User:Novem Linguae/Essays/Thoughts on draftspace

"Draftspace good vs draftspace bad", or various discussions on "draftification", are becoming a hot issue. Here are my thoughts on draftspace:

Pros of draftspace

New editor experience

New editor assistance - The AFC process provides a process to get experts to evaluate the article and let you know what's wrong with it.
Protection from immediate deletion - Draftspace protects content from immediate deletion, giving authors time to work on promising drafts, instead of having them immediately discarded, and then hidden behind our not-well-known-to-new-users WP:REFUND process.
Less bitey than deletion - Having an article draftified is less bitey and less jarring than having an article go through regular deletion (CSD, AFD).

Segregating problematic articles

Keeps poor content out of mainspace - If I recall correctly, around 80% of drafts are declined and 20% accepted. If so, then draftspace is doing a good job of quarantining content that shouldn't be in mainspace. Imagine the volume of poor content that would be placed in mainspace and need to go through AFD if draftspace were to be deprecated.
Provides a place to segregate COI/UPE - COI/UPE articles often have problems with WP:UNDUE weight, which takes time and expertise to correct. Letting this content sit in mainspace also provides an incentive to UPEs that we do not want to provide, since clients would see the published article and pay them quickly, thinking the job is done.
Most drafts are not promising - I suggest applying for AFC reviewer and doing some AFC reviewing if you haven't yet. The new submissions side of the queue has G11, G12, COI, UPE, high schoolers writing articles on themselves and linking to their Instagrams, non-famous YouTubers, and non-famous musicians. The old submissions side of the queue has refbombed articles with borderline notability. Yes there are some good articles peppered in there, but overall the quality is not that high.

Other

Possibly teaches good habits to newer editors - AFC is slightly stricter than NPP, because sources conferring notability must be included in the draft. Getting new editors into the habit of including these in articles they create may be good for the encyclopedia in the long run.
More processes might help spread the workload - If AFC were to be shut down, that would move work over to NPP, PROD, and AFD. It might also de-motivate our AFC reviewers, who may or may not donate their time to these other processes. It is perhaps an advantage to have lots of different, non-centralized processes, to help spread the workload.

Cons of draftspace

Problems with draftspace specifically

Slow - A terrible part of the draftspace experience is how long draftspace takes when notability is borderline. Borderline drafts sit submitted for 3 months, waiting for one of our expert back-of-queue reviewers to go through the refbombed sources and make a tough decision about their chances of survival at AFD. This may be one of the strongest arguments against draftspace. Submitting an edit takes seconds, AFDs take a week, borderline drafts take months. The first two processes allow iterative editing and crowdsourcing to kick in quickly, which is one of the biggest advantages of a wiki. AFC takes too long, stalling the creative process. The possibly new editor that wrote the draft might have wandered off, or lost interest, or no longer have that information top-of-mind by the time a review occurs. The word "wiki" is a Hawaiian word that means "quick", and this is probably for a reason.
Less editors, less iteration - Of course, a downside of draftspace is that there is less iteration, less polishing by multiple users. Once it's in draftspace, it's up to the article creator and the reviewers, and no one else really sees it.
Less experienced reviewers - It is easier to become an AFC reviewer than an NPP reviewer. The bar is lower. This is probably because accepted drafts also get checked by an NPP, and that second set of eyes lowers the risk of bad accepts, meaning the permission can be granted more freely. However, inexperienced reviewers can sometimes over-decline, which bites newbies.
Higher standards clash with the "anyone can edit" idea - The essence of the "encyclopedia that anyone can edit" idea is that we make it as easy as possible for newcomers to contribute. Less steps means it's less of a hassle for a new user to make edits, write content, and eventually maybe become a power user. Higher standards means more mental burden to make edits, more iterations, and more motivation needed. The chances of a new user "giving up" are higher.

Problems with new editor articles in general

The "non-notable article" problem - One terrible part of the new editor experience is this trap of writing an article on a non-notable topic by accident. It really stings to work hard, then get the article rejected or deleted. I had this happen to me as a new editor. I don't know what the fix is, but this problem would not be solved by deprecating draftspace. New editors would still write articles on non-notable topics by accident, and would still be bit hard when their articles are deleted.
The "encyclopedia is getting full" problem - It is probably harder than ever to start a new article on a notable topic. Wikipedia is a mature encyclopedia, with over 6 million articles. Arguably, creating an article is one of the hardest editing tasks for a new user to do correctly on Wikipedia. Arguably, perhaps strategies should be considered to steer brand new editors away from article creation, and to help manage their expectations about article creation.

Conclusion

Draftspace, AFC, and draftification have both upsides and downsides. However, I am not convinced that scaling back draftification nor deprecating draftspace would make things any better.

The new user experience stinks because of the trap of writing articles on non-notable topics, and because drafts take forever to review, not because of draftspace and draftification existing.

Comments welcome on the talk page.

Appendix 1: Actionable ideas

Below is a list of ideas that are specific enough to be proposals if someone wanted to make them. I don't agree with some of these, I'm just documenting them.

Update default message of User:Evad37/MoveToDraft user script to be warmer and more friendly.
Done Update User:Evad37/MoveToDraft to have multiple messages you can choose from, so you can make your message more specific. See User:Onel5969/Draftify templates for some ideas.
Modify Template:AfC submission to have both a "submit" button and a "move to mainspace" button.
Modify Template:AfC submission to mention that the article can be moved directly to mainspace.
Deprecate/delete draftspace and AFC.
Done Increase draftification minimum wait time from 15 minutes, to 30 or 60 minutes.
Rewrite WP:DRAFTIFY to specifically mention the allowed and disallowed use cases. See my attempt at this at Wikipedia talk:Drafts#WP:DRAFTIFY is a bit verbose
Promote WP:DRAFTIFY to a guideline.

Appendix 2: Differences between NPP and AFC

Criteria to evaluate articles

There is no WP:BEFORE at AFC. All references proving notability must be in the draft. A draft that needs to pass GNG will be declined if there are not some GNG-passing citations in the references section.
In my opinion, everything else is identical.

Because of bullet #1, getting a draft approved is "tougher" than getting a mainspace article marked as reviewed.

Protection from deletion

The CSD criteria starting with "A" cannot be placed in draftspace, protecting drafts against several kinds of deletion.
G11 is applied more leniently in draftspace. If an article with major promotional tone problems is found in draftspace, but it is found to be promising, it is likely to be declined as promo but not tagged as G11, giving the author a chance to work on it.

Other

The screening process to become an AFC reviewer is a bit easier than screening to become an NPP. This is probably because accepted drafts get a second look by an NPP, which reduces risk.