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Support as proposer, and the primary two reasons are firstly for for centralizing discussion, and as of a result, reducing and defracturing content disputes. Notably I feel like there have been quite a few content disputes with regard to inclusion on WP:YEARS articles often known as "the main year articles", such as 2022, 2026, and 2023, have had a lot of debate, and heated debate, within the past five years. As a party to many of them, I do feel like that having one issue debated in one place and another on an another page when so many of them. I don't exactly believe it helps for us to have one inclusion standard when it comes to one set of news and another on a separate set. Ideally, I'd like to reduce the amount of unnecessary discussion, and repeated ones too. The leading idea in my mind, as mentioned in the title, is to integrate the main year articles with ITN in some way (since these are among the most news-y articles we have on Wikipedia), but I'm not exactly sure where a proposal should land. I also want to avoid going too heavily into WP:NOTNEWS territory - which I am concerned of treading into, and my line of thinking is if ITN is the boundary for what can be considered compliant with NOTNEWS, then it's fair to apply this to the inclusion criteria. I also believe that a single centralized place for discussion can reduce the amount of differing interpretation on WP:DUE, which was originally the solution as presented after a 2023 ANI with regard to long-term ownership on WikiProject Years, though has quickly started to degrade in reference to While I do have some other concerns about how many years articles save for 2001 as mostly rewritten by @Thebiguglyalien are generic lists of events, I think this is too big of a problem to sort out now. For the more immediate term, though, I do think that having a more centralized method of inclusion, though not the only one to do at it, is the better way forward unless and if so until a less-listy solution in general is proposed. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 00:57, 7 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Weak oppose, as the years articles benefit from a lot more hindsight (and can do with some secondary sources), while ITN doesn't necessarily have the time to do so with its one-week window, leading to some events like minor accidents taking the stage over longer-term trends throughout the year. On the other hand, this could also add a quality bias, as articles are frequently declined on the basis of quality alone. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 01:44, 7 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I think those are fair points - I would suggested that this would only apply to recent-ish years such as the past three years - and also that entires declined to be featured on ITN solely for article quality reasons wouldn't prevent it from inclusion on a year page. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 02:24, 7 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. In general it seems against our ethos to base content on our internal processes, and that's before the process in question is ITN, an area so fractious and unpredictable that there have been proposals to abolish it. CMD (talk) 01:59, 7 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Comment my first thought is that it would be easy for this to turn into (de jure or de facto) a requirement that events were posted to ITN (or at least those items nominated must have been posted). I would be strongly against that as there are many reasons why something may be significant to the year but not posted to ITN, including article quality issues at the time, unclear significance in the immediate aftermath, no one clear most newsworthy point (e.g. a series of recurring protests of varying scale occurring over several months is more notable in the aggregate than at any one point), etc. Thryduulf (talk) 02:12, 7 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. Reliable sources decide what is included per WP:BALASP. If people are making inclusion arguments without citing sources, then their input might need to be ignored. And in terms of those who I trust to evaluate whether something is a so-called "significant" event, I'd rank ITN's judgement at around the same level as a primary school classroom's judgement, or maybe of that one octopus that predicts the future. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:38, 7 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
comment I don't think we need a specific rule for this. It does seem like a good trend. If we post something as in the news, there is a high likelihood that it will have been suitable to be in an article about that year. But I'm sure that there are things that don't meet that criteria. It's not really a thing about ITN either, it's more how YEARS handles information posted at ITN. Lee Vilenski(talk • contribs)12:01, 7 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Strongly oppose This would bloat the year articles exponentially. Most ITN events are already in their respective year article's, first of all. Secondly, this would force people to add things to said article's that may not have good sourcing. An event that may be ITN worthy due to a lot of news reporting may not be worthy for inclusion in a year article, as either the event has no lasting effect, or there was no reporting since the initial wave. This would flood articles like 2026, 2019 and 2020 with thousands on unneeded bytes of text.
The most recent major addition to the English Wikipedia's main page was in 2006, with little movement since then. Here is a screenshot of Wikipedia's home page in 2011, which is almost indistinguishable from today's.
Wikipedia is facing issues. Monthly new registrations have slowed by 36% over the past decade, which is likely correlated with declining interest in the encyclopedia. Pageviews have plummeted by 9% as well, which is worse than it sounds because internet users have nearly doubled in that time. If we do not reverse trends, Wikipedia will lose relevance. The way I see it, Wikipedia could do with a fresher face. Influencers like Molly White or spokespeople like User:Clovermoss are already doing a lot for us, but we need a major on-site initiative, as well.
As the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, we could be doing more to reach out to "anyone". The current sections on the main page are all mostly closed to newcomers—TFA and TFP obviously, but also DYK, ITN, and OTD. The posted articles are all screened for quality in advance, meaning that there's not much room for true newbies to add a citation or to fix a typo, which is how many of us started.
What we need is a truly open section, where we do not merely tell readers to edit but tell them what to edit and how, hopefully minting new longtime editors, or at the very least improving the underlying articles.
I am proposing that we add a section on the main page, This Week's Article for Improvement (TWAFI), that is intentionally left unprotected. You can see a mockup here.
Surprisingly, Wikipedia has one weekly designated article for improvement that attracts almost no attention. For instance, "minibus" was the designated article for improvement a few weeks ago, yet it still remains short and orange-tagged. There is already a vast pool of important articles flagged as requiring uncontroversial love and maintenance, that is slowly growing. This system is unfortunately languishing, if not dormant. On the accomplishments page, you can see that the last noteworthy achievement was improving an article from Start to C, back in 2016.
What if we just put it on the main page, where interested newbies could edit it?
First, the selection will be done by RNG, as it is currently. This sounds jarring to anyone who participates in ITN or DYK, but I believe this is the best method. No one gets to play favorites or horse-trade support votes. I believe that otherwise, this will be a major issue as everyone tries to get their pet article in the line for improvement. OTD and FA are not automated, but they glide rather smoothly with a less deliberative selection process. That will be the model.
Second, lack of protection is a must. If we lock the article against TAs, we may as well scuttle the project. This is a recruitment drive for entirely new editors, or at least a chance to shine for newer registered editors. Obviously, we'll need a lot of eyes to watch out for nonsense, but I don't think that should be an issue for an article on the main page. Blocks, if needed, will be account blocks.
Third, experienced editors will be strongly encouraged to provide lengthy explanations of why they reverted a newbie's edit (on the article talk page or the user talk page) or to add an invisible note on an addition to avoid. This is an editor nursery, and we don't want to put off anyone new. We'll obviously still abide by Wikipedia's rules and revert anything unhelpful, but WP:DONTBITE is extra strong here.
Fourth, there will be a bulleted list of potential improvements. This will be decided by consensus on a discussion page. I do not picture this being a controversial or difficult process. We already have the article, and the only task is to hammer out the three or four biggest issues we trust newbies to address and to list them, on a weekly basis. I think we are mature enough and capable enough to do this.
Fifth, the metric of success will be each TWAFI gaining at least 10,000 views, attracting four entirely new or very new editors, and having some sort of positive change since we opened it up to editing.
This was attempted in 2013 and quickly shut down. This time will be different because a) we specify what we want editors to do, b) we do not dilute focus by featuring many pages, and c) we have a bot updating the queue, so there will be no human failure like last time, among other things.
If you are interested in the 2013 implementation, here is the original discussion that shut it down.
However, let me try to address any objections in as fair a manner as I can manage.
"This runs the risk of vandalism."
There is no reward without pain. Opening up any page to mass editing runs the risk of vandalism. Wikipedia was founded on the idea that people generally work together rather than destroy things when given the chance.
Worst case scenario, we restore the page to how it was at the beginning of the week. I don't anticipate needing this fallback.
"This failed in the past."
I've tried my best to differentiate the 2026 proposal from the 2013 proposal, as seen above. I believe I have addressed the mechanisms of failure.
"This other idea will work/is working in attracting newcomers, so this is not needed."
Wonderful! Let us implement both.
"This sounds like a bold proposal."
In some ways, it is, but opposing this is also a choice. Maintaining the same main page for a top 10 most-visited site for two decades is also a bold choice. Choosing not to act is also choosing.
Your support below, of course. Assuming this does get to the implementation stage, we still require code-savvy Wikipedians to
- whip up templates that can be put on the main page (the mockup is not a template at all)
- write a banner stressing WP:DONTBITE for old hands
- implement a discussion forum for hammering out the to-dos
Special thanks to the following individuals who have given this proposal encouragement and (even more importantly) strong criticism in the ideas lab; this would not have gotten this far without them.
Support:I like this idea. I don't think the drop-off in pageviews is as concerning as it might seem, given that people are often accessing our information indirectly through Large Language Models, but I'm all for adding an optional interaction feature. It seems like it would drive engagement, and would be an easy place for us to double check for vandalism.
I support the idea just as I supported it in the Idea lab. I'm confused as to "intentionally left unprotected", though. The DYKs and FAs are usually editable; it's their boxes on the main page that aren't. Are you saying that the box for TFAI should be unprotected or just the article, in which case I support? Also, we have to identify where to add the box. I think I suggested a place in the Idea lab but forgot what it was Aaron Liu (talk) 11:48, 14 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I was not clear enough. The article must be unprotected, because protecting it like a Ming dynasty vase/TFA would defeat the point. The template, of course, is protected.
As for placement, I aim for it to be as high as possible on the left column, as the TFA + DYK column is frequently shorter than the ITN + OTD column. Ideally the top, less ideally the middle, and then the bottom. Bremps...17:04, 14 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I strongly support this, just like I did in the idea lab. We desperately need to recruit new editors, and a hands-on experience directly on the Main Page (which traditionally was very much reader-focused rater than editor-focused) could definitely help.In terms of implementation: having a banner on the article clarifying how new editors can help (repeating to some extent the Main Page blurb) could be great, as I don't foresee newcomers being familiar enough with talk pages to check there at first. Regarding protection, TFA is automatically semi-protected a few days before being displayed on the main page, so I believe this is what Bremps was referring to. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 12:16, 14 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Ah, I didn't notice the 2023 change and thought semi-protecting TFAs was still case-by-case. (For what it's worth I would have strongly opposed semi-protection and maybe supported pending changes, but geez is that strong consensus.) I agree the articles should be unprotected though I suspect a lot of that is because I disagree with said 2023 decision... so don't take my opinion on that part as any representative of enwiki editors at large. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:01, 14 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Also definitely prefer the articles to be unprotected. If we want to attract new editors, preventing them from editing would be the most counterproductive thing possible. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 13:06, 14 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I would have added this at the end of the whole section, but the Reply button is very handy.
I am mixed on the proposal. But I have issues with statements like "Monthly new registrations have slowed by 36% over the past decade, which is likely correlated with declining interest in the encyclopedia." There might, in fact, be no such correlation. Maybe interest is increasing, hence the new registrations, but not increasing as fast as before. Still, it's an increase in the number of people who are interested.
But more importantly, we are getting new account registrations every month, correct? Just not as many new registrations this month as we got last month. Do we expect the number of new users to increase in every time period? The total number of registrations is still increasing.
As long as we are getting new editors, the encyclopedia might be healthy.
That "new registrations have slowed" statement reminds me of a hypothetical company with 100 employees, that makes $100 million in profit, year after year. The financial press would complain that "earnings were flat". I would be glad to own such a moneymaking company! David10244 (talk) 03:11, 13 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
It's been stuck in my head, so here's a different analogy that I think describes the situation. Saying new registrations have slowed 36% is like saying the flow of a river into a lake has decreased 36%. Yes, maybe the water level (editor interest) is still going up, but problems can still be happening even in that case (this, I believe is Bremps's argument). And in any case, that doesn't change the need for water (things that need to be edited) or the evaporation rate (sheer loss). As Bremps pointed out, internet users have nearly doubled in [a decade], and yet the water is evaporating away (9%). As I see it, the lake needs, and deserves, all the water it can get.
The problem is that very few registrations result in active editors. And active editors eventually become inactive. I've been around for 20 years, but had a multi-year interval of very low activity, and have seen many other active editors go completely inactive. In the meantime, the number of articles continues to grow, and they all will eventually require maintenance. The critical need is having enough editors working on maintenance. Donald Albury12:35, 13 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
In your analogy, it would be more like having the income (yearly new money input) going down by 36%. This can be problematic, especially if it isn't enough to offset the outputs (expenses, in this analogy corresponding to editor attrition) of the year. The raw income number is still impressive, but the net profit (how many net editors we're gaining) is negative (more people stop editing than start editing). Chaotic Enby (in solidarity · talk · contribs) 12:45, 13 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I support this idea wholeheartedly. What is the box going to look like? Where will it go? How will compatibility work between Vector 2022 and other skins? I like TAFI a lot, but even finding it is hard if you're not looking for it - you have to scroll pretty far down on Wikipedia:Community portal. Is it going to be above today's featured list? Below today's featured picture? -- Reconrabbit (talk) 15:58, 14 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
It could be good to put it in a visible place, as this is destined to be seen by newcomers. There is currently a gap in height between Did You Know and On This Day, so putting it below DYK could be a possibility. Other options I'm having in mind:
A double addition alongside some kind of "Today's Editing Tip", especially if the tip in question can be relevant for improving that article
On the right column, and turning TFP into a single-column box on its left, which would make sense given how most featured pictures are far from filling up the entire space
Great points. I recommend checking out the mockup between the inline arrows. Unfortunately, I am not tech-savvy enough to address the question about skins, but I am picturing something like any other big main page template (TFA, ITN, etc.). I am envisioning this template going in the left column, the higher the better. Bremps...17:11, 14 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
TFP's horizontal length does make sense as it's not uncommon to see a panorama there.I think it should be lower on the left column since that would make it sorted by article quality. If it's not distinctive enough, it could be a different color. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:15, 14 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I'm not opposed to trialing an edit conflict fight club article for improvement, but I do have some strong suggestions about the main template and it's prospective contents: This process will live or die on reader's first-impressions, and these example calls to action are very weak. If most readers don't know they can even edit here at all, as was mentioned at VPI, then a banner title of This week's article for improvement isn't going to reach them, they must be addressed directly. Think less Weekly x and more Help us improve Wings of Fire!The contents of the box shouldn't primarily be an article summary either, the purpose isn't to inform readers about the article's content (there's enough of that on the main page), its to invite (entice) them to improve it. Different goals, different text. I'd suggest aiming for more focused blurbs with a touch more personality like This week's article for improvement is Wings of Fire, a children's fantasy novel series about dragons that has sold over 27 million copies. You can help make this article better by adding a reference for [Y], correcting grammar, expanding on [X], and more, click here to start!, but written by someone who's good at writing (and hooks). Ideally there would be few links, I'd suggest two, one for the article's title, and one single clear link at the end to guidance on how they can help that's been tailored to the article, this could be hosted on the article's talk page. At a minimum consider anything collapsed to be invisible, and any link in a lake of links to be invisible. (for consensus purposes consider this a support) fifteenthousandtwohundredtwentyfour(talk) 16:23, 14 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Definitely agree with these improvements. Wikipedia in general could do better with focused calls to action, and looking less static. Currently, the "edit this article" only links to the page itself, and can be a bit hard to spot in the footer – having it as part of the running text and pointing directly to VE will likely help. The whole collapsed box should be integrated in the running text, and we could follow the DYK practice of minimizing non-relevant links.The only thing I'm worried about is that Help us improve Wings of Fire! could look a bit like sponsored content, so it might be a matter of striking a balance, although it is definitely preferable to the current prototype. Chaotic Enby: (talk · contribs) 16:32, 14 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Positioning something as needing improvement wouldn't exactly be stellar marketing. I did consider other versions without the article name (Help us/You can help improve this/an article! etc), but they all seemed substantively weaker. Maybe Help us improve our article on Wings of Fire! is better (?), but the length is less appealing. I'd personally roll with it, especially if the start of the blurb states that its this week's article for improvement. fifteenthousandtwohundredtwentyfour(talk) 16:56, 14 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I'm open to seeing if it works. I still have some of my concerns from the last time I was asked for feedback, but at a certain point we just have to try our best to set people up for success rather than failure and see what happens. Tweaks can be made if nessecary. I'll re-emphasize the importance of making sure people have the resources they need to succeed and aren't aimlessly trying to do something and then chastened for doing it wrong. Maybe we could do some sort of edit check pilot for this specifically. My understanding is that it's enabled on other wikis? Clovermoss🍀(talk)21:31, 14 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
While the main page enjoys millions of views, the blue links only achieve thousands. Ergo, there are very many who read the main page, but who otherwise do not engage with the site. If the whole point is to entice readers to edit, I would think that is already being accomplished through the words right under the masthead ("the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit"). That link goes to the introduction page, and it gets around 4,000 clicks; that is the cohort which needs to be courted. Therefore I think the introduction page would probably be the right place to prominently feature a weekly article for improvement. Now in case you're wondering how much weight to assign my opinion: I myself started editing by coming across an article obtained through a Google search, and weirdly enough—although I quickly found my way to many other articles on the site—it took me a long time to notice the link to a main page, and even longer to realize that the same link was hiding behind the logo. StonyBrookbabble23:16, 14 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Fair points. I would start by cleaning up that sea of blue and just leave "anyone can edit". Or put that link in other prominent places on the page, such as behind "Wikipedia", or towards the top of the left menu (I use Vector 2010), or even behind the logo itself. I think an article that needs improvement should be hidden from plain view, since I skew towards keeping only good content on the main page for all those millions to read. I don't see how putting the 'kitchen' out in front adds to the site's credibility. But hey, it's only my opinion. StonyBrookbabble00:29, 15 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
If there is consensus for this, it should probably not be weekly, but daily. Most of the content which does reach the main page in ITN and DYK (presumably OTN as well, but I know nothing about that) is improvable, but almost all of the improvements happen quickly. For ITN, in my experience articles see very little improvements after 24 or so hours on the main page. The article for improvement would also pretty much never have to be about BLPs, since putting potentially wrong or libelous content against living people on the main page of Wikipedia is a quite bad idea. Other topics would also have to be avoided: Partnership for Peace is the article for improvement in a few weeks, and I don't think we want to throw new editors into the deep end of a contentious topic. 1brianm7 (talk) 00:25, 15 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
If anything, it could be good to focus (for a start) on Core Contest-style articles, where the topic is broad enough to attract a variety of usable sources that newcomers could find, but the article itself is relatively underdeveloped. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 00:38, 15 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Also, the proposal talks about preventing editors from horse trading and whatnot to get their pet article as article for improvement. I don't see that as happening, like at all? No editor who cares about an article fit for being article for improvement is going to think that their article is appropriate for it. Such an article is necessarily one in disrepair from editor disattention. I think something like TFL or TFA coordinators is a better idea; they pick articles eligible (FAs/FLs in their case, bad articles that should be good in ours), and select it for improvement. It'd be easy enough to go down the VA lists and find stub and start class articles. 1brianm7 (talk) 02:21, 15 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I feel like ITN is a bad point of comparison since almost all articles listed there are {{current}} and have information change rapidly soon after it becomes news, but not really after that.Creating daily FAI candidates needs much more work than we can currently get. I think we should at least try weekly first.
potentially wrong or libelous content against living people on the main page of Wikipedia
Resulting content aside, I still think it would be prudent to disqualify anything CTOP/GS or which necessitates MEDRS. We want to set first-time editors up for success to encourage them to keep editing, directing them to one of our most disruption-sensitive or tricky to edit topics would be antithetical to that. fifteenthousandtwohundredtwentyfour(talk) 21:13, 15 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
My experience with ITN is mostly in RDs, where everything that has been written about them has been written. I see almost no improvements in articles relatively quickly. potentially wrong or libelous content against living people on the main page of Wikipedia all of the other parts of the main page have editorial controls to prevent this from happening. DYK and ITN have quality checks, TFA and TFL have to be featured, and OTD theoretically has quality standards. These would be articles that are necessarily not done correctly, where any information on BLPs may not be due weight and so must be removed. This process would require an editorial control process to check that the article is not defamatory to BLPs, and at that point, it'd really be easier to fix it yourself while doing the checks. 1brianm7 (talk) 21:13, 15 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
To be in need of improvement doesn't require you have BLP violations on an article.I concede that including any sort of quick-revert ContentiousTop (like BLP) is probably bad for newcomer introduction though. Aaron Liu (talk) 21:20, 15 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I similarly think there would be an advantage to having a daily article for improvement instead of weekly. Although each article wouldn't get improved as much, new editors would have an easier time finding improvements to make. Also it could become a daily thing for people to check/work on. ...alternatively, there could be experienced editors that adds tags like [citation needed] or others over the course of the week to facilitate edits in a productive direction. Under any scenario this would probably be helpful. Naturedata (talk) 20:38, 13 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Strong oppose: The deluge of AI edits coming out of Newcomer Tasks is already killing us, we don't need to turn on more AI faucets. (Regardless of whether this is intended, based on prior experience it will happen in practice.) Gnomingstuff (talk) 05:33, 15 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
It sounds like you're saying we should avoid any significant measures that would bring non-editors into editing, which would be even more dangerous. We need to recruit people now more than ever, specifically because we're so short-handed on AI cleanup relative to the problem's scale. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:26, 15 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I'm just stating the inevitable consequence of this, which will be to take our articles that already need work and make them need even more work. Also, it's orthogonal to doing something about "short-handed on AI cleanup"; the fact that the metric here even talks about pageviews is very telling. Gnomingstuff (talk) 20:52, 15 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
But we do need to bring in new editors, and wherever they are, they will be tempted to outsource thinking.
Focusing new editor attention (and old editor attention for that matter) on a single article rather on the entire corpus that Newcomer Tasks encompasses would probably make it easier to catch AI editing and teach new editors about LLM policies. -- Reconrabbit (talk) 16:56, 15 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
We could plop a template on the top of the page, along the lines of 'please don't use an AI/LLM when writing/editing/etc this article' - not everyone would read it, but it would probably turn the tap down from a blast to a trickle. I'm an AfC reviewer so believe me I know the hell that is AI/LLM editing, but at the same time any big recruitment drive is going to have the same problem. Now that LLMs exist, many people turn to them for everything. Either we have to wait for their use to die down (which may not happen) or we need to find a way to welcome newbies despite them. Meadowlark (talk) 16:24, 18 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Yep, definitely something that should be clarified upfront. It is, after our decline in readership (with the same root cause), the biggest issue Wikipedia is currently facing, and something we should be upfront about when reaching out for new editors. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 16:35, 18 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Support trying this out. For new editors, it can be quite difficult to figure out what needs improving. The editing team is working on WP:suggestion mode in visual editor to point out various issues with articles (like 'update needed', 'reference needed')). This is now being tested with a subset of new editors. I don't think we should wait for this to come out of beta, but if the initial trial doesn't lead to enough improvements, we might want to give it a second try later. Edit check might help us ensure the edits are of a decent enough quality, if rolled out to more editors. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 12:00, 16 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
This gets lukewarm acceptance every time it is proposed, but the sticking points don't get resolved. Was this proposal raised at Wikipedia talk:Articles for improvement or with the editors who use that? If that process is to be adapted, it should be with consent of those editors. The selection process would need to account for being aimed at entirely new editors. Not too hard and likely can probably happen naturally, but AFI consensus would help. To bikeshed on the specific mockup, creating a summary of the article makes it appear like any other section, not distinguishable as the "HEY YOU, START EDITING" banner Thebiguglyalien mentions. The truly bold proposal would be putting "Please help find sources on the history of this harbour" on the main page. CMD (talk) 07:23, 18 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Absolutely, and we'd have to feel out the balance over time between being overspecific (if someone does it then what do future visitors see?) and overgeneral (how do I find this reference?). CMD (talk) 15:48, 18 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Personally, I agree with wanting to hear more from the other current maintainers of the articles for improvement initiative. Are there enough people (ideally with a proven track record of ongoing maintenance) willing to work on what's needed to keep the queue going, including supporting any automation required? Are there any admins interested in working out any main page issues that may arise occasionally? isaacl (talk) 15:58, 18 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
This was workshopped with the primary editors at This Week's Article For Improvement. The suggestions above sound good and again, I invite people to add their own mockups below the ones already present. Bremps...01:45, 19 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Since we are dealing with a new section to one of the most visible pages in the whole encyclopedia, should this discussion be posted on T:CENT? I used to think this would be taking it too far, but after reading some of the comments here, it seems like this discussion could use a lot more community input, even after I notified the talk page of the main page. - BlueEleephant (talk · contribs) 12:31, 19 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
This should not be posted to CENT until it is a more defined proposal. Lest this eventually become a perennial discussion, an agreed upon mockup should be in place at the very least. CMD (talk) 14:23, 19 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Strong support. This would take little effort to implement, is a small addition to the Main Page, and I personally cannot see a reason why this would harm Wikipedia. Yes, the Main Page states that Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, but this reads more as a slogan then a call to action. I am a relatively new user, and it took me a very long time to put two and two together and realize that those links had an actual use. I edited Wikipedia off and on for a decent amount of time without ever reading (or even knowing of, I might add) the Manual of Style, or any other Wikipedia policy other than WP:NPOV. A clear and direct call to action on the Main Page that reads more like, "Hey, you can help us out by editing this page!" than "Here is our slogan with blue links that you can click but aren't incentivized in any way to click, nor are told what the links are for, other then being part of our slogan!" is much more exciting. A slogan doesn't exactly incentivize you to do anything with it, whereas a positive call to action with a clear goal to follow is much more straight-forward and easy to understand. While this may increase AI editing in some pages, (and vandalism) this will happen anyway (have you ever looked at the recent changes page? it's an absolute dumpster fire) and the increase in editors in needed to stop the decay of entropy and keep this project alive. The deadline is now. Overall, this is a great idea. Ilov3gam3z (talk) 16:23, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Support - This seems pretty well thought out and is at the very least worth a shot. I think the fact that all the edits would be concentrated on one page decreases the risk of problems like those that happen with newcomer tasks. InfernoHues (talk) 02:34, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Support - This seems like a good idea; since the page is out and in the public undoing bad changes to the article shouldn't be too hard.
Two little questions (maybe too early to ask, but...):
Where would we put it on the Main Page? I'd say near the top (below the welcome box), so it's visible upon landing, but I feel that disrups the flow of the page a little.
There's some discussion on the main page placement above; personally, I want it as high on the left side as possible.
I don't think putting the warning on the template is the approach I would go with. I would want someone who knows their code to make sort of a banner that pops up when you are about to edit, warning you to not paste in unfiltered LLM text.
Looking at the options, I like "Right side, above ITN" the most; it most definitely needs to be on the top where it can be seen. As to the AI stuff, yeah, probably a banner as mentioned by Ilov3gam3z below. (the comment I made above was before any of the sections mentioned existed though) 7amithornsolidarity|talk|stats02:56, 5 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Oppose Most people get into Wikipedia editing by wanting to edit a topic that personally interests them. Throwing out a random topic for people to edit simply won't have the desired effect, especially if it's very obscure like a random town of 100 people, as will usually be the case when randomly chosen. The unprotection will just be an invitation to vandalize and otherwise create chaos in a formerly stable article. We just have to recognize there's no good way to "convince" people into volunteering to edit besides the typical "finding something wrong or missing and wanting to fix that" and focus on retaining interested editors, such as strict enforcement against personal attacks. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 17:44, 24 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I believe the random article is to be selected from a pool of nominated articles, but the proposal needs to be more clear on this.
Unprotection will invite vandalism, but it will be contained to a single article and easy to patrol. This is my own view, but worrying over the quality of edits to an article would be missing the forest for a tree. Improving an article would be a bonus, the real prize would be making new editors who can then improve many articles. Unprotection would ensure these newcomers who've just learned "yes you specifically can edit here, here's how you can start", have a clear place to do so.
Newcomer-wise I see this proposal as foremost about informing and guiding them, but it can also enable the typical finding something wrong or missing and wanting to fix that convincer that you mention as well. See the experimental blurb here.
While this proposal could be more clear, sometimes you got to take a chance, and I personally feel that the reward way outweighs the risk. We have to do something. Ilov3gam3z (talk) 19:36, 24 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Strong support Really the only thing slowing down Wikipedia at this point is the number of editor hours. So many articles languish in disrepair because of this. 277k active editors is honestly a very small number considering that there are 400 million native and over 1 billion non-native speakers of English out there. I've long wanted the Wikimedia Foundation to be more active in its outreach work. As User:Ilov3gam3z said, this would take little effort to implement. It needs to be very noticeable and directly address the reader. I do like the sound of "that anyone can edit" slightly better, but perhaps we can consider changing it to "that you can edit". There are probably people that will not make the logical jump that they themselves can edit Wikipedia from "that anyone can edit".Also question: would this apply to only English Wikipedia or is this a more global proposal? Wreaderick (talk) 21:54, 24 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
We at this pump have no control over other wikis, although wikis can and do take ideas from each other. CMD (talk) 00:52, 27 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Support. I think this is a great idea. I do think that the random selection should exclude from the pool articles that are already protected and those in contentious topics areas that new users would be ineligible to edit. Edittttor (talk) 22:29, 26 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I support this. I sadly don't have the tech abilities to help with any of these projects, though. This is already a thing that's going on, but I agree that it needs to be put on the main page so all viewers can see it. --ISometimesEatBananas (talk) 23:03, 26 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Strongly support. I think currently the article for improvement of the week is not at all advertised and i did not even know it was a thing to be honest, even if i have been active as an editor for a long while. I believe it would help fix quickly some important artcicles and in general it would encourage people to edit. I also have another proposal, as i have seen someone complain rightfully that advertising just one article would kickstart fights between multiple editors, why not advertise a small number of articles? (like 3 or 5). This would make editors more likely to find articles that interest them (or at least interest them more) and would avoid having fifty people editing the same article at once. Madotea (talk) 18:54, 27 May 2026 (UTC) 18:53, 27 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
If this version is ever implemented, we would need to make sure not to compromise on immediate, clear visibility. Having several articles at once may also overload established editors; we really don't want them to have to spend their time and effort on making sure these front-page articles stay at a decent quality. In any case, we will have to have a formal system where editors can volunteer to look after these articles, sort of like how we have hosts at the Teahouse. Wreaderick (talk) 20:11, 27 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I support this. It would be great for either bringing in new editors or giving current editors something new to do. However, new editors are usually on Wikipedia to edit about a particular topic, so it would be a good idea to have a couple of such articles (not much) for different topics. Walteronthehill (talk) 14:45, 30 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Strong support. Just about any shake-up that encourages the contribution of new editors is a plus. I also wholeheartedly agree with the suggestions noted by @fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four --- for this to be an effective feature, newcomers need to be directly told "Hey!! You can and should edit this!!" Wikipedia often exudes an air of elusiveness and unapproachability --- the newbies have to be grabbed and shaken!! Loytra✨16:47, 31 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I think this is a great idea! I think that this would really help new editors like me, the best version is version one. I hope that this happens. Toneshmellow1776 (talk) 11:53, 2 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Question and comment How many support votes do we need before this proposal is acted on? I've seen some pretty convincing arguments here. Is there some technical threshold we're not at yet? Do we need significantly more editors to voice their support? I'd like to note in support of this proposal that the type of person who goes out of their way to edit Wikipedia skews in a very particular and not very diverse direction. We absolutely need editors from more varied backgrounds. This bit of outreach can help. Wreaderick (talk) 10:25, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Personally, as I stated, I would like to see more volunteers stepping up to be involved on an ongoing basis to support the process of maintaining the proposed main page section, any required bots, and any associated queues. isaacl (talk) 17:35, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Support. I would even suggest putting it fairly high on the page, maybe a smaller half width bar between ITN and OTD, I suspect that the new people we're trying to reach generally don't look very far down the page. In solidarity, ScrubbedFalcon (talk) 18:41, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
It should be above ITN and TFA, and full width. The only way people will notice this is if they are immediately confronted with the call-to-action when they open Wikipedia. People really don't scroll down the page i'm guessing, instead they immediately go to the search bar. A new thing at the top will hopefully peak some people's attention. Ilov3gam3z (talk) 20:11, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
First and foremost, this shouldn't pull random pages. A lot of random pages are not that notable and barely have any existing sources.
The list will display at random articles with a dedicated template. The template will be added by experienced editors to pages they think have a lot of easy improvements to be made or are easily expandable. This template will have a location where editors can leave guidance on how to improve the page. Alongside this location, there should also be a section in the template for additional sources which can accompany the improvement guidance (with tasks like "add information about x from this book/article/source").
The suggestions should be cookie-based for each editor (meaning no one ever gets the same list) and change every hour and/or when they click to refresh it. This avoids instances of many new editors coming to improve an article and having edit conflicts and other unpleasant issues. This will make vandals harder to track, so we should have some feed of edits done to these articles (alternatively, or simultaneously, we can serve articles with suspected vandalism to new editors and give them some experience dealing with vandalism:). Removing vandalism will be an exemption to the discouragement of experienced editors from editing.
Experienced editors should be actively discouraged from editing these pages. We are presumably better at encyclopedia work and if we went around and expanded/patched these articles, the categories would empty quickly.
Are there any Wikiprojects around retaining and bringing new editors? If so, populating the category for this list can become a task force there.
The editor retention project, sadly, has a very paltry track record of getting involved in initiatives, so though it's certainly a place to look for volunteers, I don't think it will work as a place to host any initiatives.
This proposal sounds more in line with the work being done by the WMF growth team (see Wikipedia:Growth Team features) and the newcomer tasks, particularly regarding user-specific suggestions, which I think is going to need changes to MediaWiki. I suggest talking to that team. isaacl (talk) 08:20, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Now that I think about it, this specific implementation (editor-based, with random articles labeled with specific tasks) is already a thing! It's currently in Special:Homepage, which is pretty different from a static main page feature. Not cookie-based, however, which is better as it means less involuntary data retention. Chaotic Enby (in solidarity · talk · contribs) 13:29, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
It just moves where user-specific data is retained - on the servers, versus in cookies. (In any case, user login depends on cookies.) Yeah, I wasn't sure about how much overlap there was with the current feature. isaacl (talk) 18:15, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Very strong support. I would also propose that we have experienced users avoid the article during the time (maybe limit edits by extended confirmed users to those with rollback, and even then only allow reverts (with the same rules as you gave)). I would also suggest that after every week, the chosen article would get reassessed (check if it meets B, if so do a GA review, if pass try FA). If this were the case, perhaps we would allow the reviewer to choose the next article from, say, 3 to 5 choices.
And I don't like the random part. How about a random article that gets 10,000+ views per month (or maybe just 5,000 or 1,000), and not bluelocked? If semi protected, reduce the level to none until both:
Adding admins to the mix would be catastrophic for this project - remember the last attempted implementation of something similar to this was TAI (Today's Article for Improvement) and human error was part of it's failure. It should be random with guidelines (no controversial topics, no extended confirmed or semi-protected, has a tag indicating fixable issues with the article etc etc.) otherwise it will be bogged down. Ilov3gam3z (talk) 17:15, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I agree with the above sentiments that one of the other guidelines should be pageviews. It may be good to have an article for improvement with a relatively small amount of views, but it certainly won't be to have the article for improvement be a small stub that nobody visits. Walteronthehill (talk) 17:19, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
If a semi protected article would be chosen, then it would be put to no protection until one month had passed, and two admins agree it should be re-protected. Sorry if this was confusing.
Tags will be essential to guide new users towards concrete improvements that can be made, especially combined with the broader instructions on the main page. It could also be a good opportunity to update our tags (or create new versions of them) to provide specific advice for newcomers on how to fix them. Chaotic Enby (in solidarity · talk · contribs) 17:19, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
We should also make it so that the topics for said articles are varied. For example: you cant have the article for a rocket engine and the article for a rocket ship to be TWAFI two weeks in a row. Ilov3gam3z (talk) 17:22, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
It might even be beneficial to have articles to improve on multiple topics because that's why a lot of people become editors in the first place. Walteronthehill (talk) 17:24, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
While brainstorming is great, please keep in mind that every additional process step added means more volunteers have to be found to do them, and if that step involves other processes like good article or featured article review, then buy-in from the editors handling those processes will be needed. A simpler initial rollout will likely have a greater chance of success. isaacl (talk) 17:31, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
If the articles improve drastically over the week, anyone can nominate them for review without it needing to be a defined process. However, I think it's unlikely that new editors are going to have the experience needed to bring any article to FA, even if they add good content and do a lot of cleanup. Even experienced editors usually take several passes of review before an article passes FA criteria. Certainly, if articles leave the TAFI process with a lot of potential, experienced editors should feel free to push them over the line towards a higher assessment. dylansan (talk) 18:49, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
(Reply to @Wikipedian12512) I haven't been sure whether or not I support this proposal, but now that concrete mock-ups have been suggested that could actually work, I suppose that I support this proposal, although I am not really sure which specific mock-up I support. In any way, I've been mostly contemplating on whether or not this discussion should be added to T:CENT because it had been going along sluggishly up until 2 days ago, when it started to pick up again, so now adding to T:CENT isn't needed until a formal RfC gets started. However, I am not very experienced in editing, so it's probably best to leave actual discussion to more experienced editors. - BlueEleephant (talk · contribs) 20:50, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I'm not saying that all newcomers shouldn't participate in this discussion, rather, I don't really have anything else important or precise to say in relation to this discussion, despite the fact that I have been following this discussion closely.
Yeah, it probably should be added to T:CENT, this discussion holds lasting importance for Wikipedia and more people should know. Ilov3gam3z (talk) 21:00, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I support, however with a review to be done six months or one year later to see what's the effectiveness of section. i.e. on the day the article was promoted to main page, in comparison to average editing rate that article get, what's the uplift? any quality improvements? how many of the edits are vandalism/disruptive vs quality edits, how many admin actions carried out, i.e. user blocks, page protects, etc. – robertsky (talk) 13:23, 5 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I'm a bit confused: why wouldn't the volunteers for the articles for improvment initiative do the monitoring themselves? isaacl (talk) 08:18, 8 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Having sufficient volunteers is the key concern. I don't think having discussion on a separate page from the articles for improvement talk page will matter. isaacl (talk) 18:31, 8 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Yeah I feel we should try to automate as much of this process as possible so we don't fail like what happened last time something of this sort was suggested. Ideally, most of it should be automated with the non-automated tasks being minimal and done by a very tiny group of volunteers. Ilov3gam3z (talk) 18:33, 8 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Why did the previous proposal of this kind not succeed? When was that? I'm also wary about having bots edit the page, especially if they revert edits made by news users. New users would want to be able to ask a human why their edits were reverted or otherwise changed. Do you have a reason in mind why most of this should be automated? Wreaderick (talk) 19:00, 8 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
??? I am not talking about bots editing the article, I am talking about automating the TWAFI process (ie. bots pick this week's article for improvement based on a set criteria and maybe some basic human oversight). Ilov3gam3z (talk) 19:04, 8 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Oh I completely misunderstood, sorry about that. Yeah that sort of thing could be much more easily automated. We don't need even more editor time spent there. Wreaderick (talk) 19:15, 8 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Lots of articles linked from the main page are unprotected (including the featured article until 2023), I think it should be ok vandalism wise, especially since more experienced editors would be watching the page to help out the newcomers. InfernoHues (talk) 05:12, 8 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Support. While I'm not sure how many people will click through and actually edit the page, I think a main page placement is worth revisiting. Where would this be placed? If you want maximum impact, it would be right below DYK and OTD, but that might mean less people would see other parts like the featured list and image.
While I agree that the articles for improvement should be randomly generated, they should at least meet a couple key requirements:
Most definitely meets notability requirements, and not have any chance of being nominated for deletion
In addition, there should be a plethora of free, available sources online to ensure people can actually contribute. Lots of sources means many opportunities for improvement.
Is not a BLP/recent death or a company/org that is in business
Potential reputational harm. Still unsure about this requirement.
Is a "universal" article, meaning one that all readers can relate to. Additionally, it should be somewhat "interesting"
What I mean is for the article to not be only of local interest. The average reader would not be interested in updating some page of some random temple in Delhi, nor would they care to write about a hot dog joint in Chicago. It should be something that may make a lot of users have the thought "Hey, I know this thing, and I'm somewhat familiar with it/know what it is."
Other language Wiki's I presume they mean. I checked some but I don't speak enough languages to be able to identify a TAFI. The mainpages all vary though which I hadn't thought about. Maybe there's another TAFI proposal discussion happening in another Wiki right now lol. Naturedata (talk) 16:01, 9 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I kind of feel sad for non-English Wikipedias. Maybe this is a misinformed opinion, but they have much smaller editing communities, and thus have processes that are not nearly as robust as ours. Like I speak Turkish and they have featured articles of the week (and their FA nomination discussions are quite short). Though they do have what seems to be their equivalent of good articles ("quality articles") and they list one of those every day. Today it's Homer's Odyssey, which they translated from English. I recently machine translated Constantine (son of Theophilos) into Turkish so they'd have another featured article there. Wreaderick (talk) 16:25, 9 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Yeah you're right what I said does come across that way. I apologize for that. I just hope to see more people around the world contribute to Wikipedia, especially in language editions where they will be the most read. Wreaderick (talk) 17:26, 9 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
In small communities (trwiki is more mid-sized), it's possible to check the diffs for every single edit made that day. You don't have fancy tools, but you can be sure that there is no vandalism getting overlooked. There are few enough core contributors that you know all the regulars, and it's easier to make friends. In any discussion, your view will always be considered significant, and the group is unlikely to make any decision that you strenuously object to. It's not an unpleasant arrangement, honestly. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:07, 11 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Where does the It's 'cause you're dumb part of this comment come from? Seems like a spontaneous & random personal attack to me, especially since the first part of your comment was just asking a question.
The main page of the Explain xkcd wiki doesn't have a tagline of "It's 'cause you're dumb", am I missing some context? - BlueEleephant (talk · contribs) 19:38, 9 June 2026 (UTC)EDIT: "It's 'cause you're dumb' is a tagline of the wiki itself, not that it's mentioned on any highly-visible page. Self-troutReply
Well, the tagline itself is in italic, grey text in the same font size as the paragraph text below the "Latest comic" section, so I don't think it's very obvious, although it's certainly my fault I didn't notice it: I should've looked around at the interface longer. - BlueEleephant (talk · contribs) 19:48, 9 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Oh, It is fine. Perhaps mentioning the slogan in italic [Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb / Explain xkcd (It's 'cause you're dumb)] would make it more obvious to people who may see this in the future that "It's 'cause you're dumb" is the wiki's slogan? - BlueEleephant (talk · contribs) 21:19, 11 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Support, would remove the “which article should I edit?” block for new editors. However, if readers are gong to treat the article as something to read, I believe we should add an permalink to the TWAFI template so they can see the last version before it got put up live to the homepage for TWAFI. I was going to suggest making the article pending reviewers protected to protect from vandalism, but that would defeat the purpose of the proposal lol. I also have thoughts on the template on the main page, so I’ll leave my comments about that shortly.
Note: I’m a relatively new editor that just passed 100 edits (I only found this post thanks to the dashboard, so yeah I’m kind of late). And yes I’m aware I’m adding this to the wrong section so I’ll be moving below in a moment okay done.:) Hason-LEK-SIN (talk) 14:00, 13 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Strong support I love this idea, I have no more words.
I'm copying and adapting User:Bremps/This week's article for improvement here, which @Bremps graciously invited us to expand on, so we can compare and discuss the existing proposals (and add new ones). Since the templates are wired to automatically display each week's article, they aren't fit for customized text until we get the project going, as they would have to be rewritten every week. Here, I'm sticking with the present week's article for improvement as a concrete reference point to compare the mockups.
Version 1:
This week's article for improvement
An articulated bus, also referred to as a slinky bus, an artic, bendy bus, tandem bus, vestibule bus, stretch bus, or an accordion bus, is an articulated vehicle, typically a motor bus or trolleybus, used in public transportation. It is usually a single-decker, and comprises two or more rigid sections linked by a pivoting joint (articulation) enclosed by protective bellows inside and outside, and a cover plate on the floor. This allows a longer legal length than rigid-bodied buses, and hence a higher passenger capacity (94–120), while still allowing the bus to maneuver adequately.
An articulated bus, also referred to as a slinky bus, an artic, bendy bus, tandem bus, vestibule bus, stretch bus, or an accordion bus, is an articulated vehicle, typically a motor bus or trolleybus, used in public transportation. It is usually a single-decker, and comprises two or more rigid sections linked by a pivoting joint (articulation) enclosed by protective bellows inside and outside, and a cover plate on the floor. This allows a longer legal length than rigid-bodied buses, and hence a higher passenger capacity (94–120), while still allowing the bus to maneuver adequately.
Be bold and edit the article yourself! The box below lists examples of improvements you can make. If you have questions or want to give suggestions, go visit the article's talk page!
You can be bold and edit the article yourself. Alternatively, if you have questions or want to give suggestions, go visit the article's talk page! For general questions about editing Wikipedia, feel free to ask at the Teahouse.
This week's article for improvement is Articulated bus, a type of vehicle found across the world! You can help make this article better by updating the history, adding information about different designs, finding sources about their use cases and limitations, and more!
Wikipedia is written by volunteers, and that can include you, so be bold and edit the article yourself! Alternatively, if you have questions or suggestions, go visit the article's talk page! For general questions about editing Wikipedia, feel free to ask at the Teahouse.
I agree with the sentiments above that the templates should focus on instructing possible editors to engage, like mockups 3 and 4, rather than summarizing the article. Nitpick about mockup 4: it currently contains some MOS:CLICKHERE type of mystery meat navigation. I suggest expanding what the link wraps ("Click here to start!") or better replacing that call to action with something like "Start editing this article now!". This is more descriptive, particularly to people who use screen readers and may access links in lists without the surrounding context, for instance. YuniToumei (talk) 12:37, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I agree with the others that versions 3 and 4 are the best, as the call to action is front and center. 3 would be a bit more work as editors would have to find specific areas of improvement to list out, but would be more helpful to newcomers imo. InfernoHues (talk) 12:57, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
For clarity as there has been much discussion of my augmented ver. 3; I would be fine if ver. 4 went to the main page, I just feel it is a bit too informal. Ilov3gam3z (talk) 20:35, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Strongly prefer version 4– By far the version which is most clear and focused in it's purpose. The call to action in the title is short and strong, there isn't a sea of links for editors to be lost in, the blurb has emotional value to engage the audience (across the world!) while remaining short enough to ensure most will keep reading to make it to the part we really care about, and there is a single very clear starting point so newcomers won't be lost. It's a great funnel.Concerning the other suggestions, including 3.1 below, the ultimate goal here isn't to improve an article, or to provide information to readers about articulated busses, it's to make new editors. Anything added which isn't in direct service of that goal will distract from it. That said, I don't dislike the bullet point presentation in 3(.1). fifteenthousandtwohundredtwentyfour(talk) 19:57, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I feel 4 has too much call-to-action and not enough information on the topic. Readers may be more inclined to edit the page if they can tell that the subject is of interest to them, although articulated busses is kind of a bad example of this. (who cares?) Ilov3gam3z (talk) 20:15, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I would be okay with version 4 having a slightly longer descriptor, but any hook should ideally be no longer than a sentence. Something akin to This week's article for improvement is Articulated bus, a type of flexible high-capacity vehicle used for public transportation across the world! should be enough for anyone to figure if it's a topic they'd be interested in (and the subsequent points for improvement can help communicate more info too!)
The main page is already brimming with info from articles, FA, ITN, OTD, DYK... I'd like for this to have the best chance of not blending in among them, giving the calls to action the best chance of being heard. fifteenthousandtwohundredtwentyfour(talk) 20:30, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
My main worry with the bullet point presentation is that they may distract from the emphasis on a singular funnel point (start editing now!), especially with the amount of bolding. In fact, I'd be happy with reducing the amount of bolded text to just the link to the article and the "Click here to start" that sends you directly to the editing window (probably adapted following @YuniToumei's suggestion above). Additional points providing advice to newcomers are welcome, but they shouldn't distract from the main funnel like several lines of bolded text points might do. Chaotic Enby (in solidarity · talk · contribs) 07:12, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I like 4 well enough as is, but if others prefer the bullets it's not a blocker for me, though the bolding would need to go.
Tangentially, I see two viable paths from "click here to start". One is straight to the visual editor with some edit notice guidance. Two is to a talk page section where we can welcome editors, give brief casual guidance, provide more fleshed-out edit suggestions (could be updated regularly, I worry new editors may feel lost or overwhelmed without these), invite questions, and provide a big link to start editing. I have more thoughts but will save them for elsewhere. fifteenthousandtwohundredtwentyfour(talk) 21:47, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I've revised Version 4 to accomodate the feedback which has been circulating: Reduced the amount of bolded text, removed the EGG-You-link, avoided the mystery meat link, and added a caption. I also removed the duplicate link in the footer and replaced it with an archive link to make it consistent with other Main Page elements. I think this is the most focused version for funneling new editors. What do you think? YuniToumei (talk) 08:39, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I think version 4 is best. I don't really think we should be linking to any other article but the article for improvement in the week. I also don't really think it's worth the space to add any long explanation of it. Just something brief, e.g. "This week's article for improvement is Neil Armstrong, an American astronaut.". Also, the exclamation mark feels weird. 1brianm7 (talk) 11:08, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I like Version 4.2 the most; it feels the most exciting and engaging, but version 3.1.3 doesn't look and read half bad. I feel the bullet list's bold is a bit much though. 7amithornsolidarity|talk|stats23:27, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I have a rather funny opinion: I prefer a mix of all options. I like how V1 and V2 show the first paragraph of prose like TFA for a quick overview/intro, but like V3 being clear of what new editors could do with the point form, while also like the front-and-centre “Click here to start editing!” Link in V4 (imo it should be a blue button but okay)
Here’s what I mean by “a mix” (without the proper styling, this is done in VE)
Honestly, I also feel that the lead would be too long, especially if it’s going to cover up ITN if we’re going to place it about ITN. Maybe using the short description, that is: “Articulated vehicle used in public transportation” for the bendy bus, would be better. Hason-LEK-SIN (talk) 02:04, 14 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Or we could allow editors to make a short bespoke blurb about the article which is designed to engage the audience as suggested in this comment. Preamble about what TWAFI is also isn't needed, it's clear enough from the name itself and the title. Also the below preamble is more alienating in it's use of "we" which is likely to be read as "we, the Wikipedia editors" instead of "we, meaning you too", compare against V4 or 3 which directly address the reader.
Overall too long with too much information to get lost in and too many links to distract readers. Attention is a rare commodity, especially on a page a busy as the main one, so any banner should make the most of what little it may receive. fifteenthousandtwohundredtwentyfour(talk) 02:17, 14 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Right, the attention span. Tiktiok ruined it. Thanks so much /j
It still has the unnecessary TWAFI preamble, the image caption is an unneeded distraction, we're trying to inform people that they can edit Wikipedia, not provide details about the Volgren Optimus bodied Volvo B8RLEA of Transperth, Perth, Western Australia, Australia, November 2018 (distracting right?), and I prefer the title of V4 since it's both more direct and personable. Why bother with an indirect longer question and response sequence when we can just directly ask them to edit up front?
I do agree with you that the caption is distracting, especially since it states the exact model of bus in the exact part of a city it is in, (c.f. WP:PUZZLEMENT) not to mention the fact that it also specifies that Western Australia is in Australia. (c.f. WP:POSA)
Version 1.3 gives a 2-sentence summary of the article's topic, and also doesn't go into too much detail about what TWAFI is, which I think is about perfect, although I don't really have any comments on the bullets or the precise wording of the optimal template, besides what I have already said. - BlueEleephant (talk · contribs) 03:41, 14 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Just to clarify: the caption is unintended and is there because I have a skill issue with source code editing. In reality, it would be removed. Hason-LEK-SIN (talk) 03:46, 14 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Want to contribute to Wikipedia? Help us improve this article!
This is Articles for improvement, a weekly project where we identify and collaborate upon underdeveloped articles that require improvement. This week’s article is Articulated bus:
An articulated bus, also referred to as a slinky bus, an artic, bendy bus, tandem bus, vestibule bus, stretch bus, or an accordion bus, is an articulated vehicle, typically a motor bus or trolleybus, used in public transportation. It is usually a single-decker, and comprises two or more rigid sections linked by a pivoting joint (articulation) enclosed by protective bellows inside and outside, and a cover plate on the floor. This allows a longer legal length than rigid-bodied buses, and hence a higher passenger capacity (94–120), while still allowing the bus to maneuver adequately.
You can help by:
Updating the history
Adding information about different designs
Finding reliable sources about their use cases and limitations
Wikipedia is written by volunteers, and that can include you, so be bold and edit the article yourself! Alternatively, if you have questions or suggestions, go visit the article's talk page! For general questions about editing Wikipedia, feel free to ask at the Teahouse.
Darn I was about to post a message to your talk page suggesting to remove the ::. Beat me to it! Also, there was a </div> with no opening <div>; I removed it. It looks great, but perhaps a teense long. 7amithornsolidarity|talk|stats02:19, 14 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
It's a mixed message it seems like to me. Why would we advertise the first paragraph if the article needs improving? Is it "Articles for Improvement, minus the first paragraph"? If someone edits the first paragraph of the article, would that change what's on the main page? I'd prefer a shorter blurb, just one sentence. Naturedata (talk) 03:11, 14 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
You can be bold and edit the article yourself. Alternatively, if you have questions or want to give suggestions, go visit the article's talk page! For general questions about editing Wikipedia, feel free to ask at the Teahouse.
Here is my idea for a slightly different version of Version 3. I think a little more information on the article makes it more approachable to new users. Ilov3gam3z (talk) 14:01, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I don't think people will notice links that far in the corner of the box for TWAFI, they may just think them basic boilerplate and new editors using TWAFI may not think themselves as 'editors' yet. I will edit this revision to make a brief sentence about TWAFI itself. Ilov3gam3z (talk) 15:21, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Done! Also, I feel there is some extra blank space in the middle-right of the mockup I made. Blankspace is fine but I am wondering if a small subscript link to something or a small image would add a little spice to it. Ilov3gam3z (talk) 15:42, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I can't get a caption to work due to the image template. The caption I meant to put was: Volvo B8RLEA chassised articulated bus. If someone could change the revision of this mockup to 1.3 and add the caption somehow, I would be very happy. Unfortunately, I can't find a way to do it. Ilov3gam3z (talk) 16:15, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I wasn't expecting so many new messages after I asked about our next steps earlier today. I really like the mockup. Would it perhaps make better sense to link Help:Editing to "You can improve" instead of just "You"? This would dilute the impact of having a singular "you" somewhat but it would be less confusing. Wreaderick (talk) 18:35, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Strongly oppose this over version 3 or 4. That is way too many links to get lost in, the question-response title isn't as direct or immediate as it could be, the length of the article info blurb risks losing interest or being lost in the noise of the rest of the main page, and there isn't a single clear way for an editor to get started (by my count there's 9 plausible starting links, none of which are clearly preferred or communicated à la click here to begin, overwhelming!). This should be the start of a funnel, and we don't need to provide or link so much information up front. I've gone into some more detail above. fifteenthousandtwohundredtwentyfour(talk) 20:10, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
While it isn't the greatest argument to say "well atleast this is better then that!" I would like to mention the status of the main page. There are wayyy less links in this mockup ver. if you compare them to ITN, TFA, DYK and OTD. Ilov3gam3z (talk) 20:20, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Well that's the difference in functionality. The existing sections aim to showcase a variety of topics each (besides TFA, which has an obvious starting point), while this one aims to funnel readers into editing a specific article with clear instructions. There should be one clear focal point instead of many scattered links. Chaotic Enby (in solidarity · talk · contribs) 07:18, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I like the original version 3 the best (though with "you" delinked and "For new editors" relinked to Help:Introduction per InfernoH). It most clearly (and persuasively?) calls to action. Articles selected for AFI shouldn't need too much introduction and clicking in to see the lede should be enough. In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 12:41, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
My preference is for something in between these Version 3 ideas, with some info about the topic and areas to improve, but fewer links. My bigger concern is that there should be more emphasis on adding only material that is supported by reliable sources. Looking for reliable sources is part of this (and perhaps that should always be the first item on the list), but any request to add information should be very clear that the information needs to come from a reliable source. Otherwise a new user is very likely to think they can just google something or ask an LLM, and add whatever they get to the article (since most users are unlikely to be experts in the topic).Also, it's worth considering that any specific analysis of what each article needs for improvement will likely be done by a human rather than automated by a bot. dylansan (talk) 14:06, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I think we can "sacrifice" the article for that week and have other more experienced editors clean it up afterwards. The purpose of this proposal is to encourage more people to realize that they can edit articles and prompt them to do so. Perhaps we could have a box appear above the article in edit mode, similar to the one that appears when you try to edit a BLP. Any editors who start editing through that page could receive a note on their talk page indicating where they began editing. This would be for other, more experienced editors to notice, encouraging them to assume good faith when subpar or disruptive edits are made to other pages. After all, these editors were facilitated in their entry into Wikipedia as opposed to going out of their way to (disruptively) edit an article. Wreaderick (talk) 14:33, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I'm all for bringing in new editors, but I don't see any reason not to bring them in with an understanding of what makes good article content. If an emphasis on reliable sources turns some people away, then those people were unlikely to become established editors anyway (bearing in mind that grammar and other copyediting and formatting tasks do not require the same reliance on sources). Raising the total number of editors is less important than raising the number of competent editors who understand Wikipedia policy. That doesn't mean we have to pummel new users who aren't familiar with the rules, but I do think we should avoid a bait-and-switch where me make editing seem easy with a low barrier to entry, and then throw all the policy at them later when they start editing other pages. dylansan (talk) 15:00, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I like something between both version 3's but without as much information about the TAFI article itself (distracts from the main goal - the very act of editing). I like the bulleted list of types of edits that are needed. I defer to others about the other suggestions. Naturedata (talk) 05:50, 9 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I prefer option 4 (without list markers), because it draws the reader's attention to the action item, which is "Click here to start editing." --Enos733 (talk) 15:46, 9 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
It seems that we have a lively discussion going on on what mockup (to be turned into a template) to use for the main page. Consensus generally seems to be some mix of 3-1.3, 3 and 4 although 4 seems to be winning at the moment. But that is not all the to-dos listed in the proposal. Remember, we need a banner stressing WP:DONTBITE and as some users have suggested, WP:EPAI. We also probably need two banners, one for new editors and one for old, the old editor banner should stress DONTBITE and the new editor banner should stress EPAI and other general Wikipedia editing principles. I do not have the required skills to start these mockups (not great at template-making) but I would like to use this section as an area for people to suggest banners. As banners are pretty big, we should probably either link to userspace pages for the mockups (not put them here) or continue this discussion elsewhere.
TLDR: This is the area for people to work on the second to-do in the proposal; "- write a banner stressing WP:DONTBITE for old hands". Ilov3gam3z (talk) 15:00, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Forgot to make this able to be replied to, whoops. Fixed that. Also, the banner that pops up when you edit a WP:BLP article about sourcing is the kind of size for the banner I am imagining. Ilov3gam3z (talk) 15:02, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I like the banners/notices you mocked up. I have a few copy edit suggestions (typical). - It would be cool to link the "Don't bite" part of the notice to that WP. Then "In order to give these new users the best chance welcome new editors." And for the second banner I would make promotion plural ("ads/promotions") and say "AI often produces hallucinations" instead of as written. Naturedata (talk) 16:34, 9 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Instead, support them by assuming good faith, favoring correcting instead of removing edits, and providing clear, polite, and supportive feedback. Thanks!
These are pretty good, and I think that they get most of the points discussed above. However, I think that the banners are quite big. I am concerned about where they will be placed.
Okay. I don’t know the usual experience, I was a temp. who ignored all rules (just gnomed, made a few articles, etc.) about 3 years ago, fought a block on the IP by learning most policies, and then started really editing, so I’d trust your line of newcomer. In solidarityWikipedian12512 (Talking is fine|contribs) 02:19, 10 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Don't trust me! Your experience sounds more normal than mine (me: doomscrolling the e@ mfds, because); I was just making a guess based on the conduct I see as a RCPer. In any case that we shouldn't try to pigeonhole new editors too much. 7amithornsolidarity|talk|stats04:48, 10 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Before giving some feedback, I'll state that I think relying on an edit notice is the wrong move, it would be best if users were first directed to a talk page section first as described here. That said:
Extended content
When reverting, avoid using templates! should not be stated as an absolute rule. If someone blanks the page with a "fuck you", it's highly reasonable that they get a {{uw-vandalism1}} (or 2!). I think of templates this way, most are the result of long term consensus by editing, distilling down some of our most salient policy points into short digestible snippets. If a template is a good fit for the issue in question then why not use it?
The first point for new editors shouldn't cover promotional editing, that's not going to be a primary issue. Original content is better, but a crash course on WP:V would be best and would cover the same issue. Think something like: "As an encyclopedia, sources should be used to support added information, you can add one by xyz" (depends on if they're going to be directed to the visual editor or not).
If you need any help, feel free to ask at the Teahouse, or on your talk page. The primary point of help should be the article's talk page first, Teahouse second, their own talk page never since it won't be seen.
Much of this could be condensed further, increasing the chance it will be read. The entire old editor section can be conveyed as: "Please support newcomers by assuming good faith, favoring correcting instead of removing edits, and providing clear and polite feedback."
Replying is broken for some reason, might just be me. If you are having this problem just use this comment as a thread for discussion. Ilov3gam3z (talk) 11:49, 10 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
In parallel with the specific mockup for TAFI, I've been wondering about its placement on the Main Page as a whole. User:Chaotic Enby/Main Page has an example of a possible placement (between TFA and DYK on the left column). We have to keep in mind that logged-off editors only see, by default, TFA and ITN, meaning anything below the two upper boxes will have reduced visibility.
Right side, above ITN (will not completely hide ITN from view, with the new section being relatively shorter)
TFA
DYK
TAFI
ITN
OTD
Right side, between ITN and OTD (mirror image of the left side proposal above)
TFA
DYK
ITN
TAFI
OTD
Ideally, we want to give enough visibility to the new section (no burying it next to POTD), but not put it above TFA. Why? It makes sense to showcase our best content before our work in progress, and the contrast between the two (niche article in an exemplary state vs easy-to-research article that YOU can improve) should serve as motivation for new user. Chaotic Enby (in solidarity · talk · contribs) 14:42, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I think so that it pops out it should either be option 2 or 3. Preferrably above ITN; we want people to actually notice it is there. Remember, most people going to en.wikipedia.org are immediately focusing their attention on the search bar, not the main page in full. Ilov3gam3z (talk) 14:47, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I've previewed option 2 at 50/50 and that is my preference. 45/55 definitely cramps the featured article. I'm not too concerned about the gap near the bottom. Honestly I hope we find something else to put on the left side for balance. I would support putting even more editing-related content on the front page to make the editing community seem less like the backrooms and more like a major part of the website, but I don't have a specific proposal. It might be cool to feature Village Pump or other major discussions on the main page so people can see that it's actually a community that's constantly working on things. I'd like to see how this plays out first, though. dylansan (talk) 15:22, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Agreed. Few readers are aware of non-namespace pages. Even many editors aren't aware of major ongoing discussions unless they bother to look around. It feels to me that there's a misguided air of unapproachability and maybe even secrecy surrounding the inner workings of Wikipedia. News about what's happening on Wikipedia isn't discussed nearly as much as news from other online spaces. Wreaderick (talk) 16:15, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
This also solves the issue of many discussions looking for reader input on what would fit them better (as the encyclopedia is for them, after all), but readers being difficult to reach in general. Having links to active discussions inviting readers to participate would break this air of unapproachability and bring Wikipedia closer to its roots as the encyclopedia that truly anyone can edit (and make decisions about)! Chaotic Enby (in solidarity · talk · contribs) 16:29, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I could see a small section detailing some links to big discussions (like this one), something like the Signpost and some other important editing links being very popular. Ilov3gam3z (talk) 15:30, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
In general, we really should add some more stuff to the main page/discuss additions. It has been the same since forever ago. Ilov3gam3z (talk) 15:32, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I like the idea of linking to the latest Signpost edition (maybe directly to a few stories?) and what CE mentioned about an approachable CENT (maybe not all discussions are relevant for newer people, but we could feature certain discussions (how would we decide which?)). It might make more sense then to switch the sides since linkes to Signpost and CENT seem to be more like "In Wikipedia news...". So put the on-wiki new on the right and put TAFI on the left. In solidarity, ScrubbedFalcon (talk) 16:36, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Maybe this could be discussed in idea lab? I feel like this would reduce the mystique around the people editing/behind Wikipedia. Ilov3gam3z (talk) 17:20, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
If a new section is to be added within a column rather than covering the full width, it should go into the right column. ITN already has periods where it can get quite stale, whereas DYK often faces situations where adding additional entries would perhaps benefit it. CMD (talk) 15:12, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
From these options I would prefer the first (below TFA). My worry about the second (top of right column) would be that very-high level placement would encourage vandalism. Visitors that are poking around and scrolling seem to be preferable. My write-in vote would be full width below both columns, either above or below TFP. Naturedata (talk) 06:00, 9 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
While the logic is sound that visitors poking around the main page will probably be better editors, visitors poking around is probably too small a group to actually work on TWAFI. In all my years using Wikipedia before I started editing, I don't think I ever scrolled down or clicked a blue link. I had no clue that today's featured picture (although this is a bit of an extreme case since it is quite low in the main page) existed until very recently. Ilov3gam3z (talk) 11:25, 9 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Exactly. Others have noted that those blue links only achieve thousands of clicks when compared to the millions of pageviews the Main Page gets daily, and as I said elsewhere in this thread, the type of person who would know to scroll down skews in a very particular direction. This initiative should aim to bring in a greater diversity of editors. Wreaderick (talk) 15:46, 9 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
So do I, it'd be very symbolic, having TFA and TfI as the most prominent. ITN doesn't really deserve that position, it's got a lot of detractors and isn't far from getting made defunct Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 18:22, 9 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Top right is a great spot for it, and the symbolic value of having it there per Kowal2701 is strong (and definitely more appropriate to highlight than whatever we are doing with ITN). Choucas🐦⬛11:56, 10 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I would place it between Today's featured picture and Other areas of Wikipedia. I don't oppose having the proposed "TAFI" box on the main page, but I basically agree with ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ's comment above . Some1 (talk) 23:56, 11 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
But if we put it there, it will basically be useless. No random person who could become an editor (remember, the entire point of this is to get new editors) will see it if it is not on the front area of the main page (ie. no scrolling). I am newer, but have done a decent amount edits and let me tell you, not until VERY recently did I even know that TFPexisted. Putting it below there is dooming this proposal to failure. Ilov3gam3z (talk) 00:53, 12 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I was just studying the main page edit history and see that the acronym they use is POTD (Picture of the Day). My bad on writing TFP a couple days ago. Naturedata (talk) 01:47, 12 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Every day since May 2004 it would appear lol. It looks like they added it to the Main Page on March 19 2006 (edit summary: "Premiering new main page look")Naturedata (talk) 01:14, 12 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I doubt that adding a TAFI box on the main page will somehow increase the number of account creations, but again, I'm not opposed to having it on the main page. My second preference would be to place it under TFA, only because DYK is my least favorite out of the four (TFA, ITN, OTD, DYK). Some1 (talk) 01:27, 12 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Then vote oppose instead of voting for something that will doom it if it passes. You have even said you agree with ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ, who voted oppose, so I don't see why you wouldn't cast an oppose vote. Ilov3gam3z (talk) 11:34, 12 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Fifth, the metric of success will be each TWAFI gaining at least 10,000 views, attracting four entirely new or very new editors, and having some sort of positive change since we opened it up to editing. (see #Details, above) 7amithornsolidarity|talk|stats07:12, 12 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
That sounds really low if you ask me. We're going to place this on the Main Page very prominently, I think we can expect at least several times more clicks than that (these numbers are weekly right?) and several dozen new editors. Wreaderick (talk) 10:23, 12 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
That is a good question. Maybe a test-run needs to be done (after we determine what's considered a 'success' or 'failure') before we decide to permanently display it on the main page above one of the four stable boxes (TFA, DYK, ITN, OTD). Since the AFI/article for improvement changes weekly, I'm thinking 50k page views a week, plus 50 newly created accounts whose first edits were constructive edits to that article (same week). Some1 (talk) 11:38, 12 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
50k page views is definitely possible, although I would aim slightly lower (30k, 40k?). But 50 new accounts? First of all:
A. New accounts ≠ new editors (I see plenty of editors, some even extended-confirmed, who still don't have an account)
and
B. 50 is quite a bit. I doubt that TFA gets 25 new accounts in a week (or two!).
Fair point, but it is the main thing users see other then the search bar and ITN. And on the semi-protection, I forgot so another fair point. I just mainly mean that 50 accounts is a lot of accounts to be created in a week, (and who knows if those new accounts will even continue to edit? again, new accounts ≠ new editors) even with a call-to-action. Ilov3gam3z (talk) 11:58, 12 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I would expect success or failure to be measured in significantly improved articles, justifying the editor time expended in setting this up and maintaining it, which also could have been used to improve articles. Wehwalt (talk) 15:33, 12 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
That's not a metric we use for any project: ITN leads to a lot of discussion about what is important enough for the main page, and this time could've technically been better used to write articles. But not everyone wants to only write articles all the time. And, more importantly, that is not the goal of these projects: ITN aims to show that the Main Page (and Wikipedia as a whole) is keeping up with the latest changes, while TAFI aims to recruit new editors by providing them with an onboarding point. What we gain here isn't just the editing time on this article, but the time that anyone onboarded through it will spend volunteering later down the line. Chaotic Enby (in solidarity · talk · contribs) 17:17, 12 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I'd suggest looking at DYK page views, and assuming that it will get less than that (proportional to time displayed). It will only be seen if people scroll down (most don't). It will only be clicked on by people who are interested (most won't be). And it will be displayed all week, but people won't click on it every single day. Looking at yesterday's, most got 5–10K page views. One was under 5K and two were around 20K. I think 10K is conservative, but 50K feels unlikely. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:19, 12 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
This is only if we're setting ourselves up for failure (like people above have suggested, by pushing it as far down as possible so interested editors have to scroll down and know it exists). Then obviously, it's easy to declare it a failure all along. Chaotic Enby (in solidarity · talk · contribs) 17:10, 12 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I think these are way too high of standards to set. I am dubious that so many unregistered readers will visit the main page and decide to create an account to edit a specific article. I think the section can still be considered worthwhile at much lower levels of increased activity. I'm also wary of trying to evaluate the results too soon, or too mechanically. Even a small improvement can build momentum in concert with other improvements that together foster a more welcoming environment for new editors. isaacl (talk) 16:42, 12 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
So what you are saying is that the success of a project set up to improve articles should be measured in some other way than the improvement of articles? Wehwalt (talk) 16:48, 12 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
We can measure it with metrics others than "new accounts", especially if we consider temporary accounts starting to edit, or much more casual editors (or even reader-only accounts) getting engaged with it as their first real editing project. Plus, beyond article improvement itself, the underlying end goal is editor retention, and there isn't a single metric for this. Chaotic Enby (in solidarity · talk · contribs) 17:12, 12 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
The metrics in the post to which I responded were for page views, and edits made by newly-created accounts. The first isn't related to article improvements. The second is indirectly related (hopefully more edits are improvements, though they could come from any editor). I think it's fine to look at these numbers. I'm just wary of setting a hard target that is too high, and having a quick trigger where editors proclaim the section to be a failure and pull it off the main page. isaacl (talk) 17:25, 12 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Yet are those metrics at all related to what you are trying to do here? If you want more page views, use an article on a popular subject, say James Bond, that will likely also increase the number of people who register accounts and are interested in editing it, not necessarily well. And prove nothing about the worthiness of the proposed project, which given the inertia of Wikipedia, will continue indefinitely. Wehwalt (talk) 17:45, 13 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Umm, I already stated I didn't think those metrics were directly related to article improvement, and was wary of using them as a standard for success. isaacl (talk) 20:58, 13 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Is putting it on the Main Page "a project set up to improve articles", or is it "a project set up to encourage new people to contribute"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:34, 14 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 3 days ago338 comments58 people in discussion
A recent discussion at AN/I pivoted around to the question of whether we need the fringe theories noticeboard. Being engaged in that discussion I thought it over and kind of came to the conclusion that there's nothing in the scope of that page that isn't covered by either WP:COI/N, WP:NPOV/N or, especially, WP:RS/N. While these noticeboards do have their share of conflicts, all of them attract a larger and more diverse readership than WP:FRINGE/N and, as a result, these boards generate less long-term inter-personal acrimony than the Fringe noticeboard.
May I suggest that RSN, COIN, and NPOVN, with their long term interpersonal acrimony be closed down as useless when compared to FTN. Thank you. - WalterStill not in the Epstein Files Ego17:30, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I'd rather see WP:NPOVN, WP:NORN, and WP:FTN (and maybe WP:COIN) rolled into one content concern noticeboard. These types of noticeboards work best with a wide array of different eyes, and none of these noticeboards has much in the way of uninvolved interaction. NPOVN and NORN generally devolve into the same editors rehashing their talk page dispute, and FTN has the same group of people with the same general viewpoint responding to every report. Roll it all into one. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:32, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Not really, the archiving is set very slow so NPOVN and NORN look larger than they should. Last 500 edits to NPOVN go back to April 13 of mostly people arguing there instead of a talk page, NORN back to December, and FTN back to March 21. BLPN's last 500 go back to April 20th and RSN to May 9th. NPOVN hasn't resolved anything in a hot minute because you end up with the same people arguing there instead of the talk page over 182 comments with not enough eyes or input from outside of the dispute. A combined noticeboard would be even more effective if parties to the original dispute were limited to 500 words so other editors could more easily engage. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:47, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
We might benefit from a little more nudging to get people to discuss on talk pages and only use noticeboards as, well, noticeboards: a quick notice that there's an ongoing discussion and an invitation to participate. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:17, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Support. Not enough activity to justify separate noticeboards and merging them may increase the number of eyes on. Someone open an RfC. BilledMammal (talk) 03:15, 21 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
This is kind of a permathread. The quickest way forward without sucking-up too much community time is to make a formal proposal for whatever outcome is desired. As a side note, WP:FRINGE is not a policy, but a guideline. Strictly speaking FRINGE is a specialised subset of the provisions of WP:NPOV, particularly WP:FALSEBALANCE and WP:FRINGESUBJECTS. Bon courage (talk) 17:33, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Yeah, I did understand that but was cutting corners with discussing the thing I was referring to as out of scope. The formal proposal is simple: delete WP:FRINGE/N and update any essays or guidance that discuss it to direct editors to the three other noticeboards I mentioned. Simonm223 (talk) 17:47, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
The logical end-game would be to have two noticeboard: behaviour and content. The first would be a merger of ANI/AN/COIN, the other a merger of all the others. I could get behind that. Bon courage (talk) 17:57, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I guess it's specialism. You could argue we don't need WT:MED because we have WP:RSN. But for the purposes of this discussion we're going to forget about WikiProjects right? (The function of WP:FTN could be easily taken up by WP:SKEP). It's really just a question about how to partition discussions across WP:PAG areas. Bon courage (talk) 18:09, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I guess I just don't see "the guys who don't believe in aliens and cryptids" as a particularly useful specialism. WT:MED handles quackery better than FRINGE/N and a lot of the science material is either general enough that it should be at RS/N or so specific it should be somewhere like WT:CHEMISTRY. Fringe/N occupies a middle space - neither as specialized as wikiprojects nor as general as equivalent noticeboard. But it sure does produce a lot of anger. Simonm223 (talk) 18:13, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Though maybe not believing in aliens and cryptids might be a fairly good baseline requirement for a Wikipedia editor (or indeed for a rational human being). WT:MED has of course come under attack on occasions over the years too. Bon courage (talk) 18:19, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Yes, please get rid of it. It's become an area where the same editors hang out there and target "fringe" subjects (with relatively loose definitions of fringe) to the point that it comes across as zealotry. This only serves to facilitate violations of WP:IMPARTIAL and WP:BALASP through heavy insertion of negative-toned content. There is nothing at WP:FRINGE/N that can't be more fairly addressed and get stronger consensus through WP:NPOV/N. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:14, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
If we assume that all of the traffic at the Fringe noticeboard can be redirected, and won't just divert to a Wikiproject or something, is that a good thing?
Right now there are 20 sections at WP:NPOV/N going back about a month. There are 19 sections at WP:FTN, also going back about a month.
Would the sort of people who currently frequent WP:NPOV/N appreciate seeing half the board become about UFOs and Bigfoot? MrOllie (talk) 18:32, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
If there isn't anyone there, then isn't it just going to become FTN at a new title? If there is a problem with FTN, it should be identified and fixed, not just exported to another page title. MrOllie (talk) 18:46, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
It should be combined with the other low traffic content noticeboards so the relatively few people that watch NPOVN, NORN, and FTN will see all of the discussions that fall under roughly the same umbrella. More eyes is better for the issues raised at these noticeboards. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:47, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Wikipedia:Content issues noticeboard is the logical name, and WP:COIN would be obvious snappy shortcut but that's already taken. WP:CIN (pronounced "Sin" of course) is taken by the Cincinnati WikiProject. WP:ACIN (Article content issues noticeboard) is available but I'm not sure that's snappy enough (WP:ACING could work for that but I haven't worked out how to get a G in there in a non-contrived manner. Thryduulf (talk) 01:05, 21 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
WP:Content Issues Chalkboard or WP:CIC like Combat information center. Where hard decisions get made about what to do with the most important things in front of you. Chalkboards for solving problems. Implies forced working together. Sends the vibe that content is king, the rest is vastly less important. Plus it sounds awesome: CIC.
WikiProject pages are easier to identify as canvassing than a formal noticeboard. Some of the posts at WP:FRINGE/N are NPOV disputes that would be appropriate at NPOVN, but then there are ones like Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard#Raw milk, ivermectin, psychedelics, and sunshine where it's the regulars wikilawyering around the fact that they're just using the page to WP:SOAPBOX. There's also the point I made above that the discussions shouldn't even be taking place on these noticeboards in the first place. If it's something about a specific page, it should just be a message directing people to the talk page. If it's a broader policy concern, that's what the Village Pump is for. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:42, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Ok, but that's an argument that people shouldn't be having that discussion at all, and just directing people to another page won't solve that. People with something to say will find somewhere to say it, I think. MrOllie (talk) 18:46, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
FWIW, shoving full text of the current FTN page plus the past few archives and telling a few LLMs to "categorize what kind of topics" comes back with this out of the past 100~ discussions. Seems to be the same basic outcome trying it different ways. Past 100 discussions, going back to November 2025:
Medicine, health, psychology, nutrition 27
Conspiracy, politics, public misinformation 16
Religion, cults, esotericism, NRMs 16
UFOs, UAP, anti-gravity, speculative aerospace 11
Wikipedia process, sourcing, policy, RSN/NPOV meta 11
FTN is the equivalent of a wikiproject talk page like WTMED if we had a wikiproject focused on fringe theories. Would it be preferable to just make that, and just move all the archives over to do the same thing under a different name? That doesn't seem like it would change anything to me. From my point of view FTN largely does what it's supposed to do: be a place for people to discuss material about fringe theories, draw the attention of those with one or more forms of expertise on various domains of fringe science, etc. There are regulars there like there are regulars at every wikiproject and noticeboard, and yes, the people who post most often seem to have the strongest opinion. Same is true elsewhere. COIN doesn't have many regulars that take a wishy-washy stance on conflict of interest editing, and those watching CCI take probably a stricter stance on close paraphrasing than the average Wikipedian, and so on. Likewise FTN regulars tend to have an interest less in specific topics than on fringe theories on Wikipedia broadly, and tend to feel strongly that articles adhere to that guideline across subjects. I fail to see any of these as a bad thing, even if an individual's zeal needs to be reined in from time to time. —Rhododendritestalk \\ 19:22, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
The fringe theories noticeboard is very bad at what it purports to set out to do; on any topic that is weird, or religious, it inevitably devolves into mocking the subject. Perhaps they're good at MEDRS, I don't know; I had positive interactions there when dealing with fringe pushing on facilitated communication stuff, but for any social science / religion stuff it is bad. For example, when I pointed out actual fringe POV pushing (of the insane conspiracy theory that the Knights Templar still exist) at neo-Templarism, , all many regulars of the board did was snark about how stupid they thought the topic was. Eventually, several days later, someone checked it out, and concurred with my issue, but in the meantime, fringe theories that have been resoundingly debunked in every single text on the Knights Templar not written by fringe proponents are wholeheartedly endorsed by the "fringe noticeboard". Or, for example, the thread on Western esotericism, where when a discussion of fringeness was brought up it immediately devolved into contributors saying how stupid they thought the topic was . It amounts to, more or less, a place for the "scientific skeptic" editors to snark about the articles they think are stupid, not a place anyone should go if they actually want to root out fringe theories. I find fringe issues in religious topics all the time but I never dare go there because it will, as it always does, devolve into mockery. So, if you want to discuss how dumb you think something is, great place to discuss, if you want to actually remove fringe theories, no. PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:26, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
So you posted about a subject, someone (Hemiauchenia) came by to improve NPOV on the page, and the discussion was useful enough for you to point to it in an edit summary on the page (see ftn discussion, consensus is that this is fringe), but because Roxy did the snark thing, the board is bad? It looks like Roxy is the common thread through the two of those, which would be something for ANI rather than VPR. The other thread, at a glance, has people bringing in an evaluating sources and a discussion about [what I'll summarize as the distinctions between non-science, protoscience, and pseudoscience, which is to be expected for such a subject]. Where's the net negative? If the criteria is "everything gets resolved every time, without anyone being snotty", that seems like a case for shutting down all of the noticeboards. —Rhododendritestalk \\ 20:37, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
The discussion accomplished absolutely nothing and I should have taken it anywhere else, any other noticeboard would have been more fruitful, but since I started the discussion there if I didn't refer to it it would have been problematic, I figured. In the western esotericism discussion, basically nothing got done either way. Looking at the discussions, I see multiple editors snarking, not just one person. it's the general tone that the discussions have. These are two examples from my personal experience, but this is how FTN approaches every single topic they think is mockable; nothing gets done. PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:44, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
That the discussion accomplished nothing and pseudoscience is still prominent in the lead of the Western esotericism is a Wikipedia problem and not an FTN one. If you'll notice the editor doing the most work to keep the term is the very one that has proposed getting rid of FTN. Not that there is any blame to assign or lack of valid reasons for doing either of those things. We got overly chatty in that thread, partially snark and jokes, partially that i was actually interested in what you and DiodotusNicator had to say and glad you showed up to the discussion. I'm not sure what you expected to get out of the discussion and how FTN failed content-wise here. fiveby(zero) 22:06, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
When I said "that the discussion accomplished nothing" I was primarily referring to the neo-templarism discussion. At least, in the western esotericism one, people presented and discussed sources seriously, even if nothing was done. Simonm223's participation in the western esotericism discussion was not part of the problem I am identifying, hence why I see no issue with contributing to the thread here. My gripe in that discussion was with the rest of the discussion, having multiple editors seriously discuss deleting an entire field of study and history with hundreds of academic press works about it from this website because "wow it's so weird and stupid" is totally ridiculous, seriously despiriting to any new contributor (as evidenced by the response of DN in that thread) and against the spirit of the encyclopedia. This is the typical tone of the fringe board. Any other noticeboard would have dealt with this better. I would advise any well-meaning editor even thinking of taking a religious topic to FTN to go somewhere else. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:10, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Oh, The word salad thread, and the other one. My comments were quite deliberate and valid. - WalterStill not in the Epstein Files Ego17:10, 21 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
And so were mine; the encyclopedia would be far better off without FTN. Describing everything you personally don't care enough to understand as worthless and irrelevant is a mindset utterly against what this project stands for. So, thanks for the great example of what I meant. PARAKANYAA (talk) 18:09, 21 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Roxy the dog This sort of response is actively unhelpful to productive discussion and is an example of exactly the behaviour that is driving editors away from the project. There is never an excuse for it, so stop it now. Thryduulf (talk) 20:11, 21 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Didn't you just come off a block for this very behavior after the previous CBAN for being a bigot? You sure this is the road you wish to travel? Do you think you are helping? PackMecEng (talk) 00:39, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
No, I don't recall being aware of that at the time. I did note that WP:EDRES#Roxy the dog states Roxy stated that he "ha[s] no desire to edit article space in the GENSEX area, and [won't] do so. If, and I emphasise that if, I feel the need to comment, it will be with politeness and empathy." I know this is not related to the GENSEX topic area, but I would certainly not characterise their comments here as demonstrating politeness and empathy. I am not going to argue against a trip to AN(I). Thryduulf (talk) 00:43, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
My experiences are from quite a few years ago now and I don't have the links to hand but they were similar to those described by PARAKANYAA. In one case my concern was that the lead of an article was not neutral but was heavily biased against the topic to the extent that I felt it was shouting "this is pseudoscience" while simultaneously bashing readers of the head with this pronouncement and shoving it down their throat rather than neutrally stating what reliable sources said about the topic (which iirc was closer to "this contains a mix of pseudoscientific claims, claims that do not purport to be scientific and claims that purport to be scientific and are probably pseudoscience but have not been studied enough to say whether they are or not") however the regulars did not see any issues with the article as it didn't present pseudoscience as science. The other issue I recall was regarding reflexology where there was absolutely no interest at all in discussing (let alone resolving) a dispute regarding whether the difference between "has no effect at all" and "has an effect but not the ones claimed" was meaningful and if so which was correct in this case. Thryduulf (talk) 20:42, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Didn't we already have a RfC a maybe a year or so ago as part of a broader discussion of WP:FRINGE, where the proposal to close the noticeboard was overwhelmingly rejected? FTN is certainly not everyone's cup of tea, but having persistent vocal detractors =/= a consensus that it should be deprecated. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:31, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Reading that discussion the problem was bundling the downgrading of WP:FRINGE (the primary motivation as I read it) in with an incompletely-workshopped proposal to disband FTN. The downgrading of WP:FRINGE received the majority of the opposition which killed the rest. As the closer noted, a standalone, fully workshopped proposal related to just FTN could be a discussion worth having. Whether it would gain consensus is a different question, but I don't think it would be snow closed and 18 months is long enough after that discussion that a new one wont be seen as disruptive - especially if the only change proposed to WP:FRINGE is to change the hatnote pointing to FTN to direct editors to whichever venue is decided will replace it. Thryduulf (talk) 00:36, 21 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
It would be a lot of effort for, at best with maximum "close FTN" voter turnout, a "no consensus" close. People who advocate RfCs rarely bear the mental effort of setting them up or closing them. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:43, 21 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
No one can say I'm part of some tiny minority when I say WP:FRINGE handling is at times beyond inappropriately and harmfully feral and nearly predatory, bringing out harmful anti-social mob-like outcomes without actually doing sufficient levels of reading beforehand to warrant the level of theatrical overwrought apoplexy it generates.
WP:FTN is a 100% separate creature from WP:FRINGE, and is a focal magnifying glass creating wildfires with how it concentrates social station-keeping tendencies. It makes reasonable people crazy and unwilling to admit error for fear of loss of face to "peers". Anything like that needs deleting, if so. That's cancer. I think that's the most "delete FTN" vibe I've seen. I'm not that upset about it, but I worry it's on that trajectory.
Given that nobody has been able to close WP:ARS despite many complaints over the years, I think it's very doubtful that there will be a consensus to close FTN. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:47, 21 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
That was because particular contributors were restricted, not the board itself. It's not like FTN regulars haven't been sanctioned (Jytdog, Roxy the dog), but it hasn't had a major effect on the board's activity. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:51, 21 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
That's because Jytdog and myself were sanctioned for matters unrelated to FTN. Simples. - WalterStill not in the Epstein Files Ego11:25, 21 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Please note when I raised this issue I very explicitly said I had no interest or intention of downgrading WP:FRINGE there were multiple good reasons why I was so explicit about that. Simonm223 (talk) 15:37, 21 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I don't disagree with you. WP:FTN will have to get a lot, lot worse. But that whole can't give an inch even to listen thing, it's a self-reinforcing punch in your own face, in an ever worsening loop. Even just some kind of civility sanction/enforcement, like you act like a prick/dick > block or some such. Everyone being so nasty and mean is the major amplifier. Make fire suppressant compulsory as condition of posting/commenting.
(edit conflict) The Article Rescue Squadron has a lot of history that your comment suggests you are unfamiliar with. Back in the day it was, in short, a non-neutral canvassing hub that disrupted countless AfDs. I'm sure there will be a summary of the saga somewhere but I've not found it quite yet. Thryduulf (talk) 00:59, 21 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
It was the arseholes (as I liked to call the obnoxious regulars) weren't doing their thing in good faith. - WalterStill not in the Epstein Files Ego11:27, 21 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I am not sure that this has been thought out. Even of you could wave a magic wand and make the bad noticeboard go away you would not remove the problem it was created to address, which is somewhat different from what other noticeboards face.
Fringe topics tend to have people associated with them that make a lot of money selling quack remedies, defrauding investors in free energy devices, etc. They also often have an army of true believers with infinite free time, and sometimes are able to capture entire governments -- see Ministry of Ayush.
People who make a good living selling "medicines" containing Mercury and Lead can be quite persistent in trying to get Wikipedia to say that their 2000-year-old purification process makes the Mercury safe.
Also particularly persistent: chemtrail believers, holocaust deniers, antivaxers, and creationists. You really don't want any of the above groups flooding the other noticeboards.
BTW, it strikes me as odd that I have not seen a single person who wants to delete FTN actually go there, explain what their problem with it is, and suggest changes in the way the regulars deal with fringe topics. One would think that at least one of you would try opening up a good faith dialog instead of choosing the nuclear option as your first move. I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:08, 21 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
There is probably a good reason editors are unlikely to open a "good faith dialog" at FTN and that is because the editors at FTN often aren't very good listeners and don't respond in good faith. I think in the majority of cases the concerns about FTN's civility failures are overblown. Mostly it is PRO-FRINGEish editors reacting badly to being told things they do not want to hear about the P&G's, the sources or content they are pushing. But that's not always the case.
You in particular are a poor listener. In the last two threads that generated ANI reports did you listen to what skeptic2 was trying say? Did you listen to what i was trying to say? The earthquake lights thread was not all one-sided but did you try and listen to what VPP was saying? I hope everyone is listening to what's being said now, especially PARAKANYAA about demoralizing and driving away editors and a lack of competence at times. That's a valuable editor to have at FTN and i hope he maintains his resolve to continue contributing there. If he doesn't manage to get my favorite noticeboard deleted that is. fiveby(zero) 13:24, 21 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
"There is probably a good reason editors are unlikely to open a 'good faith dialog'..."
Wikipedia:Our social policies are not a suicide pact. After you've gotten the same aggressive responses multiple times, it's not "bad faith" if you expect the same responses from the same people in the future. What was that popular definition of insanity again? "Going to the same group of people, and expecting different results", or something like that?
Boxed material written by other user(s) was placed in the middle of a prior commentby User:WhatamIdoing, which continues after the box.
You've gotten the same aggressive responses multiple times? Maybe my memory is failing me, but I don't rememer you or any of the others comlaining about FTN here actually going there and asking the regulars to change the way we do things, much less asking multiple times and getting agressive responses. Could you please link to a couple of times that happened? --Guy Macon (talk) 05:03, 23 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
If someone has gone to FTN (or any other noticeboard) for a subject-matter request and gotten aggressive responses multiple times, and seen aggressive responses routinely directed at others, why would that person go back and say "Pretty please, could you please be a little bit less aggressive?"
I would expect aggressive people either:
to respond aggressively to such requests, or
to claim that their behavior is completely appropriate
Nice theory, but you have not produced a single example of anyone "Going to FTN for a subject-matter request and getting aggressive responses multiple times". Evidence please. As for "aggressive responses routinely directed at others" show me how it's done. Wait until the next time somoene who makes their living peddling Ayurveda cures shows up at FTN and demonstrate how well your non-aggressive approach works with them. I will make popcorn. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:18, 23 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
The text below is a continuation of the same comment by the OP which began above the box.
I happen to think that the FTN folks do important and necessary work, but there are times when I wish they would show me that they can do it while applying appropriate amounts of tact. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:38, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
You can add me to the list of demoralized people like PARANKAYAA who have the noticeboard on watchlist but have found it useless for actually addressing article content compared to NPOV/N and RS/N. I've had people at FRINGE/N claim it's impossible for a theory in social sciences or humanities to be fringe in the past. (Long enough ago that, no, I don't have a diff. IIRC it was related to the Journal of Controversial Ideas). Simonm223 (talk) 15:45, 21 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Though to be fair if "some people had a bad take at a noticeboard" was a reason to shut down a noticeboard, they'd all be shut down. Against that is the fact that Wikipedia has been repeatedly recognised for its good handling of fringe/misinformation which FTN is part of shaping, so I'm not buying the argument that FTN is some kind of especially negative strand within the Project. The end of FTN (however it happens) would almost certainly be spun as a victory for the forces of antiscience. Bon courage (talk) 16:12, 21 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
FTN getting a new acronym doesn't mean anything, and a guarantee of much more volume of eyes and more diverse sets of eyes on it would objectively be a win for science (and civility - both require maximum sunlight). — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs)16:17, 21 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
It's certainly a brave idea that adding Wikipedia editors improves noticeboard quality and/or the heat/light ratio. If that were true ANI would be the wisest place in the Project. It is more my experience that when specialist material is taken to a generalist noticeboard things can fall apart quickly because people don't understand the material or relevant WP:PAGs (e.g. discussions about biomedical sourcing). Bon courage (talk) 16:27, 21 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
AIV is reasonably effective, but does suffer under the burden of the sum total of bullshit Wikipedia is dealing with day-to-day. It also doesn't handle issues well when dealing with established editors with significant social capital or complex situations where the lack of a rigid format like AE/Arbcom makes seeing what's going on difficult. One of the benefits, however, is the nearly 10,000 watchers with thousands of page views that will often provide outside uninvolved input. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:52, 21 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I actually meant ANI, but I spend more time at AIV and got my initialisms mixed up. FTN had 133, NORN is 56, and NPOVN is 153. I'd rather see all of those eyes on one noticeboard. And although all 10,000 watchers aren't active, many will still the edits on their watchlist and it might draw their attention. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 01:16, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
It "might", but for all except the number shown, it didn't.
BTW, line #10 in User:WhatamIdoing/common.css will hide the inactive number from your screen, if anyone's interested. Some nice person at VPT sorted it out for me. If you ever need to see the inactive watchlisting number, then just go to a private/incognito window. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:31, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I think the part of the proposal you are missing is no one is saying we shouldn't deal with woo fringe things. Just that FTN is a toxic trash heap that is bad at its job. What would happen if we kill FTN is the questions about fringe topics would go to a larger, better trafficked, board to hopefully delude some of the things that make FTN so bad. PackMecEng (talk) 14:06, 21 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I think the part you are missing in stating "FTN is a toxic trash heap that is bad at its job" is just how much good content work gets generated by FTN. Editors who may not necessarily take part in the discussion but watch and then just go out and solve the content problem. I see some of those editors here and it looks like mixed opinion from them as to whether this is a good idea or not. Did you mean dilute or elude or really delude? fiveby(zero) 15:23, 21 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
The elephant in the room is that any would-be (or even actual) WP:PROFRINGE editors (and yes, they do exist) will have FTN in their sights as a consensus-based roadblock to their intentions. FTN is often a useful feeder to ANI for editors that the Project needs rid of (as happened recently with the Paul Saladino topic). Bon courage (talk) 16:43, 21 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
just how much good content work gets generated by FTN and they can do that when its merged into a better board. Thats not really a reason to keep it around. PackMecEng (talk) 00:36, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Well, the proposal to merge the three noticeboards might end up relocating the hounding anyway. I suspect that this is heading toward an ArbCom case like that WP:SMALLCAT trainwreck in 2023. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 04:00, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
There'll just be bigger "gangs" (ANI pile-ons anybody?). The whole point of noticeboards is to increase participation to get better consensus. The WP:PAGs of Wikipedia makes it sceptical in line with scientific thinking and rational though found as found in the best sources (though perhaps not "militantly" so, whatever that means), so it's not as if increasing noticeboard size is going to mean the Project suddenly says that (say) vaccines cause autism, that prayer treats illness, or that COVID came from a lab. And editors pushing such nonsense will still get no traction, and will still be run out on a rail if they persist - as SFR says above the board will hbe the "same roadblock" to WP:PROFRINGE. Bon courage (talk) 04:50, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Just to clarify as the proposer I'm something of a skeptic myself; more on the Humean side of skepticism than early-aughts rational-skepticism but skepticism is skepticism at the end of the day. I didn't propose this as a result of skeptical "gangs" but rather as a result of two issues: one, the inciting one, was that I've observed FTN produces more two-way personal animosity than the other noticeboards that have overlapping scope. The second was, after considering this problem, I noticed that there was a total overlap in scope between FTN and other boards. Stopping gangs of wild skeptics was not the motivation, increased participation from a larger group to defuse individual animosity and get a greater pool of respondents in general was. Simonm223 (talk) 11:17, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
FTN produces more two-way personal animosity ...← there is an interesting category error here. FTN is a noticeboard and has no agency so cannot "produce" anything. It's editors that do that, and the same editors will be present at any new noticeboards that handle WP:FRINGE issues. Is the complaint really about people? And if so, does the behaviour rise to a level that they be taken to a behavioural noticeboard where the community will weight in? And if not, then why is it thought that the same community is going to do anything at a new noticeboard which does not have behaviour in scope? I get the feeling some people here are not clearing articulating what they mean. And for some that do ("skeptic gangs") it doesn't sound well-reasoned. Bon courage (talk) 11:50, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
The thinking is that a more diverse noticeboard with more eyes on it will result in bad behaviour being called out earlier and thus prevent "gangs" (not my term) getting the critical mass of commenters that they set the culture of the noticeboard. Three of five regular editors engaging in mocking behaviour is very different to three of twelve regular editors. Thryduulf (talk) 13:04, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
And it's typical, in groups of humans, for the "three" to behave a little closer to the the large group's standards, so we would probably see an absolute reduction in mocking behavior. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:39, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
No, and please dear god don't merge them. Great that massive pages work for you, and you don't have any problems with them, but some editors do and making one deliberately nisnt helpful. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°19:56, 21 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Actually, looking at NPOVN one reason to avoid merging is that it seems to have a lot of WP:ARBPIA and WP:AP2-type disputes. However much wrong the denizen of FTN may have done, they don't deserve exposure to that! Bon courage (talk) 13:29, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
No, tl;dr. but no. The fringe notice and discussion board keeps editors on their toes. It at least provides a place and a forum to find and point out interesting information on Wikipedia, and at most it assures that editors of discussed topics can prove their case. Alert and knowledgable skepticism holds firewalkers feet to the fire (the opposite of how to do it by the way). Randy Kryn (talk) 23:22, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Again, the proposal is not to abolish the noticeboard but to merge it. A combined board would still provide everything you list. Thryduulf (talk) 23:58, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
You should stop saying that. The proposer has been clear: The formal proposal is simple: delete WP:FRINGE/N and update any essays or guidance that discuss it to direct editors to the three other noticeboards I mentioned—Rhododendritestalk \\ 02:05, 23 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Yes, the additional proposal with a dedicated section below is plain to see. It's clear Randy was responding to the original proposal that is still very much the context for this section. It's just odd to see policing of opinions as though that proposal never existed. —Rhododendritestalk \\ 14:52, 23 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Because even the original proposal did not propose to do away with a place and a forum to find and point out interesting information on Wikipedia, and at most it assures that editors of discussed topics can prove their case. it proposed to move that to other existing noticeboards. I don't understand the opposition to pointing out comments that object to something that was not proposed. Thryduulf (talk) 16:42, 23 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Will paraphrase what I said the last time this idea was proposed in 2024: Absolutely not.WP:FRINGE is a subset of WP:NPOV that helps ensure our articles on conspiracy theories, woo science, and religion remain empirical and evidence-based. These folks do great work keeping our encyclopedia free of junk. There's absolutely no way the encyclopedia would be better off without a dedicated noticeboard for them to coordinate their work. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:42, 23 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Why? There are no proposals to change anything about WP:FRINGE, and the proposal is to merge FTN with other boards not to remove its functions. Why will a merged noticeboard not be able to do what FTN currently does regarding the topics you mention? Thryduulf (talk) 11:53, 23 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Your (Thryduulf) argument works equally well as an argument for merging every noticeboard into an everything noticeboard. Why will a merged everything noticeboard not be able to do what FTN, RS, COIN and ANI currently do? Think of all the extra eyes on everything! Novem Linguae is arguing for continuing what we have now: a dedicated place to have a focused discussion. The last thing I want is to be mixed in with a bunch of people talking about whether our coverage of whatever the hell the current US president is up to now is NPOV. Or whether our coverage of Palestine and Israel is NPOV. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:18, 23 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
If you think that comment about FTN, RS, COIN and ANI is at all relevant then you clearly have either not read or not understood the proposal. What's being proposed is merging three lightly used boards into one, where there will be more eyes and more admins that will resolve the issues with the current board. Merging in very highly used boards would not be appropriate and has not been suggested by anyone not trying to ridicule what has actually been proposed.
If you don't want to deal with people discussing NPOV issues related to topics you aren't interested in, then that's fine, nobody is forcing you to. However I fail to see why any one editor's preferences should dictate which subset of NPOV problems go to board A and which go to board B? Thryduulf (talk) 17:29, 23 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Since we like science here's some starter data. You can use this method to squeeze all sorts of metrics out of it. None of this is cutting edge. You all know a bunch of you have to do stuff like this at work too now sometimes, and if you're like me and have verified said outputs at work, you know THIS is what LLMs excel at: find the pattern to know which way to look.
How to reproduce and verify:
Go to each noticeboard
Control-A and control-c > control-v into notepad
Do the same for the 10 most recent archive on each
Save into files like NOR plus 10.txt, FTN plus 10.txt, NPOV plus 10.txt, ANI plus 10.txt
Shove all three into Claude Opus adaptive or like GPT 5.5 thinking/heavy, an actual proper one
Files were all approximately 2 megabytes each for me
WP:ANI is my control, I suppose, to have something easy to compare against
ANI file was almost 7 megabytes
Prompt for LLM... I used GPT 5.5 Thinking Heavy for this.
Find attached four files that correspond to these:
Plus the 10 most recent archive pages for each. Build me a very straightforward, simple and visually intuitive Wikipedia table I can paste into a comment that will do the following...
For each notice board:
Average discussions per day added
Average discussion duration in days - from first to last remark
Average number participants per discussion
Total number of unique participants per discussion - average
Total number of unique participants - whole board
Total number of posts on board (just top level, not sublevel)
Find out who are the top 5 commenters on board by new submission count - present as text field, user name (no wikilink): 50% as example, so, "User:Bob 5%, User:John 4%, User..." etc
Find out who are the top 5 commenters on board by comment count - present as text field, same as last columns formatting (so to see who starts most discussions vs most regular participants)
So the table will be five rows - top row with headings, +4, one for each board. Please make it sortable by any. Column one should be the name of the board, like ANI, FTN, etc, set default sort to column 1 with acronym of board a-z ascending.
Just plain characters in all cells please. No wikilinks. Just basics.
If you look at the frequency and overlap of unique usernames across each of FTN, NPOV and NOR boards, it would be defensible to say FTN threads could see 3x the eyeballs per discussion, and the other two around 1.5x-2x the eyes per discussion. That’s going by JUST username volume and frequency. The real impact would likely be higher because a lot of active people would quickly subscribe to or watch the "new" page. I can’t guess how much of a multiplier that itself would be. Non-zero extra gains, extra gains for sure. Gun to head? They all get 2.5x-3x more eyes after per thread. Professional gun to head... 2.0x-2.75x-ish easy.
Upsides: more eyeballs and scrutiny on every discussion AND participants.
Downsides: more eyeballs and scrutiny on every discussion AND participants.
I hesitated posting that since the numbers were so stark. I don't think anyone can reasonably argue a single board that gets... a combined 1.64/posts a day can possibly be overwhelming. The topics for NPOV, NOR and FRINGE naturally overlap as well.
I'm not sure that this much of a merge is appropriate. WP:V and NOR are two halves of the same basic concept ("Thou shalt have sources"). WP:FRINGE is a subset of NPOV. That suggests merging WP:NORN to WP:RSN, and separately merging WP:FTN to WP:NPOVN. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:47, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Yes: these merges actually make more sense to me, so:
Merge RSN and NORN to a new "Reliability and verifiability" noticeboard (WP:RVN?)
Merge FTN and NPOVN
I actually think there's a better case for the first of these, since NORN is an unjustly neglected backwater. But, again, if one accepts the "bigger = better" argument, then there could just be two noticeboards, for "content issues" and "behaviour issues". I don't however think any merging is going to solve the problems some contributors here perceive, which is actually that certain editors have a beef with certain other editors. Bon courage (talk) 04:37, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
The presumption (I assume, because it seems to make sense) is that by forcing everyone into one lobby, it'll force people to be more careful and toe PAG lines, because everyone will be seeing the same lobby now. Cliques on whichever board (if that's a thing) would be diluted in power, so that's an extra good benefit if applicable. I could be wrong. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs)04:50, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
About the only venues which effectively tamp down on bad behaviour are AE and Arbcom, because of the rules formalising contributions and because editors (should) know they are on the edge of a precipice when they are there. Editors can run into problems pretty much anywhere else (Tree shaping was a WP:CTOP once) and the "problem" editors getting sanctioned via WP:FTN are generally those pushing fringe views, not those abiding by WP:FRINGE (most recently this). The outcomes of WP:FTN are as they are because of the WP:PAGs, not because editors are failing to toe the line there. Ultimately on Wikipedia there is an unwritten rule that, forced to choose between admitting woo into the encyclopedia and allowing woo-friendly editors to be treated roughly, the latter is the lesser of two evils. Some editors might know that rule too well and take advantage, but I think tolerance for that is changing: WP:BRIE and all that. A noticeboard reorg is not going to alter the underlying MO of Wikipedia however. Bon courage (talk) 05:24, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Absolutely do not merge anything to RSN, it's already way to be most of the time. Also all these merge proposals won't do anything other than close done the place we're editors say stuff that other editors don't like. It won't change any behaviours, and participation at FTN dwarfs by a magnitude any participation at the other noticeboard so any merger would result in FTN with a few extra bits. The issue being discussed here, in round about terms, is that some editors are objectionable to other editors, very similar to the ARS situation that has already been mentioned. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°15:14, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
participation at FTN dwarfs by a magnitude any participation at the other noticeboard so any merger would result in FTN with a few extra bits.
I think it would be nice if nay-sayers stopped referring to "sceptics and sceptic gangs" as if we were some sort of rogue outlaws on the wild edges of the project, running roughshod over .... etc and instead think of nice people who are mainstream supporters of rational thinking, science, medicine, reality and the project generally. That would be nice. - WalterStill not in the Epstein Files Ego15:30, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
As mentioned here by others, tact goes a long way. If I said the FTN fauna have a tendency to be socially oppositional to... tact, I doubt that would be controversial. Others have said a lot sterner here. It may be nice to except completely reciprocal tact and courtesy, in all directions flowing in and out of FTN. "Esprit de corp" was mentioned by someone here. That's not any allowance to have any pass ever on basic rote compulsory civility and kindness. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs)15:33, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
The problem is that the behavior sets up a public us-against-them dynamic, which then makes the group less effective, because people will be less willing to ask the group for help. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:51, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Thats mixing two different measures, participation and activity. The other two noticeboards have very few regulars, completely unlike FTN. So I'll stick by my description. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°15:36, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
The other two noticeboards have very few regulars, completely unlike FTN.
The data doesn't support that. Looking at current plus last 10 archives for each board:
NORN has 1078 unique participants and NPOVN has 900, both well above FTN's 647. NPOVN's traffic rate (0.70 discussions/day) is essentially identical to FTN's (0.67). Where FTN does stand out is concentration at the top: its top 5 submitters account for 27.4% of new posts, versus 6.1% at NORN and 13.5% at NPOVN. That's not "more regulars," that's a smaller pool with a heavier top end. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs)15:48, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
VPP, do you think with your recent carpet bombing of FTN you may have artificially skewed the stats? just asking. - WalterStill not in the Epstein Files Ego15:53, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Also, the list of glitterati which is the FTN regulars high contributor list really does give weight to the board, compared to the other lightweight boards. - WalterStill not in the Epstein Files Ego15:56, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Oh, I see. They're current and archives, and then AI. I would encourage folks not to take AI generated statistics at face value. MrOllie (talk) 16:01, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Not easily, it's all wild barely structured data. Maybe some Excel wizard would know.
I could probably jury rig some way to just do this off of straight scripting but not as quickly or easily. The files are literally open page > highlight all > smack into text > repeat. Just literally raw machine counts. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs)16:10, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I'm not sure these AI-produced stats are very helpful. I am more interested in simpler questions. Like why is VPP, a rather combative and sweary contributor (which a block log showing past issues in a fringe topic area) offering homiles on "socially oppositional" behaviour to unspecified FTN members, with no diffs or evidence in sight. I think any further vague aspersions about "regulars" or "fauna" or whatever need to be backed up with some diffs. Bon courage (talk) 16:35, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Well, maybe because as now documented I have been repeatedly dragged before WP:FTN for all manner of whored up atrocities of my edits to articles and because I refuse to be bowled over on my article edits, and vigorously defend them on talk pages. And still they stand.
You'll note too that I didn't start this "Retire FTN" discussion, so just like how YOU and others nuked the "skeptic section" on Earthquake light that led to this discussion, I reject any blame for whatever this leads to. I'm getting a little tired of FTN people trying on a now-daily basis to line me up for site bans.
I think this invocation of "FTN people" is crass and unhelpful. I removed a poor podcast source and will happily defend that edit in any forum on Wikipedia. What I am saying is that there are, and have always been, problem editors in fringe space, and yet somehow it's an apparently a bunch of unspecified "FTN people" who are on trial here, with no backing diffs. It is somewhat reminiscent of Mormongate, when there was a big push against FTN for somehow being disrespectful to religion, when it turned out in end the more severe (/actual) problem was a network of COI editors at multiple levels within the Wikipedia bureaucracy. Bon courage (talk) 16:53, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Yeah, I'm perhaps not the person to be attacking here or trying to redirect things toward, as the original victim of the current and latest "whatever" we want to call it in terms of the letters F, T, and N.
Someone asked should me merge these, I saw some worry here or elsewhere (irrelevant and I don't recall where) about the volumes... so I just smacked 44 pages of talk archives into LLM and then linux to see what the numbers really looked a bit like. That's it.
About jury rigging some way to count comments: I think you could use regex to strip out what you think will be the signature ([[User through (UTC) at the end of a line). You'd probably want to manually check the resulting list (and then use another regex line to strip out the timestamps).
Here is a quick and very dirty read out of frequency by signatures. Like I said upfront, it was a machine pass by the AI and a follow up so far against another model is pulling seemingly nearly the same results with a few different percentages.
You appear to be dissembling. How was that table above produced? Was it you or an llm/Ai WalterStill not in the Epstein Files Ego16:38, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
You appear to be dissembling.
Am I? Are you saying I didn't explain all this very transparently? Is that your WP:ASPERSION, Roxy?
VPP is saying that the tables they explicit stated were produced by an LLM were produced by an LLM. They are also saying that the associated prose, comments and everything they did not say were produced by an LLM were not produced by an LLM. I'm not sure how they could be clearer. Thryduulf (talk) 16:48, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
VPP's posts are an exercise in translucency and should be capped or ignored. He thinks that this is an explanation. Good grief, it's manifestly obscure, and probably deliberately so. The out and out gall is that he asks "Was it explained here? Not at all .- WalterStill not in the Epstein Files Ego17:46, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
The out and out gall is that he asks "Was it explained here? Not at all
save all content from current plus last 10 archives
name each file for the board
ask tool of your choice (excel, linux, eyeballs, llm, etc) to tally up numbers
Will paraphrase what I said the last time this idea was proposed in 2024: Absolutely not.WP:FRINGE is a subset of WP:NPOV that helps ensure our articles on conspiracy theories, woo science, and religion remain empirical and evidence-based. These folks do great work keeping our encyclopedia free of junk. There's absolutely no way the encyclopedia would be better off without a dedicated noticeboard for them to coordinate their work. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:42, 23 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Why would they not be able to do that work as part of a merged noticeboard? Note also there is no proposal to make any changes to WP:FRINGE beyond the link to the relevant noticeboard. Thryduulf (talk) 16:43, 23 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Here's an observation i have only some confidence in so take it or leave it, and i'm just a waterboy at FTN anyway.
The other notice boards seem more geared towards presenting a question and gathering input to form a consensus. At FTN there's sort of an implied consensus already present. While an article or issue might require some discussion there are certain well-recognized patterns of PROFRINGE editor behavior and content, and some proven applications of the P&G's, you might say recipes for dealing with the bad content. Also a great deal of specialized knowledge. There are stumbles and failures of course and different varieties of threads, but seems at times less of a "lets discuss and see what to do" and more of a "get it done" attitude.fiveby(zero) 20:16, 23 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
i think it should be merged since they are all noticeboards you would not have to search separately for each article. Sqvx (talk) 18:30, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
No per Novem Linguae and comments in the other (above) discussion. This seems a solution looking for a problem, the long-term Fringe notice and discussion board has served a specific purpose. Randy Kryn (talk) 10:29, 23 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
No - Not seeing any actual evidence that FTN doesn't work well. Nearly all of the evidence described as problems with FTN are in fact behavioral issues applicable to one or two individual users, not the noticeboard. It's neither too active nor too inactive to be sustained independently, and I've not seen any good argument to merge this with other noticeboards that wouldn't be just as applicable to an argument to merge all wikiproject talk pages into a single talk page. —Rhododendritestalk \\ 18:06, 23 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
No - This is a Lumpers and splitters situation. The lumpers have not given any reason that would convince me. FTN has too many discussions for my taste, it should concentrate on being a noticeboard. But those discussions usually involve users who disagree with the purpose of keeping fringe positions out. "More eyeballs and scrutiny" means more people who either do not care about keeping fringe positions out or even oppose it, more false balance fans who think it is important to butt into discussions about things they have no clue about to prevent "one-sided" content, more people one has to explain the FRINGE basics to and who do not want to hear it, and more conflict and frustration. Humanity is split into many specialist subcultures on all levels, and that tends to work pretty well because the specialists within a field understand each other without long explanations. --Hob Gadling (talk) 19:14, 23 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
No unless and until these policy/guideline pages are merged. I think we have the separate pages to provide focus, and more often than not a communally focused discussion will be a better discussion, especially in a very diverse community. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:27, 23 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
No I'm opposed to this idea. It would serve to muddle and bury an important type of discussion that is currently handled by a group of editors that have specialized knowledge regarding the commonly recurring problems. This is valuable because a lot of the people who add WP:FRINGE content believe they're fighting an ideological war and make a real effort to disguise the content. Anything that takes away from efforts to call attention to that behavior will have the practical effect of weakening WP:FRINGE, whether that is intended or not. ApLundell (talk) 22:02, 23 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Immensely strong support. Meaning no disrespect to the good faith positions of some of the responses above, but I think a good many reflect a perception of a platonic ideal of what WP:FTN could be, rather than how it tends to operate in reality, because of the culture that has enured there over time, and the disruption it tends to inculcate in its regulars. Because the camp described in the immediately preceding !vote as a "group of editors that have specialized knowledge regarding the commonly recurring problems" are very, very much a part of the habitual problems and normalized personal disputes that often simmer and fester at FTN, and often end up needing community intervention. Or, at least, a non-trivial subset of those editors are. The issue is that you really have two disruptive groups that are habitually found at FTN: there is of course the ever-revolving cast of proponents for all manner psudeoscience, snake oil, conspiracy theories, and every other form of moon logic, many of whom are WP:NOTHERE and never will be WP:HERE, and fail to understand, let alone adopt an internalize, this project's priorities and guidelines and the consensus process from which they derive. Needless to say, these editors need extreme levels of management to prevent the warping of our content to embrace coverage inconsistent with sourcing (NPOV issues), driven by ideological or profit motivations (COI issues). They tend to edit war until they get an administrative response, and then many favour stonewalling, bludgeoning, and other tedious discussion tactics. They are, to put it in simplest terms, a lot. The problem is, they are not the only group at FTN that routinely proves to require community resources to keep in check. Because among the many laudable and much relied-upon editors who occasionally contribute efforts to contain the woo are a block who pretty consistently bring their own brand of disruption. They also tend to violate this community's baseline policies and behavioural expectations with abandon, only their favourite guidelines to give short shrift to are principles like WP:CIV, WP:NPA, and WP:TEND. They have somewhere along the line come to see themselves as the guardians of the rational on Wikipedia, the anti-woo warriors, and they brook no quarter. Too many of them believe that the shortcomings (real or perceived) of their rhetorical opposition--who, let's remember are not all TAs, SPAs, or newbies--obviate them from having to follow this project's guidelines for fulsome discussion of a civil nature. This second group is not as numerous in raw numbers as the advocates for fringe and fringe-adjacent content, but they are highly committed to their self-assigned roles and will tend to outnumber the less experienced users on the other side of the resulting, highly inflammatory discussions. They tend to work in tandem, and in eachother's favour, regardless of any "specialized knowledge" of the particular topic that has landed there on that day. When the two groups clash, it becomes a real unstoppable force meets immovable object situation, and then the real nastiness begins, with many of the resulting personal grudges and intractable disputes ending up at WP:ANI. To be clear, the more experienced editors very easily could, as do many editors at FTN and elsewhere in editing involving fringe topics, leverage their superior understanding of our guidelines and systems to work their way through our dispute resolution process and ultimately prevail on the content issues. But many there simply have no patience for that, and believe that their position on the "right" side of rationalism entitles them to cut corners and just brute force their way through disputes. I've lost track of the number of times that someone at one of the resulting AN/I discussions has stated that it is unreasonable to hold them to the letter of this or that policy, because the vandals are legion and just over the hill, and if we don't endorse their aggressive tactics, Rome (that is any and all dedication to scientific or historical truth on Wikipedia) will be lost. There is a complete lack of understanding on the part of some of these editors that in order to effectively combat COI/FRINGE content without adding to the disruption, you need a surfeit of patience and dedication to the idea of handling these issues with fidelity to the project's processes, rather than an ends-justify-the-means mentality. I think the above is the missing piece which maybe has not been fully articulated in previous comments and !votes expressing the idea that a merger with another noticeboard would "dilute" the current composition of the average discussion on fringe topics. Because right now, we have shunted all of this work off into its own little echochamber, only one with two generally fundamentally opposed groups, who then go at eachother like it's frickin' Thunderdome. We should hardly be permitted to act surprised when this results in battleground behaviour. A merger would not only allow for larger and quicker consensus to shut down fringe-pushers on issues which trigger the anti-woo contingent in the first place, but would also keep the discussions from becoming toxic when they are not easily resolved. Personally, I think it will certainly boost the rate and speed of "correct" outcomes, while decreasing disruption--and reluctance to make the changes, as far as I have seen it above, seems to stem from a combination of lack of familiarity with how bad things regularly get at FTN, combined with comfort with the status quo. But if FTN as it exists today is the status quo, believe me that we can do better. SnowRise let's rap04:30, 26 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
...lack of familiarity with how bad things regularly get at FTN Forgive me, but I've been volunteering at FTN for years, and I hope you would share with us what you have identified as the bad things that happen regularly there. Me, I've seen a number of long and tortured discussions at FTN, e.g. Shakespeare authorship question would generate a lot of heat, Aquatic ape theory dominated the noticeboard for weeks on end, Cold fusion was often argued passionately, and don't even get me started on Rupert Sheldrake. I never considered these discussions a bad thing. Typically good faith but inexperienced editors, or sometimes staunch fringe proponents, would lobby for changes to an article, and spirited back and forth would ensue. Now recently there was an extended disruption, but I consider that to be an anomaly (an editor with a past history of aggressive WP:BLUDGEONING who fell off the wagon, so to speak). Yes, there is sometimes snark (hopefully not too much or too often) and yes there is a bit of joking around, especially among those of us who have been subject to off-wiki harassment and threats for our unsympathetic treatment of fringe topics (I'm thinking of you, user:Sgerbic) but on the whole, I don't see crucial behavioral issues that require the whole thing to be shut down or reworked. Of course I may not be aware of specific examples that you have noted, and so if you share them that would be helpful. Regards, - LuckyLouie (talk) 19:34, 29 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I think I'd be in favour of a merger of FTN, NPOVN and NORN into the NPOVN namespace, since they have a common nexus of neutrality issues, and almost any topic posted at NORN and FTN would have qualified for being raised at NPOVN. To be fair, RSN and COIN also have some overlap, but as a procedural matter, those two forums tend to be used for very discrete purposes that have less to do with immediate content disputes and are more about who should be editing content directly, and whether particular sources meet the reliability threshold, so I understand why they were not included in the proposal. SnowRise let's rap04:59, 26 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I don't wholly understand if I'm allowed° to comment or vote (very newbie), but I've been following this thread and I think you sum it up very well. A necessary task (warding off inaccurate nonsense) shouldn't be bottlenecked by an aggressive culture, and at least from a newbie perspective, the posts on FTN frequently seem VERY aggressive.
°culturally speaking. I mean, clearly I can comment in a *mechanical* sense, but I've the soul of a lurker and would prefer to remain unbitten, pls. Fixinathing (talk) 18:40, 26 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Since this is a "very newbie", probably a good idea to caveat that by noting that there are a few kinds of discussions (I know Palestine-Israel RFCs, and maybe/probably a few other topics) that NOT everyone is allowed to comment or !vote in...but that this is not one of them:) ~2026-32109-96 (talk) 23:42, 30 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Support merging FTN / NPOVN / NORN boards; the issues that the three cover generally center around due weight, so combining the three would centralise the discussions and hopefully provide a wider pool of editors to address concerns. At the very least, NPOVN & NORN should be merged, as the issues are often intertwined and it's difficult at times to decide which noticeboard is best. Fringe is a subset of NPOV, so it's perhaps easier to keep the former stand-alone, but OR & NPOV are two sides of the same coin. --K.e.coffman (talk) 06:14, 26 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Come on now. What would that evidence look like, and why are you not also grilling the many people who have made vague gestures to the board not working? What is the evidence that it would work better to merge, apart from just the loaded assumption that "more people is always better"? Thus far the only evidence I've seen provided has been a handful of anecdotes, including examples of FTN being helpful-but-not-as-helpful-as-I-hoped, of the so-called anti-fringe warriors not being warrior-enough when it came to the subject I personally care about, about several "someone was a jerk" that are behavioral and not about the board. What is the evidence that FTN should be chosen for merging from among all of the topic/domain-specific noticeboards or wikiproject talk pages that function identically to noticeboards? —Rhododendritestalk \\ 20:05, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
It isn't really possible to provide evidence of behavioral issues at noticeboards without giving anecdotes, as behavioral issues are inherently subjective. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 20:10, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
What would that evidence look like One way to find out would be to pick some topic known for unwarranted promotion of fringe theories (you choose) and watchlist articles in that topic to see if pro-fringe editors are more or less successful in promoting their theories if FTN is merged. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 20:13, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Rhododendrites, I think the disconnect is here: anecdotes...about several "someone was a jerk" that are behavioral and not about the board. From where I'm sitting, "the board" is a group of people. This group of people tolerates some behaviors that would be discouraged elsewhere on wiki. This group of people is also firmer at rejecting some other behaviors. People who post there regularly will live up to (or down to) the group's behavior standards. For example, the same person might be gentler when posting at WP:TEA (where there are written behavioral standards about being polite) and more disrespectful at WP:FTN (where they might feel that a different kind of remark promotes group bonding and a sense that such behavior rallies the troops in the face of an onslaught of garbage ["We few, we happy few, we band of brothers"]). The behavior of the regular participants in the board is "about the board"; after all, their behavior is what makes it a unique place on wiki.
Secondly, about your question What is the evidence that FTN should be chosen for merging from among all of the topic/domain-specific noticeboards or wikiproject talk pages that function identically to noticeboards? I first would ask you to name any other non-WikiProject topic/domain-specific noticeboard. There's a list in Category:Wikipedia noticeboards, if you want to jog your memory. If FTN is materially different from the ordinary noticeboard (e.g., WP:AN, WP:RSN, WP:ELN...) by virtue of being the only noticeboard that is limited to such a narrow subject matter, then the fact that it's not an ordinary noticeboard is already evidence that it should be treated differently from ordinary noticeboards. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:47, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
The editor who has an issue with someone else's conduct within WP:CT/PS on WP:FTN can be the one to submit a filing at WP:AE, where reviewing administrators will assess the filing for validity. This is what participants at WP:BLPN do when they have an issue with an editor's conduct within WP:CT/BLP. I have seen relatively few reports regarding WP:CT/PS on WP:AE, which indicates to me that either WP:AE is underused for the topic area, or the complaints of misconduct on WP:FTN are not strong enough to withstand scrutiny at WP:AE. —Newslingertalk16:59, 6 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. This seems like a rather drastic change. NPOV and NOR are not the same thing. There are separate noticeboards for a reason. Nor is FRINGE literally the same as NPOV or NOR (and despite formally being a part of the NPOV ecosystem, FTN tends to overlap just as much or more with NOR or COIN, etc). The whole problem seems to be that, because FTN tends to overlap so much with these noticeboards, in order to accommodate the retirement of FTN itself, all of these noticeboards should therefore be merged. That seems to be fixing the breakage caused by one major restructuring, by doing a second major restructuring and possibly breaking other things. Whatever the fate of FTN, I propose that we do not break more than one thing at a time. To be sure, while there may be evidence that the current system of noticeboards is not ideal, there does not seem to be any positive evidence that a huge consolidation would be any better. It might even be a lot worse. I think a pilot project or something, demonstrating non-catastrophe, would be a good idea before making any such radical change. Surely the technology exists to create a combined draft noticeboard through transclusion without actually touching the existing noticeboard ecosystem. Sławomir Biały (talk) 07:03, 26 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
How often is FTN dealing with "The thing you want to put in the article is literally not in the source you're citing, nor in any other reliable source that anyone can find"? That's the core situation for NOR.
I don't think it would be a copyright infringement in any reasonable situation where the text being added is not a direct copy-paste. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 18:23, 26 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I'd like to know whether your experience of FTN is similar to mine, namely that it mainly deals with people pushing anti-science POVs from woo-woo sources, rather than people making up stuff that isn't actually in any source. There are, after all, some books that would ordinarily be considered reliable (e.g., published by a mainstream book publisher) and which say that homeopathy works and has scientific support. See, e.g., ISBN978-0761519676 from a Random House imprint. It's not something being made up by a Wikipedia editor. The problem with someone citing that book to say that homeopathy is effective isn't that the claim is "material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable source has ever been published" (from NOR). The problem is "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources" (from NPOV), when "all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources" in the case of homeopathy say that it doesn't actually work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:44, 26 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
What sort of book exists that would say, both, that "homeopathy works" AND would be considered a "reliable source"? I cannot imagine any such source actually existing, especially considering that for that particular claim WP:MEDRS would apply. (I understand there might be other examples, though, that might be less clear) ~2026-32109-96 (talk) 23:51, 30 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
There are books that meet the criteria laid out in WP:RS (e.g., as more conveniently summarized in WP:NOTGOODSOURCE) that say homeopathy works. Strictly speaking, we reject them as promoting an WP:UNDUE viewpoint, rather than for being unreliable per se. Our notion of RS is not based on what the source says, because that way lies endless disputes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:24, 31 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
NPOV and NOR are not the same thing.
Yes, but: Because these policies work in harmony, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another, and editors should familiarize themselves with all three. (from WP:OR) SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 19:28, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I'd prefer merging NPOV+FTN and separately RSN+NOR. All the policies work in harmony, but the first pair is mainly about due weight issues (e.g., we do not present pseudoscience as mainstream science) and the second pair is focused on whether a specific source directly supports a specific statement. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:33, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I think there is value in leaving RSN on its own, as it often ends up being more about discussing sources themselves than how appropriate their use is in a specific place. Also, it simply has a better defined scope, with its companion WP:RSP. I see a lot of value in a NPOVN-NORN merger, because that would create a content issues-focused board with more eyes and a better ability to tackle complex issues, which is what these boards are supposed to be for in the first place (otherwise things should stay on article talk pages). Once such a board would exist, integrating FTN into it would be only logical, as the board mostly deals with a mix of this kind of issues already. And maybe it would more clearly direct some source assessment to RSN, where the more diverse audience might actually approach things differently. Choucas🐦⬛20:09, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Support. FTN is not a board for actually combatting fringe theories - they are, as demonstrated above, completely okay with insane pseudohistorical theories if they think the subject matter is too stupid to care about. It is a board for "scientific skeptic" editors to chat and crack jokes about things they think are ridiculous, and mock well established non-fringe subjects if they believe it is stupid. That is all well and good, we are all entitled to our opinions, but wikipedia is not a forum. The board solves nothing and everything positive that comes from discussion there could be had better at another venue; anything good that happens to come from FTN happens in spite of it. PARAKANYAA (talk) 19:46, 26 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Support Basically per SnowRise: FTN is overrun with people who believe that it's OK to ignore all policies to oppose any hint of woo, or what they've decided is woo regardless of the sources no matter how reliable. You can see some of this above, and frankly what you see in this thread is minor compared to what often goes on there. Loki (talk) 20:27, 26 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
No. While some form of noticeboard consolidation might be good, I don't think this is it (in particular NORN is not right for merging to these others). I am unconvinced by arguments about this or that (unnamed) editor at FTN being apparently (no diffs see) behaving completely outside community norms. If that were really so, it would be an easy matter to drag them to a drama board, with some actual evidence. As has happened before I think what's happening here is that some editors have beefs with other editors, but rather than saying it plain, blame is diverted to a personified "FTN" which must be punished (killed?) as a kind of proxy. Bon courage (talk) 20:40, 26 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Support. Fringe is a subset of NPOV and neither board has sufficient traffic to make combining them unwieldy. NOORN is very low traffic and there is often overlap between POV pushing and original research so combining them fits. There is nothing that a dedicated fringe theory noticeboard does that a combined noticeboard can't, and combining them puts more eyes on every topic that would otherwise be raised at one of the smaller boards. There's no real downside. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:05, 26 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Support basically per SnowRise. The WP:FTNas it currently stands is not efficacious at achieving its goal. If there is a good argument for it to be kept, we still need blow it up and start over. The traffic arguments are particularly strong as well - both noticeboards are moribund.Katzrockso (talk) 03:42, 27 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Oppose As explained by Guy Macon and others, FRINGE topics are very difficult to manage. True believers have sources (promotional or befuddled websites/books). They are motivated to tell the world about their favorite topic. Anyone believing there is a problem at FTN should add it to their watchlist and help. Johnuniq (talk) 05:46, 29 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Is there a reason this wouldn't be handled at a combined noticeboard? The proposal isn't to remove ala venue to handle this, it's to combine it with other low traffic boards. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 08:31, 29 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
The reason is that it would be swamped with other issues so people with knowledge of reliable sources would see interminable arguments about quackery, and people with knowledge of the latter would see interminable arguments about the former (and more). Johnuniq (talk) 05:29, 30 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Oppose The question here seems to be mainly about FTN and if this was a few years ago I'd have supported closing them down as a fanatical closed community with groups acting in concert with little respect for norms in the rest of Wikipedia. However the directions which have been added at the top of the page have contributed to opening them up - they now require notices for authors, and articles under discussion and encourage notifying Wikiprojects. It is a difficult area and I'd continue with it with the reforms and come back in another few years if things don't work out. The world is going awash with fringe and foo with LLMs and Trump and Robert Kennedy and X and, well it just goes on. Some specific bulwark against it all does make sense. NadVolum (talk) 08:45, 29 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Just to make sure it's clear I agree that fringe beliefs are a significant problem both for Wikipedia and the world. My concern that led to the suggestion of merging FRINGE/N with other noticeboards was more because I think doing this would be more effective in countering those problems. Simonm223 (talk) 11:08, 29 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Oppose First, I think that FTN is a specific area where knowledge of fringe theories and awareness of the common tactics of fringe theory promoters helps, while naivety can positively hinder. It is easier for people interested in the area to learn from more experienced editors if it isn't always mixed in with a large noticeboard. Second, I also think combining noticeboards would make the broad activity less accessible to wikipedians who are not heavily active.OsFish (talk) 09:07, 29 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Oppose per Johnuniq, Bon courage, Rhododendrites, et al. Belief in conspiracy theories and the spread of misinformation is on the upswing in our increasingly online society. There's no indication that moving the discussion of fringe theories to other noticeboards will promote wider engagement. If there are specific examples of bad behavior by specific editors (as of yet unnamed and undocumented) those need to be handled at AN/I or appropriate venue. - LuckyLouie (talk) 12:53, 29 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. FTN is already busy enough to keep up with the discussions for me. It would be overwhelming to try and keep up with triple the discussions, especially if two thirds of them are not so much in my area of interest. I would probably just stop following the new Big Beautiful Noticeboard.VdSV9•♫14:00, 29 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
There is no requirement to keep up with every discussion on a noticeboard, you are entirely free to ignore those you are not interested in (I find subscribing to discussions you are interested is a good way to do this). Thryduulf (talk) 14:07, 29 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
That strikes me as a particularly poor reason for saddling those of us who do want to keep up with fringe theories with a flood of posts about Palestine vs. Israel or people bellowing at each other regarding US politics. I doubt that the average person for whom P v. I is The Most Important Thing Ever weighing in on Acupuncture will be helpful, and I doubt that the P v. I crowd wants to hear my uninformed opinions on the topic. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:22, 29 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
poor reason for saddling those of us who do want to keep up with fringe theories with a flood of posts about Palestine vs. Israel again, you don't have to follow any of those posts - you can just ignore them.
I doubt that the average person for whom P v. I is The Most Important Thing Ever weighing in on Acupuncture will be helpful the vast majority of people don't comment about things they neither care nor know about, so the aver person you describe will not contribute to discussions about acupuncture.
I doubt that the P v. I crowd wants to hear my uninformed opinions on the topic. then don't give them. You are under no obligation to comment on every post. Thryduulf (talk) 17:58, 29 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Support Anything I would have wanted to say was already said very well by Snow Rise. There are clear advantages in consolidating these semi-arbitrarily separated boards together (and their associated participants), and they far outweigh the mostly hypothetical downsides stated by the oppose !votes, that I find on the whole very unconvincing. Choucas🐦⬛16:01, 29 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Support Harmful specialization that reduces eyes on topics and could allow regulars to insult topics and shoo away newcomers, even established editors coming to the forum for the first time. ~2026-32233-31 (talk) 14:07, 30 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Strong Oppose The arguments presented here for eliminating FTN seem oddly devoid of specific, encyclopedia-damaging activities, and to me read more like an effort to silence editors with an allegedly "cruel zeal for science" (to steal a phrase from St. Augustine). A notice board where good-faith, volunteer editors work toward maintaining encyclopedic standards should be encouraged, not squelched. There are sufficient mechanisms on hand, including ANI and AE, to address inappropriate conduct when, and if, it arises. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 05:55, 2 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
The point of this proposal is explicitly not to silence any editors (for any reason), nor to "squelch" the board. The goal is to merge multiple boards into one to avoid unnecessarily duplication and splitting of editors working to maintain standards, while at the same time diluting the impact of the problematic aspects of the current board's culture. Thryduulf (talk) 10:00, 2 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Since your original comment was a weird mix between a strawman and a misplaced claim for the moral high ground, to the contrary I think calling you out is justified enough in this case. Choucas🐦⬛11:37, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
While one might argue that the second comment of JoJo’s highlighted was out of place IF the talkpage section it referred to was written by someone going through a psychotic episode, it wasn’t directed to that user’s attention. The first on the other hand is a harmless comment on an article about an old entirely pseudoscientific alien theory that at the time was written as if it were a credible idea. It’s a rather thin argument that one off comment is evidence that a whole noticeboard’s legitimacy is in question. If there is a general problem, something more substantial should be offered.
In any case, if such comments are to be submitted as evidence, it is better not done as ad hominem attacks on specific editors. OsFish (talk) 14:21, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
JoJo, you asked "if" "inappropriate conduct" happened at FTN. It sounds to me like you're admitting that some of your own conduct at FTN could legitimately be criticized. Can we now agree that some inappropriate conduct has actually happened at FTN? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:15, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
you asked "if" and you're admitting that some of your own conduct at FTN could legitimately be criticized. I did neither, and as my final comment on this thread I will note that further personalizing this discussion might, perhaps, be a less-than-effective strategy. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 20:00, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Anyone who thinks that editing Wikipedia requires treating people with respect who hold the fringe theories that ancient Sumerians pulled plows with Triceratops, that you can pray away the gay, or that Hitler didn't kill millions of Jews, should start by criticizing Jimmy Wales:
"Wikipedia's policies... are exactly spot-on and correct. If you can get your work published in respectable scientific journals– that is to say, if you can produce evidence through replicable scientific experiments, then Wikipedia will cover it appropriately.
What we won't do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of 'true scientific discourse'. It isn't." --Jimmy Wales
OK but this is still a strawman argument. The problem is certainly not that we're insufficiently deferential to holocaust deniers. The problem is that the noticeboard has entirely overlapping scope with other noticeboards that are better suited to purpose and the proposal here is that we could more effectively deal with fringe theorists and bigots by reducing the noticeboard overhead and bringing together disparate groups of editors. Simonm223 (talk) 15:22, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
What I’m missing is an explanation of why “reducing noticeboard overhead” would benefit the encyclopedia. Are there examples of how fringe theories have been poorly handled due to the noticeboard being separate?OsFish (talk) 16:50, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
The example I mentioned before was when I brought forward the Journal of Controversial Ideas as a fringe journal I was shot down under the argument that fringe couldn't be applied to humanities. This was actively hindering keeping a troll journal that published (among other things) a combination of openly transphobic material and pro-bestiality apologia from being used to provide a veneer of academia to fringe opinions in the humanities. Another person raised a similar issue where fringe beliefs about the War of 1812 were bungled. And this is part of the problem. Fringe extends beyond the physical sciences. And fringe views in the humanities are just as constitutive upon the sort of bigoted nonsense @Guy Macon raises as a reason for the board's remit as fringe biology. Simonm223 (talk) 16:54, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I'm not sure if I understand correctly: did you mean that the discussion kept a troll journal as a source, rather than keeping it was being hindered? isaacl (talk) 01:34, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Discussion declined to admit a troll journal could be fringe on the basis it was a philosophy journal and the discussion asserted fringe could not apply to philosophy. Simonm223 (talk) 11:58, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
So the issue was not that the fringe nature of the journal was not recognised, it was that editors did not feel that WP:FRINGE could be applied. How do you feel a merger with other notice boards would have seen that handled differently? Isn't it a policy level issue? OsFish (talk) 10:45, 5 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I think the point that Simonm223 is making is that it is not about potential issues within WP:FRINGE itself, but more about the idiosyncratic ways FTN interprets it because of the composition of its regulars leading to warped consensus on some issues. Having more diversity in the way people approach these matters would lead to better outcomes by virtue of simply having more eyes on them. Choucas🐦⬛10:59, 5 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Or we could rename the noticeboard to something like "Pseudoscience noticeboard", so that people would be less likely to think that the group was willing to address any sort of fringe scholarship. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:26, 5 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I have no issue with criticizing Jimbo, but in this case it is not even warranted. This quote is about not giving ground to fringe stuff of all sorts out of false balance. It says nothing about treating someone with respect, or alternatively pretending our fourth pillar only exists when people say things we agree with. Inappropriate content is handled through normal editing, and inappropriate conduct is dealt with at the drama boards. In both cases there are no excuses for incivility. FTN is not special, and editors using this board are not special either. If there are concerns with the reliability of a source, then we have RSN. COI? COIN. If it's OR and/or POV, then we have NPOVN and NORN (which I support merging and folding FTN in). And if it is not any of that, or it is a content dispute on a particular page... Then what the hell is it doing on a noticeboard? Is WP:NOTFORUM only for newbies lost on talk pages, or is it something we are actually finally willing to enforce here? Choucas🐦⬛16:04, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Okay, so first off, while I tried to convey this in my previous comment, I frankly care very little what Jimbo had to say twelve years ago in response to a random Change.org petition. Second, no, calling people lunatic charlatans is not respectful, but this is completely irrelevant here; because, third, we are talking about how editors talk to each other on Wikipedia here. Calling lunatic charlatans lunatic charlatans outside of the encyclopedia = fine. Disrespecting other people that edit the encyclopedia within the encyclopedia = not fine. Seriously, is it really that hard to grasp? Choucas🐦⬛16:15, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I didn't quote Jimbo as an argument. I asked whether calling people lunatic charlatans is treating them with respect, and suggested that if your answer is no you should criticize the person who wrote those words. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:52, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
You're essentially saying "if you don't like my opinion that Wikipedia should treat fringe theory proponents harshly, criticize Jimmy Wales." That's using Jimbo's words in order to shut down criticism of the handling of fringe theories at FTN. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 19:18, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Oh, that was confusing. I use Convenient Discussions, so it now looks like it is part of your comment under your own name with a weird indent, and CD was saying that your comment had been edited as a result. @Guy Macon, could you please avoid doing that and just sign each of your comments, when you post them on both sides of someone else's? Choucas🐦⬛16:06, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
editing Wikipedia requires treating people with respect Indeed it does. We treat people with with respect here, even if we personally do not respect their views. Civility is one of the foundational pillars of the project for a good reason, and it is not optional. If you cannot push back against someone attempting to add pseudoscience to Wikipedia without insulting them, and without ridiculing them or their beliefs then perhaps a project like Rationalwiki would be a better fit for you than Wikipedia. Thryduulf (talk) 16:40, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Civility is towards other editors, not towards ideas, surely. “That’s a silly argument” is not a sanctionable statement, in my experience. OsFish (talk) 16:45, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
There is a big difference between describing an argument as "silly" and ridiculing it, and even then it's better to explain why you think the argument is silly. Thryduulf (talk) 16:48, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
So with the case of Acturians, you think there was a need to argue why the theory wasn’t true? I think FTN is usefully separate precisely because it’s a different kettle of fish to mainstream ideas. OsFish (talk) 16:54, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I think that in the case of deeply held beliefs (whether those are religious, political, etc.), it's difficult for the person whose ideas are being ridiculed to not feel like they are personally being ridiculed. We can and should respond to such situations without ridiculing either the ideas or the people. The message that needs to be communicated is "that's not for Wikipedia" rather than "I can't believe anyone would believe something that stupid!" WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:35, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Guy Macon, I actually do think "that editing Wikipedia requires treating people with respect". I think that because the first sentence of Wikipedia:Civility says treating people with respect is a requirement. That policy says:
Civility is part of Wikipedia's code of conduct and one of its five pillars. Stated simply, editors should always treat each other with consideration and respect.
Wikipedia's civility expectations apply to all editors during all interactions on Wikipedia, including discussions at user and article talk pages, in edit summaries, and in any other discussion with or about fellow Wikipedians.
Note the word all that I highlighted there. "All" includes people who are promoting a fringe theory.
We don't (and shouldn't, and mustn't) agree with the nonsense they are promoting, but the policy says we have to be respectful of all editors even if we disagree with their content. As an example, consider the difference between "That's factually wrong" (acceptable) and "I can't believe anyone could be so stupid as to actually believe that!" (disrespectful). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:24, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
(Replying to multiple editors) My comment did not mention merging, and pretending that it did is thowing in a red herring. I only addressed the repeated accusations of systemic wrongdoing at FTN.
To be clear, I do not believe in making fun of any Wikipedia editor no matter what they believe, and there have been many, many examples of editors pushing fringe theories who recieved extremely gentle treatment at FTN. Yes, when someone goes completely nuts and starts raging about how you are a liar and part of a conspiracy to humiliate persecute them, the treatment becomes less gentle. That's true everywhere humans interact. I have also seen many examples of someone crossing the line from "less gentle" to uncivil, and being swatted down by the other regulars for doing so. Including me.
The accusations of FTN wrongdoing (mostly with no diffs) in this thread so far are:
FTN is completely okay with insane pseudohistorical theories.
Evidence, please, Show us the diffs.
FTN as it currently stands is not efficacious at achieving its goal... We need to blow it up and start over.
Evidence, please, Show us the diffs. Also, no noticeboard always acheives it's goals. Otherwise escalating to ANI wouldn't be a thing.
FTN regulars insult topics and shoo away newcomers, even established editors coming to the forum for the first time.
Evidence, please, Show us the diffs.
Saying "but who am I to question the real estate preferences of ascended masters" (aimed at Arcturians (New Age), not any Wikipedia editor) is somehow improper.
Good luck with that one.
Saying "Now I understand the basis of my superpower. If only I could make money at it." (Aimed at an extremely disruptive and insulting editor (who was blocked for it) claiming "they come back and down you by humiliating me and manipulating my thoughts") is somehow improper.
That's pretty mild compared to many comments on many noticeboards.
Whether the boards should be merged is a discussion worth having. The claims that FTN is so evil and ineffective that we should get rid of it are without merit. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:15, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Comment I'm still, no for the reasons I stated. But addressing this argument that people will act better, somewhere else, is at best, wishful thinking. More fundamentally, we are talking about a content board -- as with any content board, issues of bad behavior need to be moved to a conduct board (or admins need to do administration). The answer is not shutting down the content board or merging it, that's just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, and taking others down with you. No new merged content board will address or remedy bad behavior, that's not the purpose of any content board. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 03:03, 5 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I've seen individuals change their behavior to suit their location. This example didn't happen on this wiki, but I saw one notoriously rude editor try at least four times to post his message, until he managed to be polite enough that the local admins let his message stand. Once he figured out the local requirements, he stuck with those standards throughout his interactions there. Before seeing this, I would have described him as hopelessly rude. It turns out that I was wrong to give up on him. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:08, 5 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
And this comment too has been answered previously: the nature of how it's broken is principally the behaviour of editors, it is not possible to supply non-opinion evidence of that - especially as it's difficult to prove people are avoiding taking matters to the board because not doing something does not leave a paper trail. Thryduulf (talk) 15:18, 6 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
It's been ignored but it hasn't been answered. If there is an issue with behaviour then show some diffs. If you can't show that editors have been acting in an inappropriate way, or that have acting in a way to deliberately skew discussions then you have shown nothing. You don't know the mind of other editors, and assigning bad faith to there actions is something we shouldn't engage with. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°16:20, 6 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
AD, let's try this again. I am telling you that I personally have not taken a few FRINGE-related disputes to FTN because of the response that I expected from the group there. AFAICT your options from here are:
Declare that I'm a liar.
Accept that it's not possible for you to look at a diff of me not-posting at FTN.
Pretend you haven't read this and keep asking for diffs of edits that didn't happen.
4. You are being perfectly honest and actually believe that if you took a FRINGE-related dispute to FTN you would have a bad experience, but it appears (from your inability to point to any examples) that you have never tried. Could it be that maybe, just maybe, you are wrong? Could it be possible that someone who posts a reasonable comment gets treated differently than a hyperaggressive asshole who sees Wikipedia as an impediment to his business of poisoning pregnant women? --Guy Macon (talk) 21:47, 6 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Guy Macon that is an absolutely inappropriate way to characterise editors. Civility is not optional on Wikipedia, and that comment is a great example of the behaviour issues you are demanding examples of. Thryduulf (talk) 21:53, 6 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Seriously? I can't say that hyperaggressive assholes exist without naming anyone and calling them a hyperaggressive asshole? --Guy Macon (talk) 22:40, 6 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Could it be possible that someone who posts a reasonable comment gets treated differently than a hyperaggressive asshole who sees Wikipedia as an impediment to his business of poisoning pregnant women?No. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 22:43, 6 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I can't say that hyperaggressive assholes exist without naming anyone and calling them a hyperaggressive asshole? Not when the comment is unambiguously directed at Wikipedia editors, no. Whether the characterisation is accurate or not is completely irrelevant. Thryduulf (talk) 00:16, 7 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
It's an example of your problematic behavior as a regular of FTN, because you have repeatedlystated that you think that you can direct incivility at proponents of fringe theories because you're on the "winning side". That's wrong. Being right is not enough. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 22:52, 6 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Completely bogus examples. Name the editor I was incivil towards. You are saying that it is wrong to simply mention that people who believe that ancient Sumerians pulled plows with Triceratops, that you can pray away the gay, that Hitler didn't kill millions of Jews, or that is is OK to poison pregnant women. Or that it is wrong to mention that many Wikipedia editors treat self-described Nazis and pedophiles differently from other editors. See WP:NONAZIS. I have dealt with many people who meet those descriptions. I am pretty sure that I have always refrained from any incivility or ridicule when dealing with them, instead using the usual "got a reliable source for that claim" response. (If anyone finds a counterexample, I will apologize and say that that was wrong, I am not perfect.) Please quote the Wikipedia policy that forbids making that sort of general statment without targeting any specific person. You might also want to check your own edit history to make sure that you have never made such a general statment. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:36, 6 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Completely bogus examples. With all due respect, your behavior in this very discussion is providing better examples of the problems than many of the archived discussions at FTN.
Name the editor I was incivil towards. Respectfully, you're moving the goalposts. But I will respond anyway: in this discussion, you are being incivil towards @WhatamIdoing by saying Could it be that maybe, just maybe, you are wrong? Could it be possible that someone who posts a reasonable comment gets treated differently than a hyperaggressive asshole who sees Wikipedia as an impediment to his business of poisoning pregnant women?
You are saying that it is wrong to simply mention that people who believe that ancient Sumerians pulled plows with Triceratops, that you can pray away the gay, that Hitler didn't kill millions of Jews, or that is is OK to poison pregnant women. Or that it is wrong to mention that many Wikipedia editors treat self-described Nazis and pedophiles differently from other editors.No, I'm not. I'm saying that being respectful towards Wikipedians who hold fringe views is not optional. Describing their views as fringe without mocking them is certainly possible, but it's often difficult for them to separate criticism of their views from criticism of them as people, so care is needed in choosing the best wording for comments towards them.
Please quote the Wikipedia policy that forbids making that sort of general statment without targeting any specific person.I shouldn't have to, but okay.
Any hateful statement against a group is also a hateful statement against individuals, because groups are made of individuals. We don't allow hateful statements against individuals, so we also don't allow hateful statements against groups.
I know you'll say "that's not a policy, that's an essay!" To which I respond: You cited WP:NONAZIS, which is an essay.
You might also want to check your own edit history to make sure that you have never made such a general statment. My philosophy is to be civil to everyone, even if they're not civil in return (example). There is zero punishment, penalty, or drawback to acting civilly all the time.
Guy, I implore you to take another look at your behavior in this discussion. If your goal is to prove that the claims that FTN is so evil and ineffective that we should get rid of it are without merit, then I respectfully ask that you pause and consider that your incivil comments are not helping your cause. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 00:30, 7 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I'm not seeing how one editors comments at the village pump is proof that editors who notify FTN are doing so in bad faith. If there are behavioural issue with specific individuals deal with them per the normal process, rather than shutting down an otherwise useful noticeboard. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°12:02, 7 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I'm not seeing how one editors comments at the village pump is proof that editors who notify FTN are doing so in bad faith this is a strawman - the evidence of multiple editors conduct here (see also Roxy above) is not intended to demonstrate anything about bad-faith notifications, rather it is evidence (as explicitly requested) of uncivil and similar inappropriate behaviour by FTN regulars.
rather than shutting down an otherwise useful noticeboard. How many times does it need to be explicitly stated that the proposal is merging the noticeboards not shutting them down? Thryduulf (talk) 12:24, 7 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
The request was evidence the noticebord was broken, if anything is a strawman it is your reply. Evidence of a couple of editors having behavioural issues doesn't show the board is broken, or that those using it are acting in anyway inappropriate, or that it needs to be merged. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°15:41, 7 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
AD, can you give me a single question with an operationalized definition, so I can try to answer it? You've recently asked for:
"show some diffs. If you can't show that editors have been acting in an inappropriate way, or that have acting in a way to deliberately skew discussions then you have shown nothing"
"The request was evidence the noticebord was broken"
In response to #1, I pointed out that it's not possible to "show some diffs" of discussions that didn't happen because of the would-be OP's knowledge of how the board would respond. I can't show you a diff that proves this.
On the flip side, because as you said, "You don't know the mind of other editors", I also can't give you diffs showing that a matter was taken there because it's a known place to find editors willing to attack editors making certain claims. I can't actually show the reason why anyone (myself or otherwise) posted FTN and not at NPOVN, or recommended that someone else post at FTN and not NPOVN. Those posts will sound like "I need help at Example article" and not like "BTW, I'm posting at this noticeboard because FTN is the known haunt of editors who are willing to break the rules around civility if it means discouraging POV pushers".
If you want an answer to #2, I'd need to know what your definition of "broken" looks like. For example, is a noticeboard "broken" if experienced editors sometimes pick and choose which disputes to post there, based not on whether the dispute is relevant to the topic, but instead on which kind of reaction the experienced editor wants to see? Can a noticeboard be "broken" if it often produces both a good outcome for articles at the cost of a bad outcome for the community? Can a noticeboard be "broken" if it earns a reputation for flouting behavioral policies? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:53, 7 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I can't show evidence of actions I didn't take. I can't show evidence of my motivation for actions that I did take. I hope, however, that your experience of me over the years would make it possible for you to believe me when I say that I did make these decisions for these reasons. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:37, 8 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Oppose While in theory i think it might be a good idea for the "FTN regulars" to take over all the content noticeboards that's a big ask and don't know there are enough of them to go around. And while they have proven and practiced experince in application of the policies and guidelines they might be lacking in subject matter expertise at times. Should probably take all this criticism and feedback onboard tho and try to recruit more regulars. fiveby(zero) 17:37, 7 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
The above "Poll" section is a clear example of why, when posting an RfC, you should have a poll section that only allows one !vote with comment per user, a separate discussion section, and give any editor permission to move misplaced replies from the poll section to the discussion section. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:59, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Sorry, I added a convenience break when making my comment, didn't realize Poll had formal rules. Feel free to rename that section. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:06, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
The poll doesn't have formal rules. In fact, WP:RFCFORMAT says You can ask people not to add threaded replies to the survey section, but you can't require people to follow your advice. Editors are permitted to freely refuse your request.SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 15:45, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Maybe if it's harder to figure out "what side has the most" supporters, it will be easier to figure out "what side has the strongest arguments". WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:29, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
There aren't that many WP:NOTFORUM transgressions in this time period, but it raises concerns about canvassing and leans toward supporting a merge to WP:NPOVN and WT:WikiProject Skepticism, keeping the original noticeboard as a historical archive. Where discussions concerned article content, NPOV and RS issues were far more common than OR/SYNTH and COI issues. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 19:56, 27 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Pointing future threads that would be on FTN to NPOVN, if it still results in issues being raised and addressed by people who know how to deal with them, seems like a net positive. The more experienced editors that are aware of an issue and have the tools to make improvements the better. -- Reconrabbit (talk) 20:41, 27 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
it raises concerns about canvassing. It's my understanding that posting a neutral message on an article talk page or noticeboard is never canvassing. That is kind of where you're supposed to place these kinds of notices. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:59, 27 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Yes, that's what Wikipedia:Canvassing says. But if the regulars at a noticeboard develops a view that's out of step with the wider community, then it's possible that it would cease to be such a neutral place for notifications. I don't think we've had this come up before, but I think it's easy enough to imagine that happening, especially on a subject-matter board. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:08, 27 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Whether a notification that, out of context is entirely neutral, at a non-neutral venue becomes non-neutral has come up before at least once. I'm struggling to remember the specifics unfortunately, but the topic area was one where the venue (a noticeboard or WikiProject) are quite partisan. I think I might be half-remembering multiple discussions as I want to say it was about both AI and WikiProjects on opposite "sides" being notified for balance (maybe the Israel and Palestine projects?). Thryduulf (talk) 23:59, 27 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Sure it's come up before tho not that i see in the current discussion. Older complaints at ANI and the last discussion which generated a let's delete FTN vote. The issue raised there was that FTN was involved with religion at all and was side issue of what BC is calling "mormongate". Contrary to the current issue which is that we should be taking a more active role in religion as well as other social sciences and humanities issues but just suck at doing it. fiveby(zero) 15:36, 28 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Neutrally worded notifications to noticebords or projects are never canvassing, at least that seems to be the sentiment from arbcom cases I've read. Close request shouldn't be made to FTN, that's what CR is for. Such a posing happens recently, the OP was appropriately pointed to CR. Also what does 'count' mean? I notice my notification about a discussion on RSN scores higherly, but there's nothing to highlight that notification over much longer sections. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°22:18, 29 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Neutrally worded notifications to noticebords or projects are never canvassing they're generally not canvassing, but if you selectively notify venues that you know (or believe) to be biased towards one side of an argument and don't notify venues that you know (or believe) to be based towards the other side of the argument then the notifications are not neutral, even if the words of the individual notices are neutral. If you were making a proposal related to Donald Trump (the person, not the article) and said entirely neutrally that "I have made a proposal relating to Donald Trump, you are welcome to comment" that would on the face of it be neutral. However if you only said that at the Republican Party headquarters in Alabama, Alaska and Wyoming you would get a very different set of comments than if you only said it at the Democratic Party headquarters in Hawaii, Vermont and Massachusetts and neither set of notifications would neutral. Obviously (almost?) no venues on Wikipedia are partisan to that extreme (although I guess good luck finding a pro-paedophilia venue on this site) but the principal is the same. Thryduulf (talk) 22:34, 29 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
That is also not canvassing as long as it's neutrally worded. If other editors want to notify other projects or noticeboards they can. If what you are saying was true ARS would have been shutdown a long time ago, that exact argument has previously been leveled against them. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°23:29, 29 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I've also seen it come up in relation to notifying the LGBTQ WikiProject. But projects and noticeboards are for editors interested in that subject, not proponents of that subject. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°23:46, 29 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Neutrally worded notifications can violate Wikipedia:Canvassing#Votestacking: Votestacking is an attempt to sway consensus by selectively notifying editors who have or are thought to have a predetermined point of view or opinion. If you think "Oh, there's a question about DUE weight in this article about religion, and I know that the FTN regulars share my POV, so I'll notify FTN but not NPOVN (who might be neutral) or Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion (who might disagree with me)", then you've violated the canvassing guideline.
Anyone is open to take part or watch any noticeboard or project, the assumption that the participants of any such noticeboard is project is a proponent of the related subject is verging on bad faith. It's the argument that have been unsuccesfully used against ARS and WikiProject LGBTQ. Vote stacking says specifically "selectively notifying editors" projects and noticeboards are open to anyone. If there are specific behavioural issue with any particular editor or set of editors, there are processes to deal with them but I don't believe any those involve shutting down a noticeboard because it's disliked. There are multiple projects that editor say are not neutral, unless someone can show actual behaviour issue beyond they're probably not entirely neutral they won't be shutdown. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°15:38, 30 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Anyone is free to watch any noticeboard, but when we know that a particular noticeboard isn't followed by "anyone", but specifically by people with a particular POV, then we need to think about whether that serves as a neutral location.
The solution to that would be people following the noticeboard if they're interested in the subject area, and think it needs more eyes. If you have diffs to show actual evidence of any improper behaviour maybe I would be more open to what your saying. Because as it stands "It's not neutral" only goes as far as the opinion of the minority of editors, or at least that seems to be the case given the way the poll is going or the way the last poll to close down FTN went. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°20:22, 30 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I think the most important proof is in our own heads: If you've ever seen a problem in a pseudoscience area, and thought the easiest way to get rid of the content you disagreed with was sic FTN on it, or if you didn't notify FTN because you thought the situation needed to be handled with finesse and respect for nuance, then you already know that you believe that FTN to be a gathering place for anti-woo warriors instead of a neutral noticeboard with a wide variety of POVs.
I'm wondering what particular pseudoscience or which misinformation hadn't been dealt with with finesse and nuance at FTN. Some discussions can drag out for weeks with many subtleties and considerations. Others are black and white enough that copyedits or AfD's result quickly. It can be OK to disagree with content that is obviously being misrepresented as factual, I don't think that makes one a 'warrior'. But again, I'd be interested in specific example cases that show a pattern of abuse. We can't eliminate or restructure a notice board based on generalities. - LuckyLouie (talk) 11:20, 31 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
We created all the noticeboards based on what you appear to call "generalities" (I'd call it "community consensus"), so I think the community can change the noticeboards on the same grounds.
There are problems with providing "specific example cases". If you give an example of a current editor without pinging them, you're insulting them behind their back. If you give an example of a current editor with pinging them, you're dragging them into a dispute (and insulting them to their face). Besides, if it was so bad, why didn't you complain at the time? If you give an example of a past editor, it's irrelevant because any alleged problem with their behavior was "solved" by them not editing. Examples can also get derailed by other circumstances specific to the discussion (e.g., people excusing bad behavior, because the editor he was rude to ended up getting blocked later, and surely CIVIL doesn't apply to people who will be blocked in the future). And then there's the general excuse-making ("I can see why some people thought that was less than ideal, but you've got to remember that he was provoked" or "When you see the same garbage over and over again, it's hardly surprising if someone eventually snaps" or "Maybe that was suboptimal, but that was just one comment, so it doesn't show a pattern" or even "It's just that one editor, and if you don't like it, then you should take him to ANI") and the tendency to favorably rate people whose views you agree with ("He might be blunt, but his heart's in the right place").
So here's what I'd suggest instead: I see you've made more than 1600 edits to FTN yourself. Think back on your time there, or flip through the archives. Think about what the style of discussion says about the group as a whole. For example, consider your sarcastic "Telepathy is real" comment last year. I don't think you would have made that comment, in that style, if you weren't confident that the other editors at FTN shared your disdain for telepathy claims. If you'd been at a noticeboard whose POV was uncertain or mixed, I think you would have chosen a different way to phrase that (e.g., perhaps something like "Someone is incorrectly claiming that telepathy is real" or "These recent edits claiming that telepathy is real are UNDUE"). The fact that you didn't tells me that you know exactly what POV to expect from that group. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:37, 31 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Appreciate the post, it gave me a lot of needed context for what you're feeling. I do agree that community WP:CONSENSUS could theoretically decide that FTN should be dismantled. But at this point in time such a consensus doesn't look likely. I don't agree with a lot of what you suggest (e.g. FTN encourages more editor sarcasm than other noticeboards) but I'm not going to bludgeon my points, I'd rather let this discussion play out, it's good to see this topic revisited every once in a while. - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:45, 31 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
The second part of my comment had kind obeen buried:
Also what does 'count' mean? I notice my notification about a discussion on RSN scores higherly, but there's nothing to highlight that notification over much longer sections. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°15:39, 30 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
it raises concerns about canvassing and leans toward supporting a merge to WP:NPOVN and WT:WikiProject Skepticism - This is kind of just sitting there at the top, without any explanation as to why the numbers do anything of the sort? —Rhododendritestalk \\ 20:15, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
There are a large number of infoboxes that include information about how to best access the location via public transit and/or the nearest parking facility. These values would, to me, appear to be direct violation of the fact that Wikipedia is not a guidebook at best and at worst would seem to be promotional information which serves nothing but to promote the best way to reach a certain location.
I will also quote from MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE that The purpose of an infobox is to summarize, but not supplant, the key facts that appear in an article. I question what encyclopedic value exists in listing what metro or bus stop is nearest to a certain building?
Comment my first thought is that for some articles, whether there is public transport and/or parking is a key aspect. Certainly whether a public airport has public transport access is a very important aspect of the topic. Thryduulf (talk) 22:35, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
An alternative reading of that stat is that the parameter is only being used where it is key information - exactly as it should be. Thryduulf (talk) 23:59, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Comment I think it's just unnecessary in general since several buildings, tourist attractions, airports, restaurants, etc. have public transit access. Aspifi (talk) 22:59, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
As transportation facilities, airports seem to be in a different class than the others listed here. Public transit and parking are connections at airports (just as they are for train stations), not merely access; we should keep them (and use the parameters much more widely). I'm neutral about the others. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 23:02, 22 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Prefer to keep. I'm mostly on board with the other discussions, but there are cases where public access is indeed well reported and well noted, and in such cases, I think it should be kept. However, it should be used sparingly and only in non-controversial cases. I'm just not quite on board with blanket removing it. guninvalid (talk) 02:02, 23 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Comment While I agree that using the param for nearby transit/parking would be inappropriate, if the transit/parking directly serves the location in question I would argue it would be appropriate. For example, the usage in Ottawa Macdonald–Cartier International Airport would be appropriate because the station was built to serve that location, and perhaps saying the rough number of parking spots may also be fine. There is also the option of being vague, for example saying a simple "Yes/No" for parking, or saying "Buses" for public transit. JumpytooTalk04:10, 23 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
It could be used to highlight an unusual aspect of the place in question, for example a mall having no (or very little) parking at all. And there would also be sources noting that aspect in such case, which would meet the WP:DUE. JumpytooTalk04:38, 23 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
CommentWP:NOTTRAVELGUIDE, the relevant part of WP:NOTGUIDE, does not explicitly cite transportation links as part of its remit. I agree that an excessive discussion of transport routes would be a NOTGUIDE vio, but a simple one-off mention of the nearest transport links in the infobox does not seem to be against the 'letter of the law' here. Athanelar (talk) 04:27, 23 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
While it is not directly mentioned in NOTTRAVELGUIDE itself, I still think it's promotional. If someone from Florida wants to know if a tourist attraction in Arizona offers free parking, they are expected to check the place's website, not use an encyclopedia. Aspifi (talk) 02:16, 24 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Comment I can't say I see how including public transit information, in and of itself, could be considered promotional information. There are ways that it could be written promotionally, but those can be handled accordingly. XtraJovial (talk • contribs) 17:21, 23 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Comment I can't imagine this ever being due/non-guidebook information for the infobox. If there is something unique about the public transit for these subjects it'd probably need to be covered by prose regardless. Traumnovelle (talk) 20:43, 23 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
How is it encyclopaedic? If I am reading about a performance venue in another country the public transit access is the least of my interest. If someone is wanting to travel to one they should consult the website of the venue itself. Traumnovelle (talk) 01:41, 24 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Oppose argument per Traumnovelle. It's not encyclopedic because it's not notable information. Someone living in Texas is not expecting an article about a mall in Maryland like Marley Station Mall to tell them that their parking options are free because the average shopper is not going to spend three hours driving into another state just to arrive at a destination. As an editor who has done work on several articles about shopping malls and entertainment venues in the U.S. and some in Canada, is not crucial at all for the average building, especially office buildings. Aspifi (talk) 02:00, 24 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
It is e.g. notable when opera/concert reviewers in The New York Times, who are not used to on-site parking, remark on their surprise of seeing Washington venues surrounded by parking lots. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:16, 24 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Disagree - The average reader does not need to know that a building has a specific number of parking lots, let alone if it's free or not. Compare it to amusement parks where you need tickets; several events need tickets. Aspifi (talk) 02:03, 24 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
WP:IAR !keep then, and never thought I'd ever IAR first time over something like this. I really like having these here now that I've actually noticed them. But you're right, 100%. I got no counter argument. I had genuinely no idea these are omnipresent on Wikipedia. The first team I thought of was the Padres just now, and sure enough on Petco Park, there it is. And I see it as being encyclopedia worthy because it's also really just a little bonus mission-specific ==See also== that gives you for that article as an example:
I dunno. I still remember the entire bottom third of my childhood bedroom closet that was just paper encyclopedias with text so small my now-aged eyes shudder in terror thinking of. Hundreds of pounds of books read cover to cover. Some rather sketchy back to the 30s, 50s. But it's 2026 and soon 2036, and what ought to be gets updated too sometimes. Keep. (Sorry, I was on the fence prior.) — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs)02:52, 24 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Subsuming parking access and/or public transit access under WP:PROMO seems to be casting a very wide net. One wonders if by such logic any kind of transportation or accessibility information would count. I think we need to define WP:PROMO narrower than that. And I generally think that WP:NOTTRAVELGUIDE requires a lot of detail (cherrypicking one cafe is WP:UNDUE another policy) not one or two mentions. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:45, 24 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Keep - It's a real stretch to consider transit info WP:PROMO. I think we can dismiss that concern outright. WP:NOTGUIDEBOOK is closer, but I don't think a straight reading of that really applies here either. The text of that guideline is concerned almost entirely with explaining that Wikipedia should not make recommendations to users. (For example, list a city's best restaurants.). That's a worthwhile guideline, but I don't think it applies. To anyone who lives in a city, specifying what transit line a thing is on is a practical way of specifying a location. We include GPS coordinates, but "on the green-line" is a more human way of conveying that same information. It's not instructions or suggestions to the reader, it's location information. ApLundell (talk) 21:39, 24 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
"It's location information" Why do you think someone out of state wants to know how to get to a tourist attraction in Florida using an encyclopedia? I am going to quote WP:NOTTRAVEL directly: "while Wikipedia has descriptions of people, places, and things, an article should not read like a "how-to" style owner's manual, cookbook, advice column (legal, medical or otherwise), or suggestion box. This includes tutorials, instruction manuals, game guides, and recipes. Describing to the reader how people or things use or do something is encyclopedic; instructing the reader in the imperative mood about how to use or do something is not." Aspifi (talk) 21:52, 24 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
What part of stating "this airport is served by the city's metro" or "this theatre has on-site parking" is instructing the reader in the imperative mood about how to use or do something? People who live outside the state of Florida but who might consider a trip there are not the only people reading encyclopaedia articles about things in Florida that could be tourist destinations. Thryduulf (talk) 22:26, 24 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
If you are confident in your position, you don't have to reply to every single person who disagrees with you. I believe there is also a policy about that.
Anyway, my position is unchanged. I continue to disagree that mentioning a transit line is "how to" style content or any other form of recommendation to the reader. To me, that assertion seems obviously incorrect, for reasons I've already explained. ApLundell (talk) 23:23, 24 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
It isn't describing how to do things, though, it's neutrally giving them information on transit links, which are encyclopedic information.
Keep per my comment above. Per Thryduulf and ApLundell, Mentioning public transit connections is not instructing readers how to do anything. It's just mentioning them. Editors have to go out of their way to convey such information in a manner that goes against WP:PROMO or WP:NOTGUIDE anyway, and we already have methods to handle that. XtraJovial (talk • contribs) 00:38, 25 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Keep these, at least in most of the infoboxes, but especially for the airports. I think they will often not be appropriate to use, but the parameter should be there for the situations in which it is appropriate. Saying that the Louvre is almost on top of a subway stop is not giving tourists directions; it's telling readers what's underneath that big glass pyramid of a skylight. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:48, 26 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Comment, I am not sure of the value of a parameter for parking, but I can see how the public transport parameter could be useful. If the infobox for a London landmark has the nearest rail/underground station, I would probably be able to visualise whereabouts in the city it is quite easily without having to zoom in/out on the map. EdwardUK (talk) 18:42, 26 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Keep. I don't agree that listing the existence of public transportation access is PROMO or NOTGUIDE. If consensus were to reach that it is, I would agree with Very Polite Person that we should WP:IAR. I could see the value of having all of these public transit connections in the template because here is really the only place on the web that all of this info could be centrally listed. That would be very helpful for someone who is trying to research that, for example. So I think it does have potential encyclopedic value, even if you're someone in Texas looking up a place in Arizona. Parking could theoretically be PROMO so I think that should be treated case by case, but this conversation is about public transportation and I don't consider parking to be in that category anyway. Edittttor (talk) 20:45, 26 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Keep, partially per Edittttor and partially per VPP. Public transit connections are often useful for locating a place within a city. I know if you told me which transit lines connect to a place in the city I live in that would be much more useful for envisioning where it is than coordinates. However, also, I think this information is useful enough that I'd favor an IAR override of WP:NOTTRAVELGUIDE even if it was unambiguously covered. I don't think it is, though. Loki (talk) 21:51, 26 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Keep, with the caveats mentioned by guninvalid and Jumpytoo. I don't think PROMO is a significant risk here, but there is a risk that excessive or trivial parking/transit information could have WP:NOTGUIDE or WP:DUE issues. That said, it's easy enough to think of various situations where transit access information is pertinent or noteworthy, with the result that I don't think it'd be helpful to proactively warn against including it. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 17:01, 28 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Keep the public transport information for two reasons. The first is already expressed by XtraJovial regarding whether such information violates WP:NOT in the first place. The second is that I worry about the wider implications to the article text. Per MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE, as mentioned in the opening statement, The purpose of an infobox is to summarize, but not supplant, the key facts that appear in an article. If the information is inappropriate for mentioning in the infobox as a simple listing for violating WP:NOT, by extension it would imply such information should not be mentioned in the article at all in an elaborated prose manner. And I cannot possibly support opening up an opportunity for a blanket removal such that Changi Airport does not mention Changi Airport MRT station at all, or that Trafford Centre does not include The Trafford Centre tram stop, per WP:COMMONSENSE if not for anything else. S5A-0043🚎(Talk)02:59, 29 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Comment - While this info may be relevant and DUE to include in the article, the infobox is different. The infobox should be summarising key details, not trying to cram in the whole article. Detail like this can be included in the body of the article without having to be in the infobox. Of course - if it isn't in the article body (and appropriately referenced) then it shouldn't be in the infobox either).Nigel Ish (talk) 09:23, 29 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Remove in most cases. In some cases the transit access is noteworthy, such as an arena that has its own subway station directly below it, a college that has a train station named for it, an airport where its integration into the transit network is key to its purpose. But in most cases these infobox params are heavily overused, being used to just note the nearest transit access that might be blocks away. Helpful if you're trying to navigate to that location, but not encyclopedic. See for example Washington Monument, which links to a metro station hundreds of yards away, or The Cloisters, which links 2 subway stations that are half a mile away and 3 bus lines that happen to pass nearby. Toohool (talk) 16:12, 31 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
As a note to anyone else who misreads as I did "remove" is not being used here to mean "remove the parameter", rather "keep the parameter but remove most uses of it in articles". Thryduulf (talk) 16:36, 31 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Keep This would not be a meaningful improvement and the existing infobox parameters are non-intrusive and would not violate WP:GUIDEBOOK.LivinAWestLife (talk) 10:15, 2 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Suggestion. This is probably not notable as encyclopaedic content but it is useful to some readers. Wikimedia already has a place for this sort of travel information, Wikivoyage. How about we remove it from Wikipedia but routinely link Wikivoyage instead? That way we keep Wikipedia encyclopaedic while still making it easy for people who want that sort of useful information to find it. (BTW, I strongly disagree that listing public transport is in any way promotional. It's not like bigging up a specific taxi company or something.) --DanielRigal (talk) 10:32, 2 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Keep as a small amount of information like this does not make the article a guidebook. We may even have whole articles about bus stops, and most train stations and airports. When there are topics not notable in themselves, but supported by stuiable sources, then it can be included. Mentioning a provider name is not promotion if the coverage is due. So for example if one bus company is mentioned, then perhaps all the others should be included. But for a parking lot, perhaps we don't need to mention that it is operated by Wilson Parking. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:55, 2 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Keep both the transit and parking parameter (which perhaps would have benefited from a separate thread) per the arguments above — this is significant encyclopedic information that meets WP:LEADWEIGHT in some but not all circumstances, and it should be retained so it can be used in those circumstances. It does not inherently make Wikipedia promotional or a guidebook. I will note that the parking parameter, at least at {{Infobox building}}, is explicitly scoped to on-site parking, not nearby unaffiliated parking, and this ought to be the case anywhere the parking parameter is used. Sdkbtalk20:30, 14 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Replace the link “Content portals” with “Wikiprojects” in Main Page
Since 2017, The portal space continually lose space on Wikipedia, motivated by low readership and poor maintenance, WP:PWP and Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Portals#Community_discussion_recommended were ignored by the community. Analyze this graph . Portals have been losing views in the last years. There have been many discussions about this, but the fact is that, after years, the status quo of the portal space, a skeuomorphic version of 1990s websites, remains the same. It is unclear what the purpose of this tool and the attempts to improve the portals don't seem to be moving in a solid direction (transclusions, for example, have solved some problems and created others).
Wikipedia:Contents/Portals is itself a very outdated page in terms of layout and content when compared to the others linked in the same template. Its last edition was in 2022, while the others have had recent editions, and unlike the others it doesn't use any modern styling tools like .css.
Wikiprojects are also largely neglected, but on the other hand, they do not face the same existential crisis as the portals, with many users calling for their elimination. And they have never been given a prominent spot on the main page. Some users felt that linking to them on the main page might be a good idea and could help revitalize the space.
Per Wikipedia:Portal#Purposes of portals"Providing bridges between reading and editing, and between the encyclopedia proper and the Wikipedia community, via links to pages in project space...", Portals are failing miserably in their mission, so this proposal serves to disintermediate, directing readers from the main page directly to the Wikiprojects.
Support either, with a preference for 1. WikiProjects can get editors engaged by helping them find a sense of community, and are generally much more active than portals. The directory would help prospective editors find relevant WikiProjects faster instead of having to go through the information page (more disintermediation). Chaotic Enby (in solidarity · talk · contribs) 18:43, 10 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Lean oppose. I'll be honest, I find portal somewhat baffling and don't spend much time with them. That said, the pageviews statistics you shared shows that all of these continue to get >2,000 views/month, which is more than many articles. WikiProjects serve a strictly behind-the-scenes purpose. Some WikiProject pages provide something of an overview of their content area but most don't. I don't follow the logic that WikiProjects are a good replacement for Portals on the main page, but perhaps there are separate arguments to add the project links. Outlines strike me as a better replacement for Portals, though these have their problems and detractors, too, and I'm not necessarily suggesting this. —Myceteae🌈 (talk) 01:40, 11 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Hiding our "behind-the-scenes" pages is exactly what worries me, as it creates an artificial wall between readers and editors. Why shouldn't readers get to know how the encyclopedia is made and how they can help too? Chaotic Enby (in solidarity · talk · contribs) 08:02, 11 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I have some initial reservations about sending tons of new editors to WikiProjects but I'm open to the idea and broadly supportive of increasing participation. In one of the discussions that the OP linked (Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 79#WikiProjects in Main Page) the handful of participants seemed more or less supportive of linking WikiProjects on Main but the conversation stalled in discussing issues that may or may not need to be addressed prior to publicizing the projects in this way. Editors there noted that WikiProjects (like Portals) have varying degrees of maintenance and activity and that there are two different directories (Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory and Wikipedia:WikiProject Directory) which might be linked to. Both directories were felt to (possibly) be in need of cleanup and it was not clear which would be better to link to from Main. It was noted that publicizing WikiProjects on Main could be broadly aligned with the WikiProjects 2.0 objectiveWikipedia-wide recommitment to WikiProjects. After leaving my initial response, I read WP:PWP and some of the other essays and discussions on the topic of Portals. I was largely responding to the framing—that WikiProjects are a substitute for Portals and that we should link to one or the other from Main. I would decouple the decisions and assess the merits of linking to project and Portals independently. For some editors, part of the assessment may be that WikiProjects and Portals accomplish similar goals and linking both is redundant if one does so better. But I see them as having quite different functions and purposes and don't think it should be one or the other. If Portals are such a mess, we shouldn't link to them regardless of whether there is a replacement. If the goal is to find a replacement then Wikipedia:Contents or Wikipedia:Contents/Outlines seem more similar in function and purpose. If editors want to promote WikiProjects in this way, we should move that discussion forward whether or not we continue to link Portals. —Myceteae🌈 (talk) 14:56, 11 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
From the last big discussion about Wikipedia:Contents, the impression seems to be that the community does not know what to do with it as a whole. How do the pae views for portals compare with the Contents pages in general? Separately to portals, I'm hesitant to promote WikiProjects as many of those are dead too. CMD (talk) 02:34, 11 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Support any, 1 is the best. First of all, some seem to have brought up other Wikipedia's, but we are our own project and really the information brought up is tangential. Secondly, portals are an absolute confusing mess (built on the WikiProject system which is already a bit messy and has been proposed major changes many times over the years) that aren't really helpful. I can find out about things similar to what I am reading, by, ya'know, clicking the blue links everywhere. Ilov3gam3z (talk) 11:55, 12 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. It may be instructive to look at the main page of other wikipedias.
French has a link to Portails thématiques top and centre in the header (where English Wikipedia's portal links used to be)
German links to its eight top level portals such as Geographie, bold top and centre
Spanish has a main page box listing and linking to over 50 of its main portals
Dutch links its top ten portals in the header, with a bold link to their portal of the week
Portuguese links to the a list of portals and directly to its nine broadest portals
English already makes portals far harder to find than in other major wikipedias (hence the lower page views), and there's no reason to hide them further. Certes (talk) 17:35, 11 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
here 
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Fair enough. It's still OK if I try to watch the page to help too? 7amithorn solidarity|talk|stats 05:17, 8 June 2026 (UTC)
Self-trout
In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 21:58, 12 June 2026 (UTC)
12th & Imperial 
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:archive.today guidance § Wrap standalone, blacklisted link. Dw31415 (talk) 20:53, 13 June 2026 (UTC)