Wikipedia:New pages patrol/RfC for patroller qualifications

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Introduction

An RfC to create a specific user right for New Page Patrollers now to be known as New Page Reviewer, was closed at Wikipedia:New pages patrol/RfC for patroller right with a clear consensus to proceed with the implementation of a user group of suitably qualified editors for patrolling new pages, with the user right to be granted by administrators through requests for permissions.

This RfC is for approving the entry threshold for new New Page Reviewer right.

• This RfC will run for 30 days or until a clear consensus is obvious, and will be closed by any uninvolved established user.
• Notifications: Users who have previously participated in related discussions are being notified manually within the policy at canvass; apologies for any omissions. Related projects are also being informed. This RfC will also be notified on RfC Cent and the Village Pump
• Access to Twinkle is not affected by this new user right.
• Once the threshold is determined, the user group and right will be implemented through request at Phabricator.
• Please remain civil. This page is not for discussing personal disagreements with other contributors or the proposer.

Summary of under the covers technical changes

The following under the covers changes are included based on the approval of the first RfC, these are listed here for reference and are out of scope of this RfC: A new usergroup patroller will be added to the software configuration file InitialiseSettings.php This new group will have a localization name New page reviewers (this is managed by administrators here) The (patrol) permission will be added to the New page reviewers group Also to the administrator group if not inheriting from other parts of the configuration The (patrol) permission will be removed from the autoconfirmed, confirmed, and reviewer groups The administrator group will be granted the ability to add and remove members from the New page reviewers group What the community criteria for membership to this group is what the scope of this RfC is concerning Note: The (patrol) permission controls access to the [Mark this page as patrolled] function and using the Page Curation Tool. This permission is not part of the normal protection scheme, has nothing to do with pending changes protection, and is not required for editing of any pages. Currently the grandfathering activities will be "manual" by implementing administrators - "automatic" from the point of view of the editors in that they will not have to ask if they qualify as proposed.

Background

• Compare: AfC requires reviewers to have a 90/500 threshold plus appropriate experience to use the helper script. (see WikiProject Articles for creation/Participants)
• Compare: WP:Stiki for vandal patrollers requires a 1,000 mainspace edit threshold or the rollback right for its use. (see: Wikipedia:STiki#Using STiki)
• Compare: Page mover, something new page reviewers sometimes need to do (e.g. move to Draft), requires 3,000 edits and 6 months of editing history.

Proposal

An entry threshold for New Page Reviewer is proposed for editors who have:

1. Made at least 500 undeleted edits to mainspace, and have a registered account for at least 90 days, plus appropriate experience of a kind that clearly demonstrates knowledge of article quality control.
2. Grandfathering: Editors who have made 200 uncontested or unreverted patrols, maintenance, or deletion tags between 1 January 2016 and 06 October 2016 and who have a clean block log since 01 January 2016 will have the right automatically accorded to their account via Special:UserRights
3. The New Page Reviewer right is subsumed into Administrator, Bureaucrat and Steward

01:08, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Support

1. Support – All good. Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk • mail) 01:59, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
2. Support – pairing the qualification to WP:AfC's 90/500 requirement seems reasonable. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 02:19, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
3. Support - I would like to see editors demonstrate knowledge by either writing a clean article or shepherding a few clean articles through AfC or something similar but meh... getting this implemented is what is important. If we implement a good "reviewing the reviewers" program it will not matter so much anyway since poor performers can be identified and counseled. Jbh^Talk 02:47, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

   The WMF is currently looking into technical solutions for better identifying and helping poor performers. See: Patrolling the patrolers. See also our To Do List. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:09, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

   I am glad the WMF has picked up the ball, "Patrolling the patrollers" is #1 on my wishlist. Solid feedback is key to individual improvement and overall project success in nearly all situations. Jbh^Talk 03:16, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

4. General support. This doesn't appear to have cross-wiki implications, and we haven't been giving 'crats add'l flags, so assuming that (patrol) (which provides access to both the Page Curation tool and patrolling pages) will be provided only to sysops and this new group. Assuming that the guidelines for granting and criteria for revocation from the previous RfC includes the additional 90/500 specs here as implied. — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 03:02, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
5. Support — Absolutely. Having been acutely aware for 6 years of the issues surrounding the control of thoroughly unwanted content, especially those subtle spam (particularly Orangemoody), silly autobios, and attack pages,. that are are often hard for untrained patrollers to identify, and the irresponsible bitey tagging of the work of genuine good faith authors who might simply not be getting it quite right. If we don't act now, Wikipedia's reputation for quality and reliability will simply get worse than it already is.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:48, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
6. Support If you can review at AfC, you should be able to new page patrol. -- I dream of horses (My talk page) (My edits) @ 06:05, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
7. Support. The threshold should be the same for AFC and NPP. MER-C 07:35, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
8. Support - it can be fine-tuned later if the threshold appears to be set incorrectly. Cabayi (talk) 10:07, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
9. Support - such that is really needed. But I think the threshold really needs some fixing (also allowing some exceptions, such as good track record). Your welcome | Democratics ^Talk→ Be a guest 11:18, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
10. Support glad to see you dropped the twinkle bit. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 11:50, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
11. Support It's important for not just any newbie to be able to patrol new pages, especially when those pages are vandalism. Everymorning (talk) 11:55, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
12. Given that a separate right is to exist, it makes sense to make it level with AfC. BethNaught (talk) 11:56, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
13. Support. In particular, I think it's smart to enshrine the "appropriate experience" clause in the requirements. It will serve a useful gatekeeping function when there are patrollers who comply with the letter of the 500/90 patrolling criteria but not their spirit. /wiae /tlk 12:17, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
14. Support. I believe the criteria could even be stricter. FoCuS contribs; talk to me! 13:08, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
15. Support: I agree with all these proposals. Seems reasonable. —MRD2014 (talk • contribs) 13:12, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
16. Enough to recognize skills of a Wikipedian. Support. NasssaNser (^talk/_edits) 13:15, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
17. Support. Looks good to me. Enterprisey (talk!) 13:28, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
18. Support Makes sense, see no pitfalls. Debresser (talk) 13:42, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
19. Support - also happy to see no TW restrictions, and really per everyone else who say that the criteria are reasonable and make sense. Patient Zero^talk 13:43, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
20. Support. This is needed and seems to be a good compromise between those who want stricter requirements and those who want looser ones. Etamni | ✉ | ✓  13:59, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
21. Support Agree with all statements. FiendYT ★ 14:06, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
22. Support. It may be a bit strict according to some but I'd rather see this too strict than too lenient. Do it. Yintan  14:09, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
23. Support - 90/500 seems a good threshold. If we continue to find ourselves short on NPP, we can allow case-by-case exceptions; I trust the granting admins to properly judge the applicants. — Jkudlick • t • c • s 14:16, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
24. Support - Perhaps with the caveat that there should exist a brief quiz to help applicants "demonstrate(s) knowledge of article quality control." I could mock one up pretty quick. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 14:20, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
25. Support I agree with the current calibration and would oppose weakening the minimum bar any further. Chris Troutman (talk) 14:22, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
26. Support but would like to see more edits as a minimum qualification, perhaps 1,000 or even more. In 500 edits an editor doesn't get a lot of experience. (Littleolive oil (talk) 14:29, 6 October 2016 (UTC))
27. Support Not bad, 90/500 is good enough for us. Please also look at my comment below. NgYShung ^huh? 14:46, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
28. Support With the understanding that experience demonstrating "knowledge of article quality control" makes this more about quality edits than the 90/500 quantity. - Reidgreg (talk) 15:04, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
29. Support - Bear in mind that this might contribute slightly to an already big and growing backlog on the New Pages queue. We need to start making a serious effort at identifying "safe" new article creators and seeing the Autopatrolled privilege granted to them to ease the burden. Carrite (talk) 15:06, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
30. Support It may initially increase the backlog queue, but I'm not sure it will, because few good qualified person want to participate in a project where half the people are doing it wrong. Anyway, it will soon save enough work elsewhere to more than compensate, because we will have many fewer bad deletions nominations and a great many fewer careless acceptances to remain with us for months or years until they eventually get cleared out at AFD, which is much more time consuming by far. I intend to be fairly generous about granting exceptions, and as Carrite says, we need to look for more people to give autopatrolled--both specialists and also general editors who contribute well on multiple topics. DGG ( talk ) 15:25, 6 October 2016 (UTC) .
31. Support - Disagree with the comment that it is too restrictive. Not exactly sure what is meant by knowledge of quality control, but Judge Stewart may be able to rule on that. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:40, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
32. Support Looks good to me, though I don't know how you plan to do #2 "automatically". How would we be able to automatically assert a user has 200 uncontested or unreverted patrols, maintenance, or deletion tags? This will require manual review, for sure, which isn't really a problem except that it's a lot of busy work. Anyway, MusikBot can be configured to look for 500 live edits / 90 days tenure at WP:PERM, and this is what, the third new user right for 2016? So needless to say we've got our practice in at PERM and will be prepared — MusikAnimal ^talk 16:03, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
33. Support — Music1201 ^talk 17:30, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
34. Support Existing AFC reviewers should also be grandfathered in, as a competent experienced AFC reviewer could easily adapt to NPP work. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 17:42, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
35. I see no reason not to support—UY Scuti ^Talk 17:44, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
36. Support – Looks perfect. GSS (talk) 17:51, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
37. Support Looks good to me. Woodstop45 • Talk ^(Contribs) 18:31, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
38. Support – Seems reasonable to me. nyuszika7h (talk) 19:10, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
39. Support Looks like it will allow competent editors to do this task, and keep out those who should get more experience first. Gluons12 ^talk 19:45, 6 October 2016 (UTC).
40. Support Well thought out. I think making it the same threshold as AfC makes good sense. We have desperately needed to set some standards for this process. Thanks to all who worked on this proposal. --MelanieN (talk) 19:57, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
41. Support. I think (or hope) the "appropriate experience" requirement will become more important than the relatively low edit requirement, and therefore may need to be fleshed out down the line, but aligning the new right with the established criteria at AfC is a sensible starting point. Joe Roe (talk) 20:47, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
42. Support Seems like a reasonable set of criteria to start off with. AIRcorn (talk) 20:51, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
43. Support. A reasonable proposal; not too restrictive, but restrictive enough that it allows for maintenance of quality. Colonel Wilhelm Klink (^Complaints|_Mistakes) 20:57, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
44. Support I think this is very reasonable. White Arabian Filly ^Neigh 21:22, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
45. Support Very reasonable criterias. Ueutyi (talk) 00:25, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
46. Support - makes perfect sense. I see there are a few opposed on the basis that they support the general idea but don't think this will work in practice - I think it has to be tried first. If it does turn out the criteria are too strict, that can still be reviewed later; we have to start somewhere and this proposal is a very good starting point. WaggersTALK 08:13, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
47. Support. I'm looking for something to object to or at least clarify, and am failing. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:29, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
48. Support, per others and my reasoning at the original poll. Omni Flames (talk) 09:49, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
49. Support to take forward the implementation of the new user right, already agreed in principle. It seems appropriate to borrow the numerical thresholds from an established related project. On grandfathering, the suggestions to tie the new right to further existing rights have I think been refuted: Noyster (talk), 10:25, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
50. Support; quite reasonable. Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
    to reply to me 12:32, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
51. Support, even though I would be more liberal with the grandfathering. The spirit of page patrol has not changed in several years, why do 200 patrols have to be from 2016? I would further also add it to the autopatroller and reviewer user group: If the odd autopatroller is so specialised that they could not do NPP, then they probably would not do NPP. I mean, it is not as if there was a queue of people outside NPP that we would have to stem. Any bad apple could lose the right, correct? --Pgallert (talk) 13:11, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
52. Support Sound idea. Lugnuts ^{Precious bodily fluids} 14:20, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
53. Support a good start, not too strict ,amendments can be made after evaluating the new system Atlantic306 (talk) 18:37, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
54. Support, seems a good starting point. VQuakr (talk) 19:44, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
55. Weak support: For the last time I opposed the "New Page Reviewer" proposal, those requirements are a little bit strict as well. Should we lower the requirements to maybe 490 edits and 80 days? I also support making PC reviewer, rollback, new page reviewer part of the extended comfirmed right package because a lot of newbies request it at PERM when they sufficent enough for that rights. KGirlTrucker81 ^{huh? what I'm been doing} 01:57, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
56. Support reasonable criteria. - Yellow Dingo (talk) 07:46, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
57. Support. But as someone mentioned above, I would agree in loosening the grandfathering protocol a bit. CatcherStorm ^talk 15:10, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
58. Support. Sounds reasonable enough to me, for starters. Anything is better than complete newbies jumping onto the bandwagon. Softlavender (talk) 19:24, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
59. Support. Threshold seems reasonable. Not too onerous but enough history to allow clearly unready candidates to be weeded out. Meters (talk) 21:24, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
60. Support Another step forward. Montanabw^(talk) 07:57, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
61. Support Looks like a good place to start Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 00:10, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
62. Support A reasonable start. Our newest contributors won't have the right, but will benefit from more consistent and helpful new page patrollers. Our users deserve better article quality control. — Neonorange (talk) 09:29, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
63. Support for the betterment of the encyclopedia. Ayub407^talk 17:20, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
64. Support Reasonable criteria. — Music1201 ^talk 17:39, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
65. Support – Sure. Mz7 (talk) 20:15, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
66. Conditional support if it is true that non-patrollers would still have access to the "pages to patrol" list. I think that 1. is a tad restrictive (I would have gone with WP:EXTENDEDCONFIRMED), and I doubt there is anyone that meets 2. but not 1., but that would be nitpicking at that point. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 16:40, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

    Change that to full support per my realization, below, that the NPP backlog is not indexed by search engines. I would actually support the restriction of the access to the list of pages to patrol, now. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 17:38, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

67. Support. The threshold is reasonable and implementing this will hopefully stop prevent many bad patrols. Anarchyte (work | talk) 07:04, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
68. Support This is a good enough place to start. I would have supported higher qualifications. — JJMC89 (T·C) 15:48, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

    Many people, JJMC89, including the final drafters of this current proposal would have supported stricter requirements, some even suggesting it be the most expensive right to obtain below Admin, but the compromise has to be struck between what will gain the most support and the least resistance to a very necessary change. If circumstances require however, it can always be raised again later. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:47, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

69. Support Might not be perfect, but it's certainly loads better than what we have now. An obvious improvement. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:17, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
70. Support - Seems fine for a start. This would also help against paid-editing systems. Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 14:23, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
71. Support - Qualifications seem reasonable to me as a starting place, and can be revisited after the right has been in use for some months. I JethroBT ^{drop me a line} 18:24, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
72. Support Wikipedia has been around for quite some time now. Gone are the days when most editors were newcomers. The ones that are new will have a slightly higher bar as things have become more established. Mkdw^talk 04:58, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
73. Support The thresholds seem reasonable. It makes sense that if we have restriction in place for reviewing AfC, we should have the same if not tighter restrictions for NPP. Sarahj2107 (talk)
74. Support. I forgot I hadn't opined here, but better late than never. The thresholds seem just about right to me, on a par with those for AFC. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:12, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
75. Support. In a perfect world, where we had more people seeking to gain the flag than we could use, I would make the threshold much stricter, to ensure more clueful patrolling. We don't live anywhere near that world, so I think the threshold is about right to restrict the right from true novices, while not making entry so difficult we guarantee understaffing. Despite the opposes arguing that the relative rigor will cause a shortage of new patrollers, I would not be surprised (and am hopeful) that once implemented, we will see an increases in patrolling. It's human nature that making something a badge to be gained will cause some to seek it and once gained, practice it. I suppose it's too late now, but I would have added one addition to the threshold: That the user explicitly acknowledge in their request for the right that they have read the main page at Wikipedia:New pages patrol.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:37, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

That is already being planned as part of the advice to admins who work at WP:PERM. Like all other PERM requests, numerical criteria are one aspect, but the decision to grant also depends on checking that the requestor's editing history and general level of communication are also commensurate. Admins would be free to ask that, or related questions concerning the tutorial. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:55, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose - the criteria as written are too tight. I'd much rather have criteria 1 be an or instead of an and, with admins instructed to liberally review patrollers. As written, this will cause a shortage of new patrollers entering the system, increasing an already huge backlog. Tazerdadog (talk) 03:21, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

   Shortage? There is hardly anybody doing any patrolling at all - have you taken the trouble to follow the discussions at WP:NPPAFC? There is a general consensus that no patrolling is better than bad patrolling that lets the spam through and bites the good faith authors. At least the bug is being addressed to have all new pages 'no index' working again. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:53, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

   I am familiar in a broad sense with the discussions. I'm not sure I see your consensus for no patrolling is better than bad patrolling (a link to the discussion where this was established would be great), and I disagree with that statement in all but the most extreme examples. Instead of imposing a requirement that allows experienced editors to have "relevant experience", we should encourage all somewhat experienced editors to try patrolling, and then give them feedback so that they can approve/see that their work is valuable, or remove the permission from any editors who are incompetent or harmful. I'd prefer that the permission be given out to extended confirmed users, and then removed from poor patrollers. Tazerdadog (talk) 07:10, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

   Fine,, so who is going to locate the poor patrollers and take their bits away? Or give them feedback and educate them?That's one of the major problems this exercise seeks to address. Unless of course you have a lot of time on your hands (like around five hours a day) and you are and admin. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:14, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

   NPP does not have the manpower to do more than spot checks realistically. That is true regardless of what we set this permission level to. However, in the long term, we need a way to attract new patrollers, or else the manpower problems will compound. Adding bureaucracy including a manual review by an admin for the userright that would take who knows how long to complete is not the way to do that. I like ONUnicorn's quiz suggestion, where we can post some example articles, with the correct patroller response to each as a first step towards education. There is ultimately no perfect solution, but the current proposal sacrifices both the backlog and long-term health of NPP to an unacceptable degree for a probable rise in average review quality. I do not find this trade-off acceptable. Tazerdadog (talk) 14:42, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

   Tazerdog, this comment appears to be off topic. The issue for creating a permission was discussed at Wikipedia:New pages patrol/RfC for patroller right where you appeared to be so insistent, you appeared to have voted twice, and I don't believe that is allowed. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:58, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

   See my concerns and ideas for improving the proposal in Discussion. I think we're of a similar mind that this proposal will not achieve the desired effect as it currently stands. We may need an alternative proposal. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 14:52, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

   Before you get to lowering the standard please know that a big, though unseen by most editors, problem is paid editors, editor groups patrolling their own promotional work. Once the "NOINDEX until patrolled" bug is fixed this will be an even bigger problem. Autogranting is unacceptable in this case. The idea is to make the bar high enough to raise the "cost" of exploitation like in Orangemoody and other editor rings.

   Also, we are seening a backlog now because a single editor was doing hundreds of reviews per day (up to 1200/day) since at least January 2016. The backlog started because they stopped after feedback at ANI. (For reference a good reviewer may be able to do 50 if they are fast and go after only low hanging fruit. 20 is a more realistic number.) Jbh^Talk 15:38, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

   My concerns/ideas in Discussion below include an idea that is safer than "autogranting" (i.e., autoapplying with autogranting only if no objections), although I think autogranting by itself is reasonable given that admins can yank a right for cause and the presumption that 90/500 editors can handle this right in general. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 17:51, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

2. Oppose Just a bit too strict. As Tazerdadog said, we need to set standards pretty low, as NPP is broken, and nobody wants to patrol anyway. I think one month of editing should be enough. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 11:14, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

   Why should it be any less than then standards set for AfC, a process demanding far less knowledge of policies and guidelines and which is not even a firewall against unwanted content? In fact AfC gets its reviewing wrong at an even higher percentage than the three or four patrollers who are still working NPP. The whole reason for introducing this user right and setting these standards is to avoid allowing those who have only a month's experience. In fact many of the WP:NPPAFC work group have suggested that these standards are actually too low. The reason nobody is interested in NPP, which currently demands not a clue at at all, are simply because nobody cares anymore about the quality of the encyclopedia some of us devote so much of our time to. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:06, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

@Kudpung: AfC has a shortage of reviewers too. Considering that less people are doing NPP than AfC work, after the first increase of patrollers due to the popularity of this RfC, we'll have virtually nobody besides hat collectors getting the right. Also, a bad review at NPP isn't the end of the world. Everything can be reverted. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 16:25, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

1. Oppose I supported (and still support) the original RfC but I think this proposal, as crisp and seemingly reasonable as it is stated, will not achieve the desired effects per my stated concerns in Discussion below. If we want significantly more patrollers, especially ones who will do the job well, and not create an unreasonable new workload for admins in the process, this proposal doesn't achieve it, IMHO. Again, read my discussion below for details. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 16:09, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

   Stevietheman, This RfC and it's precursor have noting at all to do with increasing the number of patrollers. It's not part of this round of discussions, but it is part of another project we're currently working on, but we can't do everything at once. As the bug is being fixed for all non patroled pages to remain NO INDEXED, a backlog, however big, is better than biting the good faith newbies and letting in the paid spammers - which is why this RfC is being held. When you can command $1,000 or more for squeezing a spam article into Wikipedia for a client, you will be quite happy to plod along unnoticed as a sleeper until you qualify and ask for the patroller bit and then start patrolling your own spam which you are writing under a sock account. I'm truly amazed that few people understand the enormity of Orangemoody, or who have even heard of it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:31, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

2. Weak Oppose: For the same reasons I opposed in the older RfC. The proposal is fundamentally incoherent. If nobody wants to patrol, the solution is not to raise the bar. Also, there has been no evidence presented that bad patrollers are a serious or widespread problem. It would be better to have everyone given the right by default and then remove the bad actors, rather than the reverse option. That said, I do not know enough about the NPP, so treat this as a weak opinion. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 12:46, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
3. Oppose. You've set the bar so low that it wouldn't even exclude me, which I suspect is one of Kudpung's aims. Eric Corbett 18:16, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

   For what it's worth, I believe the "plus appropriate experience" line and the liberal removal criteria approved at the previous RfC allows such broad discretion that in practice, any admin will be able to exclude anyone they wish. Innisfree987 (talk) 20:24, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

   I'm sure you're right. Admins do very little real work, but they don't like to relinquish any power to the unwashed masses. Eric Corbett 21:05, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

   I'm lucky to have had a fair few admins put quite a lot of work into helping me become a little less unwashed (and I do not kid myself, that requires some real work!!) but I will say, as discussions about implementation go on, the last RfC's introductory comment, "Please note that while this proposal adds a function to the sysop brief at WP:PERM, this is NOT an RfC that seeks to arbitrarily expand the powers of administrators" (emphasis in the original) starts to seem a little off the mark. Maybe not arbitrarily but it does expand admin power significantly. But then, it expands the admin workload significantly too, and not just in evaluating PERM candidates: the more editors excluded (whether by rejecting them as candidates or just filtered out by the psychological hurdle of having to put yourself forward), the more of the 16,000-page backlog will be left to the only people auto-granted the permission...admins. Kinda surprised there's not more concern about that burden. Innisfree987 (talk) 00:35, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

   Innisfree987, parallel to this current series of discussions, significant work is being done already to examine ways of attracting more users to the task of reviewing new pages - it's also receiving the attention of the WikiMedia Foundation. Not being aware of everything that is happening on this vast encyclopedia project doesn't mean that nothing is being done. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:26, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

   Innisfree987, admins on the whole actually do a good job. there are reasons for Corbett's comment that I'll not go into here [1][2], but his vote has nothing to do with the matter under discussion.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:28, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

   I'm not sure how I gave the impression I believe nothing's happening. I'm concerned for how this specific proposal might affect those important efforts. Innisfree987 (talk) 15:42, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

   Innisfree987: 'Kinda surprised there's not more concern about that burden'  ? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:23, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

   Yep. Having just described how I suspect the implementation of this perm may burden admins, I was expressing surprise that 60+ people in this RfC are saying things like "I don't see any problem here", while so many fewer people are engaging with the issue of whether this proposal would introduce a new burden. Definitely would not presume to generalize about all activity across the expansive WP realm! Innisfree987 (talk) 02:49, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

4. Oppose as the qualifications require mainspace edits, and the act of patrolling is not limited to the mainspace. -- AntiCompositeNumber (Leave a message) 22:53, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

   AntiCompositeNumber, your comment appears to be possibly off topic. The issue for creating a permission was discussed at Wikipedia:New pages patrol/RfC for patroller right - See he Introduction above. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:58, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

   @Kudpung: Yes, I know. From this RFC:

   1. Made at least 500 undeleted edits to mainspace, and have a registered account for at least 90 days, plus appropriate experience of a kind that clearly demonstrates knowledge of article quality control.

   I don't agree with this proposal because, in its current form, it requires mainspace edits. While 500 mainspace edits may work well to demonstrate knowledge of mainspace guidelines and quality expectations, this may not carry over into the other namespaces. The qualifications for patrolling should be based on total edits, not just mainspace. I think 500 edits, maybe even 500 non-talk page edits would be a good place. -- AntiCompositeNumber (Leave a message) 22:11, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

   AntiCompositeNumber, if you had read all the backround that you were linked to, you would probably have noticed that at AfC for example, which isn't even an official project or major firewall afainst eriously unwanted ontent}, many users simply made 500 empty edits in rapid succession to a page in order to achieve the threshold for entry. These users turned out to be spamsocks seeking to 'review' their own articles. Equally, AfC is blighted by reviewers who trash perfectly good faith creations. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:19, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

5. Oppose along similar lines to that of AntiCompositeNumber. -
   Wikipedia:New pages patrol focuses almost entirely on reviewing pages in the article namespace (i.e. newly created articles). The rationale behind this right focuses on "content [entering] the encyclopedia" (i.e. the article namespace). A page in any namespace can be patrolled. Therefore, this right should only grant the ability to patrol pages in the article namespace, leaving the ability to patrol other pages as is.
   Summary of an amendment to the technical changes that would accomplish this:
   1. A new usergroup mainspace patroller (not "article patroller" to avoid confusion with the "autopatrolled" user right) will be added to the software configuration file InitialiseSettings.php
        This new group will have a localization name New article reviewers (this is managed by administrators here)
   2. The administrator group will be granted this if it is not inheriting it from other parts of the configuration
   3. The (patrol) permission will remain with the confirmed and autoconfirmed user group
   4. The (patrol) permission will have the ability to patrol pages in the article namespace removed from it
   5. The administrator group will be granted the ability to add and remove members from the New article reviewers group
   I would support this new user right if the preceding amendment was made. I don't believe restricting the ability to patrol other namespaces is warranted, and a rationale to do so was not included in the original proposal. This could be considered largely out of the scope of this RfC. That being said, comments solely to point that out are unnecessary.— Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 20:34, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

   @Godsy: We had a thread on the earlier RfC about whether patrols are performed on pages or titles, and I've come to believe that it actually may be on pages, not titles when it comes to page moves. I've encountered unpatrolled pages that needed to be moved. In my experience (FYI I'm autopatrolled), the redirect becomes automatically patrolled while the new page is unpatrolled by default. If the page is moved into the Wikipedia space, which your proposal suggests autoconfirmed users can patrol, that could be an unintended workaround to the namespace-restricted patrolling that you proposed here. i.e. Move A → Wikipedia:A, patrol it, then move it back. Which is why I wouldn't endorse your suggestion for now. — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 06:55, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

   @Andy M. Wang: You are correct, I tested with help from my legitimate alternate account (i.e. creating the page on this account; patrolling it on my legitimate alternate account; moving it to the mainspace on this account; then hopping back to the other account to see the page could be patrolled; it couldn't) Special:log/Godsy. I guess my opinion depends on how easy/plausible it would be to change that mechanic.— Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 07:46, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

   @Godsy:, your comments appear to be possibly off topic. The issue for creating a permission was discussed at Wikipedia:New pages patrol/RfC for patroller right - See he Introduction above. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:58, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

   @Kudpung: As I state in my comment above, "This could be considered largely out of the scope of this RfC. That being said, comments solely to point that out are unnecessary." I participated at Wikipedia:New pages patrol/RfC for patroller right, but I didn't get a notification post on my talk page many others did (I've read "Notifications: Users who have previously participated in related discussions are being notified manually within the policy at canvass; apologies for any omissions.", so I chose not to leave a message before).— Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 23:59, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

   @Godsy:, nobody is obliged to notify you of an RfC. It doesn't change the fact that we are not here to re-debate an already closed consensus and doing so is not helpful. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:17, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

6. Oppose. The correct approach is to have the new right automatically granted, as the default provision, to experienced editors, upon reaching some sufficiently highly set bar, rather than having people request this right. Under the current proposal the grandfathering provision is too narrowing crafted (Who came up with the Jan 1-Oct 6 2016 dates??). Ultimately, over a longer period of time, the effect will be that most experienced editors who have not been grandfathered in the new right will stop requesting it. One cannot develop a taste for NPP without trying it first, and people will not have a good enough reason to ask for the new right unless they can actually try NPP first. The overall effect will be in reducing the number of experienced editors participating in NPP over time, under the current proposal. Nsk92 (talk) 22:50, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

   Note, without the patrol permission, editors (even anonymous users) will still be able to see Special:NewPages and Special:NewPagesFeed - however they will not be able to use the Page Curation hoverbar, or mark pages as patrolled. They can still look at the pages and edit the pages normally. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:06, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

   That's exactly what I meant. In my own experience, the only real way to develop a taste for NPP is to play with the Page Curation tool to do page reviewing. If you cannot do that first, the chances that you are going to ask for the new page reviewer right go down dramatically. Nsk92 (talk) 23:23, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

7. Oppose, I agree with the sentiment that this is something that can and ought to be automatically granted with the rights removed only upon abuse. This is something that should be encouraged by literally any reasonably experienced editor to be participating in doing and not something to put up additional walls to stop participation on Wikipedia. This proposal doesn't seem to be addressing the primary problems associated with the current process of the New Page Patrol, which to me is primarily:

   • Overworked volunteers - those who are currently engaged in the NPP feel that they simply can't keep up.
   • False Positives - While there is definitely trash that needs to be culled from Wikipedia, by far this is the easiest way to Bite the newcommers and to discourage participation on Wikipedia in general for any new users. I believe that some of the reasons for declining participation on Wikipedia can be traced directly to significant problems in the NPP and how these reviewers interact with genuine new users on Wikipedia. Often that interaction is abrasive and treats those new users as chaff that needs to be removed in direct contradiction of the founding principles of this project.
   • Lack of training - Many of those participating in the New Page Patrol process really don't understand Wikipedia polices or practices in the first place. Just because they've participated in a bunch of discussions, have created content, or have a certain threshold to a number of edits does not necessarily imply that they understand what should be culled and what really needs to be curated. I have to assume good faith that those who are engaged in the New Page Patrol process really do want to help to project but in this case the skills necessary to developing content or even general project administration (aka "admins") do not necessarily translate to the skills needed for this kind of task either.

   What is needed here is some sort of mentorship or apprenticeship direct person to person interaction, not some sort of automated process that treats people like they are cogs in a giant machine that just needs to be tuned up better with a bit of code. It takes really thinking hard about the social organization at Wikipedia and how it relates to the management of the content on this site. As a tool to perhaps make this social organization work, there might be a role to this user right, but simple fixes are not the solution. I know it is a complaint that direct person to person interaction can't work because there is so much work to be done, but I think that is precisely the problem too. Wikipedia will always be unfinished... one of the reasons why the Wikipedia globe is missing a piece.... but we must try as best as we can and not lose touch with individual participants on this project. The proposal as it stands right now loses that direct person to person interaction and does not address the real issues of how this impacts Wikipedia as a whole. --Robert Horning (talk) 14:28, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

   All of the "autogrant then remove for cause" arguements (not only yours) miss one very important point. Who is going to go through and review all of the patrols by inexperienced NPPers? Even if someone wants to do that rather than reduce the backlog, in order to remove the right it will almost always be necessary to spend even more time making a case, probably at ANI, which sucks even more editor time. The whole point is to avoid bad reviewing in the first place. Further, if it is autogranted spammers, undeclared paid editors and others can simply farm accounts to the autogrant level, use them until their bad reviews are noticed and move on. They have time, and being paid for their time, on their side.

   If people want to go over articles and maintinance tag them there is nothing stopping them. Twinkle works great for that. Functionally I prefer it to the NPP Tool as it now is. The only problem is that it does not log tagging actions to the page curation log, so it is useless for keeping track of/monitoring articles you have reviewed without clogging up your watchlist. This, however, is not a barrier to entry and by the time it matters an editor should know whether they want to request the right or not.

   As to your concern about "person to person" training/interaction, the act of requesting the right is the first of those interactions. It allows experienced reviewers see who is interested and gives a greater chance for the first interaction being positive rather than pointing out something they did wrong. Jbh^Talk 15:37, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

   Just one small point of information--I'm fairly certain removal from the user right group won't require an ANI. The "Criteria for Revocation" approved at previous RfC listed broad terms under which an admin could remove any reviewer "without any process or prior notice." (Avoiding ANI is actually one of the things I liked best about the previous RfC, which I otherwise have qualms about.) Innisfree987 (talk) 15:46, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

   True, however the only analogous "autogrant" things we have are AWB and AFC which usually end up at ANI. While admins can remove the other extended permissions like rollback on their own initiate someone still must make the case that the right needs to be removed and unless the editor agrees with the removal it will end up at a drama board. Jbh^Talk 16:51, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

   Ah, Jbhunley, I see what you're saying and for sure, more ANI fodder is not an outcome I'm hoping for! It does argue for doing more evaluating on the front end rather than trying to review performance once added. Still I share at least one of the concerns I think Robert Horning is trying to get at in suggesting an autogrant. One way to put it might be, I couldn't exactly agree the act of requesting "allows experienced reviewers to see who is interested"--I think it'd only be a portion of potentially interested people. For instance, I am interested but do not plan to request the perm anytime soon. Having had too many mixed messages about my competence or lack thereof (for instance, I had one interesting week recently where one admin autopatrolled me, then before the week was out, a different experienced editor called my work "sewage"), I'm totally disinterested in running even a small gauntlet. Now, whatever one may think of my specific case (maybe some are heaving a sigh of relief to hear I'll step out of NPP once a perm's required!), I think it's worth taking into account how many interested people we might not find out about if we make a perm request the threshold for expressing interest. (I mentioned a different workaround in my discussion section question but haven't had an answer about whether it'd be permissible under the terms of this RfC and previous.) Innisfree987 (talk) 17:03, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

   In response to your question: "Who is going to go through and review all of the patrols by inexperienced NPPers?" I would respond that this question is really beyond the scope of this particular proposal too. I don't believe that the act of requesting a user right is necessarily going to do much other than creating an unecessary speed bump and frankly a discouragement from participating in this kind of activity. Most admins, unless they are really dedicated to some sort of oversight, won't necessarily do more than rubber stamp the application... or automatically deny the application on arbitrary grounds. Either way, it won't really help solve the problem which is trying to recruit more people to engage in this activity. My largest complaint about this proposal still is that a technical software solution is being applied to a social interaction problem. I'm not saying that easier solutions to this can be found in other approaches, but that this particular solution doesn't solve the real issues at hand either. --Robert Horning (talk) 02:34, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

   The question of who is going to look over patrols is central to the arguenemt to autogrant because of the claim of 'well it can be removed for cause'. That means someone must look to see if people are screwing up - just like now. An alternative that gives the same problems as doing noting is not a solution. For instance in the last two days I ran across 4 new users doing NPP, none of them were doing more than about 60% good patrols and 2 of them less than that. One, after some guidance and following their patrols, may become a good patroller in time - probably after they have edited for 90 days or so in order to really understand how things work and how the rules are applied

   NPP is a specific skill set, actually several interconnected skill sets and no newbie has those skills. Someone who has been hers a few months should at least be clued in. Also, it is much simpler to see how new editors are doing for the first hundred to so patrols when you can see who just got the user right as opposed to seeing who shows up in the queue and having to spend hours and hours documenting that they are doing a bad job or catching the mis-tags, bad deletes and bites. NPP is quality control, bad NPP means BLP violations, spam and inappropriate content gets through. Yes we need more people but we only need more competent people. In this case I feel strongly that a "speed bump" is a feature not a bug. Jbh^Talk 02:55, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

   The whole point of introducing the new user right is to prevent newbie editors from doing NPP and make sure that editors doing NPP are experienced editors. The bar for auto grant needs to be set high, perhaps really high, to discourage paid editors, spammers, etc. E.g. something like one year of editing and at least 5K edits and a clean block log for the last six months for an auto grant; otherwise apply at WP:PERM if you want the right sooner. Note that the issue of chaperoning the patrols by editors who are new to NPP will exist for those who receive the right through WP:PERM, not just through auto grant (if that option is implemented). I don't see the two situations as particularly different. As a practical matter, I doubt that we'll see a flood of editors coming to do NPP under either option and it will always be easy to spot the newcomers. The fact that the newcomers will be experienced WP editors (whether they are coming from WP:PERM or through auto grant) should make chaperoning them in most cases either easy or unnecessary. Unlike actual newbies to Wikipedia, those experienced editors will fairly quickly figure out what to do themselves. Nsk92 (talk) 03:27, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

   (edit conflict)::::Hi Robert, thank you accepting the invitatin to comment on this RfC. A lot of your vote above , and your other comments are however actually beyond the scope of this particular proposal. Ironically, if they are read very carefully, your enumerated comments actually come across as solid rationales for the introduction of a specialised group of new page reviewers. Overworked volunteers - those who are currently engaged in the NPP feel that they simply can't keep up - is inaccurate conjecture, they've actually been leaving because they are simply fed up of being the small handful of reviewers on a job they get no support or recognition for and that we and the Foundation until recently have failed in our mission to help them. Volunteers on any project never do more than they feel they can or should unless they are adamantly willing to subject themselves to discomfort and hardship or trying to prove something about their performance to their peers; as you have never reviewed a or patrolled a single page, and as your own participation on Wikipedia is not extensive, I can't quite see where you are drawing your conclusion from. This RfC and its precursor are not concerned with the issue of recruiting new patrollers - that problem is however being addressed elsewhere and when it is achieved, we would welcome you volunteering to mentorship or apprenticeship direct person to person interaction, and I for one, would wholeheartedly join with you in doing it - it's what I do here. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:56, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

   Do not take my apparent lack of experience as you are trying to suggest as a sign of a lack of experience in project moderation in general. I have been an admin on other sister Wikimedia projects and have also even had bureaucrat powers on some fairly large MediaWiki projects, so I full well do understand the enormous job and yeoman service that those who are trying to work in the New Page Patrol are performing here. Counting me as an insignificant nobody who has done nothing to further Wikipedia is where not only are you wrong, but also making a personal attack that really needs to stop as well.... and you called out for doing such an outrageous thing too. If anything, the reason I'm not more involved specifically on Wikipedia is something you should be asking about.... and the reason I don't do more on Wikipedia is what I see as inane turf building and politics within this project that I really don't like. That, above all other things, is one reason I've never sought adminship or really participated in the tools you are talking about for that matter. Defending my justification here is precisely why such personal attacks are silly and counter productive to this kind of discussion.... either the issues I'm bringing up have merit or they don't and the personal attacks detract from resolving the issues at hand. This and other examples is why I see that I am not welcome to offer any sort of mentorship, or at least I don't personally feel welcomed. Comments like this are in part why I don't feel welcome.

   I'm commenting here to offer some sage advise and that as a participant in the development of Wikipedia since the Nupedia days (I actually came in with the group who started Gnupedia that subsequently merged with Jimmy Wales' efforts) and I'm hoping that perhaps by working within and at least keeping touch with project governance that the amazing resource that has been developed over the years can be maintained. By raising these concerns, I hope that in a small way perhaps the very real and significant issues that need to be addressed might actually be noticed and discussed and hopefully Wikipedia can be a much more welcome and inviting place for people like myself that have all but given up on the project in term of personal participation and perhaps welcoming people like my own children who are now at a stage in life that they might be 2nd generation wikipedians and not get smacked about trying to participate. --Robert Horning (talk) 14:30, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

8. Oppose Concerns I have that this approach may increase rather than decrease biting have not been allayed--I've tried to ask about it several times at last RfC and in the discussion section here and could not get a clear answer, or even a reply about why it might be worth the tradeoff. And now I see draft instructions set to go live if/when this RfC passes tell reviewers they should not (emphasis in the original) mentor newcomers they might encounter there or help them with their articles, because "you as a reviewer already have enough to do." Explicitly telling experienced users that supporting newcomers isn't worth their time is 180 degrees from the attitude I'd hoped to see cultivated in reform of how we manage the incoming pages stream, the place where so many new contributors will have their first interactions with the community. Innisfree987 (talk) 16:43, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

   I understand your concern about 'newcomer biting', and followed up the link you provided to the draft instructions. And I find the content there— "New Page Review is not the venue for mentoring new users or completing their articles, you as a reviewer already have enough to do."—not just reasonable, but necessary. Mentoring newbie content creators calls for, I think, an entirely different skill set than that required for article triage. The two are not antithetical, but are disparate. Triage is assigning a category, and directing the article creator in a humane way to the nearest and most appropriate aid station, as appropriate, and rapidly sending the rest out into the collaborative process. Mentoring is a long–term comittment that is not compatible with the steep learning curve that most most newly recruited new page patrollers will face. — Neonorange (talk) 18:43, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

   I agree there's a worthwhile distinction to be made between triage and mentoring but it does not follow for me that we should tell anyone able and inclined to do both that they should only do the former. If someone interested and qualified to be a new page reviewer wants to execute that task by picking one promising page a day, clicking accept and then putting in a bit of personal attention to help a new contributor get their bearings, I can't imagine why we'd tell them that's wrong. I worry discouragement of editors thus inclined is one more sign this approach hasn't adequately addressed risks of inadvertently filtering out the most humane potential reviewers. (I also think small-dose mentoring like, say, taking just a few minutes to write a personal paragraph explaining WP referencing can be quite effective in helping new contributors along, so it needn't be a long-term commitment, and additionally some new reviewers may find that spelling things out for others actually speeds rather than slows their learning curve--but that's more of a training question and I don't want to stray too far from the scope of this RfC. My main concern is about how this proposal affects selection of reviewers.) Innisfree987 (talk) 20:36, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

   Just a note. That verbiage has been clairified [3] per a discussion on Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers. Jbh^Talk 15:04, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

   Reading that discussion is a bit of a wash for me in terms of my faith this reform has been formed with adequate attention to producing a pool of less rather than more bitey reviewers, so I am going to leave my ivote as is, but thanks for the update and for the work on the revision--I think it's a step in the right direction! Innisfree987 (talk) 19:22, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

   Innisfree987, Neonorange has has already explain in perfect terms what the requirements of new page patrollingwere, are, and are intended to be. neither this RfC nor its precursor are related to mentoring (the possibilities of which which are already being examined by the Wikimedia Foundation in collaboration with the same team of volunteers that is leading these current reforms. Strictly speaking your vote here is possibly invalid. It appears therefore to be based on what might be construed as inadmissible evidence. The page you refer to, as you correctly noted, is a draft, which also states: Reviewers are encouraged to make frequent use of the existing message to creator tool. It is essential that new creators are encouraged to continue with their acceptable new articles. You are also aware that the draft is under on-going development and will not be finalised until this RfC closer's comments and advice (if any) have been taken into account by the team that has pioneered it and will implement the much needed reforms of an essential core process - ones which if not accepted by the community will be replaced by measures for which an overwhelming consensus was reached 5 years ago but has not yet been enacted and which affords even less help to new users - in fact practically none at all of the kind you describe and which you might be confisung with Article wizard, the work of AfC, The Tea House, WP:ARS, the Welcoming committee, and The Wikipedia Adventure. There is in fact no lack of support for new users - all they need to be shown is where to find it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:07, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

9. Oppose - Per Robert Horning. The Ninja5 Empire (Talk) 08:38, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Discussion

Already discussed briefly on the talk, but if automated grandfathering involves counting unchallenged unreverted non-redirect mainspace entries in the curation, deletion tag, and patrol logs per user, that could be quite tricky. Suggesting a manual rollout period where sysops could potentially grant trusted editors the right at discretion, possibly while the (patrol) flag remains with the autoconfirmed group. I think this could avoid a situation where we briefly have a shortage of experienced non-admin patrollers. — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 03:02, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

I sense a disconnect here. What we must avoid is the typical error of several years ago where one user right was handed out to literally thousands of users by a bot, and for which onlyu a small number of users today are actually doing the work. Admins generally do not patrol pages unless, like me, they are searching for solutions to improve the situation. Here on the English Wikipedia, admins do other tasks, includ the actual physica deletion of of articles that have been flagged by the patrollers. I think perhaps the technical aspect is best left to the developers. What we are interested in here is getting qualified reviewers to patrol new pages. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:37, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Which is done, naturally, by throwing another hurdle in front of them before they can begin patrolling. Tazerdadog (talk) 07:11, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Are proposals 1 + 2 an "and" or an "or"? For example, if you've been here for more than 90 days with > 500 edits, but got blocked on 2nd January (say for 24hrs), would you be excluded? IE, you meet proposal one, but fail proposal two. Lugnuts ^{Precious bodily fluids} 07:22, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

My understanding is that it is an or. You can apply for the userright if you have not been grandfathered. Tazerdadog (talk) 10:01, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Clarification sought on criterion 2. I highlighted in the previous RfC (discussion commencing 19:00, 29 August 2016) that it presented statistics tallying only use of the Page Curation Tool which is under-featured, and so missed a significant proportion of activity by experienced editors who tend to use the more granular Twinkle tool. (For example, my own Twinkle-based patrolling alone resulted in a 0.7% undercount in the overall figures presented, and others were in a similar position.) I appreciate while the Page Curation Tool is under-featured in its user interface, it does record a richer activity log. Indeed, that may be the only easily-achievable source to monitor and assess the range of consequential actions ("uncontested or unreverted patrols, maintenance, or deletion tags"). But if that is the intent here, it is more than an implementation detail and I think it would need to be made explicit in the criterion 2 wording, for example "Editors who have used the Page Curation Tool to make n uncontested or unreverted patrols, maintenance, or deletion tags between... "? AllyD (talk) 12:47, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

• In my opinion, just as the New Page Reviewer right is subsumed into the Administrator, Bureaucrat, and Steward user groups, it ought to subsume into the Reviewer and Autoreviewer user groups as well. This would increase the pool of available NPRs on day 1 by thousands of qualified and previously vetted editors, many of whom are already active in recent changes and new page patrolling.--John Cline (talk) 12:52, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
  • I second this. This increases the patroller pool with obviously qualified editors while reducing the application approval workload for admins. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 14:07, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
    • (edit conflict) I agree with John Cline about subsuming patroller into autoreviewer but the standards for reviewer are far lower than this proposal. I might be ok with grandfathering-in current reviewers but I don't think they should automatically be subsumed from here on. Chris Troutman (talk) 14:30, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
      • You may have a valid concern, but at the same time, a reviewer is an editor manually approved by an admin to accept pending changes. To me, that suggests that the granting admin thinks highly of an editor's previous work and knowledge of the Wikipedia's policies/guidelines. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 14:37, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
      • On second thought, I see your point about grandfathering, because if it's subsumed, we might see those wanting the patroller right using the reviewer right as a back door, given the proposal is approved. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 14:56, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
        • @John Cline and Stevietheman: I don't think pending changes reviewers qualify for this new pages right, as the current bar for reviewers is (by rough consensus) lower. Whereas pc reviewers review diffs on existing pages, these patrollers will be reviewing whole pages. I also think autopatrollers don't exactly qualify for the bit per DGG below, that while their own work may be very much acceptable, they have not demonstrated proficiency in evaluating other people's work (at least the way I see the current setup). — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 17:34, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
          • What about grandfathering only in these cases? Why not reduce the strain on the application process? Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 17:47, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
            • (Personally) not opposed. Perhaps it could help with the transition period... though if the number of active patrollers at NPP are actually as low as claimed, might not be necessary — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 17:53, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
              • I have to say I'm scratching my head here. If someone gets a new right, they are notified, right? If they know they have a new right, they might decide to act on it, right? Of course, we're going to continue to see low degrees of participation if we don't do anything to bring them into it. The current proposal requires knowing if NPP even exists to apply for a right to participate in, plus the motivation to apply. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 18:04, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm concerned about the new right application processing workload this creates for admins (as if they didn't already have enough tasks to work on), and the immediate vast reduction of new patrollers at the outset because they haven't applied or their application hasn't been approved yet. Also, if this isn't automatic to some degree and editors have to apply, then I wonder how many would even know they need to apply or even know about new page patrolling at all. I'm thinking there needs to be an automatic granting or at least an automatic application here, because either way, an editor will be notified in some way and thus will become aware of something they could do. If we automatically grant the right at 90/500, we could presume the editor has "appropriate experience of a kind that clearly demonstrates knowledge of article quality control", and just have admins revoke on cause. If that is too "loose", then perhaps have automatic application at 90/500, whereby we have a waiting period of, let's say, 7 days, where if nobody raises an objection, or the editor doesn't wish to withdraw the application, the editor is automatically granted the right. Of course, to make the automatic application not begin as a huge process overload, we might want to expand the grandfathering to include 180/1000 editors. What I'm seeking overall here is the most quickly expanded pool of reliable patrollers, who know by notification that they can patrol, with the least amount of new workload for admins. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 14:24, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

There will be no "vast reduction" of people doing NPP because I doubt there are more than 20 people doing reviews right now. The whole point is to get people who do good reviews, not to increase the pool of people who do bad reviews. Jbh^Talk 15:43, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Based on what I said above, I am definitely seeking an expanded pool of editors who do good reviews. When I say "vast reduction", I am referring to potential reviewers (as in, why on earth would we want to dramatically reduce those off the bat, excluding a lot of editors who could do the job well?). The current proposal, IMHO, won't achieve the effect it purports to achieve per my stated concerns. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 15:59, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

I would like to ask that if a user have autopatrolled right, does the user able to patrol other pages, but they failed the criteria 2? Autopatrolled users should be experienced in pages creation (as they also was reviewed by sysop in WP:PERM before), so they should be grandfathered for this patrol right. I would also like to note that the Summary of under the covers technical changes is really lack of "context". And according to criteria 2 in the technical changes, it should means that new (or non-autoconfirmed) user can patrol new pages (for some reason...) And also if the user meets the grandfathered right, and the user is in the reviewer and autoconfirmed user group, (according to the technical changes) the right will be removed. I think someone need to improve the technical changes part so it is more clear for user. And I would like to see AUTOPAT user to be grandfathered with this right. Regards, NgYShung ^huh? 15:02, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

The skill for autopatrolled is different. I have usually granted it to specialists in a particular subject, such as someone writing many dozens of articles about different species of butterflies but usually nothing much else. Nobody needs to check his butterfly edits, but that doesn't mean he knows how to do anything else at WP. DGG ( talk ) 15:18, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing it out. It just my opinion by the way. But the Summary of under the covers technical changes part still need improvement and re-edit. NgYShung ^huh? 15:31, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

In my opinion, a user in the Autopatrolled user group will not jeopardize the trust they had earned to begin doing shoddy reviews of new pages they knew themselves to be unqualified to perform simply because the permission was included under their flag. The vast majority, however, should be more than qualified and where willing, not hindered.--John Cline (talk) 16:40, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

• Question:

Would this RfC (and I suppose, the previously approved one), as currently phrased, allow editors to propose others for this right, as at Autopatrol (versus only requesting it for themselves)? I'd like to be certain I understand if the former is 1, precluded by this RfC, 2, potentially a way to implement this but would require separate RfC, or 3, could simply be handled that way until/unless a different RfC says no, you should only be allowed to nominate yourself?

Why I inquire: I am very concerned for the way obliging people to request a PERM explicitly sets out to attract participants by ambition. I think this is likely to lead the most humble editors to refrain participating, and raise the proportion of new page reviewing by people with something to prove: my experience at other institutions organized in this fashion is that it increases rather than decreases what we call "biting" (it has different names IRL perhaps!) As a workaround, it seems to me that applying this perm by allowing folks to propose others they find competent would really help improve the average temperament of the pool of people with the right. As a bonus, I think getting a note that said, "Hey, so-and-so thought you'd be good at this, and xyz admin agreed, so now you have this right!" might boost participation too. And in that case I'd be fine with (roughly) matching the AfC criteria; otherwise I think I'd be inclined to think it's better to start with a lower threshold and liberal use of the already-approved removal criteria. Innisfree987 (talk) 16:00, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

(This might even help a bit to mitigate the burden on admins/growth of pool--I'm sure everyone interested enough to participate in this conversation would easily have 10 names to put forward in a New Page Reviewer nomination drive. If that generated a candidate list of, I don't know, 200 regulars, I'm sure the lion's share of those could be handled just by admins eyeballing the list and marking off people whose records they know for sure. I realize some of those people will never use the right, but I think there's really something to be gained by granting it to competent editors in hopes they might one day feel inspired.) Innisfree987 (talk) 18:21, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Question Am I right in thinking that people who have the autopatrolled right will still be able to autopatrol their OWN articles even if they do not have this new userright? MelanieN (talk) 19:59, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

@MelanieN: Correct. No changes are planned for autopatrolled. — JJMC89 (T·C) 20:13, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

• What about making patroller, reviewer, and rollback rights part of the extended-confirmed package? A lot of newbs do patrolling, and a lot of newbs ask for reviewer and rollback rights at PERM. KATMAKROFAN (talk) 17:23, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

I'll reiterate what I said at the RfC preceding this: *"Compare: Page mover, something new page reviewers sometimes need to do (move to Draft), requires 3,000 edits and 6 months of editing history.' It isn't a need. WP:CSD#R3 suffices, which anyone can apply a tag for, even those who choose to edit without an account." Furthermore, that's a poor characterization of the right.— Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 09:59, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Quiz

Above, in my support !vote, I mentioned the idea of a "quiz" to help people applying for this right to demonstrate their competence. I've mocked one up at User:ONUnicorn/NPP Quiz. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 17:35, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

You seem to have posted the wrong link for Melon Man and thanks for doing this.(Littleolive oil (talk) 17:42, 6 October 2016 (UTC))

Comment — The idea of the quiz is good and sound useful but we need to be aware of sockpuppets. Thank you – GSS (talk) 18:04, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

• Comment The problem with a quiz is maintaining it and the heavy workload of "grading". What you put together would, however, be great for training reviewers. See User:Jbhunley/Essays/Identifying nonsense at NPP where I put together something similar one evening for a patroller who was having trouble with, among other things, what can and can not be tagged as nonsense. A series of examples - either where the editor writes their thoughts as you propose or presented as already worked examples with reasoning - could be very useful but should be discussed at WP:NPP rather than at this RfC. Jbh^Talk 19:06, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

I thought whoever at WP:PERM was reviewing requests for this user right would be the one who would "grade" the quiz. The qualifications proposed in the RFC include "plus appropriate experience of a kind that clearly demonstrates knowledge of article quality control," which I and some other people commenting on the RFC seem to think is rather nebulous and would require the people at WP:PERM to dig through a person's contributions and try to make a guess as to if the person has the requisite experience. I actually thought this would be easier for them, but perhaps not. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 19:33, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

At PERM any admin can browse through an editor's history, maybe take a look at some of their AfD votes etc and they already know how to judge that. They can also see an editor's performance over time. A quiz would mean admins need to learn how to do something new, interpret quiz results. A quiz also does not show how an editor handles things over time and 'in the wild'. Finally, unless someone were willing to create completely new quizzes for each applicant all it would show is an ability to paraphrase other answers.

I still think it would be a good thing for training though. Nor would I object to admins, informally, asking an applicant how they would review some article picked out of the queue but baking it into the RfC would just bog stuff down. Lots of editors have lots of good ideas but ultimately that leads to derailing things once an RfC is up and I think, because this is so important and something is better than nothing, that should be avoided at all costs. Jbh^Talk 20:40, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

In reality, most 'newbs' are totally unqualified for any maintenance tasks at all. They keep admins busy enough with their attempts at editing because they won't/can't read the rules and advice first (that's something else we're woring on with he devs right now). We want to reduce the admin workload, not increase it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:55, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Lumping this in with autopatrolled as well?

When possible, I like to reduce the number of requests needed at WP:PERM. If editors have enough experience to receive the autopatrolled flag, which patrols their own articles, they undoubtedly have the experience to patrol the articles of others. Could we subsume this right into autopatrolled in addition to the stand-alone flag detailed above? ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 01:24, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

BU Rob13 the inverse is also a possible area this could be configured for in the future (e.g. if you are a patroller, you are also autopatroled) ala commons:. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:37, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

In an ideal world, these flags can and should be a single flag, but the RfC has frankly moved too far to consider that at this point. Better tackled later. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 01:38, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

I think DGG's comment above is pertinent: The skill for autopatrolled is different ... someone writing many dozens of articles about different species of butterflies ... doesn't mean he [sic] knows how to do anything else at WP.: Noyster (talk), 09:37, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

It's not an ideal world BU Rob13 because if you demand the same qualifications as for PC Reviewer (which currently requires minimum clue), there would be no PC Reviewers or Rollbackers. There is a vast gap between the skill sets for PC Reviewer that was accorded by a bot several years ago to 6,000 users, and the highly specialised work of NPP. Possibly one of the very reasons why we have so few patrollers is because many users find he task too challenging - and that is perfectly acceptable because it already probably keeps a lot of the wrong people away from it. NPP requires a near admin level of understanding of notability, COI, COPYVIO, and deletion policies. It is in fact the most specialised task on the en.Wiki below admin.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:05, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Kudpung )I know this is not the point of this RfC, but do you think that if someone qualifies for New page reviewer, there would be a situation where they would not also qualify for autopatrolled? — xaosflux ^Talk 00:03, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

No, Xaosflux, I don't. No more than all users who have created a bot and had it approved should automatically become Bureaucrats. The skill sets, background knowledge, and powers of judgement are fundamentally different - parallel in some cases perhaps, but different. We have to avoid making Wikipedia a meritocracy with a greasy pole to to climb, which I believe you have said yourself (or words to that effect) at some stage. The user groups we have are accorded on technical or cultural ability, not on leadership qualities. 02:31, 15 October 2016 (UTC)~~

Thanks for your reply - my suggestion would be to revisit after this is live (adding autopatrolled access to the new new page reviewers - so they don't have to ask for it separately). — xaosflux ^Talk 14:49, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm not arguing for combining reviewer or rollback with a NPP right, Kudpung; that's obviously not a good idea. I was saying autopatroller and patroller could potentially be combined. There might be valid reasons to not do that, certainly, but I don't think it's crazy to think about combining the right that allows editors to patrol their own articles with the right that allows editors to patrol the articles of others. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 02:51, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

BU Rob13, all I can suggest is that you read again what has been stated above in this sub-thread, including the comments by Noyster and DGG. The reasons for not doing it are so clear: parallel intelligence/maturity, but fundamentally different skill sets. Autopatrolled users are essentialy providers of new content, good content; discussions with them have revealed that they are mostly not interested in policing the produce of others and do not wish to learn all about the rest of the backroom work. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:02, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Actually, I hope that many of them will be interested, and for those who are willing to learn the way it's done, I and other admins will very gladly add them to the group. But it will likely be a small minority, alas. DGG ( talk ) 03:15, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

That comment is somewhat compelling, yes. I was more just confused why reviewer and rollback were being invoked. I don't have an easy answer here, and DGG's comment did give me pause. (I don't think the interest bit is a big deal, though. A majority of admins don't use the majority of the admin tools. We don't worry whether they're interested in some of the more obscure tools, just whether they're competent to wield them if they choose to. I think the same applies here.) ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 03:18, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

What is the scope of the proposal?

• Question - I already mentioned this at the last RfC, but quite late and I did not get any answer. Apologies if that is a trivial question that was discussed already, but I cannot see it anywhere.

There are (at least) two parts in the patrolling process: (1) access to Special:NewPagesFeed (via whatever tool) to inspect new pages and/or CSD/PROD/AFD them, and (2) access to the "reviewed" button. What of those would the proposal affect?

IMO (1) should remain for basically everyone (or maybe autoconfirmed) because false negatives (aka "biting the newbies" by sending a valid article to the deletion venues) is much worse than a false positive (letting a poor article go). Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 07:24, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

@Tigraan: See Special:Diff/743730507 — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 16:26, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

• Tigraan I'm sorry to see that you don't agree with "biting the newbies" by sending a valid article to the deletion venues) is much worse than a false positive (letting a poor article go). It's the other main reason for insisting that patrollers be suitably qualified. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:39, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Tigraan, If a bad article gets past NPP into WP, it will usually be spotted later, and can be deleted then, as so many millions of articles have been. We're pretty good at that. If a new contributor has their article rejected unreasonably, they usually never come back, and a potentially valuable contributor is lost to us forever--as thousands have been. It's not low quality articles that can kill WP, but rather the failure to recruit new editors. DGG ( talk ) 03:12, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

OK, I must admit I was not well-informed. I thought of it in terms of a three-way tradeoff between the spam we let in, the new editors we turn out, and the NPP backlog, under the assumption that the backlog is provisionally in the "accepted" column. That latter assumption was mostly false, since unpatrolled pages are off search engines, which decreases the backlog problem by orders of magnitude. That is a crucial point, and I see Kudpung mentioned it multiple times in the former RfC. Mea culpa.

I still think the acceptable exchange rate for one spam article going through PP vs. one incorrectly tagged article is higher in my estimation than in yours, but that's irrelevant if the backlog get eventually recycled.

As a consequence, I am totally OK with restricting Special:NewPagesFeed as well; I will amend my comment above. (and my former RfC !vote was misguided, but fortunately it did not matter.) Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 17:35, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.