# Unnecessary tiny tables Part of [The AI Tells Index](https://feedsquad.com/ai-tells). A tell signals low effort. It does not identify an author. Skilled writers produce every shape listed here, some of them daily, and automated detectors misread those writers for it at rates measured above 60 percent on non-native English prose. Nothing in this index proves that a machine wrote anything. Read an entry as one piece of evidence to weigh against the false-positive notes printed beside it. ## Facts - Id: tiny-tables - Category: Formatting (formatting) - Subcategory: tables - Also known as: WP:AITABLE, two-row table where prose would do - Status: Active. Currently signals low-effort writing. - Severity: low - Evidence grade: community-observed (named by practitioners, no formal measurement exists) - Languages: en - Added: 2026-08-15 - Updated: 2026-08-15 - Page: https://feedsquad.com/ai-tells/tiny-tables ## Description A table built for two or three rows of information that was never tabular. The rows share no dimension, so the grid adds borders and nothing else. ## Why it reads as machine-written Wikipedia's editors record chatbots producing small tables where prose or an infobox would carry the same content, and the dated examples they keep show the giveaway: column headings reading Metric and Figure, holding items with no metric in common. A table is structure that can be produced without deciding anything. Prose forces a decision about what connects the rows. ## Detection Type: judge (a rubric for a lightweight model judge) Rubric for a lightweight model judge: ```text Scan the text for tables with three or fewer data rows. For each one, check whether the rows share a single dimension a reader would want to compare across, such as the same measurement taken for different subjects, or one subject measured at different times. Escape hatches that mean no hit: a comparison of two named options across the same attributes; a schedule; a price list; a specification sheet; any table the surrounding prose refers to by column name. If the rows share no dimension and no sentence near the table points at it, return a hit and quote the heading row. Otherwise return no hit. ``` ## Examples Constructed specimens. Written for this index. Never quoted from anyone's posts. ### Specimen 1 Before, exhibiting the tell: > Our support numbers > > | Metric | Figure | > | Tickets 2025 | about 4,100 | > | Median first reply | 3 hours | > | Languages covered | four | After, repaired: > We handled about 4,100 tickets in 2025 with a median first reply of three hours. Four languages are covered. Finnish is the one where the median doubles, because one person answers it and she works Tuesdays to Thursdays. Note: Figures in this repair are invented for the specimen. ## False positives Who legitimately writes this way. Comparison journalism and buyer's guides use small tables correctly, and two rows are enough when two rows are the whole comparison. Accessibility guidance sometimes prefers a short table to a sentence stuffed with parenthetical figures, and screen-reader users often prefer the table. Specification sheets, price lists and schedules are tabular by nature at any size. This entry rests on one section of one community style list, which is thin evidence, and the low severity is set to match rather than dressed up. ## Model attribution Unassigned. Wikipedia's own wording is that in rare cases some models create unnecessary small tables. No study this project read measures table use by model family. ## Platform notes - wikipedia: Shortcut WP:AITABLE. The guide keeps dated draft examples, and its own framing is that the behaviour is rare, which is worth repeating anywhere this entry is used. ## Sources 1. Wikipedia: Signs of AI writing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signs_of_AI_writing (tier: community; accessed 2026-08-14) ## Status history Ids are permanent. A retired tell keeps its id and its page. - 2026-08-15, Active: Active but thin. The only support is one section of Wikipedia's style list, which says that in rare cases some models build unnecessary small tables and keeps dated examples. Severity is set to low to match single-source evidence, and the rubric carries four escape hatches so that correct small tables pass. ## License CC BY 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Attribution: The AI Tells Index, feedsquad.com/ai-tells Reuse the data, including commercially. Keep the attribution line. --- Dataset version 1.0.0. Schema version 1. Part of [FeedSquad](https://feedsquad.com). Built by [Herman Foundry](https://hermanfoundry.com) from Levi, Finnish Lapland.