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If we allow AI-generated Wikipedia articles we'll increase the digital knowledge divide
Discussion:AI slop is flooding the internet, and it is harder and harder to find reliable information. The digital divide of the future will be between people who can afford to pay for high quality, fact-checked content, and people who only have access to cheap, AI-generated texts full of hallucinations, promotional content and scams. In this world, the Wikipedia must remain a reliable and trustworthy source that is free to all users. To stay reliable, the Wikipedia has to keep relying on human editing, because LLMs are not reliable and they are not accountable for the words they generate. Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2026-01-15/Special report argues that using LLMs will help Wikipedia serve the Global South better. I disagree - to use LLMs means we will lower quality to the extent that the Wikipedia will lose its role as a reliable encyclopedia accessible to anyone. I'm both a Wikipedia editor and a professor doing research on LLMs and their cultural effect so would like to write something about this if it seems suitable for the Signpost. Lijil (talk) 20:33, 18 January 2026 (UTC)reply
@Lijil: Thanks for your submission. Yes, it seems that for the foreseeable future, Signpost readers want and will react to perspectives on AI.
Thank you so much for making this submission. If you drafted anything, then I think you would be the first person with professional expert insight into this, and I would be delighted to help you get something to reviewers. This is a standing offer. Our next issue is in 10 days, but we are always publishing, so take the time that you want.
I apologize for the delay in getting back to you but I think just now, we have cleared our submissions backlog, and you have our editorial attention now.
I appreciate your strong opinions. Feel free to take this in the direction you like, whether a soap box for making bold claims, or reacting to anything else, as long or as short of a piece as you like. I think it would mean a lot to readers to get any sort of input from a person who edits Wikipedia, but who also has research insight into the broad effects of LLMs. Thanks for considering and let me know how I or the other editors can support you. Feel free to start drafting. Bluerasberry (talk)20:38, 17 March 2026 (UTC)reply
Great, thank you! I'll try to draft something in the next few days - not sure I can get anything ready soon enough for the next issue but definitely want to do this. What is the ideal word count? Lijil (talk) 07:47, 18 March 2026 (UTC)reply
@Lijil: 1000 words is a good length for an op-ed. We have plenty of shorter and longer submissions, but for this audience, it is reasonable to expect people to read submissions of that length. Bluerasberry (talk)14:13, 18 March 2026 (UTC)reply
Discussion: I don't have a page to show for this yet, since it's mostly an idea that I'd like feedback on before starting to write (apologies if this is in the wrong place): I had an idea of writing a short report on how NYT Games (like the crosswords, Wordle, and Connections) drive Wikipedia article views. For example, when myrrh was the Wordle answer on 19 December 2025, the pageviews report shows a massive spike due to a decent amount of people being unfamiliar with the word. I like looking at statistics and I play NYT Games a lot, so I'd enjoy writing it, but I don't know if people would enjoy reading it, so I'd like feedback before committing to writing. (It's possible it could focus on other platforms as well as NYT Games, to avoid seeming promotional, but I'm not familiar with others and NYT Games is the most popular by far afaik.) Suntooooth, it/he (talk | contribs) 20:30, 5 February 2026 (UTC)reply
@Suntooooth: Sure, we can find a way to publish that. This is a secret so do not tell anyone, but Signpost editor Bri has a new Signpost crossword game in development at User:Bri/Signpost. If you can get a draft of something going, then your story and the presentation of this new Signpost crossword could coincide. Also, if you have any interest in being a contributing editor for Signpost crossword Wikipedia clues, then I think there is an opening for a crossword fan.
@Suntooooth: You are still welcome to make a submission on this topic. There is no rush, and this is a standing offer. We accept modest submissions of a few paragraphs and 1-2 pics from Commons. Your topic is interesting and fits, so please draft if you like. Bluerasberry (talk)15:18, 21 February 2026 (UTC)reply
Thanks for the reminder - I'd love to be working on it, but IRL factors mean it might take a while. I'm most likely to get it done for the issue after next, but we'll see - could be sooner, could be later. Suntooooth, it/he (talk | contribs) 17:21, 21 February 2026 (UTC)reply
The data collection and processing seems reasonable, but the article feels like it's lacking some analysis of the findings. The findings are not particularly surprising--overrepresentation of sports biographies (and to a lesser extent, politicians) are a likely explanation for the prominence of small countries in the biography dataset, which is a hypothesis that you should be able to test with only a small amount of additional work. Meanwhile, underrepresented regions continue to be underrepresented. It would perhaps be more interesting to include analysis of how this likelihood varies between male and female biographies, given the extensive literature and awareness of the overrepresentation of men in Wikipedia biography (again, partially impacted by our sports coverage, and getting clearer numbers on what the discrepancies look like for specific categories of persons could be interesting). Another interesting area for further investigation would be examining results for countries that run counter to the trend, either in terms of going against the grain in terms of their inherent characteristics vis-a-vis sources of bias (e.g., if Africa is underrepresented and small countries are over-represented, how do biographies from small countries in Africa like Djibouti, Eritrea or Eswatini fare? Etc.) or in terms of interesting outliers that pop up in the data. signed, Rosguilltalk17:24, 7 May 2026 (UTC)reply
Thanks for your feedback.
You suggest the numbers are unsurprising, but I believe they are genuinely novel. I am not aware of any study that has computed the ratio of biographies per number of births for each country. What strikes me most is the sheer scale of the difference between the top and bottom of the distribution. A factor of 1,000 is quite remarkable.
Since we are looking at country of birth rather than country of citizenship or residence, I don't see why the proportion of notable individuals would be systematically higher in Monaco, San Marino, Liechtenstein, and Nauru than in any other country.
To dig deeper, I put together a new notebook to browse the list of people born in these countries:
That said, you raise a valid point. I could go further in analysing the results and provide more detail on the differences across the 10 Wikipedia editions included in the study. PAC2 (talk) 05:10, 14 May 2026 (UTC)reply
Update: After more investigation, I think you're intuition about athletes is true. Even in San Marino, it seems that there is a relatively important number of athletes. They may have a biography because they have represented their country in international competitions. PAC2 (talk) 06:49, 15 May 2026 (UTC)reply
I would rather leave that for an editor intending to actually thoroughly review and stage the article for publication, as my comments were just suggestions based on the general content and direction of the article. signed, Rosguilltalk19:22, 8 June 2026 (UTC)reply
@PAC2: I have your article staged at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/By the numbers. Publication is not set, but may be in 2-4 weeks. It has been a while since you made this submission - can I put this through the editorial process for the next issue?
Minor things -
Do you want to have an image further up?
Can you improve the citations, so that all of them have as much citation metadata as is reasonable?
Do you have a formatting opinion about the centering or width or placement of your images and tables?
Can you expand your explanation of methods, and possibly even have a methods section? You have a mix of explanation across the introduction and data collection section. Perhaps rename "data collection" to "method" and explain the full method there?
Beside me I need review from other editors. I see you have not edited in two weeks, so if now is not the time, we can postpone longer. Overall I am happy with the submission but I do like to make Signpost stories as clear as possible as we get so many newscomers. Thanks for submitting. Bluerasberry (talk)13:58, 25 August 2026 (UTC)reply
Why Wiki wouldn't get off the ground today and why it's nosediving
@BlueRockThrush: The next issue is in 2-4 weeks. I put a template around your article. Can you add images, fill in the header template, and give a go at making your text fit this format? I hope that doing this will not take you more than 30 minutes, but if it does, then ping me and I will help with that. Following that, I will stage it for review by other editors.
Thanks for submitting. If you can, then can you solicit your own pre-review from any Wikimedian you know or from a public forum? It helps to get review especially on community issues before this arrives to the Signpost's own editorial team. Thanks. Bluerasberry (talk)15:58, 13 July 2026 (UTC)reply
@Bluerasberry: I've done what I've been able to figure out. I can't get rid of the Canadian thing and the very top item for title, that displays as "... has no title defined." I can't figure that one out either. If you could fix those two things, we'd be on the right path. Thanks for helping. I don't have any wiki friends, so I've asked Risker, the person in the signpost page just above me, to look at it. BlueRockThrush (talk) 22:30, 13 July 2026 (UTC)reply
Partly done: I have changed the title, it is throwing an error, but that is because the tile is the same as the name of the subpage which should be fixed once this article is staged. I think this could make a great opinion piece (: Mitchsavl (talk) 10:11, 14 July 2026 (UTC)reply
Risker said she doesn't have time to do it. She did say it's a good article for SignPost, see her talk page. I've now asked Wehwalt because I saw an FA of his.BlueRockThrush (talk) 15:42, 14 July 2026 (UTC)reply
Having read this submission, I would oppose publication in its current state. The Signpost has published on this topic multiple times in the past 6 months ([1], [2]). This new piece doesn't really say anything new, and it's not in dialogue with these prior pieces and their arguments, nor with the additional comments and criticism raised in response to these pieces in the comments section. signed, Rosguilltalk16:20, 14 July 2026 (UTC)reply
Discussion: This coverage is about the 2026 Summer Archives and Open Knowledge Faculty Fellowship which is supporting 4 full-time teaching faculty members to expand the use Wikimedia platforms at CUNY in the Fall 2026 semester, part of the CUNY Newmark Wikimedian-in-Residence program. Not sure what column this fits in. Should it be included in Recent research? Or Community view? Or somewhere else? -Wil540 art (talk) 03:14, 17 July 2026 (UTC)reply
It should not be in Recent research, though Community view could suit. Perhaps The Signpost could use a dedicated column for things like this, I would describe this as a Community program, as far as I am aware, there is nothing that would prevent the creation of a new column, though sticking with the more common ones is probably preferable. Mitchsavl (talk) 06:14, 23 July 2026 (UTC)reply
@Mitchsavl Thank you for the suggestion. I'm open to creating a Community program column or using Community view. There are lots of Wiki-activities I could report on that I think readers would be interested to learn about. @Bri, @Bluerasberry, @jpxg, @Smallbones, any thoughts here on the appropriate column or creating a new one? - Wil540 art (talk) 15:32, 23 July 2026 (UTC)reply
The essay will define who our target audiences are, how we are responsible for our target audiences and why we are not responsible for non-target audiences, and what we should do to promote the Wikimedia movement to non-target audiences so that they eventually join to become our target audiences. The choice of the broader word "reader" rather than "target audience" in the title is intentional to emphasize the main ideas of the essay: (1) how we should set up our editorial rules and write article content as if our target audiences are the only readers; and (2) how we are still responsible to non-target audiences to some extent in promoting the movement.There are plenty of existing examples showing that we do not serve readers who have expectations contradictory to our core values and the five pillars, including enthusiastic fans and those who pay excessive attention to breaking news. Using these examples, I will elaborate on why and how we should write articles disregarding non-target audiences, while using those articles as an example of applied information literacy and Wikimedia movement values as a means to advocate for our movement. As a bonus, I will further discuss why there is no exception to the rule that all editors must be readers.I originally planned this essay for the Chinese Wikipedia, where awareness of target audiences is so low that improper concerns are often given undue weight. However, I decided to first write the essay for The Signpost to promote such awareness across the global Wikimedia movement and to gather more opinions before formally introducing the concept to the Chinese Wikipedia.(AI usage disclosure: I will use LLMs for minor grammatical, logical and structal improvements, adhereing to the policy on LLMs in article-space usage. No contents will be generated directly. Please let me know if there are additional requirements on the Signpost.)1F616EMO (talk) 04:34, 19 August 2026 (UTC)reply
@1F616EMO: I appreciate you making the submission proposal and you can use AI in the way that you described.
A minor requirement for submissions is that Signpost articles need more or more images or media files to go with them. I am telling you this now, because for this submission, the choice of image may not be obvious. Please find images.
If you like, you can submit an earlier, shorter draft of your submission for feedback from other editors. Your idea is certainly timely, and I think readers do want this.
Although the focus of Signpost is English Wikipedia, we cover Wikimedia projects globally, and you certainly are welcome to describe, mention, or compare readership of Chinese Wikipedia.
Personally, I really appreciate submissions and stories which address big strategic issues, like future directions and what we should value, so I like your concept. Please draft a bit and let me know how I can support. When you have something, I will bring it to the other editors. Bluerasberry (talk)23:51, 24 August 2026 (UTC)reply
Editorially, can I ask that you make an attempt to call out some projects associated with fandoms? WP:Video games is one of the most popular WikiProjects, for example, and commons:Category:Fandom leads to lots of content. Tell me briefly about connections to existing wiki-fandom connections, and confirm to me that you have looked for popular fandom-development projects in Wikimedia projects and tried to make connections in this article.
Hello @Bluerasberry, Nope, I didn't use LLM to write the base article or article itself! though I got really confused when you asked me that, cause why would you ask that, when I read after writing it for the first time, I thought it was so good! so I went to re-read my article (and also to do your suggestion!) and after reading some.. I was like holy shit, this looks so sterotypical, holy forking shirt balls!, which after sitting in my living room and considering my life, who I am, and everything about myself up to that point; the reason I didn't notice this at first was probably what they say about You would see mona lisa in your first try!..welp. I assume why it looked like that was beacuse I used phrases like "grab them from their ankles and run-a-marathon with it!" mixed as my somewhat pathetic try to fix grammar by and 2. how disconnected the article was. You're right, this article is too surface leveled, it looks like what would came out if you asked a bot to write the most basic concept of this. I edited to make it look better, I still keep my fun phrases (cause I'd rather die than remove them), I also used a mix of CSS and HTML which after looking a while, I somewhat realized "hey mate! this ain't the knuckleist" so I just removed it mostly.
For the second and other suggestion, thanks a lot' mate! I kind of feel a bit consious since looking back.. this article was really bad..how did I even submit it like this?
About your editorial suggestion
Hello, to improve the article I added context and called out several fandom project as you said, hopefully; that being said, this article on its own meant to provide a starter look on our reletionship with the fandoms, so it still may be a bit surface level. Let me know how it looks now! I have also did grammar corrections cause looks like copyedit wasn't great either and article had some grammatical errors. Thank you. :) 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕮𝖆𝖙𝕻𝖊𝖓𝖈𝖎𝖑 𝕿𝖎𝖒𝖊𝖘 (talk) 14:27, 25 August 2026 (UTC)reply
Partly done: I have changed the title, it is throwing an error, but that is because the tile is the same as the name of the subpage which should be fixed once this article is staged. I think this could make a great opinion piece (: Mitchsavl (talk) 10:11, 14 July 2026 (UTC)
