Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

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Arabic Wikipedia

Hi, sorry to bother everyone but I stumbled address the Arabic Wikipedia and they had a large banner that said something about the Hamas Israel war, and it was like (don’t quote me on this) stop the genocide in Gaza! And I could be wrong I’m not a Wikipedia editor but I was just curious like is this agents policy, like I don’t mind it at all but I was just wondering 2600:6C48:617F:2533:9D74:4184:C6F7:F5D6 (talk) 03:43, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

All language versions of Wikipedia are editorially independent, none of our policies at en.wiki affect ar.wiki and vice versa. CMD (talk) 04:16, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I know this issue has been discussed in places, also in the media, but I don't have any links atm. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:23, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

https://ar.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B5%D9%81%D8%AD%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D8%A6%D9%8A%D8%B3%D8%A9 2600:6C48:617F:2533:55B:74F7:C323:A7C (talk) 20:41, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I think it was this one meta:Requests for comment/Community consensus for blackouts and other advocacy. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:32, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

The phrase "be careful what you wish for" springs to mind. I'm sure that if there was a world-wide vote on the Arabic Wikipedia's definition of neutrality it would not result in the American position being supported. Do the OP and supporters want an anti-genocide message to be displayed on all Wikipedias, including the English and the Hebrew? Phil Bridger (talk) 19:16, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Inexplicably popular article (by views)

Neatsville, Kentucky in April was the 2nd most viewed Kentucky-related article and has been similarly highly viewed for several months. I cannot make sense of this. This is a small unincorporated community in the middle of rural Kentucky. I cannot find any TV show or movie referencing it. It also doesn't make sense that anyone would be gaming this outcome for months (although I suppose this isn't impossible). Am I missing something? Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 21:00, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Fascinating. Two-year pageviews are even higher on average, peaking in mid-2023. I see no news coverage or anything else that would drive this traffic. BD2412 T 21:28, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

The start of this climb in pageviews seems to have been on 24/25 August 2021 ([1]), when daily pageviews climbed from 2 to 410 to 1,717. Perhaps this may narrow the search for what is causing this. Curbon7 (talk) 22:39, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Billy Joe in the same Kentucky county announced he saw a UFO on 8/24. LOL. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 23:47, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Also, nearly all of the traffic coming to the article is from unidentified external routes (which is highly unusual), and there is virtually no traffic from this article to other articles (also highly unusual). BD2412 T 22:02, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Maybe there's a viral post or tweet somewhere with an easter egg? Schazjmd (talk) 22:07, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Possibly. Although I've not heard it, I can easily imagine a meme in which "Neatsville" (a redirect to the article) becomes a trendy term of approval. (Compare Coolsville.) Alternatively, someone may be trying to get it into a most-viewed listing. It would be interesting to know how many different IPs have accessed the article (perhaps counting each IPv6 /64 as one), rather than just the number of hits. Certes (talk) 22:20, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Redirects seem to be negligible in their impact. Unchecking "Include redirects" makes virtually no difference. Regarding someone gaming this, that's an awful lot of such to sustain. Of course, this could be a script disguising itself as a real person. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 22:35, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer on redirects: I hadn't spotted that. Yes, I assumed it was scripted. It does seem erratic and slightly seasonal, with peaks in spring 2023 and 2024, but does not vary much by day of week. Certes (talk) 22:49, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

That crossed my mind, but I think the incoming traffic would be more varied and identifiable for something like that, rather than a dark web monolith (speculation before further details). Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 23:23, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

This sounds like a repeat of Mount Takahe, which also has inexplicably high reader numbers. And like Takahe, Neatsville has fairly average reader numbers when only counting the Mobile App and only slightly elevated reader numbers with by spiders. FWIW, neither News nor Twitter/X show many if any mentions. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:18, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

This is getting really ridiculous. It's skewing statistics, even to the point where new editors are noticing. I don't want make this into some huge problem, but I think "nipping it in the bud" is well called for now. Please admins block the access of this apparent script kiddie. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 21:51, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

I have logged a case in WP:ANI. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 22:10, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Admins do not have the ability to block people from viewing articles, this would have to be handled by the system administrators. You would probably be best filing a ticket on Phabricator, though I'm not sure they'd take action. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 22:53, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure what action can or should be taken. This doesn't seem to be a denial-of-service attack (or, if it is, it's an incredibly lame one). Wikipedia's terms of service don't prevent anyone from viewing pages, even multiple times; in fact it's encouraged. I don't know whether the hosting system can, or should, rate-limit a particular IP address or range, even assuming that most of the unusual traffic comes from one IP or a small range. Certes (talk) 23:13, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. I wouldn't be reporting this as a performance or security issue, but rather a data corruption issue. And I sense this might not be taken very seriously, but I have a thing against the presentation of false data and that in that presentation, the person doing it is getting away with it, possibly encouraging more of this kind of corruption by others. I think it is in our long-run interests to stop it or put some kind of brakes on it. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 23:52, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

If this is due to a malicious botnet, shouldn't you have WMF report this to law enforcement? –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 01:20, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't know if it's malicious. It's just skewing our cumulative views data on a single article. I might rather have an ISP notified if that could be pinned down. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 02:10, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

The internet can be a bit of a wild west sometimes. I don't think calling the police to report a DDOS attack would result in anything. DDOS attacks are usually carried out by hacked zombie computers, and are often transnational. So it's a bit hard to police. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:43, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

An inexplicable steady increase in readership to an article happened one time before, and the explanation was that it had been included as an example/default link somewhere. Will see if I can find the details. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:20, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

That's a possibility if it's not a link from English Wikipedia but another project or website. I had already reviewed EN pages linking to the article and didn't see anything. Thanks for checking. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 23:46, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

It's tempting to put a banner on the top of the article: "Please tell us what brought you to this article" with a link to the talk page, see if any of the 17,000+ readers answer. Schazjmd (talk) 23:49, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Found this through some searching, not really sure where it came from: urlscan1: Kepler's Supernova article, urlscan2: Neatsville, Kentucky article. The scan was for a different url, which redirected to those Wikipedia pages with some (ad tracking?) parameters. – 2804:F1...99:B28F (talk) 05:48, *edited:06:42, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Mind you, the interesting thing would have been to know where that original link was from (possibly emails? unsure) - both were scanned on the 17th of last month and both articles have an increase in views, but without knowing where that's from and if it always redirects there, it doesn't really mean it's even related with the view count unfortunately. – 2804:F1...99:B28F (talk) 06:42, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this here. Is it fair to say that Kepler's Supernova is also getting the same kind of fake views? Or could its extra recent views have a legitimate reason behind it? Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 07:03, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Not that I could find, both noticeably grew in views since April: Kepler's Supernova, Neatsville, Kentucky

According to wikitech:Analytics/AQS/Pageviews#Most viewed articles the most viewed list (same data as the graphs) tries to only count page request from "human users", so it's not clear if the views are fake, though a reason is also not obvious. Do you know why the Neatsville article had similar numbers in from March to June of last year? – 2804:F1...99:B28F (talk) 08:21, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

I have no idea, and I'm in Kentucky. This place really is "in the sticks". Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 08:34, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Talk page for Kepler's Supernova says Publishers Clearing House for some reason included a link to [the page] in email (promoting daily contests) for awhile. Page view patterns are the same as with Neatsville. Not sure if this IP is relevant either 107.128.181.22 (talk) 08:31, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Publishers Clearing House for some reason included a link to [the page] in email (promoting daily contests) for awhile. This seems like the most plausible explanation so far. –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:10, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

I have reported this as a security issue (re: data integrity) to Phabricator. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 06:54, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

It might be very helpful to know how many different IP addresses access the page a lot (say >100 times a day) and whether they're in a single range. Obviously this requires access to non-public information, but it should be safe to pass on a digest with the actual IPs removed. Certes (talk) 11:04, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Help us rename the Community wishlist

Hey folks - WMF is making updates to our Community Wishlist, from making it open year round to prioritizing "focus areas" of user submitted ideas, requests, and bugs that share an underlying problem.

In this process, we've realized we're outgrowing the the name "Community Wishlist Survey" and I wanted to get your feedback on a few other options. We've offered 3 ideas, and if you have another preference, we welcome you to suggest alternatives! JWheeler-WMF (talk) 21:31, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

I suggest you spend all the effort that would be spent on renaming on fulfilling requests on the wishlist. The name doesn't matter, and all of the options are objectively worse. It's a survey of the community about what features they wish existed. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:34, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Can't you see there's important bike-shedding to be done? Jason Quinn (talk) 21:18, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm totally in agreement with SFR. Changing the name is silly, both because it's accurate as is and because it wastes effort which could more profitably be spent writing code to fill more of the wishlist items. RoySmith (talk) 22:18, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

In my opinion, the existing name describes the process clearly and has some recognition. It seems more precise than the other options presented, and I'm unable to come up with a different term which would be an improvement. Certes (talk) 21:44, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the others. The existing name is both descriptive and familiar. Dramatically changing the underlying process already makes the process significantly difficult for folks to adjust to. Changing the name makes it more obscure and harder for people to find. I'd suggest using this time to make the new process as thrilling and synergistic as the old process was. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 22:10, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Hey, all, please share your views over there, instead of setting up a WP:TALKFORK here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:15, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

(In Herb Tarlek voice) OK fine. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 22:35, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

I've not commented on Meta, as I'm just here to edit English Wikipedia and don't have time to monitor yet another forum, but doing nothing sounds like an economical and productive way forward. Certes (talk) 08:54, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Rule of Three

Has there been anybody who tried to complete the rule of three when it comes to "Editing Wikipedia while driving" and "Editing Wikipedia while drunk" on Wikipedia:Deleted articles with freaky titles? Perhaps, "Editing Wikipedia while drunk driving"?

i am very interested in the deleted articles with freaky titles but i'm too chicken to make it myself OrlandoApollosFan69 (talk) 02:29, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Announcing the first Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee

You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki. Please help translate to other languages.

Hello,

The scrutineers have finished reviewing the vote results. We are following up with the results of the first Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) election.

We are pleased to announce the following individuals as regional members of the U4C, who will fulfill a two-year term:

• North America (USA and Canada)
  • –
• Northern and Western Europe
  • Ghilt
• Latin America and Caribbean
  • –
• Central and East Europe (CEE)
  • —
• Sub-Saharan Africa
  • –
• Middle East and North Africa
  • Ibrahim.ID
• East, South East Asia and Pacific (ESEAP)
  • 0xDeadbeef
• South Asia
  • –

The following individuals are elected to be community-at-large members of the U4C, fulfilling a one-year term:

• Barkeep49
• Superpes15
• Civvì
• Luke081515
• –
• –
• –
• –

Thank you again to everyone who participated in this process and much appreciation to the candidates for your leadership and dedication to the Wikimedia movement and community.

Over the next few weeks, the U4C will begin meeting and planning the 2024-25 year in supporting the implementation and review of the UCoC and Enforcement Guidelines. Follow their work on Meta-wiki.

On behalf of the UCoC project team,

RamzyM (WMF) 08:14, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Typo or intentional?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T13700

When visiting this cascade-protected image file page, the action bar at the top shows "Edit source" instead of "View source". Was this a typo, or was it intentional? I would highly appreciate any responses, especially from WikiMedia staff.

MasterOpel 20:39, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Should probably have posted this at WP:VPT. I was able to replicate the error. Looks like phab:T13700. You can subscribe to that ticket if you'd like updates. However it looks like devs are hesitant to fix this due to performance reasons. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:31, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

A survey regarding patrolling

Hello

The moderation tools team is working on Automoderator, a tool that would make it possible to revert vandalism automatically. This tool could replace vandalism bots (or be used in parallel), or help users prevent vandalism on wikis where no bot is available.

From 6 June to 7 July 2024, on your wiki, we will randomly display an invitation to complete a survey to selected users, as part of our efforts to understand how patrollers behaviors will change when Automoderator is deployed.

The survey will be shown to registered users, who signed up before 2024, and who have made more than 500 edits.

You can find out more about this survey at phab:T362462.

Please share this information anywhere useful. Thank you in advance for your participation!

Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 13:22, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Attribution of articles translated from foreign language wikipedias

Hello all,

Questions for input from Wikipedians regarding how articles that include text translated from foreign language wikipedias should have attributions handled. All translations of content from any language wikipedia are derivative works that require attribution. (See here for rationale.)

This arises from pages like Abeozen which have in-article mentions of the translation source ( The above article was created as a translation of its counterpart on the French Wikipedia, . (Specifically this version) but no mention of this attribution in the edit history or talk page. Current policies WP:TFOLWP and Help:Translate recommend inserting this information only in the edit history, and there are many pages (approx. 94,000 with Template:Translated page included in their talk page, but this appears to be additional and alone does not satisfy attribution requirements.

Looking for input on the following points:

1. Should pages which do not have attribution information in the edit history have this information added to the edit history?

   Rationale for Yes is that WP:TFOLWP and Help:Translate state this is a requirement for attribution, and prevents against any removal of attribution from future edits.

   Rationale for No is that attribution in the article is more visible than attribution in the edit history and is sufficient to meet Wikipedia's attribution requirements regardless of current policies as per WP:TFOLWP and Help:Translate.

2. Should attribution information be included the article?

   Rationale for Yes is that this raises awareness and visibility of the article's origin as a translation.

   Rationale for Undecided / Decision between editors on individual articles is that changes to existing articles is not necessary, this is optional to each article's authors.

   Rationale for No is that to prevent WP:CIRCULAR, articles should not cite or present wikipedia in any language in a manner that could be confused with a source or reference, and guidance for attributions is for this to only be included in edit histories as per WP:TFOLWP and Help:Translate.

3. Should attribution information be included in the talk page with Template:Translated page ?

   Rationale for Yes is that this raises awareness and visibility of the article's origin as a translation.

   Rationale for Undecided / Decision between editors on individual articles is that changes to existing articles is not necessary, this is optional to each article's authors.

   Rationale for No is that translation attribution should only be in the edit history..

Other answers or positions regarding the above questions are welcome, as are other questions arising in discussion on this point.

Pinging potentially interested Wikipedians: @Mike Peel @RudolfRed (thanks for suggestion to move question here from WP:Teahouse) @GreenLipstickLesbian (thank you for your clarification for new editors at WP:Teahouse and your position in this diff)

Thank you all for your input! Shazback (talk) 07:55, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

My understanding is that translations must be attributed in an edit summary in the main article. The talk page template is optional and can be skipped. I don't recall ever seeing attribution included in the article itself (i.e. via a citation to the foreign language Wikipedia, via a "note: this was translated", etc.). If you want to fix that article and you are sure there is no previous edit summary giving attribution, feel free to make a small edit to the article (add a space or something) and give the proper attribution in the edit summary. I believe the guideline WP:TFOLWP has suggested text for this. –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:36, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

I see there was also a discussion about this with several other editors on Wikipedia talk:Copying within Wikipedia and at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation about a month ago. I am pinging them for comment with the aim to gather a broader consensus / ensure all points of view are represented. @asilvering @Mathglot @S0091 @Ingratis @Greenman @Primefac @KylieTastic Shazback (talk) 06:20, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Also @WhatamIdoing Shazback (talk) 06:28, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Also (for completeness) there was a template merge discussion which may be relevant (Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2024 February 4), pinging involved Wikipedians @Matrix @Anomie @Noahfgodard @Ipigott @Cl3phact0 @Riad Salih @scope_creep @Occidental Phantasmagoria @Knowledgekid87 Shazback (talk) 06:37, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps too many pings. Hopefully you have plenty of answers now. –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:14, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Similar to Novem, I feel it unusual to have attribution in the article but not in the edit summaries (which is I assume what is meant by edit history). If attribution is added to an edit summary, that seems good practice for quicker glances although I suspect the licence is met by the in-article attribution. I'm not sure if there is a best way to add attribution to an article, the text is not permanently linked to the original language article and will have to stand on its own with regards to referencing etc. The talkpage template can be helpful, but doesn't seem a requirement for the licence. CMD (talk) 06:33, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

The license requirements can be met through any of several methods, including importing the original non-English article (the approach used at the German-language Wikipedia, where you can find non-lawyers solemnly averring that it is a legal requirement), adding a link to the original in the edit summary (the approach used by the Wikipedia:Content translation tool, and about which you can also find non-lawyers solemnly averring that this is a legal requirement), by adding a relevant template on the talk page, by adding a non-templated message on the talk page, by adding a message in the mainspace, and probably by other methods, too.

I suggest that if you encounter someone claiming that a specific method must be used for license/legal reasons, you should probably not believe anything that person says.

Having dispensed with what we must do, I will tell you my own views about what we should do:

1. Should pages which do not have attribution information in the edit history have this information added to the edit history?
   • Sometimes. Although it is not legally required, I personally prefer and recommend this method, particularly for the first edit summary. If you forget on the first edit, and it can be done quickly, quietly, conveniently and near the start of the history (e.g., one of the first five edits), then I think that's a fine thing to do. But purely as a practical matter, adding an edit summary somewhere in the middle of hundreds of edits is not going to help anyone. In those cases, I think that a template on the talk page is more functional.
2. Should attribution information be included the article?
   • No. Although it is legally permitted, we don't provide attribution information in the mainspace for the English Wikipedia editors, and therefore IMO we shouldn't provide attribution information in the mainspace for the non-English Wikipedia editors. Attribution of non-Wikipedia content (e.g., public domain sources) is permissible (e.g., within ref tags) and sometimes is legally required (e.g., a CC-BY source. Although this would not absolutely require attribution directly in the mainspace, ref tags may be the most convenient and reasonable way to fulfill the requirement).
3. Should attribution information be included in the talk page with Template:Translated page?
   • Usually. Although it is not legally required, I think this should be used as often as practicable. Ideally both the source and the translated article would get a note on their talk pages. The reason for this is because admins who are considering deletion usually check the talk page, and it may be informative to them (e.g., if they are investigating an alleged copyvio).

WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:53, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

I support attribution in edit summaries and definitely on talk pages, but I very strongly oppose attribution in the article text (with rare exceptions) because of WP:CIRCULAR. The concerns about visibility are perhaps valid, but authorship information is never listed in the article body, so why should authorship information from a different Wikipedia page? As long as external sources are supplied to support the translated material (which they should be anyway), I see no particular reason to note the translation in the article itself. I think the violation of WP:CIRCULAR outweighs the desire for increased visibility here. Noahfgodard (talk) 06:44, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yes; No; Yes if possible (as a nice-to-have, not a must-have).

With all due respect, this topic is not really subject to consensus from a discussion at Wikipedia, as it is part of the Wikimedia Terms of Use and supersedes any policy or guideline belonging to Wikipedia or any Wikimedia sister project, so I view this discussion as informative, but having no impact other than that, as decisions about attribution are not subject to debate here. That said, the Terms appear to be written in a way that if you squint hard and look sideways, it may admit a different interpretation by at least a minority of Wikipedians, but even in that case, the solution is to seek clarification from WMF legal about what the Terms actually mean, and not to try to draw up a consensus here which would have no effect, even if one was reached.

But since you asked, my understanding is this: translation attribution must be in the edit summary per ToU § 7, and must either have a link to the foreign article with the history of contributing editors readily available (e.g., in the History tab), or else list every contributing editor in the edit summary). Adding a citation to the article in no way satisfies the attribution requirement, nor does the handy {{translated page}} template destined for the article Talk page. When attribution is forgotten in the original translated edit, then it may be added to the history retroactively following the instructions at WP:RIA.

Note that there is an additional wrinkle that is usually left unaddressed: when content is either copied or translated from S to D, the page at S may no longer be deleted, because its history is required ad infinitum in order to support the attribution requirement; at best, S may be moved elsewhere, like Draft space or some other repository. This is somewhat easier to manage for content copied intrawiki because the link will remain blue as long as it exists, and if it ever turns red, that is a flag that it must be restored. But for translated material, there is no easy method for detecting this, as interwiki links are always blue regardless if the article exists or not. (A template on the S talk page stating that it must not be deleted because of the translation done over at D-wiki might help, but the S-wiki editors might not care or respect that, if an S-Afd nom resulted in deletion at S-wiki.) That's my take; HTH. Mathglot (talk) 06:54, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

In re this topic is not really subject to consensus from a discussion at Wikipedia, as it is part of the Wikimedia Terms of Use. Whether to comply with the license is not something we get to decide. Which methods are reasonable, and whether we want to exceed the minimum requirements, is something we should discuss. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:57, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

I think our existing transwiki attribution standards are sufficient, but I would support adding attribution in a footnote, similar to {{EB1911}} and similar templates. You could do something like:

This article contains content translated from Persian Wikipedia.

However, as Mathglot has mentioned, this is really something that should be discussed with WMF. Occidental𓍝Phantasmagoria [T/C] 07:14, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) By the way, if you spot an article that appears to be an unattributed translation, you can either add attribution yourself ex post facto following WP:RIA, or if the source is unclear, you can add {{unattributed translation}} to the article. If you wish, you may also notify the user via {{uw-translation}}. Pro tip: if you want to know the exact text to use to attribute an original translation for a given article, edit the English article, add the Expand language banner for the correct language at the top, and Preview it. For example: for article Martinique, view the {{Expand French}} banner at the top, hit 'show' to expand it, and you will find the exact wording to use to attribute translated content for the article. Mathglot (talk) 07:18, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Since the attribution for all other edits is in the page history it makes most sense to me that translations should also be mentioned in the edit summaries so all attribution is in one place. This applies to more than just translations but also any attributable copies from other sources. I do also like to see a talk page template for clarity, but ideally should should say when as it may no longer be true to say it currently is a translation. I personally don't like adding to the article as if feels unclear and possibly misleading to everyday readers: Articles are often started as translations but then some get completely re-writen over time making any "This article contains content translated from ......" statements potentially false. Lastly an edit summary is only removable by a sysop these other templates can be removed (or left incorrectly) by anyone. TLDR IMHO: edit summaries should be mandatory; talk page template recommended; article template discouraged. Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 08:43, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

@KylieTastic:, That's why the advice at WP:TFOLWP recommends the wording "Content in this edit is translated from..." for the edit summary, which remains true forever regardless what happens afterward. In the case of the (optional) {{translated page}} template, parameter |insertversion= is available to make the timing context clear; see for example Talk:ForGG or any of these transclusions of the template. If the wording is not clear enough for that case, you could raise a discussion at Template talk to request an improvement. Mathglot (talk) 19:50, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

For interwiki stuff I'll use the trans template on the talk, if a translation is being attempted. Its usually a partial translation with article expansion. I would never remove it even if the article was completely rewritten as they may be a sentence or two in there that needs attributed and that has happened. If on wikipedia, I'll search for the author and put their name in the edit summary. That is important, even though it takes some time. I would never mention attribution in the article for obvious reasons. Talk is ok, but its a boundary case as I'm struggling to think of an instance when you would need it. I agree with Mathglot above, the current arrangement is clear and well understood by everybody. New editors take to it quite quick. I've not seen a trans tag removed from talk at all, not even by a vandal or troll, although it is certainly possible. I've never seen the boundary case described by Mathglot above in action, although it must be possible. scope_creep^Talk 09:52, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

If you're trying to find the name of the original author, I have had some luck with Wikipedia:Who Wrote That? Run the tool, then click on the bit you're copying/translating. (It doesn't work on all languages.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:00, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Or WikiBlame, which does work for all languages (even if there's no link to it from the History page). Mathglot (talk) 19:32, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

• This can be a tricky situation, and the question of what is the best guidance for new articles isn't necessarily something that can be or should be attempted to be applied retroactively. Yes anything translated should give credit to the source. Yes, ideally this should be a link in the first edit summary. No, I don't think anything should be in the prose of the article about this. We have a {{Translated page}} template that can be helpful for the talk page for lots of reasons, anyone should feel free to put that on a talk page if it isn't there. Probably making an future edit with an edit summary attributing the remote page and date of the translation would be useful and could satisfy more licensing concerns. In certain cases, we can import the transwiki pre-translated history over, requests can be made at WP:RFPI; xwiki imports can be very messy and once there are overlapping revisions, or very many revisions - are normally a bad idea. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:51, 7 June 2024 (UTC)