Wikipedia talk:Newbie treatment at Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Welcome thing

Whoa, has anyone noticed the "Welcome to Wikipedia, [user name]!" thing that you receive the first time you log in as a noob? IMO: (a) it's too long and (b) what is up with "Of course, you can't be expected to know all the policies and guidelines immediately, but you should still aim to learn the vital ones (neutral point of view, cite your sources to make articles verifiable, notability criteria and the manual of style) as soon as possible." How many Wikipedians who have been here for even four years know MOS? (if someone could provide a link to the page, it'd be nice...) —Ed (talk • contribs) 17:51, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes its MediaWiki:Welcomecreation WereSpellChequers (talk) 21:02, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I had to create an account in order to track that one down. But can I suggest we shift this thread to WP:VPR#MediaWiki:Welcomecreation -> Welcome notice? ϢereSpielChequers 21:59, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Anons creating articles

I feel as though this experiment should be combined with a proper study of whether it has helped anything to prevent anons from creating new articles... I have some old stats from the month when we turned on the code to prevent anon page creation; they didn't seem to show much of a positive change; aside from a definite overall drop in new pages created and a slight increase in new accounts created. +sj+ 08:08, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Similar experiments

For what it's worth, I've done similar experiments. Indeed, I edited without an account for a fair while before I created this one in the first place. I've also done experiments in article rescues, more to determine whether closing administrators are even reading the articles that they delete, but that also touched upon how article rescues are treated without the magic "Uncle G" name attached to them. There is definitely an incorrect assumption made by some people, some of whom have administrator tools, that editors without accounts, the editors who (ironically) wrote most of our article content, are treated as second-class or even third-class citizens. But I can also report that this is nothing new. You can read Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Uncle G to see that biases, based purely upon whether a user page existed or not, existed years ago. If you are looking to designate these incorrect attitudes as the causes of a recently arisen problematic phenomenon, then you face the stumbling block that these prejudices have existed for years; just as the problem with abuse of the patent nonsense criterion at speedy deletion has existed for years, too.

By the way, if you want more data on this, you should talk to 98.248.33.198 (talk · contribs), who, as can be seen by the many unwarranted assumptions of bad faith that xe is subject to including those at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive567#Sockpuppet tags (where Gwen Gale assumes bad faith without foundation) and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive566#request for a deleted page (where Roux assumes bad faith without foundation), suffers regularly from these problems. Xe is quoted at one point as having said that the reason that xe doesn't use an account is that if xe did, how would xe know who the people were with accounts and administrator tools who made such unfounded assumptions of bad faith. Uncle G (talk) 06:07, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I've had problems with Roux before and he did make me uncomfortable since I was attempting to help out and here he comes out of nowhere bashing the entire project, going against what everyone says and questioning everything. I'm referring to WP:ABUSE. Netalarmtalk 06:56, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't wish to "pile on" Roux, but s/he has an opinion about IP editors that sometimes leads to poor responses and very quick baseless accusations of bad faith. But it maybe s/he has had bad experiences which cause this reaction? There many are other editors who say often, that IP editing needs to be restricted, and who if they had their way would be much worse than Roux, so I **really** don't want to single out that editor. Remember Civility (talk) 13:21, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

proposals as a result of this test

Based partly on what I've seen so far from the test, and to be honest partly on what I've seen that prompted me to start this in the first place I've made some proposals for change:

1. strategy:Proposal:Speedy deletion - 24 hour pause for some articles
2. strategy:Proposal:Welcome all useful new users, if necessary by a bot

ϢereSpielChequers 13:32, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the first: great idea, especially for A1/A3/A7, but would need to be tool-supported (Twinkle, CSDH) to be effective. A potentially powerful improvement if combined with the proposed integration of userfication and incubation, as proposed here. Welcome idea seems uncontroversial.  Skomorokh, barbarian  14:30, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about welcoming by a bot - I think the "If you need help... ask me on my talk page" from a human being that you get from {{welcome}} is much more reassuring. Also, a welcome message accompanying the first speedy warning template, and signed by the same user, diminishes the biteyness of the speedy warning.

What I think is necessary, as this useful experiment has shown, is to ensure that every speedy-deletion warning template (except those for G10 attack pages) is accompanied by a welcome message if the user has not already had one. I notice that the warning templates generated by db-g3 and prod tags already produce a welcome message if used on an empty talk page: perhaps this could be extended to other speedies (again, except G10: saying "thank you for your contribution" for an attack page is taking un-biteyness too far). That would help, but we still also need to educate speedy taggers to think of the newby as someone to be helped rather than warned off, so as to ensure that a welcome is added where there has not been one, but the automatic one would not appear because the talk page is not empty. JohnCD (talk) 14:39, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree with combining the welcome with the tag as IMHO it would be much more friendly for a good faith newbie to have a welcome from someone who hasn't just tried to delete their article, as opposed to one combined with an attempt to delete their article, and if they've been welcomed once they probably won't be again. But I do think we should inform all good faith article creators of CSD tags on the articles they've submitted. I've raised this at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#Suggestion - authors must be informed ϢereSpielChequers 15:10, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I think the hurtful (toward newbies) aspect is the speed of delivery of the WARNING message which is then enhanced by its cold indifference to the newbies unawareness...a) We have volunteer editors that have taken on the role of safeguaring the 'Pedia from unwanted or under-developed articles....b) These articles are created with the best of intentions (for the most part) by novice editors with very litte, if any, experience...c) The two meet, someone gets bit or ignored or insulted. If the greeter at WalMart shoved the cart at me, snarled his directives and warnings not to break the rules, told me I had better fold up any garments before I put them back...I don't think I'd stay long. And I doubt that I'd come back.--Buster7 (talk) 15:25, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

A modest proposal

 Done ϢereSpielChequers 18:03, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I would like to suggest that sections not directly related to new articles created for WP:NEWT be moved to the talk page. I think the front page is getting a bit disorganized. decltype (talk) 08:54, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree, the main page should discuss the result of NEWT-related activity while the talk page should be used to discuss NEWT itself. Regards SoWhy 09:16, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Templates and auto-edits

Look at the rage that ensues if you template a regular. "DO NO TEMPLATE THE REGULARS!!" people will yell. Why then is it acceptable to use this hated method of "communication" for non-regulars? Some templates are fine (probably the vandalism warnings) but others really suck. And having the ability to add very many templates, very very quickly, is not great. UncleGs triage page is hard work (what, look for refs, improve content?) compared to clicking a button. We need to get the sub-optimal twinklers/hugglers/rollackers to understand that content building is more important that instant deleting of possibly poor content. (Unless that content is copy vio or BLP troublesome.) Remember Civility (talk) 14:20, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

The rationale is that the new editor is generally unfamiliar with the project's raft of norms, guidelines and policies, whereas the regular likely is. Templating someone assumes they are not aware of the issues, which can be condescending. If I make an unsourced addition to an article, I don't need a standardised warning with a link to WP:NOR, but a quick question as to why I didn't think my edit fell under NOR. We simply do not have the resources (new page and recent changes patrollers) to personally welcome and converse with every new editor who runs afoul of the norms; automation such as Twinkle is therefore crucial to quality control. A better question here is whether or not such templates do a good job of explaining and encouraging compliance with norms without alienating inexperienced editors, and how they may be improved.  Skomorokh, barbarian  14:26, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate the point about the sheer number of edits needed to keep wiki tidy. But, as you've seen, even experienced editors (admins too) aren't aware of every policy or guideline. So, maybe I'll change my position from "Stop using templates" to "templates can be useful, but don't be surprised if people react poorly to them, and if you get a poor reaction try AGF and discussing." You make a point about conveying information - I'd tend to agree. Lots of pages have *huge* screeds of text with rules about what you can or can't do there, which appears to confuse many people who post stuff to the wrong place. Look at the number of requests for oversight that get posted to AN/I for example. So, I dunno. Make the text 44 point and flashing? Condense everything down to a 5 item bullet pointed list? Remember Civility (talk) 16:58, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Templates are just a set of words and text. If the template is worded well and you pick the right template then I see no harm in it. Regulars are more likely to be annoyed if you don't personalise a template that is almost right for the situation. However I think this discussion would be combined with the existing ones at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/new users. ϢereSpielChequers 18:01, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Notifying affected users

I would suggest that everyone who participated in this experiment to leave a message to all users who worked on the articles created (taggers, deleting/declining admin, etc.) to inform them of this project and their role in it, so they are able to participate in those discussions which might be about their actions. Regards SoWhy 12:37, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

article edit: unrecognized editor tries to copyedit and tweak style

Not a new article, but a related experience. I retired recently (scrambled my password the other day—User:Outriggr) and then decided to try to honor a request from a cowiki-an to copyedit an article he'd been working on with others. So I used a new account that was unfamiliar to the regulars who had been working on the article, and my edits, which included non-controversial manual of style stuff and filling out a journal reference, were fully reverted. I was told to visit the talk page first to make such controversial changes as separating the many textual footnotes from citations using reference groups. Discussion ensued at Talk:The Disasters of War#Edits. It was an ironic footnote to my "retirement".

I just saw the newbie RFC and think it's a great idea, and it may be vital for this project that something come of it. On a few occasions I have tried to engage new editors by offering to help them learn the ropes, at the same time as their talk pages were being filled with warning templates about vandalism because they were essentially changing an article. Patrollers see big and confusing diffs, they see a red-linked user name or IP address, and then warn these new users out of existence. Outrigger (talk) 05:44, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Report

Please review my contributions log. I'll post my usual username after a few days in order to provide the best analysis possible. In case you're wondering, I have rollback permission and over 5000 edits on my main account.

Hope this helps.

Noteworthy: I received warnings, but after messaging the issuing user, they were removed. Maybe we could remind users to check before they warned more. 99.152.115.143 (talk) 05:42, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

• I suspect that too few people are warning taggers of their mistakes. My experience of guiding newpage patrollers is that they are mostly very open to learning from mistakes, but too often they don't get told what they are doing wrong until they run at RFA. ϢereSpielChequers 18:05, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Holy cow, look at that talk page. A rule of thumb for RC patrollers is that if the edit has an edit summary and isn't blatantly unproductive, discuss and ask for expanded reasoning. This user for example removed a section because they believed to be promotional which is reasonable but it got reverted. Plus, if you look at the contribs, most of the edits contain (Tag: Section blanking). The excessive system tagging would turn me off as a new user if I noticed it.--Giants27(c|s) 01:15, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Feel free to point any new page patrollers at User:Uncle G/Wikipedia triage, which is advice (and indeed in parts, as explained therein, also policy and best practices of long standing) from someone who has done new page patrol for some fair while now. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 05:29, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Being an IP editor is a pain. (That was my IP). If I recall correctly, there were several warnings to that IP number that were unjustified. I do think this was somewhat caused by Huggle, which kept flagging the IP's contributions with red. Also, the warnings continued to be escalated even after they had been removed. My suggestion here is for RC patrollers to check before they revert. This is very important, as this situation demonstrates. We don't want IP users leaving because they're constructive contribution was reverted by someone and was given a warnings.

I started out being pretty moderate, then started removing sections that were blatant advertising. Later I moved on to removing sections that I thought were a bit more controversial, such as actual edits to articles. Huggle kept flagging the edits I even posted 2 CSD tags for blatant advertising which I believe were justified.

I don't think this is too acurate because I left an edit summary when I edited,which most new users don't.

My understanding of policy also helped when I was messaging users. Netalarmtalk 00:58, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

• • One warning said "Please do not delete content or templates from pages on Wikipedia, as you did to Edge School, without giving a valid reason for the removal in the edit summary." I did leave an edit summary, I believe a discussion would have been the better option there. Netalarmtalk 00:59, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

• That same night, 99.152.115.143 (talk) engaged me in a lengthy conversation attempting to get me to take back a warning I had given him/her that was justified. The conversation can be read in my archive here under “User 99.152.115.143: To Revert or to Flag?” I spent a great deal of time with him/her because I believe in helping newbies. I am disappointed at the deception that s/he perpetrated. — SpikeToronto 02:00, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Had you known the real editor in advance, would you still resist removal of promotional language ? NVO (talk) 09:16, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

You miss the point: The warning given was justified because, in that instance, s/he was not removing blatant, obvious promotional language. Also, you assume that because s/he says it was promotional material that it was. I suggest you look less at 99.152.115.143’s talk page and more at his/her actual edits and the discussion that ensued between us. Do not assume that because s/he was perpetrating a deception as a newbie that nonetheless all his/her edits were therefore meritorious. I would have acted the same in giving him/her the single warning whether the account was an IP one or a logged-in one. That particular IP was deleting material from scores of school-related wikiarticles, that in some cases only required inline templates to stimulate correction by the articles’ regular editors.

I get the overall approach of WereSpielChequers’ project and it saddens me to see speedy delete tags, for instance, placed on an articles before the newbies creating them even have a chance to finish them. (As an aside, I have to admit that where the author blanks out a page of his/her own creation, I place a {{db-blanked}} tag on it since I assume that that is the author’s goal, as per WP:CSD#G7.)

There are those of us who try to help these newbies when we see their pages getting immediately tagged, but how can we when so many of them will not answer offers of help put on their talk pages? It as if they choose to ignore the orange bar at the top of their screen, or are so feverishly entering their data that they cannot tear themselves away long enough to read that which could save their article. I also do not like that when speedy delete tags are placed on such articles — and certain editors are notorious for placing them within minutes — that the tagging editors often forget to place the appropriate notification on the author’s talk page and almost never offer to userfy the article so that the authors can take their time developing them. <grrr> — SpikeToronto 20:16, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

The treatment of this IP was overall unfair as several unjustified warnings were received. I believe that is the most important lesson that we can learn from this. If you were a first time editor, would you feel welcome if you received a warning when you attempted to contribute to Wikipedia? Even though the warnings were removed, they continued to escalate.

The content that was removed was unneeded, promotional sounding content that did not belong in an encyclopedia if it is unsourced. I did do a Google search of it, but was unable to find many secondary reliable sources. @SpikeToronto: Would you have done the same if I had deleted the content under this account? If it was me, I wouldn't. Most editors presume that they have a better understanding of Wikipedia policy than IP users, which generally holds true.

Regarding CSD tags, I'm not really seeing that type of tagging. The tags I place for A7 (notability), advertising, and vandalism seem to be correct. I don't see many editors making this type of mistake. How is a non-notable article (one with absurd claims or no claim) or a promotional article going to change? There is simply no way to do that with the number of new articles we get.

In this case, I don't think a deletion of content warning was warranted. It would have probably been better to discuss with the IP on his/her edits and not plaster a warning then discuss the change. What are your views on this? I know the IP kept on showing up red on Huggle, making it suspicious.

About the deception, I take it in 2 ways. First, editors are not required to login to edit Wikipedia. I never said I was a new user or such (so no deception), I was merely discussing a warning I received as I would have done if I was logged in. Secondly, if you believe the first reason doesn't hold, please understand that I was only trying to improve Wikipedia by trying to understand how new users are treated.

No hard feelings? I know it seems like betrayal since you had messaged me about showing IP edits on Huggle earlier, but let's review this from a different standpoint together and see how we can improve Wikipedia as a team.IP users contribute around 70% of all content on Wikipedia, so they're quite important. =D Netalarmtalk 06:53, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

The escalation is automatic with HG. I have removed warnings that HG has placed only to have the next warning HG placed on behalf of another Huggler still be escalated one level higher, despite my having removed the template immediately preceding.

In answer to your other question, even if the edit had shown your real name, I would still have reverted it and placed some sort of notice on your talk page, either an appropriate WP:UTM template, or a simple comment. You and I fundamentally disagreed on that particular edit which you deemed promotional. Deletion was not required when inline templates such as {{Cn}} or {{Peacock}}, or some copy editing could have fixed the issue. It was like amputating a broken finger rather than setting the bone and placing it in a splint.

My attitude towards anons does not so neatly fit the stereotype you are propounding here. In fact, I consider vandalism by logged-in editors to be a much more serious breach of trust than that committed by an anonymous editor. I see a talk next to the anon as an opportunity to welcome and encourage a new editor, if the edits before me are not vandalism, etc. It pleases me to be able to place a {{Welcome-anon}} template on the IP editor’s talk page and be able to add the art= parameter where they’ve done good work.

What I am seeing, though, are several relatively new editors who have acquired Rollback (perhaps too soon after joining WP), are using HG, and think it’s some kind of race to revert as many edits as they can as fast as they can. (There’s even one who changes the edit count on his user page weekly to reflect its massive weekly increase!) Whereas I spend more time looking at page histories and diffs than I ever thought I would using HG. In fact, I have discovered that HG is really only useful for the obvious vandalism edits. I still end up doing a very large percentage of them manually. Moreover, for every HG revert I do, I immediately open the editor’s talk page to verifiy that the right action took place: That is, I audit each and every transaction generated by my use of HG.

If you were to look over my shoulder when I am working, you would see that I sometimes leave notes on my fellow Hugglers talk pages pointing out that they either reverted something that should not have been (example), or that they made a good reversion, but then left a warning on the editor’s talk page calling it vandalism when, in fact, a different WP:UTM template should have been applied.

But, we all make mistakes. Tonight, I was observing through HG a particular anon’s edits to an article about an airline that seemed quite good. But, then he blanked an entire section without explanation; he had not been using any edit summaries. So, I wanted to revert only that edit, but accidentally rolled them all back! But, I knew it instantly and so immediately rolled back my roll back, and then used Undo to undo only the one edit and then I placed a warning on his page about not deleting content without explanation. But, I also placed a {{Welcome-anon}} on his page and a {{Summary}}, the latter so that he might start using edit summaries and not risk reversions, especially since his other edits were generally good ones. And, in fairness, another Huggler reverted the same edit for the same reason: an entire section blanked without explanation. But, that Huggler labelled it vandalism instead of content deletion without explanation, the latter warning being much more helpful to the editor.

In another instance, I saw an anon place a spoiler alert on a wikiarticle about a particular movie. This showed up on my HG screen. But, I knew that HG was not the appropriate tool to deal with this. So, I used Undo so that I could provide a detailed explanation explaining the revert. Then, rather than give the guy a warning, and since his talk page was red, I added {{Welcome-anon}}, {{Summary}} (he wasn’t using any!), and a simple note outlining WP:SPOILER to him.

Look, NetAlarm, I know what you’re getting at and I see it too. But, that was not the issue between you and me that night. I do, however, see what you are describing occurring. There are a handful of new Rollbackers that I see aggressively using the Huggle tool, who never follow up, who never audit the transaction subsequent to pressing the revert button, and who often seem unaware that there is a pulldown list of reasons other than vandalism. I see this because, when I use HG and press revert, and it tells me that it was already reverted by another Huggler, I open the reverted editor’s talk page to see what template got applied. Too often I see labeled as vandalism that which is something else (e.g., {{uw-biog1}}). And believe me, I often leave notes on my fellow recent changes patrollers’ pages suggesting that the wrong template was applied (while not a particularly good example, see here).

Sorry to drone on so. Thanks for the update to my talk page! — SpikeToronto 08:04, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

delicious

Thank you for running this experiment. I often create short new articles, both as a random new account and as +sj+. If I am on the road at public terminals, it may be as a new user. In addition to the occasional speedy that has to be contested once I have more time to add references, I observe a lot of inappropriate AfD nominations as well, when anyone could do 10 minutes of research online to turn up appropriate sources. This too is quite bitey, and as a newbie not knowing this "happens all the time" it might incline me to feel unwelcome and not come back.

I would like to see some related discussion of the value of pure wiki deletion, which in the case of many A7 and other speedy deletions seems totally appropriate -- both in terms of making a less absolute claim of certainty that the work put into an article to date is worthless (which hurts the most) and in terms of making it easy for the original editor to see what happened and just fix it without jumping through hoops. You could even imagine a new crop of talk-page templates of the form

"I noticed you started article BAZQUUX with a few paragraphs and no references. Wikipedia style prefers not to have these articles, so as to improve the quality of even new topics that we cover. Please begin an article by listing a reference - you can continue editing [<permalink to last revision before page blanking> where you left off]."

+sj+ 08:06, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

"Welcome/Message"?

I find this column in the table confusing. Shouldn't the column also note whether one received a speedy deletion warning? Or better yet, shouldn't we add another column for this? Regards SoWhy 16:58, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I hadn't thought that tagging a good faith newbie's article for deletion without telling them you'd done so would be a common enough occurrence to need its own column, as opposed to a very indignant note on their talkpage. But I fear you are right and will add one now. ϢereSpielChequers 21:43, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Good idea

I cannot think of a better way to improve the experience of new users than to talk in their shoes. Good idea. Chillum 21:29, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Seconded: this was a very valuable exercise, and WP:IAR trumps any reservations. Wikipedia can be a daunting place for newbies, and if they knew of this page I'm sure they'd thank you for thinking of them. Congratulations to those who earned barnstars and to those who've improved their approach after reading the results. I hope we can reach a consensus on how to treat newcomers, and write an easily found essay that will be widely read – even by the prolific editors who already know how to behave but have had longest to forget what it was like to be new here. Certes (talk) 23:45, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Bad idea

I've been searching and I don't yet see the consensus discussion on why this project is appropriate or doesn't violate a number of norms if not outright policy. Here's my understanding of how the project's supposed to work:

1. Create a sock account and don't disclose it (except maybe to ArbCom listserv, which isn't public)
2. As an experienced editor, create an article that is of such poor quality it will be tagged for deletion
3. Report erroneous taggings here (the person posting article decides what erroneous means)
4. Clean up the newly created page (is this part of the project? shouldn't it be? at least to stub-class quality without a cleanup tag at the top)

First, are non public socks for the sole purpose of #2 (above) within the sock policy?

Second, why are we intentionally creating poor quality articles? I hear a lot of discussion about how bad the CSD backlog is (this just makes it worse), but the WP:CLEANUP backlog is astronomical.

I'm very disappointed that some people who've complained have been chastised for their objections being in bad faith. I won't go around in circles on this point, but questioning the project is not in bad faith.

Is this at all necessary? According to the creators, CSD patrollers have no shortage of pages to untag as is. Why are we creating more?

Finally, is there an end to this project? Is there oversight? If we want to have a good experimental design then there needs to be a lot more oversight, and limits (for the reasons above). I'm open to comments or corrections on where I got things wrong. Shadowjams (talk) 22:36, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

The instructions clearly say "Write an article that doesn't meet the deletion criteria". Where did you get the idea that "intentionally creating poor quality articles" was the goal? Chillum 22:41, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Alright. So the goal isn't to write poor quality articles. But that's largely what's happened (and let's be honest, the goal is to get them tagged). Matrena Balk, Wolfgang Stumph, Antonio del Río, Johan H. Andresen jr., and others... are poorly written (in their first draft), especially from experienced editors. Is that incorrec? Shadowjams (talk) 22:45, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I have created a couple of poor quality articles intentionally, because being able to successfully masquerade as a new editor is part of the experiment. If I had created articles the way I normally would, (1) I doubt any attention would have been drawn to the articles I created, and (2) it wouldn't have accurately represented the kind of article that we'd expect a new editor to create. At the same time, the articles I created were certainly not eligible for any of the CSD requirements, and do have potential as legitimate articles (one of the two I had already planned to create on my main account). One has survived so far, the other was tagged and deleted, but I'm waiting for the 7 days to be over before I update this project. As to whether or not the alternate accounts are within the rules, I believe that this could be considered to be within at least the spirit of WP:SOCK#LEGIT where it says that "privacy" is a legitimate use of the account. -- Atama頭 22:51, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't want it to seem like I'm responding to each comment here, but I want to get the conversation started early on. Is the "privacy" concern mentioned in WP:SOCK of the variety that's going on here? My understanding that it is for real-world => wiki privacy, as opposed to wiki => wiki privacy. The first variety is clearly legitimate. The second is not, and the entire block/ban/check user infrastructure exists purely to protect the first and combat the second. Do other people understand WP:SOCK differently? Shadowjams (talk) 22:55, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

This project complies with wp:SOCK provided that participants follow the instructions, inform the Arbcom mailing list of your account and create articles that don't meet the deletion criteria. ϢereSpielChequers 23:00, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) WP:SOCK#LEGIT currently at least actually mentions "longterm users might create a new account to experience how the community functions for new users." as a legitimate reason for a separate account. SOCK is to combat people from using multiple accounts in a harmful manner, i.e. vote-stacking, hounding, block-evasion etc. Using a separate account for a single event only and not using it to circumvent any policy does not really meet the spirit of the sock policy which clearly tries to combat bad-faith socking. Regards SoWhy 23:07, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I plan on explicitly tagging my alternate account when I'm done with the project, and don't plan on using it again. I'd suggest much the same for other people participating. -- Atama頭 23:17, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

The language SoWhy quotes is about a month old and appears to be a function of this project. As of October 6 it did not exist, which is after this project was created. Shadowjams (talk) 23:18, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

It was removed this July by Kingturtle, having been on the page most or all of the time between than and February 2004(!), as far as I can tell. WereSpielChequers then restored it on the 6th of this october. Olaf Davis (talk) 23:37, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Just realised he proposed it here first, too. Olaf Davis (talk) 23:41, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Agree with Olaf. Also, Kingturtle's change does not seem to have been the result of any discussion I could find. Regards SoWhy 23:45, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

NuclearWarfare reverted the change that Kingturtle made, then reverted himself right after that. Since NW is involved in this project, and at one time agreed with Kingturtle's change (or at least didn't object to it) maybe he has some input into the matter. -- Atama頭 23:44, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

That was a simple mistake actually (script error), which is why I reverted myself. I think that Kingturtle's addition is fine; it is probably a more realistic example of what most people would run into than creating a new account to see how the community treats newbies. Addressing another point: the reason I used a new account and not my normal account was because if I had used my sysop account, it would have been automatically patrolled by the software and there would have been no interaction with another user. NW (Talk) 00:05, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

The only people who are likely to have a problem with this project, are those who are out there biting the newcomers and inappropriately tagging. Perhaps if you showed some good faith then you wouldn't get caught out? For what its worth, I think this project is the best idea anyone has had in a while! I may get involved. Jeni ^(talk) 01:05, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

A few people have explained above their objections and they don't have to do with getting "caught." Please assume some good faith. As I said in the beginning, it's not a fair criticism to call opposition to the project "in bad faith." Shadowjams (talk) 05:31, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Dear Shadowjams, I'm concerned that your perception of the project is that "create an article that is of such poor quality it will be tagged for deletion" is one of the aims. What change to the instruction "Write an article that doesn't meet the deletion criteria" would be sufficient to persuade you to strike that part of your criticism? ϢereSpielChequers 14:20, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

As a footnote, as one of the gang of 50 or so people who worked on WP in 2001 and pretty much throughout, I got a speedy on an article I wrote about a website owned and controlled by HarperCollins, a subsidiary of NewsCorp the largest (or 2nd largest) media conglomerate in the world within less than a minute of it being created after I saved it and went in search of citations. The article was tagged stub, and was not an unpromising start. The article was removed from speedy after an acrimonious exchange but subsequently attracted the attentions of further policy nazis, to the extent that I have now blanked my user page and removed myself from the project altogeher. I doubt good faith. I do suspect a) a deletionist cabal and b) that Wikipedia is a divided, frquently abusive and riven community. Ironically I am on the Community Health Task Force group.... Moreover the speedy came from a user whose sole contributions (thousands of them) appear to be speedy deletes. Sjc (talk) 08:22, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi Sjc, I'm sorry to hear about your recent experience, and hope that on reflection rather than close an eight year chapter of your life you will unblank your userpage and stay with us. I'm not convinced that there is an organised deletionist cabal, but I do agree with much of what you say in that we are becoming a "divided, frquently abusive and riven community" (though I wouldn't go as far as frequent). I suspect that part of the division is natural specialisms, in a community that went through an era of rapid growth; and part is different perceptions and wiki-philosophies.

Yes this place can be overindulgent of some abusive members, that's why I rarely visit the dwama boards, and when I review articles at FAC there are a couple of editors whose articles I am unlikely to review. However people do change, and don't necessarily always live down to their reputation. I can think of two highly contentious characters whose articles I would happily review. There is a recognition at Foundation level that there are some deep problems in the community, hence the Strategy wiki, if you haven't already gone there I'm sure your experience there would be useful. ϢereSpielChequers 12:21, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Ironically I'm on the Community Health committee which has a remit to address precisely this sort of issue. I will continue my work with the Task Force but it is unlikely I will ever return to Wikipedia. I note that the article in question is now +/- as I left it, minus the wall-to-wall drive-by tagging. I probably would have eventually turned this into one of my two page epic dissertations on the implications of web encroachment on traditional industries etc, but tbh by the time I weighed it all up, I discovered can do much better things with my spare time. I went for a walk in central Milan last night - much better than hacking WP articles on a cruddy wireless network in a hotel. Sjc (talk) 13:16, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Mentioning user's names

There have been a few instances of users feeling bitten or treated unfairly (somewhat ironic) as a result of this project. The user who tagged my newbie persona's article has declared that (s)he won't be tagging pages for CSD any longer. I don't think we have done enough to recognize that CSD tagging requires a great deal of judgment or that users who have made mistakes were acting in good faith and trying to help the project. I strongly feel writeups should not mention other users by name, lest we drive the users we encounter away from this area of work. We are studying a wider phenomenon here, the point is not to catch bad taggers. — Jake Wartenberg 22:38, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree to this. Actually, as a result of participating, even though I was only "acting" like a new editor, I do feel that my new editor identity was bitten and despite myself I feel a bit stung personally because of it. It does make me feel a little more empathy toward ambitious new editors. But I don't want to "catch" the people who bit me, so I'll avoid mentioning names. -- Atama頭 22:53, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I mean, the idea of "secret shoppers" is a powerful one. But we have to know that when some store clerk gets busted by a secret shopper, the store doesn't add his name to the company bulletin board along with his offense. I have no problem with a structured process where experienced users register new accounts, create borderline but acceptable articles, and the results get tallied somewhere. We can add a summary explaining what percentage of new articles were deleted without a tag, what percentage of new users got some communication prior to (or in conjunction with) tagging, and what percentage of the articles survived. It does us little to no good to do this piecemeal. We just engender frustration and anger. Protonk (talk) 23:11, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. Editors need to know the negative consequences of their behavior. Again and again when new editors get really shit treatment by established editors, there is the predictable it was all a "mistake" or shot the messenger mentality like User:Multixfer, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Concerns_about_NuclearWarfare_and_Wikipedia:Newbie_treatment_at_CSD or User:Tiggerjay at The Political Quarterly which was in the article "Dick Pountain observes the sometimes brave, sometimes brutal world of Web 2.0 self-censorship ".

In almost no case that I am aware of, where editors behavior is detrimental to the project, do we keep the identity of the editor causing the detriment secret. Questioning these established editors behavior is the first step towards changing the communities behavior toward new users. Otherwise this study is going to be a theoretical study which accomplishes nothing. Ikip (talk) 23:34, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

At least where I'm concerned, anyone who really wants to dig into who did what to whom can look at my sockpuppet's history (after I post results in a couple of days). I didn't get into this project to be a narc. Without Oversight, I don't think that anyone is going to be able to "hide" what has occurred. -- Atama頭 23:40, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

This newfound zeal for identifying and correcting problems in editor behavior is quite commendable. Protonk (talk) 23:51, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

From the start I've been very careful in the results table to give praise where its due but not to name and shame. It would be nice if we'd met the original challenge and found that newpage patrol was working correctly, it isn't and we need to fix things but I believe in taking a softly softly approach to those who are making good faith mistakes, I've had people in the past drop a polite note on my talkpage when I've made a mistake, its just as effective, I certainly prefer to be treated that way and I'm happy to continue this in that vein. And where everyone is following procedures but the result is bitten newbies lets look at fixing those procedures. ϢereSpielChequers 00:03, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it was a mistake to have named names in my report, and for future ones (two more in the hopper) I shall not do so. Sorry for all the drama, NW (Talk) 00:08, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I for one do not think that the reports should be anonymized, and that patrollers should be strongly encouraged to comment on their own (and other's) actions. Adding a superficial layer of obfuscation only complicates this, but does little to actually hide any identities. That said, I agree with keeping the names out of the table. decltype (talk) 08:37, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Discussion at ANI on this ongoing

This project is being discussed at ANI: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive577#Concerns_about_NuclearWarfare_and_Wikipedia:Newbie_treatment_at_CSD -MBK₀₀₄ 22:42, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

• Actually I've just closed the thread, as the matter seems resolved per the remarks at the bottom of the previous section. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:34, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Articles shouldn't actually qualify for speedy deletion

I thought the purpose of this was to write amateurish articles that just needed to be cleaned up. A lot of the articles being written (like [1], [2], [3], [4]) seem to me to qualify for deletion. -- kenb215 talk 02:34, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Regardless of what the stated purpose is, that appears to be what is happening. Just the examples you cite demonstrate a number of experienced editors making dozens of edits to help clean up those articles. They represent a substantial amount of wasted time. Shadowjams (talk) 06:10, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

The battleship articles do not appear speediable to me. The subject is clear - battleships. There are content - minimal, but they exist. I'm not aware of any other criteria under which they may be deleted. Andreas Rebers contains a link to a reliable source about the subject, so even discounting the "many awards" part, it's not A7. The only one arguably borderline is Antonio del Río, though I would argue that leading an excavation of Mayan ruins is an indication of significance. Tim Song (talk) 06:22, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Two separate issues here. First whether an article is within CSD. You're taking a rather extreme position saying that tagging the text "Aquidaban. ‎encouraçado of Brasil. gone 1906." is the kind of mistake that a project needs to be created to fix. Is the argument that that article is not even "arguably borderline"?

Separate, but much more relevant, is that these articles are of atrocious quality, provide no useful content to a reader and have eaten up a substantial portion of an editors' time.

If you want to know how many "bad" CSD tags there are then the information is all available in the new page log. This is an example of experienced editors purposefully creating poor quality articles, many of which are "borderline" CSD candidates. I'm failing to see why this is better than (1) creating the new articles so that they're useful to readers, and (2) looking at new pages to see the percentage of subjectively "bad" tagging. Shadowjams (talk) 07:24, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Which speedy criterion do you claim it falls under? Tim Song (talk) 07:44, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

An experienced user with 13k+ edits tagged it for A1. I wouldn't accuse him of being reckless in that tag.

You haven't answered the question above: the page has had dozens of edits now. In addition, I just noticed that the creator removed a CSD tag, which I realize is part of the role playing, but is a violation of policy. There's something ironic about violating policy (not that I think that violation is a problem) to prove that others aren't following policy. Shadowjams (talk) 08:53, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't notice that the page was moved. But even at Aquidaban it says that it's an "encouraçado", which apparently means a battleship - so there's still context. I'm not saying the tagging is reckless - hindsight is 20/20, and this is sort of borderline (because of the language issue), I agree, the tag is a reasonable one.

I'm not getting your point on the time wasted part - yes, they are of atrocious quality, but they are also extremely short. What time are we wasting here? It's not as if someone wrote a 10kb unwikified piece of borderline CSD with no cites and atrocious spelling and grammar for others to cleanup. The additional cleanup time - excluding the time that necessarily has to be spent by editors writing the article from scratch - is probably minimal. Tim Song (talk) 09:15, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm worried about the time wasted from a few sources. Mostly I'm referring to time spent by editors that try to clean up new pages. Many new page patrollers spend a lot of time with this. The creators of these articles create them apparently knowing the subject is notable, but withhold some of what would make that notability obvious, whether it's an explanation (or an understandable explanation), or references, to "test". It's much easier for the creator to provide that info than to send multiple NPP to google to find it.

I'm also worried about the NPP that spend time patrolling pages that now have new pages to patrol that are of very questionable notability. Instead of the quick patrol for what could be a quick patrol, these turn into full investigations.

These are two substantial inefficiencies. I have yet to hear a compelling reason for why they're better than reviewing the new page list. Why not use an efficient, organic source as the data set? Why instead create an artificial, time consuming, and controversial project to create an artificial simulation of the same thing. Shadowjams (talk) 09:34, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree with Tim on the time wasting thing. Yes, this project takes up time we could have spent doing more directly useful things like writing articles. The hope was that that investment of time would be worthwhile because of the insight it would give us, and the positive effect it might have on NPPers. Perhaps that hope was misguided and it's not worth the time (and perhaps its net effect on NPP will be to drive people away rather than give them a helpful 'reality check'). But if so then the amount of time wasted is fairly minimal - especially when compared to the amount of time spent every day on creating, patrolling, tagging, rescuing and deleting new articles. Olaf Davis (talk) 09:34, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I think we edit conflicted with our replies. Shadowjams (talk) 09:35, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Hmm...if, as we hope, people collaborate on the articles, then someone, be it the NPPer or the future collaborator, has to spend the time Googling/searching for the sources anyway. In the grand scheme of things, the amount of time wasted is likely small from this source. As to the second issue, I would hope that people do a quick search on wiki and google before CSD'ing an article. Just today I came across Suzanne Hoschedé in this state tagged as A1 - which is probably incorrect, though I think it's reasonable. A quick google and WP search turned it into the current stub - which probably won't be deleted absent an AFD. Not much, I'd admit, but I didn't have time to dig up more sources. There is stuff that we can confidently say are speediable without a search, but for some a quick search would not hurt. A bit extra time spent compared to a potential contributor driven away and losing some potential information - or leads to information. I'd pick the former. As to your "why not review the new page log" argument, I'd say that it's probably more time consuming to go through the voluminous logs and deleted contribs, with a very low signal-to-noise ratio, than to use a controlled set of samples. I'm not denying that most NPPers do excellent work generally - I believe the goal of the project is to help them improve in the somewhat borderline cases. Tim Song (talk) 09:50, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I can assure you that the article I created that was speedily deleted as A7 (didn't assert importance), said why the person was notable, had links to articles about him, had a hangon tag and had a request to keep the article on the talk page (as well as an outside editor who happened to agree that he was notable). Yes, I deliberately made mistakes (I didn't add the sources until after the speedy deletion tag was applied, I didn't have properly formatted references, the article didn't have a lot of content). But it didn't qualify for A7 (if it did, I must have no idea how A7 is supposed to be interpreted). -- Atama頭 19:41, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Driving away new page patrollers

Is there any reason I shouldn't MFD this page right away because it's driving away the very people who keep the crud out of the encyclopedia, new page patrollers? Three or four people have, in the page as it appears right now, committed to not doing any more speedy deletion or new page patrol, and I can only see it getting worse. If the aim of this experiment is to try to catch people out, which it appears to be right now, then it's a WP:POINT violation. Stifle (talk) 09:01, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

The aim wasn't to catch people out but to ascertain the extent of the problem (if any) at NPP. Perhaps it was naive to think we could do that without antagonising people; perhaps there were better ways of collecting that information; perhaps this experiment has caused more harm than help. I don't know. But I'm fairly sure that the intent was entirely good-faith, had the interests of the encyclopaedia at heart, and didn't set out to break any policies.

Of course that doesn't make this immune to MfD, but I don't believe it's a WP:POINT case. Olaf Davis (talk) 09:37, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Following your logic ad absurdum, we would not be allowed to criticize new page patrollers who make mistakes anymore since it might lead to them stopping to patrol new pages. The aim of this experiment is not to trap anyone making a mistake or to publicly humiliate people - just like a message to a new page patroller making mistakes is not POINTy. All articles created in this experiment were inclusion-worthy and the point was to see whether new page patrollers treat them differently just because a newbie created them. So consider this: If someone is caught out treating a newbie worse than an established editor, then it's not POINTy to tell them so. In order to "disrupt Wikipedia to prove a point", you need to do everything that is necessary to prove the point yourself. There are two points that could be proven using this experiment: 1) That an article is treated equally no matter who created it. Or 2) That articles by newbie users are more likely to be tagged and deleted. But the user creating the article cannot influence what happens, the point-proving is entirely made by those new page patrollers who handle the article. I cannot create an article in the intention of proving point 1) or 2) since it might be refuted by actions of a third-party I cannot influence. The goal of the experiment is to find out whether 1) or 2) is correct but it's not created to prove that (let's say) point 2) is correct. Regards SoWhy 09:39, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Why can't that goal be accomplished by reviewing the New Page Patrol? Shadowjams (talk) 09:47, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

As Protonk pointed out at ANI, this experiment is to determine how many not speedy worthy articles get tagged. Reviewing a normal batch of articles will mean that you have many articles there that are speedy worthy for all kinds of reasons, thus making it more difficult to create a test group of articles to compare to and to track reactions and interactions of new page patrollers, admins and new users. Regards SoWhy 10:02, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

It needs to be mentioned here that many NPP's have responded in a different manner when invited to discuss their actions:

"It's a good warning for me to be more careful with CSDs [...] Overall, I need to do some things differently."

"I should have given a welcome message, and perhaps also a message offering advice on improving the article: I will try to bear that in mind in the future."

"Thanks for the constructive criticism, point taken about not welcoming and being more friendly, ill work on it in the future."

Not to mention those who have been highlighted for their excellent NPP work. decltype (talk) 10:52, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

New Page Patrollers who make the sort of mistakes we are picking up here get crucified when they run at RFA. I'm keen that when we identify that users are making mistakes at new page patrol we fix that, not just to solve the big problem we have with newbie article creators being bitten but to reduce the number of RFAs that run into problems because of speedy deletion mistakes. A lot of the participants at Newt are names I recognise from RFA so I may not be the only one here with that motivation. ϢereSpielChequers 14:05, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I see nobody has mentioned the new editors who are driven away when bitten. I would hope that this experiment might help find a way to alleviate that problem somewhat. -- Atama頭 19:44, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I for one had never tried new page patrolling until learning of this experiment. I was then eager to prove myself by hopefully stumbling across one of this experiment's pages and being rewarded with a glowing review of my conduct here. Of course, since the chances of actually patrolling one of these articles in the sea of new pages is slim, to say the least, I've not yet been successful. I admit for those who already do patrol on a regular basis, it can be off-putting to find out that you now have someone looking over your shoulder, so to speak; but I think that is, in a way, what new page patrol was missing. While attention is routinely called to many other encyclopedia issues, this one is the most likely to go unnoticed, as it involves both new pages and newbie editors, both of whom are being watched by the least number of people. It could stand to benefit from a bit of "oversight", if you could call it that. Equazcion (talk) 12:46, 13 Nov 2009 (UTC)

One advantage of this over passive observation

A number of critics have asked what advantage this project has over just observing existing newbies' articles. That's a reasonable question and I'm not claiming to have a complete and compelling answer to it, but I just want to share one advantage the experience had for me personally. I'd consider myself fairly 'newbie-aware' in general, and try to go out of my way to be accommodating to new users who aren't familiar with policies and don't understand why their work is being deleted. But even so, it's very easy to think of someone on the internet as a user rather than as a person; there's a limit to how much empathy I can muster for someone I communicate with only through brief passages of text.

During this project an article I wrote was tagged with a message describing it as vandalism. Despite having approached the experiment with a cool head and the knowledge that this kind of tagging was likely, that accusation had quite an effect on me. For the first time I knew what it felt like to be called some sort of miscreant myself, not just to see it happen to a faceless entity called a user. That's redoubled my desire to deal sensitively with newbies, and while I can't speak for anyone else involved I believe (though can't prove) that that benefit to my actions will greatly outweigh the small amount of time NPPers spent on my articles.

For the record, the person who applied the tag did so accidentally and swiftly removed it; I don't attach any blame to them and we've had a cordial discussion about it afterward. Still, the effect of the moment when I saw tag remains. Olaf Davis (talk) 09:56, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I had a similar effect, but from the opposite side of the experiment. User:the_ed17 reviewed my behavior and had mostly positive things to say about me[5]:

• I really like the temperament and helpfulness of User:Bonewah, who I dealt with on Riachuelo, but he didn't wikify the article, which would have taken about two minutes, and he didn't welcome me—he only added tags to it. Bonewah also left a message on the talk page of the article—where I could (conceivably) have missed it—rather than my user talk. Overall, I give him a C+, mostly due to the lack of a welcome and not doing basic wikifying. If these had been done, I'd say A- to A+. In either case, though, I am impressed with his attitude and willingness to explain things.

I felt good about having "passed" the test, but was really stung by my C+ "grade". I cant argue that I should have welcomed the sock new user, and I said so, but to judge me so harshly for not wikifying an article really chaps my ass, especially considering that triage is a generally accepted way to NPP. So I checked my pride and resolved to do better.

However, when I saw User:Bagheera's reply to his judge I couldnt help but say to myself, "I totally agree with you, to hell with NPP". Bagheera got dinged even though he put a hangon tag on the article and later removed his CSD tag, maybe his approach wasent perfect, but there is no doubt that hes trying his best to do the right thing. The notice on his talk page was an extra slap in the face, as sort of "gotcha! your on Candid Camera.

Thats not the only example, some NEWT participants have appointed themselves judge of their fellow users and seem downright ambivalent when people say "hey, dont bite us experienced users, either", ironic considering this project is supposed to be about treatment of others. ϢereSpielChequers said in the signpost that people here are treated more civilly than at RFA, but since when is that the standard for dealing with others here? Slightly better than some other place in wiki? But that sort of "meh, oh well" attitude is exactly what Im talking about, there is a human being on the other end of the keyboard with experienced users too. Bonewah (talk) 16:05, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Dear Bonewah, I'm sorry that you interpreted my comment "I hope those who've had mistakes pointed out to them have had much more civilised treatment than RFA is liable to give candidates who have been making mistakes in their speedy deletion tagging." as "slightly better". How would you suggest that we change this project so that when we find fellow editors making mistakes we correct them more gently? ϢereSpielChequers 16:22, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Focus on the specifics. People are welcomed or they are not, there is no subjective element to it. Admonish NEWT participants not to judge NPPatrolers on any criteria that isnt in-arguably a violation of the rules. No one should say "this is how I would do it, so this other user should have done so too" You can admonish people for breaking rules, not for spending their time differently than you would. Give users a chance to "anonymize" themselves before publishing the details here, sure someone could still go over the edit histories and figure out who did what, but at least that persons name isnt all over the place here. Make it clear to all participants (especially the ones acting as newbies) that the objective is NOT to gotcha anyone and make it clear in your talk page messages that you are studying the CSD process, not the specific user. You should definably consider what Bagheera said: "But a "Dude, I think you're being a little aggressive on the CSD's Give 'em a little more time" would probably have been more effective." Much better to lose some data here at NEWT then to lose a user at NPP. Just a few thoughts, Ill post some more after I get back from lunch. I want to reiterate that I think the objectives here are noble, and I believe that people are acting out of the best intentions, I hope you take this as constructive criticism and not an attack.  :-) Bonewah (talk) 16:53, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi Bonewah, thanks for your frank and useful feedback, hope you have a nice lunch. I'd be very interested in your input as to whether we need to make changes here or in our deletion policy. ϢereSpielChequers 17:28, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Id say both, really. I have yet to meet someone who uses CSD on a regular basis that didnt mess it up in some way at first. I think your proposal to add a 24 hour wait before article deletion has some merit, but id have to think about it some more to give a more in-depth response. Maybe we could put a big sign on the new page area that says "only CSD articles that are obviously gibberish, spam or otherwise useless" or something to that effect.

Another thing ive been thinking about is maybe there should be some group that just welcomes and helps new users. I really dont see why the NPP people should have to shoulder the burden of helping out newbies other than the fact that newbies often create new articles as the first thing they do.

As for NEWT, I think as long as you tell people to tread lightly they will, the great majority of people here on Wikipedia want to do the right thing, and will if you make it clear how that is done. It might also be worth your time to come up with a nicely worded message you can use on people's talk pages to avoid hard feelings and make clear the objectives of this project. As Ive said before, I dont think this should be an ongoing project, once you learned what you set out to learn, continuing on would be counter-productive, in my opinion anyway. Bonewah (talk) 19:58, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi Bonewah, thanks for your reply. There are some key difference between my proposal strategy:Proposal:Speedy deletion - 24 hour pause for some articles and other changes that have been proposed. This does mean that bad faith new articles, attack pages and vandalism would still be tagged for deletion straight away. But things that may seem gibberish, very short and all the good faith articles that might meet a speedy deletion criteria would simply be marked pause by the patroller. 24 hours later those articles would reappear at the top of the New pages list, so the editor would at least have finished their first editing session before a good faith article was considered for deletion. New Page Patrol isn't just about deciding whether to delete an article, its also a place to make those little edits like categorisation that a newby isn't likely to do. But to answer your point about having a group that welcomes newbies we do have WP:Welcoming committee they have over a thousand members (even after I recently removed a couple of dozen blocked ones) but they aren't active enough to ensure that all good faith newbies are welcomed. I take your point about being gentle to people who we believe to have made mistakes, and will tweak the instructions, what do you think of {{NEWT notice}} as a way of informing people? ϢereSpielChequers 21:45, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Waste of Patrol Time vs Making use of existing time for data

This is all strangely similar to a matter I had at my place of work some years ago about anonymous and deliberate calls placed through ((fill in service name)) , but the idea was the same as this. An experienced person went through with the process, deliberately made things at least somewhat more difficult than they normally would be, write a report about it. A friend of mine in QA half-accidentally told me about it and I "exposed" it; much anger resulted amongst the normal especially relating to wasting time on things that were hoaxes wearing a nice outfit. We all had enough to do as it was; it just raised stress, forced people to spend far more time on something than they normally would to make sure they "got it right", and just overlook some awful things completely just in case they weren't understanding a few words correctly and it was a trap. At least we had a simple fix to this. The time-wasting was greatly reduced-- the only deliberate calls put into the system were very, very brief things that were pretty much just a confirmation of a procedure and wouldn't have taken up more than 10 seconds. The other time saved were just by monitoring existing conditions instead of trying to create their own. Why this wasn't their original plan, I have no idea. It was nameless database for random sampling and educational/training purposes. Knowing there was more random oversight but no biting except at times of yearly review or promotion, quality improved. The reports and stats were even made freely available to staff to look at.

Why don't we do the same here? To fix deliberately wasting patrol time, if there is a CSD put on a submission, how about the admin (as the admin on the admin account) go in, blank and G5 the article themselves? This way no one would feel paranoid enough to feel obligated spend an hour improving even the most abysmal stub-at-best line of text out of fear of being editor-outed on an unofficial project page. You'd still get data for percentage tagged, percentages given a welcome if no history, percentage given a notification. As for expanded testing, it's not like there's a shortage of new articles to sample from that people are already adding themselves. This would be very easy collected off the CSD list page. Get total % of articles marked for CSD from that vs new articles as a whole, follow a few at a time, note if tag was removed, if the tag was removed was it given a PROD as the next given part of the process? Did author remove the CSD themselves? Was a welcome sent? That's basically everything you're trying to collect already, so how about just using things that already come along? ...Oh, my view is still that these "articles" created whether technically notable or not, should be removed by an admin anyway. Keeping test data as encyclopedic content is rather shady.

A few people at my company still weren't too happy, because no actual policy changes were made or discussed. We can do that here, however. So, how about there be an "official" way to not CSD something but still show concern for lack of notability/etc? We even have the stuff entered already; the {{newpage}} and {{construction}} in particular come to mind. Policy could be reflected such that any new article on a person/group/band/whatever that people are having trouble deciding about either way on a A7 or 9, instead be given a work in progress tagging like those. Naturally, G3 and 10s would be handed ASAP and tagged for CSD normally. I know that doesn't solve it, but that's at least one option to calm down people and reduce stress. Essentially this is similar to other plans for "delayed" tagging. Really, scaring even one good editor off is bad. This isn't even a paid position like my example above; this is 100% volunteer effort. ♪ daTheisen(talk) 11:29, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

If people think that an article might not be notable despite asserting "importance or significance" then one option is to tag it with {{notability}}. I've declined several speedies in the past by downgrading the deletion tag to a notability one. But as for deliberately creating test articles and deleting them after the test, I would be very concerned if anyone did that. Not just because creating genuine articles is a good thing to do and helps the aims of this project, but because creating hoaxes is in my view a very damaging form of vandalism, even if one were only doing it to test the system. ϢereSpielChequers 13:56, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Time to move on?

This undercover sting operation has produced the expected data: (1) poorly written stubs of ambiguous notability sometimes get deleted quickly, and (2) the newbie authors of those low quality stubs don't always get treated as courteously as they should. Continued operation of the sting will likely tell us the same thing.

It also has produced another effect that should have been predictable: some editors are offended at having been deliberately deceived and exposed to public criticism. Do people who volunteer their time on Wikipedia deserve such treatment? Does it make sense to try to improve newbie retention by embarrassing, and possibly driving off, existing editors?

Perhaps it's time for this project to move on to a new phase. Rather than continuing the undercover operation, now is the time to use the data already collected to find ways to improve the problem areas. —Kevin Myers 16:21, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

While I would disagree with your conclusions, and remember this is a test of the fate of articles that don't meet our deletion criteria. I would point out that it has already moved onto several proposals, I expect that the level of new article creation via this project will tail off rapidly after the signpost article is replaced. But unless anyone can think of a better way to test the New Page patrol and Speedy deletion systems then I would hope that the occasional test will continue into the future. If another of them is deleted for "poor format" or we have another challenge from the press then I suspect the project will get more alive. ϢereSpielChequers 16:40, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out the proposals page; I hadn't noticed that. For the record, I disapprove of Wikipedians creating secret, secondary accounts with which they write deliberately bad articles for the clandestine purpose of provoking and exposing the mistakes of other editors. This project is not representative of the Wikipedia I know and love. —Kevin Myers 18:02, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Well I'm not sure I'd agree with the project if I thought that was what it had become. What would you suggest we change to the instructions, specifically to "Write an article that doesn't meet the deletion criteria"? ϢereSpielChequers 18:43, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Agreeing with WereSpielChequers. And if this experiment is carried out properly what it's determining is the treatment of stubs that have unambiguous notability. No reasonable editor would question, for instance, that species of moss are encyclopedic and notable. Durova³⁶³ 20:52, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

"No reasonable editor would question, for instance, that species of moss are encyclopedic and notable" <-- wouldn't they? My feeling is that this is a structural and software problem being examined (in this project) perhaps a little too much as if it's a social / behavioural problem (which in my view is actually a very small part of it) - I'm curious to see proposals the participants in the project propose can generate, and wish all well.... Privatemusings (talk) 02:02, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Kevin - this isn't finding anything anyone who spends a short period monitoring WP:CSD didn't already know (eg, that some articles get wrongly deleted - a problem which is usually easy to solve by contacting the deleting admin - and newbies who make unproductive-looking edits don't get much respect), and is wasting the time of the editors and admins who are sorting through the muck which is being created. I hope that you're keeping track of the editors who are wasting their time on these articles so they can be thanked when the experiment ends... Nick-D (talk) 07:14, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Have you read the report? Have handed out five barnstars and assisted with article improvement. They've been quite good sports about it, and now (although it isn't in the report but perhaps should be included as followup) one of the editors who had speedy tagged a new creation is now getting coaching in GIMP software as a result of the followup contact. Perhaps the best thing that could come out of this is to identify newish editors who are trying to help new page patrol and need a little more help themselves. Durova³⁶³ 17:01, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Turnaround ADR

I figure there's no point in me being upset. I'm genuinely done patrolling newpages but I'm willing to bet I can spot many of your "newbie" articles. As such, I eagerly await the end of the 7-day period to find out which one of you started this article [6], which you'll note I've done a rather nice job of cleaning up and referencing. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 02:45, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

well that editor appears to be a real person? [google the name and it pops up] - I presume this is a false positive (or an existing pseudonymous editor writing with her real name?) - it's probably a step too far to pretend to be an actual person you're not for the sake of this experiment. Privatemusings (talk) 02:51, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Who knows, maybe it is a genuine newbie? Wouldn't that be a nice welcome for them; getting their first article so rapidly expanded. :)

I just want to let you know, I sincerely do regret any distress my actions with NEWT have caused to you. I was wrong to so publicly single you out like I did. I hope we can put this matter behind us and look forward to working together some time in the future. NW (Talk) 02:53, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Could be a real person, perhaps the Japanese comedienne or one of her fans, maybe someone else with the same name... we shall see. :-) Yes NW, water under the bridge, I'm over it, happy roads ahead. So let's see how many of you I can discover. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 03:06, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

More useful occupation

My main reaction was: why create intentionally poor articles when there are hundreds of them arriving every day? Why was it not possible to look at genuine articles and study what happened to them?

Now if you want something useful to do you could find answers to the following two questions arising out of this discussion:

• does notifying authors of CSD tagging make any difference to their subsequent behaviour?
• how many cases have there been of newbies "going rogue"?

— RHaworth (talk · contribs) 03:19, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

All good points, I definitely agree with you and am eager to read the responses. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 03:39, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Another more useful experiment would be to track what happens to new editors who make clearly useful edits from the get-go. Wikipedia is pretty established now, and new editors often become quite sophisticated (and bold) editors in a short period of time. If these editors are experiencing problems then there's a much more serious problem than what's trying to be detected in this experiment. Nick-D (talk) 07:21, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

This isn't about "intentionally poor articles" this is about articles that don't meet our deletion criteria. There have been previous studies such as Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Overturned speedy deletions. But this was a response to this critique of Wikipedia. While we've shown that things are not as bad as the press made out, and there are positive things learned from this like the number of non-admins declining tags, this study does show that we have a problem at new page patrol with the incorrect deletion or deletion tagging of some articles by newbies. ϢereSpielChequers 09:37, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

It's about articles that are of lesser quality than you would otherwise write. The threshold you speak of is controversial, to say the least, in particular that interpretation of it. In no way does this project demonstrate incorrect deletions. Shadowjams (talk) 11:01, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Lesser quality than these particular established users would normally write, but not lesser quality than typical new user would normally write. The purpose is to step into their shoes. Anyone who's given new-page patrol a try knows that new users will often write lesser-quality articles -- many lesser-quality articles. That's the problem; lesser quality doesn't necessarily mean CSD-worthy. The addition of the lesser-quality articles represented by this experiment is negligible compared with the hundreds or thousands created daily. It's an extremely small price to pay for the opportunity to diagnose an ongoing problem. Taking a blood sample requires breaking the skin a tiny bit, and other such applicable metaphors. Equazcion (talk) 11:09, 13 Nov 2009 (UTC)

Except the virgin blood is already on tap, and taking the other blood from others engenders resentment and [in some cases by admins] violates policy. Shadowjams (talk) 11:33, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

If it wasn't clear, these metaphors are stupid. Shadowjams (talk) 11:35, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Everything engenders resentment from someone; and I think the allegations of policy violations have been refuted. Yes, metaphors can be stupid, if they represent the entire body of one's argument. Equazcion (talk) 11:46, 13 Nov 2009 (UTC)

Excuse me if I was glib. I'll explain more clearly below.

These metaphors are stupid. There is a tremendous amount of time wasted on these experiments, creating sub-par articles intentionally to "prove" a data set that's not only actually authentic, but publicly available. Creators have argued that it is process over content, but that has never been a criteria (see this). And what's "obvious", and what's also defended as the very purpose of the project, are new articles that may or may not fall within CSD depending on who's creating the article. There's a tautological edge to this project. Shadowjams (talk) 11:50, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Define "tremendous", though. Again, the amount of time "wasted" dealing with these few articles is miniscule in comparison to the thousands dealt with daily. How much actual total time would you estimate people have been forced to spend on all the articles created as a result of this experiment, in actual minutes/hours?

Some statistics might already be available that show the issue from a mathematical standpoint, but this is an actual illustration of the problem; personal accounts of real experiences, that have a better chance of drawing attention and care from the right people. Equazcion (talk) 11:58, 13 Nov 2009 (UTC)

These articles compel "ideal" editors to add to them (best case). Other than that it's tag, patrol, or ignore. If you don't believe there's a downside to unrestrained article creation this argument isn't compelling. But I believe the project is better served by notable articles that are relevant to readers. I don't think that dissuading the people that spend their volunteer time towards that goal is beneficial. There are a lot of us that believe in this. If it's instead without bound, I won't be involved. Shadowjams (talk) 12:08, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe it is unrestrained. Alternate accounts need to be disclosed and so forth. In doing this, the hope is that the net effect will be more quality articles, by way of making Wikipedia a more friendly place for newbies who may grow into valuable editors. As for downsides, I haven't seen any yet. I'd be more concerned if, for example, some editor complained about having invested time dealing with one of these articles only to find out that it was created for the purposes of experimentation, and feeling put out. That may yet happen, and I'm sure the experiment would be re-evaluated in that event. As it stands though, without the existence of such actual complaints that would show some negative effect, the present objections seem entirely hypothetical. Equazcion (talk) 12:21, 13 Nov 2009 (UTC)

I've documented the very downside you talk about above. Shadowjams (talk) 12:32, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

conflicted

I have inadvertently taken part in this experiment in two ways. This is an article I created a month ago with my existing account (with a three-year contribution history) that was tagged for speedy deletion within minutes. Admittedly, I started creating in mainspace and left the article in an unideal state (but self-tagged for sources) when I decided to call it a night. It was still a bit of a slap in the face to find it tagged for speedy - and it made me resolve to make more of an effort to help out with other new articles being tagged/AfDed, but apparently just when a whole bunch of them were being created by people who were doing it as a social experiment. Perhaps I'll just hold off for a while until I know the experiment is over? --Paularblaster (talk) 16:22, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Even if quite a few people have participated in this project, the sheer number of new articles created makes it very unlikely that the exact one you are helping out is a NEWT participant. I urge you to continue your efforts with new pages. It is definitely not in vain. decltype (talk) 16:36, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Still, in the spirit of Baucis and Philemon, it can't hurt to treat all newbies fumblingly trying to write their first articles as if they were Jimbo himself in disguise. :-) +Angr 16:45, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

^ Ah, hammer meets nail on head. Equazcion (talk) 16:57, 13 Nov 2009 (UTC)

That first article that was CSD'd really, really, really should not have been. Given the non-English-centric nature, user contribution history, results of a google search, blue links of notable persons, categories already placed, the non-English name already pointed out, and that you pre-flagged it for citations? There are finished articles that don't cover all of that. A {{tl|newpage}} would have been enough, or they could have put in 1 weak resource and stubbed it. You got it really hard on that. It probably could have survived an AfD in that form if even a single resource was added.

That kind of absolutely massive blanketing of A7s needs a filter or... something. The contribution history shows 40 edits of which almost all are CSDs and warnings sent over the course of 26 minutes, and over 150 combined talk/tagging in one 24-hour period. Well, I'll just say it's far from 100% efficiency. A few mistakes? Fine. I've made a handful and will again I'm sure, but on anything I ever CSD that's not an obvious A1/3 or G10/11 with a hangon is placed I'll talk to the author about directly. Carpet bombing PRODs and A7s are what need investigating, and not semantics about Portuguese battleships. The users who might submit things like this first example article are the types who get upset and frustrated, because they have a good reason to be. They may not even consider it worth the effort to get undeleted thinking the same would happen again. ♪ daTheisen(talk) 09:25, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Small point: Brazilian battleships. ;P In all seriousness now, great thoughts. But how should we/can we implement this? —Ed (talk • contribs) 09:39, 14 November 2009 (UTC)