Consumer Rights Wiki talk:Moderators' noticeboard/Archive 4

I believe the Itron article has been mistakenly flagged for questionable relevance. I have added several Incidents to the page to further show Itron's systemic patterns of consumer privacy violations please see the below:

Itron's Smart meters allow them to collect, process, and store data without the end users' knowledge. (1980-Present)

NYSEG requires customers to switch to Itron Smart meters or face monthly charge (November 2022-Present)

CenterPoint Energy requires customers to switch to Itron Smart meters or face one-time and monthly service charges (Unknown-Present)

Southern California Edison requires customers to switch to Itron Smart meters or face monthly charge (Unknown-Present)

Smart meter (and smart grid solutions) usage by utility companies involves a lot of layers but these are what I find to be most concerning:

Lack of data privacy, utility companies can freely share customer data with third party smart meter companies (such as Itron) without customer knowledge.

Lack of freedom to choose whether or not you have a smart meter recording your electricity usage. This data can be used to infer all sorts of things from what kind of appliances you own to when you are home.

Itron's Data Processing Agreement is un-viewable (at least for me) and not easy to find either, and end users typically do not know they will have an Itron smart meter until after it is installed by their electric company.

Itron is not the only smart meter and smart grid solutions game in town but they are big and not end user friendly,.

Thank Mods! Privacywarrior (talk) 19:11, 28 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

So sorry for not getting to this sooner.

For now, I've changed the relevancy tag to an incomplete one (lacking verification), the issue being that there are no sources that actually implicate itron in having done anything wrong, with most of the stuff surrounding 'maybe it could be/has been hacked' being authorial speculation insofar as I can tell.

There's also no secondary reporting - i.e. no media sources cited as framing any of these things as a problem. This is something which should be there to demonstrate notability. Keith (talk) 09:54, 18 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Understood, unfortunately most of the articles I found the place blame on the distribution companies for invasive policies. The real issue is Itron has unlimited access to any of their smart meters data with out the end users knowledge. I am not quite sure how to capture this topic fully. Privacywarrior (talk) 14:40, 2 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Privacywarrior Not mad at you or anything but on Wikipedia at least its common practice to not edit the archive at all although I see why you did it, so I’ve reverted your edit there and added it back here. AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 14:57, 2 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm just wondering if this can cause concerns for staffs in this wiki, for example like this one (there's english translation but it's all google translated and for full texts translation it's locked behind paywall, so apologies for that) Justarandomguy111 (talk) 09:42, 18 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Can you rephrase your question? I'm not sure exactly what you're asking or how the link you shared is relevant Beanie Bo (talk) 12:29, 19 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

this user creates chatgpt raw output articles. While i dont doubt the relevance of the information, the method of creation is odd, and frankly, detrimental to this website's reputation. Plankton (talk) 20:56, 18 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I’m not going to myself, but can one of the mods post a reminder to not do that? ChatGPT can be decent starting point if undetected and people keep updating it and it feels less sloppy, but this is out of hand. AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 05:58, 19 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, those ones are particularly bad. if they don't come back and clean them up by tomorrow I'll probably just delete them, as they're pretty much unusable as starting points Keith (talk) 09:46, 19 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hey there, I've been messing around pressing the random article button for a while. I've noticed that about 9/10 articles on this wiki have either a stub notice or a incomplete notice. I understand why : this wiki has limited resources to polish these articles and also wish not to add friction for article creation not to deter potential contributors. However, in my opinion, it kinda ruins the image of the website. It looks unpolished, unfinished and amateur.

Is there some plan to eventually add a little friction to the system, to incentivize polishing and finishing articles. I understand this can be complicated, but right now articles are being created with a title and maybe two or three links and then left there to rot. Dont get me wrong, I am also guilty of this, though i wish i werent, and i wish there was a system preventing this kind of low-effort-good-faith contribution.

thank you for hearing me Plankton (talk) 22:27, 18 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Not a mod and this may be completely wrong (especially as I don’t use discord) but I think they just want to make articles for now and later polish them. The thing is that I’m pretty sure this is how Wikipedia developed, with just making articles and later on polishing. AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 05:56, 19 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

There will absolutely be a tightening of standards later down the line, but ultimately the reason it looks unfinished is because, at present, it *is* unfinished. There'll be a lot of work needed to get it to the point where the articles have the kind of average quality we'd want them to. At the moment we really can't afford to be picky with contributions, and have to embrace the 'something is better than nothing' mentality. Keith (talk) 09:45, 19 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Can a mod remove the sloppyai tags on my userpage and my sandbox page? The abuse filter is making impossible to remove. Just delete the part that says SloppyAI which is in the first paragraph on both. Thanks! AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 07:01, 19 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't see a SloppyAI notice Beanie Bo (talk) 12:25, 19 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

You will see SloppyAI with two curly brackets around it, not the full notice. I forgot to clarify. AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 12:44, 19 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Do you mean where it says: "Apparently, adding template Template:Sloppyai is a crime." Beanie Bo (talk) 12:53, 19 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes, that. AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 12:58, 19 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Done {{Smiley}} Beanie Bo (talk) 13:03, 19 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Well that didn't work Beanie Bo (talk) 13:04, 19 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

To do it, click the source button and then try. What happened was it put <nowiki> tags around it (which basically make it ignore wikitext) because it detected wiki markup in visualeditor, which it doesn’t allow. Putting this in source: . I can’t believe I had to do that just to remove it though! AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 13:06, 19 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

i wish the page Category:Trading_card_companies to be deleted.

argument : it is redundant with Category:Playing_card_manufacturers

Both have 1 element : Nintendo, though the latter is embedded within Category:Game_manufacturers and the former not, thus it can be deleted Plankton (talk) 20:39, 19 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

i wish the page Category:Information_technology_companies to be deleted

argument : it serves no purpose. all items should be moved to Category:Technology_companies

please it will help tidy things up : an impossible task. Plankton (talk) 20:57, 19 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

 Done (about to do when first typing this) but it might take a little bit to move everything over. AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 17:50, 21 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I wish the page Category:Canadian_Internet_Providers_-_Circumvent_CRTC_protection_-_Time_based_increases.

argument : It is a byproduct of an old spelling mistake. I've cleaned up the mess a bit. this page now needs to be deleted Plankton (talk) 21:10, 19 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

actually all pages in Special:UnusedCategories Plankton (talk) 21:16, 19 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

 Done partially (only removed the specific category you mentioned) but a Special:UnusedCategories cleanup will be done by me in the near future. AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 17:47, 21 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Also, you can also use the Deletionrequest template for this as although it might not be done very quickly, it is generally cleaner and easier for admins. AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 17:52, 21 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

will do. I didnt know i was allowed to use it. Plankton (talk) 18:59, 21 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes, anyone can use that to mark an article. It won't delete it, it just adds a notice for a mod to delete it (although it can be a bit slow at times!) AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 19:22, 21 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hi i'd like some clarification regarding categories.

from what i've noticed, each page has a category with the page name as a name. ex: Apple has a Category:Apple.

Now, does that mean all other "tags" go in Category:Apple or should they go in Apple ? Or both ? (by "tags" i mean "Category:Technology_company" or "Category:Video_game")

Please clarify this as both methods are currently used through this wiki.

Thank you for your time and hard work. I want to help out more but this question needs a definitive answer before Plankton (talk) 21:31, 19 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hello, I’m pretty sure all tags are meant to go in the category:Apple, although some pages may have lots of categories when there’s only a few in the actual category for it (or none if there’s no category). AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 05:21, 20 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I’m also going to link to Consumer Rights Wiki:Categorization because of how good it is as a resource for learning about categories. AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 05:27, 20 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

thanks. i hadnt found that page. i will give it a good read Plankton (talk) 21:31, 20 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Just letting mods know because if you see ANY issues with the citation needed template, then please immediately rollback the edits I have made. AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 18:15, 20 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

The sources are actually threaded conversations. I'm not sure how the bot thinks a link to a threaded forum is a news article.

I worked hard making sure my first submission was encompassing.

Yes the "titles" of the forum posts sourced may not be the same as my wiki title here as those are not my posts and would you rather not put the titles of the forum posts?, i made sure to include a "why it matters" section to clarify certain aspects stated in those threads that pertain to the issue at hand. The topic INSIDE OF THE THREADS on the forum posts were exactly pertinent.

If my submission is eligible for deletion then i'm unsure how anything gets published here. I seriously think the bot that looks over submissions needs refinement if it flags my submission like that. Also, realistically a submission page with form fields is the way to go for this. Normal people are not wiki site gurus and template perfect people. They will never use the site. I understand this is outside the scope of this particular message, but I think there are some people that have a very good grasp on wiki sites, template adherence, shortcuts, that completely confusing to a normal person cite page that gets linked and overall these people are flagging posts that normal people are trying to make. The average person that comes into contact with company issues that this site proclaims to want to address will not be able to abide by the standards of a wiki style submission process if this is the outcome of when they sincerely try to contribute. (Again, it should just be form fields and a submit button.)

Nevertheless, I am posting here as directed by the robot. 66.191.58.153 09:01, 21 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

On the off-topic remark (I do not know what your original submission was), I agree that the Visual editor UI could be a bit easier to use.

Some important "Insert" items like Citations should not be under a "More" menu (Windows 11 right click vibes); it took me about 15 minutes to find a source and add my first proper citation despite being a somewhat tech-savvy person. (Although, I started here making edits and thus did not see the Citation "tutorial" within the Create an article page, only the

There could also be a quick link(s) within the editor (like the ? button) to CRW's Wiki policy with helpful description like "Contains rules, writing guidelines and the mission statement to ensure the Wiki remains credible."

In my opinion, starting to edit wikis really feels like booting up CS 1.6 as a first timer, going on multiplayer servers and getting 20 deaths in a row for not already knowing how to wallbang. This is okay for late night LAN parties, not so motivating when people make their first contribution and get edit summaries that aren't directly constructive in their email.

Nevertheless I could be wrong on these points. I appreciate discussion and feedback. Raster (talk) 13:05, 21 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

There are a lot of quirks with MediaWiki in general (the software is 20 years old at this point), and especially for this new wiki that has a lot of bugs and UI stuff to work out. There's supposed to be a major UI haul within the next few months or so, so hopefully that will address some of these issues you mentioned.

Ctrl+Shift+K is a keyboard shortcut for adding citations. Beanie Bo (talk) 16:56, 21 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hi. Which article specifically are you referring to? Beanie Bo (talk) 16:53, 21 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I've checked Filter 13's log and there seems to be a consistent stream of spam articles shown there. Should we block the users doing this? I assume so, but I want to be sure. AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 16:34, 22 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Normally, we would consider this, but the types of users that end up filling up this log tend to make several accounts at a time, making blocking effectively useless. JamesTDG (talk) 03:45, 24 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

This wiki has a Legislation category, covering existing legislation.

I'd like to write up my ideas for things that could be considered for future legislation (as a matter of fact, I started: User:CorpoBlight/Product quality - and manufacturer incentives). But after I started, I began to wonder if it was in-scope for this wiki or not. If too far away from the preferred direction of this wiki, any suggestions for a different wiki where it would fit better? To be clear, I am not a lawyer. CorpoBlight (talk) 20:11, 23 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

This would be outside of scope for the wiki as personal opinion write ups or personal interpritations of law aren't really within scope. Please let us know if you have any other questions about this. - Atsumari (talk) 07:52, 1 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Xbox was proposed for deletion based on its not having been edited in a long time. I think it should be kept. The Microsoft article has several items that would be appropriate for xbox. I have seen enough commentary on xbox and the direction it is going, etc. that I am sure there are sources out there to make a good article. There are a lot of pages that link to the page, so it is probably important. Having stubs helps the wiki grow. Gives a place for people to expand. Gives reminders of, oh yeah, that thing. Creating a stub article is a pain, why should somebody have to do it again? If people propose deletion just because something hasn't been worked on in a while, what do they want? Editors to periodically go around and touch every article they think is worthwhile? Drakeula (talk) 00:37, 24 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hi, @Drakeula, The Wiki tends to remove articles that have not been worked on in order to improve the perceived quality of the place. If you wish to fill in the article accordingly, I can gladly remove the deletion notice from the article for you. JamesTDG (talk) 01:17, 24 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Where is this policy documented/explained? There are several problems with the policy which I would like to be sure have been discussed, and I am interested in participating in the discussion.

In this case the article has sat unmodified for at most 2 months. That seems absurdly short for a timeout.

The policy feels very manipulative, "work on this or the article gets it." Xbox is not my priority, but it will probably be someones. It is a shame to lose what progress is made every time somebody has other things in their life.

I have a few main interests (AI at the moment), but dabble in lots of other things. I would rather be free to improve things here and there as I feel. The policy plainly penalizes that work style.

(The Mary Condo follower uses a hammer to put in a screw because the screwdriver did not bring them joy. The eclectic person uses a hammer to put in a screw because they can't find one of their dozens of screwdrivers among all their other tools.)

In general this policy seems extremely short-sighted for the wiki. Why should I work on this wiki if anything I am working on will be deleted if I get busy for a couple of months, or after I move on to other things? So I will not adopt the xbox article, but I will try to advocate to extend protection for it and all the orphans, and thereby help grow the wiki.

I have more to say, but will save it until I find what has been said and the right place to say it. Thanks. Drakeula (talk) 02:12, 24 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hi, @Drakeula, the Xbox article has been in an excessively unfinished state for more than a month. Policy generally states that we need to remove barely-developed articles after 1 month. Our general expectation is that if a user is going to create an article, that they at least fill in the framework within 1 week of creation, but we give extra leeway.

Of course, please remember that just because a page is deleted, it does not mean that it cannot be made again! JamesTDG (talk) 03:39, 24 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

@JamesTDG Where are these policies stated on the wiki?

I just looked through Consumer Rights Wiki:Wiki policy index and couldn't find anything there about the 1 month rule, nor the 1 week expectation. Drakeula (talk) 06:25, 4 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'd say there is a difference between starting an article, and literally just filling in the page creation form and nothing else. On the Xbox article, even just the amount of text you've added is enough for me to be happy leaving it as a stub instead of deleting it (and as such I have removed the deletion notice). Keith (talk) 07:53, 24 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I agree with both points. While the Create a Page flow suggest a standard for an acceptable article: "if you're not going to be able to get the very basics of a page created today (a basic statement of wht {{sic}} the article's about with a couple of references), it might be better to make a draft in your user space." which suggest people disobeying the notice not reading due to the attention spans of today; I have to ask if there are measures that prevent or atleast warn articles being published with (1) no citations or (2) sections with template infoboxes. (I would verify this, but don't want to accidentally create a page as a result. If such a system isn't present yet it's understandable, probably harder than I imagine to implement it.) Raster (talk) 03:19, 24 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hi, @Raster, because the wiki is intended to allow users without accounts to create pages, we cannot design a system to remind them to work on their unfinished articles. JamesTDG (talk) 03:43, 24 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hi @JamesTDG, I don't mean "remind", I mean "prevent" like how one would disable a submit button in a webpage if some requirements are not met. Apologies for any unclear wording on my side Raster (talk) 03:51, 24 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hi, @Raster, unfortunately this is not a system we can enforce without excessively modifying the codebase of MediaWiki. JamesTDG (talk) 03:54, 24 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

@JamesTDG, that's understandable. Thank you for the reply. I was going to suggest putting such a warning in the new page info boxes, but not sure where to put in a way people will actually read it. Raster (talk) 03:57, 24 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, to be a bit more specific, because pages are created through the form, a page will always be first created as an unfinished template. that's why we generally leave a day to allow newly submitted articles to be edited into their 'starting state' before worrying about article notices and so on. Keith (talk) 07:51, 24 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I tried to use the Userspace_draft template, only to find that it didn't exist. I started with the source of that template from wikipedia, updating the wording a bit and deleting quite a bit.

I commented out a chunk that caused an error "Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "["." I couldn't see how the chunk in question could cause that error, so someone with more mediawiki template experience may wish to take a look. CorpoBlight (talk) 05:59, 24 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

It's telling me this, but it won't tell me what I've said wrong.

Can't save the page as a result. How can I find out what words are wrong so I can remove them. I can't find a list anywhere on the site + the error doesn't really tell me much. Also, the page I'm editing has a deletion request...but it will be fully populated with reference once I can edit and save my copy. Thanks in advance for your help. 84.239.50.131 07:18, 24 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hello, this is because of the abuse filter, which blocks edits it thinks are harmful. The edit it blocked you from sending seems completely fine and was a false positive, so I'll make the change on your behalf. AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 07:21, 24 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hi, I'm also here because I ran afoul of this filter. My edit does affect about every line of the Article Suggestions table (it's an attempt at alphabetisation) so I can see it looking Big and Awful to an automatic filter! Neuropirate (talk) 23:10, 25 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

 Done the edit and also confirmed you so you won’t have to deal with the filter that stopped you again. Also nice work putting it in alphabetical order! AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 06:18, 26 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank you to @AnotherConsumerRightsPerson for getting the edit, but I just wanted to add that if you create an account, then after a few edits you won't need to worry about the filters or similar. Keith (talk) 07:48, 24 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank you to @AnotherConsumerRightsPerson as well.

And you know @Keith, you make a good point. This was kind of supposed to be a one time thing...but maybe it shouldn't be. I'll go ahead and register. 84.239.50.131 16:43, 24 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

This is the first Wiki I've seen with such a cool and human feature, but I need to know if I'm using it correctly instead of just baffling everyone with how much I click them buttons in the Recent Changes page. So some questions:

1. How public is "Publicly send thanks?" Does it appear anywhere else other than the Your notices section?
2. Does it keep track of which edits have already been thanked? I see some that I have thanked acknowledge that upon a refresh, but most of the time I see the thank button appear again. In this case, does clicking it spam the person's notifications again? Or is this a browser cache issue?
3. Assuming this is some sort of MediaWiki plugin, is it open source?

Personally I love my experience with it thus far, as I don't vibe with the idea of an online scoreboard. Thanks! Raster (talk) 12:19, 26 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

1. It is mainly directed straight to the user being thanked, but if you go to Special:Log/thanks, there is a thanks log there.

2. I think you can spam notifications by thanking different edits, but I don’t think you can thank twice.

3. It is a MediaWiki plugin, I think that it is after looking at the page for it. AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 14:53, 26 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I believe the article's wording now fits within the guidelines. If there are still areas that need improvement tone-wise, do mention what they are. Thank you for your time Raster (talk) 08:51, 28 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Done! Thanks for improving the article! Beanie Bo (talk) 13:57, 28 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I believe that the article fits under the guidelines. If it does, please mention what they are. Beef (talk) 13:44, 28 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

 Done sorry for delay! AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 16:22, 5 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Although it has 'bot' flag, NewUserMessage still shows up in recent changes. I did a bit of digging and found out that all you need to fix it is a line in the localsettings.php file. Setting $wgNewUserSuppressRC to true should do the trick.

Also, just found before posting that to substitute the template (something I suggested earlier), putting any text in page MediaWiki:Newusermessage-substitute‎ should do the trick (which will keep the message the same as when it was posted even when the template itself is updated, like doing it manually instead of via a template). AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 20:21, 29 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

This would be something that needs to be passed on to our tech folks. I'll let them know this exists - Atsumari (talk) 07:55, 1 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

IPs have been shown for editing since the start of wikis, but it isn’t private for the IP users, and also Wikipedia is changing that now with temporary accounts. They will instead put it behind a random username, of sorts, that looks kinda like this: ~2025-8371-275. This is also viewable by the ‘temporary account IP viewer’ right or if users are CheckUsers (which I’m pretty sure isn't on the Wiki right now). This is also coming VERY soon, in 4 or so days on the English Wikipedia I think, so it can be implemented quickly. AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 06:40, 1 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Ok nice, if this comes out via mediawiki, hopefully we can just get it patched into the wiki Keith (talk) 18:04, 5 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Mr Pollo @KeithOn the Consumer Rights Wiki:Rules if I click on the discussion tab it takes me to Consumer Rights Wiki talk:Code of conduct. The content looks similar to the rules, but it is a talk page for a non-existent article. Looking at the history, it looks like something that needs to be fixed by an admin who knows what was going on and which one is the real rules. Since neither one looks like a talk page, thought better to mention it here. Thanks. Drakeula (talk) 05:20, 4 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

 Done Hey I can delete articles too! AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 16:54, 4 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Wait nevermind, I only deleted the redirect. I’m not sure what the code of conduct is about? I’ll move it out of talk namespace anyway. AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 16:56, 4 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Note for mods: Page now located at Project:Code of conduct AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 16:57, 4 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks! Keith (talk) 18:03, 5 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank you, but this still leaves a confusing situation, where the (now orphaned) Consumer Rights Wiki:Code of conduct looks like an official policy, but it says different things than Consumer Rights Wiki:Rules.

Please either:

1. put a disclaimer box on it saying readers should ignore it (it is a draft).
2. Move it to a namespace that makes it obvious that it isn't official (e.g. part of somebodies user page).
3. If it isn't needed anymore, delete it (or blank the contents if want to keep the history).
4. Protect it so only moderators can see it.
5. Do something else to make it clear to the casual reader what its status is, and where to find the official version.

Thanks. Drakeula (talk) 08:00, 6 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

just curious lol AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 20:20, 4 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

It was an Upwork job when setting up the Wiki. We're planning on a rework along with the site theme creation next year. Keith (talk) 09:23, 12 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Ahhh makes sense. AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 15:53, 12 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

The article Amazon allows fraudulent product page after manual review has a deletion request that says "old aigen article that has not seen any use."

The article

1. Has several paragraphs of meaningful content (not a stub).
2. Has several references
3. Is about an issue that I have heard of and seems noteworthy (Fraud against consumers by one of the largest retailers in the US).

What exactly are the criteria that this article violates that it should be deleted?

• The "seen any use" seems to indicate that there is some criterion on how much people read an article, which this one hasn't met. What is the use benchmark articles have to pass? How can we see how much use an article gets?
• AI generated - how is this determined? I have skimmed the article, it doesn't seem overly painful to read. (It isn't Kippling or Hemmingway, but it isn't bureaucrateese either.)

I am appealing the deletion of this article, since it meets all the inclusion criteria of which I am aware. If there are policies that it violates, which are not spelled out in the rules, please spell them out. Thanks. Drakeula (talk) 08:40, 6 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

The "has not seen any use" bit is something I usually add to articles if it hasn't been edited, but there is no guideline on it. AIgen is shown to me partly because loads of info was suddenly added. I do have to admit though that it doesn't make much sense and if nothing happens to it in a year or 2 maybe it'll get deleted then? I'll remove the deletionreq. AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 14:39, 6 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank you.

Not quite sure I understand what you are saying. I thought the goal of the wiki was to have a reference. Unfortunately, that entails a necessary evil of having to write/edit articles. If an article is good enough that it hasn't required editing in months or years, isn't that a good thing? (Not saying the article is great, but once something is sort of okay, editors might focus on more skeletal articles vs. polishing something that has the basics.)

Is there something undesirable about writing something offline, and then adding it? I have been drafting a few things locally, it didn't occur to me that there would be anything suspicious or bad about crafting in private and then releasing what would look sudden to others. Please help me understand. Drakeula (talk) 18:54, 6 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I’ll simplify it to this: My reasons for adding a deletion request were overall pretty stupid. AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 19:04, 6 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

No worries. The article isn't of the greatest quality, so I can see why you may have mistakenly added the notice. I put some notes in the Discussion tab if you're interested in how the page could potentially be improved. Beanie Bo (talk) 13:22, 7 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

(Note, this question was prompted by Amazon allows fraudulent product page after manual review and other articles.) I feel generally uncomfortable with the LLM tag, because I can't figure out what it means. (I have seen it added to various articles, for no readily apparent reason.) All I can figure so far is that it seems like a particularly insulting way of saying that the tagger doesn't like somebodies writing style. (I strongly object to the overuse of LLMs, saying one writes like one is dehumanizing in the extreme.)

If adding that tag is based on a particular tool, then it would help to have the tool called out so one could experiment and learn how to appease the tool.

There are readability and grammar assistance tools (not recent AI garbage, but reliable old-style programs, like Grammatic), perhaps a link to such tools might be useful to add to the template?

It might help if the adder of the AI/LLM template were required to add specifics about what they find problematic. (Are there inaccuracies, is it use of particular words, is it cliched or verbose, ...) Thanks. Drakeula (talk) 08:48, 6 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

the SloppyAI tag is basically just if its fully/mostly AI generated, not based on tools and just at the adder's discretion. It's my least favorite template though, and I should probably rework the wording and add an issue part like the one in the Incomplete notice. I'll keep your ideas in mind if/when I do it. AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 14:29, 6 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

The AI notice is primarily for quality control - whether it means the references haven't been vetted, or the content hasn't been vetted, or even if the content itself is too "AI-sounding" that it can deter readers. It's a great notice to have because it means the content is still relevant but may require editing to be up to quality standards. Beanie Bo (talk) 16:28, 6 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'll work on the template in my sandbox now. AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 16:28, 6 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank you @User:AnotherConsumerRightsPerson. If the visual editor could present a short list of a few typical reasons why the tag might be added, with a checkbox for each. That might give an easy way for the tagger to provide more helpful information to other editors. (I am thinking things like "wordy" (or "omit needless words"), "repetitive" (for says same thing over and over), "jargon" (or "overly technical"), "fact check". Those are just what comes to my mind, pick whatever sins of AI/poor writing you see commonly.)

If the visual editor can't do that (and for those who don't use the editor), the documentation could provide a list of cues for taggers to use.

Rather than saying AI, could it be more - help improve clarity/readability?

I just want the reader/writer to clearly communicate what they can do to improve the article. Thanks. Drakeula (talk) 18:26, 6 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

This would be very helpful, thanks! Just make sure to check with Keith first before finalizing anything. I do also like Drakeula's idea of having options or perhaps write-ins like the Incomplete notice does. Beanie Bo (talk) 12:31, 7 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

As a matter of fact, the notice already has the issues outlined, so if you know how to add a write-in box, I think that would clear things up better. Thanks for working on it! Beanie Bo (talk) 13:25, 7 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I unfortunately cannot make boxes that you can tick to select different options for visual editor, but it is very easy to just make a box where you can type in what the issue is, and make it required. Question though, would you rather have seperate issues laid out like in the Incomplete template or just one box to write all issues in like the DeletionRequest template? AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 15:22, 7 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I like the idea.

@Keith What do you think of this convo? Are you cool with them editing the AI/LLM notice? Beanie Bo (talk) 15:54, 7 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

By the way in my sandbox I also changed wording to be less accusative, so now it is 'This article may rely heavily on LLMs' instead of 'This article relies on LLMs' and that might be a bit controversial. AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 16:23, 7 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Oh absolutely - anywhere those notices can be improved to be less ambiguous (and perhaps smaller and less obtrusive) is undoubtedly a good thing Keith (talk) 02:08, 10 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

As far as things goes, there was a heated discussion about contents at Wikimedia Foundation where User:Beanie Bo insisted that many contents we've added are out of the scope, although later on some mods clarified on the Discord server that the so-called "name and shame" pages on Wikipedia do fall in the scope since they constitute privacy violations. But now Beanie Bo, who apparently is out of the loop from the Discord server discussion, had went against that consensus by removing the section about the privacy violations, while putting the page up for deletion which will mean the compromise of impartiality which wouldn't make a good look for Louis as he reportedly wants to present the findings to the Congress one day. Pinging User:Keith and User:AnotherConsumerRightsPerson for third opinions. 15.181.161.29 14:22, 7 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm not out of the loop. I'm the main person you were talking to on Discord, NK. I suggested that you may create a separate Wikipedia page for the incidents that are relevant to consumer rights violations. Meanwhile, the WikiMedia Foundation page that had already been deemed irrelevant before you even added information, would be deleted for lack of relevance. Painting WMF with a broad brush of negativity for issues that pertain to the running of Wikipedia is inaccurate and unfair. As a company, there have yet to be any validity to its inclusion on the Consumer Rights Wiki. Beanie Bo (talk) 14:30, 7 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Duly noted. @AnotherConsumerRightsPerson can you make a draft page for the Wikipedia article just like last time you did with the inactive accounts deletion topic? Thanks. 15.181.163.103 14:32, 7 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Sorry for not doing this. AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 11:30, 8 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Multiple references have been added since it was marked. I believe there is a sufficient amount of content. article when it was marked, article current version. 2A00:23C8:2384:101:B34:3E7B:6AF4:18CF 23:09, 10 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'll remove this. The problem has been fixed here, so I don't see an issue. AnotherConsumerRightsPerson (talk) 18:49, 11 November 2025 (UTC)Reply