Welcome to WikiProject AfD Engagement!

This page is a work in progress! If you'd like to update any part of it—whether that means adding new goals, refining our "Explain Like I'm 5," or anything else—please be bold and dive in!

Explain Like I'm 5!

Wikipedia's Articles for Deletion (AfD) process is crucial for ensuring our articles meet notability standards. While other deletion processes like PROD (proposed deletion) or CSD (speedy deletion) can remove articles without discussion, AfD is where we debate borderline articles for a full week.

Why Engagement Matters

Most AfDs receive little to no comments, leading to:

Potentially valuable articles being deleted simply because no one spoke up.
Low-quality articles being kept due to biased comments from editors with conflicts of interest.

To address this, we need to encourage more editors to participate in AfD discussions! Even if you vote on just one AfD a week—or even a day—you can make a significant difference!

Our Goals

Mission 1: Attracting New Users

We aim to draw in users who have not yet participated in AfD discussions.

AfD Invitation Template

We've created an invitation template to encourage knowledgeable editors to engage with AfD.

Here's our current version:

We need YOU!

Hello WikiProject AfD Engagement,

I've noticed your contributions and am impressed by your expertise.

On behalf of WikiProject AfD Engagement, I'd like to invite you to join us at Articles for Deletion (AfD).

AfD is a vital process on Wikipedia, but currently, many requests for deletion receive little engagement, meaning that good articles are lost, bad articles may be kept and a diversity of viewpoints isn't heard.

You are to visit our simple guide to figure out how to get started.

Even if you can only contribute your opinion to one AfD a week, your input is valued and will help Wikipedia!

If you know an editor who may be willing to help out, please use the template you are currently reading {{subst:AfD Invitation}} to draw attention to this WikiProject. Diverse viewpoints help to improve our encylopedia!

Molecular Pilot 02:51, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Feel free to improve the template - see Template: AfD Invitation or send it to editors you think would benefit from it.

Easy, Bite-Sized Introduction to AfD Guide

A simple, succinct guide we can make in project space explaining how AfD works, how to !vote, and some key policies like WP:GNG, WP:SIGCOV, and WP:NEWSORG. This will help make AfD a bit less intimidating and encourage new contributors!

It's currently live here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_AfD_Engagement/HowTo.

Please, be bold and improve it if you'd like to!

AfDVoter Gadget

Currently, adding a new !vote in AfD requires source editing, which can be intimidating for new users. We could develop a gadget that allows users to click once on an AfD page, select their !vote from radio buttons, and describe why in a text field. The gadget would automatically add (and sign) their vote!

Mission 2: Retaining AfD Voters

We want people who come to !vote at AfD to continue doing so and maintain their motivation.

AfD Recommender Bot

Both articles and AfDs are already categorized by related topics. We could create an opt-in bot that analyzes which article and AfD categories users have contributed to and leaves a summary of open AfDs they might be interested in every week on their user talk page.

Users could also set goals using a template like {{AfD Goal|weekly|1}}, which could display nothing or show their goal (depending on preference). This could potentially cause the bot to leave them a talk page reminder if they fall behind.

Note: We should integrate setting up the bot into the AfDVoter gadget, perhaps asking users if they want to opt in when they first use it.

AfD Awards

(add your own btw, be bold)

Ideas for our own in-project awards:

Guaranteed awards for fixed participation, e.g., 50 AfDs in total, or 20 AfDs in the past month.
AfD barnstars for users who leave insightful !votes (we can message commonly closing admins to encourage them to give these out) or admins who dedicate a lot of time closing/relisting.

Here's how it looks:

		The Articles for Deletion Barnstar
		This is a demo! Molecular Pilot 04:30, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Monthly AfD cup, with awards for 1st to 5th places (note: any award recipients will have their !votes reviewed to ensure they aren't votestacking or gaming the system).
- Criteria can include:
  - Number of !votes
  - Accuracy (with a minimum number of !votes, perhaps 10, to be considered).

We can also reach out to the WikiCup organizers to see if AfD !votes can earn points, perhaps 0.1, to encourage more voting.

I Want to Join!

We're so excited to have you here! Add your signature as well as any skills or areas you want to work in below:

Members

Coding & template making Molecular Pilot 01:59, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Anything related to this project. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 17:56, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to contribute ! Bo-3903 (talk) 21:07, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]