Edit check/Ideas
Edit Check is an effort to offer people actionable feedback about Wikipedia policies while they are editing. The initial "check" will prompt people to decide whether the new content they are intent on publishing warrants an inline citation.
This page intended to be a gathering place for future "checks" for volunteers and staff to consider implementing.
Places to look
[edit]This section contains places to look for additional check ideas:
- Edit notices (e.g. en:Template:Editnotice templates)
- en:Wikipedia:Core content policies
- en: Wikipedia:Database reports
- Abuse filters
- Maintenance tags
- Guidance pages
- In-line comments
- In-line cleanup tags (en.wiki)
- Wikipedia:Template index/User talk namespace
Check ideas
[edit]On the "Edit Check" platform
[edit]Edit checks are specific feedback about a range in the document with an actionable response, suitable to be displayed in the edit check sidebar, e.g. "You added this text without a citation: would you like to add a citation?"
| Scenario | Ticket | Relevant policy/guideline | Impact | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Make people aware when there are inconsistencies within an article. E.g. the article text says one thing and the tables within it say another. | This idea prompted by the investigation User:CLo (WMF) did with ChatGPT to identify what – if any – inconsistencies ChatGPT could identify within the en:Reese's Pieces | ||||
| Make people aware of the state/healthy of the links present within a page. E.g. might the link be dead? might the link be a redirect? Might the link be LLM-generated? | Inspired by Link-dispenser by User:Sohom Datta and en:User:Dispenser/Checklinks by User:Dispenser | ||||
| Make people aware when articles contain outdated information and/or omit reliable information | T399781 | Check existing articles with support of AI regarding correctness and up-to-dateness via User:M2k~dewiki | |||
| When someone attempts to publish a new article that might have been authored by an LLM, prompt them to confirm the extent to which this might be and/or silently tag said edits so that patrollers/reviewers can know to investigate them further. | Wishes/Automatic updated list of newly created articles possibly generated by artificial intelligence via User: M2k~dewiki | ||||
| Present a suggestion/notice when the text that is included within a Wikipedia article does not appear to be backed up the source associated with said text. | T399642: [Signal] Identify cases where reference does not support published claim | Wikipedia:Verifiability | |||
| When someone with a potential conflict of interest is editing, prompt them to decide whether such a conflict exists and if so, to disclose it following the process defined at the project they are | Wikidata:Conflict of interest | Potential signals: IP range someone is editing from, the first time someone is editing that past experience has caused patrollers/reviewers to perceive as being more likely to elicit edits from people with conflicts of interest.
Also: maybe the "resolution" path here could be someone being directed to start a discussion about the edit they're wanting to make per on-wiki policy. | |||
| Use machine learning to identify people who might be contributing/writing in a language they are not fluent in/native with and offer the opportunity to tag their edit for someone else to review | en:WP:GOCE | via User:RoySmith | |||
|
Via User:Levivich (source) | ||||
| When language that might be difficult for people who read at certain levels/are new to a certain topic, suggest they consider revising the language to be easier to understand. | This ideas prompted by the idea Sohom Datta shared in this discussion. | ||||
| Inform people if they attempt to link to a dead link. Alternatively, suggest people to label and/or replace a dead-link when it exists within an existing Wikipedia article. | Via User:Mako001 in this discussion. | ||||
| When someone adds new content (with a reference), and the source does not support the statement to an acceptable level, they are prompted to re-evaluate the source, find a better one or update the content. | See ProVe a project that allows improving reference quality on Wikidata item statements, based on content and source similarity score. | ||||
| Prompt people to consider removing gendered terms when they are detected | T393135 |  | |||
When someone attempts to publish a new article using ContentTranslation that:
|
We need to investigate the extent to which the Content Translation, as currently implemented, is capable of leveraging the Edit Check platform | ||||
| Surface an optional Check when a page contains broken URLs |   | ||||
| Someone attempts to replace the lead image in article (e.g. en:Cats) without first discussing this change on the article's talk page | Article-level consensus | ||||
| Prompt people attempting to publish an edit that includes links generated by ChatGPT and other LLMs | Prevalence at en.wiki |
| |||
| Prompt people attempting to include mis-/disinformation in the new content they are contributing. | Could leverage meta:Eno-Prompt? | ||||
| Reference Check
Person attempts to publish an edit that adds new information without a reference to help people verify its legitimacy. |
T331946 | WP:Citing sources |  Deployed
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| Link Check
Person is attempting to link to an external domain that volunteers at a given project have deemed to be spam/vandalistic |
T350074 | Deployed
|
Related:T276857, Wish: Warn when adding a url reference that matches the SpamBlacklist | ||
| Prompt people publishing edits with edit summaries that are not sufficiently descriptive | See more context in T54174#10472996 | ||||
| Paste Check
Prompt people who are pasting text into an article to confirm the content is not at risk of creating a copyright violation.[1][2] |
T359107 | T376064 |  In developement {{T359107
|
This could also be relevant to "Adds a very long quote (likely a summary style violation, if not also a copyright one)" | |
| Paste check
When someone pastes contents not in the wiki's language, which is not coming from another Wikipedia, ask them to remove it. |
Some wikis detect when the content added is not in the local language (example). | ||||
| Person is attempting to publish a new article without sufficient references | In developement
|
Related: Growth/Article creation for new editors, en:WikiProject Articles for creation: Difference between revisions | |||
| Peacock Check
Prompt people who are adding text to a Wikipedia article that other people are likely to perceive as non-neutral/promotional/etc. |
phab:T376213 | Words to watch, Neutral point of view | Investigation: T371158 | In developement
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| Caption check
Prompt people to add a caption when they attempt to add a new image that lacks one |
T374066 | Proof of concept: userscript | |||
| When I add an image to a Wikipedia article, I want to know when I am placing an image in a location that differs from what volunteers expect | Wikidata:Accessibility., en:WP:MoS/Images | ||||
| Prompt people attempting to add content that is written by/copied from an LLM. | T379908 | ||||
| Facts added to infoboxes must be sourced or connected to sourced contents in the article body. | Worth touching on WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE on the editing screen? | ||||
| When someone pastes content from another Wikipedia that is written in a language different from the Wikipedia they are pasting said content into, offer them the ability to translate the text they are pasting. Also works for typed text (English used on Scots Wikipedia for instance.) | This would function more like a suggestion than it would a Check. | ||||
| Display check when you edit part of an article that has a large consensus. | "Please do not replace the last "e" in "Beyonce" with the accented "é". Texas birth certificates don't allow accented letters." (source) | ||||
| Users inserts an external link over a piece of text, instead of creating a footnote. | Example | ||||
| If someone attempts to cite Wikipedia as a reference using Citoid, prompt them to consider creating a wikilink instead. | T95390 | 21% of 207 new content edits that included a reference to another Wikipedia articles were reverted. Learn more in T346982#9364769. | |||
| Prompt people attempting to use emojis, ™ and ® symbols, or similar, in either article text or citations, to consider removing them before publishing an edit per en:WP:MOSTM. | Similar policies exist at the following wikis: es.wiki, tr.wiki, vi.wiki, and zh.wiki. | ||||
| Person is attempting to add an image that they may not have 1) created or 2) received approval from the creator to publish | See how disproportionate amount of images deleted from Commons originate via cross-wiki uploads | ||||
| Person is attempting to use title case in a context where sentence case is preferred. | See example edit and subsequence discussion. | ||||
| Person is attempting to publish a new article with a disproportionally large number of external links in the body | |||||
| Adds a redlinked entry to a dynamic list | |||||
| Adds an image lacking alt text to an article related to accessibility, e.g. Blindness | See Wikimedia Apps/iOS Suggested edits project/Alt Text Experiment# | ||||
| Links to a projectspace page from the mainspace body of an article | |||||
| Links to a disambiguation page from an article body | In developement
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| Uses a word from a variety of language different from the one the article is tagged as having (British/American English, France/Canada French...) | |||||
| Uses a word that is likely a typo | |||||
| Adds a section titled "criticism" or "controversy" | |||||
| Adds a link to an article that is already linked in that section (very likely a WP:DUPLINK violation) | |||||
| Adds a reference with the same URL as an existing reference (likely a duplicate) | |||||
| Uses a relative time word like "recently" in an article body | MOS:RELTIME | ||||
| Adds a reference containing only a bare URL | In developement
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| When people fail to format dates in the way the consensus on a page specifies, present people with a suggestion that invites them to convert the date they've written into the desired format. | See conversation at en.wiki (via @Sdkb) | ||||
| Adds an external link in an article body | T376518 | WP:EL | |||
| Adds many entries to an external links section (likely a violation of WP:ELNO) | |||||
| Uses a phrase indicative of likely promotional language (e.g. "mission statement", "award-winning") | T365301 | ||||
| Expands a section titled "Plot" beyond, say, 1400 words (recommend max length is 700) | |||||
| Uses a word or phrase listed at MOS:Words to Watch | |||||
| Adds a link to a word that is likely an overlink (e.g. a year, or a major country/language/ethnicity/etc.) | |||||
| Adds an image gallery to an article on an ethnicity (likely a violation of MOS:PEOPLEGALLERY) | |||||
| Adds a short description longer than 40 characters (see WP:SDSHORT) | |||||
| Adds a very long quote (likely a summary style violation, if not also a copyright one) | |||||
| Adds an article to a category when the article is already in a subcategory | |||||
| Capitalize titles, or add bold to titles. | |||||
| Link target is changed, but not the label ([[2023]] → [[2022|2023]]) | Some wikis have an Abuse Filter for these cases (example). | ||||
| Edit tries to create a footnote using superscript | Example, where <sup>3</sup> à Lorgues<sup>4</sup><sup>5</sup> was used.
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| Edit tries to add image inline (i.e.without specifying a format parameter (should be customizable to without specifying thumb nor frameless)) | w:Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)#Warning when transcluding images of a certain size or higher, w:Wikipedia:Edit filter/Requested#Warn on inline image usage | ||||
| Someone replies to a please see invitation | w:WP:TALKCENT | ||||
| Someone adds a citation with a Newspapers.com link that uses an image (accessible only to people with a Newspapers.com subscription) rather than a clipping (accessible to everyone) | w:WP:Newspapers.com |
Elsewhere
[edit]| Scenario | Ticket | Relevant policy/guideline | Impact | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reference Reliability Check
Person is attempting to cite a source that experienced volunteers/moderators are likely to consider unreliable |
T276857 | Deployed
|
(The deployed form of this isn't an "edit check" because it's a custom implementation within the reference dialog.) | ||
| Inform a user creating an article if the article was previously deleted. | Users highlight the fact that VE hides the information about previously deleted articles.
This would be interesting to have if the reason of the deletion is clear, and it is not shown as a simple blocker. | ||||
Editor changes a short description manually set to |
T297928, T326898, T341406, T365785 et al.; § Worth implementing short description guidance, e.g. WP:SDNONE? | en:WP:SDNONE | Junior and app editors frequently misunderstand the purpose of Wikipedia:Short descriptions, and treat them as obligatory subtitles | ||
| Might we be able to present a Check/Suggestion when an article may be too heavily depending on a single source? | |||||
| Display check at the beginning of the editing experience to remind some specific instructions about the article (BLP, ...). | |||||
| Live Edit check when an action is performed on the page you are currently editing (other edit, revert...). | |||||
| Live Edit check when someone posts a message at your talk page about the article you are currently editing. | The idea is:
| ||||
| When someone is creating a new article that they have not yet added to any categories, invite/suggest they do so. | Automatically suggest categories when creating a new article | Via @HappyMihilist | |||
| When someone creates a new article that exists within another Wikipedia language version, invite them to link the two. | Autosuggest linking Wikidata item after creating an article | Via@Kwgulden | |||
| Person is about to break the three-revert rule | Via Samwalton9 (WMF). Note: this intervention would require Edit Check work within source editing interfaces, which it currently does not. | ||||
| Use a word or phrase indicating a likely personal attack on a talk page | |||||
| Creates a new section on a talk page with the same title as a recent discussion started by the same editor elsewhere (possibly a talk fork)) | T337360 | ||||
| A new user makes an edit that looks significant, but does not include an edit summary | This could help significantly with improving communication with newcomers , making it less likely for them to have negative experiences. |