Help talk:Your first article

Translations from other wikis

Sometimes an editor's first article, at least on en, is a translation from another wiki. Should something be added here about translations to at least link to Help:Translation? @Mathglot you do some work in this area, any thoughts? S0091 (talk) 16:39, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

Hi, S0091, and thanks for raising this; definitely something on my radar. In the long run, I would say definitely, yes. The problem currently, imho, is that Help:Translation and its parasitic twin WP:Translation are more a hindrance than a help. I have it on the back burner to propose a major overhaul (and possibly a reunification) of these two, to turn them into something comprehensible and useful, and have some ideas and notes about how to do it, based on a central core pertaining mostly to translation process at Wikipedia regardless of language, plus limited stuff relevant to all languages, along with a suite of subpages tailored to concerns for individual languages (but I am getting ahead of myself).

For the time being, probably the best advice for Wikipedia translators comes from the OKA project, in their page meta:OKA/Instructions for editors. (OKA is a Swiss foundation that provides fees to editors to translate articles of their choice; more at m:OKA.) However, I don't know that H:YFA should link to their page, as it is tailored to OKA translator-editors, and isn't really appropriate in the general case.

In short, yes we should link to our own translation page[s], but not just yet. If you would like to collaborate on an overhaul project, lmk, maybe that could kick-start it. Mathglot (talk) 17:55, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

Don't use AI

I propose adding this as one of the bullets under: Help:Your first article § How to create content > Writing a Wikipedia article. The aim being to discourage editors from using AI to generate article content.

• Avoid using large language models like ChatGPT, Copilot or Gemini to generate article content. These often produce "hallucinated" (that is, incorrect) text, and sometimes make up fake sources and references. It is much better to write the article completely yourself - then you can be confident in what it says. Remember, you are responsible for the content you add.

I'll do this in the next couple of days if no-one has any objections; suggestions for improvement always welcome. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 13:20, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

I would definitely support something (anything) about AI in here :). GoldRomean (talk) 20:21, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Me too especially given WT:CSD#RFC: New CSD for unreviewed LLM content which is gaining broad consensus. I would also support adding something in the Nutshell and in the Dos and don'ts section. Also pinging @Mathglot and @HouseBlaster who had big hand in rewriting the page (FollyMox isn't active right now). S0091 (talk) 20:35, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. I might even say this deserves its own subsection. As with any instructions against an action, we have WP:BEANS to keep in mind—but AI slop is so widespread that I think we are more likely to prevent bad habits than encourage them.

As an interim measure, I'd support adding a bullet point in the Dos and don't section (which can remain regardless of where else we include the information). I also like what SunloungerFrog wrote; I would also support its addition :) HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 21:33, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

OK, I added a slightly more concise version of the bullet at the bottom of Help:Your first article § How to create content > Writing a Wikipedia article. Always happy for edits / improvements.

For the nutshell and a don't, I'd propose basically copying the first clause of the nutshell in WP:LLM in both places, that is:

• Don't use large language models (LLMs) to write original content

Again, I'll add this in the next couple of days if there aren't any objections. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 22:57, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

I suggest linking Large language model. Also, thank you for proposing these updates. It had been on my mind recently but had not gotten around to it. S0091 (talk) 18:59, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

Readership spike

Anyone have an idea what has been causing a 5x to 8x increase in pageviews since August? See pageviews chart above. Mathglot (talk) 10:18, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

Brainstorming a possible basic skills section

I see numerous brand new users at the Teahouse ask about creating a new article, or complaining about how hard it is to do. Teahouse hosts generally try to gently dissuade them as being not an easy task to start out with (not all do, though), and we already say plenty near the top about its being a difficult task, and how they should start with some more basic tasks and so on, and I think we do that bit right, and don't need to change anything.

On the other hand, some brand new users are going to plow ahead anyway, and try to create a new article. For that group, I think we could support them better in pointing out the absolute rock-bottom basic skill set a new user will need to know before getting started. How to create a wikilink. Acquiring sources. Creating a citation. What "in your own words" means. I am not thinking of reinventing the wheel here; all of this is covered elsewhere, of course, but a brand-newbie won't know where to find it all, or what the basic skill set even is. (Neither do I off the top of my head, unless I really think about it; I'm too used to writing articles by muscle memory to even really remember what all the basic skills are at this point.)

Anyway, maybe we could just list and link a required basic skill set, maybe like a brief, annotated linked list, to give them a kind of directed reading plan along with a pointer to their sandbox before they get started. Advanced beginners and everyone else can just jump over that section. Wondering what y'all think? If you were going to list out the mandatory minimum skill set before writing an article, what would you include? Would love to see everybody's list, and see if we can coalesce into something useful. Mathglot (talk) 11:42, 20 December 2025 (UTC)