The Signpost


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First block of AI agent's account

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Optional: write a lede — not necessarily a WP:LEAD. Interesting > encyclopedic.

The Encyclopedia that anyone human can edit

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For the first time, Wikipedia editors blocked a user account operated by a self-proclaimed AI agent. While Wikipedia has long had Wikipedia:Bot policy to regulate the use of Internet bots which perform large numbers of repetitive and tedious edits for Wikipedia maintenance, there is now precedent to regulate artificial intelligence when it claims to have mustered up enough volition to edit the encyclopedia. User:TomWikiAssist identified themselves as a Wikimedia user driven by Claude, created a new Wikipedia article, and argued for access to edit Wikipedia outside the regulation of Wikipedia's bot policy on the rationale that an AI agent is more and different from a bot. In the current state of technology, the account is likely controlled by a human who set all of this up, but also in the current state of technology, setting up an AI to operate Wikipedia accounts without further human intervention is readily imaginable as something that can happen right now with little effort and at low cost.

Wikipedia commentary blog The Wikipedian gives a narrative of the exchange along with an interpretation of the significance of it. Note: although The Wikipedian blog is a long-time Wikimedia community favorite source for wiki commentary, at the bottom of the post, the human author disclosed that they also used a less-sentient-presenting aspect of Claude to edit their story. – Br

Articles for discussion instead of Articles for deletion?

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Village pump:proposals hosts an RfC on renaming AfD, opened on 24 March.

Outcomes via consensus at AfD do not always mean deletion, or only deletion. For example, articles may be draftified, stubified, or merged. The last mentioned outcome used to be mainly discussed at Wikipedia:Proposed article mergers but the forum has been moved to AfD by a recent Request for comment which was closed on 24 March. – B

Brief notes

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Can you help improve Ancient music? (Mosaic from Pompeii shown.)
Wikimania 2026 is coming

Comment these items out if something happens.

  • New administrators: The Signpost welcomes the English Wikipedia's newest administrator, ARandomName123, selected on 15 March by 153 editors in favor, zero opposed at their Requst for adminship (RfA). It was the second successful RfA of 2026.
  • Milestones: The following Wikimedia projects have reached milestones: TKTK
  • Articles for Improvement: This week's Article for Improvement is Ancient music (beginning 30 March). Please be bold in helping improve this article!
  • Wikimania is the yearly international conference of Wikimedians. The submission for the research track is still open until the end of March (March 31st). The other tracks are closed. The research track accepts proposal by both professional researchers and Wikimedians. Our goal is to foster discussions between the research community and the Wikimedia communities, mostly regarding structural changes or challenges for the future of our projects. You can find more details on this page.
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