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BBC News and #100WomenWiki

Hello - cross-posting from The Teahouse: the main BBC News site is running a piece [1] on tomorrow's edit-a-thon for women, encouraging the public (i.e. BBC readers/viewers) to participate across multiple global events. Is there a need to communicate to New Page Reviewers and other edit watchers to expect more first-time editors and reinforce WP:BITE? I wasn't sure who to notify, or whether this is already widely known (or if this really will result in a flood of new editors / creators). Thanks for your guidance on next steps, if any. P.S. thanks for encouraging me to post this here, Timothyjosephwood. ‑‑Dstone66 ⑆(talk)⑇(contribs)⑈ 21:09, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

When I saw Dstone66's post at the Teahouse, I went ahead and notified WikiProject Women. See WT:WOMEN#BBC Editathon tomorrow. They may be able to assist you with keeping new articles within our standards. — Gestrid (talk) 21:45, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
Also, since the edit-a-thon-ers are being instructed to put the hashtag "#100Womenwiki" in their edit summaries a tool from Wikimedia Labs may be useful for tracking whenever that hashtag is used. See: http://tools.wmflabs.org/hashtags/search/100womenwiki?lang=en
— Gestrid (talk) 22:10, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
The BBC have been strongly publicizing the need to write more articles about women on Wikipedia. There have been several extensive broadcasts devoted to the problem and these are continuing over the next few days. I have been frantically trying to add basic editing requirements to a significant proportion of their articles. It would be useful if page reviewers could spend a little time not just on tagging but for example adding categories, defaultsort and at least one correctly formatted reference. This only takes a couple of minutes and will help to save many first attempts at article creation. Many of the newcomers are apparently basing their work on a 90 minute BBC video on how to edit Wikipedia.--Ipigott (talk) 07:53, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

NPP and AfC

Is there a particular reason we're apparently requiring pages accepted through AfC to also be reviewed? Seems like a pretty clear duplication of efforts/purpose. TimothyJosephWood 15:16, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

There's a discussion right above you on this. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 05:04, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Ain't none too friendly 'round these parts

I've seen another example where pages are tagged "too quickly" in spite of the originating editor being both earnest and legitimate. I'm sorry to say that Wikipedia *is* hostile to new articles.

Please review the history of one page.

Somebody creates a page and it is tagged 'bad' after a half hour, then someone disagrees with that, then it is tagged _again_ *two* bloody minutes later! Then the original editor gets back to editing after (probably) investigating more facts, etc. Then someone *else* harasses them more by interfering with ongoing editing. Original editor doggedly continues for awhile more. Then a better editor than any of us drops by and says "a7 does not apply, and its notable by the usual standards" and fixes a few things. (BTW: notice that a quick Google of the title gets 75000 hits which _should_ give one pause to reconsider)

I recently discussed my impression of "too quick" with another editor and who agreed a problem determining what "active editing" is. Well, hey, the above history shows the editor withdrawing for research for a whole hour, and the article is tagged twice in that time.

As I said in my discussion, perhaps people would prefer a totally new editor would first produce completely correct copy in a user sandbox, but that method is not known to never-having-edited-before 新手. Note also that this editor may not have English proficiency at par to understand everything said in the big red box. So saying "but it's just a pro-forma suggestion/request/warning/plea for improvement" is not addressing the issue of how 'friendly' that box looks to new editors.

It is disturbing to me to see legitimate activities receive such greetings, and apparently because y'all are sooo motivated to clear the backlogs that even cursory checking or postponing judgement is forewent.

For your additional consideration is this simple fact. I check a few recent changes, and for a very little while. I see these things. If even a little checking finds repeated examples like this, how much of this is going on? Shenme (talk) 07:24, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

I think the problem is that you can sort the list oldest to newest or newest to oldest, so a sort on new articles has REALLY new stuff for the first couple of pages. Also, while there is a warning, the tag that gives you a "heads up" that the article is two seconds old is pretty quiet and in small letters. I think one solution would be to make that little warning a lot larger and in big red letters with stronger language about giving a new article a chance -- perhaps adding a tag for inserting an "under construction" template. Montanabw(talk) 17:08, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
I wonder if there's some way of keeping a page from appearing on the new pages feed for, say, 1-2 hours after the initial creation; and if that would help or just mean it's more likely the creator has wandered off in the mean time, never to see the tags? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 17:50, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
  1. Article deleted as no content
  2. Recreated
  3. DB no context placed by an editor after recreation
  4. I remove it saying context is clear
  5. A7 placed by an editor soon after
  6. I remove it; mentioning it's an educational institution
  7. I propose the article for deletion
  8. My prod is removed by the previous editor with a clarification, "removed wrong tag"
  9. Prod put back by the editor, with a note, "self-rv, note that this article was already speedy deleted before"
  10. My prod removed by another editor, with a note, "(information added)"
  11. Prod put back by one of the previous editors, with a note, "removal of deletion tag is not allowed"
  12. I revert the putting back of the prod, with the note, "Well, removal of Prod is allowed; what is not allowed is reinstating a removed prod, per WP:PROD; please don't reinstate this again"
I'm actually not sure if this is the end of it, with an Afd perhaps round the corner (or not). Lourdes
I think Montanabw is right about finding a way to keep pages that are "too new" from getting hit by patrollers. That said, NPP is doing what it's supposed to: patrolling. SPA editors don't deserve special hand-holding. If they want to develop an article they can do that in a sandbox or in draft space, not in a live article. After all, "We are here to build an encyclopedia, not sing Kumbaya, and this is a shop floor." Chris Troutman (talk) 23:22, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Reference letter for work done on Wikipedia?

I don't know if this is the right place to ask this, but I am going to make a bold request here to request someone here to write a reference letter for me documenting my patrol work on Wikipedia. I posted to Wikipedia talk:STiki as well. I do quite a bit of NPPs, although not as frequently as last year around the same period. Now I mainly just create and maintain articles concerning American politics and daily 30-minute huggle runs.

I need such letter to prove I actually did patrol work on Wikipedia to colleges without requiring them opening my user page or contribution page. I would be immensely appreciative of you if you write a brief letter proving my work on Wikipedia is authentic. If you are willing to provide me a letter of reference, drop me a talk message. I am again appreciative of you and your work on Wikipedia.

All I need is a simple paragraph saying I have edited for 2.5 years, 7500 times, and usually work on NPP, review, and politics-related articles.

My user check is attached here:

Ueutyi (talk · contribs · count · logs · block log · lu · rfa · rfb · arb · rfc · lta · socks) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ueutyi (talk • contribs) 09:37, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

  • An honest request! My applause for that. If anything, I would wish to see either JayWalsh and Jimbo Wales giving this a look. Volunteers do a lot of work with passion and without asking for anything in return; in this case, a small reference letter from Jimbo of Jay or the Foundation would really be wonderful good faith way to pay back an honest request. Ueutyi, let's see if they respond. I can't guarantee that they would. If they do, it's purely their choice to review your edits and give you what they feel might be appropriate. Cheers. Lourdes 02:58, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
Thanks a lot! I actually don't need influential people to write reference letters for me, just a Wikipedia editor should be OK. Ueutyi (talk) 09:24, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
I'll write it for you if they don't respond in a week. Lourdes 09:41, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
Thanks a ton if you can do that Ueutyi (talk) 11:16, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
Hi folks! I'd be happy to do it, but I haven't worked at the Foundation since 2015, so I'm probably not the best person to write any recommendations. I suggest you reach out to someone like Tilman Bayer at WMF, or maybe James Alexander. Good luck! JayWalsh (talk) 01:13, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
Thanks Jay, hopefully the pings to them in your message will get them here to see this request. Nice to see your response. Cheers. Lourdes 02:31, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
Thank you JayWalsh and Lourdes Ueutyi (talk) 07:28, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

AfC output

Shirin Gerami was created in user space, moved to a Draft, approved under AfC and moved to mainspace ... and then needed to be Reviewed. Why? Surely AfC approval should be as strong as or stronger than Reviewing, so that leaving such an article in the New Pages Feed just wastes the time of Reviewers? I'm fairly sure I've come across another AfC product waiting to be Reviewed recently, so this isn't a one-off. PamD 23:48, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

This is quite normal PamD and this is how it was deliberately set up because the standard of AfC reviewing is problematic and new Page reviewing requires a slightly different skill set that is not demanded of AfC reviewers. That said, you have both NPR and Autopatrolled rights so if you did these operations yourself they will not need to be additionally reviewed. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:04, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
Fair enough, thanks - I was just a bit surprised to see AfC approval in the page history of a couple of articles I was reviewing. I've never really understood much about AfC, but it's interesting that although it has its great elaborate structures and can cause huge delays for new editors, it's not actually trusted to validate articles (and certainly the most recent one I was working on had scope for several simple improvements after AfC). PamD 08:18, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
Kudpung กุดผึ้ง, correct me if I'm wrong, but the standard of AfC is, ideally, flat notability, demonstration thereof, and likelihood for surviving AfD. How is this a "slightly different skill set" other than in the fact that AfC doesn't care about prod and CSD (usually), because that's below the standard that's even being considered? TimothyJosephWood 18:06, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
@Timothyjosephwood:, I think the the best answer would be to compare the instructions for New Page reviewing with the instructions for AfC reviewing. NPP requires also a higher degree of competency because that is where the Wiki is made or broken and those pages are already in mainspace. Ideally however, as quite a few experienced users, such as (but not only) Montanabw and DGG agree, the functions of AfC and New Page review should probably be merged and use the Page Curation interface and the drafts reviewed from there. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:10, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
Is there a way to get stats on what percentage of accepted AfC drafts are subsequently deleted by NPP? Seems like if this is negligible, or if it is localized to a few users who shouldn't be at AfC anyway, that pretty much trumps any philosophical arguments about what AfC and NPP should be. TimothyJosephWood 11:38, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
Timothy, I don't quite fully understand where philosophy comes into it - as I said previously, for such a discussion, comparing the instructions for New Page Reviewing with the instructions for AfC is inescapable. What we hope for is a pragmatic and objective approach to reviewing pages whether they be drafts or new articles in mainspace. New Page Patrolling has problems of quality of reviewing for sure, but the fallout - and falling out with the articles' creators - is far less than it is at AfC. New Page Patrollers and reviewers are held to a higher standard than AfC. Wrong reviewing of new articles in mainspace can cause a lot of damage, whereas drafts that are moved to mainspace enter the queue for New Page Review. Except for things that can only be reported from empirical evidence, stats can be obtained for almost anything on Wikipedia, the problem is finding someone to do it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:11, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Autopatrolled users should be allowed to patrol new pages?

Doesn't it make sense to give those with Autopatrolled status the same rights accorded to Reviewers?

If you know how to write perfect articles that don't need a second pair of eyes, it goes without saying that you should be able to review others' pages. Right?

I have had autopatrolled rights for six years and I've been a new page patroller for even longer. I'd rather not apply for a redundant user right.

Am I missing something? Mark Schierbecker (talk) 01:40, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

I think there's a slightly different set of skills involved. In addition to knowing what a good article looks like, NPPers also have to know the cleanup and deletion processes well, how to spot and deal with copyright issues, how to spot and deal with COI issues, BLP policy, username policy, child protection policy – and most importantly how to deal with all those things without biting. I mean, it's nothing most experienced editors wouldn't have picked up, but I don't think we should automatically assume autopatrolled users have all those skills. They might well be just prolific content creators who have never dabbled in maintenance work. Joe Roe (talk) 02:58, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
  • We've been through all this at several discussions and RfC. Autopatrolled and NPR are apples and oranges. We don't want to hand out user rights just because people seem to understand what is involved - Wikipedia is not a meritocracy. NPR is assigned on a basis of a need for the tools - most autopatrollers are quite content to do what they know and do best: building the encyclopedia. They can still tag articles for maintenance if they come across something that needs artention. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:16, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
I'm amused because when I first suggested creating a userright similar to Reviewer a few years ago, I was told I was inventing a solution to a nonexistent problem. Hey, anyway, why do administrators have the "right stuff" to patrol pages when autopatrolled users don't? Besides the handful of admins that patrol CSD, it's not really their forte, IMO. Mark Schierbecker (talk) 14:22, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
Hi Mark. Like most minor rights, New Page Reviewer is included in the admin too kit. However, admins don't generally patrol new pages. Only two (DGG and myself) to my knowledge regularly patrol, but this is in order to check on the performance of the system. That said, one of the major considerations when electing new admins at RfA is that candidates have a thorough knowledge of the policies and guidelines for notability and deletion - after all, it's the absolute core function of their work and involves not only physically deleting pages, but evaluating consensus at AfD and adjudicating at various kinds of un-deletion appeals. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:52, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
Mark Schierbecker, myself, I think admins ought to participate patrol new pages, regularly, and not just to catch errors in other editor's patrolling. Even if we had a fully adequate number of other patrollers, admins should still do a little. I think it's important to keep in touch with the pattern of new editors, and the pages they add to WP. (In fact, in general I think everyone in any organization , regardless of status , should join a little in the grass-roots work). We shouldn't be working just with the problems that are referred to us, but keep in touch with what's actually happening in general. And, as Kudpung says, any Admin should know the basics. The key components of adminship are knowing when to block and when to delete--the rest is just extras. DGG ( talk ) 17:03, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

NPP is a cruft discovery tool

One reason I hate patrolling is that I always find cruft and I'm thrust into notability disputes. This sort of process is good insofar as a circulation of Wikipedia editors across the website prevents the community from fracturing into balkanized areas of content. At the same time, those articles already exist and many Wikipedia editors are motivated to contribute only if they can pursue the cruft that pleases them. You stumble upon the highway fans, or rail fans, or storm fans and have to tell them a subject isn't notable only for them to reply that some part of WP:OUTCOMES says their cruft will survive AfD and they have an entire WikiProject that agree. I'm guilty of the same thing, advocating for subject-specific notability guides even as essays, to keep content I think should be notable. NPP is a mechanism that destroys the federalism of Wikipedia but that homogenization I would think keeps this project coherent. Are you other patrollers encountering this and how do you stay motivated to get into these fights? I like writing content, not policing content. Chris Troutman (talk) 16:26, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

I generally nominate for deletion if it doesn't meet the notability guidelines, or just boldly redirect to a related topic if it exists. My AfD nominations have greatly increased since I've started patrolling from NewPagesFeed. Generally, the people at AfD agree with me though. There's so much content at the back of the queue that is eligible for deletion. It's a great thing that 60-day limit was removed. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 05:01, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
Two answers: If comparing the number or rejections at AfC with the number of articles tagged for deletion at NPP, then it becomes evident that proportionally, the number of user vs teviewer/patroller disputes that arise from AfC reviewing are significantly higher than those resulting from deletions at NPP. Secondly, I'm not sure what the 60-day limit refers to; AfC subimssions can be deleted G13 if they have not been edited for 6 months , while new pages in mainspace, whatever their condition, will be release automatically for indexing by Google if not marked as patrolled within 90 days. A fundamental difference between a new Page and an AFC submission is that most new articles by new users are plonked into the encyclopedia by SPA who never come back, while at AfC, the creators are (generally, I suppose) waiting for some kind of response from a reviewer. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:28, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
I wasn't clear. I wasn't talking about AfC. By the 60-day limit, I meant the the artificial age limit for viewing old unpatrolled articles at Special:NewPages, which is actually 30 days. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 01:38, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
@Ramaksoud2000: Special:NewPages was originally created as part of the MediaWiki software simply as a log of newly created articels That's why patrolling should be done from the purpose built Special:NewPagesFeed that was introduced 5 years ago. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:41, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
Yes, I do. I was making a general comment about remembering patrolling before Special:NewPagesFeed was introduced. NewPagesFeed still seems like a cool new thing to me. I've had an account here for a relatively long time, albeit with varying activity levels. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 04:54, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
Frankly, my light experience at NPP and my time at AfD suggests that a lot of cruft can often be simply redirected to the main article on a topic. Sometimes a merge is in order, but either way, the content stays in history in case the topic ever becomes notable enough for a spinoff. This saves a lot of drama and doesn't leave a redlink as bait for round 2... I wish there was an automated method to create a redirect in the toolbox, that would probably ratchet down a LOT of AfD, prod and speedy drahmahz. Seems it wouldn't be too tough, just hit a button, type in the redirect target and save. Montanabw(talk) 17:04, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
I absolutely agree about a tool to make a redirect. The issue for me with NPP is at least half the time I am doing exactly that, reverting an edit to restore a redirect. What makes NPP difficult this that AfC only requires me to condescend to new editors. NPP brings me in contact with well-established editors whom have never edited outside their fan area. In most cases I don't bother taking it to AfD because I know what the consensus will end up being. The statistics, then, don't accurately portray the problem. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:32, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
A problem in redirecting new articles is to avoid the redirect will be reverted being reverted. (If it's done as a direct revert, it does show up in notices if you've activated that part, which helps for many of them) . I also find that people complain almost as much if the article is redirected as if it's deleted. But certainly it's a good option sometimes, just as userification or draftification is. As always, the difficult part is explaining to the user what needs to be done. DGG ( talk ) 17:08, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

What to Do About Cruddy Articles, Mostly BLPs?

I would like the advice of other reviewers on dealing with certain cruddy articles, mostly BLPs, at NPP. The articles that I have in mind are typically about medium-length articles about people, with at least one and possibly more low-quality sources (possibly the person’s own web site), containing peacock language, and often but not always in poor English, where my assessment is that the article doesn’t establish notability, but the person isn’t obviously non-notable. I can’t tag them for no context, because there is context. It isn’t so completely promotional as to survive tagging as advertising. It isn’t so hopeless as to be A7 as a non-notable person because there is a credible claim of significance, a lower barrier than actual notability. If there is at least one low-quality source, it isn’t a candidate for BLPPROD. I can PROD it, but the author is likely to remove the PROD. The problem with AFD is that there are likely to be comments that sources can be found. The problem is that the article as submitted is crud and doesn’t belong in Wikipedia, but none of the CSD criteria apply, and it is likely to survive AFD, because AFD isn’t on the article but the subject. However, as an NPP reviewer, it shouldn’t be my job to spend an hour fixing a cruddy article. I can multiply flag the article; is that what I should do? Would I be justified occasionally moving a cruddy article into draft space? I could stubbify the article, but that seems like an overreach, and might be edit-warred anyway. What should a reviewer do with medium-length cruddy BLPs that aren’t obvious candidates for any deletion process? Robert McClenon (talk) 04:38, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

For me, it largely depends on how much time I have and what kind of mood I'm in. If I have the time and am in the mood, and the topic interests me, I "spend an hour" (or more) "fixing a cruddy article". If I don't have the time, I'll do some preliminary searches to see if sources are available and if I think the topic of the article is notable - if it isn't, I nominate it for AFD. If I'm not in the mood or don't have the time even for that I'll tag it for things like copy-editing, notability concerns, peacock or advertising language, etc. If I do the latter I'll often come back a few days later to see if anyone has done anything with it. If it's been nominated for deletion or deleted in the interim, great. If it's been improved, great. If neither, I'll look for sources and see if it's salvagable/worth salvaging and either do the work or leave suggestions on the talk page of sources that someone else could use to do the work. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 17:31, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Last manual patrol by non-NPR

For reference, the last manual patrol by a non-NPR prior to removing patrol from autoconfirmed was of page 1987–88 Liga Bet by Franforce. GeoffreyT2000 (talk, contribs) 05:50, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Patrolling your own pages

Is it taboo to patrol pages that you create yourself? Natureium (talk) 19:19, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't know about taboo, but it doesn't make much sense; the whole point of the patrol system is to ensure every article has at least two sets of eyes to check that it's a valid article. It's also technically impossible unless you abuse multiple accounts. If you regularly create a lot of articles then you can apply to have your creations autopatrolled to save reviewers some work. – Joe (talk) 22:27, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. I haven't tried so I didn't know it was impossible. I just don't want to add to the backlog, but I don't think 10 or 20 articles will really make a difference. Natureium (talk) 14:55, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Infobox-Only Articles

I am seeing what I think are a lot of new articles that contain only an infobox, and no article text. They are often films, concert tours, books, commercial products, or other subjects that are not subject to A7, so that I typically have to PROD them. I think that they are usually promotional in intent, but without any actual advertising they don't qualify for G11. Occasionally the author is sticking the infobox in first before adding the text, but I think that typically they are being inserted as infoboxes-only as a form of spam that is designed to sneak past the spam rules. I think that there should be a new CSD category A12, infobox-only articles (regardless of whether the infobox is properly formed or malformed). I have been discussing that at the Criteria for Speedy Deletion talk page. Comments? Robert McClenon (talk) 03:41, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Backlog

The backlog now stands at over 16,000 and still growing. I would have thought that with over 300 new user rights created since early November, it would have been a doddle in a concentrated effort to reduce it to zero. It would only require a maximum of two hours of each Reviewers time. That would have been less than two minutes every two days for each patroller. It begs the question: Are most of the applicants for special user rights just hat collectors? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:53, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

As one of the new page patrollers, I'd like to say 'm making an effort, but I don't think I'm making as much of a contribution as I could. I try to prioritize quality over speed, but find myself spending a lot of time going over things like send a welcome to new user, reviewing the history of the article and the creator's talk page, checking all the references, categorizing pages, checking if the article is a recreation of a deleted article, checking incoming links, check previous redirects etc. I've tried all kinds of things to speed up my work, like just focussing on uncategorized articles, or just ones where I have some subject matter expertise, but even those take up a lot of time. No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to do the reviews quickly enough to make a dent in the backlog. I sometimes wish I could watch a video of an experienced reviewer to get an idea of what I could do to get through them faster, while still doing due diligence. If anyone is up for 'adopting' a struggling, but well-intended, definitely non-hat collector, give me a ping. :) Mduvekot (talk) 02:31, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
It sounds as if you are doing everything right Mduvekot, after all, quality, not speed, is quintessential to good patrolling. That said, based on my own experience of several thousand patrolls, my average is about 3 minutes per review. Some can be reviewed in 30 seconds (but not many - just those that are really good, and those that are blatant junk), while with gut feeling following what seems to be a pattern, it's not unusual to look at the clock and find that one single article has involved an hour or more - especially when it turns up some COPYVIO or a sock or two, or a serial spammer. I can show you on a live screen-share how I do it. It's what I did on a video conference in 2011 with the WMF to get them to develop the Page Curation because thereLet me know if I can help. Keep up the good work ! Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:38, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Has there been any studies as to the difference in quality between articles that ended up being unpatrolled vs articles that ended up being patrolled (after 30 days)? Although one may think that the first group should be worse off than the second group, it isn't necessarily the case. It may well be that a significant number of users when they see an article that "looks good" but isn't either "super good" don't actually patrol it because they wouldn't mind a second opinion (or don't have the right), and move on to the next. This may be repeated several times, and overall decent (but not clearly good) articles according to different users may end up unpatrolled. On the other hand, many if not most of the patrolled articles are actually problem articles that are in the process of being fixed up. My point is that a growing backlog doesn't necessarily mean that the process doesn't work, taking into account the lack of a "sounds good to me, but would like a second opinion" mechanism (that would be close to a "+1" in code review). Also we would need to look at the ratio of unpatrolled articles vs new articles to have a better sense of the reasons for it. If the backlog increases only because more articles are created than usual, this is normal. Cenarium (talk) 16:19, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

An obsession with stats isn't going to resolve the situation. What we want are fewer hat collectors and some users who will do stints of 20 or so reviews - properly and accurately. If it's any consolation however and if anyone doouts my words about the fire hose of junk, at midnight tonight I began my daily 30 minutes or so of patrolling and 21 of the first 25 articles had to be deleted. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:08, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
Out of curiosity could there be a bug with the autopatrolled right not working? I saw a few articles a few weeks back from autopatrolled users still in the feed. I tried to do some spot checking and it seemed to not be a widespread problem, but with the backlog growing to 16,000 I'm wondering if this had any affect on it. If I recall we had gotten it down to under 14k in late December. Sigh. I've also noticed that some of the pages I PROD or send to AfD are still in the feed and I get other reviewers "reviewing" them a day or two before they are ultimately deleted. None of this gets at the core problem that we don't have enough people to deal with all the new pages being created, but I am curious if there are software glitches making the backlog look higher than it really is. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:39, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

I arrived here after looking for reasons why a page I created hasn't shown up in Google searches after over a month; the size of the backlog answers my question. For what it's worth, personally I feel that the new NPR right being such a formal undertaking actually discourages me from participating. Seeing the huge backlog, I might have been inclined to help patrol a few pages if it could be done right away; instead, seeing the amount of due process changed my mind. (Just my two cents though.) --Paul_012 (talk) 06:04, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Page Curation Tool still not notifying users

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T157053

Who is managing development/fixes for the Page Curation Tool? It is locking up when it tries to notify users of deletion nominations. Since, per a current ANI thread, there is a strong consensus that authors should be notified when their pages are tagged for deletion reviewers are must perform manual notifications. So long as this bug us unaddressed Twinkle is a better tool for processing deletions (Another issue with Curation Tool is that it does not have the ability to place AfDs into basic categories so that must be done when deletion sorting is done.) This will cause Reviever's Curation Logs to be incomplete which will, in the long term, hamper efforts to review their work. If the WMF is not activly supporting the Page Curration Tool is may be worthwhile to merge its functionality into Twinkle and have Twinkle write to the Curation Log. JbhTalk 13:19, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Who is managing development/fixes for the Page Curation Tool? The answer is, JBH, you are - or anybody who knows how to report a bug to Phabricator. The Devs have repeatedly refused to accept the importance of Page Curation (which they - the WMF - developed), throwing bugs (or at least ones that can be addressed through admin access to the site js) back at the community to resolve. Admittedly there has been some recent help from Ryan Kaldari, but his hands are tied, just as Jorm's were when the original development was taking place. We asked for Twinkle actions to be written to the Curation log but it was ignored. Twinkle's logs are facultative - no one knows for sure who does the patrolling there or what they do when they do it. That's why Page Curation was developed. We don;t know why the WMY did a volte-face on its support. At the time, I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. I have another Skype meeting with the WMF tomorrow, I'll see what I can get boxed through, but don't hold your breath. And all the while, the backlog is still growing... Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:52, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. I will see if I can figure Phabricator out, I have an account but I have never used it. I have had a bit of time to do some NPP over the last couple of days and will see if I can get some more done more regularly. Good luck with the WMF! They would drive me absolutly nuts! JbhTalk 14:15, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
I totally understand why the devs need things centralised at phabricator, but at the same time it does seem a tad unreasonable to expect editors just wanting to report a bug to grapple with an unfamiliar and unintuitive bug tracker that they will likely never have to use again. Maybe we could set up a bug reports page here (similar to Wikipedia:Page Curation/Suggested improvements)? I'd be willing to watch it and transfer reports to phabricator as they come in. – Joe (talk) 15:37, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
That is a great idea. It may be good to just have a bug reports section on the Suggested Improvements page so all of the modification requests are in one place. If you would open a Phabricator ticket on this too I would appriciate it. JbhTalk 16:19, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
@Jbhunley: I'll be happy to file the bug for you if you can tell me the exact steps to reproduce it. Kaldari (talk) 16:34, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
@Jbhunley: @Kaldari: I've already opened a phabricator task [2], but Kaldari is right it would be better to include exact steps to reproduce the bug. By the way, if you want, you can get email alerts on its progress by logging into phabricator and clicking subscribe in the menu on the right of the task page. – Joe (talk) 16:39, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict)@Kaldari: Simply tagging an article with any CSD tag puts the Tool in its waiting loop, the longest I have let it run is about five minutes, it never exits and you must refresh the page. When you refresh the window the CSD tag is applied but there is no notification placed on the page author's talk page. This happens whether there is a talk page there or if it is a red link. I am using Chrome on an iPadPro IOS v10.2.1 and accessing the Desktop version of the site. I have also had this problem using Chrome on Windows 10 but I have not tried it recently. Thank you.

I see that Joe Roe has already opened the ticket while I was writing this. Thank you Joe. JbhTalk 16:46, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

@Kudpung: Thank you for the link. It is on my watchlist but whenever I go looking for it I can never find it, finally I just put a link in my work space. I'm not sure if I'm just missing it or if that page should have some better visibility to make it easier to find when problems pop up. (I guess an integrated report bug/problem/suggestion link in the tool would be asking too much... yep, I thought so... ) Jbh Talk 20:42, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
@Kudpung: I've been watching it recently and have changed the headers there to urge people to file in Phabricator themselves. Would save us a lot of time looking between these two pages to file reports for people :). If people continue to report there, I'll continue to file reports in Phab. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:01, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
@Jbhunley and Kudpung: The bug should be fixed now. You may have to clear your browser cache. Kaldari (talk) 22:38, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
Thank you! Jbh Talk 23:40, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

"Under Construction"

Occasionally I see a page in the New Page list that is tagged as Under Construction, and, in its existing state, looks like it is not ready to be in article space, which is where it is. My question is whether any of the Under Construction tags should be honored, or whether I should just go ahead and PROD or AFD the article. The articles in question are not usually candidates for A7 or G11. I assume that one should be merciless with G11, that anything that is currently spam is likely to be either the same spam or reworked spam in a few hours. If something is a candidate for A7, but is tagged as under construction, should it be given a reprieve, or should I go ahead and A7 it? Robert McClenon (talk) 02:22, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

If the article is by a new user I would suggest moving it to Draft space or if it is hopeless (based on an abrieviated BEFORE - {{find sources}} is your friend - I wish I could code well enough to have a button for it on my menu.) just tagging it and explaining things to the author. Often I feel that the {{Under construction}} tag is used purposefully as an attempt to shield promotonal/non-notable articles from deletion. JbhTalk 13:26, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
@Jbhunley: I usually add a notability tag to the top and preview it but never click save. It helps you seperate sources into books, scholarly and images, and removes Wikipedia and Wikipedia mirror results. It's really nice. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 13:35, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
@Iazyges: That is a good idea. I've been filling out a {{find sources}} on the talk page and not saving but your idea seems better. Thanks! JbhTalk 13:44, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
  • @Iazyges:The 'move to draft' tool that was recently requested to be added to Page Curation for this very purpose, has never been rolled out. See my comments further down regarding bugs and requests. Whatever the arguments against it are, remember that only accredited users have access to Page Curation, so misuse should be minimal. I think it's one on the essential 'missing features' of Page Curation that would make it more interesting to use than Twinkle, and hence introduce more overview and quality at what goes on with the control of new pages, how they are handled, and how the new users are greeted. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:46, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
I agree that "Under Construction" is often abused. The idea to move the page to draft space is a good one, regardless of whether the user is or is not new. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:35, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
This is a badly needed feature of Page Curation, Robert - it's been asked for time and time again. It's less likely to be misused now that only New Page Reviewers have access to the tool. I do not understand why the WMF is investing huge amounts of money to researching how ORES could do some pre-parsing of new pages (nevertheless perhaps a worthwhile exercise when all the other bugs have been ironed out), but refuse to develop the easy-to-make features that would help make Page Curation the default tool for new page patrol. Perhaps we need a stronger lobby. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:00, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
User:Kudpung - What is a badly needed feature of Page Curation that should be available only to New Page Reviewers? Not "Under Construction", which is currently available to anyone, and is useful but abused. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:08, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
'Move to Draft', Robert. A 10 minute tweak for a dev but we don't have access to the code. So once more, the WMF decides top-down what they 'think' we need and what we don't. Perhaps we should be asking the small group of volunteers who, BTW, have never once used Page Curation, how they think co-developing ORES can help draw more people to the use of Page Curation - we have over 300 new, New Page Reviewers since November, but very few of them appear to be doing anything with the user right they came begging for; in fact a large number of them who make the request at PERM don't appear to have a clue what it's all about, or haven't edited Wikipedia in yonks. It's no good using AI to triage new pages into good, bad, and really bad if still no one is around to do anything with the auto filtered lists - and the backlog is still steadily growing at a rate of 150 a day or 4,650 a month. By the end of the year it will be 71,800. How can anyone turn a blind eye to that? I'm all in favour of AI helping out, but that is a long -term development where we need the basics sorting out first. Perhaps Halfak (WMF) or Kaldari or can shed a light or convince their directors. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:52, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

The back of queue

So I'm being a good reviewer and patrolling the oldest items first. The problem is that we have many redirects created 10 years ago that are being converted into articles so I'm finding these things only an hour after they're made. I know that's not the intent here. Is there something that could be done from a technical angle to have the queue address actual new pages instead of newly created articles from redirects? Chris Troutman (talk) 04:46, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

I've had the same problem, it would be helpful. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 04:52, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
The converted redirects must get to the queue, but indeed it would be easier if they get there listed at the actual date of recreation of the article, not at the date the resirect (or pre-redirect article) was created.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:10, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
It's been suggested before and there's an open phabricator task for it, which I think is all we can do for now. – Joe (talk) 11:37, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Reviewathon

Hi all,

One of my major problems in doing new page review is that I find pages that I have to skip simply because I don't have the energy and/or confidence to address them, and I'm not always sure what the best way is to handle them. I wonder whether some of you would be interested in having some kind of screen-sharing session (e.g. via Google Hangouts or Skype or Jitsi or whatever) where we spend an hour or so reviewing a good number of new pages from the back of the queue. Let me know what you think! --Slashme (talk) 16:03, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Multiple deletable articles

Is there anything we can do about users who create many articles that are speedy deleted? Ex: User:Henrycolesmith Natureium (talk) 20:01, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

One option is to invite them to the teahouse, like I've now done. --Slashme (talk) 08:00, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
Or find a new admin who needs to practice his swing with his blockhammer. For a skilled admin, it's like playing a fast Be-Bop groove on the drums: the new pages feed is the score, the fast patterns on the ride are the CSD deletions while the kick (bass) drum does the blocking, the left hand on the snare does the AfD and the HiHat pedal does the PRODS. The 5 o'clock rush when the kids get home from school and head for their bedrooms is when the admin launches into a fast solo break with limbs flashing in all directions with occasional jabs at the big crash cymbal when someone is sent to ANI. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:30, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
I can almost taste the music. What do you think about Johnny Aloha? --Slashme (talk) 13:59, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
No idea. I am really only into Classic (pianna & orgin), Jazz (Swing & Bebop), and heavily funk accented 70s & 80s fusion - probably all long before most other Wikipedians' time. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:22, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
Not quite Nick Mason, certainly! O Fortuna!...Imperatrix mundi. 11:20, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Large number of articles by Sander.v.Ginkel being added to the new pages feed

The effort to clean up after User:Sander.v.Ginkel (by moving all his creations to Draft:, then checking them individually and moving them back) is adding a lot of pages to the queue, with the potential to add many hundreds or thousands more. Is it possible to have them autopatrolled? I couldn't find any documentation on whether autopatrolled works with moving a page from draft to mainspace. – Joe (talk) 13:49, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

I believe if smth became a draft at some stage it must be patrolled after returning to the article space.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:59, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
Yes, that's why they're in the feed. My question is if we want to autopatrol them (which I think we should – this is a very large number of articles and they've already been checked by experienced users), does the right need to be given to the original creator (Sander.v.Ginkel, probably not desirable) or the user who moved it from draftspace? – Joe (talk) 14:23, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
To be honest, I do not know. I moved myself about ten pages from the batch to the main space, there should be some way to check whether they became patrolled automatically.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:15, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
If the user that moved the article is autopatrolled, then it doesn't appear in the feed. I would be cautious about just clicking through the review for all of them. If they were moved by someone experience, they should be okay; however, I have seen some moved by inexperienced users. — JJMC89 (T·C) 20:58, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
@Kudpung: The problem is that they are showing up in the feed, in great numbers, not that they aren't. I suppose my original comment wasn't very clear! Anyway, thanks to Ymblanter and JJMC89 for clarifying up that drafts moved by autopatrolled users are also autopatrolled. I'll request that (experienced) editors doing a lot of these moves are given the autopatrol right as I come across them. – Joe (talk) 22:52, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
The suggestion is not without merit but it would be too easily gamed by Orangemoody-style editors. Best to keep 'autopatrolled' within the set criteria for the right people - user rights are not interchangable and AfC is not a formally recognised user right. Over 10% of attempted self appointments as AfC Reviewer are reverted. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:08, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
Oh dear, crossed wires again! I'm not talking about AfC, but the cleanup after User:Sander.v.Ginkel's ANI. This is a one-time process that has moved ~16,000 articles to draft space, and will potentially move all 16,000 (or more likely an unknown proportion of them) back to mainspace in the next 90 days. They're doing so using ordinary moves, not AfC. Sorry for any confusion. – Joe (talk) 23:16, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
As I read it, all of these drafts (unless rescued) will be deleted. Why would they be moving en masse back to mainspace? None of those I looked at were submitted drafts so they won't be reviewed by AfC and none I looked at were not already patrolled. I don't see them showing up in the queue. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:27, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
They show up in the queue under the date that they were originally created, so most will be at the back of the queue. You may need to adjust your queue filters. If you're looking for these drafts that need to be reviewed, you can filter on created by. The oldest one currently in the queue is from 15:13, 21 August 2015. — JJMC89 (T·C) 23:53, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I reviewed a few dozen of them this morning, as did Slashme yesterday, and there are about thirty still sitting in the queue now (sort by oldest; all the ones about sportspeople). I'm not sure how many total have been "rescued" to date, but at least a few hundred, and they appear to be just getting started. Unless the users moving them happen to be already autopatrolled, they will show up in the queue. If you're seeing some already marked as patrolled, that's because somebody manually patrolled them – I'm simply suggesting it might be more efficient not to have to do that. To reiterate, AfC is not involved at all. – Joe (talk) 00:00, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

These articles often don't have suitable depth of sourcing: frequently only a player roster, so I'm tagging those with {{template:blp sources}}. --Slashme (talk) 11:57, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

You'll be seeing many more in the queue because MFriedman has decided to manually move each of them back into the main namespace. Chris Troutman (talk) 04:59, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
And has done so without properly reviewing them. Some have BLP violations and other unsourced material. — JJMC89 (T·C) 18:50, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
@Chris troutman and JJMC89: Can User:MFriedman please desist or be advised to desist from doing so? O Fortuna!...Imperatrix mundi. 11:26, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

New Page Reviewing - Election for coordinators

New Page Reviewing - Election for 2 coordinators. Nomination period is now open and will run for two weeks followed by a two-week voting period.

  • Nomination period: Sunday 5 February to 23:59 UTC Sunday 19 February
  • Voting period: Monday 20 February to 23:59 UTC Monday 06 March

See: NPR Coordinators for full details.

@Kudpung: have you considered listing this at WP:CENT, or is it more just targeted at Reviewers? I can see pros and cons either way. Jbh Talk 00:15, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
You're the second person who has asked me this Jbhunley. I;m nor sure that CENT is suposed to be used for elections. If I do it and it's wrong, I'll have more than my reputation to lose - you know how hungry the groundnut eaters are for admin bits. I've asked for a watchlist notice though. 00:21, 6 February 2017 (UTC)Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk)
A watchlist notice is probably better. I can see a CENT notice devolve into a referendum on the existance of Coordinators rather than an election. To an extent I am unsure if this is even a community wide event since it is technically a Wikiproject management issue. Then again the way NPR/P evolves can be seen as a community issue so the people driving it would matter to the community. Also, it would not hurt to have the Coordinators go through some community vetting. It may give them, if not a mandate, some sort of mandate. at least some legitimacy. Jbh Talk 00:49, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
Well JBH there are some people even suggesting that have broken the rules by even suggesting and organising this election. The truth is that I have running everything to do with NPP single handedly for nearly 6 years because nobody was interested. I'm not proud of having had to do that, more to the point, I'm thoroughly disillusioned by the apathy and lack of support. Any support came from a very tiny number of people of whom you were one. Anyone notice that the staggering rise in the backlog suddenly flattened out in October? Anyone stop to consider why? Last night I was accused to my face on a live video conference with the Wikimedia Foundation of having organised a 'Pissing contest' with my work lobbying for improvement to the tools. There won't be a watchlist notice - Xaosflux has stepped in with his authority and made sure of that - in a way that one begins to wonder if we should do things the French way and hold a meeting to decide to hold a meeting to decide to hold a meeting, or put more succinctly, hold an RfC for a consensus to hold an RfC - and we all know how long RfCs take - it's taken 6 whole years to even get the the toothless user right I finally got for us in November. Look through this page to fully understand. When will people realise that NPP is a core function and not some 'sphere of interest' project like MilHist, Schools, or even AfC? At the end of the day, every single registered newbie user is a potential NPPer - and they do, and see where it's gotten us. And that's why I want out but I want capable people to continue where I'm leaving off. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:31, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
Damn, that was discouraging to skim through. I can see how you feel that you have been shouting into the dark for the last five years! The complaints have not changed, the arguements have not changed, about the only thing that has is that you seem to have spread awareness of the importance of reviewing further than it was and vastly improved the infrastructure available for the people who want to do reviewing right. It seems that the conflict between those editors who want to provide a quality product to our readers and those who want to follow some idealistic dream that somehow everything will just work out through the power of goodness and open editing is eternal. "We want NPPers to not..." - "Lets get some training and accountability for NPP and make sure that only people who know how to do it" - "But Wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can edit!!11!" - lather, rinse, repeat. Jbh Talk 15:33, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
Kudpung, Any reason for fixing on 2 coordinators? With the workload specified I can see work for more than 2, and good reason why you might feel the need to move on. Regards, Cabayi (talk) 13:00, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
Yes, Cabayi, because there are some people, including bureaucrats, who believe we shouldn't have any, there is at least one Arbcom member who believes all new page controlling can and should be done by AI, and there is, despite the thin majority for a dedicated user group of reviewers, a strong faction, including a WMF employee, who believes that NPP is an unneessary process. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:39, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
Thanks Kudpung for the explanation. I'm tempted to ask you to name names as that's the sort of thing that would affect my voting at Arbcom or trustee elections. As well as regretting the lower number of coordinators I also regret the need to choose just two from many excellent qualified candidates. Cabayi (talk) 11:00, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
Cabayi, Are you asking me to be hoiked up in front of Arbcom, lose my bit, be blocked and banned? Na, really.... Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:12, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
Kudpung, if you want to step back for a while it'll work more effectively than the WikiBreak Enforcer. ;-) Cabayi (talk) 11:42, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Prolific article creators

Hi all,
In the page curation tool there is a "made by username filter". However, is there some sort of way to sort all unreviewed articles by user or sort users by number of unreviewed pages? I'm asking because I've reviewed a lot of sport-related BLP stubs which are all okay except the need for expansion and many of them use bare URLs. It would just be a quicker way to reduce the backlog by making repeated edits as such users tend to create similar articles with similar curation needs. Any ideas?
Thanks! DrStrauss talk 09:07, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

As far as I know no, there isn't. If you come across an editor who creates a lot of articles and they're consistently without problems, then you should nominate them for autopatrolled rights so we don't have to manually review their creations in future. There's a bot-generated lists that helps identify these editors. However, it sounds like the stubs you're talking about might be Sander.v.Ginkel creations which are a special case (see discussions above). – Joe (talk) 10:14, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
@Joe Roe: thanks - the DB report will help just as much (I'll copy the names across into the filter. DrStrauss talk 13:37, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Tip

The text in the new tip on this page is a little misleading. I've found it rare that an admin will salt a page before its fourth creation, and "consider" should be moved to cover both admin actions (you're asking the admin to do something, not demanding, and there's nothing guaranteed). I'd suggest -

"If it's a recreation by the same author of a page previously deleted 3 or more times, please notify an administrator who will consider salting the article and blocking the account per WP:SPAM."

Also, I'd leave the request on the article's talk page, and a G11 CSD on the article rather than asking a particular admin to tackle the request. Asking a particular admin could create the impression of WP:ADMINSHOP otherwise. My 2¢. Cabayi (talk) 08:22, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

I've updated the Tip along the lines above. Cabayi (talk) 13:26, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
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