Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines

"blank"

@Moxy:, I'm confused by your edit that added "blank" here:

Never blank, edit, or move someone's comment to change its meaning, even on your own talk page.

Blanking can't change a comment's meaning, and editors are permitted to blank (remove) comments on their own talk pages. Schazjmd (talk) 16:32, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Removing someone reply would be the worst example of mocking about with someones comments. This should be clear to all. eg. Trying to change the look of how a talk evolves is very grievous.Moxy🍁 16:36, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree that there should be wording to explicitly prohibit removing others' comments on talk pages (except the user's own talk page and except in the cases listed in the exceptions subsection). I don't agree with adding "blank" to that sentence. Schazjmd (talk) 16:54, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

What do you propose? link like we do with WP:3RRNO. Say ..."With the exception of user talk pages removing others' comments is prohibit if they do not violate scenarios outlined above." Moxy🍁 17:07, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for making it a separate sentence; I've tweaked the wording. I'm not sure that it currently captures all of the exceptions though. Schazjmd (talk) 17:28, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

FWIW, the present verbiage apparently technically proscribes the fairly ubiquitous practice of quietly removing drive-by comments by anonymous editors that aren't clearly WP:NOTFORUM but are clearly merely clutter. Remsense ‥ 论 12:41, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Clarification on Editing others' comments

The section currently states, "Never edit or move someone's comment to change its meaning, even on your own talk page. Removing others' comments is prohibited, except on one's own user talk page." These two statements seem to contradict each other, the only distinction being the first refers to editing or moving and the second refers to removing. Wouldn't removing a comment be considered an edit? Ghost writer's cat (talk) 05:03, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

If it's on your own talk page, you can choose to remove it. —Bagumba (talk) 10:57, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I consider user talk pages to be the wiki equivalent of voice mail on a phone.

On my own phone, I am free to delete messages I no longer need.

I would never delete or amend the messages on someone else’s phone (without permission). Blueboar (talk) 12:08, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Editing someone else's comment changes its meaning. Removing it does not do this. CMD (talk) 12:49, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

URL formatting

Is it acceptable to change other editor's comments from URLS to WL formatting? For instance, is changing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About to Wikipedia:About acceptable? Same for diffs. A lot of the time I see links like this, and clicking on the links sends me to the mobile view (m.en.wikipedia) when it's just an on-wiki link easily expressable in WL formatting. Departure– (talk) 16:13, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Unless you have personal experience with the editor in question that leads you to believe they wouldn't mind, it may be better to provide the alternate link in a separate comment. isaacl (talk) 16:17, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Striking and collapsing obvious LLM-generated comments

The request for comment at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 199 § LLM/chatbot comments in discussions, closed in January, showed consensus that "it is within admins' and closers' discretion to discount, strike, or collapse obvious use of generative LLMs or similar AI technologies". This should be reflected in the talk page guidelines, because the described situation is becoming quite common and it is inconvenient to locate an archived village pump RfC every time this consensus needs to be referenced elsewhere.

I propose adding the following bullet point into Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines § Examples of appropriately editing others' comments:

• LLM-generated comments: Comments that are obviously generated by a large language model (LLM) or similar AI technology may be struck or collapsed by administrators and discussion closers.

— Newslinger talk 19:39, 23 May 2025 (UTC) Edited 05:33, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

I support this addition, and I would actually take it further, by omitting "by administrators and discussion closers". I think anyone should be able to do that, and given that the need to do it is going to grow dramatically, I think all hands are needed. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:14, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

Agreed. JoelleJay (talk) 23:55, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

Given other examples in WP:COLLAPSENO are not limited to admins, this seems in line with practice. CMD (talk) 05:19, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing up this point. I agree that the limitation is unnecessary and I've struck it from the proposed text. — Newslinger talk 05:33, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

 Done. Thanks for suggesting this. I've added it to the page: [1], with WP:AITALK as a shortcut. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:19, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

In recognition of Folly Mox's suggestion in the village pump RfC, I've also added the WP:HATGPT shortcut in Special:Diff/1292040840. — Newslinger talk 21:40, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

Deletion that isn't deletion

I changed the wording (but not the meaning) of the guideline yesterday to reduce the number of times that the guideline talks about "deletion" of comments when it means "editing" or "removing" or "blanking", instead of WP:Deletion. I find that avoiding the word deletion is clearer, because "removing" contents is less likely to be confused with "find an admin to press the deletion button".

@Peter Gulutzan thinks that this language is not an improvement (nor, I think, does he believe it to make things worse?) and therefore worth reverting, because changes should only happen if they are material improvements, and not if they are neutral changes. What do other people think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:46, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

For me, this is definitely a case of "meh". But I think he has a point, in that there is a plain dictionary meaning of the word, and we aren't confusing anyone into thinking that we are referring to the in-house term of art about page or file deletion. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:50, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

I will chime in, I agree with the position that if an edit does not constitute an improvement, it should be reverted. The alternative actually leads to a nonsensical situation justifying the change to constantly be reverted even though the two editors actually agree and are merely exercising their personal preference. Perhaps a bit more relevant is the idea that the improvement should not be totally based on whim. No doubt, this won't keep people from changing something just because of their personal preference for a particular wording, but it's an effort to set some sort of level of improvement beyond de minimis. Fabrickator (talk) 20:15, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Revert only when necessary disagrees with you. Given a choice between two equally good versions, there's no need to revert. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:47, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

I'm glad that's only an essay. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 21:09, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

There isn't even an essay for the opposite view. What would you even call it? Wikipedia:Please revert all copyediting except when you personally agree that it is a clear improvement? The concept of a wiki (which means "quick"), and of the WP:Be bold principle, is rooted in the idea that making changes, even if they're not "necessary", is ultimately desirable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:15, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

I think that "deletion" is the most common English word for it. I don't think that the other specialized wiki technical meaningS WP:Deletion, Wikipedia:Revision deletion will make them read it otherwise. BTW "blanking" also has a common different Wikipedia meaning. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:32, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing is correct that I do not call the changes "worse", and I cannot think of a decisive PAG reference saying non-improvement is forbidden (WP:EDITING contains words "improve" + "improving" + "improvements" re articles not PAGs). But I don't back off from what I said in my edit summary: The word "delete" is okay, changing a guideline in multiple places, just because there's a deletion policy about something else, is changing without improving. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 21:00, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

What's wrong with "changing without improving"?

More to the point, what's wrong with a change that I believe is a clear improvement, and nobody believes is harmful? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:17, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

Peter, I think you should look at WP:OWNBEHAVIOR, especially these two:

• "An editor disputes minor edits concerning layout, image use, and wording"
• "An editor reverts a change simply because the editor finds it "unnecessary" without claiming that the change is detrimental."

From where I'm sitting, there's not much daylight between what you're doing and what that policy discourages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:20, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

In reality the sentence is: "An editor disputes minor edits concerning layout, image use, and wording in a particular article frequently." Your accusation would be less worthless if I was doing it in a particular article frequently, and if when quoting you didn't omit what doesn't fit your purpose, and if you hadn't edited the guideline far far more often than I have. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 22:46, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

Did you, or did you not, revert a minor change to wording simply because you found it "unnecessary", without claiming that the change is detrimental? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:45, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

I'm not engaging further with you in this thread. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 00:15, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

I actually think this IS an improvement. We “edit” or “change” article text - and that sometimes means “omitting” or “removing” information. We are not “deleting” when we do that. Blueboar (talk) 21:20, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

I think that using a term like "delete a comment" or "delete a post" isn't readily confused with deleting a page, and so there isn't a need to try to avoid confusion that the Wikipedia:Deletion policy applies. Looking at the specific changes, there are three types:

• Replacing "delete" with "remove":
  • The basic rule, with exceptions outlined below, is to not edit or deleteremove others' posts without their permission.
  • DeleteRemove. It is common to simply deleterevert or blank gibberish, test edits, harmful or prohibited material...
  • Once others have replied, or even if no one's replied but it's been more than a short while, if you wish to change or deleteremove your comment...
  • Inserting text without deletingremoving any text is ambiguous, ... This problem can be avoided by deletingremoving one word and then re-inserting it...
  • ...unarchive it by copying it back to the talk page from the archive, and deletingremoving it from the archive.
  • ...Some new users believe they can hide critical comments by deletingremoving them
  For these specific examples, personally I feel the two words are equivalent.
• Replacing "delete" with "revert":
  • DeleteRemove. It is common to simply deleterevert or blank gibberish, test edits, harmful or prohibited material...: personally I think "delete" and "revert" are substantially equivalent in the context of the second sentence
• Replacing "delete" with "blank":
  • Restoration: to restore comments vandalized or accidentally edited or deletedblanked by others.:
  • DeleteRemove. It is common to simply deleterevert or blank gibberish, test edits, harmful or prohibited material...
  • This generally does not extend to messages that are merely uncivil; deletions ofblanking simple invective areis controversial.
  Personally I think "blanked" is a jargon term, so I lean towards using "deleted".

So while I personally wouldn't bother replacing "delete" with "remove", I don't have any strong objection to it. I have a mild preference to use "delete" instead of "revert" in the specific example, as it's the deletion of the content that matters, not whether or not it's removed through an exact revert, but I don't think it matters that much. I personally wouldn't favour "blank"; it has specific connotations about what is left behind and is a jargon term. isaacl (talk) 22:14, 9 June 2025 (UTC)