User talk:Edcolins

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Subjective text - WIPO page
Hi Ed, I have removed the adjectives "fascinating", "crucial" and "inspiring" from the WIPO Magazine text. Is the article OK now? Best, Manuela Louloudi92 (talk) 09:21, 17 March 2023 (UTC)


 * @Louloudi92: Yes, I think it is better now, thanks. I have slightly adjusted the style. It would be even better if we could identify and insert some reliable sources (independent from WIPO) discussing that publication, if available. Edcolins (talk) 21:30, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Because there is no evidence that intellectual monopoly achieves the desired purpose...
Hi, Ed, and thank you for your contributions. I noticed, that we have been editing many of the same articles. Regarding that quote... I feel, that the current draft of "Intellectual property" wiki-article is short on criticism of the patent system and on describing alternatives to it. That quotation is one of many, and it may be appropriate to add more pro and con studies/viewpoints. Walter Tau (talk) 13:37, 11 April 2023 (UTC)


 * @Walter Tau: Thanks very much for your message and for your contributions. I think the article "Intellectual property" has a rather long section titled "Criticisms" already. The article's lead should contain "a summary of its most important contents" (per WP:LEAD). "Apart from basic facts, significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article" (again, see WP:LEAD). Cheers, Edcolins (talk) 20:31, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * Thank you! Edcolins (talk) 18:35, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Using GPT-4 32k to draft Wikipedia articles based on RS
Hey Ed, Thanks for the thanks.

I've having fun using GPT-4 32k to draft Wikipedia articles. I find 3+ RS, feed them whole into GPT4 and ask it to draft a Wikipedia article on the subject. Works pretty good. I'd say B+. You still have to go over things, but it's fun to see what it can do.

Let me know if you want to give it a shot and I can set you up. Nowa (talk) 08:44, 10 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks, @Nowa. I appreciate your offer. Please see WP:LLM, however. There is a lot of information on that page, including important guidance in that regard. Cheers -- Edcolins (talk) 06:29, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Good point and thanks for the link to WP:LLM. I'm not sure that what I'm doing is covered in that article.  I'm not "generating content" in the sense of saying to an LLM, "write a Wikipedia article on XYZ".  Instead, I'm asking the LLM to summarize the content of one or more RS that I feed into the LLM. I have found that LLMs do a reasonably good job of summarizing content you feed into them.  They also do a good job of extracting information related to a particular subject.  You do, of course, have to proofread and fact check.  I also instruct the LLM to present only information found in the RS.  So far, this has addressed the hallucination problem.  Would you agree that the technique I've described is an acceptable use of LLM in drafting/editing articles? Should this technique be more explicitly addressed in WP:LLM?Nowa (talk) 07:01, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
 * @Nowa: I have to admit that I am not an expert in this new way of improving and expanding articles. But you seem to be right. Summarizing the content of one or more RS seems acceptable under the policy laid out in WP:LLM (still a proposed policy, a work-in-progress apparently). See
 * "This page in a nutshell: Do not use large language models (LLMs) to write original content or generate references. LLMs can be used for certain tasks (like copyediting, summarization, and paraphrasing) if the editor has substantial prior experience in the intended task and rigorously scrutinizes the results before publishing them.''"
 * WP:AIFAIL does contain an additional caveat, though, regarding verbatim material "produced" by the engine. I assume the human editor must always check whether the produced content contains any verbatim copy of part of the reference (or is it something you can ask the engine to do, i.e. inserting quotes if necessary?). That is, quotes may have to be added manually.
 * By the way, regarding copyediting and paraphrasing, you may know DeepL Write (link: ), an interesting tool for doing so. Edcolins (talk) 09:36, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Ed, Thank for the tip on DeepL Write and the caution on verbatim copying.  I haven't seen any verbatim copying yet, but I'll keep an eye out for it. Nowa (talk) 22:07, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

The Wikipedia entry on standard patents is very thin..

 * Discussion moved to Talk:Essential_patent. --Edcolins (talk) 13:27, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Happy First Edit Day!
The Herald, thanks! --Edcolins (talk) 08:41, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

First Edit Day
 Happy First Edit Day! Have a very happy first edit anniversary!

From the Birthday Committee, Ezra Cricket (talk) 05:16, 13 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Thanks, @Ezra Cricket! :-) -- Edcolins (talk) 08:41, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Invitation to join the Twenty Year Society
Dear ,

I'd like to extend a cordial invitation to you to join the Twenty Year Society, an informal group for editors who've been participating in the Wikipedia project for twenty years or more. &#x200B;

Best regards,  Chris Troutman  ( talk )  13:55, 13 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the invitation! --Edcolins (talk) 08:44, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

"Notorious Software Patents" listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Notorious_Software_Patents&redirect=no Notorious Software Patents] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Anyone, including you, is welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached. Nat Gertler (talk) 04:16, 9 July 2024 (UTC)