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Request for assistance with a "abandoned template that works like magic" template idea

As the abandoned template shows the date and time an article was last edited. Could it automatically compare them? If so, could it then only be visible and add article to 'Abandoned' category only if the conditions are met? Then the '{{AbandonedTemplateThatWorksLikeMagic}}' template could be added to all new articles from the start, so that they would automatically tag themselves as abandoned when the date and time comparison condition (for article and for article talk) is met. Gryllida 10:47, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

cc @Koavf @Asked42 Thank you :-) Regards, -- Gryllida 10:47, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

@Gryllida: I think this is achievable. But instead of adding another template to the article (where there are already too many templates), I think we could invoke this detection logic in the {{Date}} template, which is already a default template. Then, if the article meets the abandoned conditions, the notice and the category will be displayed. -- Asked42 (talk) 17:18, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

It would be cool. Could you write an example, please? We could plant it in a test page and watch it self tag itself in a few days. Gryllida 11:29, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

Sounds great! Today, list of disputed articles is 27 articles long. I have checked 15 of them so far: 2 marked as abandoned (time for someone to speedily delete them), the other thirteen I had to manually tag as abandoned - and it will take at least two more days till someone can delete them.

If the Date template was already capable of magically moving the article to category Abandoned, then I wouldn't have had to do it manually.

But also, I want the Newsroom to have a separate list of Abandoned articles, so that the Disputed articles list would only contain non-abandoned articles.

And that brings me to another point: it would be nice to eventually have automatic detection of Stale articles. So that there would be two separate lists in the Newsroom: Abandoned-not-stale (somebody please help to edit!) and Abandoned-and-stale (most likely will get deleted).

Please let me know what you think about this.

Wikiwide (talk) 11:59, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

@Gryllida, @Wikiwide: I have prepared the DetectAbandoned module and invoked it on User:Asked42/sandbox for testing. It is supposed to automatically add the Abandoned template after one day (we can change that to 5 days or any other duration). -- Asked42 (talk) 18:36, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

Update after one day: The page has been successfully marked as abandoned with the template and category. -- Asked42 (talk) 18:30, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

Wow amazing 🙂 Thank you. i think it is time to add it into template itself. Pretty much into everything including develop, review, stale, tasks templates. Do you have access? Gryllida 09:36, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

Oh, and does it test both time of last edit of page, as well as of its talk page? Regards, -- Gryllida 09:39, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

It currently only checks the last edit on the article, not on the talk page. Should it check the talk page as well? -- Asked42 (talk) 09:59, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

@Gryllida: I have updated DetectAbandoned module, and it will now check both the last edit of the article and its talk page (if it exists). If everything looks good, we can start using the {{Auto Abandoned}} template. -- Asked42 (talk) 08:21, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Edits to the talk page don't typically count towards evaluating an article for abandonment, unless the discussion is directly related to the article's staleness or state of development re: WN:PROD, which I don't expect the template to be able to determine. For example, it is acceptable to delete an article that is stale and has not been edited for four days but the talk page is active with a debate about the wording of the title. In this example, the focal event is still stale and no attempt has been made to address the staleness.

If the template simply alerts admins to recent talk page activity and tells them to check it before deleting, I think that’s a reasonable compromise.Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 15:24, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

Understood. So, the last edit on the talk page should not be counted. If there are any edits on the talk page within the timeframe, the template should simply show a text like: "There was an edit on the talk page on <timestamp> <date>." Is that all? --Asked42 (talk) 15:33, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

I think with that change, it should be quite useful.Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 19:45, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

PageAssessments was not installed

Following up from https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Water_cooler/technical/archives/2025/June#Propose_to_install_Page_Assessments_extension_at_this_wiki

Please see https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T407051 and assist with understanding why not, and whats next. I did not get it and would appreciate your help.

Cc @Ternera @Md Mobashir Hossain

Thanks. Gryllida 11:01, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sannita_(WMF)#Help_requested Gryllida 11:06, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

Hey @Asked42 if you have ideas how to generate semi-automatically a page like User:Gryllida/Newsroom, it would help a lot with reviewing, for me. Would be great to have a option to edit event date and status summary from each page, and compile a report somewhere like I was doing manually at that page (and provide a facility to go tag all untagged pages with their event dates and statuses). Hope that is going to be helpful - would be great to implement please ... Thank you 😊 -- Gryllida 10:17, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

With only javascript, some parts of this idea are achievable but it is not entirely possible to make it fully automatic. This means someone or a reviewer will still need to tag the pages manually. The dates and comments for each page could be stored on a JSON page, from which the report can be generated.

All that said, I think it would be helpful to hear what others have to say about this idea. If implemented, it would be a significant change and would require considerable time and effort. There should also be a discussion about whether this should be implemented as a user script or a gadget. --Asked42 (talk) 12:43, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

Hi @Asked42. I disagree about additional effort. Now it takes me 30 mins to compile the report including copy pasting links to headlines. With the tool implemented my time would reduce to 10 mins (or less, if someone, prefilled it for me), and the other 20-30 mins would become free for reviewing.

I think the Event dates need to be entered manually. A tool can suggest, but a human needs to fill it in. Please let me know what you think. Gryllida 07:22, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

By "considerable time and effort," I mean additional work for the developer creating the script. If the script is developed but not used by anyone, that effort would go to waste. -- Asked42 (talk) 07:32, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

To expand, the tool is most useful when multiple users use it to tag pages. If only one or two users use it, it will still be helpful, but its overall functionality and impact will be limited. -- Asked42 (talk) 07:35, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

@Gryllida: I have prepared the tool, Taglet. Documentation is available at User:Asked42/Taglet.

This tool allows any editor to tag a non published article with an event date, assessment categories, and a brief comment.

After installing the script, the report page can be accessed at Special:TagletReport. From the report page, you can delete a tag from an article, tag untagged articles, update tag values, and more.

Before publishing, a reviewer must remove the tag from the article (this can be done from Special:TagletReport). Automatic tag removal for published articles is not available yet. -- Asked42 (talk) 08:56, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

The tag data will be stored at Wikinews:Taglet/data. The content model is not JSON, but the data is stored using JSON syntax. --Asked42 (talk) 08:59, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, will be tested as soon as i came back to senses, as i have some issue with my brain last 3 days or more. Gryllida 10:14, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

Was looking for it will lose again as I am barely coming back now, here is a mark for my future reference: User:Asked42/Taglet. Will be testing in next day or two. Gryllida 09:39, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

First impression, amazing. First obstacle, can it please show, whether the page is in review queue or developing queue, as one of items in columns or link color. As it seems to include both (which is good). Awesome tool, super productive. -- Gryllida 09:56, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

Should the Developing or Review status be shown in the dialog, or on the report page? For the '&' issue, I will also take a look. -- Asked42 (talk) 14:14, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

Report page please. Gryllida 10:01, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

Done: Each row of the tagged table will have a different color based on its status. I am not adding the status as a separate column because I think it would make the table too messy. Using highlighted colors seems like a better approach. -- Asked42 (talk) 19:42, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

Bug: entering '&' in tag comment, it shows as 'amp;' on the special report page. Gryllida 10:37, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

That issue has also been resolved. -- Asked42 (talk) 14:49, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

Jumping??

This is a rather pedestrian question -- and I am a pinch embarrassed to ask it, but: (this has been on my mind for a very long time) -- When you share a wiki link, (say, to a big single page) -- what is the syntax to make the link lead to a specific portion of that page? I've shared zillions of links through the years, but what makes it, say, jump 4 sections down on the target page? Can't seem to find out how to do that.--Bddpaux (talk) 20:14, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

@Bddpaux: That can be done using section anchors (created by headings like == Heading ==).

For example, if I want to link directly to the "Status" section on Wikinews:Style guide, I can add #Status after the page name: Wikinews:Style guide#Status .

Similarly, to jump to the "The first paragraph" section: Wikinews:Style guide#The first paragraph .

To link to a specific section, that section must exist as a heading (== Heading ==, === Subheading ===, etc.).

For external links (URL), replace blank spaces with underscores. For example:

https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Style_guide#The_first_paragraph .

-- Asked42 (talk) 09:12, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

For more detailed documentation, see mw:Help:Section#Linking to a section. -- Asked42 (talk) 09:16, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

Userbox development

I'm not really a code ninja (not even remotely), but I am thinking about maybe adding (or trying to add) a few more Userboxes here. I have a very elementary understanding of them and have read the page that shows the syntax etc. Anyone here ever messed with them much?--Bddpaux (talk) 14:39, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

What user box information would you like to add, @Bddpaux? Gryllida 10:12, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

I'd really like to be able to add a 'Memorial' userbox to contributors who've passed on. I think I can work one up.--Bddpaux (talk) 13:09, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

Software request

Hello @Asked42

1. I apologise, i have a migraine and cannot focus on testing the script that you wrote recently. This may change in 2-3 days.

2. There is a bot that posts updates on Telegram. It would be great if it could be mentioned on wiki somewhere including link to the telegram group and to its source code.

3.

It would be great if there was a bot that for each new article submitted for review, sends a request to ChatGPT (there should be ideally a separate instance of it, just like my employer and my university have one, but for now this may be skipped) that has a prompt something like this:

"Based on Style Guide (link) and Content Guide (link) and also on the links provided in Sources section of (link to article), check that: the headline is in active tense sentense case; headline looks accurate and focuses on the key event; article body is in past tense; first paragraph answers the 5W(who when where why what how); second paragraph provides newsworthy details; last paragraphs provide background; text is written in neutral point of view; all information can be verified based merely on the provided sources; based on a general web query, there is no essential information missing; article is written in neutral point of view without opinions or speculation presented as facts. If there are any issues write to my itemized numbered list including ONLY the issues that need to be corrected. Do not make stuff up. Be precise and brief in your answers; write in simple English in case a foreigner does not understand the language."

That text reply from chatgpt could be posted on article talk as pre review with note "was not checked by a human, was produced by chatgpt", and a link to this copied to user's talk page who either started the article or submitted for review. Note amended to article comment (feglet?) with summary of the chatgpt feedback in less than 30 words.

Hopefully, the amount of free chatgpt requests per day is not exceeded with this.

I am open to suggestions if that is a good idea or how this could be improved. Gryllida 10:11, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

For the third proposal, I think that would be a major change, like deeply integrating AI into our workflow. I am not sure whether other editors would be comfortable with such major AI adoption. Maybe we should wait and see what others have to say about it. As for developing such a bot, I cannot assure that I am fully familiar with how to handle it. Also regarding chatgpt, I think it may require a paid plan to implement. -- Asked42 (talk) 14:42, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

The point is in it being able to provide instant feedback which is probably useful. When I feel a bit better I will do a few examples manually so that they can be compared with the real feedback from a reviewer. Gryllida 21:08, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

I believe there are broader efforts within the Wiki ecosystem to provide projects with AI tools. Gryllida, maybe you can check for existing AI tools or propose something there.

I think our use of AI could be (and should be) reasonably confined to language evaluation and manipulation, such as improving grammar, conciseness, clarity, and most importantly neutrality. I've found it especially useful in evaluating neutrality. It's been my experience that ChatGPT is hit-or-miss with accurately and consistently following our style guide. I often have to re-feed it the guideline. I also don't feel that our style guide is the biggest hurdle to publication. I fail more articles for inaccuracy and neutrality by far. In fact, I think we should be publishing articles that are neutral and accurate and letting the wiki process correct for the style guide.Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 15:10, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

for point 2, I have documented the Telegram bot at Wikinews:Gadgets and Tools#External Tools/scripts. -- Asked42 (talk) 14:41, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

Is there a bot that handles abandoned articles?

Looking in the Wikinews:Newsroom, I see among the "collaboration requests" India vs australia, a one-sentence article with no sources. User:BigKrow tagged the article as "abandoned" on November 2, which I think was reasonable. But even though the "abandoned" notice says, "This article is incomplete and has not been edited recently, and is considered abandoned. It is to be deleted 2 days after this notice was added (See history for date of addition), if work on it does not resume", the article is still here and not deleted yet. There have been no edits to either the article or the talk page since November 4. -- Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:45, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

No. Admins handle all the deletion of articles. An admin will eventually get to it. We have a few who are active. However, those who are reviewers also, have additional roles to fill in addition to the reviewer tasks. I think with the ongoing debate about our WN:Freshness guideline and WN:PROD, some admin may be holding back on deletion in some cases, out of courtesy for those discussions.Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 14:00, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

That's fine, I agree that it's preferable to prioritize other tasks such as reviewing. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 15:11, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

I just went through and deleted a few. I left one in place due to an ongoing discussion in the talk page by another admin about saving the content. Thanks for the heads-up. Often other contributors will post in WN:AAA to ask for deletion and we do have a non-reviewer admin who often lends a hand when asked there. 👍Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 15:18, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

Hi @Metropolitan90 i think it would be good if there was a automatically generated table with columns: headline, date page last edited, date talk page last edited, tick box. After selecting a few tick boxes a button 'delete'. I added a task request for it at phab:T410250 you are welcome to subscribe. Thanks Gryllida 09:37, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

software feedback request like ArticleFeedbackv5

• • Feature summary** (what you would like to be able to do and where):

make feedback easier

• • Use case(s)** (list the steps that you performed to discover that problem, and describe the actual underlying problem which you want to solve. Do not describe only a solution):

for end users to comment

• • Benefits** (why should this be implemented?): more motivation to improve site if feedback was provided

spec:

button to leave comment about site or about a news report page. posts to either article talk or a water cooler

code from before:

was code:

https://ru.wikinews.org/wiki/%D0%A3%D1%87%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%86%D0%B0:Gryllida/js/feedbackstuff.js

suggested to Wikipedia

was told jQuery is obsoleted

Need to either install it anyway here, or upgrade and then install. Gryllida 10:09, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

phab:T410263 -- Gryllida 10:10, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

Taglet engagement query

Hello,

The issue now is that nobody is tagging pages with event dates and I still have to do it all myself. Could we please get a few volunteers to help?

1) Visit User:Asked42/Taglet and follow install instructions

2) Visit Special:TagletReport, scroll down, tag any pages which do not yet have a tag. That is approx 10 mins a day.

I am happy to put up a leaderboard and maybe competition, as whoever doing it may eventually be great at reviewing. For top 5 taggers I can send t-shirts once a year at my own expense unless/until someone else finds how WMF can sponsor this.

Regards, Gryllida 01:12, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

cc @Asked42 @Wikiwide @Cromium Thanks Gryllida 01:12, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

P.S. and/or ask users to tag when submitting for review Gryllida 01:12, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

This is the major issue with such a tool. I think I mentioned somewhere that this could happen, though I don't remember exactly where.

The tool is most effective when multiple users are using it, tagging, resolving issues on articles, and keeping everything updated. The more users it has the better it will perform; with fewer users, it may lose its purpose. -- Asked42 (talk) 07:33, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

Even with a single user it works very well for me. It generates the report which I would otherwise need to make manually in a wiki table. Even now, this process is twice as efficient as it was before. Hope it is possible to get more users involved, it is such a nice tool.

Could users be requested with adding event dates when they submit their report for review? Gryllida 08:09, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

Software request to make wikilinks less confusing for new users

Hi, new users have to learn to use {{W|Foo}} for pages which are only in Wikipedia and [[Foo]] for pages which are in Wikinews. That's confusing. Could that be improved somehow. Talk:Belfast has an interesting edge scenario discussed about this which the software would have to account for, somehow. Consider also that most users have crappy internet. Please let me know what's desired or what exists to help with this. Gryllida 03:26, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

bug report for taglet - feature request - 'stale'

In addition to 'quick fix' 'rewrite needed' etc, suggest to add tag 'Stale'. Then article is shown in report, but is striken out, so that it does not clutter the view. Maybe?

Issue: around 40% of entries are manually commented as 'not news' and are distracting. Gryllida 09:01, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

@Gryllida: I can add the stale assessment criteria. For the "not news" issue, what could be the solution? Maybe we can add a checkbox during tag creation like "Not news, no need for tag", and if it's checked the report will ignore such articles and not show them. Do you have any other ideas? -- Asked42 (talk) 09:16, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

It can probably automatically suggest 'stale' tick when event date >5days by providing it and highlighting it in the list. No need to add too much paperwork.

Also, if it is time to mark article as abandoned or stale and it is not marked as that already, provide a tick box to mark it as that at the time of adding the tag; based on time of event, and time of last edit to article and its talk page, and it not being in Original Reporting category. Gryllida 09:32, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

Added some modifications to detect abandoned/stale articles. The report will now show a small "abandoned" label next to the title, ignoring Original Reporting. If the article is already in the abandoned category, the label will be shown directly next to the article. -- Asked42 (talk) 14:44, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

Software catalogue

Hi :-) Is there a page detailing all gadgets and install instructions used at English Wikinews; if not, could it be made at, for example, Wikinews:Software catalogue or something similar? Gryllida 09:57, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

You can check Wikinews:Gadgets and Tools. -- Asked42 (talk) 12:57, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

Great thanks Gryllida 09:34, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

Eyeballing capacity

Some pages get an input from another user or reviewer, but original author or contributor walked away and isn't looking though sometimes maybe still online at a laptop. Could there be something that helps to glue the users to Wikinews until story is published. I found having a separate web browser from work/home/hobby, just a separate browser with Wikinews always open in it and not closing it, helps tangentially. Not sure what else could help. Gryllida 09:34, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

taglet feature request

Please add an option to share with another user in wikitext format. Button "Copy report in wiki markup" would probably work. Gryllida 11:57, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

request feature to show article length status for developing articles

This response (argh!!) suggests it would be helpful if 'developing' template showed a line like 'Article is 34 words long', word count updated automatically, and if it is too short, colored number '34' in red. Gryllida 07:08, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Thank you @Gryllida BigKrow (talk) 12:22, 29 November 2025 (UTC)