountered B33tleMania12's articles while doing new page patrolling. At first, I thought there was something up - the number of new creations in so short a time, and the brevity of the articles. But looking at new page criteria, all of the articles, while essentially stubs (at least initially) meet our criteria. Sure, there's an argument that they could be just some list articles, but they are being expanded, and - well, anyone is free to create a list article if they want? Why not both? (Also, Alexandermcnabb - yes! ;-) Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 09:52, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• This seems absolutely fine as proposed. Thank you for your work. MichaelMaggs (talk) 10:02, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. Up to 100 per day seems OK to me. These are not going to flood watchlists and there's no question of notability. Re the argument that they are permastubs: some are likely to remain stubs for a very long time, but as far as I can that's generally because there are a lot of them, not because they are inherently incapable of expansion. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:22, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Support I don't see any problem with this. This is literally what we've been doing for a long time. Mikeycdiamond (talk) 13:43, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Question to B33tleMania12. Out of interest, how many articles are you intending to create? Apparently there's around 400,000 known species of beetle. WP:WikiProject Beetles remit covers about 45,000 existing articles, of which roughly 95% are stubs. Rupples (talk) 16:46, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  So we're looking at about 400,000 articles. Is that an issue? It would be nice to have 400,000 images to go with them. But an enduring, free to access, record of them is a good thing, no? Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 16:56, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I would say yes (create all of them), as long as the article is more than a bare taxonomic list, i.e., it has some description, and some indication of its range (I really dislike reading that a snail species is "endemic to the United States" [which was copied from a database] when it is actually endemic to a single spring.) The premise of the recent RfC establishing NSPECIES was that a description of the species had to have been published for it to be accepted by the relevant authority. So, at least summarize that description in our article. If you cannot find the description for a particular species, move on to another species for which you can find the description. There will be plenty of such species to write about for a long time to come. Donald Albury 17:40, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  If they made all of the articles, it would take them 10.96 years. Mikeycdiamond (talk) 18:35, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  That's good news. It means that Wikipedia isn't complete yet. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:09, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  It would take me a lot longer than that. It has taken me a year to create eight new articles and expand 36 stubs in a plant genus, and there are 43 stubs and four redlinks to go. Of I course, I am continually being distracted by rabbit holes. Donald Albury 19:53, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Could you link the list of articles needed to be made? I'd be willing to help you once I'm done with my current project. Mikeycdiamond (talk) 19:55, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  User:Donald Albury/Zamia stubs includes the missing articles. Donald Albury 20:14, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  No clue, as many as I can get info about I guess. I have seen some families with hardly any info about a large number of species. B33tleMania12 (talk) 19:18, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  You've only been here for a few months and you have made 0.061% of Wikipedia articles. Good job! Mikeycdiamond (talk) 19:40, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  And according to my friendly neighbourhood LLM 43.617% of statistics are made up. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:09, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support On condition that you make the new articles as fleshy as possible. A meaty stub of no less than 1kb readable prose ideal. Given that I've been running contests to reduce the number of stubs, I would prefer it if you were able to generate start class ones over 1.5 kb if possible. Rate of creation is of no issue to me as long as they are accurate and error free. No short database stubs please.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:19, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Support if they're going to be made of this size anyway I say let them be made quick. DervotNum4 (talk) 22:59, 12 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I looked at some of the articles they made. It seems like the articles he makes is 200b or under. Mikeycdiamond (talk) 20:42, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think it could be useful. See[4] and [5]. It would make it easier to justify blocks for jew tagging. Doug Weller talk 09:26, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

These 2 related discussions were pretty massive: [6][7] Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:15, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Full disclosure: I just made such a block.[8] This, even though way back in the middle ages (2011), is also interesting IMO. Bishonen | tålk 12:53, 27 September 2025 (UTC).[reply]

This feels like a BLP thing, like, just as we shouldn't push a person's religion or political views unless they are well-documented, we shouldn't go around pushing a person's ethnic heritage unless that's always well-documented and part of their history. Most well-researched biographies will include this info and will make it due for us to include, but I suspect in cases like these, the editor leaning into one source to include and pushing a type of agenda. Masem (t) 13:03, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The difference between Jew-tagging and inclusion of ethnicity and/or religion in a well-researched (and well-written) biography is generally readily apparent in the wording. 'X is jewish' with no further context is bad writing, if it isn't tagging, and anyone adding that to multiple articles needs looking at. Look out also for people insisting that ethnicity and religion are one and the same: it's a clear WP:BLP violation to assign religious beliefs to a living person based on descent, but far too many people think it appropriate. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:14, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I am saying while this Jew-tagging is most predominated, if we write something it should be neutral w.r.t to any ethnicity/religious background. Masem (t) 14:01, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Jew-tagging can probably affect articles on dead people too, Epstein, Einstein, Jesus etc. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:42, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So there are two situations where this is a factor:

1. Situations where an editor who is proud of their ethnicity/religion/nationality/etc wants to “tag” the subject of an article as being “one of us”.
2. Situations where an editor who dislikes a particular ethnicity/religion/nationality/etc wants to tag the subject as “one of them”.

In both situations the editor is inserting (“tagging”) the information for the wrong reasons. The editor is being non-neutral. The editor is adding information because that information is important to the editor, not because the information is important to the subject. Blueboar (talk) 14:13, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For Jew-tagging I'd mostly say it's the latter, collecting people they think are Jews to justify some antisemitic canard (example). However, I've also seen the former in e.g. WP:CT/SA topics. A broader guideline/policy might help, such as only including ethnic labels when they show significant coverage in multiple reliable sources. Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 14:30, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that's how I see it too. And I'm not saying these situations are equal in yukky-ness or whatever, but I think both motivations exist.

And there are cases where one GF Wikipedian thinks "Jewish should be mentioned in article per coverage in existing WP:RS", and another GF Wikipedian thinks "You're wrong." Consensus might be achieved if both consider the other Wikipedian GF.

And of course there can be plenty of devil in the details. Should "Born to a Jewish family" be in the second WP:LEAD sentence at Jeffrey Epstein? I'm guessing it's been discussed a bit somewhere. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:30, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In both the cases of Einstein and Jesus, being Jewish was critically important to their respective biographies, and belongs in the lead. I don't think we should categorically create a policy against so-called Jew-tagging, as this is already covered by MOS:ETHNICITY, and the need for everything in a BLP to be reliably sourced and in due weight for inclusion. Andre🚐 01:13, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, it should be mentioned (and I'm not saying those current articles are WP-bad on this issue), but there is more to it than that, there is devil in the details and the article is bigger than the WP:LEAD. In both the cases of Einstein and Jesus, the question on "how" has been discussed and edited. See for example the mentions of Einstein in [9]. Paraphrasing page 13-15: "It should be mentioned... but not like that. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:31, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Btw, I know this may not be the really problematic kind of Jew-tagging, but I sometimes wonder about articles like Joshua Waitzkin. There is no mention in article text, but the categories are there, which is clearly undesirable if we follow WP:BLPCAT and WP:CATVER. It's not my basic assumption that whoever added these had an antisemitic motive, but I think of it as Jew-tagging nonetheless. I have also encountered what I consider LGBTQ-tagging, but that's off-topic in this thread. So yes, we should have an essay or something. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:01, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Its the same problem, as we are not using categories to create a classification system for articles, but instead to put articles into categories that they are well-known to be within. If the article makes no mention, the category absolutely should not be there, and even if there is mention, editors must use good judgment to add to the category. Masem (t) 14:04, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think so too. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:10, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As do I. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 00:59, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Gråbergs Gråa Sång: Sometimes (and this is something I have found as a longtime user of AWB) that comes about because there was, once, some kind of reference to Judaism in the article that was later removed. But a category was added based on the reference, and that category remains...and then gets reinforced by the AWB search. I try to weed things out, but in a large category with many articles that's not always easy.

That being said, there are always articles where someone has taken something and run with it, incorrectly. (I may be tooting my own horn, here, and forgive me for doing so, but in my own article someone added me to the category Category:American Ashkenazi Jews. Which...to be charitable, I can maybe see where it came from, though I do not agree. But I am not an Ashkenazi Jew, nor have I ever claimed to be one in an interview. And it really bugs me that someone has gone ahead and made that assumption for one reason or another.) --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 16:19, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This subject has come up before. It reminds me of this piece about the importance of this information to readers:

• Yahr, Emily (2019-12-31). "Obsessed with Wikipedia 'personal life' entries? You're not alone". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286.

(If you can't read it, then go to https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/suggest/, scroll down until you see the entry for 'Washington Post', and click the Upvote button, and then search for the title in your Favorite Web Search Engine. The overall point is that having a Wikipedia article indicate whether someone belongs to a particular identity group is really important to a lot of readers.)

I think we sometimes approach this from the wrong direction. The fact is, in all of human history, there have been "us" and "them". Who is in which group varies by time and place, and which factors are considered more or less salient varies by time and place, but if a person in a given time/place happens to be in a socially disadvantaged group (any group[s] that time/place disadvantages), then that's an important factor in those individuals' lives. I think we all know this, even if we're sometimes squeamish about acting on it because of our own personal political views (e.g., that Racial color blindness is a good thing and we should write articles to fit that view). We're happy to write "attended Big University for one term", even though this may have had no real effect on the person's life, and we cheerfully write "was orphaned at the age of 15", because we instinctively recognize that this matters, but we don't want to write "was Black" even if the person was born under Jim Crow laws and therefore almost everything about their life, including where they could live, whether they could learn to read, and what would happen if they told a joke at work, was determined by this fact.

I would like to suggest editors consider this model for determining which factors should be included when verifiable: Look at the person's main reason for notability, and think about whether being "the first ____ " would constitute a Wikipedia:Credible claim of significance. If it would, then the fact that the person is ____ should be included. For example, if the person's claim to fame is being an artist who won the "Notable Artist Award", then as yourself what you would do for various categories of identity, if the person were the first from that identity group to win the award:

• The first woman to win the Notable Artist Award: Include her gender.
• The first Roma person to win the Notable Artist Award: Include their ethnicity.
• The first American to win the Notable Artist Award: Include nationality.
• The first Asian person to win the Notable Artist Award: Include race.
• The first gay man to win the Notable Artist Award: Include sexual orientation.
• The first Muslim to win the Notable Artist Award: Include religion.
• The first teenager to win the Notable Artist Award: Include age, assuming it usually goes to older adults.
• The first blue-collar worker to win the Notable Artist Award: Include social class, assuming it usually goes to people with higher socioeconomic status.
• The first Southerner to win the Notable Artist Award: Don't include geographic identity unless there are special circumstances (e.g., the award comes from a group that emphasizes their Yankee heritage).
• The first parent to win the Notable Artist Award: Don't include family status unless there are special circumstances.
• The first blonde to win the Notable Artist Award: Don't include hair color unless there are special circumstances.
• The first cancer survivor to win the Notable Artist Award: Don't include health status unless there are special circumstances.
• The first short man to win the Notable Artist Award: Don't include height unless there are special circumstances.
• The first Boomer to win the Notable Artist Award: Don't include generational identity unless there are special circumstances.
• The first schoolteacher to win the Notable Artist Award: Don't include occupational identity unless there are special circumstances.

To be clear, try this exercise even if you know that the person isn't the first ____. The point is, if it would be obviously worth including (or obviously worth excluding) if the person were the first ____ to do this, then it's probably okay to mention (or probably not worth mentioning) the fact that the person is ____ somehow in the article.

Also, don't we have a page somewhere that says to be careful about how we describe membership in an Ethnoreligious group or Ethnonational group? "Born to a Jewish family" doesn't make assumptions about the person's religious beliefs, and many people in the world should be described as "Israelis" instead of "Jews who live in Israel". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:36, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think the closest we have is WP:ETHNICRACECAT. There was a donnybrook a few years ago from a journalist who wrote about what he viewed as the tagging of his article, when according to him it does not matter to his life or his work, the account claiming to be him even participated in the discussion. I think it was ultimately excluded. I don't want to draw more attention to him, but it is not surprising that it is personal, and even going toward private, to some. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:10, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm not so clear what the *specific* objective here is. I'm somewhat reluctant to separate out antisemitic editing from any form of discriminatory editing. I'd categorise philosemitism as of a different nature and intent. What is missing from our current toolkit that creates a loophole for antisemitic editing? Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 00:48, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• MOS:ETHNICITY covers current practice concerning how ethnicity should be handled. Also edit filter 982 flags Jew-tagging pretty well. Until recently the proportion of malicious tagging has comprised about 80-90% of such edits. Over the past couple of years that seems to have fallen to maybe 60%, with the remainder appearing to be editors who are showing philosemitism (thanks Goldztajn). It can be hard to distinguish between the two at times, and I've seen malicious editors try to portray themselves as the latter, while editors motivated by ethnic pride have argued that someone's Jewishness is being "suppressed" inappropriately, complicating things. I think an essay describing how singling out Jews for special emphasis would be valuable. I see a lot of edits where people are described as "Jewish American" (insert actual nationality as appropriate), as if that's some other nationality than other Americans. I regard it as a pernicious form of othering that should be deprecated. Acroterion (talk) 01:11, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Indian-American, Mexican-American, Jewish-American, Italian-American, Irish-American, black or African-American, these are all terms in RS, they aren't neologistic, and if RS use them, they are appropriate to use to describe a person. That isn't necessarily othering or malicious. Diaspora communities exist in other countries that also retain their own cultural communities. The original Americans are of course indigenous Native peoples, First Nations etc. But in terms of X-American as an ethnicity+nationality, this can be specifically to describe an artist that draws specific inspiration from their work and embeds it in that work. For example, Ana Mendieta is described as a Cuban-American artist. Andre🚐 01:18, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Those are appropriate in the right context, but Jewish is also a religion. We don't say "Catholic-American." While ethnic identifiers may be appropriate where warranted farther in, the lede sentence or paragraph is where mixing ethnicity or religion is explicitly discouraged, and where we see the most trouble. We stick to nationality only, unless there is some unusual reason to mention ethnicity. We mention something like "Mexican-American" in the lede only where there is dual nationality. Jewish isn't a nationality. I often see nationality taken out entirely, and replaced with Jewish. Acroterion (talk) 01:39, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  It is discouraged if and only if it is not an important part of the biography. Jewish is an ethnicity, not a nationality. There are Mexican-Americans who are not Mexican by nationality, just by ethnicity. For example, George Lopez lead mentions Mexican American, but he is a natural-born American. Andre🚐 01:48, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I want to distinguish between in the lede sentence and mentioning it in that context elsewhere. Remember that a lot of people and AI read only the first few lines. Lopez is mentioned only as American in the lede sentence, per the MOS. His Mexican-American heritage is important to his biography and is covered immediately after. What I see in many instances of Jew-tagging is something different - a negation of nationality in favor of ethnicity, or just random tagging of "he is Jewish" when it's not otherwise significant. An Orthodox rebbe would be another matter.. Acroterion (talk) 01:57, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I am talking about the lead paragraph, you just a moment ago said, the lede sentence or paragraph, and while it may not be in the lead sentence in Lopez's article, see the 3 Cuban-American artists below. Andre🚐 02:02, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I know. I'm not concerned about mentioning ethnicity in the lede where appropriate. What I'm talking about (and what the rest of this thread is about) is sticking in ethnicity or religion where it isn't appropriate, sourced, or significant. This happens a lot in the case of Jews. I think an essay covering the ins and outs of this kind of thingiwould be useful. Acroterion (talk) 02:06, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I know what you mean, but we have to distinguish the random tagging of just putting the sometimes inaccurate or sparsely sourced mention of someone being Jewish as a biographical detail that isn't "relevant to their notability" (which is vague, but I would interpret that pretty broadly), and certainly if it involves replacing American with Jewish (or the lowercase jew is often a sign of bad faith), versus what may not necessarily be a philosemitic boast or claiming, but simply an accurate read of someone's biography. Einstein was an American Jewish scientist, in my view, this is shown by the fact that Einstein left his papers to the Hebrew University that he helped found. "By an application of the theory of relativity to the taste of readers, today in Germany I am called a German man of science, and in England I am represented as a Swiss Jew. If I come to be represented as a bête noire, the descriptions will be reversed, and I shall become a Swiss Jew for the Germans and a German man of science for the English!" Dara Horn, Michael Chabon, and Regina Spektor could, in my view, reasonably be described in the lead as American Jewish. They aren't right now, but I personally do not think they would either be offended or dispute that that is just an accurate read of its importance to their oeuvres. Andre🚐 02:12, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes," significance" can be kind of vague. It can come from either the subject's personal experience or the emphasis placed by historians. That's not what I usually see - it's picking out people that an editor imagines embodying some kind of attribute associated with Jews - positive or negative - and dumping in ethnicity out of context. Again, we're talking about a potential essay that covers all of this. Acroterion (talk)

  You are an experienced and responsible admin, rolling in clue, who can easily distinguish between drive-by tagging and serious work. But I worry about others. For example, in the discussion below this point, several users have either opined that almost any descriptor of someone being Jewish is inappropriate, which I think as you gave in the example of an Orthodox rabbi, let alone my secular artist examples, is worrisome in terms of how this could be overzealously or mistakenly interpreted. Especially for historical figues and non-BLP with a historian source analysis consensus of the importance of their Jewishness, or Cubanness, not even getting into the living artists that, in my view, are obviously proud of and centering their culture and are not being singled out by right wingers to exclude or diminish them just by describing them as what they obviously describe themselves as in those cases. While I recognize that an essay could better elucidate the distinction, I don't necessarily feel that the right ingredients for what that essay would be have been brought forth in a consensus manner here, and I feel like any essay distilling the reasoning here would actually be non-neutral in terms of its rejection of any ethnic or national component of the biography. That is also a pattern that Wikipedia can fall into, namely erasure of difference and intersectionality in favor of a logical, neat, black and white modernism. Andre🚐 19:37, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Which to me means that we ought to impart clue to others. Few things in life or on Wikipedia are black-and-white. Acroterion (talk) 01:15, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Mendieta is in fact a dual national. Acroterion (talk) 01:42, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Sorry, that is not a good example. Although I think if someone was born in Havana and came to Florida as a refugee that presents an interesting case to consider, but here are some examples born in the USA that work better: Tony Mendoza (artist), Harmonia Rosales, Coco Fusco Andre🚐 01:52, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Those are poorly done, they are American, per guideline. There is no good reason to 'other' them. To the extent their ethnicity is reflected in their work or plays a part in their career, it can be mentioned after the first sentence. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:47, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  The guideline specifically allows if this is relevant to their notability. They are not necessarily being "othered." Andre🚐 17:57, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes, they are. The guideline says the first sentence should focus on their nationality linking to citizenship. Citizenship in the United States, was so much trying to other, that there was the 14th Amendment passed to preclude that. And it has become a political football again. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:56, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Multicultural representation and the celebration of diversity isn't necessarily othering, that is part of what makes America great and special - salad bowl and not a pure melting pot. In The Heights would be a very boring play if Lin-Manuel Miranda referred to every character as just generic Americans without portraying the challenges and joys of the Puerto Rican and Dominican immigrant community of New York. The Cuban-American artists I linked were all born in New York or Chicago, so they are American citizens by any plain reading of the amendment, and Wikipedia should decline to participate in any hysteria about birthright citizenship being on the chopping block: it can't be, and isn't. People can't just wish away constitutional amendments even SCOTUS judges. Anyway, the Cuban-American artists I linked all make their heritage and experience part of their work, and critical to their biography and notability, which is excepted in policy. Andre🚐 03:52, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  You don't seem to be paying attention nor listening. Your comment on multiculturalism is not in the least responsive to what has been said. My comments never said nor suggested don't mention it anywhere, indeed they explicitly said put it elsewhere, as warranted. (As an aside, you seem to have no knowledge what is in fact going on in the Supreme Court, and even if the administration loses the active case, many people will still cling to the othering argument. But as your comment is generally irrelevant, we should move on.)

  The place we are talking about in the guideline, the first sentence, is reserved for citizenship, not race nor ethnicity. So, therefore doing something else, like replacing citizenship with ethnicity is othering, and its literally treating the bio unlike other American bios, so again, othering. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:58, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  That is an unnecessarily personal comment. We just don't agree. There's no reason to accuse me of not listening or paying attention. That kind of comment has no place in Wikipedia discussions. You were the one who brought up birthright citizenship, which is not relevant terribly to this discussion except peripherally. You are reading something that isn't in the guideline MOS:ETHNICITY/MOS:CONTEXTBIO. most modern-day cases, this will be the country, region, or territory where the person is currently a national or permanent resident...Ethnicity, religion, or sexuality should generally not be in the lead unless relevant to the subject's notability. It clearly makes an exception and allows for "most" cases, in fact most modern-day cases. Nowhere does it say that you can never mention an ethnicity in the lead paragraph or sentence. It is not othering, necessarily, to describe someone as Cuban-American or Jewish-American or American Jewish, as all three of those contain a nationality, not replacing it. Andre🚐 21:24, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Well, when it is clear you are not listening. Then it needs to be said. Your the one who brought up these examples, which in the place of American for citizenship, literally have something other. So, my addressing American citizenship is spot on. Nor did I argue, ethnicity should necessarily not be elsewhere in those articles. So, your argument has to do with failure to to listen to what I, in fact, said. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:33, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Let's dial it back, eh? Nobody here is a mind-reader and we can patient in our arguments. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 21:36, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  No one is asking anyone to mind read, we do expect reading what was said. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:42, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Your accusation that I am not listening or paying attention is a personal attack, so please refrain from saying that in the future. And perhaps you may want to strike part of your comment if you are seeking to resume good faith. Andre🚐 21:45, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  What? Your not listening is what accounts for your irrelevant statements. Since acknowledging culture was literally what I said could be addressed elsewhere in the article, as appropriate. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:53, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  OK, I'll try one more time to reply and then we should drop this because I don't see how we can come to an understanding at this rate. My argument is that 1) the guideline allows for some situations where ethnicity may be mentioned in the first sentence and/or the lead, 2) you claimed it was othering due to what you mentioned about citizenship which I rebutted arguing that representing multiculturalism is not necessarily othering, EVEN when it involves using the exceptions in the guideline to express ethnicity in the first sentence. We obviously don't agree, and continuing to double down on a personal attack that I am not listening certainly won't help. Andre🚐 21:59, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Nothing I said, addressed elsewhere in the lead, expect to say ethnicity/culture could be addressed elsewhere than the first sentence, as appropriate (as guideline places the norm being citizenship in the first sentence). -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:10, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Cuban-Americans are American citizens, and the artists who identify that way because of those themes and that culture in their work aren't being othered by using the same name they use for their own identity. And those are modern-day cases. In many historical cases, it is hardly clear-cut that someone who lived in let's say Spain or Portugal or Italy or the Rhineland in the Middle Ages shouldn't say Sephardic Jewish instead of Spanish, or Italian-Jewish, for individuals who were not equal and full citizens or even citizens at all in the world they lived in, in a ghetto with restrictions on their movement and discriminatory legislation. Andre🚐 21:42, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  You given no reason for not calling them American, as we do other Americans. American is the guideline word for citizenship, whereas, Cuban American, is culture or ethnicity. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:58, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  The reason is presented in the guideline. If it is relevant to their notability it may be included. Andre🚐 22:03, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Perhaps an essay on "tagging" in general, basically explaining MOS:CONTEXTBIO (aka MOS:ETHNICITY, but covering more than just ethnicity), would be useful. Jew-tagging is definitely the example I've heard about the most often, but tagging issues do emerge in other cases as noted by some of the examples at CONTEXTBIO. WP:BLPCAT is in the same spirit, a category tag rather than a lead tag. CMD (talk) 02:38, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do you know what would help here? A precise definition of "Jew Tagging". It's not a common term where I live. HiLo48 (talk) 02:42, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to be invented by a Wikipedia critic and basically means labeling someone as a Jew (he is a Jew or she is Jewish-American) when their religion/ethnicity doesn't have much encyclopedic value. Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 03:20, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To me, that would include almost every article that says someone is Jewish. HiLo48 (talk) 03:38, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The issue is outright saying, in so many works "So and so is Jewish." without any further context. Most of the articles I spotchecked did not do this but left this as an exercise to the reader (of a sorts) within the person's early history, like their family origins. That's reasonable, as that also gives context. Masem (t) 04:13, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you're thinking about Kosner, the term is older than that:[10] And there is stuff like ((())) etc. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:08, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Here's one kind-of definition: ""Jew tagging" refers to the practice of unnecessarily or inappropriately mentioning a person's Jewish identity in Wikipedia articles. This term is used within the Wikipedia community to describe situations where an individual's Jewish heritage is highlighted even when it is not relevant to the subject matter of the article." AI-warning on that one though, but they're not always wrong. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:23, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I like @CMD's suggestion of an essay focussed on BLP tagging in general. There's other aspects that could apply, too - eg redbaiting. Goldsztajn (talk) 09:01, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: check out the creepy alt-right "early life" dogwhistle/meme, which relies on one kind of Wikipedia jew-tagging.[11][12] Used e. g. on t-shirts.[13] Bishonen | tålk 13:18, 28 September 2025 (UTC).[reply]

Wow. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:51, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is honestly unnerving to see. I know we're not out to right great wrongs, but would cutting down on extraneous ethno-religious labels reduce this? Or would the alt-right simply find something else? Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 13:53, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hiding or removing someone's Jewish heritage that they may be proud of to avoid it being on an alt-right T-shirt is a lot more troubling to me personally. Andre🚐 18:01, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We are regularly removing Jewish categories from Richard Feynman. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:46, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Because unlike Einstein, he doesn't have a personal story of fleeing Nazi Germany or of publicly expressed solidarity with a community of tradition, but he was painstaking in his secularism. So that is appropriate. Andre🚐 03:45, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if they are publicly proud of their heritage, I see no problems including it in the article about them. Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 03:53, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Of course the alt-right will find something else. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 20:09, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That certainly does frame the importance of any decisions made in this area. That said, I am extremely concerned about going into these kinds of questions about how we want to put our thumb on the scale here with the most virtuous of intentions and ending up somewhere deeply regrettable. There is substantial potential here for cultural erasure and letting bigots create social pressure for suppressing Jewish identity and representation. Because I am fairly confident that if we left the decision up to the actual Jewish BLP subjects themselves, that the vast, vast majority of them would be lay somewhere in the span between being ok with to being very insistent on having their Jewish heritage mentioned in any biographical entry about them, being proud of their heritage and probably offended at the implication that it should be concealed, whatever the context, and however rooted in sympathy and a protective impulse the motive in considering omitting that fact might be.

I understand where the cause for concern comes from here, but let's take a step back here and remember that it's not actually the recognition of Jewish identity that is the problem here. It's the bigoted belief systems, scapegoating, hatred-mongering, and crack-brained conspiracy theories which constitute antisemitism itself that are an issue. I'm generally supportive of editors choosing to, in their individual capacity, decide wherever or not to mention Jewish heritage for a BLP subject on the basis of what they see in the sources, as a general application of WP:WEIGHT. Because, lacking any unambiguously good solutions, one might as well just default to standard practice and the general principle of WP:NPOV.

But going a step farther and deciding we should implement a standard rule against mentioning Jewish heritage except where "it's really, really important to the understanding of that subject", or any rule that is out of lockstep with out usual coverage of ethnicity? Well, again, while acknowledging that the idea comes from a good place, I just don't think that's necessarily a good idea, nor one that Jewish people would generally thank us for, nor even a decision we should consider within our remit to make. I'm pretty sure most of the Jewish people I know would, in reaction to having their Jewish heritage noted in an article (even by someone we could prove was doing it as flagging maneuver) respond with something at least in the vicinity of "Yeah, and what of it? My people have suffered persecution for thousands of years, including pogroms and genocidal movements in the last century alone. You think I'm scared of you, a skinhead, keyboard warrior pussy? Yeah, I'm Jewish, and if you think I give one ten-thousandth of a shit that you and every inbred neo-Nazi fuck between Charlottesville to Munich knows it, you'd better guess again."

I think that we need to consider the possibility that our approach should be ideologically in solidarity with that perspective. If we start second guessing whether it is appropriate to mention a demonstrably Jewish person's Jewishness in an article, even to the extent of creating a rule about it, we are very arguably handing a small victory to the racist troglodytes who want to inject into our culture the perspective that there is anything negative in that association. I think we should be very hesitant to treat the question of Jewish representation any different than any other ethnicity in terms of how we shape and apply our policies. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 04:14, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Snow Rise, I wasn't suggesting the "Early life" meme was a reason for not mentioning Jewishness. I merely thought people might be interested to know about it. Well, interested or depressed. Bishonen | tålk 21:16, 30 September 2025 (UTC).[reply]

Yeah, don't worry, that was the sense that I got, Bish. And regardless of any other considerations, it is very important context that I thank you for raising. Even if our decision is not to alter our standard approach because it raises too many concerns for collateral harms, it is vital that we know when our content is being utilized in this way.

Unfortunately, I think such situations may be outside our ability to effectively answer here. Memetic social ills like antisemitism can arguably only be effectively combated at the source of infection, and require inoculation through other and more foundational forms of education: early exposure to critical thinking, disciplined training in information and source assessment, and other efforts to promulgate skills which make the pathetic shortcomings of conspiracy theories more broadly apparent. There are always going to be people who, through tribalistic thinking, Dunning-Kruger styled self-aggrandizement, or propensity to fall prey to other common cognitive biases, will promote such nonsense. But as I think the last couple of decades of worrisome decline in this respect demonstrate, it is the quality of baseline education which has the greatest impact on the proliferation of such beliefs. Certainly there is also much to be said for the influence of technological developments in that same period. But even then, I still think the only even half-way effective solution is to be found in inculcating the general populous with familiarity with empirical reasoning and a rationalistic world view. Which is deeply disheartening when you see just how aggressive the needle is being pushed in the other direct right now, in many of the world's most powerful nations and largest societies.

Unfortunately, our piece of the educational puzzle is providing information, not the mental tools to use it. So we are ill-prepared to do much to constrain such degredation of the collective intellect, especially when even the half-measures available to us have problematic trade-offs, as here. As you say, deeply depressing, but a basic tautology all the same, I fear. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 00:51, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Re "any rule that is out of lockstep with out usual coverage of ethnicity", my suggestion at the start of this subthread is to expand the essay to all tagging. Our policy on the lead already applies to all ethnicities, so there is already a standard rule against mentioning Jewish ethnicity and religion in the opening paragraph, as there is for other ethnicities and religions (and sexualities and former nationalities), unless it is important to the understanding of the subject. Any guidelines relating to the body would, if reflecting the spirit behind CONTEXTBIO, also apply to all ethnicities and religions. I do agree that the various postings dogwhistles and memes shouldn't factor at all into our decision-making however, the decisions should be based on what we find best for helping readers understand article subjects in an encyclopaedic manner. CMD (talk) 05:01, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is hard to understand who this is in response too. No one has suggested not mentioning as appropriate, they have been discussing "Jew-tagging", because it is an issue that affects certain bios, not all bios. And on thing we definitely should not have is a discussion concerning your/my feelings based on your or my personal life, whatever that is. Your/my feelings are your/my feelings, but no basis for a discussion of editing essay or policy. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:17, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

But at least one participant in the discussion has opined that almost any mention of being Jewish in a bio would be extraneous, and several people are inventing a policy that doesn't exist that supposedly bars any mention of ethnicity in the first sentence. Andre🚐 21:27, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Who is this one person? Certainly not the person this comment is appeared to be responding to. And you again don't address the guideline, which was not called a policy. You have given no good reason to depart from the standard of the guideline. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:39, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That comment does appear higher up in the same thread. And in terms of the guideline, it quite clearly contains wiggle room and an explicit exception. Andre🚐 21:48, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What comment? Whose comment? What thread? The guideline gives a norm, departing from the norm is literally not normal. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:03, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The comment was To me, that would include almost every article that says someone is Jewish. HiLo48 (talk) 03:38, 28 September 2025 (UTC)} Andre🚐 22:05, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that comment is certainly not clear, as you have presented it. You can ask that HiLo about it. No one else is suggesting they speak for HiLo, perhaps you misunderstood. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:14, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What is not clear about that comment? It is an expression of an opinion that nearly every mention that says someone is Jewish lacks encyclopedic value. Andre🚐 22:17, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Was it? Wasn't the issue whether or not it is true that everyone who is Jewish is notable for being a Jewish? Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:28, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Huh? I don't see where you are getting that from. HiLo48 says in "almost every article that says someone is Jewish," it would not have any encyclopedic value, and be therefore Jew-tagging. Yes, only some people should have their ethnicity mentioned in the lead, as far a I know, this was never in dispute by anyone, except perhaps people who are saying that the set of notable-relevant people is negligibly large. The issue of "Jew-tagging" is when someone tags, probably a living person, probably someone not specifically known for or associated with Judaism, with that ethnicity. I am arguing that we should not make a special guideline for this, or a special essay about it, because it is already covered by existing guidelines, which are already not interpreted correctly, and we should not lean even more on the tendency to adopt a postmodern idealism that cultural and ethnic differences are rarely an important part of someone's biography. So I broadly agree with SnowRise. Andre🚐 22:40, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify my now multiply reinterpreted position, it's really very simple. Almost every time I am told by Wikipedia that someone is Jewish, I fail to see any connection between that claim and anything else in that person's article. If I ever get an article, it will be of zero significance to mention that I am a failed Presbyterian, or have Scottish ancestry from seven generations ago. HiLo48 (talk) 00:20, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That is close enough to what I said or thought your position was, in my view. And demonstrably, there are myriad examples where your generalization is false, but I have no way of knowing what articles you read. I completely understand if you don't have any particular connection to Scottishness in your field, whatever that is. But Andrew Carnegie did. And Sean Connery did. Those are just the first 2 Scots I thought of, but consider that there are very many people for whom their ethnoreligious community was an important part of whatever they did. Maybe not for any random politician or businessperson or actor, but for some. Andre🚐 00:43, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My "Scottishness" is from seven generations ago. Carnegie's and Connery's was a little more recent. HiLo48 (talk)

My great-great-grandparents and great-grandparents came to America, but that doesn't mean I don't have a connection to their experience and a bunch of stories and traditions that were handed down to me. There isn't a statute of limitations on how far back your family history can be relevant. If you go around wearing a kilt and eating haggis and telling people you came from Scotland, and then release an album of traditional Scottish folk music that hits the top charts, I'm willing to bet that RS will call you a Scottish American. Andre🚐 01:42, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In re "Almost every time I am told by Wikipedia that someone is Jewish, I fail to see any connection between that claim and anything else": Okay, you admit that you don't understand how this affects people's lives. That's okay; not everyone understands the implication of every little detail in an article.

I, for example, don't understand why the overly long lead for Trump needs to mention that he went to university. Maybe there's something I'm missing there, like it's a subtle slam on the "very stable genius" that he only got a bachelor's degree, or that he didn't get into a more prestigious school? Or it's meant to reassure people that even though the US hasn't elected a president without a graduate degree since the 1980s, he at least finished college? Or to irk the Vietnam vets, because graduating in 1968 probably meant that you were trying to avoid military service? But apparently it means something to others, because it's still there.

However:

I don't understand how Trump's college experience affected his life – but that doesn't mean that it didn't do so. Similarly, your lack of understanding of how someone's ethnoreligious status affected their lives doesn't mean that it actually didn't affect their lives.

I don't find meaning in Trump's college experience – but that doesn't mean that other people don't find meaning in it. Similarly, you don't find meaning in knowing someone's ethnoreligious status – but that doesn't mean that all other readers also find it meaningless.

"I fail to see any connection" means you have an opportunity to educate yourself on that subject. Of course, you may not want to (so many things to learn, so little time left to do it in...), and that's fine, but we shouldn't limit Wikipedia to things all editors understand or value. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:50, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You say there is Jew-tagging, but we should should not acknowledge it in an essay. That does not follow. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:51, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sure it does, that is consistent with WP:DENY. Andre🚐 23:54, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, that reasoning means having the page, "DENY", itself, is in contravention of DENY. --Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:18, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BEANS, then. Andre🚐 00:39, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is not something no one knows about, just do google. For goodness sake, as someone else says above, knowledge of this is important to have. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:45, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Alan, I'm going to respond here to your initial response to me above, since the intervening discussion and outdent makes it impractical to do so elsewhere. If I'm honest, I'm confused by your question of who my thoughts were directed at. Admittedly, I could have placed them in a different spot rather than where I did in relation to Bishonen's point. Most of the substance of my post was not meant as a response to her; rather I wanted to acknowledge that her mentioning that little turn-of-phrase adopted by the alt-right hate-mongers was a significant reminder of the reach of our content, and something to keep in mind when we make any decisions in this area. But the rest of my thoughts were only tangentially related to her observation.

That said, I think the general thrust of my comments are broadly applicable to the inquiry being made here. This discussion began with the question of whether we should have advisory guidance on the issue of when to include reference to Jewish heritage for BLP subjects, and when and how to determine if such content is problematic. At least, that is my interpretation of Doug's question and elements of the discussion which followed.

My position is that we should go incredibly softly along that path, particularly if it involves departing at all from our standard approach on references to ethnicity. Because we can start out with the best intentions there, intending to short-circuit bigotry, and yet end up playing right into the objectives of antisemites, by unintentionally implying that Jewish heritage is something that should typically not be acknowledged. While that would clearly never be the intent of any essay or PAG we promoted on this project, using too heavy a hand on this matter carries with it real danger of: 1) giving the impression that being labelled as Jewish is an undesirable thing, 2) reducing the overall profile of the Jewish people in our content, in a way that would not happen if we didn't lose sight of the forest for the trees by trying to "protect" Jewish individuals and our content about them, and 3) fuel the ever-mutating, ever-accelerating ecosystem of conspiracy theories about how the Jewish race is covertly infiltrating positions of influence in global culture and manipulating the levers of society.

Now, so far the discussion about what we might do in this area has been incredibly vague, and so my concerns were equally generalized. Nevertheless, I think they are on point and involve factors very important to consider here. Does that clarify why I made the observations I did? SnowRise ^{let's rap} 03:34, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. My question was who your observations were in response to, and as you say, it was not in response, although it was formatted as one.

At any rate, imo, having an Essay is 'going slow'. Not only does an Essay not require a broad consensus, an essay can be edited by you and others, interested. Essays often have the purpose of applying policy/guideline to particular issues, and here we have a particular known issue. Nor are essays often kept that go against policy, and essays can elucidate ways to better policy, through the lens of particular concrete issues. WAID, for example, has laid out an approach -- to understand that approach, it would likely be good if it is elucidated in an essay, and especially an essay addressing this concrete issue. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:38, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Are you also all aware that it is the High Holy Days and observant Jews who edit are probably not going to edit Wikipedia or participate in discussions? This discussion inasmuch as it leads to any proposals or actual changes should at least wait a few weeks. Andre🚐 18:21, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• User:Doug Weller, yes an essay is a great idea. It serves a couple purposes: define the term. Examples of use. Links to previous discussions (including RfCs). Summaries of arguments. If it's good, it will inform a new MOS guideline. -- GreenC 05:49, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• We already have WP:BLPCAT and WP:CAT/R, which contain such good advice as to only include religion/sexual orientation where the person seld-identifies as a member of a particular religion or orientation, and (my emphasis) they are notable because of their religion/orientation, and... they're rarely adhered to. I've not knowingly added or removed Jewish categories from any article, that I can recall, and I've been able to keep Category:Irish Roman Catholics manageable, but the objections and reverts when I dare to remove Category:American Roman Catholics when I also remove Category:Irish Roman Catholics from an Irish-American or dual-citizen actor or musician... So yes, an essay may well be useful, emphasising the BLPCAT guidelines. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 11:23, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Essays are cheap. You don't need to ask anyone before writing one, you can just write one and see if anyone cares about it or likes it. If you're not sure, put it in userspace. Anyway, I think that such an essay might be useful if the specific behavior it describes is common enough, especially to highlight how to identify it - it's the sort of thing that could slip under the radar, so being able to point to an essay that lays out what it is, how to recognize it, why it's an issue and so on has some value. Or even if people are just talking about it, an essay has some value for clarity. I think the discussion above shows that it might end up being a controversial essay, but so what, essays are allowed to be controversial; giving people who assert that it's happening in any particular case an easy essay to link for easy reference rather than repeating their explanations and arguments every time still has value. But you'd have to think hard about what exactly the essay covers, because just based on the discussions above there's a lot of confusion. Also, for anyone who's confused, for for background, see [14], which led to a signpost article with more details. And of course the relevant policy is MOS:ETHNICITY - all of this could reasonably be summarized in an essay. --Aquillion (talk) 15:44, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• One good thing such an essay might consider addressing as context, is that with BLP's, especially, but often other bios, we are perhaps in a sense 'flying blind'. We have no single RS biography to follow (or at best a very brief RS biographical note), let alone any in depth RS biography, instead we collect info from here and there (often from journalism or tweets, etc.), and put it together ourselves. Perhaps, we should stress again what a serious undertaking and responsibility that is, that we are the only publisher of someone's biography, especially a living someone (highlighting the care we need to have for people, their self perception, their privacy, in such a circumstance). -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:05, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't aware of the term "jew tagging" before this. I've seen social media posts suggesting that Wikipedia tends to remove or diminish Jewish heritage in biographies: see [15], [16], and [17]. Given that it's giving some people a false impression, I agree that it would be helpful to have an essay explaining Wikipedia's response to "jew tagging". (I still think "born to a Jewish family" is an awkward phrase that creates more problems than it fixes, though.) Apocheir (talk) 21:20, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To be clearer, "Jew" and "Jewish" are not dirty words, and not every edit that adds "Jew" to an article is being made by an antisemite or a philosemite. "Jew tagging" is real, but we should be careful not to remove or exclude useful cited information, and that needs to be part of the essay too. Apocheir (talk) 19:50, 11 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion may also apply to families in addition to individuals - see the discussion I'm having with Politrukki at Talk:Guggenheim family, concerning whether a single mention of ethnicity in the article warrants calling the family "Amerioan-Jewish" in the lede. Acroterion (talk) 16:36, 11 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Mentioning that something is Jewish is not, in itself, "jew-tagging". I don't see anything about Politrukki's edit history that implies that it is. Please assume good faith. Apocheir (talk) 20:37, 11 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You might want to AGF too; I am doing so with respect to Politrukki, I merely note that this topic can extend beyond individuals. Acroterion (talk) 02:34, 13 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Unless the family is primarily known for religious activities (it is not), then that's an inappropriate descriptor. Bremps... 00:41, 12 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Jewish people are an Ethnoreligious group, meaning that "religious activities" are not always relevant. Saying that someone is Jewish could mean that you are saying something about their religion or their ethnicity. "This is a Jewish family" is not the equivalent of saying "This is a Catholic family". To give an example, I know a woman who was born and raised in a Jewish family, and who is now a dedicated Catholic. She did not stop being ethnically Jewish when she became religiously Catholic. It's therefore accurate (though incomplete) to describe her as being Jewish in the sense of ethnicity, even though she engages in no Jewish religious activities. If she were notable, we'd probably try to clarify that her Jewishness is ethnic rather than religious by writing something like "Born into an observant Ashkenazi Jewish family, she converted to Catholicism in her 30s..."; if her family were notable, we'd probably describe them as "a Jewish American family". WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:35, 12 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you mentioning this discussion at the article talk page. Had you not done so, I would've missed you mentioning me here. This has nothing to do with you, but I disabled mention notifications out of annoyance few years ago.

I have not fully read the discussion here, but if an essay says an editor can't reasonably disagree with someone who pulled out a "Jew tagging" card, the essay is wrong. If there ever was a "Jew tagging" problem at the Guggenheim family article, the problem ceased to exist when I reverted your bold edit (I assume that when you said "was added by an IP" you meant this edit from 2022). I took responsibility of a single edit and that is not what the essay should be about. Politrukki (talk) 16:44, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If we're going to respect trans identity at all, we should go forth and update other articles. The same goes for prostate cancer and men.

Hist4ian (talk) 21:37, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why are you posting here rather than on the article talk page? When you do post there, have reliable sources lined up to support your position. Donald Albury 22:49, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently they did post to the Pregnancy talk page before posting here at the VP (see Talk:Pregnancy § Replace all cultural identity language like "woman" and "mother" with alternatives such as "pregnant person," "human with a uterus," "AFAB", even "gravida" if we have to); an admin told them to post here if they wanted to discuss the "radical change" [18]. Some1 (talk) 23:38, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I see, now. So, does anyone have a more useful response than mine? Donald Albury 01:12, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Rather than add explanatory sentences that lengthen the article, it would be easier to change "woman" (ambiguous) to "female" (exclusively refers to biological sex). And so on. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 01:45, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

From the lead of Female: "In humans, the word female can also be used to refer to gender in the social sense of gender role or gender identity." WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:27, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh, I didn't know that. That seems... unnecessarily confusing. Is "biological female" unambiguous enough? Cremastra (talk · contribs) 12:41, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Probably not - see Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 September 23#Biological woman/man. Thryduulf (talk) 15:12, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I commented at the RfD, and I disagree with the nom's interpretation. I think "biological female" quite unambiguously refers to people with two X chromosomes with female reproductive organs. How much more specific do we need to get?

Actually, we could just say "Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring gestates inside a uterus". That's unambiguous, and would work. It's also simpler than a footnote. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 21:53, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that others disagree with you in good faith indicates that it is not unambiguous - for starters there are people who are biologically female but whose chromosomes are not XX. Thryduulf (talk) 22:21, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want to argue with you right now. Comment at the RfD rather than deliberately sidetracking discussion here.

Do you have constructive thoughts on my proposal? Cremastra (talk · contribs) 22:24, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have a particular opinion about the redirect. I do however have a strong opinion that niether answering a direct question of yours, nor correcting your misstatement of fact in response to my reply, is "sidetracking discussion". Thryduulf (talk) 23:37, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

By proposal I meant my suggestion of removing any "woman/female" qualifier and just saying "pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring gestates inside a uterus". Your commenting on what is the domain of the RfD discussion as opposed to the specific phrasing being workshopped here is definitely sidetracking the discussion here. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 16:07, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

“Deliberately “? You have been around enough to know you shouldn’t say that, AGF is something I’m sure you are aware of. Doug Weller talk 19:11, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I believe most trans masculine people would not find that very kind or appropriate Sock-the-guy (talk) 03:46, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Sock-the-guy I very much understand that this is a sensitive topic and have no wish to needlessly offend people. However, as pointed out above, the word "female" can also be ambiguous. This is a biology article that clearly discusses physical sex rather than gender, and biological terms are going to be used.

Do you think my suggestion above of removing the qualifier and just saying "Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring gestates inside a uterus" would be more appropriate? Cremastra (talk · contribs) 16:02, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There are a half dozen discussions of this in the article talk page archives, none having resulted in a consensus to change the article lede. This is, of course, an issue that far transcends pregnancy, as I have also seen discussions of whether similar reference to people other than "women" should be included with respect to menstruation and abortion. The sense broadly expressed across these discussions is the same, and should be articulated on a policy page so that we have language to which to point when it is perennially raised again. BD2412 T 01:58, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that the last general discussion about this was five years ago, in Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 161#Gender-neutral language in human sex-specific articles.

Separately, a handful of us spent about a million bytes of discussion in 2022. The following things were learned:

• The 'real world' has only one agreed-upon standard: When healthcare providers are speaking directly to individual patients, the providers should adopt the patients' preferred language. That means that if you're a midwife or obstetrician, you will talk to your first patient of the day about whether "Mummy" can feel her "baby" kicking yet, and you talk to your second patient about whether "they" can feel their "fetus" kicking yet, and you treat both of them as if their preferred language is the most natural, obvious, normal thing in the world.
• There are multiple valid and traditional definitions of the word woman, including:
  • adult human with a feminine gender identity
  • adult human with a feminine gender expression
  • adult human with a feminine gender role
  • adult human whose perinatal testing or external genitalia caused her to be assigned female at birth
  • adult human of the female sex (=produces ova instead of sperm during reproductive years)
• These are the models discussed in reliable sources:
  • gender-specific (e.g., women or trans men, but not females or people; usually woman-centered)
  • sex-specific (e.g., females instead of women)
  • gender-neutral/gender-vague wording
    • gender inclusiveness through strategic vagueness (e.g., write people or patients, and assume readers will glork the meaning from context)
    • gender inclusiveness through biological reductionism (e.g., people with a uterus, the uterus contracts)
  • gender-additive (e.g., women and other people who menstruate)
  • varying language (e.g., some sentences are gender-specific and others aren't – this is common in Wikipedia articles, even if editors aren't trying to do this deliberately)
  • separate content for trans people (not really feasible for Wikipedia)
• Some gender-neutral models are criticized for being dehumanizing (e.g., reducing people to their body parts) or ignoring social factors (e.g., illegal workplace pregnancy discrimination is frequently motivated by beliefs about "correct" gender roles, so it happens to women, not to females). Others are criticized for being confusing (40% of women in one survey weren't sure what a cervix is, so a statement like "People with a cervix should get checked for cervical cancer" is unclear to about 40% of the people who should get checked for cervical cancer). Most models are criticized for erasing cisgendered women.
• Almost no research specifies the gender identity of trial participants, so when a study says "women", it almost always means an adult human whose body is of the type expected to produce eggs instead of sperm, regardless of gender identity, expression, role, or anything else.
• Nearly all requests for gender inclusiveness (both on wiki and in the real world) involve making content about the female reproductive system not mention the word women. Almost no requests involve making content about the male reproductive system not mention men. For example, compare these lists of discussions on wiki:
  • Requests related to making Wikipedia's article on Pregnancy gender-neutral: Talk:Pregnancy/Archive 2#POV and accuracy dispute, Talk:Pregnancy/Archive 8#Trans-inclusivity and replacing the word "woman", Talk:Pregnancy/Archive 8#Non-normative pregnancy, Talk:Pregnancy/Archive 8#"Women" or "female humans", Talk:Pregnancy/Archive 9#Changing pronouns and gendered language, Talk:Pregnancy/Archive 9#Semi-protected edit request on 23 April 2022, Talk:Pregnancy/Archive 9#Info box or edit note?, Talk:Pregnancy/Archive 9#Edit note wording, Talk:Pregnancy/Archive 10#Transgender in lead, Talk:Pregnancy/Archive 11#MOS:GNL in the lead, Talk:Pregnancy/Archive 11#Semi-protected edit request on 21 May 2024, and more.
  • Other articles related to the female reproductive system: Talk:Mastectomy#Gender neutral language?, Talk:Premenstrual syndrome#Math lesson, Talk:Diabetes and pregnancy#Feedback, Talk:Breast reduction#Gender-neutral language, Talk:Female condom#Requested move 31 March 2024, Talk:Fetal scalp blood testing#Peer Review, Talk:Feminine hygiene#Naming of article, Talk:Feminine hygiene#Requested move 23 October 2019, Talk:Feminine hygiene#Requested move 27 October 2019, Talk:Labor induction#Gender Neutral Language, Talk:HIV and pregnancy#UCF COM Peer Review, Talk:Braxton Hicks contractions#Generality of the term pregnant, Talk:Polycystic ovary syndrome/Archive 1#People with ovaries, Talk:Polycystic ovary syndrome#Outdated Terminology, Talk:Childbirth positions#The word "Mother", Talk:Heavy menstrual bleeding#Peer Review 2, Talk:Antenatal depression#Gender inclusive page, Talk:Postmenopausal confusion#Improving article with inclusive language, Talk:Cervical effacement#Group Peer Review, Talk:Luteal phase#Edits to Luteal Phase Outline, and more.
  • Similar-ish requests for male-focused articles: Talk:Ethics of circumcision#Any valid reason for reversion of gender-neutral language?, Talk:Sperm bank#Part 1, Talk:Sperm donation#Gender neutral language?, Talk:Vasectomy#Non-gendered language, and, um, that's about it.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:26, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Should something (maybe a paragraph or two summarizing the 2019 RfC and related discussions) be added to MOS:GNL so that there's something to point to when this topic comes up again? Some1 (talk) 02:52, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe, but what would we agree to say? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:21, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Good question. For now, I think your idea of adding a FAQ template to the talk page(s) [19] is a good one. Some1 (talk) 22:43, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Would it not be sufficient to merely state that in a paragraph, and then state that the rest of the article uses gendered language for clarity? Sock-the-guy (talk) 05:43, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would be fine coming up with a standard footnote to drop in such articles on the first mention of "women". BD2412 T 18:02, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps something like

Many people who are not women, such as Trans men can also be pregnant. For clarity, this article uses gendered language, which is not meant to imply that anyone who may experience such things is a woman. For more about queer reproductive issues, see <insert article here>. Sock-the-guy (talk) 03:52, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's a good solution. Sapphaline (talk) 09:05, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A footnote is the best response to this. It would be undue and not adhering to NPOV to change the language entirely because most RS do not use that language either. EvergreenFir (talk) 16:37, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Count me in as another supporter of the footnote option. What we have now is not fully correct, but changing the language across the entire article would be unclear. So we should acknowledge the caveat briefly and move on. Loki (talk) 23:18, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I support a footnote, but it's not my #1 option. Maybe we should hold a multi-option RfC? Cremastra (talk · contribs) 01:13, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is a reasonable direction, provided we stick closely to verifiable, reliable sources and keep the tone neutral. Medical and public health guidance already acknowledge that pregnancy is possible for some transgender men and non-binary people with a uterus, and that trans women (and others who retain a prostate) remain at risk of prostate cancer.

Proposed inclusive wording for the pregnancy article :

Pregnancy is the period during which one or more embryos or fetuses develop inside a uterus. People who can become pregnant include women (both cisgender and transgender) and other people who retain a functioning uterus, such as some transgender men and some non-binary people.

Suggested clarifying sentence for prostate cancer articles :

Prostate cancer affects the prostate gland; people who currently have a prostate — primarily cisgender men, and some transgender women or other people assigned male at birth who retain a prostate — are at risk of prostate cancer.

This way, we respect trans identities and follow WP:NPOV and WP:V by basing wording directly on high-quality medical sources (NHS, ACOG, CDC, Prostate Cancer UK, ACS).

== References ==

"Having a baby if you're LGBT+". NHS. Retrieved 4 October 2025.

"Health Care for Transgender and Gender Diverse Individuals (Committee Opinion No. 823)". American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. March 2021. Retrieved 4 October 2025.

"Pregnancy in transgender men". PMCID (open access). 2021. Retrieved 4 October 2025.

"Testosterone Use and Risk for Pregnancy". U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 19 November 2024. Retrieved 4 October 2025.

"Trans women and prostate cancer". Prostate Cancer UK. Retrieved 4 October 2025.

"Cancer care for transgender and gender-nonconforming people (PDF)" (PDF). American Cancer Society. 2024. Retrieved 4 October 2025.

[Note : This reply was generated by an AI following human directions, with minimal human modifications] Cdr. Erwin Smith (talk) 06:31, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Those sources may be appropriate to an article titled Pregnancy in transgender men, but the article on general pregnancy should use general sources. A definitive treatise is Williams’ Obstetrics (McGraw Hill, currently 26th edition), which uses the words “woman” and “women”, unqualified, liberally. It would be extremely undue weight to devote lead space to explaining a niche medical edge case (occurring in perhaps ~1000s of patients) in a broad topic article about ~billions of patients. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 07:32, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks — that’s a fair point about relying on mainstream, authoritative textbooks for a broad article. Williams’ Obstetrics is a major reference and should certainly be cited where it supports general statements about pregnancy. At the same time, my concern is strictly factual accuracy: a small, sourced statement that some people who are not women can become pregnant is not advocacy, it’s a narrowly targeted factual clarification backed by clinical guidance and case literature. I think we can satisfy both priorities — respect the mainstream textbook view in the lead and keep the lead concise, while avoiding a technically incorrect blanket statement by adding a short, sourced clarification in the body.

• WP:V/WP:MEDRS : For medical topics, we should rely on high-quality sources. Cite Williams’ Obstetrics (or other standard obstetrics texts) for the general physiological statements, and cite NHS/ACOG/CDC/peer-reviewed clinical reviews for the factual point about pregnancies occurring in people assigned female at birth who now identify differently.
• WP:WEIGHT/WP:DUE : The lead should reflect what the best sources say about the topic as a whole. If mainstream textbooks describe pregnancy in terms of women, keep the lead framed around that majority. But WP:SUMMARY and WP:UNDUE don’t require us to erase documented clinically relevant exceptions from the body of the article — a short, sourced sentence in an appropriate section is an appropriate place for a minority but medically documented phenomenon.
• Readability & Accuracy : The lead’s job is to summarise; the body’s job is to provide necessary nuance.

Cdr. Erwin Smith (talk) 09:33, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is this an AI response? Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 10:57, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, however it was read carefully by me multiple times to ensure it's not a meaningless wall of text.

Since I added the disclaimer on the usage of AI on the first reply, and you replied after reading it, I thought it would've been repetitive and redundant to do so again and again. I can discontinue if you want, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on the proposal itself. Cdr. Erwin Smith (talk) 12:05, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would prefer to talk to you directly; we can all ask AI for its opinion elsewhere. Regarding factual accuracy, you could also argue to put a footnote on the words “inside” or “uterus”, so as to be inclusive of ectopic pregnancy, a condition with incidence multiple orders of magnitude higher than trans-man-pregnancy - but I would argue this is also inappropriate, as we shouldn’t clutter the lead with details of rare edge cases. As another example, take a look at the lead sentence of Human. We could put a footnote against the word “bipedality” clarifying that, actually, some humans only have one leg. But none of this would serve the reader. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 21:38, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Both of these are medical conditions; being trans is not a medical condition. 46.242.15.7 (talk) 23:15, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What is it then? cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 01:55, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It has to do with one's gender identity. I don't especially see how that's a "medical condition", seeing as "medical condition" usually suggests some kind of abnormality or infection, which is obviously not the case here. But I don't really care either way and this is off topic. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 01:58, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Whether being trans is "a medical condition" is a WP:POV. There is no scientific law that determines the meaning of any words. The meaning of all words is socially constructed, and society can (and, in previous centuries, did) construct the meaning of "medical condition" so that it includes being trans. I don't personally hold that POV myself, but I recognize that my POV is a POV, and not the absolute truth. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:29, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No one said that it's the "absolute truth". Wikipedia should follow mainstream opinions; the current mainstream opinion is transgenderness not being a medical condition. Sapphaline (talk) 08:11, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Someone did, however, make an unqualifed, absolute assertion that being trans is not a medical condition.

I agree that the current mainstream Western academic view is that being trans is not a medical condition. The mainstream Western popular view probably disagrees. I don't know if non-Western views match the Western ones. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:39, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Leaving aside what WhatamIdoing pointed out about definitions, you could pick a lot of other words in the intro to human that might need footnoting despite not being a "condition". For example, "humans are highly social" (except for some hermits and misanthropes) and "humans are omnivores" (except some vegetarians and vegans). Anomie⚔ 12:09, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I was testing it out just this once to see how helpful would an AI be in a complex discussion.

As for your concern, I suggested to keep the header by the book as you had suggested. Only the body would get changed to reflect the gender nuances. Cdr. Erwin Smith (talk) 19:31, 12 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There are aspects of that language that we cannot use in a neutrally worded encyclopedia. I don't think we can say Many people who are not women can become pregnant because this implies a more substantial number than sources agree on, and takes a stance on a political dispute in Wikipedia's voice. I think we can say that A number of people who identify as not being women can become pregnant. BD2412 T 13:53, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I still think just saying "pregnancy is the period during which one or more embryos or fetuses develop inside a uterus" is the best plan. It's concise, WP:DUE, verifiable, correct, and avoids stuffing up every article with undue tangents. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 13:57, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm assuming that people who want to replace instances of the word woman in the Pregnancy article (and other human sex-specific articles) want to do so throughout the whole article, not just the lead sentence. (e.g. [20]) Some1 (talk) 14:31, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's why we go for a Via Media.

1. Go by the book, and let the lead remain unchanged.

2. Add the narrow factual clarifications backed by medical sources, and change the body. Cdr. Erwin Smith (talk) 15:21, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The body of the Pregnancy article already says "Women as well as intersex and transgender people who have a functioning female reproductive system are capable of pregnancy." Some1 (talk) 15:47, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We have to change some wording in body to match this sentence too. Cdr. Erwin Smith (talk) 16:45, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the change away from "mother" is a necessity in that case. A "mother" is the person with the egg that got fertilized, regardless of their gender identity, which isn't relevant here. As I commented at the RfD, It is common for conservative activists/writers etc. to misunderstand the sex/gender distinction, but it's very disheartening to see it from a progressive. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 16:53, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The US pro-choice movement strongly objects to calling pregnant women "mothers". Worldwide, most pregnant people are indisputably mothers (because most have already given birth in the past), but there are gendered and social implications to "mother", and they find that a statement like "A woman should be allowed to get an abortion" gets a different emotional/visceral response than "A mother should be allowed to get an abortion". WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:15, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, but I think this is a niche objection. We're a global encyclopedia not, as it happens, an American pro-choice brochure. We can use the word 'mother' the way we choose. (For the record, I am pro-choice, but not American.) Cremastra (talk · contribs) 17:53, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that this idea has no chance of being accepted. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:30, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Phrases like "people who are not women can become pregnant" are only true if the only definition of "women" is "person with a feminine gender identity". To write a sentence like that is to imply that the One True™ Definition of Woman is "person with a feminine gender identity", and that all other POVs are wrong.

Rather than a footnote preferring one POV about who is/isn't a real woman, maybe we should point at Pregnancy#Capacity. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:12, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Not every subject that uses words like "men" and "women" needs to be turned into a primer on gender studies. The trans community makes up somewhat less than 1% of the general population, some subset of which can become pregnant, and then some subset who do. It's rare enough that we mostly don't seem to know the prevalence. In at least one Australian study, you're looking at a few dozen trans people annually, compared with more than a quarter million annual births nationally, or something like 100th of 1%.

I don't believe we normally (or ever) go to such length in any other instance to cater high level medical articles to such an exceedingly small cohort. For readers interested in this niche we have Transgender pregnancy and related articles like Use of assisted reproductive technology by LGBTQ people, Partner-assisted reproduction, and the neglected stub at Transgender parenting. GMG^talk 15:36, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm inclined to agree with this. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 16:38, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If we were going to write a FAQ for Talk:Pregnancy, what's the narrowest "rule" we could agree to recommend?

Maybe something like "Do not remove the words woman and women from this article"? That would permit trans-inclusive formulations such as "women and other people who are pregnant". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:32, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So far the closest thing I see to consensus in this discussion is the "use gendered language following MEDRS sources, with an explanatory footnote at the first occurrence" idea (although specific wording hasn't had much discussion yet), as pretty much every other suggestion has arguments against and few/no supporting comments. The rule might then be "don't change that status quo". OTOH, further discussion might come up with some other result. Anomie⚔ 01:17, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I agree with this. Cdr. Erwin Smith (talk) 19:20, 12 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is an unreasonable demand that places the burden of other people's idiosyncrasies on already stressed people. No one will want to study for ten or fifteen years if they can't even do their job because they're expected to constantly bend to the demands and touchiness of overly pampered people: "No, I don't like that word," "No, I have another identity but you can't ask which one," "Here, this is the glossary you have to use with me, memorize it in three seconds." 93.146.171.12 (talk) 12:26, 12 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is VP discussion, not an opportunity for ludicrously hyperbolic rants about changes in culture. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 15:39, 12 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wanting to erase the 99.9% of women by using dehumanizing language to "respect" the "rights" of the 0.01% who are treated as if they were a priority over everyone else is the real offense. 93.146.171.12 (talk) 12:26, 12 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No-one's dehumanizing anyone. Respecting people is a good thing, even if it for some reason irks you. Pulling statistics out of your hat doesn't help your case. None of the changes suggested are dehumanizing or rude to cis women. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 15:38, 12 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Re: your last sentence, I think WhatamIdoing's fourth bullet point above (beginning with Some gender-neutral models are criticized for being dehumanizing) touches on this a bit. Some1 (talk) 23:25, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please consider joining the feedback request service. An editor has requested comments from other editors for this discussion. This page has been added to the following lists: Wikipedia style and naming Wikipedia technical issues and templates Wikipedia proposals When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the lists. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.

The current CC image license tags (e.g. Template:CC BY-SA 4.0) are quite barebone, providing little information to the reuser. This is a proposal to make them more descriptive, like the equivalents at Commons, e.g. c:Template:Cc-by-sa-4.0. 15:46, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

This would change them to the following:

(old)

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

(new)

This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. You are free: to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work to remix – to adapt the work Under the following conditions: attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. share alike – If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same or compatible license as the original.

(The above are just mockups) 15:46, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

This is just a mockup (I was a bit lazy to subst all the int statements) - I plan to create templates like c:Template:Cc-by-sa-layout on enwiki, obviously with a bit of reworking to remove unnecessary i18n. I also think width: 100% could be used, since we don't need to narrow width for a short license statement, unlike text. Please reply with whether you support or oppose the change along with comments. Thanks, —Matrix _{ping me}^{when u reply} (t? - c) 20:06, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Weak oppose - I'd rather editors who aren't familiar click through and get the official short and long license explanations, rather than duplicating it here and possibly misleading. But that's just my opinion right now, it could change. SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:11, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Out of curiousity do you oppose the approach currently being used by Commons? —Matrix _{ping me}^{when u reply} (t? - c) 20:27, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Eh. They didn't ask me. :) SarekOfVulcan (talk) 00:48, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If we have a CC image on en.wiki, it should be moved to commons, so I would not worry too much about our templates here Masem (t) 20:12, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Masem: {{FoP-USOnly}}, {{Keep local}} (I actually oppose the latter, but consensus is to keep them)? —Matrix _{ping me}^{when u reply} (t? - c) 20:18, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also, we have 84k files at Category:Copy to Wikimedia Commons (bot-assessed) (which is actually a reduction by quite a bit from two years ago). Whilst you are happy to help, I doubt we are clearing that in the foreseeable future. —Matrix _{ping me}^{when u reply} (t? - c) 20:19, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Support aligning to Commons. If we had universal cross-wiki templates, this would be a no-brainer application of them. We unfortunately don't. But this is a hugely important template at Commons, where they have presumably put a lot of thought into it, whereas the template here is rather niche (as Masem points out) and quite possibly underdeveloped/outdated. The best approach is therefore to follow whatever Commons does. For editors who oppose the design spelling out the terms more explicitly, I'd suggest taking that up on Commons as a far more impactful course of action than arguing about the local version of the template. Sdkb ^talk 21:22, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Support as proposer to align with Commons, as well as provide useful information to reusers of media. —Matrix _{ping me}^{when u reply} (t? - c) 15:46, 11 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per Sdkb – ideal to have consistent templates cross-wiki, especially since many of its uses here are for files to be copied to Commons, and I trust Commons editors on this one. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 15:28, 12 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Support aligning to Commons. Graham11 (talk) 22:42, 12 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]