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Candidates for populating the Drafts namespace

A discussion was had at Kudpung's user talk page in which the idea was floated that a collection of AfC submissions (that had been worked on, were in danger of being deleted under the CSD:G13 rule, had been reviewed by a editor as having potential to be saved requested a deferrment of the G13 processing) be sent over to the Drafts namespace as the articles are effectively abandoned. There are 2 questions that need to be answered

  1. Should the move to Draft namespace strip off the AfC submission templates (the initial driver of how to find G13 eligible pages)?
  2. Should the CSD:G13 rule be applicable to all pages in Draft Namespace, or only to ones that are entered on the AfC tracking categories?

Question 1 Responses

  • Keep for now, without prejudice that a better way to signal available drafts could be found. Until a new way to classify and find draft pages is created, I don't see the problem in keeping whatever links to them are available. Diego (talk) 16:25, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Keep and expand , AfC, Article Incubator, and entries into WP:Abandoned Drafts should all have the same header template. This would mark drafts that are supposedly actively worked on, and not in longterm hibernation. -- 65.94.78.9 (talk) 20:21, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Question 2 Responses

  • Only to AfC pages. The Draft space shouldn't be governed by AfC rules, as it's a new that has the potential to be used for other purposes. It should be left free to develop its own set of rules instead of inheriting habits developed for a different situation. Diego (talk) 16:25, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
  • AfC, Article Incubator, WP:Abandoned Drafts should qualify. If some people think that a draft shouldn't qualify for this, then we should set up a discussion area for moving that draft out of AfC/AI/AD and into the general draft population, to remove it from qualifying for G13. ie. WP:Request for longterm draft status -- 65.94.78.9 (talk) 20:19, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

Thoughts? Hasteur (talk) 15:47, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Diego G13 was put in place because there were hordes of abandoned and non-improving pages in AfC's current home. I believe G13 draws it's overall mandate from WP:NOTWEBHOST so it seems like it would be a reasonable extension that G13 should apply to all of the pages in the Drafts section lest we have to come back in and authorize annother draining of the swamps of abandoned work. Even on the Project page it says that G13 may be extended to cover the drafts space, and so I'm asking the question now so that we can start discussing and formulating a plan prior to having to run G13 scans over the namespace (or a subset of the namespace). Hasteur (talk) 17:09, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
I'm agnostic on the merits of applying G13 to the new Draft space, but I want to push back against the idea that a pre-existing consensus on AFC automatically applies to our brand new Draft space. This is something we should decide on our own, based on what works. --HectorMoffet (talk) 17:37, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
WP:NOTWEBHOST is set against personal content, belonging to one user. As the draft space for an article belongs to all users (thus making it a new situation, distinct from the one that prompted G13), I see no more need to remove abandoned attempts than there is a need to remove talk pages or limit article's history to a few months - There's no deadline, and any other user could adopt and resume the draft either in a near or distant future. Or if another user wants a fresh start from an empty draft, the previous one could be archived or blanked.
I concur with HectorMoffet that we should not automatically bring old rules to new cases - but if you insist that some previous baggage must be used, I'd prefer to bring the guidelines for Talk pages rather than from AfC, as Drafts can have a more permanent place (with several versions of drafts for an already existing article, and all that), which is different from the one-off creation attempt of an AfC. Diego (talk) 18:11, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
As I do a list of Pros and Cons, I notice that if we delete a genuinely good-faith draft, we will talk an immediate hit to our editor's morale and retention rate. Speedy deletion at six months has a clear downside we can see-- people will be upset and most users will lose the ability to view the deleted draft.
Could someone step up to present the downside of allowing a genuinely good-faith to exist for only 6 months, instead of allowing a duration like 9 months or a 12 months. --HectorMoffet (talk) 17:46, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
It should be noted that this is 6 months un-edited. I think that as long as someone's making effort on the draft, there's no need to impose a hard deadline, however the webhost statement (that is community endorsed and just AfC) wants drafts to be improving or in article space, not languishing around for years...
And in re to the 17:37 statement, that's why I'm asking the question now so we can debate how rigorously we should apply the community endorsed CSD (again not a creation by AfC, but one that the community at large created). Hasteur (talk) 18:08, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
I would also argue that if the page is getting to the 6 months un-edited, we've already lost the retainment battle with the editor. As the developer who wrote the bot that does the AfC G13s currently, At the 6 month mark we give a notice to the editor that their submission is in danger of being deleted under G13. At least 30 days after that notice (and the G13 is still valid) the bot comes around to perform the G13 nomination (with the {{Db-afc-notice}} notice included). This extends one last bit of good faith to those who use the process. Hasteur (talk) 18:15, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
All the old processes assumed that drafts were mainly a one-man effort, with a main contributor pushing the content into main space and other editors making tweaks. None of that needs to apply to the new Draft namespace; it could be used as in 2001 Wikipedia, as a blank slate where anyone can contribute until a fully developed start-class article emerges. I think the project is screaming for WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY and WP:IMPERFECT policies to have a place where they can shine again, being used as the core guidelines for new content in under-developed areas (asian famous people, african culture and infrastructures...), far from the Wikipedia 1.0 mentality of "only good, 100%-policy-compliant content may remain". Current enforcement of policies and guidelines is great for keeping the main article space clean and stable, but they're also holding the project growth back and driving new and existing editors away. Diego (talk) 20:02, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
  • If you want to avoid the build-up of the junk collection that AfC became - I'm referring to the blank pages, the pages stating 'Shawn is awwweeeeessssssooommmeee!', the blatant attacks and copyvios, the pure spam, the blatant hoaxes, and the general no-hope-in-a-century stuff - there has to be some sort of patrolling, filtering or whatever. You can't just keep everything in the hope someone will wave a magic wand and turn it into a GA. If Drafts is going to be taken seriously, the stuff I've mentioned should be weeded out. Otherwise, it's going to be AfC with a coat of fresh paint. Nice and ready for the graffiti artists to play with... Something like 'Shawn is awesome' is never going to be an article. Nor is the track listing of Lil NitWit's mixtape (available at 56 Acacia St, Deadbeat Falls, Mo - please bring a blank CD). Give plenty more leeway than article space gets, but don't save everything in case someone might use it ten years from now. Unless you can sell it to an art gallery, rubbish is rubbish. Peridon (talk) 11:40, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Other uses?

Will this be possible:

  • To be used for Template Sandbox and Test Case pages? and thus in some way linked to live templates?
  • And for scratchspace pages for collaborative rewrites of live articles without working on the actual live article, while a rewrite is in progress? (which currently occur on talk subpages? and necessary for some processes such as CopyVio), and thus in some way linked to live pages?
  • scratchspace for developing new sections for articles (currently done as talk page subpages)

Or would you need a "Draft Template:" and "Draft Template talk:" to add to this new "Draft:" and "Draft talk:" space?

-- 65.94.78.9 (talk) 03:14, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I think the answers would be; Yes, Yes and Yes, if we decide to use it that way. Right now, many people are putting stuff there that would normally go in the sandbox. So it appears we are already using it for whatever we want. Since our policies tend to be desciptive rather than proscriptive, we should get in early and use it the way that mosts benefits the project before people start adding layers of beurocracy to it. As for myself, I only want to use it for articles, one of which has already been expanded, moved to mainspace and nom'd for DYK. <happy> This is the way Wikipedia should work. 64.40.54.251 (talk) 06:56, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
I think I'd prefer to keep Draft: as a namespace for articles, not templates. We tend to be really laid-back about keeping very early revisions of templates and modules in their own namespace; there are special templates that deal with those namespaces; and often they include so many subpages that you'd be moving sheathes of ten and twenty articles at a time when they're ready. And in the case of modules they don't even run in non-Module space; and I'd like templates to be treated kind of the same way, as a different "programming language". I'd really like to have it so that by and large you can automatically promote and demote material between Module: and mainspace. Wnt (talk) 14:59, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
AfC uses talk namespace for submitted templates at the moment. If this is intended to work with AfC (which does not appear to support Modules at the moment) then perhaps some form of template/module support would be necessary. -- 65.94.78.9 (talk) 19:55, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

FLOW

Also, this namespace can seem to address some of the deficiencies in WP:FLOW being unable to rendere the full lot of wikicode, if a draft-space page can be associated with a FLOW talk page, were a process on how to do that become documented here and at FLOW. -- 65.94.78.9 (talk) 19:55, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Quick clarification: Flow does in fact support all forms of wikitext, including templates, math, etc. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 19:51, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
Hmm, that'd be a change from the fall, when I last checked and FLOW was not supporting the full range of wikicode, and other page sample snippets that people had brought up as being necessary to be supported. -- 65.94.78.9 (talk) 20:52, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
If you want, you can try out the latest version on the Talk page for Flow on mediawiki.org. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 05:28, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
My understanding is that the specdoc for WP:FLOW supports 99% of wikicode in theory, but that the current implementation of that specdoc is pretty buggy, in practice. Fram seems heavily involved in this area, and might be willing to fill us in on the current state. WP:FLOW is supposed to be in beta until something like April/May/June of 2014, is that still the schedule for when all existing dense freeform old-school talkpages will be halted and WP:FLOW-style talk will become the mandatory default? 74.192.84.101 (talk) 12:58, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
Talkspace Sandboxing

it appears that talkpage sandboxing of entire articles isn't easy with FLOW, so seems like DRAFT should be used to handled that particular aspect of current talk page usage, instead of FLOW? -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 05:20, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Proposal to ban creation of draft that had already on main namespaces.

The creation of draft by anonymous uses should be banned if wikipedia already had article with same name in main namespace. Only autoconfermed uses should be able create such article. This will avoid unnecessary article. Thank you.--Wikiuser13 (talk) 13:36, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

That restriction to the editing capabilities of anonymous users doesn't sound like a good idea. Anonymous users obviously already have the possibility to start drafts of non-existing articles (that's what the AfC process is for); so what's the benefit of limiting those users the posibility of suggesting improvements without interfering with the current article, that they may not have the confidence to edit directly? And why should veteran IP editors be banned from creating temporary drafts for working on large changes to the article? Diego (talk) 13:58, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
Concur with Diego; I think we should strongly encourage IP editors to contribute to our existing article instead of creating a draft, but I see no reason absolutely forbid it. --HectorMoffet (talk) 14:36, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
Just because a user tries to create a Drafts space workpage for a title that happens to already exisist in mainspace doesn't mean we should prohibit them from creating it. Think about common titles (John Williams for examle). I could see a case where anonymous and non-*confirmed users are presented with an intercept page giving them the alternatives that might already exist in main article space or in draft space already (Did you mean one of these others (1st sentence of mainsapce article by that name, Link to Disambiguation page (if there is one), or first sentence of any page that is similarly titled in Draft namespace)) so as to discourage many individual copies of the same content created by many different users. Hasteur (talk) 14:47, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
Compromise: In addition to being deletable at WP:MfD, Draft articles in the Draft: namespace which duplicate an existing article may be speedy-deleted ({{db-g6|rationale=Per consensus reached at Talk:{{BASEPAGENAME}}#Should we keep the draft?}} or some such) as the result of an MfD-like discussion which takes place on the article's talk page. Editors who spot drafts which duplicate existing pages are encouraged to check the article's talk page an start or re-start a discussion along the lines of "is this draft desirable?" if no such discussion has taken place or any prior discussion has died off without any resolution and that discussion is not recent. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 18:34, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
Yes, that sounds reasonable. All content at Wikipedia can be subject to deletion discussions, so it's good to mention that possibility in a explicity way for drafts. Diego (talk) 18:36, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
Are you endorsing my idea that a draft:-namespace draft can be deleted after a discussion on an article-talk-space page where the article is about the same topic? The fact that (barring a new "Drafts-for-deletion" discussion environment), Draft:-namespace drafts can be deleted through MfD is just "understood" (that is, it goes without saying). davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 20:31, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
I think this case can be handled by allowing {{db-a10}} to apply to drafts, where the topic of an existing article is duplicated.
But what if someone wants to handle a sandbox rewrite of an article? Should those be allowed to be stored in DRAFT?
-- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 00:52, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
I don't think that's a good idea,
For example:
  1. As John Smith is a disambiguation page, and there are many John Smiths in the world where articles can be written about; just because a draft is called Draft:John Smith does not mean that the topic of the article is the same as the disambiguation page.
  2. As James Stewart is an article, with a disambiguation page James Stewart (disambiguation), and there are many James Stewarts in the world where articles can be written about; just because a draft is called Draft:James Stewart does not mean that the topic has been replicated.
  3. If someone wants to sandbox a rewrite of an existing article in mainspace, should that be allowed in DRAFT?
This also applies to many other pages in mainspace, for which other topics exist with the same name. We should not expect everyone to know the disambiguation rules on Wikipedia and to create the draft with a properly disambiguated title.
And if someone comes along and writes an article on the topic the draft is about at around the same time as when the draft was created, that doesn't mean that the user who submitted the draft is acting in bad faith either, considering Wikipedia caches pages, and when the draft was started, the page may not have yet been created, but by the time it was saved, it could have been. This is especially likely in high profile incidents in the news.
-- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 00:48, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
I think that a draft article should always (ideally) be written as a proposal for an article with the same name. So if you have Draft:John Smith it should read like John Smith, or else be moved to the place where the actual page is. I suppose technically that means that if you have multiple drafts with similar names you'll have disambiguation pages for them (sigh...) and you should copy the mainspace disambiguation page to make those draft disambiguation pages before adding the extra draft articles at the top. That's sort of an absurd case of the principle, but if we stick to it we'll know the point of Draft: namespace, and if we don't we'll have it as a wasteland for anything.
However, that ideal being expressed, we should not delete draft articles with usable content - draft space is where articles should go that are deleted now. So I don't see every page as living up to this ideal, nor is it likely that people will come along and whip them all into shape. I'm willing to live with that. Wnt (talk) 15:58, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

"It was created out of concern for the backlog at the Articles for Creation process for new articles"

This statement is incorrect. The main AfC-related reason for the creation was that AfC was (and currently still is) using Wikipedia Talk, a rather crude hack. I have removed this sentence. --LukeSurl t c 01:58, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Yeah my gut says that the right thing to do is just link to the RFC and let people read the comments/closure notes there. It's a complex issue. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 22:57, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
I wonder if the "hack" is social rather than technical. The real problem with AfC is that it is deluged with commercial articles ... and as it happens, the so-called "bright line rule" that Jimbo proposed allows talk page contributions by paid editors. This leaves the curious conundrum that moving the articles to the proper place sort of breaks this rule and might cause them to look for ... other solutions. Now to be sure, I think we should move AfC so that I have a place to comment on new articles, and leave the fallout for the winds to decide, but I suspect we'll find unusual sluggishness... Wnt (talk) 16:02, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Proposed guidelines

I'd like to point everyone to two principles of Draft space: Wikipedia:Drafts aren't part of the encyclopedia and Wikipedia:Notability doesn't apply to drafts. Both are long-held principles in existing policy of userspace drafts, but they bear repeating given the new namespace. --HectorMoffet (talk) 07:14, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

The first one seems almost common sense to me, but in any case, thanks for putting them together. I think both make sense. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 19:37, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
I would support iff G13 applies to drafts so that hopeless garbage can eventually be removed. --Jakob (talk) 20:02, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
Yeah I think the assumption right now is that all G criteria are general, and thus apply everywhere by default. If you look at the deletion logs for Drafts so far, there are more than a few G11's and G2's. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 20:43, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
I agree drafts which are both "abandoned" and "hopeless" should be deleted under G13; When it comes to drafts which are merely stale (but promising), they probably should be retained. I trust our admins to distinguish between the two, I just wouldn't want a bot to autodelete based just on edit dates. --HectorMoffet (talk) 22:47, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
Hector, the bot doesn't delete. Having automatic deletions is very contraversial and has been slapped down multiple times. What the current G13 bot does is give the page creator a notice that their page has become eligible for deletion under G13 and warns them that the page could be deleted in the near future. The bot then waits at least 30 days to see if there is any non-null edit to the page. Even changing a single character (add/delete/substitiute) is enough to make the page ineligible again. Part of the G13 cleanup is once the page goes on the "G13 eligible list" editors interested in trying to save the page now have a target and know that the page is in consideration for deletion. If the page still remains stale, the bot comes around and procedurally nominates for deletion under the G13 rule. It still takes an administrator to either delete the page. For this reason there's at least one set of human eyes (and probably more) that are evaluating the page to see if it's worth investing time to save it or if it just needs to go to the bit heap. Undoing a G13 is also as easy as a undeletion because of a post facto opposed prod (WP:REFUND).Hasteur (talk) 14:55, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
I would say that we should say that most of WP:NOTEVERYTHING also applies, and possibly allow WP:PROD deletions on NOT-violations.
I'd make possible exception for NOTDIC, considering a dictionary definition can be a starting point; and CBALL, because we can write drafts on future events that are known to likely happen -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 07:11, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
I tend to concur WP:NOTEVERYTHING mostly applying, with exceptions for good-faith content that would still fit into mission of the the WMF family; So, as you suggest dictionary definition drafts are fine, drafts for future WP articles are fine, and similarly, good faith drafts for Wikibooks or Wikinews are still allowed (just as we tend to allow them in userspace).
But we certainly want principles like WP:FORUM, WP:PROMOTION/WP:NOTADVERTISING, WP:NOTWEBHOST to apply. In general, drafts need to be good faith attempts to contribute to our projects. --HectorMoffet (talk) 08:19, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

As I've comented before, a good heuristic for drafts would be to base them on the guidelines for talk pages rather than articles. Talk space has a tradition of hosting drafted versions of content, and conversely it would make sense to include editor's comments within unfinished drafts that would be not permissible at article space. It also makes sense to archive abandoned or obsolete drafts. Most NOT policies apply to talk pages as well, so this approach should be safe with respect to encyclopedic content, copyvio and BLP. Diego (talk) 09:19, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

WP:STALEDRAFT/WP:FAKEARTICLE is where I think we would draw the line. If the primary editor to the page spent effort for 3 days and then goes idle without indication that they are going to come back, after 6~8 months we probably should follow the advice and move forward with one of the options. I'm really dis-inclined to leave "namespace title reservations" (which the blanked pages would be) out to confuse other volunteers who want to create an article at that same title. I think a soft-delete is workable, would keep the namespace tidied up, and would allow volunteers that do come back to be able to ask for a specific version of the page (if multiple subjects happen to occupy the same title). Hasteur (talk) 15:02, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
  • I think we should retain long term drafts provided they have actual usable content. I also think that WP:PROD not merely should be banned from Draft: space, but from article space as well. Instead, editors should be able to move an article from main to Draft: space on their own initiative, and if no one moves the article back, that accomplishes the same thing (though we may need minor relaxation of the limits to moves, which is a good thing anyway). (AfD should not be a mandatory step for deletion, nor should AfC review, which I want to merge with it, be a mandatory step for creation) but rather, they should be a noticeboard where editors go if their dispute about whether an article is Draft: or main can't be resolved on their own. Wnt (talk) 16:14, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Drafts and the word "Wikipedia"

Dear enthusiasts of the new Draft namespace:

It seems that in the future there will be a lot of articles created in this space which are not yet and may never be suitable for the main encyclopedia. One advantage over having these created in "Draft" rather than in "Wikipedia talk" is that the word "Wikipedia" is not included in the title. This means that if mirror sites pick up these drafts (as seems inevitable), the source of the perhaps inappropriate text will be less obvious. IMO, it would be a good idea to continue to minimize the use of the word "Wikipedia" in any templates, categories, sub-pages, etc. added to these draft articles. —Anne Delong (talk) 15:19, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

A very good point that raises others in my mind. How do the mirrors pick things up? I think the Drafts are supposed to be non-indexed, aren't they? Are they? Are the AfC things indexed or not? Do we really need to treat the larder and the broom cupboard in the same way as the china cabinet? Peridon (talk) 11:22, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
At least one mirror picks up AFC submissions, which are marked no-index. Google picks up this mirror. Since edits to drafts show up in Special:RecentChanges, and //wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Special%3ANewPages&namespace=all, anyone who wants to can archive them. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 19:30, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
Any webcrawler, including Google, can pick up any page on the internet that has even one link to it from another page and sometimes even if it doesn't. Google and other legitimate search engines just politely don't index the pages if asked not to. Other crawler operators could make another choice and copy any pages they want. The point is that they do it mechanically, and don't change the titles of the pages. If the title just begins with "Draft" and the word "Wikipedia" isn't anywhere, then if the information is bad Wikipedia will not be credited.—Anne Delong (talk) 20:10, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
It's kind of silly, though - some kind of credit has to be given under the CC license, nor can we disavow this stuff entirely. The tactic used on some user pages of having special templates about "if you found this on another website" might work. Wnt (talk) 16:18, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

"This is a draft" banners

I think all pages on Draft and Draft talk should have a banner boldly stating that the page is a Draft, in order to remove any confusion with actual articles.

One possible way to do it could be to make the banner inbuilt for all pages in the namespace so it does not have to be manually added. Any pages which are not Drafts in the namespace (Draft:Example for one) could be exempted by a special {{Nodraftspacebanner}} template. This way, the need for special maintenance for any pages moving out of draftspace would be minimised.

P.S. I saw suggestion on one of the Village Pumps but repeated it here so could be acted on.

TheOriginalSoni (talk) 03:11, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Definitely needs to happen, and it should happen across the entire namespace, not as thousands of templates stored on each draft. --HectorMoffet (talk) 04:39, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
👍 Like This is an exceptional idea that will help to curb any ambiguity between drafts and actual articles. Northamerica1000(talk) 21:26, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
This is not technically possible at the moment (unless JavaScript is used, which is a bad solution for numerous reasons). There's an ancient extension, mw:Extension:PageNotice, which would provide the desired functionality, but it would need a proper review and modernisation before it could be installed on Wikipedia. — This, that and the other (talk) 03:12, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
@This, that and the other: Doesn't the Module: space include a similar banner on top of the actual content? -- Ypnypn (talk) 03:42, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
I think that is provided by Scribunto, the extension that powers Lua. To add such a banner in other namespaces, we would need another extension. — This, that and the other (talk) 03:44, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
Just so you know, I'm going to have a go at improving the PageNotice extension so it can hopefully be used for this purpose, provided there is community consensus for it to be enabled. — This, that and the other (talk) 04:01, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
I think we can do this as a bonafide feature, rather than just a template. Just to clarify, I assume you mean that this would appear both on read and edit mode? Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 09:27, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
Yes. I expect an edit notice during edit mode, and another notice during read mode to appear on all pages in Draft and Draft talk. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 10:30, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
This is a bit unusual as ideas for our software go, but I might as well put it out there... some web publishing solutions will change the background of an [article/post/page/whatever] when it's at draft stage, quite often to something like the word "DRAFT" in faint red repeated diagonally across the page. A "this is a draft" notice at the top of a draft article is as likely to fall prey to banner blindness as any other kind of notice; but it would be impossible to not notice that the entire background of a draft is telling you that it's not a live Wikipedia article. — Scott • talk 12:03, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
I have seen people do that, but I find it a tad too obnoxious. I will ask Pau Giner, our designer, to come up with a variety of options for us to all look at for read-mode banners. We have already designed edit mode indicators of draft status. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 23:22, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
I personally wouldn't mind a simple {{ambox}}- or {{ombox}}-like box at the top of each draft, perhaps with a slightly unconventional color scheme or formatting in order to catch the eye. This could be accompanied by an altered page background color (both when viewing the page and editing with VisualEditor). In the meantime, though, I think the priority is to get a stop-gap banner up on all Draft namespace pages, to reduce confusion for both newbies and oldies. — This, that and the other (talk) 11:32, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
I also love the idea of a banner combined with an un-obtrusic cosmetic design change to underscore the change in namespages. Unleash the designers. --HectorMoffet (talk) 12:32, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
Templates would be easier than software to design and change easily. But the issue I have with using a template is A) as drafts grow to encompass the scale of AFC, how do we make sure all drafts have the template? B) adding a required template on a draft adds complexity to the markup for first-time contributors. You have no idea how confusing it is to someone new to tell them that part of a page source is their draft content, but part is not supposed to be edited or removed. Adding a notice to pages via software in the background, rather than templates, lets us solve both the problems I just outlined. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 06:32, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
Hence why we need gerrit:105434 or PageNotice! Then the template won't need to be manually placed on each page. — This, that and the other (talk) 11:15, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
  • I agree. I wonder if some solution similar to EditNotices can be patched up, where the notice displayed on all pages in the namespace depends on a particular page/template. You'd need to make a change to that page and it would be reflected in all the notices in the namespace. Such a solution would allow relative flexibilty while making changes, but also get rid of any extra wiki markup in the code for every page. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 11:24, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
If something like "PageNotice" or gerrit:105434 becomes available, then YES YES YES we should have it. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 21:24, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Are you sure this is a problem? Apparently editing MediaWiki:Editnotice-118 is frowned upon, but there are notices like Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Portal talk. It is possible, though unusual, to display editnotices on a page when merely viewed, as at MediaWiki:Common.css. I don't currently have permissions to try this out (though I was actually offered the template permission recently ... still, I'd like to hear a second opinion rather than fouling up big-time right out the gate) Wnt (talk) 16:34, 19 January 2014 (UTC) sorry! The guy who knows these things has told me at [1] that this is not the case. The page about Editnotice is perhaps a bit misleading. Wnt (talk) 22:29, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Template message

I created a template message for draft pages that can be used to explain drafts on the top of the page at Template:Draft article. It is based on Template:Workpage and might require additional clean-up. Thank you.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 18:51, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

  • Looks good. Ideally I would want something much more attention grabbing (maybe the entire notice is in a shade of blue) so people dont ignore it, but that's Steven (WMF) and others to discuss. Can we start implementing a notice based on this template across Draftspace as soon as is possible? TheOriginalSoni (talk) 17:57, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
    • I proposed a solution to highlighting draft status via the software below, for folks to comment on. The advantage of doing something built-in to the namespace automatically is that we apply it to all pages without having to make sure a template is put on pages (and stays on pages). We could probably get the simple versions of the designs below done in a couple weeks. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 23:44, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
Yes, Anomie told me about that (on WP:Lua requests). The documentation at WP:Editnotice gave me a different impression, but apparently the page views where that applies go through Mediawiki:Clearyourcache, which is restricted to .css and .js pages only (I haven't actually run that down; he's the best tech person likely to respond to my comments and I'll take his word for it) Wnt (talk) 05:09, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Announcing Template:DraftChecker

Per the challenge above, I have created Template:DraftChecker. When used on a draft page (or draft_talk), it tells you whether or not we have an article of the same name. When called on Article Talk, it alerts you if a draft of the same name exists.

Neatest of all-- When used on an Article, the template displays a message that is visible only to logged-in users! (Technical details: It displays a "hidden" message in the HTML which is only made viewable when a two-line javascript is installed to make the message visible to logged-in users.)

If it works well and we like it, we could include it on every page-- perhaps in the same paragraph as "This page was last modifed...?

As User:Wnt points out above, DraftChecker could also be added to Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Draft. --HectorMoffet (talk) 14:20, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

It's easy enough to write a template or module to check for the existence of a page, and even when it was last edited, which works for all users without any javascript. I don't think our drafts should be treated like a dirty little secret, because .. stuff doesn't stay secret when you post it on the internet. We can be assured that there will be certain awful sites that will pick out our very worst drafts and put them up for ridicule. Either we can live in fear of what they think or we can stand by the concept of open editing and laugh it off. You don't throw away dirt because there's only $20 of gold in a cubic yard of it, so why should we worry about some bad drafts? We're already putting people on notice that they're not even part of the encyclopedia. Wnt (talk) 05:17, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Template:Draft cleanup

Regarding {{Draft cleanup}}... I don't think this template should exist. It's not very helpful, because drafts almost all will need some cleanup, that's why they're drafts and not published articles. A general cleanup tag for drafts doesn't make a lot of sense. Better to either give people more specific feedback, such as regarding references, categories, wikitext formatting, or the Manual of Style. [P.S. I'm posting this under my volunteer account, because it's not related to WMF goals or work for drafts.] Steven Walling • talk 20:38, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Whereas I tend to agree, I think TFD would be a better place to address the issue.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:17, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
A very merry concurrence-- asserting a draft require cleanup is redundant, and unhelpful to point out to new users. --HectorMoffet (talk) 21:49, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
Well, the objective there was to have something that tagged a draft that was not merely incomplete, but completely not for the purpose of an article. As people are saying below, there are some drafts they just want to dump because they have literally zero value. A lot of them get carried away with that and want to delete things automatically, at admin's discretion, etc. I think that we can put a layer of free users between the draft writer and the admin, who point out basic problems first so that, say, an advocacy article or an ad might be rewritten in an encyclopedic style.
I do recognize that the general message isn't very helpful: it was meant to be used like {{Draft cleanup|purpose}} instead. Since it's still here, I'll update the documentation. Wnt (talk) 19:47, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
I've added a few other reasons (now shown in the documentation) so my thinking about what it is for is clearer. Wnt (talk) 20:08, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikiprojects and Drafts

Shouldn't there be a "class=draft" for template:WikiProjectBannerMeta and a way for User:AAlertBot (the Article Alerts Bot) to inform related wikiprojects that a draft article in their topic area exists? -- 65.94.78.9 (talk) 22:10, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:05, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
It could potentially be done automatically as well, by checking {{NAMESPACENUMBER}}. It could automatically mark the class 'draft' if the template was in Draft talk and there was no explicit 'class' parameter. Superm401 - Talk 07:08, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
Sorry, I posted that while logged into one my testing account by mistake. Superm401 - Talk 07:08, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Sandboxing rewrites in DRAFT

Perhaps {{Draft}} should be modified to support this namespace, as several draft rewrites currently are being kept in this namespace. (ie. Draft:World domination , Draft:Worst-case scenario, etc) -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 10:45, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

  • Support. I think the consistent rule we should look for is that anything written in Draft: space should be composed with the plan that it will be possible to move it to mainspace and use it as an article under that exact name. This rules out use for template drafts (I see no need anyway) but does encourage draft rewrites. Wnt (talk) 18:16, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
    • A rule like that would prevent using Draft: for sketching sections of articles, or for preserving things until a topic where they belong can be found. I would make that rule somewhat more relaxed - everything in draft should be composed with the plan of using it somewhere in article space, but not necessarily as an article with the same title; I think that idea is more consistent with WP:SPLIT and WP:PAGEDECIDE. Diego (talk) 18:58, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Honestly, I think people putting things in Draft space should take the extra moment to try to think of a better name for the subtopic, rather than keeping it somewhere that it can't be promoted from. Now to be sure, the "penalty" for violating this should not be deletion - it should be that the text gets moved. Wnt (talk) 17:59, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Proposed new behaviour

I do lots of de facto new page patrol (actually in Category:Uncategorized_pages, but much of it amounts to the same thing) can I move new articles I find to the new namespace rather than PROD them if they're not obviously in appropriate just unsourced (or sourced only to social media sites)? Obviously I'd need to give a decent comment / rationale as feedback to the article creator Stuartyeates (talk) 04:14, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Sounds fairly reasonable to me. BOZ (talk) 04:45, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
I believe so. I think PROD should be done away with entirely. A caveat being that I'd like to know more about when a page is moved back and forth a couple of times. Usually such "move wars" are to be avoided, but it is quite legitimately possible for someone to have an article moved in this way because one person reviews it as subpar, for him to add some more information and move it back, get it moved back by another person, address those complaints and move it back again, etc. Reading the help seems to imply that they won't run into technical barriers but I've never tried it myself. Wnt (talk) 05:03, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
Oppose in general but would approve if limited to pages that were only recently created in or moved into article-space, say, in the last 7 days. I will open an alternate proposal below. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 17:07, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
Hrm... any editor who moves the article into the draft space needs to clean up after themselves (to avoid bad WP:CNSR problems). I wouldn't mind Prod be kept for historical reasons but make "Move to Draft Namespace" be a valid outcome of a PROD at the enacting Admin's discretion. Hasteur (talk) 17:16, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
I agree, and I would even make it the default option (i.e. make PROD = Proposed as Draft). The Admin should usually delete the content only for problematic content such as COPYVIO, BLP and obvious spam/vandalism. Diego (talk) 17:26, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
2 Problems:
The problem in making it the default target is the Admin has discretion to determine if the PRODed article has potential or if it should be deleted outright
If Drafts becomes the default target for successful prods, I would like to have a tracking category that lets us know what time the PROD was acted on and a Automatic Delete after a reasonable time period (6 months) Hasteur (talk) 17:50, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
Why would you want to automatically delete pages that don't contain any problematic content, as verified by an administrator? Diego (talk) 18:29, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Admins should have some discretion in deleting copyvios and vandalism, because that's what they're for. The thing that the existence of a Draft namespace should make us recognize is that there are two different kinds of issues with articles -- conduct problems that have to brought back to the source (the user posting copy-pasted material), which are irrelevant to article completion status (you can copy-paste to a FA) -- and then issues just of whether "notability" is achieved, i.e. sufficient sourcing, which are indeed specific to an article (someone can write a draft honestly explaining what he knows about the local sports team, source to a couple of blogs, and there's no harm in keeping it around for ten years until some publications are put out about them, or someone bothers to look them up). Articles should speedily be deleted if they only contain the former, and never deleted from Draft space if they only contain the latter. Wnt (talk) 19:11, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
@Diego Moya: If anything can be saved from deletion by moving it into Draft space the namespace will suffer the exact same problem that AFC does, the rising tide of sub-standard drafts that nobody ever does anything to clean up to the point that we have 70,000 drafts sitting around in limbo that never get dealt with. And I realize that automatic deletion is probably the wrong term, something more akin to a CSD nomination with an Admin concurring on the delete.
@Wnt:If it was notable yesterday, it's notable today, and will be notable in the future. Conversely something that is not notable yesterday could be immensely notable tomorrow, but we cannot go scry the crystal balls to find If the subject could pass muster for mainspace and defeat the AFD, then it would. If it doesn't and it lands in the Draft namespace, it's been identified as not appropriate for mainspace and could be in danger. Anything that lands in the namespace from the AFD should have a limit on how long it can sit around not being improved. Hasteur (talk) 20:11, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
@Hasteur: The thing is, we really don't know without looking exhaustively that a source can't be found to make something notable. We have over 3 million articles -- 70,000 extra drafts is nothing. And, quite frankly, if someone is eager enough to know about, say, a company that they are willing to run through the drafts index and drag out a partial blurb about it, they probably don't care if it was written like an ad. They'll just be glad to learn something about it. Wnt (talk) 20:19, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
@Hasteur: But there's no need to have the Draft space cleaned up, nor a problem in that it holds sub-standard content. It has been created precisely for that - all its content is sub-standard! I can see no reason why it cannot sit around forever, and you haven't provided one. It doesn't hold more nor less weight in the database being hidden than visible, and there's no possible benefit in being accessible by only a few selected elite. There's no backlog for cleaning up drafts, with every one being a stand-alone repository of content, nor it's reasonable to expect that one can be improved to the point of being viable within any limited period of time - but it can eventually arrive to that point, if enough improvements accumulate during an arbitrary period. But even if some of them are never improved, what's wrong with that? It's not as if we throw them to the reader's face or something. Diego (talk) 21:55, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
@Wnt: Yes, that's very much it. There are valid reasons why an administrator must delete content, but they are much less content of this nature than what is deleted nowadays. The "limbo" that Hasteur talks about is pretty much what Wikipedia, like any other complex project, needs in order to advance from a "stable" version status into a "broken" unstable version where things are allowed to change. Software projects work that way, for a very good reason: you can't make major changes without breaking something along the way, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't make major changes ever - just reserve a dedicated space where you can experiment, whether you call it "development branch" or "draft space". Diego (talk) 22:09, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
"PROD=Proposed as Draft" is daft, since much of PROD is stuff that should be deleted. So the default situation should not be to DRAFT, it should still be to DELETE, since there are many problem articles out there that don't quite meet CSD criteria, but should still be deleted. -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 07:18, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
What kind of articles are you thinking about? I'd say CSD pretty much covers everything that should be deleted (patent nonsense, vandalism, tests...) as well as some things that could be preserved outside of article space. What articles should be deleted without discussion, that don't fit any CSD? And for what reason? Diego (talk) 10:16, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
WP:CSD does not cover WP:NOTEVERYTHING, our WP:NOT about content pages. CSD will only delete the most absolutely blatant cases of abuse. When it isn't as blatant as blaringly out loud, then the CSDs are frequently refused, and a suggestion to use PROD or AFD is left in the edit summary or as a message to the proposer or the talk page.
Failure on WP:N is not a WP:CSD criteria, since any mention of importance is all that is required to reject a CSD, while it would be deleted under a normal AFD. There are many many articles on nonnotable topics that are deleted through PROD/AfD that would be rejected from CSD due to that. These topics will never pass WP:N no matter how they are rewritten, but have mention of importance (a lower standard than WP:NOTABILITY) in their prose, so fail at CSD. -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 07:54, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
Failure on WP:N is not a reason on itself to hide the content from view. If an article makes a credible claim of importance of the kind required to exclude it from CSD, there's no benefit in deleting it; WP:PRESERVE is as much a core policy as WP:NOT, and Draft is the perfect place to keep around "facts or ideas that would belong in a finished article". This already exclude all garage bands and vanity pages (it wouldn't harm if we remove those from view, but those do fall under CSD); the administrator evaluating the PROD request has leeway to decide whether the claim is not credible and therefore the article can be speedily deleted.
When the claim is credible, or if there are doubts, the article should be subject to a discussion in order to hide it from view. There's nothing to gain, and much to lose, by hiding the viable content as a deleted article; the only reason to delete such content would be blind adherence to rules, and we know that mere following rules because they are rules is against the rules. You always need a good reason to make rules, and you need to check that this reason applies each time you follow the rule.
You underestimate how much it hurts the project the simple fact of removing content from editor's view. Even if a page couldn't ever describe a notable topic and improved into a stand-alone article, its content could still be reused at other viable articles, or used as a starting point for editors wishing to investigate - allowing them to find reliable sources for a related subject. The threshold imposed by the Foundation for hiding content is quite high - only content that is harmful to living persons, or that would put the project in legal risk is required to be hidden. Let's use the new Draft space to avoid losing everything else for no reason at all. Diego (talk) 11:22, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
  • That would be a pretty awful way to go about it, I think. Draftspace was not intended to be a sandbox for regular articles, as it ends up increasing too much of the clumsiness and confusion. And any content article which does not follow WP:N is not supposed to be on Wikipedia. Period. Draftspace will only going to be significantly useful if used solely for badly written articles with unclear or established notability. Keeping anything else just increases the potential clutter here by an order of magnitude.
TheOriginalSoni (talk) 13:46, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
And any content which does not follow WP:N is not supposed to be on Wikipedia. Period. That's simply not true. Talk pages, user drafts, Wikipedia discussions are all examples of content that is not subject to notability - and they often contain facts and assertions that could appear on article space. WP:N itself only applies to the existence of separate articles, not content within it. We are expected to keep in the open the process of creating the encyclopedia, to expose our bias and allow anyone to assess by themselves how content is written; that won't happen if we keep hiding under the rug everything that ashames us.
There's no problem in having a draft space more cluttered than the article space - it's not intended to be seen by readers, and all its content is by definition unfit for the main space. "Article space is deletionist, draft space is inclusionist". And I'm yet waiting to hear what benefit is to be gained by making the clutter readable only to administrators and forbidding interested editors from accessing it. Diego (talk) 14:01, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Altered the above statement to the clearer intended meaning.
Also, Draftspace will have to be monitored by other editors, which makes having a clutter there counter-productive. On the other hand, if a page is deleted for WP:N issues, then it will need no further monitoring into it. If it does not follow WP:N, it does not belong on Wikipedia either way. And a simple WP:REFUND is always available to restore back any versions of the articles if an editor is willing to work on it to remove the issues that led to deletion. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 18:09, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
Why is Refund always mentioned as an option at discussions about to deletion, as if it solved anything? Saying that the interested editor can request it is absurd - you cannot tell whether you are interested in the content without having seen it before. Offering Refund as a way to ask for content that interests you but that you haven't seen is a logical contradiction. It's even worse for the case of an editor trying to find some content to work upon. You would need to ask for a refund of hundreds of deleted articles in a category to find the one that merits dedicating some work to it.
If the problem of keeping drafts around is having to watch their content, there are many possible solutions that don't involve hiding it from view. I'd rather see abandoned drafts locked, as in edit-protected, instead of deleted; at least then, a "refund-like" request to remove protection and restore the draft for editing it could be made with an informed decision. Diego (talk) 22:27, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
Take this example:
Jack Jackson won third place ribbon at county fair hog tying competition, Jack Jackson was salutatarian in high school. Both these events are written up in Samllville USA newspaper. His obituary also appeared there. This is enough to fail CSD because it shows mentions of importance.
As this is the whole sum the person from reliable sources (and passes WP:V), and most of the biography would be based on the obituary, will this person ever be WP:N notable enough to have an article? Why would you want to move such an article into DRAFT space? It will never move back into mainspace, because no matter how much you rewrite it, it will never pass WP:GNG.
Suppose this was a highschool glee club, which performed at the county fair, and was written up in the town paper. The club was awarded the school prize the most active club with community outreach. This also fails CSD, but would never survive AfD deletion.
Same with most companies, that someone could just start an article on. Most companies will never pass GNG, but cannot be deleted through CSD because they don't fall under one of the criteria (not advertising, has mention of importance, written in English, has context). These can and are deleted through PROD, we should not just move these by default into DRAFT.
We should let the admin decide if the article could turn into something that could pass WP:N, before moving it to DRAFT, instead of just moving all PROD of this sort into DRAFT as the default position
-- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 02:51, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
Let me answer with a series of questions:
  • Why should that decision be made by a single person, without any discussion?
  • What do we gain by making such content unreadable?
  • Why should be "turning the draft into an article" the only consideration, when there are hundreds of other ways to reuse that content?
Diego (talk) 08:30, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
  • It's not a single person, it's atleast two (the PRODder and the ADMIN who deletes it)
  • PRODs are listed at WP:PRODSUM and PROD categories, so conceivably, the PROD patrollers will have seen it. (same as how AFD are listed at WP:AFD and people see it, and can choose to object or support deletion) And as anyone can object to a PROD by simply removing the PROD nomination, it's far simpler to save such content if someone wished to.
  • WP:PROD explicitly states other options for content besides deletion, such as merger or redirection, which the reviewing admin should perform instead of deletion, should that choice come up. Allowing the reviewing admin to choose to move to draft instead of be mandated to move to draft would be in line with those recommendations. Indeed, PRODs are rejected by admins, who do merge or redirect the pages to other content, or place merge tags onto the page.
  • Why should we indiscriminately abrogate WP:NOTABILITY, when it is the guiding light in our deletion processes? How does indiscriminately abrogating WP:NOTEVERYTHING help the project?
-- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 06:57, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Diego Moya & Wnt Fine... Don't come crying to me when an administrator gets fed up with the state of the namespace and starts bulk deleting pages out of the namespace because they get fed up with how much dren is in the namespace... Designing policies and procedures like this makes a very good justification for telling admins who go on a delete rampage to stop and follow procedure. Every time I try to introduce some sort of limit on how long we'll hold onto a page in draft namespace I get shouted down as being too rigid. I give up on this namespace. It's resistance to look down the pipeline 6~12 months that causes projects to go straight on the refuse heap. I'll still work with the AfC section articles that get added to the namespace, but the rest of the namespace can take a swim with a- concrete bathing suit. Hasteur (talk) 23:30, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't see the reason for immediate concern. Your proposal was for automatic deletion after 6 months or more. That means we have 6 months or more with no disagreement at all between our proposed policies, and then we'll see where things are at and can decide. Wnt (talk) 23:47, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Should WP:NOTNEWS be moved to DRAFT? Clearly many such events will never be anything but a news event, with no long term significance. But NOTNEWS is not a CSD criteria, so would fail at CSD, but can and are deleted through PROD. If we do not use administrator discretion in choosing what events could be turned into non-news articles, and what events will always remain only news articles, then we will end up with stuff that will never leave DRAFT because they will always be news articles and be deleted the moment they move to mainspace. Some NOTNEWS can be turned into proper non-news articles, and we should let the admin decide which should be moved to DRAFT and which should not. -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 02:51, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, those definitely should be moved to Draft, because consensus can change, we don't follow hard rules, and we keep information that could be used somewhere in an article. The rules that determine what is NOT Wikipedia can be changed by the community, so that something doesn't belong today doesn't mean it won't belong ever.
Even if the draft could never be a viable, the facts included in the draft could be reused somewhere else - be it a section of another article, a related Wikiproject, or simply some guy from XXIIIth century interested in trivial stuff from the turn of millenium. Although each single event is not notable, a collection of similar events like "timeline of bulgrary incidents in Ohio" might become one, if the topic as a whole is covered by RSs; but it couldn't be compiled if each reference to an individual event is removed from view - you're nipping in the bud the process that allows wiki writing to work.
This is no different than what we do with talk pages; they couldn't possibly belong in article space, but we don't delete them just because they fail WP:NOT - we acknowledge that they serve a different purpose. Also note that the information in the article will always stay around anyway; even if it's deleted, it's not gone, only hidden from view. If we're going to keep it forever, we better let people interested in it a chance to see what's in there. Diego (talk) 07:35, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
WP:CCC, you're assuming consensus will change to support your position before it has been shown that it has changed. First, consensus must change, before we collect this stuff. If consensus does not change, then DRAFT will just become a dumping ground for news articles that should instead be on WikiNews or a new project (say WikiAlmanac for old news that WikiNews rejects because it isn't fresh). I did state that if the content can be turned into encyclopedic material, then move it, with admin discretion. We shouldn't become a clone of WikiNews, if it's current news, there's already a place for this to go. If it's not current news (ie. not fresh enough for WikiNews), and it already has a place to go, then add merge tags instead of moving it to DRAFT. -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 06:57, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
What WP:NOTNEWS really is, is a wrong idea, 19 times out of 20. The policy it links to doesn't say we can't have articles about breaking events, or only if they're really really notable; it says to treat breaking news the same as other events. Actually, I am suspicious that there are some people in the news industry who see Wikipedia as a competitor, but admittedly I have no proof they're behind the frequent misapplications. Generally speaking, breaking news has the advantage of being easy to cover because all the relevant sources are online with unbroken links, but that doesn't mean we're treating it in a special way when we write about it. We should not use Draft space to archive articles until they're out of date. Wnt (talk) 18:06, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

I will note something that I'd forgotten about: Wikipedia:Soft deletion is a failed proposal -- 70.50.148.248 (talk) 05:34, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

New Draft Feed

An RfC has been started to propose a Draft feed system. See: Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/RfC to create a 'Special:NewDraftsFeed' system. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:31, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Proposal:

  • For pages which were created, moved to the main encyclopedia ("article space"), or un-deleted in the last 7 days AND which are eligible for proposed deletion may be sent to DRAFT: space as an alternative to a deletion nomination.
  • If the person doing the move did so for any reason other than merely to prevent speedy deletion, he should add {{old prod full}} to the Talk: page but leave the "con/conreason/condate" fields blank and include the phrase "Moved to draft" somewhere in the "nomreason". When the page is moved back to main-space or if it is later deleted and un-deleted, the "con/conreason/condate" fields should be filled in.
  • If the person doing the move did so because the article qualifies for speedy deletion, he should add specific reminder to the Talk: page reminding all editors that the page was moved to Draft: space in part to avoid it being deleted under insert speedy deletion criteria here and that it should not be moved back into article space until all issues are addressed and it is no longer eligible to be speedy-deleted under any criteria that apply to articles.
  • The move can be done for multiple reasons in combination, e.g. "CSD:A7 - no indication of importance, PROD: I know of this person, he's a local celebrity for reasons not stated in the article, but I don't think he meets WP:Notability," in which case both of the above apply.
  • Once all CSD issues are addressed the page will be treated "as if PRODded" and any editor can move it back at any time. Such a move will be treated as a "contested PROD." If the page is later deleted it will be eligible for un-deletion as if it were an expired PROD unless the actual reason for deletion (e.g. CSD, WP:MfDMfD) says otherwise.

davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 18:11, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Suggestion: 7 days is great and all, but the "infant mortality" window needs to be dependent on how large the NPP backlog is. If the NPP backlog is 20 days long and a page gets past the 7 day window then they get a free pass on this lower branch option. Hasteur (talk) 20:15, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

"Move to DRAFT" as a outcome in deletion or move discussions

Proposal: Articles and draft articles elsewhere in the encyclopedia can be moved to Draft: space as a result of a consensus from any formal discussion such as a deletion discussion or appropriately-advertised RFC. They may also be moved to Draft: space at the judgment of the closing administrator if the combined opinions amount to a consensus to "get the page and its history out of the main encyclopedia" if no particular opinion (e.g. "delete," "move to DRAFT," "delete history and create Redirect," etc.) reaches the level of consensus. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 18:11, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

  • Support, Oppose. WP:AFD can and usually should send failing articles to Draft. However, there shouldn't be any "RFC"s outside of AFD for this decision. There's no benefit and much to lose by having more than one way to make the same discussion. Wnt (talk) 19:15, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Support XfD discussions should have the option of moving to DRAFTspace explicitly stated (as well as having the option to TRANSWIKI to a sister project/language (ie. French Wikipedia, Spanish Wiktionary, Commons). -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 07:14, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Support the notion of having an explicitly stated option of XfD articles having a potential to be moved to Draft namespace. Northamerica1000(talk) 08:10, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

"Move to DRAFT" as an alternative to deletion for valid CSD

Proposal: If the deleting administrator, using good judgment, determines that a speedy-deletion request is valid and he believes it is in the best interests of the project to move the page to Draft: space instead of deleting or userfying it, he may do so. "In the best interests of the project" includes, among other things, a sense that the topic itself likely qualifies for an article, even if the article does not demonstrate that it does. He may only do so if he corrects any issues which would leave the resulting draft eligible for speedy deletion while in Draft: space. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 18:11, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

  • Support, Oppose. As you have in the comment here, it depends criterion by criterion. We should recognize that "CSD" can now be (and should be) split into two different criteria - one to move to Draft:, one to delete. So copyvios, BLP paragraphs an admin would have revisiondeleted out of a different article, absolutely useless vandalism and such can be deleted on sight - the admin should then go talk to the writer. But non-notable drafts, unsourced drafts, drafts written in bad English, that kind of stuff we can let sit around in Draft space, and the only limit to how long they should remain there is when someone else comes to work on the exact same Draft: and starts 'cleaning it up'. Wnt (talk) 19:19, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Support - moving potentially viable content to unsupervised "unpublished" space is precisely what we need; there's no point in restricting access to that content for people actively looking for it. It doesn't create any additional work, as no work is expected to happen at draft space - there's no need to move things out of it again if they're not in shape for main space. Diego (talk) 09:27, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Support/Oppose As an option for the closing administrator, move to DRAFT is a fine option to have. However, for some pages, it'd better to just redirect the article to an existing subtopic in another article instead of moving it to DRAFT, if the topic is DRAFT-able. Someone else can start a new DRAFTspace version. When the content of the CSD'd article is much the same as content on another article, there's no need to move it to DRAFT, since it already exists elsewhere. -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 07:12, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

"Move to DRAFT" as an alternative to an expired PROD

Proposal If the deleting administrator, using good judgment, determines that it is in the best interests of the project to move an expired proposed deletion to Draft: space instead of deleting or userfying it, he may do so. "In the best interests of the project" includes, among other things, a sense that the topic itself likely qualifies for an article, even if the article does not demonstrate that it does. The moving administrator should add {{old prod full}} to the Talk: page but leave the "con/conreason/condate" fields blank and include the phrase "Moved to draft" somewhere in the "nomreason". When the page is moved back to main-space or if it is later deleted and un-deleted, the "con/conreason/condate" fields should be filled in. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 18:17, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

  • Support, Oppose. Short term, expired PRODs should all be moved to draft space. There's no way for an admin to evaluate whether notability could be demonstrated for a topic! They can't match the editor's time doing literature research, article for article, for every PROD they process, and if they demand demonstrated notability, draft has no purpose, and if they just guess, it's pure prejudice. Longer term, the PROD template should be deleted and editors should be advised that they can move articles clearly failing the criteria to Draft: namespace on their own, with disputed moves to be settled at AfD. (Ideally, at least for the duration of the debate, the article should sit for that time wherever it was on average for a month before the dispute, which for the case of brand-new articles should be interpreted as Draft, and either way the cross-namespace redirect should be retained during the discussion.) Wnt (talk) 19:24, 20 January 2014 (UTC)


  • Support, for the same reasons as with the proposal to move CSD content. Of course BLP and copyvios would be removed instead of archived as drafts, but we don't need any new proposal for that - this is already policy. Diego (talk) 09:30, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Support/Oppose As an option for the administrator, move to draft is a fine thing to have. However, some of those things should just redirect to a different article, as is currently the outcome of some PRODs. Others end up being merger nominations, so should also not be moved. In lieu of userfication, a move to DRAFT is fine. -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 07:02, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

General comment on the way this discussion is going

The Draft mainspace was created primarily to streamline the AfC operation, which included - I hope, because that's why I supported it and was one of the main advocates for its creation - more control of whoever dos the reviewing, reduction of backlogs, and less bureaucratic deletion of the unmitigated 'dren' that gets created. Deleted PRODs and G13s are cheap and can be fairly uncontentiously restored, I can't therefore see any merits in proposing anything that will just replace one backlog with another one based on the premises that all creators are potential regular contributors and that all articles are potentially with keeping, or starting discussions on the eventual deprecation of the PROD process. Some commentators/voters on these discussions should perhaps actually do several hours of solid AfC reviewing and NPPing (and some non-admins check out exactly what is in the G13 cat) before making alternative proposals - contrary to Wikipedia's addiction to stats, there is a lot of wisdom in empirical findings.

New Page Patrol suffers from exactly the same core issues as AfC: too few patrollers, backlogs, and abysmal quality of reviewing. Before anything gets changed that affects the way new articles are handled, NPP needs to be cleaned up. And that will probably mean reluctantly have to exercise some formal control over the process which IMO is long overdue.

Many of the issues with both AfC and NPP could have been addressed a long time ago if the Foundation had maintained its promise that was made in the aftermath of WP:ACTRIAL to create a proper landing page for new creators. I'm beginning to think that possibly the best thing to do is to go back to the pre-'Draft' days and keep AfC as it was and simply implement the new 'qualifications' for reviewers and and deleting the G13 raised by Hasteur's bot, because I don't see that these endless discussions about what else/also the draft namespace can/could be used for are advancing anything very much. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:59, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

"Many of the issues with both AfC and NPP could have been addressed a long time ago if the Foundation had maintained its promise that was made in the aftermath of WP:ACTRIAL to create a proper landing page for new creators." Just wanted to say that, in terms of prioritization, this is my current thinking in relation to Drafts:
  1. We probably need to fulfill the community request to make it prominent that a draft is not an article. (See the discussions on this page.) That's quite easy to do.
  2. Other than #1, the first priority is fixing what happens when a new user starts the article creation process, via Search or red links.
  3. Pretty much all other draft work, such as the fancier elements of designs on mw:Draft namespace, come after these first two.
I think that's in alignment with what you want, which is to not just drop new editors on an edit window for a new page, and say we've educated them sufficiently. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 19:50, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

NOINDEX inconsistency: Google indexes userspace drafts, but not Draft: articles

I was just looking over a userspace draft and was surprised to find it indexed by Google. But indeed, according to WP:NOINDEX, we actually index User: space, but not Draft: . I would suggest that the noindexing priorities should be reversed: we should noindex the User: space, but allow indexing of drafts. Either that or don't index anything, but in any case, don't give priority to noncollaborative documents. Wnt (talk) 17:35, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Did the userspace draft have the {{userspace draft}} tag on it? Jackmcbarn (talk) 17:46, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
No, but... I don't think I've even heard of that tag before. When you get an article undeleted to userspace, or start one like you would in mainspace, who thinks of it? I'd rather allow for drafts to be indexed if an editor puts a tag on them to do that than to have it so userspace drafts are indexed unless the editor does something. Wnt (talk) 18:13, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
Did it have an __INDEX__ tag in it? One of the differences between userspace and drafts is the you cannot manually force indexing using magic words on a draft. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 20:30, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
I didn't see one, unless it was hidden in an innocuous-sounding template. According to WP:NOINDEX a user talk page is noindexed by default, but it says nothing about User: . In fact, even when a page (User:AGK/o) transcludes Template:NOINDEX it can still turn up in a Google search ( https://www.google.com/search?q=%22blocked+by+the+arbitration+committee%22 ) - I haven't run through the code to see how that happens, but it goes to show how a template to turn indexing off can be a little less than sure. Wnt (talk) 22:27, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
It doesn't directly transclude {{NOINDEX}}. Rather, it transcludes {{ArbComBlock}}, which recently added {{NOINDEX}}. There is normally some lag (exact amount varies) before search engines pick up such changes. Superm401 - Talk 00:14, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
Yes, the user namespace is indexed by default (if you want to change this, it requires a much broader discussion, probably somewhere like the village pump). However, {{userspace draft}} has __NOINDEX__, so such pages are not (just like the Draft namespace). Basically, all pages we know are drafts are NOINDEX-ed; this is deliberate so casual readers don't accidentally find them on Google, Bing, etc. Pages in the user namespace in general could be anything; we don't know they're drafts unless a suitable template or namespace is used. Superm401 - Talk 00:14, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Draftspace includes articles that were deleted from mainspace, and the new article drafts if they met our inclusion criteria could be moved to mainspace.  This is all material that is under the hood and should not be indexed.  As for the User: and User talk: indexing, Wikipedia is not a web host.  Unscintillating (talk) 17:58, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
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