I see that there is a viewpoint, held by some experienced editors, that the Articles for Creation process is broken, perhaps irreparably broken, and should be merged with New Page Patrol. In particular, some editors think that reviewers (or most reviewers) hold incoming articles to too high a standard. I do not agree with the general conclusion that AFC is broken and should be scrapped, but I see that, because this view is widely held, it is likely that AFC will be scrapped and merged into NPP. So I have a few comments and questions on what should be done.
First, some editors state that new editors think that AFC is mandatory for new articles, that new articles can only be submitted via the AFC review process, and not submitted directly into article space. I don’t know if some new editors do think (incorrectly) that AFC is the only way to submit new articles. I do know that some new editors use AFC after their initial submissions have been speedy-deleted. Those new editors obviously did know that they could submit directly into article space. However, if some new editors do think that AFC is mandatory for new articles, reasonable steps should be taken to clarify such a misunderstanding. New editors should be aware that they can submit directly into article space. At the same time, they should be aware that submission into article space risks any of the three deletion processes. (There will always be misunderstandings with anything as large and visible as Wikipedia. There is also a widespread belief that Wikipedia is a vehicle to publicize one’s company. There is also a widespread belief that Wikipedia is a social medium. We have done our best to address those myths. We can’t eliminate all misimpressions, and should focus on addressing those that have a negative impact on the present and future of the encyclopedia.)
Second, since having an article deleted is at least as painful as having an article declined, there should continue to be a process whereby new editors (or even experienced editors) should be able to request review before exposing their work to deletion (by any of the three deletion processes). One obvious solution would simply be to request review, from draft space or user space, at the Teahouse or some similar page. However, the number of articles being submitted could become large, larger than would be feasible for a forum such as the Teahouse. In that case, a queue could be established, but a queue then becomes essentially Articles for Creation under a different name.
Third, I will comment that, in my opinion, the large majority of submissions into AFC are not suitable for acceptance for either of two reasons. The first type of unsuitable submissions are simply junk of one sort or another, either promotional junk, self-serving junk, hopelessly non-notable junk, or even incomprehensible junk. It is important that NPP, or anything that takes the place of AFC, continue to prevent all types of junk from getting into article space. The second type of submissions that are not ready for acceptance are drafts about possibly notable topics that don’t have good references. References are the hardest aspect of writing an article for Wikipedia, and most new editors who have notable subjects or topics will need help with references. Probably the real issues about AFC have to do with what is hopelessly non-notable junk as opposed to possibly notable topics, and with what standard to apply for references.
Are the critics of Articles for Creation really saying that the concept of Articles for Creation is flawed, or are they saying that the existing culture of the Articles for Creation reviewers is flawed because it is too demanding? If the former, are they saying that new editors should be required to submit their drafts directly into article space and face deletion, or what are they saying? If the latter, how are they proposing to change that culture?
Robert McClenon (talk) 19:20, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
My $0.02 is that AfC is a valuable process, and should not be shut down, but that it is significantly understaffed, and on a volunteer project there's probably no way to fix that problem. My other $0.02 is that the entire "new article creation" process is broken, with far too many (frankly crap) articles getting created (and many of these sneak through and never get deleted) and I seriously think the whole "new article" process needs to be rethought from scratch, regardless of what happens with NPP (or AfC). Unfortunately, when even proposals to require new articles have a single reference or be subject to CFD fail, it's clear that that's not going to happen. I guess this goes down as a "win" for the "inclusionists", new article quality be damned... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 20:31, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
@Robert McClenon: I personally think that any article review process more stringent than allowing any editor with ten edits to patrol is extremely valuable, and I thank any AfC reviewer for helping save mainspace from clutter. My view of AfC and the merger of AfC and NPP is that all new editors should be subjected to an AfC-like process and to face review before having their articles reaching mainspace for everyone to read. A problem with NPP being a separate process is that patrollers waste their energy looking at irredeemable, even laughable, articles that show that the creator gives not even a single whit about the quality of their article or any concerns raised on their article, and then vigorously recreating the article, attacking the patroller, or vandalizing when their article unsurprisingly gets tagged for deletion. If AfC is merged with NPP (like ACTRIAL), then patrollers, competent patrollers and not just ten-edit ones, can more effectively prevent junk from reaching mainspace and help newbies that care. Also, keeping newbies' articles in draftland for review accords more opportunities for automation, such as automatic feedback and rejection. — Esquivalience (talk) 21:57, 15 August 2016 (UTC) Edit: Clarified. — Esquivalience (talk)04:22, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
Arbitrary break
Are the critics of Articles for Creation really saying that the concept of Articles for Creation is flawed, or are they saying that the existing culture of the Articles for Creation reviewers is flawed because it is too demanding?
...the entire "new article creation" process is broken, with far too many (frankly crap) articles getting created (and many of these sneak through and never get deleted)
My view of AfC and the merger of AfC and NPP is that all new editors should be subjected to an AfC-like process and to face review before having their articles reaching mainspace for everyone to read.
In order to avoid misunderstanding and speculation, whether they are in favour of a merge or not, I think it would be helpful if anyone wishing to comment would take a moment to first read #FYI, ANI notice about AFC decline issue and user above, and also this recent ANI case of ovezealous draft rejection which is typical and not isolated, Orangemoody - the exponential force of which we are unable to cope with adequately, WP:ACTRIAL which proposed far more than just a change in user editing rights included a whole host of peripheral measures to encourage new users to do the right thing and not get bitten, but the Foundation refused to read them, and finally the thread at User talk:DGG#AFC redux which should really be enjoying a more central venue. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:54, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
My take is "some of all of the above." On one hand, I think we all agree that there is promotional, inappropriate and "incomprehensible crap" out there. We do need a process that includes CSD and NPP to deal with that. On the other hand, in response to your first query, I think that the problem isn't that the reviewers are "too demanding" as much as inconsistent and sometimes bitey. Frankly, I think a better way to filter out crap would be to have something like 30/500 for article creation in mainspace; people just have to learn to edit first, their call how and where. I know that would cause problems at places like editathons, but presumably facilitators with experience are there to help people move new articles from draft or sandbox space to mainspace. We have restrictions already, what-- 4 days? -- so that's already a barrier people who train are learning to address. Montanabw(talk)07:32, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
Montanabw, 30/500 would be nice but the WMF wouldn't even let us have 4/10. No, that will never happen. The WMF is too keen on the raw stats for page creations whether good or bad, so hat they have something to brag about. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:29, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
No Montanabw, there's no restriction on newly registered accounts creating articles, although there are many who seem to think there is. Restricting article creation to autoconfirmed (4 days/10 edits) was proposed as a trial years ago but never implemented. If only we had a "landing page" they saw before publishing their article, linking to very basic rules & regs, then whether or not they actually read it, at least we could say "Well you were told": Noyster (talk),10:22, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
Which was closed as being without substance, needing no admin action, and we were asked to move discussion here. Do NOT keep beating that drum, it has lost. And any attempts to keep beating it may be considered harassment. LaMona (talk) 15:58, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
Yet some valuable discussion took place under that subheading, which I think was what Kudpung referred to. Harassment would be attempting to censure said discussion. I think you might need a break, LaMona; I don't think I'm alone in appreciating your overly combative attitude of late. Being held to account by outside editors can be very stressful, but it doesn't justify unconstructive behaviour. FoCuScontribs; talk to me!17:18, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
Given that I have been unjustly accused (not "held to account" as it was all shown to be false, and that my behavior was within the norms of AfC), and that there are attacks on me in that discussion that are unfair and unwarranted, one might not be surprised that that is my focus. Should I want a whole nother group of eyes on a file that refers to me as "batshit crazy" and "unstable" (but without any caution of those who called me those names)? Can you wonder why I would object to this? Yes, there was good discussion, but it was also a vicious attack on me. If someone would like to bring the useful material from that discussion to this page, that would be a great idea. I don't need a break, I need more civility on Wikipedia. But don't worry, after this, I will indeed be going away. I had to step in when it looked like the same group was going to go after AfC itself. I happen to think it is not only useful, but vital. LaMona (talk) 20:36, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
Is it worth giving WP:ACTRIAL another shot? The WMF seems to have bigger churn than an industrial butter factory, and it's possible there will now be people who are more receptive to the idea, given we have far more information about the problems new editors run into, and also we should be able to produce some statistics on article quality, explaining that's where attention could be diverted over raw figures. I remain completely unhappy that new editors should have work deleted and as good as told to piss off when they have not been guided in any better direction. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)11:44, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
If the WMF won't develop the necessary software, is it possible to just use an edit filter and MediaWiki:Common.js? One can implement ACTRIAL using a simple edit filter, and it is possible to use JavaScript to override the page creation page to a landing page without affecting the loading time significantly as it could just refrain from executing the relevant code when not on a non-existent article. — Esquivalience (talk)14:44, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
It might well be worth giving ACTRIAL another shot. There was such a massive consensus, it wouldn't need re-debating, it would just need convincing the new crew at the WMF to throw the switch. All the templates were and UI messages were all created in readiness; the situation is certainly more acute now than it was 5 years ago. However, at the moment, nobody is saying that the WMF won't do anything. Let's not forget that there has recently been an almost 100% turnover in staff at all levels recently and by pure coincidence, those who are still there are those who had a more friendly ear back then but didn't have the clout in those days to change internal WMF politics. The fact is that as a direct result of something I stirred up at Esino, we are now working together on some ideas, most of which have been described in the recent threads here, at WT:NPP, and on DGG's talk page. The collaboration with the Foundation is on-going and we just need to be patient and and see what they come up with. That said, relations with the WMF were, are, and always will be delicate - they hold the purse strings on what our work brings in, and if we upset then by introducing our own controls that they might not like, or while thy have now agreed to take a fresh look, we'll lose the ground we've gained. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:50, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
For anyone who does not remeber, this was for a trial: a 6 month trial, followed by turning it off for 2 months , to see if it actually made a difference. I'm not sure we need the 2nd part if the first part works, but it is only for a trial, not permanently. DGG ( talk ) 20:47, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
Ymblanter, I would guard against stirring a a hornet's nest, I think we should wait and see the outcomes of the current discussions with them. Rest assured they are being put under enough pressure already and currently they are showing some good will. There are no rules that all negotiations need to be discussed on-Wiki, and we were very lucky to get get this statement from a former very senior emplyee which enabled us to precipitate the new round of discussions. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:13, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
PS: Anyone who believes they have a better rapport with he WMF and better chances of ending this years long saga of refusal to control the daily flood of junk into Wikipedia, is really, really welcome to do so, but they are most strongly advised to read this: very long and acrimonious report first It will take half an hour to read, but I think if people don't wish to read the current threads here and elsewhere, reading that Buzilla is the least anyone should invest before they possibly act out of sync with whats already been started now, 5 years later. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:20, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
Is is just me, or does WMF generally suffer from having no clue how the encyclopedia actually operates on a day to day basis? Montanabw(talk)22:20, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
WMF's understanding of the encyclopedia depends on the department, the staff who happens to be employed there, and the time period. For example, the software engineering department around 2010 leaned toward thinking that the WMF was a software company, with expensive projects that do not constitute an improvement like Flow and LiquidThreads, but mostly neglected the already-developed software that should really be in place, such as MathJax. But, concurring per the above, it seems like WMF software department's Wikipedia-IQ may be converging to a higher level than before. But it varies strongly, as WMF's HR department or whatever its equivalent is are willing to hire people inexperienced with Wikimedia projects (again, software company tendencies). — Esquivalience (talk)02:51, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Why are folks so surprised? Seems very evident that a decision was made that the changes would negatively effect the amount of monetary donations to the WMF. Doesn't matter if that decision was right or wrong. The folks making that decision depend on the donated money for their salary. Hence! -- 1Wiki8........................... (talk) 06:57, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
They have heaps of money on hand ($83 million), and salaries are only $26 million per annum, so even the worst of decisions for PR would not make a dent in the WMF payroll. And readers generally do not care about the WMF's spending or management, they just yield to the psychology of "top 10 website but resorting to vagrancy". Also, in the worst case, they could just beg that someone Carnegie-like would give them a huge cash infusion. — Esquivalience (talk)16:05, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
It is not a surprise that people think that AFC is now mandatory for new articles, as it is seemingly impossible to find out from sources on Wiki how to create a new article without using it. I've had a break of a few months from Wiki, came back with an idea for a new article, and now have no idea how to create a new page without going through AFC as I always just searched to see if the article was there and created it using the "not found what you were looking for? {link to create a page with that title}" functionality. There needs to be a link in the AFC page to just create a page with that title without going through AFC. FOARP (talk) 12:44, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
What AFC Really Is
Anyone comparing AFC to NPP is unaware of what AFC is today. A better comparison would be to the Teahouse. AFC is in many ways a Teahouse for new articles. Have you read the templates that users receive? You really must because they are much more than what users get at NPP. They are helpful; they attempt to explain the problem and to point users to help pages and policies. They invite users to the Teahouse and invite them to contact reviewers. And they do contact reviewers! - and it is almost always the first time that they discover talk pages. Reviewers often spend considerable time helping these new users learn how to create an article. It is a personal relationship with the editor. Some reviewers become co-editors on an article - look at the edits on some articles and you will see that. Turning AFC into a place where people learn how to create articles would be ideal. Making it possible for Teahouse responders to access the AFC-like templates would also be useful because with a single stroke they can give a user a list of useful sources. AFC reviewers work together; we get to know each other and know how to take an article to the next level. It's odd that I see none of my reviewer cohort commenting here. I assume that the attack on me has silenced them. But I am making this last effort to be an advocate for the work that is done here. I have seen new editors learn and grow, and go on to edit other articles. What I see as a useful division of labor (and some of that happens already) is for NPP to do a first pass, and to turn AfC into a place where users come specifically to get help on new articles. They could be in main space, not in draft - that really wouldn't make a difference. There are specific issues and specific teaching needs that those who frequent AfC know well. Again, if you are comparing it to NPP, you should spend some time here as a reviewer. You should also read the AfC templates, some of which might even be useful at NPP. You should read through the talk pages of some of the more active reviewers. LaMona (talk) 11:27, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
That's precisely why all of these venues need to be centralised. Why are we fragmenting the editing community? There's no reason why people submitting articles through AfC should get specialised tutoring while someone simply creating an article directly on mainspace does not. The tools need to be expanded and generalised throughout the article creation process. This will be beneficial for the encyclopaedia in the long run: editors will receive much needed feedback and reviewers will have a much easier job of improving new articles and keeping the cogs greased. At the same time, disruptive behaviour would be quite easily caught and cut at the root. I see no added benefit in having so many different resources working asynchronously (e.g. Huggle, STiki, AfC, NPP, Teahouse, Help desk, RPP, ARV, etc, etc) - this only leads to chaos and is ironically contrary to the goals set out when creating said resources in the first place. When does bureaucracy help? It's a waste of everyone's time and capacity; all our efforts should be directed to simplifying access and control to Wikipedia, not hindering it. Best, FoCuScontribs; talk to me!13:07, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
If "AFC is in many ways a Teahouse for new articles," it's a very toxic "teahouse" serving up bites of bitterness and holding new editors to an instant GAN standard. Talk about why our new editor ranks are tanking. FWIW, if anyone wants to learn to create new articles, the tools at WikiEdu and the links from those areas here for students are actually very good; we don't need to be duplicating efforts in multiple places. Montanabw(talk)15:43, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
This may not belong here, but I think the AfC process could be improved if you didn't have to run a script to review articles. I would review, if the script didn't eat huge amounts of my phone data (and I only have 3 gigabytes per month, and have to pay overage fees if I screw up and go over). People with slow server speeds probably can't run it either. Dropping the script might be a way to make it easier for qualified editors to review articles and cut down on the backlog.
And with regards to the main discussion, I don't think AfC needs to be totally scrapped. I do think it needs to be rewritten, and possibly made to be less stringent in some cases. Npp is a different thing, and I doubt a combination of the two would work. White Arabian FillyNeigh21:40, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
As I think was touched on above, we should make use of draft more in NPP. CSDs such as G3, G10 and G12 should still be instant deletions, but for the more controversial ones like A1, A3 and (especially) A7 and arguably G11, move to draft should be a suitable alternative. However, I'd still want to retain A7 for things like "luke is in year 11 he looks like justin bieber oh god i so fancy him lol" (although that particular example could come under G3). Ritchie333(talk)(cont)22:17, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
I think AfC is required, particularly because reviewers at AFC tend to devote more time and attention at reviewing an article. Editors receive valuable advice and may actually understand our policies and guidelines. In many cases, the editors have a COI (or have been paid) and are trying to follow process as laid out in WP:PAID. I want to encourage these editors who to comply with the process. You can contrast that with NPP where the article is gonna get tag bombed and maybe deleted quickly. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 06:44, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
Note that there is no "delete" at AFC. Drafts cannot be speedy deleted, and there's no delete option in the script. We work with users who may not have even read many WP articles, much less edited any, and sometimes we go through 6-8 iterations before the article is ready to be posted. I think this is less bitey than tagging and deleting. Also, there is discussion. Actual discussion with the users. That is important and people do learn. Yes, some get very frustrated because they are trying to create an article that isn't appropriate. That article probably would have been speedied at NPP and they would have had no idea why. This really is a kinder, gentler process. I thought that was the direction that Wikipedia was trying to go in, in order to create more diversity. LaMona (talk) 02:23, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
@LaMona: Why should the processes be separate then? Users will naturally gravitate to the at-first-glance easier process, which is creating an article directly and hoping for the best. This means that only a small percentage of new users will use AfC. And also, the five-minute deletion tagging argument against NPP is somewhat a strawman, as patrollers, save the ones who can't bother to gain several hundred mainspace edits, generally only tag articles if they are non-notable or garbage (e.g., pompous promotion, "subscribe to my YouTube channel", etc.). The reason that patrollers may seem harsh or tag-happy to AfC reviewers is because articles are created in mainspace, where garbage has to go to maintain Wikipedia's reputation, not in draftspace where content can be reviewed and suggestions can be made without the simultaneous worry of disrepute. If AfC is merged and its most fundamental parts integrated with NPP such that it uses the new technology that took years of nagging WMF developers to do (which allows the giving of feedback and includes a multitude of modern tools), along with the introduction of a right to keep new editors from patrolling, then our backlog would be reduced and the process will be improved on both sides. — Esquivalience (talk)15:59, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
This is a very important point. NPP and AfC are fundamentally different processes. NPP is a patrol, a filter; they want to find articles to delete and anything that scrapes by will do so with, at the most, a few cleanup tags. AfC's purpose is the creation of articles. Getting there is an iterative process and although that can be time-consuming for the reviewer and frustrating for the submitter it works well. Most accepted drafts go through at least 2-3 rounds of review, and I've seen some of them transformed from seemingly irredeemable rubbish into perfectly respectable articles. It pairs the editing skills of an experienced editor with the enthusiasm of a newcomer to see their hopelessly niche topic (to the eyes of the jaded reviewer) the coverage it deserves. The end result is better quality articles and new editors that have had a chance to learn to write articles through a positive mentoring experience, rather than the trial-by-fire of NPP, CSDs, PRODs and AfD. I don't see how the two processes can be integrated, short of something really drastic like requiring all new articles to go through drafts and an AfC-like peer review process. Joe Roe (talk) 00:47, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
The whole point is that NPP and AfC are not fudamentally different. Some of the actual differences have been acurately described above, but they cannot for a moment produce a credible argument of 'fundamental'. There is nothing at all to argue against merging the features of both systems, templates and all, dedicated reviewers and all, into using a central, combined interface. It would be a winn-winn solution for the control of new pages and that's what our goal is, not making enemies of AfC with it project protectionism and NPP that doesn't have a shred of collaboration between its patrollers, but combining the skills and areas of interest of both parties to ensure that our encyclopedia doesn't get an even worse reputation. The final hammer is the fact that NPP has over a thousand articles a day to deal with, if the patrollers stopped to mollycoddle every troll and spammer, there would be an even larger backlog than its 'paltry' 11,500. I remember the days when that backlog was nearer 70,000, but the articles in those days were less toxic, and more easy to identify as paid spam. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:27, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
Okay, if they're not fundamental, then how can the differences be reconciled? How would your combined interface manage to accommodate both the high-volume, trigger-happy troll filtering of NPP and the deliberate "mollycoddling" of AfC? I mean, a merge does sound good to me in theory, but I'm worried what would happen is that, by shear weight of numbers, former AfC volunteers will simply be conscripted into the NPP mentality and our valuable mentoring and content incubation functions would be lost. Joe Roe (talk) 15:22, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
Your valuable mentoring and content incubation functions would not be lost (remember, the Draft namespace was created partly on my initiative), the solution under discussion is a technical one, not a battle of wits with the AfC 'mentality'. In fact you would appreciate the easier and more thoughtful system than the current Helper Script (which has served us well - in the right hands) and it will better filter out the trolls (39 so far this year) who join this list (and the number of blocked accounts on it is staggering) - please read the rest of the threads and you'll probably find your answers, except perhaps for the necessary software code. You'll then understand the difference between merging, as opposed to closing one system down (which plenty of people are calling for) and forcing the workers to migrate from one system to another - which you know of course wouldn't work. That said, just because NPP doesn't have a vibrant social club like AfC (in fact patrollers don't communicate with each other at all - and that's half the problem), doesn't mean that NPP doesn't work at all, indeed complaints from creators are far lower there than at AfC. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 18:03, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
"Staggering?" I see one blocked account on the active participants list, Zpeopleheart, and one more, Musa Raza (who never reviewed a draft), on the inactive list. Year to date, about ten editors have added themselves, gotten blocked for something, and generally been promptly removed. --Worldbruce (talk) 20:30, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
Thank you Worldbruce. Please review the history again. I have blocked and removed at least two myself in the last two or three weeks and another was removed today. If my memory serves me right, around 39 names of inappropriate entries have been rejected so far this year, if not more - not including removals of inactive users. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:35, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
@Kudpung: I haven't kept up with the developments around the scope of extended-confirmed protection, but if the community has/does/will allow it, we could consider applying that protection level to the participant list. (Pretty sure the idea's been floated before, although I'm on mobile so it's a pain to track down the actual discussion.) I know the AfC reviewing criteria are actually stronger than mere extended-confirmed, but it might be a positive start nonetheless. /wiae/tlk18:29, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
@Kudpung: A blocked user is one that is being prevented from editing Wikipedia by an administrator-imposed block. If you are calling Snowycats a blocked user, then you are using the term to mean something it doesn't normally mean on Wikipedia, which is confusing. --Worldbruce (talk) 18:42, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
Yes. Thank you again Worldbruce, I think you do need to get up to speed. I am an admin you know, and have been for quite a while - I know all about blocking policy. I also introduced the Draft namespace and the current 90/500 threshold for reviewers. I really cannot see for a moment where I might have even hinted calling Snowycats a blocked user - I know full well he isn't because I've recently asked him to refrain from patrolling new pages as well until he gets some experience. I also launched the RfC to get the page full protected but it was defeated partly on the strawman argument of giving admins too much power. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 19:03, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
@Kudpung: To recap, you wrote "... this list (and the number of blocked accounts on it is staggering)". At the time there were two blocked users on the list, so in an aside I questioned the use of the word "staggering". It seemed like hyperbole that detracted from your argument. From your responses it became clear that what you meant by "blocked" in the original statement, in "I have blocked and removed at least two myself in the last two or three weeks and another was removed today", and in your use of Snowycats as an example is not what most Wikipedians understand "blocked" to mean. I think it would cause less misunderstanding, and thus potentially convince more readers, if you didn't overload the term, but I won't be offended if you don't take the advice. --Worldbruce (talk) 20:05, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
As it stand there is no link, or any explanation, as to how to create a new article on Wiki without going through AFC. I've come back to Wiki after a few months away and now have no idea how to create a new article wihtout putting it through AFC (which i had been vaguely aware of as an alternative to creating the article yourself but had never used) - I always just search for the topic I was thinking about writing and then used the old link to create an article with that title. As it stand, it now looks like AFC is mandatory and the only route to creating new articles, which I understand it isn't. The AFC page should be updated to include at least minimal information on how to create pages without going through AFC FOARP (talk) 12:54, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
Hi FOARP. You are an extended confirmed user which means that you can simply create the article directly and can bypass AfC completely. You can go to Wikipedia:Article wizard/Ready for submission and use the second option. Or simply create a red link Article name, add your text and click save. Alternatively, you can create it as a draft, and then move it into article space when you are ready. To do that create a red link Draft:Article name, add your text and click save. Be aware, though, that new articles appearing directly in main space are quickly patrolled, and if it doesn't indicate the significance/notability of the subject, supported by at least two independent reliable sources, it will probably be tagged for deletion. There's a fuller explanation for students that I have mentored over the years here. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 13:19, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
Kudpung and all, apart from the meta-problem with the WMF (which may take quite a while to sort out, if ever), there is one simple step that could be taken now.
Explain clearly on the initial landing page of Wikipedia:Article wizard that autoconfirmed users are not required to use it for creating articles.
Explain that autoconfirmed users are not required to use it to create their own draft
Explain that they are not required to submit their draft for AfC review, but can move it to mainspace themselves when they're ready
Provide alternative instructions for 1. – 3. on how to bypass the Wizard like the ones I outlined above
Editors are frequently directed to the Article Wizard from various help pages, and this misinformation/confusion needs to be cleared up. Its current set-up confuses even relatively experienced editors like FOARP. Many times I've accepted AfC drafts from autoconfirmed and often relatively experienced editors which had been rejected by reviewers who lacked the specialist knowledge to assess them adequately. I then tell the editors of the drafts I've accepted that in future, they can and should skip the Wizard/AfC process. The usual reaction is "Oh, I didn't know I could do that." Voceditenore (talk) 10:41, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
The heading should actually be "How to NOT use AFC". It would indeed help reduce the backlog if we can avoid having to review obviously competently written drafts. BTW we really need to work on recruiting more subject specialist reviewers. Many attempts to implement a draft sorting and tagging system have come to nothing. Hardly any WikiProjects actually use the "class=Draft" parameter in their project templates and very few drafts are actually tagged as such anyway. A proposal based on the existing Stub sorting system has also been ignored. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:33, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
I really don't agree with this advice. It's Articles for Creation, not Stubs for Creation, or List of Sources on Notable Topics for Creation. We shouldn't even really be declining drafts for lack of sources, as long as the subject is notable and the information is verifiable in principle, because that's not a valid rationale for deletion. Joe Roe (talk) 14:25, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
@Joe Roe: I don't think you're considering that the essay is for new editors. Too often new editors start editing because of a bias and they create drafts on subjects because these new editors are subjectively convinced of their subject's notability against guideline. If a draft doesn't show me independent reliable sources I'm not looking for them. I agree with this essay because new editors need to focus less on wordsmithing and more on providing sources. Wikipedia as a propaganda platform attracts writers that are more concerned with the words they want the audience to read rather than the citations that I suspect most readers don't even notice, let alone check. Also, what does "the information is verifiable in principle" mean? I absolutely !vote delete at AfD regardless of the concept that sources might exist even though we can't find them. Chris Troutman (talk)17:01, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
It's based on the principle that a well sourced stub is superior to a thousand words of improperly sourced or unsourced blather and puffery. BTW a stub is a legitimate article. There's nothing wrong with creating stubs as long as they meet the minimum standards of WP:N and WP:V. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 17:34, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
Stubs are great. I love stubs. But longer articles that need the fat trimming or more inline citations, but are otherwise accurate, are equally good starting points on the path to a good article. My concern is that by advising AfC submitters that they should only be writing stubs, we are further discouraging new content contributors who are doing the right thing and seeking peer review, when they're already held to massively higher standards than they would be if they simply created a page in mainspace.
@Chris troutman: "Verifiable in principle" referring to the widespread misconception that verifiability means a little superscript number after every sentence. The sources should exist, of course, but it is not actually the contributors responsibility to provide them – at least not until challenged. Similarly, while I understand that given the volume of submissions we get at AfC that in practice reviewers can't be expected to chase down references, technically there is no requirement that articles or drafts cite sources that show notability, only that they exist (WP:NEXIST). Joe Roe (talk) 19:02, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
(edit conflict) @Joe Roe: Maybe we have a philosophical difference but I'd say as reviewers we can see statements that "are likely to be challenged" and should therefore anticipate the need for a "little superscript number." Your statement that "there is no requirement that articles or drafts cite sources that show notability, only that they exist" does not agree with either WP:WHYCITE or WP:UNSOURCED, the latter of which is policy. I also challenge your assertion that AfC submitters are "already held to massively higher standards" compared to other editors; WP:NPP should be doing for those new articles what we're doing for drafts with the exception that we can help improve and nurture drafts. I am displeased with a general trend of finding unsatisfactorily-sourced articles showing up at AfD with their survival hanging on the willingness of keep editors improving the article to make a case for notability that should have been made from the start. Wikipedia, as a whole, is suffering from too much WP:AGF because nobody wants to say "no" and stop our collective pouring of effort down a drain. Chris Troutman (talk)19:24, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
@Chris troutman:WP:WHYCITE and WP:UNSOURCED both relate to verifiability. Sources are required to be cited for verifiability, sources are simply required to exist for notability (again, see WP:NEXIST). As for high standards at AfC, there has been much discussion of this recently and I don't think I'm at all alone in thinking there's a double standard. But you only really have to look at the NPP queue (and it's 13,000+ backlog) to see that NPP is not nearly as fine a filter as AfC.
Don't get me wrong, I've always been of the opinion that AfC should hold submissions to a slightly higher standard than "would survive an AfD" and have been reviewing that way for years. I also share your frustration with the amount of crap that's slipping through the net these days and think we should be a lot better at saying no. I just don't agree with this particular essay's solution. It makes AfC into even more of a game of "find the sources" and draws attention away from writing good articles, which is what we ought to be cultivating in new editors. I would prefer to tighten up notability standards across the board and do a better job of conveying to new users that Wikipedia is not a promotional vehicle before they write a draft. Joe Roe (talk) 22:17, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
There's another essay that's been around a little longer called Wikipedia:Amnesia test, which I think addresses this topic too. It does not even encourage users to start with a stub, but rather it advises users to forget everything that they already know about a subject and start researching as if they know nothing. From the sources that the user found, and only the sources that the user found, they are encouraged to write an article. But if they find that there are few or no sources to use, the subject may not be notable. I think it's a great way to approach notability for new users. Mz7 (talk) 19:17, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
Most of the articles I've written have actually been about topics I really knew nothing about before I started my draft. A very easy way to get into this "mode" of writing is to trawl through animal or plant genus articles, which generally contain a comprehensive list of all the known species in that genus. Pick a redlink off the list, feed the name into Google Scholar and you will almost always get enough material to begin at least a good stub. Notability is not a problem because for a species "proof of existence" normally comes in the form of at least one scientific journal article. The IUCN's databases are very good for sorting out any possible name problems. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:17, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
I think this is a useful essay. Authors are often surprised to learn how critical reference are and that the stronger submission is often the shorter one. This last point is not covered in Wikipedia:Amnesia test. I don't think it is useful to debate whether this essay advocates creating stubs and whether that is a good things or bad thing. At AfC we review whatever we receive and accept submissions that are unlikely to be deleted - could be anything from a stub to a feature article. If the advice results in short articles with 2-3 strong references, the submissions would be head and shoulders above most of the stubs already in the encyclopedia. ~Kvng (talk) 17:37, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
Stubs for Creation
While it may have been mentioned above in jest, the idea of a Stubs for creation (SFC) wikiproject is something I would totally support! Not as a replacement or competition to AFC, but simply as a more structured alternative/sub-project. SFC would concentrate strongly on showing notability, and strongly discourage excessive prose in the drafting stage. Thoughtfully considering it... -- 1Wiki8........................... (talk) 18:03, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
Is it correct that an editor may not move an AFC page from draft space into article space, but must wait for a reviewer? I thought that I knew the answer, which was that anyone can move almost anything into article space. However, a draft was moved into article space by its author, and then someone whom I think was an admin moved it back into draft space, saying that the editor should have waited for a reviewer. I know that editors are always advised to wait for a reviewer, but is there actually a rule against an author moving the page into article space themselves? Robert McClenon (talk) 01:41, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
I certainly don't remember there ever being a policy against such a thing. It's possible the admin considered the move nicer and less bitey than speedy deletion. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:54, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
@GXXF: You do not yet meet the AfC reviewing criteria, which you can view at WP:WPAFC/P. You are welcome to join the project once you meet all four criteria. Thanks, /wiae/tlk18:34, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
Would some auto-generated reports help with backlog triage?
Hi all, I'm new to AfC and am looking for different ways to help out. I have some experience writing bots and database reports. After poking around AfC yesterday I thought there might be an opportunity for me to put that to use here and help other reviewers. For example, the category structure organizes AfC drafts by submission date, let's you see which ones are pending review, which ones have been declined, etc. Would a sortable list that contains other kinds of information also be useful? I'm thinking of something like they have at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard. For example, we could display:
When the draft was created
How many times a draft has been declined, when and by whom
The reason it was declined
Whether the draft creator has made any edits to the draft since it was last declined
We obviously couldn't list all 1000+ drafts in a single table, but perhaps this could help people keep tabs on the most recently active drafts.
It also looks like project has a few tools that help reviewers track project-level stats. The AfC status template tracks the current size of the backlog, and the AfC helper script maintains a little feed that displays the ten most recent AfC drafts. Would it be useful to have other stats about the project? For example:
number of drafts submitted/accepted/declined this month
a list of currently active reviewers
These are just examples; I'm happy to hear peoples' ideas for other auto-generated reports or bot tasks that could be useful, or to just focus on helping bring down the backlog the old-fashioned way :) Cheers, J-Mo02:20, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
User:Jtmorgan Statistics I'm interested in are the number of declines per each decline reason, a daily report if feasible, otherwise weekly. This is to see what problems are the most common in submitted drafts and then try to find ways to reduce them even before the author hits the submit button. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:40, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
Dodger67 I ran those numbers for you for the past 30 days and posted the results in my sandbox. The first 25 or so reasons look like stock 'decline' messages. The other ~70 are custom messages. You can get fresh data any time you want by 'forking' and re-running the query yourself. Instructions are on the query page. Note that speed and simplicity's sake, I only counted declines of articles in the Drafts namespace, and only for the past 30 days. If you think it would be useful, I can also run it over all past AfC declines, at least all declines that have occurred since AFCH has used these 'stock' edit comments. And I can include more namespaces, if you'll let me know which namespaces other than Draft: AfC drafts are generally stored in (User: and Wikipedia_talk? Anything else?). Any other quick stats you want in the near future, to get a sense of where we're at with AfC, let me know! Cheers, J-Mo23:42, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks Jtmorgan, a 30 day sample is very good. There's just one significant part that's missing, drafts that are declined in userspace (user sandboxes). These are mostly those that are not even worth moving to draftspace for further work. These are the ones that we could actually try to eliminate even before they get submitted. Another question, is it possible to count drafts that were declined and deleted, such as copyvios or hoaxes? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 05:28, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
Hi Dodger67, I wrote a new query for counts in "User" namespace. I also wrote a new query that counts all deleted pages in the "Drafts" namespace over the past 30 days, grouped by reason given for deletion. The edit comments in the deletion log are a lot less standardized, and not always particularly descriptive, but I count only 13 drafts deleted for copyvio reasons and 27 deleted as hoaxes—fewer than I expected. Running this query in the "User" namespace as well would probably take a long time, and there would be a lot more noise in the data, because user pages are deleted for many more reasons than "Draft" pages. But I could give it a try. J-Mo23:04, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
Query on AfC and NewArticleAFDTagger
From time to time, articles go through a sequence of AfD deletion, then an accepted AfC draft, then back to AfD. Looking at one such today, I notice that the AnomieBOT NewArticleAFDTagger does not act on an accepted AfC draft. Should it? Or is a completed AfC process assumed to have "washed clean" the prior notability issues?
Moving a step further back in the process, it also occurs to me that an adapted version of that BOT could help bind together AfD and AfC processes, if it was to be run against each new Draft:xxx article when it is created, adding the Old AfD multi box to Draft talk:xxx to assist reviewers by informing them of past discussion(s). AllyD (talk) 10:05, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
I can't comment on your second observation/proposal; your first claim is indeed valid. I had no awareness of this bot's existence. After reading it's purpose, "Add[ing] {{old AfD multi}} to the talk pages of new articles that have previously appeared at WP:AFD", the bot should be doing just that, regardless of the article's origin. I'm sure this is unintended, and I suggest you contact those responsible for the bot directly. AfC does not wash anything clean, and if an article has gone through one or several AfD discussions, the reviewer or any passing editor for that matter should have that information available to them. Best, FoCuScontribs; talk to me!21:39, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
I'm not 100% sure from its description what AnomieBOT NewArticleAFDTagger is supposed to do regarding accepted AfC submissions but it may be worth noting that all AfC drafts moved to mainspace are subjected to a further review by Page Curators and that the WMF development team has been asked to incorporate a feature in the special:New Pages Feed that highlights any pages that have previously been deleted or tagged for deletion.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:20, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
Can we temporarily stop submissions?
Is it possible to change the code that executes when a user clicks "Submit" so that it does not actually add the draft to the review stack but intead pops up a message explaining that "due to the severe backlog we are temporarily unable to add any drafts to the review queue, please try again in 24 hours". A few days of no incoming drafts would give us an opportunity to get rid of the backlog. We can return to normal operation as soon as the queue is down to between 200-300 and there are no pending reviews older than two weeks. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 19:53, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
This is ironically excellent news. It proves, just like at NPP, that it is absolutely time that the WMF understood the urgent need to complete the new landing page they started 5 years ago. I don't think it's necessary to to do what you suggest. I would just let the backlog build up. The incoming draft that you would like held up will still arrive sooner or later. Hard-line traditionalists would argue of course that to hold up new submissions conflicts with founding policy, which of course is absolutely not true for IPs at least, but registered users currently have a 'constitutional' right to publish instantly until we roll out ACTRIAL. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:24, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
But, what about our good faith contributors who are not getting the AFC service "as adverised"? It's unfair to make so many of them wait up to a month for a review. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 12:14, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
But at best stopping reviews would make good faith contributors wait even longer, at worse put them off submitting altogether. We're a volunteer project, if we don't have enough volunteers then there's going to be a backlog, full stop. There's no way around it. Joe Roe (talk) 13:24, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
We may as well let it add, so that reviewers get a bigger choice on what to work on. Instead of discussing here, I could be reviewing another page though! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:55, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
If we stop accepting AFC submissions due to the backlog, all that it will do is to increase the total time that the author is waiting, because, when we start accepting submissions again, there will still be a backlog, just a long one rather than a very long one. I certainly don't see the point to stopping taking submissions, and disagree. Also, non-good-faith contributors would start submitting into article space, where we also have a backlog at NPP, and a backlog at NPP is worse. I see why the OP is proposing this, but I simply disagree. Robert McClenon (talk) 13:23, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
There's two things happening here: first there's perhaps an expectation on the part of these contributors that their draft will seen promptly. We ought to warn them the process is slowing more than usual. Second, there's Wikipedian concern when the backlog grows. We created the scary warning to push more editors to work the backlog. As for me, I'm pretty disenchanted with the promotional garbage that continually flows in from drive-by editors just wanting "their article" to be published. Everyone just needs to lower their expectations. Chris Troutman (talk)14:13, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
An official WMF programme is looking into the issues of reviewing across all Wikipedias. An English Wikipedia team has been created to help the WMF focus their research and development on the more critical needs of the en.Wiki for reviewing new pages and reducing the flux of totally inappropriate articles. While it is unlikely that the Foundation will invest in AfC which is a purely volunteer driven local initiative, they are being asked to include some of the features of AfC into a revamp of the WP:Page Curation toolbar which is a extension designed as part of the MediaWiki core software. Some of our concerns are already being addressed by the developers.
However, from what I understand, THe Foundation CEO is not particularly warm to the idea of anything that may put the brakes on any kind of creations, (including the WP:ACTRIAL initiative which might therefore now be implemented by the en.Wiki community using local scripts). So while temporarily refusing AfC submissions will not ultimately reduce the number of creations to be reviewed, it might send an additional message to the Foundation that a proper Landing Page for new users is urgently required, and that such an excellent programme developed bu former WMF devs has existed for 4 years and just needs to be completed and rolled out.
As I mentioned to Kudpung, the Community Tech team will be accepting new project proposals at the 2016 Community Wishlist Survey beginning November 7th. If there are any specific ways that we can help with AfC, please create a proposal for it at the survey and encourage others to vote for it. As you can see from our latest status report, we are serious about addressing community requests. We just need the community's help to figure out which needs are the highest priority. Also, a couple clarifications: I don't believe Katherine has said anything about AfC or Drafts, she just expressed concern that a new ACTRIAL would discourage new editors (and she hasn't said anything about ACTRIAL in an official capacity). Also, the Collaboration Team is the team working on Edit Review Improvements, not Community Tech. Sorry for any confusion. Kaldari (talk) 04:09, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Shearonink (talk) 20:23, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
It's time again.
I highly believe that a backlog drive is needed (Even though we haven't had one in two years.) They have been proven to work, and it may be very fun to some editors to compete with each other and still help. I haven't seen backlogs like this ever in the time I've been on (I've been only on this site for about 9 months.) If a backlog drive was to come to fruition, I will try my best to wipe out all the AFCs.— JJBers Public (talk) 16:18, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
Rally on AFC reviewers!Hmm, I have to agree with what Kudpung says here. Backlog drives tend to reduce quality and I personally do not want to compromise on quality. Btw, sometimes even a short comment (as opposed to a decline/accept is helpful for the article creator. I try to at least leave some comments so that the creator doesn't think we are ignoring them. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 19:51, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
Bad reviews, which we know from hard experience increase massively during backlog drives, cost us too many potential good editors. By the time re-reviews happen the damage is already done. The actual point of re-reviews is to get bad reviewers removed, but it happens too late for all the bitten newbies. You've never even seen a backlog drive, so how on earth did you form your opinion about them? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 19:54, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
Lemongirl942, I don't think we need to work harder. We are all volunteers here (something which not only the WMF conveniently forgets, but also some of our own Arbcom members who treat us as a corporate workforce), and we all do what we can, if we can, and when we can.
We could (and probably should) however, perhaps work harder to convince the WMF that these issues have now goen too far to be simply resolved by scripts made by unpaid volunteers. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:46, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
I would be in favor of a backlog drive if we screened reviewers before the start. We could have editors sign up and then peer-review each other to ensure we don't have any runaway foul-ups like last time. Chris Troutman (talk)02:01, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
Yeah, I agree. I would prefer slightly lower quality reviews over reviews that happen months and months after the draft was submitted, at which point there's a good chance that the creator has lost interest in Wikipedia. Omni Flames (talk)01:15, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
I agree strongly with this comment, and with the original reason for opening the thread. 1205 pending, while not as high as the dark days of 3K, isn't that good, and a backlog drive would be really helpful with tackling that problem. Enterprisey (talk!) 00:08, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
I'm afraid your arithmetic is faulty, Kvng. "Very old" is defined as more than 28 days. There have been, and still are, many drafts in the "Three weeks" and "Four weeks" categories, which by definition means they have indeed waited for more than twenty days. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 19:46, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
The majority of submissions still get seen to in three weeks or less, but under "normal" conditions the wait hardly ever exceeds 3 weeks. A histogram plotting review numbers by wait time should be quite interesting. My gut-feel is that many are reviewed within the first two or three days and then it tapers off quite sharply with perhaps a second peak in the two-week area. Is there a statistician in the house? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:15, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
Hello. I wanted to let you all know that, as of a couple of hours ago, there is a new user right available: the "New page reviewers" flag is now able to be applied for at WP:PERM/NPR. This permission is directly tied to New Page Patrolling. Note that, in the coming days or weeks, the (patrol) flag will be removed from other usergroups (excluding administrators) as a result of the creation of this new usergroup. As the New Page Patrol Tutorial notes, it is highly desirable that AfC reviewers apply for this new user right, as they already have some expertise in what to look for when reviewing new articles. Again, you can apply at WP:PERM/NPR for the user right. Guidelines for administrators to follow when granting the permission can be found at Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Reviewers, though it is ultimately up to the administrator to decide if a user will be granted the right. —Gestrid (talk)00:19, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
@FoCuSandLeArN: The (patrol) right has yet to be removed from other user rights groups (autoconfirmed, etc.). (Admins will keep the right when it's removed from other groups, similar to how other permissions requested at WP:PERM work.) This was done on purpose to ease the transition and give people time to apply and get approved before the (patrol) right was removed from everyone else. It appears the removal may happen on Wednesday or Thursday at this point. Also, no AfC reviewer has to apply. It's just an added bonus for them and New Page Reviewers (formerly New Page Patrollers) because, when you approve a draft and move it into article space, that ends up in the NPR queue. The added bonus comes when you as AfC reviewers can go ahead and mark the page as reviewed because it passed the AfC process. —Gestrid (talk)04:33, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
As I read WP:NPR, it looks like many of us at AfC will be grandfathered in and no application will be necessary. I guess we'll know for sure when (patrol) is taken away. Chris Troutman (talk)04:50, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Although the new user right doesn't come as a surprise (there have recently been two major RfCs), I would like to thank Gestrid for their initiative withe above posts, pre-empting one of our next postings and relieving us of some messaging.
Yes, the process is being rolled out by the Foundation devs in stages in order to ensure sufficient overlap to avoid a break in the NPP system where a huge backlog has been building up over the pas few weeks.
AfC reviewers will not be grandfathered en-bloc into the new right because there us still too much controversy over the quality of AfC reviewing and people trying to game the system at the user list. However, as the rights criteria for NPR are the same as for AfC, any uncontroversial experience at AfC reviewing would of course be a huge bonus not only when applying for New Page Reviewer, but then when also doing the reviewing. An added tidbit for AfCers is that they will also soon be able to do AfC directly from the New Pages Feed where new drafts will also appear, using AfC Helper Script-style features of the Page Curation menu. Stay tuned. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:08, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Hmm. Maybe I should apply as a mass-message sender, too. (Just kidding.) Anyway, some of you may want to read through some of the discussions currently taking place on WT:PERM. They give some insight into what's happened/happening/going to happen. —Gestrid (talk)05:29, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Gestrid, The discussion at WT:PERM is largely about the complex technicalities of deploying a new user right - which is what it's supposed to be. There is a page for Reviewers at WP:NPR which provides all the information anyone (and Chris with all the details neatly laid out, and discussion is welcome on its talk page. All former patrollers are going to be notified yet again by mass message when the process is complete, because it also involves some complicate restructuring of various categories.. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:43, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
accept page when page already exists
I'd like to accept a page (Draft:Exchange Bank of Canada) but a page of that name already exists in article space (the page in article space is a redirect to a list of banks which includes Exchange Bank of Canada. I'm guessing that I could put a db-move tag on the redirect page, but I wanted to check that is the right thing to do. Smmurphy(Talk)16:07, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
An editor has created multiple draft templates in their user space with names beginning Template:. I think that this is a good-faith error on the part of the template creator. Should we review templates via AFC, or should the editor simply move them into template space? Robert McClenon (talk) 02:01, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
I would prefer taking a look at them before they go live. I've had too much experience lately with editors feeling they can/should just create whatever template they feel like with no thought or rationale. Granted, I've accepted almost all of the template I've seen come through the AFC process, but I've also TFD'd more than my share of straight-into-template-space templates. Primefac (talk) 02:03, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
Okay. Since there is a category for the purpose, in the future, I will try to remember to move the templates into the appropriate category. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:19, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
And to make it easier for newcomers to find the talk page I could propose to alter the edit notice (it has the " Find sources: "Bharti AXA Life Insurance" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · HighBeam · JSTOR · free images · free news sources · The Wikipedia Library · NYT · WP reference " set of URLs right now above the edit box in draft namespace — I forget which file the edit notice is stored in, sorry) to have an extra line at the top about the talk tab, maybe with a picture. --Gryllida (talk) 09:14, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
For that to happen the AFCH script would need to be radically changed, many templates would have to be edited too. AFC Review comments are of no lasting significance once a draft has been accepted, adding them to the "permanent record" of the article talk page serves no useful purpose. However there is a current project to radically reform AFC and NPP, to basically combine them into a new workflow that will apply to all new pages, so making complex changes now to how AFC works is rather pointless when the entire system is to be replaced soon. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:36, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
Roger (Dodger67)I was told page curation doesn't do AfC. It makes the process frustrating. What is the "a current project to radically reform AFC and NPP" exactly? What is the new tool we are supposed to file bug reports and wishlist items to, and where do we do that? I had spent about five minutes reading the page, and this silly simple stupid question is not answered there in a form which is easy to consume. --Gryllida (talk) 00:28, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
Here are two pictures to illustrate what I am proposing:
I disagree. First, the two discussions mention scant reviewer usage of draft talk. There's no consensus for what you propose. Second, using draft talk isn't the norm and I don't know why it's happening. I get the impression many of the submitters are illiterate so moving your comments into a separate page doesn't seem helpful. I doubt even 1% of non-editing readers even know what a talk page is. What should happen in my opinion is using the AFCH tool like everyone else so comments go on the draft with a notification on the submitter's talk page. If this system isn't working now, making it more complicated won't help. Chris Troutman (talk)01:31, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
It is my opinion that
Draft authors have a need to talk with the reviewer(s) to better understand the review comments.
Draft authors' talk pages is a bad place for such discussion to happen. (to make reviewing and collaboration easier)
Draft itself is a bad place, reviewers add comments but draft authors have difficulties responding and often don't respond.
I would like us to test on a small subset, while carefully monitoring it, how the authors react to the talk page facility (which is normally better equipped for communication). This requires reviewer script to be updated, as requested. Additionally, the newcomers need to be made aware of the fact that the talk page exists. Initially this can be done by leaving them a talk page message for the small subset whom we are testing on; when moving to a large scale, the edit notice can be altered for the banner to be visible for all draft authors.
(ec) Strongly agree. AfC is broken (never worked). Something different has to be tried. A car moving forward in jumps on ignition, but without the engine starting and delivering power, does not count as "working". I think the big problem is that AfC users don't converse, not with reviewers, not with anyone. I have noted that "tendentiously resubmited" drafts look like crude attempts at communication. Reviewers says "there are these problems...". The author does stuff and resubmits, as if they are saying, "OK, here is my response to that, that better?" Reviewer comments belong on the talk page, because they are "talk" not content, and because they should be able to flow into conversation. On the top of the draft article in heavy formatting that is confronting in the edit window, they present an undesirable barrier to the newcomer. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:47, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
I regularly attend edit-a-thons. I have seen cases where new editors are editing, I deliberately leave a message on their talk page, and then get up an walk over to them, and I see from over their shoulder the red Echo notification is on and the link for their talk page is highlighted and they totally ignore it. This doesn't happen every time but it happens too often. We need to bring the Orange Bar of Doom back if we're serious about getting editors' attention. Most editors don't know they have a talk page or a watchlist so expecting them to read a talk page other than their own seems unrealistic. I cannot emphasize enough what a fool's errand it is to attempt to work with these editors. (I also support blocking all IPs from editing, entirely.) Chris Troutman (talk)02:00, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
Yes, bring the Orange Bar of Doom, by default, allowing users to opt out after they understand things. A little red mark is extremely subtle for a newcomer, considering that most internet interfaces are overloaded with bight flashing clickbait.
For me personally banners flowing in my face are annoying. To make the talk page easier to notice, we could also place a banner at the article top once, like the merge banner. This would make the review comments easier for people to locate any time they open the draft again. Like this:
This article is under development; view and discuss the review comments on the talk page.
My experience has been a bit different than what is being reported here. In cases where discussion/collaboration with the article creator seems appropriate, I simply open up a section on the draft's Talk page (which usually means creating the Talk page), and then pinging the article creator. I also leave a note on the draft (via the script) reporting that comments have been left on the Talk page. Perhaps I've been blessed with a particularly intelligent bunch of new editors, but I've yet to see a case where the article creator didn't find their way to my comments on the draft's Talk page. NewYorkActuary (talk) 04:27, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
I think it is less likely that you have been lucky, more likely that the initiation of a conversation on the talk page, with ping and draftpage note, is critically important. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:56, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
So we have options
reviewer leaves comments on draft talk, and
a) each time the reviewer puts "please read my comments on talk page" banner at article top (illustrated above, pretty easy to see the clickable link)
b) once we put a talk page tab picture in the edit notice (illustrated above)
c) each time the reviewer pings the draft author at the draft talk (they often ignore the notifications)
d) each time the reviewer messages the draft author on user talk, linking them to the draft talk and explaining how to reach it (by URL, by explaining where to find banner, by picture of talk page tab, by ping, or combination of all of the above) (they often ignore the notifications)
d.1) bring back orange bar of doom
d.2) or ignore it, if the draft author is interested he will visit the draft again in a few days
Some of us said that there's no need to immortalize the draft talk when publishing the draft - just blank the talk page if this discussion is not interesting (for me personally it is as interesting as an early draft discussion were the draft created in main namespace and I do not want to blank draft talk pages when publishing them).
reviewer leaves review comments on draft
Draft authors reply on reviewers' talk pages. This is hard to find for a next reviewer, and n my personal view it is hard for newcomer to keep track of these discussions too! (I appreciate that the talking happens, just scattered and not easy to follow up by reviewers or draft author — I am not saying the collaboration doesn't happen at all.)
I apologize for not attempting to produce a list like this at the beginning. If we find which way is better or if we wish to try them all, the next step is writing software and doing a small carefully monitored transition by a limited number of volunteer reviewers to see how the newcomers would react, while carefully taking notes. I am grateful to the discussion and opinions and suggestions shared thus far and would like to see if we can get a consensus and move forward. --Gryllida (talk) 00:47, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
By the time these proposed changes get done the entire AFC system will probably be replaced anyway. There is no point in making complex changes to the current AFC system as it's going to be entirely replaced anyway. Instead of wasting time and energy here, rather get involved in the process of designing the new system at Wikipedia:The future of NPP and AfC. Kudpung, please help explain what's really going on. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 10:53, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
I'm fully in favour of merging AfC and NPP but I think it's rather presumptuous to talk about it like it's a foregone conclusion when, as far as I know, there aren't even any solid plans at WP:NPPAFC, never mind any sort of consensus to proceed with them. We have no idea when this merge will happen, or if it will materialise at all. In the meantime, we have to keep AfC ticking along, so maybe hold off on shutting down discussion of possible improvements? Joe Roe (talk) 18:34, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
I can't comment without embarrassing some users with little experience who attempt to redesign the Wiki while others with the best understanding realise that change is necessary. Progress comes slowly on Wikipedia due to its own imperfect system of convincing less knowledgeable users how important and necessary such organic changes actually are. Coupled with that is the Foundation's proven inability to respond properly to key issues while spending thousands of dollars developing gadgets that we don't need and on the notifications system which is now reduced to a confusing mess of multiple microscopic icons and lists that are slow to load ,- the old orange bar of doom worked perfectly for me.
In the meantime, the encyclopedia is getting full of hundreds of thousands of rubbish articles, COPYVIO, hoaxes, and paid spam, let through by poorly performing systems of control, and hundreds of potential good faith editors scared away for good by not having been properly informed in the first place of what they can and cannot write here.
Without wanting to belittle the work of the serious, competent AfC operatives, the needs for software, the physical work, and the levels of competency for both AfC and NPP are near identical. Where they differ fundamentally however, is that AfC, although a bonus for those who can't publish directly in mainspace, is is a small local project, while NPP is a vital and essential core process and as such is one which was desiged by and has the support of the WMF and MediaWiki. In contrast to AfC, NPP however, despite its crucial necessity as the only firewall against unwanted conten has allowed all and sundry to review , pass or mark articles for deletion without needing to demonstrate the slightest modicum of knowledge or competency.
The high frequency of necessary reverts on this AfC page in spite of the qualifications I suggested and got consensus for, demonstrate once again that maintenance work is a magnet to younger and/or inexperienced users, while manyothers appear to be concerned more about how changes affect them personally rather than for the good of Wikipedia as a whole.
For several years now, many established editors have been suggesting that AfC be scrapped. Radical change, yes, but its total abolishment may however not be entirely the solution that one team is working towards. Anyone who is seriously concerned and who can be genuinely actively engaged, and who like Roger and Chris can contribute with solid experience should consider joining the project at WP:NPPAFC where the first steps towards some objective reforms and improvements are being discussed - collaboratively - and in a dedicated venue. They will then be left in little doubt as to what is going on, and can be part of an active team that is going to formulate and make the right things happen. Such work groups are the traditional Wikipedia venues for progress and where thinking outside the box is welcome, but where dissent should be kept for the more public RfCs when the team finally presents its proposals for debate.
There have been changes now, the Foundation is also working on many necessary updates to the Page Curation software, more have been requested in several sections of the current WMF survey, and more policy changes are probably in the making. One of two things is inevitable though: either NPP and AfC will be brought under one roof combining the best of both systems and their volunteers, or WP:ACTRIAL with its massive consensus (one of the largest ever in the history of Wikipedia) will simply be enacted locally without the interference of the Foundation, and then most of the work of AfC and NPP will become redundant anyway.
I would politely and in the friedlest manner possible, suggest to Gryllida, that users worried about changes are going to need to invest far more than a five minute glance through WP:NPPAFC and all its linked pages and essential reading list before they can grasp what is going on, and when they do, they'll find that all their 'silly simple stupid' questions have been answered. They may also find that a little more work on Wikipedia will also help to fill more gaps in what they might still possibly be finding a bit confusing. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 19:36, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
Sorry; alas, I have a poor reaction to being proven wrong on two counts, and then given new information without being pointed to its role in the discussion — this happened when Roger (Dodger67) pointed me at wrongness of the idea and wrongness of the place to file the bug report to and also introduced the AFCNPP entity into the game, and it was a challenging moment. Roger having mentioned that 'work team can read and process this idea for their plans moving forward' would have helped. I of course can't expect people always be so verbose and it is probably not even the best thing for them to do; I need to work on my reactions and on my interest in grasping the whole picture. Thanks for bringing some of the context here and for inviting more people to the discussion. --Gryllida (talk) 21:49, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
It has come to my head that talk pages have the advantage of WikiProject tags, {{WikiProject Games}} for example (others here), being placeable there; I don't think they can be placed on the Draft page itself without making the header look enormous. --Gryllida (talk) 02:29, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
Thank you, Wiae; I agree that's already doable, and I am in the process of scripting a convenient tool to also do that. Something like User:Kephir/gadgets/rater, but with several extra buttons to make the process more straightforward. --Gryllida (talk) 03:41, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
The rest of the idea still stands: my opinion is that we need to move collaboration to talk pages, there are barriers to newcomers starting to use these talk pages, and there are ways to overcome these barriers, at least partly. These ideas perhaps might need more discussion. --Gryllida (talk) 03:41, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
The category has been in use for years without any issues, without it navigating the submissions by age is practically impossible. This is the first time I've ever heard of that error. Repeating it would probably be highly unlikely, the fault in any case is most likely to have been with the random page selection mechanism, not the existence of the category. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:11, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
I have come to disagree
…near to entirely, with the list of stated errors, here under Section "General standards and invalid reasons for declining a submission". The trajectory and momentum of a submitted article is important. If an article begins by violating WP:VERIFY, then odds are it will continue to do so, because inexperienced incoming editors continue to follow the patterns that they see. Holding submitted articles to WP:VERIFY, WP:OR, and other standards is NOT an error on our parts. Argue with me here, please, so all can benefit. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 02:11, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
I...what? We already decline articles for failing WP:V, WP:OR, etc. If articles are getting accepted despite being unverifiable, that's a problem with the reviewer, not the rules. The section you point to asks reviewers not to reject an article simply for using weird or wrong citation styles. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:03, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
almost all articles at AfC need major improvement. Some are capable of improvement, but the majority are not. We do have a tendency to avoid making a definitive rejection of the ones that are incapable of becoming a valid article, preferring to see what the contributor can make of it. This can be viewed either as a good friendly approach, of as one which leads to excess work and unnecessary disappointment. Personally, I think we should more often say to the submitter: Unless you can add clearly substantial sources, do not submit the article again -- or some variation. I say this, though usually not at the first submission, but very few other reviewers do. I recommend that others try it. It is kinder to the contributor not to let them continue when it is clearthey are going to be wasting their effort. DGG ( talk ) 09:06, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
DGG, Kudpung: I agree that holding submitting editors to clear standards is important, and how it is done in practice is another important matter (where I bow to the greater experience od DGG and Kudpung). To hold them to standards, the editors donating valuable time must be agreed as to instructions. I am arguing for greater accuracy and clarity of instructions here, so they are more consistent with both the WP:VERIFY source document, and our goal of giving new articles the proper trajectory. See diff in my long reply below, and thanks for engaging. Le Prof 73.210.155.96 (talk) 19:24, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
I'm a little puzzled as to what is being suggested. I really don't understand what User:Leprof 7272 is saying. I do understand what DGG and Kudpung, who have been here for a long time, are saying. However, I don't think that I agree about telling contributors not to resubmit, and that is only because telling contributors not to resubmit is too often hopeless. Some would-be contributors, either clueless or COI, will resubmit over and over again, each time perhaps adding a few more low-quality sources. I am not sure that there is any answer about them short of the drastic step of MFD, and that is unnecessarily cruel in most cases. Maybe there is something that I don't understand. I know that I don't understand Leprof7272's criticisms. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:29, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
Robert McClenon, Kudpung, DGG, Someguy1221, NewYorkActuary: The following diff, I hope, clarifies the matter, as it encapsulates changes that I proposed, which I now understand must be discussed prior (rather than the bold edit approach being applied). In particular, I think we are not served by allowing articles to begin with poor trajectories (because they continue in those trajectories). A number of stub articles that I have found to be plagiarised, by the encyclopedia's standards (as well as by the more widely applied standards of academia), had their starts in submissions where presumptions were made regarding the adequacy of citations. I propose that we make more explicit, at least, what the policies truly are. For instance, the summary appearing says that WP:VERIFY requires inline citations in four situations, but then only summarises two. I think this leads to editor confusion, and acceptance when guidance and improvement should instead be required. Note, from reviewing various editor's approvals and rejections of articles, the standards in WP:VERIFY are being applied, but not uniformly. This lack of uniformity is another reason that the instructions should be more accurate. Again, the goal is uniform, high quality initial stubs, with the proper pattern for editor expansion along the same lines. Bad inital work invites bad follow-on editing, in my long experience. Here is the diff: [1]. Le prof 73.210.155.96 (talk) 19:05, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
User:Robert McClenon, I never just say "do not resubmit" I say "do not resubmit until you have much more substantial references:, or "do not resubmit unchanged" or whatever applies. The purpose of AfC is to prevent (or at least try to discourage) article submissions to main space that are likely to be rejected. The person submitting something not likely to be passed at AfD deserves some clear advice about why. The current templates do not help them distinguish between a need for improvements which are likely to yield an acceptable article, and therefore justifies further work, and those that do not. When there are specific things to be corrected, they should be pointed out, but there contributor isn ot helped by our pointing out details when the entire article is almost certain to be rejected.
Leprof_7272 The problem here is not with AfC, but with the inconsistent and contradictory guidelines in WP, and even more, the erratic way in which the are applied. There is no exact way of stating what the necessary degree of verification is. It varies with the exact circumstances of the article, and is in many cases debatable--for examples of the debates,see the immense archives of WP:RSN, the Reliable Sources noticeboards. DGG ( talk ) 19:50, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
DGG: Thanks for the reply. Can you review the diff, and see what you think of the edits? I think they go in the right direction vis-a-vis addressing problems you raise, without entering into the quagmire of which you warn. Cheers. Le Prof 73.210.155.96 (talk) 20:23, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
Robert McClenon, Kudpung, DGG, Someguy1221, NewYorkActuary: Is this matter dying, or everyone just busy? I offer the diff, [2], as a motion-on-the-table that will allow the earlier matter of the edit to th instructions to move forward. Or, shall I paste the proposed edit in here, to save going to the link? Can we argue the substance of the matter, original vs. edit? Cheers. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 14:37, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
User:Leprof 7272 - I don't think that you have formatted your proposal in a way that allows easy discussion. You provided a complex diff, which is exactly what you are supposed to do in a Wikipedia quasi-judicial procedure such as WP:ANI. This isn't quasi-judicial. You proposed a three-part change, but you didn't really explain what the reason was for the three changes and what the rationale was. Please explain each of the changes to us so that we can discuss it. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:15, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
oppose Leprof 7272's proposed changes to the reviewing instructions. They are not an improvement, they add blather. The changes to the bare URL paragraph are especially poor.
He argues that for the reviewer to fix the bare URL problem themselves takes too long (false, in my experience), thereby increasing review backlogs, and instead recommends initiating a dialog with the submitter to get the submitter to fix the bare URLs. Starting a conversation with the submitter would mean not completing the review, and would require far more time (thus increasing review backlogs) than the alternatives.
Tagging the article with {{cleanup-link rot}} is not a last resort, and does not set a bad precedent. It's a sound course of action that can save the reviewer time, lets the submitter know there's a problem, lets general readers know there's a problem (and one they can help fix), and engages the broader community of editors outside of AfC to fix the bare URLs. --Worldbruce (talk) 16:06, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
Should drafts normally be in draft space?
I have just been advised (Link/permanent link) by User:RexxS that I should not move drafts from user space into draft space without checking with the author. This seems contrary to the existing practice that draft space is the preferred location for AFC submissions. This issue arises in particular from User:TSKang96/Evolutionary psychological and biological explanations for prostitution. It seems that there is an issue that the print/export function does not work in draft space. So my real question is: Is the rule that draft space is the usual place for AFC submissions (and that reviewers are assisted in facilitating this by a move template) incorrect, and should user space be the usual place for AFC submissions? Robert McClenon (talk) 19:19, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
I think in this particular instance RexxS is correct, that the user probably shouldn't have put the AFC tags on the page and kept it in their sandbox until they could print a PDF. That being said, I agree that in 99.9% of situations sandbox drafts should be moved to the Draft space. Wikipedia may not be a bureaucracy, but when the AFC tag specifically says "this page should be in the Draft space" it means that consensus has agreed on what to do. Keep on keepin' on, Robert McClenon. Primefac (talk) 19:37, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
To give a little background, I've been attempting to help 44 university students with Wikipedia editing that they've been required to do as part of their course. Such students represent a small, but increasing, number of new editors and I'm particularly keen to see them get a good experience, as they are the seed corn of future editors. They are all required to submit a pdf of the article they worked on, but working in draft: space does not make that easy for them, as there are no print/export tools available there. They wanted to move the draft into article space to create the pdf. I suggested they could create a pdf from a draft in user space. Anyway to cut a long story short, involving unpleasant arguments at AfD, their draft was deleted, and I had to ask an understanding admin to restore it to user: space. Then Robert moves it once more to draft: space and we're back where we started. That was not so difficult to fix though.
So my questions are: (1) should draft: space be the only place for AfC submissions? (2) Given that draft: space and user: space are not equivalent for an unknown, albeit probably small, number of new editors, do you consider the practice of moving a new editor's draft from user: space to draft: space, without any warning to the new user, "best practice", or is there room for improvement? --RexxS (talk) 19:50, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
RexxS, I have raised issues such as this with the education project several times over the years I've been a regular AFC reviewer. Students need to be informed that submitting their drafts to AFC should only be done after all the requirements of their college class project, such as grading etc., have been completed. In this case it means they have to finish creating the PDF before submitting the draft to AFC. Another reason why AFC submission must happen after all other requirements have been completed is that AFC cannot work to any externally imposed schedule - the semester could very well be over before a student's draft gets reviewed for the first time. If it has to go through multiple review cycles it could be in the AFC system for months before it reaches mainspace, if it ever does. The draft could also be edited quite drastically by reviewers and other editors after submission, thus it will no longer be the work of the student alone.
TL:DR - Students and course leaders must complete all course-related processes and requirements (such as grading, printing, etc) before submitting a draft to AFC. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 21:13, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
I agree completely with your expectations, Roger, and I know how frustrating the AfC backlog can be for everyone. As I see it, in these cases the AfC review is the bridge to bring something that students have contributed as a draft (initially for their own benefit) into mainspace wherever possible, thus bringing potential benefit to the encyclopedia. The problem of course is that we have no control over how an instructor presents a course. In an ideal world, the course designer would be an experienced Wikimedian, or be working with one from the start. In real life, there can be no guarantee that any particular cohort of students will have grasped what needs to be done prior to AfC review, and that may well not be their fault. We should be designing fault-tolerant systems that minimise the steepness of the learning curve for new editors, and do our best to make their first experiences of editing Wikipedia as pleasant as we can. I'd urge anybody dealing regularly with new editors to consider the problems of editor recruitment and retention, and search for ways to improve how we interact with them. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 21:37, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
Perhaps I'm missing something basic, but I truly do not see why this is a serious issue. I recognize that many users (even experienced ones) might not realize that PDF printing is unavailable in Draft space. But RexxS, can't the student address this problem simply by doing a copy/paste back into their user space and printing from there? NewYorkActuary (talk) 21:43, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
I never knew that PDF download doesn't work in Draftspace, how hard is it to enable the function? AFAIK this is the first time ever that anyone has raised the issue, and I've been around since before Draftspace existed! Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 21:55, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
That draft is a tangled mess of wasted volunteer time. It was originally submitted to AfC, declined, then created in mainspace, history merged, then nominated for deletion, then moved to draftspace by RexxS before the AfD was closed (at which time he, not the authors, added the AfC template), then deleted, then undeleted and userfied so the authors could print it. It's a great example of how poorly planned educational assignments can end up as a net loss to both the project and students (now presumably entirely fed up of Wikipedia), but the upshot the draft was not intended by the authors to be submitted to AfC in its current form. The only reason it was moved to draft space was because RexxS added the AfC template to it and then asked for it to be moved to user space, so it seems rather perverse of him to complain about Robert then following our long established procedure. It's hardly something that comes up in normal circumstances, and like he said, it's a easily rectified, so I don't see any reason to start changing the way we deal with submissions in userspace. Joe Roe (talk) 22:40, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
Well Joe, I hear your criticism of me for putting the AfC template on the draft, but the point is that it serves the purpose of discouraging the new editor from moving the draft into mainspace without an independent review (as they had done once already). If you can think of a better way, I'd encourage you to try it and let me know how you get on. The only reason it was moved once more into draft: space is that somebody else chose to do that - the template didn't do the move, and neither did I. --RexxS (talk) 22:55, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
It still isn't clear to me whether the author intended the draft to be in user space or in article space, or why the draft was tagged for AFC review. I really still don't understand what User:RexxS is admonishing me for or is saying I should have done differently. (That is, I am just as puzzled as User:Joe Roe. I have the feeling that User:RexxS is rebuking me for not realizing that things were already totally confused.) I completely agree with Joe Roe that this illustrates how poorly planned educational assignments are a problem for everyone. I agree with RexxS that there are editor retention issues, but I think that the issues result from the poorly planned educational assignment in the first place, and the fact that the reviewer didn't know that this was a poorly planned educational assignment, and that the issues were not the fault of the reviewer. (If dealing with poorly planned educational assignments will become a part of the reviewer's job, maybe there should be a tag that says This Draft Is Part of a Poorly Planned Educational Assignment. Please Handle It with Latex Gloves.) Robert McClenon (talk) 16:18, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
Let me clarify it for you then. The author barely knows the difference between user space, draft space, article space or any other space, and why should we insist that new users should know those sort of distinctions from the start? His intentions are unknown and irrelevant, but you know where his talk page is, so you could ask him if you were really interested. Let me ask why the draft should not be tagged in such a way as to make it easy for a new editor to request review? Are you saying that an experienced editor must not add the {{AfC submission}} tag to a draft that is in user space? Is there a policy that reviews are not to be conducted on user space drafts? If you can find a way of getting the tag "This Draft Is Part of a Poorly Planned Educational Assignment. Please Handle It with Latex Gloves." on each poorly planned educational assignment, let me know and I'll make a start on doing it. The course page is at https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/University_of_Warwick/Human_Sexuality_(Autumn_2016) and I'm sure the editors associated with the course would be fascinated to hear your feedback on it.
I don’t think that I understand what User:RexxS is saying. I still don’t know whether he is saying that I should be doing something different, or that I should have done something different, or that AFC reviewers in general should do something different. I agree that “the author”, that is, the average AFC submitter, does not know the differences between different spaces. However, it appears that I am being told that I have a duty to educate “the author” on what the various spaces are, and to coordinate before doing anything. The majority of AFC submissions are crud, either clueless crud or promotional crud. They should simply be declined, and it doesn’t matter what space they are declined in. A very few AFC submissions are reasonable article submissions, and they should be accepted. A somewhat larger minority of AFC submissions are potential articles, but need work, typically better sources. They should be declined with comments, and they can reasonably be moved into draft space if they were in user space, and I don’t know of a reason why it is necessary to educate the author on the difference between user space and draft space. Maybe RexxS sees some special obligation for reviewers to educate the submitters of crud, or the submitters of decent submissions. I don’t; please explain. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:59, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
RexxS wrote:
Let me ask why the draft should not be tagged in such a way as to make it easy for a new editor to request review? Are you saying that an experienced editor must not add the AfC submission tag to a draft that is in user space? Is there a policy that reviews are not to be conducted on user space drafts? … Now, what's your response to my first two questions above?
I see three questions. First, why should the draft not be tagged in such a way that makes it easy for a new editor to request review? The AFC tag requests review. Is there a further question? Second, am I saying that an experienced editor should not add the AFC submission tag to a draft in user space? No, I didn’t say that, but in the review process, the draft may be moved to draft space. Third, is there a policy that reviews are not to be conducted on user space drafts? No, they are conducted on drafts that are tagged with the AFC tag, but they may be moved to draft space. Now, by ‘review’, I am assuming that RexxS means review as to whether to accept the submission into article space. In the case in point, it isn’t clear to me that the draft was ready to be reviewed for acceptance into article space, but that is another point.
It still appears that RexxS is saying that the AFC review process should specially accommodate poorly planned educational assignments, and that reviewers need to be ready for them. If so, I disagree, in that I think that the burden should be on the instructor, but maybe I have missed something. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:59, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
RexxS: As a former academician, and a wikipedian, but nevertheless reticent about getting into the middle of this, I would just ask if the following mechanism/solution might be applicable. (1) Make a formal course announcement to all student participants in the project, that when an article is deemed reasonably worthy of eventual acceptance as an article, that it is most often moved by AfC participants into what is called "Draft space." (2) Create and have disseminated (by the faculty member associated with the academic program) a simple "work instruction", explaining how they temporarily move their Draft back into the sandbox (or other area where the required PDF can be generated), and back again. Others should chime in, if there is a best way to do this move. If too technically difficult, the course TA or Prof could instead do the move and PDF.) We did such things all the time, with projects with late-braking technical addenda (e.g., to earlier assigned labs, etc.), and such a process works well. (Students in such online programs usually have a Class Noticeboard for which they are responsible, vis-a-vis its content.)
This stop-gap would allow the immediate availability of the PDFs, without having to change general AfC practice (as well as relieve all parties from having to understand one another at spousal levels). Alongside this immediate solution, one should identify the proper place to make the request, that the PDF function be added to Draft space. If you post a new Section here, calling people to join you at another venue, to support that request, I would come and voice my support, for the help it would provide your and other academic programs. Cheers, both. Le Prof 73.210.155.96 (talk) 20:39, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
User:Leprof_7272 - What you are proposing, beginning in point (1), is that the instructor take reasonable preparations at the beginning of the class exercise, and should continue to exercise reasonable oversight. That is exactly what would have avoided all of this. To the best of my knowledge, this discussion is about how much of a burden the reviewers should have if the instructor doesn't take reasonable preparations. At least, it appears to me that I, as a reviewer, am being scolded for what I did and didn't do in response to a poorly planned class exercise. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:13, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
Robert McClenon First, my first two questions that you missed were posted in my first post here at 19:50, 5 December 2016 :
(1) should draft: space be the only place for AfC submissions? (2) Given that draft: space and user: space are not equivalent for an unknown, albeit probably small, number of new editors, do you consider the practice of moving a new editor's draft from user: space to draft: space, without any warning to the new user, "best practice", or is there room for improvement?
What are your answers?
Second, The AfC tag does not request review - at least when first used. Just follow the link to the place where I added the tag. Here it is again, in case you have a problem finding it: https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=User:TSKang96/Evolutionary_psychological_and_biological_explanations_for_prostitution&diff=752332054&oldid=752328371 Do you see the same that I do? "Draft article not currently submitted for review. This is a draft Articles for creation submission. It is not currently pending review. There are no deadlines as long as you are actively improving the submission. Drafts not being improved may be deleted after six months." If you do, then perhaps you can understand my frustration at your seeming inability to understand that adding the TAG does not automatically request the REVIEW. So what's the answer to the questions "why the draft should not be tagged in such a way as to make it easy for a new editor to request review? Are you saying that an experienced editor must not add the AfC submission tag to a draft that is in user space? Is there a policy that reviews are not to be conducted on user space drafts?" If there's no reason, then why am I being criticised for placing the tag?
Third, I don't see any special obligation for reviewers to educate the submitters - i.e. new editors. Given my previous interactions with other AfC reviewers, I can't say I'd trust some of them to be able to do that. However, I do see an obligation on experienced editors to make life easier for new editors rather than harder. If you think that moving a new editor's user space draft into draft: space without even notifying them is a good idea, then kindly explain how that makes the encyclopedia better. Justify your action, rather than continually saying "We do it that way because it's the way we do it."
@Leprof 7272: Oddly enough, the draft in question was created in draft space (complete with afc tag at the top), and having been asked about creating a pdf, I made a copy of the draft in TSKang96's user space for him to make a pdf from. Sadly that produces its own problems. For what it's worth, I'm not associated with this course, and had no influence of how it was set up; my connection is that I agreed to help the new editors when they ran into problems. If you and the other commentators here would like to change how courses are set up and conducted, then you can raise your issues with m:Wiki Education Foundation, who write the guidance. I don't write the guidance and I don't set up courses, so there's little point in lobbying me about it. More pertinently, I came here to discuss the practices of AfC reviewers, but I suppose I might have guessed that you'd prefer to put the blame on university lecturers for causing you problems than examining the issues that you actually have some control over. --RexxS (talk) 23:06, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
User:RexxS: As one who is in contact with this particular educational effort—as you say, you have agreed to help the new editors when they ran into problems, and so are in contact with them (and, one can assume that the course instructor or TAs are available to you through User Talk as well)—the choice remains open to you to try to solve this amiably, and quickly, for this one particular "localised" kerfuffle. In re: discussing the practices of AfC reviewers: Sometimes trying to fix the whole system is, as you said earlier, tilting after windmills. (I myself have an appeal for consensus for simple, clarifying change to reviewer instructions that is spilling into a second week now.) Otherwise, note, I responded in good faith, as one who knows both sides. Your I suppose I might have guessed that you'd prefer to put the blame is unnecessarily argumentative and demeaning, and so will not help you achieve what you say is your end.
Nowhere have you said that you enjoy arguing for pages on end, so I am assuming you still want a solution for this particular "local" case, mostly, so students can get their PDFs, and then, if possible, discussion and a decision leading to a longer term change in AfC process. Well, as a famous mental health professional once said, never take responsibility for things you cannot control. The solution to this one course's "local" problem is almost fully in your control (posting with the student participants a workaround to the WP problem that exists, and can only be slowly changed). As I said before, solving the local matter (communicating with students/TA/Prof, so they immediately get what they need, and are relieved of the stress) leads thereafter to a next achievable aim, the ability to PDF from draft space (a seemingly simple technical change). Only after these two successes should an attempt at the hardest/slowest, the change to process that involves consensus of tens of participants, not present day to day, be pushed forward. That will likely take weeks. Changing the course of this ship of state (AfC, or en.wikipedia) is beyond the three of us, in the short term. In any case, persuading just the two of us is not an effective path to achieve any of the three of these aims, and this Talk thread does not seem to be an effective way to achieve any of them. (Too much repetition and argumentativeness/animus has crept in.) One opinion, to ignore or heed, as you see fit. Cheers. Leprof 7272 (talk) 15:16, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
@RexxS and Robert McClenon: After reading RexxS's post, I thought "why do we move userspace drafts to draftspace?" I have a theory, although it is nothing more than a theory and I can think of a few ways to poke holes in it. Before November 2015, the userspace was indexed by search engines by default, but the draft space was automatically noindexed. Perhaps the practice of moving userspace drafts to draftspace arose to ensure that spammers couldn't get promotional pages to appear in Google searches by drafting them in userspace? Of course, the userspace is now noindexed (since November 2015) so if the theory is correct, it's no longer a real reason to move userspace drafts to draftspace. Am I out to lunch? /wiae/tlk23:26, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
User:Wiae - I think that the primary reason to move userspace drafts to draft space is to make them available for editing by other editors. Although it is technically possible for anyone to edit pages in user space, pages in user space are generally considered to belong to the user whose space they are in. This is something of an exception to the rule against ownership. An additional reason is simply that names in draft space are shorter than in user space because they do not include the name of the user. I think that moving them into what is generally acknowledged to be a public space is one of the reasons why they are moved into draft space. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:54, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
Draftspace allows the inclusion of various features that don't work or are not allowed in Userspace: WikiProject banners; categories (have been proposed and discussed but have not - yet - been developed); a draft-sorting system could be implemented (based on the stub-sorting system, proposed and discussed but also not - yet - implemented). A draft in draftspace has a talk page that stays with it when it moves to mainspace, education project participants tend to use them more than other draft creators. A major consideration for the creation of draftspace was the "kludginess" of the previous system of using project talk-space. If you were here before draft-space existed you'd remember how "messy" it used to be. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:39, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
One More Time, maybe
User:RexxS says that I (or maybe he means LeProf) would prefer to blame university instructors rather than focus on things that we at AFC can do something about. That isn’t accurate. I am simply asking for evidence that something should be changed before telling AFC to change things. I simply don’t see that the case has been made that AFC reviewers need to do things differently. It is true that I am to a considerable extent trying to defend both myself and AFC reviewers in general against what I think are unfocused criticisms from RexxS. This started because RexxS told me not to move submissions from user space into draft space without coordinating with their authors. On further discussion, it appears at least to me that there was a poorly prepared academic exercise, and that I was being criticized for how I dealt with it and that reviewers needed to rescue poorly planned academic exercises. I still don’t see a case that either AFC reviewers in general or I in particular should change what is the common practice of moving drafts from user space into draft space. I am still ready to see that case made. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:07, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
To answer the original questions, I will first note that there are three possible status values for a draft, whether in user space or draft space, that has the AFC tag. It may be not submitted, submitted, or declined (and not resubmitted). A draft is only reviewed if it has been tagged as submitted. To answer the first question, draft space is not the only place for review. Drafts can be and are reviewed in user space. In particular, many drafts in user sandboxes are simply declined in place, especially if they are clueless or if the reviewer cannot determine what title to give the draft. Drafts can be and are reviewed either in draft space or in user space. However, draft space is the preferred location. I am willing to consider that perhaps AFC practice should be changed so that draft space is no longer the usual preferred location. I simply haven’t seen that case made. To try to answer the second question:
Given that draft: space and user: space are not equivalent for an unknown, albeit probably small, number of new editors, do you consider the practice of moving a new editor's draft from user: space to draft: space, without any warning to the new user, "best practice", or is there room for improvement?
I will not give a quick answer, and am willing to consider the comments of other reviewers. I will say that I have moved thousands of drafts from user space (sandboxes or elsewhere in user space) to draft space, have sometimes received “Thanks”, and have never until now had an objection. I am willing to consider that moving drafts to draft space is not the “best practice”, but I haven’t seen that case made yet. The situation looks to me like an “off-by-one”, an exception. I am ready to hear the opinions of other editors. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:07, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
See above comments, under this signature, on a three-step staging to address the original aims expressed by RexxS, that might actually help the students before their term ends, and that—given the latest posts, regarding added features in draft space—might even put a PDF button there, in a day, rather than the weeks a consensus on process change might take to achieve. Cheers, and Robert, I hope you have some time to attend to my participation issue. Would rather be doing backlog that this! Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 15:21, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
I agree with Robert that there is simply no problem to solve here, with perhaps the exception of the issue of PDF printing not being available in the draft namespace, but that's barely within the scope of the AfC project and really ought to be raised at WP:VP/T. I appreciate that in this case our practice of moving userspace drafts that are submitted to AfC to draftspace caused a (very) minor inconvenience, but that seems to have been the result of a very particular set of circumstances.
On a side note, it would not be fair to, and I'm not sure anyone is, blame the university lecturer overseeing this course for it being poorly planned. As far as I can tell they very prudently got in touch with Wikimedia UK and/or the Wiki Education Foundation about this course, but for whatever reason the WMUK/WEF neglected to tell any of the volunteers who might actually be dealing with the articles in question about it. Joe Roe (talk) 22:14, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
Printing of PDFs
I think that we have consensus that the inability to print PDFs from draft space is a bug that the WMF should be requested to fix. Do we have agreement? Robert McClenon (talk) 15:37, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
Tomorrow (December 8, 0800-2000 GMT), BBC and Broadcasting House will be hosting an editathon. Please remember not to WP:BITE the newcomers. All editathon participants are supposed to leave the hashtag "#100WomenWiki" in their edit summaries, and that can be tracked here. Just letting you guys know so you don't end up unprepared. WP:NPR and WP:WikiProject Women have also been notified. —Gestrid (talk) 22:33, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
Which genius decided to refer to articles as "profiles" in all the BBC's coverage of this event? We already have enough problems with people thinking they're working on Facebook-style self-promotion pages and not encyclopaedia articles :/ Joe Roe (talk) 15:46, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
Also note that the BBC's instruction page tells people to create new articles directly, so we're likely to see more traffic from this at WP:NPP than here. Joe Roe (talk) 15:47, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
Our last backlog drive was in June 2014. Considering the fact that there are currently 960 articles waiting for review, is there any interest in another one? Ramaksoud2000(Talk to me)23:00, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
960 a backlog? There are over 14,000 at the essential core function of NPP. There was signficant agreement on this very page only a few weeks ago that Backlog 'drives' only lead to slipshod reviewing. More important would be to weed out some of the hat collectors from this list and send the rest a newsletter. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:49, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
Kudpung, I keep forgetting to do this, actually, so over the next few days I'll crunch some numbers and propose some changes (mostly just "who to remove"). Primefac (talk) 01:57, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
@Primefac:, let's tighten it up a bit: No edits in the last 12 months and/or no AfC reviews in the last 6 months. Let's not kid ourselves - I counted 1,400 hat collectors at NPP last week. Do that and I'll send a newsletter to all those who you have moved to the 'inactive list'. That might shake them into coming back and doing some reviewing. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:40, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
I'm out of date - it's already 'Participants who have not carried out any reviews in more than 6 months, or have not edited at all in the last two months, are considered inactive and may be moved to the inactive reviewers list'. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:56, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
Work in progress: Statistics
The submissions list was a project launched in 2009. In the original proposal, The Earwig said that a graph and historical data would be useful additions. 7 years, 6 months, and 5 days later, I put together a bot that collects statistics and graphs them. The graph part is still under active development, but you can see a table (with a few days worth of data) here. Coming soon: acceptance statistics, decline-reason statistics, and per-reviewer statistics. I hope this will be helpful for analysis of AfC as a project! Enterprisey (talk!) 23:16, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
Good stuff! Are the daily totals a "snapshot" of the pending count a specific time each day, or is it a count of pending drafts actually processed within the specified 24h period? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:07, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
I went through the Active list of participants tonight. 14 users haven't edited in 2+ months and 59 have not edited in the Draft space in 6+ months. Their names have been moved to the list of inactive participants. This leaves us with exactly 200 active reviewers (199 if you remove DGG's alternate acct), 524 inactive reviewers, 3 active bots, and 3 inactive bots. Primefac (talk) 02:35, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
that's about the average number of submissions/day. If we all did just 1 a day we could keep up. (There's still the problem of reducing the backlog--I favor a active use of MfD for some of that). DGG ( talk ) 01:30, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
I have been bold on an AFC draft untouched for some months, Mick Herron. I have added references, tidied it up a bit, moved it to mainspace and left a message for its creator. Please let me know (here or on my talkpage) if there is anything else I need to do. Edwardx (talk) 12:46, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
Hi, I determined that Draft:Speaking in Tongues (documentary) was notable because it met the 2nd criterion of WP:NFO (screened at a festival five years after initial release). I went to accept it, and I found that there was a redirect in the article namespace that pointed to this draft. What do I do? Should I propose the redirect for speedy deletion if there is an article waiting to take that space? Icebob99 (talk) 17:30, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
Good point. I misread and thought it was a redirect to another article, not a poorly-attempted page move by the creator. I've R2'd it. Primefac (talk) 17:49, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
Add 'sources evaluation' option to the article wizard
As we often ask contributors to list their sources for evaluation by a volunteer at #wikipedia-en-helpconnect, I would like to propose an edit to the last screen of the article wizard to add an option for users to submit a sources listing for evaluation without writing the article content. Would suggest it to look something like this. --Gryllida19:58, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
Joe Roe, I believe the intention would be for AFC reviewers to basically pull an RSN on the sources, letting the submitter know which ones are useful and which ones are crap. Purely from a time-wasted standpoint I'm against this idea, since we'll probably spend more time arguing with the new editors about what makes a good source rather than providing decent feedback about the actual content of a draft. Primefac (talk) 23:31, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
Hm, to avoid arguing we could, instead of reviewing, have two different contributors do the same homework -- for instance, write two articles independently, or take a 'subject + source' pair and take a note of everything verifiable the source contains. This could demonstrate to a newcomer what info from the source is verifiable and what is just prettily worded garbage. But we already have the dying requested articles queues, so this might be a too laborious exercise... Gryllida04:50, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
1Wiki8: yes, that is a similar idea, and tagging sources one by one is easier (tinier) task than article review... how to engage more people into sources tagging?
Also, perhaps if this goes live one day, it could be made clear to newcomers that should their entry pass the sources review, they are allowed to put it into WP:REQ and abandon their work. --Svetlana Tkachenko (talk) 15:51, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Shearonink (talk) 20:23, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
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Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Wrongly moved submissions has been nominated for deletion. As this page is a part of WikiProject Articles for creation, interested editors are invited to participate at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Wrongly moved submissions.— Godsy (TALKCONT) 17:49, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
Done — Gestrid (talk) 00:27, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
