Wikipedia talk:User groups

Should we say that "confirmed" and "autoconfirmed" accounts are the same thing?

I noticed that the section on autoconfirmed and confirmed accounts was recently changed to just "Confirmed users". Technically, confirmed and autoconfirmed are separate user groups that have the exact same permissions, so I have made some changes that partially restored the distinction; these edits might be contested, so I'm posting here to start a discussion. The autoconfirmed/confirmed distinction is present throughout most of Wikipedia from what I can tell; the edit notice on this page as I am editing it says "only autoconfirmed users can edit it"; not "only confirmed users can edit it", and pages that are semi-protected have a protection log entry that says "edit=Require autoconfirmed or confirmed access". I know newbies might conflate the two groups, but they are not really the same thing. Saying "confirmed" in quotes is probably a better idea to refer to the both of them, because the quotes differentiate that term from the confirmed user group. Any thoughts? Pinging @Oshwah because he originally made that change. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 19:57, 22 August 2025 (UTC)

Clarification: I support the merging of the two sections together (the confirmed user group does not need its own section), but I still think that the page should, in general, refer to "Confirmed and autoconfirmed users" rather than just "Confirmed users". SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 20:03, 22 August 2025 (UTC)

(edit conflict) SuperPianoMan9167 - The reason I made that change was to try and lessen any confusion by new users but while also trying to keep the technical differences in place. In the end, you are a "confirmed" user - whether it's because the MediaWiki software placed you into the autoconfirmed user group automatically, or because an administrator or event coordinator placed you into the confirmed user group manually. I'm open to any suggestions, thoughts, or changes that anyone has in mind regarding this. I was hoping to tailor it a bit more so that it wasn't just dead-split into two, and I thought by combining them and then talking about the two groups inside of the section as part of the entire description would serve better. :-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 20:07, 22 August 2025 (UTC)

I like how you combined the sections in that way; the only thing I am suggesting is that "confirmed" should be in quotes if it refers to both groups of users so to avoid confusion with the confirmed user group. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 20:10, 22 August 2025 (UTC)

I made a couple copy edits just now. I think the version that you did (with the heading name "Confirmed and autoconfirmed accounts") is good and would recommend keeping that mostly intact. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:19, 22 August 2025 (UTC)

Pseudo groups

cc FaviFake. Diff. partially undid revision 1307304983 by Novem Linguae (talk) because I've heard them called 2"pseudo-groups" elsewhere. I this this should be explained better, why are they pseudo-groups? Or is this just planly incorrect? I don't see it in CodeSearch or MediaWiki wiki. I don't think this concept exists. Can we go back to just saying "user group"? –Novem Linguae (talk) 14:06, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

if it is just incorrect, sure. I've reverted my edit. I'm curious as to why they were called that in the first place. Maybe it's just that this page isn't very monitered.

Thanks for the ce and ce you did, btw. FaviFake (talk) 14:12, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

I'm curious as to why they were called that in the first place. For awhile, I think English Wikipedia was inventing its own terms. For example a couple months ago this page was called "user access levels" instead of "user groups". However in the program code, it seems clear to me that there's very precise terms for these things, such as user group and user right. So I am trying to standardize the page to use those terms. Hopefully it helps get everyone speaking the same language :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 14:28, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

makes sense! thanks FaviFake (talk) 14:43, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

RFC discussion at Wikipedia talk:Protection policy § Revised proposal to improve extended confirmed grants

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Protection policy § Revised proposal to improve extended confirmed grants. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 00:53, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

Merging confirmed and extended confirmed

I feel we don't have a enough administrators doing deletion work especially in draftspace. After realizing how large the draft back log is after this discussion, I feel if we removed confirmed status and replaced it with extended confirmed, we would fix this problem. What problems would be encountered? Logoshimpo (talk) 23:56, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Hey there. I think you are making a couple incorrect assumptions here.

• Can you elaborate a bit on "not enough deletion going on in draftspace"? Are you seeing WP:G11 tagged drafts sitting for weeks or something?
• Can you elaborate a bit on why you think making changes to autoconfirmed (10 edits/4 days) or extendedconfirmed (500 edits/30 days) would result in more administrators? Administrators are created via WP:RFA or WP:AELECT, and the de facto minimum criteria for those is probably closer to 7700 edits/425 days. But ultimately it is not automatic and the community decides after quite a bit of questioning and discussion of the candidate.

–Novem Linguae (talk) 01:20, 6 December 2025 (UTC)