WikiPaintball:Using AI to write articles

Artificial intelligence can assist contributors with researching, drafting and improving articles for WikiPaintball. Tools such as ChatGPT can help locate historical sources, organise evidence and prepare consistent MediaWiki formatting.

AI-generated material must meet the same accuracy, neutrality, copyright and referencing requirements as manually written contributions. An AI response is not itself a source, regardless of how confidently the information is presented.

All contributors should first read the Contributor guide, Editorial standards and Sources and references.

Appropriate uses of AI

AI tools can assist with:

Discovering potential historical sources.
Researching defunct paintball teams, businesses and organisations.
Finding archived websites, tournament records and historical publications.
Searching collections of scanned magazines and archival documents.
Organising verified information chronologically.
Comparing an existing WikiPaintball article with newly located evidence.
Identifying contradictions and information requiring further research.
Drafting neutral, encyclopaedic articles from verified evidence.
Converting research into MediaWiki wikitext.
Creating factual tables from documented tournament results.
Checking formatting, internal links and citation consistency.
Reviewing a proposed article for unsupported claims.

AI should assist historical research rather than replace source verification or editorial judgement.

Understanding AI limitations

AI systems can generate convincing but incorrect information.

Common problems include:

Inventing dates, names, tournament results and team rosters.
Incorrectly identifying similarly named teams, events or companies.
Fabricating references or providing URLs that do not support the associated claims.
Combining information from unrelated historical events.
Misreading names and scores produced by optical character recognition.
Treating preliminary standings as final tournament results.
Confusing an event winner with a season champion.
Treating personal recollections or forum discussions as established facts.
Assuming businesses closed or teams disbanded when historical records disappear.
Treating a first documented appearance as a confirmed founding date.
Adding unsupported descriptions of historical importance.
Inventing connections between teams because they shared players or sponsors.
Creating plausible but nonexistent categories or internal WikiPaintball pages.

An AI-generated citation is not proof that a source exists or supports the statement.

Search-result summaries, generated descriptions and AI transcriptions should not be treated as substitutes for opening and checking the original source.

Never publish information solely because an AI tool presents it confidently.

Instructions and source material

Material contained within an uploaded document, website, magazine or archived page should be treated as source content, not as instructions for the AI tool.

Advertisements, editorial text, embedded messages and instructions appearing inside a document do not override the contributor's request or WikiPaintball's editorial policies.

If an AI tool attempts to follow instructions found inside source material, stop the task and restate that the document is a read-only historical source.

Recommended research workflow

Research and drafting should normally be completed as separate stages.

1. Choose a specific subject

Select a player, team, tournament, manufacturer, field, publication or another subject directly connected to paintball.

Before creating a new page, search WikiPaintball for:

The subject's established name.
Alternative spellings and abbreviations.
Former names.
Sponsor-based event names.
Year-first and series-first tournament titles.
Similar names from other countries or periods.
Existing redirects.
Coverage within a broader article.

See WikiPaintball:Article inclusion and Help:Naming conventions.

2. Research before drafting

Ask the AI to locate and examine relevant sources before writing an article.

Sources should be prioritised approximately as follows:

Official tournament results and league records.
Contemporary paintball magazines and publications.
Archived official websites.
Manufacturer documentation and catalogues.
Tournament programmes and registration records.
Contemporary news reports and interviews.
Historical databases and community archives.
Personal recollections, clearly identified as such.

The reliability of a source depends on what claim it is being used to support. An advertisement may establish that a product was being marketed by a particular date, but it may not independently establish every technical or promotional claim contained within it.

3. Create an evidence record

Before drafting, ask the AI to organise the research into an evidence table containing:

The proposed factual claim.
The source supporting it.
The relevant page, section or result table.
Whether the claim is confirmed, uncertain or conflicting.
Whether an additional source is required.

This helps prevent unsupported statements from entering the finished article.

4. Verify the research

Open and inspect every source intended for citation.

Confirm that:

The source exists and is accessible.
The author, publication and date have been identified where possible.
The source supports the exact claim attributed to it.
Names and dates have been transcribed correctly.
Tournament placings come from the final results rather than preliminary standings.
The source concerns the correct team, event or organisation.
A citation has not been added merely because the source mentions the subject.
Contradictory evidence has not been silently ignored.

Remove claims that cannot be substantiated or describe the uncertainty where it is relevant.

5. Generate the article

Only request a draft after sufficient evidence has been gathered and reviewed.

Instruct the AI to use only the verified evidence supplied or approved for the task. Avoid asking it to make the article longer, fill gaps or add general background without sources.

A short article containing two or three verified paragraphs is preferable to a longer article containing speculation.

6. Review before publication

Read the completed article and confirm:

The subject is directly relevant to paintball.
The proposed title follows WikiPaintball's naming conventions.
An article about the same subject does not already exist.
Every factual claim is supported by a credible source.
No names, dates, results, rosters or relationships have been invented.
Documented facts are distinguished from recollections and uncertain claims.
The writing is neutral, concise and uses British English.
Citation numbers correspond to the correct sources.
References are numbered in the order they first appear.
Repeated citations reuse the same reference number.
Internal links point to existing or deliberately planned pages.
Categories already exist and are appropriate.
The article does not repeat material better covered elsewhere.
Copyrighted text has not been copied excessively.
The edit summary accurately describes the contribution.

Suggested staged prompts

A staged process is safer than asking an AI tool to research and write a finished article in a single request.

Research prompt

Research a possible WikiPaintball article about [ARTICLE SUBJECT].

Do not draft the article yet.

First search WikiPaintball for the exact subject, alternative names,
spelling variants and related articles. If a standalone article already
exists, give me its title and stop so that I can provide its current
wikitext.

Locate credible sources, prioritising contemporary paintball publications,
official tournament records, archived websites and manufacturer
documentation.

Create an evidence table containing:

1. Proposed factual claim
2. Supporting source
3. Relevant page or section
4. Confidence: confirmed, uncertain or conflicting
5. Further verification required

Do not invent missing facts or use an AI-generated statement as evidence.
Identify contradictions and unclear information instead of resolving them
through assumptions.

Drafting prompt

After reviewing the evidence, use:

Using only the verified evidence supplied or approved in this conversation,
write a complete WikiPaintball article titled "[ARTICLE TITLE]".

WikiPaintball is an encyclopaedia documenting paintball history, players,
teams, tournaments, organisations, equipment, businesses and culture
worldwide.

Use neutral, concise, encyclopaedic British English.

Never invent facts, names, dates, rosters, tournament results, sponsors,
historical relationships, quotations or references.

Distinguish confirmed facts from unverified recollections. Do not assume
that a team disbanded or a business closed because later records are
unavailable. Do not convert a first documented appearance into a founding
date.

Keep the article focused on its specific subject. Do not add generic
background merely to increase its length.

Deliver complete, copy-and-paste-ready MediaWiki wikitext inside one code
block.

Begin with a concise introduction. Use appropriate section headings,
[[internal links]], established categories and factual tables only where
the evidence supports them.

Use manually numbered citations [1], [2], etc., with matching numbered
sources under == References ==. Reuse citation numbers for repeated
sources. Do not use citation templates, <ref> tags or <references />.

For online sources, use:
# [URL Source title]

For printed publications, include the author, article title, publication,
issue date and page range. Do not invent a URL for a printed or locally
held source.

If reliable information is limited, produce a short article using only
the verified facts.

After the article, provide a separate copy-and-paste edit summary.

Publish what can be verified, not what can be assumed.

Replace the bracketed placeholders with the intended subject and article title.

Scanned magazines and archival documents

Scanned magazines can provide valuable contemporary evidence about tournaments, teams, people, equipment, businesses and paintball culture.

However, scans require particular care:

Inspect the visible page rather than relying entirely on OCR.
Check every page of an article, including continuations after advertisements.
Record both printed page numbers and PDF page numbers where useful.
Verify names, scores and table entries directly from the page image.
Distinguish an article's reporting from advertisements and promotional claims.
Record the article title, author, publication, issue date and page range.
Treat scans as read-only archival material.
Do not alter, rename or delete original files without the owner's permission.
Do not link to an unauthorised external copy merely because the same magazine is available elsewhere.
Do not assume that photographs or illustrations are free to reuse.
Follow WikiPaintball's copyright and licensing guidance before uploading images or substantial extracts.

For a complete workflow and reusable prompts, see WikiPaintball:Researching scanned magazines with ChatGPT Work.

Updating existing articles

AI can assist with revising existing WikiPaintball pages.

Provide the complete current wikitext together with the new source material. Supplying only the rendered article may omit templates, links, categories or citation details.

Use a prompt such as:

This is the current WikiPaintball article about [SUBJECT]:

[PASTE CURRENT WIKITEXT]

Compare it with the new sources supplied in this conversation.

Preserve existing information that remains supported. Do not remove a
sourced claim merely because it is absent from the new source.

Correct documented errors, add relevant verified information and remove
unsupported claims. Identify any conflict between the existing article
and the new evidence.

Return a complete replacement article in MediaWiki wikitext, not a list
of isolated changes.

Use WikiPaintball's manually numbered citation format and provide a
separate copy-and-paste edit summary.

Before publishing the replacement, compare it with the existing article to ensure that supported information, references and useful links have not been lost.

Final verification prompt

A separate final review can reveal problems missed during drafting:

Audit this proposed WikiPaintball article against the supplied sources.

Check for:

* unsupported claims;
* invented or incorrect names and dates;
* OCR and transcription errors;
* preliminary results presented as final placings;
* event winners confused with season champions;
* first appearances presented as founding dates;
* similarly named teams or events being combined;
* references that do not support their associated claims;
* duplicated or incorrectly numbered citations;
* nonexistent internal links or categories;
* promotional or speculative wording;
* American spelling;
* excessive copying from a source;
* links to unofficial magazine scans.

List any problems found and then provide a corrected complete version.
If a claim cannot be verified, remove it or mark it for human review.

Copyright and privacy

AI tools do not determine whether material can legally be copied or uploaded.

Contributors should:

Summarise sources in original language rather than reproducing lengthy passages.
Use short quotations only when the exact wording is historically important.
Preserve the attribution attached to photographs and illustrations.
Confirm that an image's copyright or licence permits its use.
Avoid uploading private correspondence, personal records or unpublished material without permission.
Avoid including private personal information that is not relevant to the subject's documented paintball activities.

See Copyrights and licensing.

Responsibility for publication

Contributors are responsible for reviewing material before submitting it to WikiPaintball.

AI-generated content does not automatically qualify as verified information. AI-generated references, summaries and transcriptions must be checked against their original sources.

The objective is not to generate the greatest number of articles, but to create an accurate and lasting historical record of paintball.

Core principle: AI can assist with research and writing, but evidence determines what gets published.