Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/Archive 58

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Mostini

I've just requested speedy on Draft:The Thermodynamic Nexus in The Process of Quantum Gravity Sigma ZG Matrix. Took me a while to realise that it's yet another reincarnation of the long-running Mostini saga; only twigged that when I looked at a couple of the 'sources' cited.

These were at some point created by Josammy777, and IIRC there were others involved also, but they've since switched to IP editing from multiple ranges, which makes things more difficult to track.

This has been attempted at so many different titles that I can't remember most of them, but the key words/phrases to watch out for are 'Mostini' / 'Mostini Planet', 'Sigma ZG', 'Alpha & Omega', 'Thermodynamic Sigma', matrix, nexus, etc., as well as the author's (?) name Josammy (in Josammy Ganga, Josammy Technology, Josammy Emporio Foundation, etc.) usually appearing somewhere in there.

Just wanted to flag up here in case someone wasn't aware / didn't remember. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 10:54, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. For anyone tagging it as G3 in the near future, might be worth pointing to this thread as well just so certain passing admins aren't throwing fits. Primefac (talk) 12:05, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Do we have any other recurring AfC sagas like this one? I wonder if maybe it's worth making a list somewhere. -- asilvering (talk) 19:34, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Not really. Most of the long-term drama is just LTAs and socks trying to push their favourite actor through the process despite them only having been in one b-list film as an extra. Primefac (talk) 23:07, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Reviewers encountering Carmel-by-the-Sea drafts

You should be aware that there is an ANI discussion concerning the creating editor and validity of sourcing. Please double check sources with care. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 23:43, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

ANI link. Primefac (talk) 00:00, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

For those who encounter the drafts from Greghenderson2006, please be specially certain that the references pass muster. I have used {{Noping}} in order not to pester them, since the ANI outcome was a community block with no appeal for at least 12 months. They will obviously be unable to respond.

The ANI outcome prompted my request at the Twinkle talk page, where Primefac drew my attention to a checkbox allowing users not to notify the editor concerned. The AFC script already has such a checkbox. Out of kindness for the blocked editor, a fellow human being, please consider whether notifying them of deletions, reviews, AFC comments, etc does them a service or a disservice, and proceed at your discretion. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 12:16, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately, 12 months means all declined drafts are likely to become deleted drafts. Draft:Lewis Josselyn is really quite extensive and has just been declined - if anyone's in the mood for a draft save, you might want to have a look at that one. Again, as Timtrent said, with a close eye to the sources. -- asilvering (talk) 19:39, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

@Asilvering see the talk page where extensive discussion took place about both the sourcing and the content. I do not generally look at draft's talk pages unless noted in an AfC comment because 99.99999% of the time there's nothing there other than WikiProject tags but for Greghenderson2006's drafts I suggest reviewers do. S0091 (talk) 19:50, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Ah, yep. Nevermind, then - this should indeed be left to expire. -- asilvering (talk) 19:52, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

I do not generally look at draft's talk pages unless noted in an AfC comment. Maybe we can build a notification into AFCH about this. More details in the ticket. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:27, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

That would be really helpful, and it seems to me like your suggestion is a good way to do it. -- asilvering (talk) 20:28, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree and Joe Roe in the discussion below suggested the same. Thanks Novem. If there is a way to flag anything that is not a template that would be better in case whoever placed the original comment did not start a section but either way, something is better than nothing. S0091 (talk) 18:41, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Draft:Rafael de Miguel González declined 5 times.

Five different reviewers declined the same article (for different reasons). Is there a limit to how often someone can submit an article? What other actions (besides re-declining again and again) should be taken? Cheers. LR.127 (talk) 06:01, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

@LR.127 There is no limit, though submission without improvement tends to be tendentious and creates a time sink. Reviewers are human and sufficient "silly submission" can lead to a possibly undeserved rejection. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 07:07, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

@LR.127 This draft was suggested by @DoubleGrazing to have a possibility of passing WP:NACADEMIC back in December. I think they were correct, though, as presented, I feel it woudl have been the wrong side of the borderline. Since then there has been no improvement to referencing.

I have left a comment on the draft just now, hoping for a resubmission with just one better reference. It was most recently submitted by an IP.

I think this one may be acceptable and I'm willing to accept it based on the 50% "rule" and let the community decide. I do not feel like performing a "submit and accept" on it at this stage, though. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 07:25, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

(I didn't even remember commenting on this...) FWIW, I reckon the EUROGEO presidency satisfies NACADEMIC #6, and the Academia Europaea membership and the fellowship of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Luis both meet #3. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 07:44, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

I have done as I promised on the draft and accepted it, despite not being provided with the extra reference requested. Over to the community. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 07:47, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

If it has no chance of ever being accepted due to notability or WP:NOT, rejection is the next step. It is like declining, except it takes away the resubmit button. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:23, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

This is really absurd. The first two declines were for not being written in English. Now that's been fixed, they shouldn't be held against it. After that, multiple reviewers agreed that the subject was notable, but The Herald and LR.127 still declined it for lacking notability. How do you expect the submitter to respond to that feedback – "this is notable, but it doesn't show that it's notable"? It's kafkaesque. Both also complained that the article was "not adequately supported by reliable sources", but it's a one-paragraph bio with six inline citations, what more do you want? Timtrent commented that:

For a living person we have a high standard of referencing. Every substantive fact you assert, especially one that is susceptible to potential challenge, requires a citation with a reference that is about them, and is independent of them, in multiple secondary sources which are WP:RS, and is significant coverage.

...which is just flat-out wrong. There is no policy that every statement must be referenced, even on BLPs. What WP:BLP actually says is all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by an inline citation to a reliable, published source. Even if there was, all that are required are reliable, published sources. "Independent", "secondary" and "significant coverage" are requirements of the WP:GNG, not the verifiability or BLP policies. The article uses primary sources from, for example, the University of Zaragoza to support the claim that he is a professor at the University of Zaragoza, and the Real Sociedad Geográfica to support the claim that he is on the board of the Real Sociedad Geográfica. Unless we think these institutions are likely to lie about who works for them, this is absolutely fine. More to the point, when did AfC, which is supposed to accept anything that is not blatant deletion material, give itself the job of fact-checking every single claim in a draft?

This draft should have been accepted as soon as it was translated to English. It is an excellent example of why good faith editors should be steered away from AfC in its current state. – Joe (talk) 08:00, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Whoa – "good faith editors should be steered away from AfC in its current state"!

Well don't hold back, what do you really think about AfC? -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 08:06, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

You'll find it's a common view. All the event organisers I know tell new editors to use userspace drafts or create in mainspace instead. Women in Red explicitly says it is not recommended that you submit drafts to Wikipedia:Articles for creation. Basically anyone involved in growing the editor base has learned through hard experience to avoid it like the plague. Personally I think it's broken by design and performs some useful functions by being so, but that is no excuse for holding good faith drafts to standards so far above what the community has tasked AfC with doing. – Joe (talk) 08:31, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

I can't speak for others, but I do AfC and NPP and apply the same standards in both, so I don't think it's entirely fair to say categorically that AfC's standards are "so far above" others'. And if AfC goes, it will just shift the workload to the already-congested NPP: notability, verifiability, etc. issues will still be assessed, they'll just be assessed there instead.

At the end of the day, AfC is mostly a voluntary process, so if sections of the community want to apply lower standards to their WikiProject's (or whatever) article creation, they're welcome to do so. (I don't know why they would want to do that, but they must have their reasons.) -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 09:06, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

And is it now in mainspace? Yes, it is. And did I put it there, yes I did. Thank you for your comments. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 09:16, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, full credit for that, I was glad to see it. I still find it worrying to see an editor of your experience, who reviews so many AfC submissions, giving blatantly incorrect instructions to a new user. It should not have taken eight months, three declines, and a discussion here to accept an article on a subject that was acknowledged to be notable from the beginning and with zero significant content issues. – Joe (talk) 09:34, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Well, I declined it on the grounds of lack of inline cites and inability to establish notability. In my experience, BLPs should be more rigorously scanned for notability and AfC should act as a deterrent. Articles passed by AfC shouldn't make it to AfD after a few months just because they weren't fact checked. Tomorrow, if this article ends up in AfD for not sticking to SIGCOV and GNG, then what was the point of AfC? That's why, I try to be a little bit more strict with BLPs as they are more prone to deletion if there's no SIGCOV or GNG. Nonetheless, I see Joe's point about AfC being a headache and a factor to steer away AGF editors who are genuinely interested in the project.
Anyways, glad to see the draft in mainspace and hope it doesn't end up in AfD because AfD is not exactly kind to articles with borderline notability.
Another point I'd like to say is, I straight out reject a draft if there are no improvements after multiple declines. But, there is no deadline and we can always improve the articles/drafts. Happy editing yall. — The Herald (Benison) (talk) 10:49, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

When you declined the draft there were six inline citations – which statements specifically did you identify as lacking citations? There was also a comment from DoubleGrazing saying, I think this is notable per WP:NACADEMIC – did you disagree with this assessment? What in the article needed to be "fact checked", and why would failure to do that lead to an AfD? Why would it end up at AfD for "not sticking to SIGCOV and GNG", when the claim to notability is per WP:NACADEMIC, not the GNG? – Joe (talk) 11:18, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

I am with @Joe Roe:; I have been watching SafariScribe's talk page and they reject articles by the hundreds, often in direct contradiction of the guidelines at WP:AFCR. They demanded that I email them scans of books; is that acceptable behavior? I am not sure how to fix AfC but something has to be done because in its current form it seems only to exist to bite newbies and to keep people out. People like me who have been here for a couple of years don't see what's going on over here but it clearly violates the intended spirit of AfC. I'd love to see this brought up somewhere more official because this is making us look like sadistic, low-level bureaucrats. I can't really argue with this quote: Editors reviewing submissions through AfC are just looking for an excuse to decline them.  Mr.choppers | ✎  02:24, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, that's quite a good guide. -- asilvering (talk) 07:13, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Mr.choppers, it's not accurate to say that editors decline drafts without good reasons or that they find a reason to decline drafts based on the misleading essay you cited above. That essay is totally incorrect. Reviewers often go out of their way to help improve drafts when they have the time.. However the approach you're suggesting for the AFC process might not be very helpful. We consider many factors in AFDs beyond what you might expect. If you continue this way, you might be causing confusion, especially by leaving unnecessary comments on editors' talk pages including mine.

For your comments on my talk page, I was trying to assist a new editor with their draft, and when I noticed the sources were unreliable, I offered to help them remove some. But then I saw Chopper's comment saying there was no need to remove the sources and citing AFC standards in detail. While there's nothing wrong with what you've done, there’s room for improvement. You've even mentioned before that some drafts are incorrectly declined when you could easily move them to mainspace. Please focus your energy in helping rather than blaming reviewers who are doing their best. Cheers! Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 03:34, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

@SafariScribe, I don't think this is a good response to Mr.choppers. And I share his concerns that you've been declining articles for strange and sometimes inscrutable reasons. -- asilvering (talk) 07:16, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

This has been brought up quite frequently recently and I think editors have conflicting opinions. Some believe drafts should only be declined if they aren't notable (i.e. they would fail an AfD), while some believe the standards should be much higher (sources must be in the article, reliable sources, enough inline citations, NPOV, etc.) Per WP:AFCPURPOSE it looks like we should all be doing the former. But then why do we have other decline reasons (v, ilc, npov, etc.)? And should AfC reviewers be doing BEFORE checks if the sources aren't present in the article? I think there needs to be more clarification on this. C F A 💬 21:29, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

We should be following WP:AFCPURPOSE. Every time this comes up, the answer is that editors might want to apply more stringent standards, but they should not. The other decline reasons are the quickfail criteria and suitability criteria, which are explained below that. The WP:V decline is specifically for this case: If what is written in the submission meets the notability guidelines, but the submission lacks references to evidence this. -- asilvering (talk) 19:57, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

The problem here is that AFCPURPOSE seems to directly contradict the quick-fail criteria. Yes, it makes sense to decline an article for WP:V if the claim to notability (e.g. a chart position) is unsourced, but what about when large sections irrelevant to notability are unsourced? That is not a notability or deletion-related problem. It is a tag-able one. The same thing applies to NPOV issues. They can just be tagged. If AfC's main purpose is to accept articles likely to survive AfDs, and AfD is not cleanup, then we should really only be declining if the topic isn't verifiably notable (or if it is a significant BLP/copyright violation). C F A 💬 02:53, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

If large sections irrelevant to notability are unsourced, you accept and tag, remove the unsourced bits and accept, or leave a comment asking the submitting editor to improve the draft. Nowhere in the quick-fail criteria does it say that an article with an unsourced section should be declined. -- asilvering (talk) 05:14, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Draft:Koshy's

My submission Draft:Koshy's was rejected as not having enough seconday, independent and reliable sources. I thought I had used several articles from well-known newspapers which described the eatery in great detail and the sources were secondary. I have improved the submission and also notified the original reviewer. Hope that reviewer sees my message. Also posting this here for opinion on my draft and if anyone can help. I am sure anyone here who has been to Koshy's would like to help make it even better. The eatery is iconic though I have been there only once. Not paid. No COIs. Thanks Trvllr1 (talk) 01:00, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

It appears that you have made a number of changes and resubmitted, so hopefully you have overcome the issues raised by the previous reviewer. As a minor note, your draft was "declined" not "rejected", as "rejection" implies that it cannot (and/or should not) be resubmitted. Good luck! Primefac (talk) 12:33, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

User:Robert McClenon/Nassau County Bridge Authority

I accepted a draft for Nassau County Bridge Authority, but had to move the blocking redirect out of the way. My question is whether the redirect needs to be preserved as containing significant history, or can be deleted. Will someone please look at it? My thinking is that it can be deleted, because the significant history was copyvio that has been redacted (revdel'd), so that there no longer is significant history. But I would like a second or third opinion. Should I move it to draft position to point to the article, as is usually done when there is real history, or can it be tagged to go to the great bit bucket in medium earth orbit? Robert McClenon (talk) 04:42, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Now with admin tools... I would have just nuke it when processing the draft. 🤣 – robertsky (talk) 07:24, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't see any significant history there; there are a lot of edits but they're all just futzing with the redirect itself. I would have used {{db-afc-move}}. Primefac (talk) 12:34, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Tagged and deleted. McClenon mobile (talk) 17:00, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Random article sample sizes

Relative frequency of article lengths, as measured in sentences (statistical outliers excluded)

Fun fact: The most common number of sentences in a Wikipedia article is two.

Half of articles have between 5 and 29 sentences. More than 10% of them have just one or two sentences (usually two). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:29, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Well that depressingly low! KylieTastic (talk) 11:25, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Given how many complaints I see about "all those mass-created one-sentence substubs", these numbers are actually higher than I expected, but maybe my perspective is being skewed by the discussion about Wikipedia:Notability (species), because species articles skew a bit more heavily on the short side (25% have exactly two sentences). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:11, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Would it be useful to have more information along these lines? @BilledMammal has kindly created a sample article set, and we've been looking at what it can tell us about Wikipedia's current content.

For example: the 50% of articles in the middle (i.e., from the 25th percentile to the 75th percentile) have these ranges:

• 123–782 words
• 5–29 sentences
• 2–9 refs
• 12–46 links

Each of these numbers is being calculated separately, so there's not necessarily a single article that has (e.g.,) 338 words + 13 sentences + 4 refs + 23 wikilinks to other articles; it's that when you look at refs alone, regardless of anything else, half the articles have between two and nine refs (with a median of 4). Also, these are refs that the query can currently detect, so it's likely including a few explanatory footnotes and makes no attempt at identifying whether the sources are reliable, independent, etc. It also misses citations that don't use <ref> tags/other detectable elements. And a slightly different group has 5–29 sentences, and a slightly different set has 2–9 refs, etc. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:04, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Category

Category:AfC submissions by date/21 August 2024 has not been created at timè of writing — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:40, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

It has been created at time of viewing. Primefac (talk) 11:59, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

These are normally created by EarwigBot a couple of days in advance, but the bot appears to have halted as it has not edited since the 17th. KylieTastic (talk) 12:27, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

I've created User talk:The Earwig#EarwigBot might be down to hopefully alert the bot owner. –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:51, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

 Fixed. Bot is back up. –Novem Linguae (talk) 14:44, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Detecting CV without Earwig

Earwig's Copyvio Detector had been crippled for several weeks now due to an issue with Google credit. How are you all getting your CV checks done? I've been running Earwig with the Use Search Engine option unchecked but is that good enough? ~Kvng (talk) 22:22, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I've been doing for the last couple weeks while the tool is getting worked on. I've also been manually copying and pasting strings of text into my search engine if I'm suspicious of a copyright violation that the tool hasn't picked up. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 23:14, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia for Hailey Gordon

Hello, how would one go about requesting the creation of a Wikipedia page for an athlete? I’m interested in the wikipedia for Hailey Gordon- Mexico national team soccer player. 2605:C840:403:55D8:B97C:19CE:A6C:F050 (talk) 01:30, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

We don't really have an article writing service. (It's WP:RA but no one uses it.) Your best bet is to write a draft yourself using the article wizard. Before you start writing though, you should do a search for newspaper articles and/or books covering this player in depth. If such sources don't exist, then this player doesn't pass WP:GNG and won't qualify for an article. If you provide links to some sources, WP:TEAHOUSE can help with advice on whether or not this person passes GNG. Hope this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:13, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

A Template Foible

Please look at Draft:Comet C/2023 V4 (Camarasa-Duszanowicz) assuming it is currently unreviewed.

The bottom line in the yellow "Please review me" box says:

"Warning: This page should probably be located at Draft:2023 V4 (Camarasa-Duszanowicz) (move)."

This has changed the word order of the (current) draft title, and removed the "/".

I'm not at all sure that this is important but it is worthy of mention.

If you happen to review the draft as well that works, too! 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 10:30, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

In other words, the / is causing it to think this is a subpage of 'Comet C'. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 10:43, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, it's a namespace check, which is supposed to be for when it's in a sandbox or other user subpage. See line 46 of Template:AfC submission/tools. Not sure the check in the draft space is strictly necessary (will think about it). Primefac (talk) 13:19, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Major article wizard malfunction on talk page

Adding talk page classification tags through the submission wizard adds them as plain templates without the shell, which immediately produced error messages as with this diff. Looking through recent submissions this seems to be affecting everyone. Orchastrattor (talk) 23:45, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

cc SD0001. I think the fix is to wrap the banners in {{WikiProject Banner Shell|. I recently updated AFCH to do this. For coding simplicity, I even wrap single banners in the banner shell. –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:01, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

This is https://github.com/wikimedia-gadgets/afc-submit-wizard/issues/1 if anyone wants to implement.

I'm not sure why the banners are emitting errors even when they have no class param specified. In the meantime, it looks they'll be automatically fixed by Cewbot. – SD0001 (talk) 07:36, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

See this discussion: despite being objected to, the change to make these errors show up still persists. Primefac (talk) 13:15, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I imagine the goal of the error message is to reduce the # of articles in Category:WikiProject banners without banner shells that need manual cleanup. In that sense, the error message is probably working well. –Novem Linguae (talk) 14:24, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

It is, but there's a bot that's sorting that stuff out. The huge error message is unnecessary, never mind the fact that it's not required (though I do recognise there is a growing consensus to use WPBS which I am happy to respect). Primefac (talk) 15:35, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I think its because the templates automatically try to enter "draft" as their class, the diff I provided stopped showing errors once it was accepted and just moved into unclassified instead. Orchastrattor (talk) 17:32, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Cynthia F. Moss

This is a different acceptance, and I'm happy to take your comments on it.

The draft appears to have been part of a student project that ended in April this year. No editors who edited it have been active since then. Declining it, as I did at first, was just going to see this go im six months as a G13

Since none of "the original team" appear to remain I decided to unroll a larger team - the community as whole. So I migrated the AFC comments I'd just left to the talk page and accepted it, tagging it for cleanup.

This leads me to the question I want to pose to you. Should we rip our way through the oldest drafts on this type of basis pretty much as a matter of course, pushing anything just better than the borderline up to mainspace with a detailed set of comments on what we feel needs to be done (unless we choose to do those things ourselves)?

If we took a few each every other day we'd probably not need another backlog drive! 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 20:02, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Since this is a likely WP:NPROF pass at AfD, I would have accepted (and tagged) it if I'd come across it, myself. But if you've got anything that looks both borderline and abandoned, and it's about anything related to women, I've had some great success posting short lists of that kind of thing at WP:WIRED. Also, many people on that project are real wizards when it comes to historical newspaper searches, so if no one there manages to find evidence of notability, I feel reasonably confident that no one else could, either. -- asilvering (talk) 22:08, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

12 pages in the unassessed AFC backlog remain up for grabs

...and from the moment of this writing, they may not be long for Wikipedia in the next how many weeks unless some action is taken. After I spent countless days grading hundreds and hundreds of articles in an ambitious, thankless one-man task--a few of which were never attended to since the early 2010s--it's time we finally discussed their chances for a change before it's too soon.

At press time, two in the backlog--Nathaniel Jenkins and Prateek Raj, both BLPs--are under scrutiny at AFD; no further comments on those. Anyway, on with the chaff we found within the wheat--listed alphabetically. (All have been tagged for {{notability}} unless otherwise noted; tag dates, and source-hunting links, are provided next to their titles.)

• 2023 World Seniors Darts Champion of Champions (April 2023) / Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• Abki Baar 400 Paar (June 2024; per talk page--but this might survive nonetheless) / Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• Alsace20 (September 2023) / Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• The Dream Wanderer (January 2019) / Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• Nanjing Week (November 2021) / Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (November 2022) / Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• Rountree, Springfield (February 2019) / Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• ShipSpace (September 2016) / Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• Society of Classical Poets (November 2020) / Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• Soroush Cinema ({{local}}, April 2018) / Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• WDC UK Matchplay (February 2023) / Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• John T. Wilson (born 1861) (October 2023) / Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

As an eventualist/incrementalist, I may be a bit sorry if they end up delisted. But these topics, diverse as they may be, do matter to someone, somewhere. So as it stands, wishing those willing to save those topics good luck--and thanks to the AFC reviewers/participants alike for all your hard work. (Feel free to leave me talk-page feedback.)

Maybe it's time I, an AFC drafter myself, took brief breaks from WP as other off-site commitments compete for my time and attention. All that grading was already overwhelming to begin with... --Slgrandson (How's my egg-throwing coleslaw?) 15:44, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Are these just 12 AFC accepts that have not been rated? And you are asking for us to rate them on the talk page in the banner shell? –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:41, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Not yet rated, and in need of viable sources. --Slgrandson (How's my egg-throwing coleslaw?) 22:10, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

OK, I rated them all. Not sure if this is really an AFC matter. Some of these articles are years old. Once they pass AFC, then it's usually up to gnomes to rate them, the draft author and WP:ARS to try to save them if they're nominated for deletion, etc. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:34, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

To clarify, I was asking for others to add reliable sources to those articles or nominate them for deletion if unsuccessful, not rate them. Hope you understood. --Slgrandson (How's my egg-throwing coleslaw?) 00:43, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

They've passed both AFC and NPP, so this may be outside of our scope. But I suppose it doesn't hurt to ask. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:48, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

At the very least I was able to find a couple sources for ShipSpace. Reconrabbit 14:25, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Assigning WikiProjects to Articles

When I accept an arti0cle, the script asks me to assign it to WikiProjects. Sometimes the originator has already assigned WikiProjects to it in draft. Sometimes I know what WikiProjects the new article should be assigned to. But sometimes I am simply not familiar with the WikiProjects in the area. If I am not familiar with the categories in the area, as I usually am not, I tag the article with {{Improve categories}}, and gnomes are requested to assist by assigning the categories. Will the category gnomes also assign WikiProjects? Is there a way to tag a new article to request WikiProject assistance by gnomes? Robert McClenon (talk) 18:20, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Probably. Some (even here) would argue that tagging WikiProjects is unnecessary, and some are insistent that every page needs to be assigned to a WikiProject. If you can't think of who would want to be "assigned" a draft, don't feel obligated. There aren't any temples to request a WikiProject or to add a project template, but there are some people who relentlessly (or in the case of Ser Amantio, using an unregistered bot account) add WikiProjects, so it will likely be picked up by someone. Primefac (talk) 18:22, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Somewhat related - the AFCH script isn't playing nice with the new format of the wikiproject talk page banners and is generating a lot of ugly errors if multiple wikiprojects are added. If there isn't a ticket open for this on phab already, someone ought to start one. -- asilvering (talk) 18:51, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Does one of these tickets describe the issue? https://github.com/wikimedia-gadgets/afc-helper/labels/draft-talk-page-wikitext –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:13, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

I think it's this one: [1]. Here's an example of it from one I accepted recently. -- asilvering (talk) 19:20, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

That's the primary one, but I will say that all of those are inter-connected issues that have cropped up over the years as the banner format and ideology has changed. I suspect a fix for one will likely include fixes for most if not all of them. Primefac (talk) 19:48, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Posted this as a separate thread... and only then read the above convo. When the submit wizard adds WikiProject tags to the draft talk page, these seem to be newly causing red error messages, see eg. Draft talk:Tony To Chin. The message asks for the banner shell to be added, and the ratings to be applied to the shell. I vaguely remember seeing somewhere that this was changing, so it could be the wizard needs updating to comply with whatever the new practice is? -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 10:23, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

See Module talk:WikiProject banner § Warnings. I personally disagree with this change, and am fighting it. You are welcome to participate (or not) in the discussion, but just note that I am not necessarily advocating anyone do so (and they should probably mention that they were pointed to that discussion by me).

That being said, yes, there is a ticket to update the wizard (along with a half-dozen other WPBS-related updates), see the link by Novem above. Primefac (talk) 11:41, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

We really do need this project either to update the obsolete script or to stop using it. You have been given fair warning and plenty of notice about the changes in the assessment process... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:43, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

I started an update tonight. It's located here. Comments welcome. I'll leave it open for a few days for code review. Please ping me in a few days to remind me to merge and deploy it. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:25, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm glad this is being worked on. In the meantime, I think it crosses a line for MSGJ to be reverting the AFCH edits that produce these warnings (see Talk:Thomas F. Baumert for instance). Warnings are warnings, someone needs to fix them not revert them and sweep them under the rug. It is fine to feed the gnomes while this gets sorted. If the reviewer doesn't do the cleanup after a revert like this, information they added to the article during the accept is likely lost. ~Kvng (talk) 13:43, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Agreed, removing valid projects and details because they are not in the current preferred formatting is ridiculous and if a new user did this they would be getting warnings for vandalism or disruptive editing. The new warnings do make it ugly as, but removing rather than fixing is disruptive that than constructive. WP:PIQA is about having a single assessment, it does not give any validity to remove other information in those banners. Surprised though that a bot had not come along and fixed up before the revert anyway. KylieTastic (talk) 14:22, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

It looks like Qwerfjkl (bot) was approved to do these fixups, but looking in it's logs I can not see it doing it anymore. I only checked a few 1000 edits, I tried an edit summary search for "Task 26" but keep getting 502 bad gateway. Qwerfjkl should this be running, and should it have fixed up the AFCH tools bad formatting before it annoyed MSGJ? KylieTastic (talk) 14:50, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

┌──────────────────────────────┘
KylieTastic, Cewbot runs on these pages (pinging operator kanashimi). — Qwerfjkltalk 15:54, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Qwerfjkl, if so that bot appears to be active adjusting those so probably just backlogged. Can you update User:Qwerfjkl (bot) page to show Task 26 as inactive. Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 16:15, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Done. — Qwerfjkltalk 17:54, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

AFCH WikiProject banner patch is deployed

Seconds ago I went ahead and deployed an AFCH patch that fixes 6 outstanding bugs related to the wikitext that AFCH writes to draft talk pages. These bugs all involved how AFCH wrote WikiProject banner code. Details can be found here. This patch will take effect in 10 minutes after the gadget cache clears.

Please keep an eye on your draft talk diffs for a couple days for any problems. This was a complete rewrite of that part of the code, so new bugs may spring up. I would appreciate it if you could report diffs of bugs here. This is also a good time for me to work on these types of bugs while I have this particular code top of mind.

This patch should hopefully resolve the problems MSGJ is encountering. Thanks all. –Novem Linguae (talk) 13:00, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Good work Novem Linguae. I have been having quick looks at the code changes but not done a full review. It appears to be working so far example. KylieTastic (talk) KylieTastic (talk) 13:59, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Hmm, there's a blank |class= in that diff. Let's see if this fixes it. –Novem Linguae (talk) 14:11, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes it did - see this KylieTastic (talk) 14:19, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

This is looking great. Thanks for your work on this — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:09, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

You're a hero. -- asilvering (talk) 15:46, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

|1=, moving up the WPAFC banner, OKA

Hey Utopes. I see you adding |1= to some of the talk pages, and moving up the WPAFC banner on some of the talk pages. Are these edits necessary? If I am missing something let me know. I can always code AFCH to do these edits for you, if it is worth the effort. But it's my understanding that |1= isn't needed, and the order of WPAFC isn't too important. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:14, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Force of habit a bit, I've always had WPAFC as the first banner on a talk page among all the WikiProject banners (as that's often the most "relevant" towards the lifecycle of the draft-to-article). It felt (and still feels as of now) odd to see a WPAFC banner tucked between two other banners for content/material-related WikiProjs. So I've always ensured it's listed first, as it contains vital info about the status of the page when it was a draft, and useful for audits and etc. If that's not built into the gadget, that'd be a personal recommendation of mine to incorporate.

Per Template:WikiProject banner shell#Parameters, "1=" is the parameter name so if I'm making multiple edits to the banner shell I tend to throw that in there too, adds a bit of clarity towards which param is which. I find it helpful, but it might not be for everyone, which is fair. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 22:28, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Since the AFCH banner has always (to my knowledge) been placed at the top, I think it's probably helpful if the revised script keeps doing that, since that's where people will look for it. Won't make much of a difference for most articles, but it will for those articles that have half a dozen wikiprojects on them. -- asilvering (talk) 22:38, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Sounds good. Just now I patched and deployed both putting WPAFC on top, and adding |1=. I also tweaked the edit summary, and {{OKA}} is now added to the banner shell. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:09, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae: Fwiw the "1=" bit might not be super important in the grand scheme; I'm willing to align to whatever most banner shells use (with or without the "1="). That aspect is more on the cosmetic / aesthetic side so if nobody else is putting that on there, I won't either.

Thanks for the prompt response though, and for prioritizing WPAFC at the top of the shell! o7 Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 23:14, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Speaking of OKA though, I think I had a situation (at Talk:Katowice Załęże railway station, particularly) where there was a WP banner (AFC), followed by a translated-page template, followed by an OKA banner. I left all of the other banners alone due to the new functionality of the gadget, but would the AFCH capture all of that into the shell, or select only from a list of "approved" banners to shell-ify? Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 23:18, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

I spot checked about 8 articles and about half had |1=, and it made the shell more readable when the shell had a lot of parameters, so I decided to include |1=. I also checked around 5 OKA banner articles and about half had it in the shell, so I decided to write AFCH to include it in the shell from now on. The shellify algorithm grabs any template that starts with WikiProject, Football, or OKA, and I may add more to this list as needed. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:50, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

If it matters, the OKA template is a wikiproject template, as part of WP:ITW. -- asilvering (talk) 23:50, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

I deployed again just now. Please keep an eye out for bugs. –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:27, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Double decline notices

I just got an odd one - double decline notices this KylieTastic (talk) 17:16, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Looks unrelated, but still always good to spot and report a bug. I went ahead and filed https://github.com/wikimedia-gadgets/afc-helper/issues/377. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:19, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Auto-detected classes

Please note that the banner shell does not like non-article classes (e.g. [2]). A genuine disambiguation page will be detected automatically and doesn't need any value in |class=. In this case, it was a set index article, so |class=list was appropriate. Thanks — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:40, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Hey @MSGJ. What change do you recommend I make? At the moment the script user can pick from the following options. Should I delete some of these? Which ones? B, C, start, stub, list, disambig, template, redirect, portal, project, NA –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:29, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Could you restrict to the 9 standard grades on Wikipedia:Content assessment? I guess FA/FL/GA/A is unlikely or impossible for a new article so that leaves B, C, start, stub, list only. All the others are detected automatically — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:56, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

 Done. Thanks for reporting the bug. –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:07, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

WikiProject Musician

Many thanks Novem! Next issue - I don't know if you can do anything to improve this. When you add Musicians (example) it auto converts to Biography with |musician-work-group=yes (like this). If Biography was already there, then we now have a redundant banner which needs fixing — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:47, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I can't see how we can fix that as the issue was all post AFCH. We should have added the "WikiProject Biography" and the issue was first adding "WikiProject Musicians" without removing the now redundant "WikiProject Biography" (but an understandable editor issue). The main issue is with AnomieBOT that should have removed (or combined) the "WikiProject Biography" when converting the "WikiProject Musicians". Certainly should be logged as a bug but this one requires AnomieBOT to update not AFCH. Caveat: unless for some reason there is a magic parameter we can add to the first "WikiProject Biography" that makes AnomieBOT work later, but that would be obscure. 17:57, 3 September 2024 (UTC) KylieTastic (talk) 17:57, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I suppose AFCH shouldn't be placing WikiProject Musicians separately in the first place. — Qwerfjkltalk 18:37, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Oh, my mistake I didn't notice that the update was also AFCH! Yes, so AFCH could fix the issue of conflicting WikiProjects. Although, AnomieBOT should also have been able to fix when change "WikiProject Musicians" to "WikiProject Biography" with musician-work-group=yes. KylieTastic (talk) 18:43, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

KylieTastic, well, all AnomieBOT is doing is auto-subst:ing the template. It doesn't know whether there's supposed to be multiple or not. — Qwerfjkltalk 18:53, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

That's not an AFCH issue. I wouldn't expect an AFCH reviewer to know that {{WikiProject Musicians}} is a subst-only wrapper for {{WikiProject Biography}}, and thus I see no reason to implement a change that (if I am reading this correctly) would prevent someone from attempting to do so. We do have a bot-updated list of WikiProjects which is used to suggest WikiProjects to reviewers, so hopefully this was a short-term issue that will be resolved the next time the project list is updated (assuming these are being placed due to the suggested tags by the tool). Primefac (talk) 23:54, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see your reply just now so I wrote a patch for this here. This patch is invisible to the AFC reviewer. The reviewer can still pick WikiProject Musician and WikiProject Biography. The only difference is that AFCH with this patch would silently fix/consolidate the talk page wikicode. This is a bit of a corner case but is easy enough to fix. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:34, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Novem, the issue is that this isn't the only subst-only WikiProject banner. Genuinely out of curiosity, are you going to hard-code exceptions for every one of these templates? Primefac (talk) 00:39, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I could only find two. But yes, I did code exceptions for both of them in the above patch. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:06, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Eh... fair enough. If it's done and it's short that's fine, just wanting to make sure we're not coding for an exception and missing the rule (and if it's not obvious, I really do appreciate the work you put into this project; I mainly don't want to see you doing more than necessary!) Primefac (talk) 10:28, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

If that list is kept up-to-date then great. I have just manually edited to remove musicians but I expect this may be overwritten by the bot. I'm wondering how the bot knows which banners are valid and which are not (Ahecht?) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:34, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

See the WikiProject_templates.json/blocklist.json needs admin or template editor perm to add. KylieTastic (talk) 07:51, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Or it could be WikiProject_templates.json/config.json as that also has a blocklist KylieTastic (talk) 07:53, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

From the code User:Ahechtbot/wikiprojects.js it looks like Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/WikiProject templates.json/config.json is the configuration it uses rather than blocklist.json KylieTastic (talk) 08:56, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Adding in an exception seems like a better (and more robust) solution than having to update the core module every time this sort of thing happens. Primefac (talk) 10:28, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Sounds good. Looks like Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/WikiProject templates.json removed WikiProject Musicians and I removed WikiProject Sportspeople, removing these two problematic templates from being able to be selected on the accept screen of AFCH. If Ahectbot doesn't readd these in 4 hours when it makes its daily edit, we should be good. I'll go ahead and abandon my patch to help keep the code in AFCH simpler. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:28, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae, KylieTastic, MSGJ: I added Musicians and Sportspeople to the blocklist (which, as you figured out, is at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation/WikiProject_templates.json/config.json), so the bot shouldn't re-add them on the next run in a couple of hours. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 02:54, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

@Ahecht. Does this edit need to be reverted? I thought we had decided to keep these off the list. –Novem Linguae (talk) 14:21, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

No, it need to be kept to "keep these off the list". It is an edit to add them to the blocklist as the bot auto detects the wikiprojects and then uses that file to add a few that are not auto-detected (I assume as they have a / character in the names), but also removes/ignores the ones in the blocklist. KylieTastic (talk) 14:42, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Add NPP, search engine indexing in TM:AfC accept

The template that is posted on the submitter's talk page when their draft is accepted Template:AfC accept does not have a mention of the fact that an article has to be reviewed by a WP:NPPer to be indexed in search engines. I see many people coming to help forums asking about why their page doesn't appear in Google/Bing search results. It could also be demotivating to see that their article has less viewership due to them not showing up in general search engines. Ca ^{talk to me!} 07:37, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm kinda split on this. On the one hand, you're right, and more information could be helpful. On the other hand... they can't really do anything about it, and my default reply for the last ten years helping out on IRC has been "we have no control over search engines". Is it better or worse for us to say "thanks for waiting 3 months for us to review your draft, now wait up to another 3 months for us to patrol it so it can be indexed!" Primefac (talk) 10:31, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I would certainly be happier to learn that my article will be indexed in a forseeable timeframe rather than seemingly never. Ca ^{talk to me!} 10:43, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I am split too, but my worry is that the new editors would start badgering WT:NPP to get their articles reviewed if WP:NPP is linked directly. – robertsky (talk) 11:06, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

My concern whenever I see this is why are they asking? I usually see it as a red flag that they are trying to use Wikipedia for promotion in some way. I would be happy to see a note saying something like "Please note we have no control over search engines" (which I admit is a bit of a lie as we do control asking them not to index some things), but I don't think we should point them to patrolling/NPP. KylieTastic (talk) 11:36, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Proposed text: "For content moderation purposes, all new articles are not indexable by search engines for up to three months while the editing community collectively review new articles, including this, for infringements of Wikipedia's core content policies. We have no control over how search engines may index the new articles beyond the 3-month hold." – robertsky (talk) 12:08, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

How about this?

"Your article would not be indexed on search engines until New Page Patrollers review your article or after 3 months, whichever is first. We have no control over search engines results beyond the 3-month hold." Ca ^{talk to me!} 13:04, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

The idea is to shield NPP from potential badgering from new editors, hence in my proposed text it simply reads as "editing community". My wording of simply "up to three months" is also to keep the timeline vague and to lower the expectations of a review will happen earlier than the three months. If it is indexed early, it is a bonus. – robertsky (talk) 20:12, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Any such message we add would be not applicable probably about half the time, since a lot of AFC reviewers are either autopatrolled or mark the page NPP patrolled. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:32, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

I frequently notice that drafts I've accepted into mainspace appear on search engines especially Google, before they're reviewed by NPP. However, I believe there are folks (NPPers) that nomally review newly accepted drafts, people like Slgrandson, e.t.c. And let's be clear, we do have control over search engines! We can instruct them when to index or not, and page moves also impact their results sometimes. Hahaha! Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 19:57, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Actually, not really; unpatrolled new pages cannot be indexed. See WP:NOINDEX for the full table of what can be shown/overridden and when. Primefac (talk) 19:59, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

How many times per year do you think this question is asked? In which help forums? More data may be helpful since there is a tradeoff here: reducing questions about this for tens/hundreds of editors per year, versus providing complex information to thousands or tens of thousands of editors per year. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:33, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Here is couple I found from a very quick search in WP:TEA: 2018, 2020, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2022, 2023. I am sure for every question of this type asked, ten others did not, and became confused and demotivated that their hard research isn't even seen in Google. Ca ^{talk to me!} 10:00, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

AfC stats

Is there a way to see how many articles I've accepted/declined? I'm pretty sure I saw a website with that sort of data, but I've lost it.

Additionally, is there a way to see how the drafts backlog has shifted over time (through a graph)?

(Unrelated, but I think a backlog drive should be organized soon-ish. Just feels right.) LR.127 (talk) 19:48, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

If you're on WP:AFCP you can click the "reviews" link next to your name. NPR and Admins can also view their stats by going to https://apersonbot.toolforge.org/afchistory/?user=XYZ where XYZ is their username. We have had various backlog stats over the years but currently graphs is out of commission and we do not have anything running currently. Primefac (talk) 19:56, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

As for a drive, a couple of months ago I might have suggested one, also, when we were hovering (IIRC) around the 3.5-4K mark. Since then, we've been slowly but consistently coming down, and now are at < 2.5K, which is okay, IMO. (If anything, we could benefit from a quality assurance initiative of some sort, to check how well we're all adhering to the 'rules'.) -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 05:57, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

We're not getting yelled at (right now anyway) for either declining too many or accepting too much, so that's one QA metric to go by. Primefac (talk) 10:30, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately the weekly stats stopped getting updated (because of the graphs issue) so I can't even do a manual graph to show the history trend. KylieTastic (talk) 11:10, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

At NPP, we got our backlog graph back up and running, by making our own bot and maybe also doing some data scraping using a Toolforge webservice. I also found Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Backlog chart/daily, which looks like a good format to plug into a bot, and which was turned off a few months ago but can be easily turned back on by editing User:MusikBot/CategoryCounter/Run. I'll talk to some tech people and see what I can do. Please ping me in a week if a nudge is needed :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:40, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Part 1 of getting our AFC backlog graph back is complete. @MPGuy2824 setup an off-wiki tool to track the # of unreviewed drafts each day, and this data can be consumed by a bot. https://npptech.toolforge.org/npp/data.php?type=unreviewedDrafts. Now I think @DreamRimmer is going to work on part 2 of this, getting a bot to place a backlog graph image and to update it frequently. This is similar to their BaranBOT task 3 so hopefully it won't be too much trouble. –Novem Linguae (talk) 14:29, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

BRFA filed – DreamRimmer (talk) 16:09, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Multiple rejections by same reviewer?

Is it good practice for the same reviewer to review and fail an article repeatedly? Particularly when this goes from 'not enough sources' to sources being added and it then rejected as 'just not notable'. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:56, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

That largely depends, some reviewers try never to do multiple reviews end on end, others do. I do if it's obvious fail (for example: no sources resubmitted still with no sources). Otherwise it depends on the the case, and I would always say first talk to the reviewer in question. If a article was submitted with no or very few sources it may be impossible without looking externally to tell if they are notable, if more sources are added for the second submit it may become clear that the claims about the subject are not notable. If it's the case I think it is then you did try to ask and have not got a reply. I would suggest either poke the question again (in case it was just missed or forgotten about), ask at the help desk from the button on the reject notice, or add the article in question here. I would say the issue in this presumptive case, is not the multiple reviews but the rejection. If someone else had done the first decline would you not still be asking for clarification on the reject? Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 17:07, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Also Andy Dingley as you are an experienced editor and article creator do remember AfC is not mandatory for you (unless you've been paid to work on the article, etc.) So if you think your changes are enough for notability then you could move to main-space yourself (and remove the AfC templates etc). The reviewer or anyone else can disagree if they want and take to AfD. Another option to consider is if you move it but want a second opinion, un-patrol it (as you are autopatrolled) and let NPP have a pass at it. Regards KylieTastic (talk) 17:15, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

@Andy Dingley I think @KylieTastic has encapsulated the theoretical answer well.

Having looked at the draft I believe this was an erroneous rejection. I am about to have a conversation with the reviewer to ffer guidance.

Since you are a highly experienced editor, may I suggest that there is sufficient notability for it to survive in main space, and that you move it there yourself? 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 18:08, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

The problem we've got with AfC is that it's being used in a way it wasn't designed for. Instead of being a place used to improve drafts so they eventually become articles, it has become a place for conflict of interest submissions. Most AfC submitters just want to get their stuff through; most of them don't intend to become Wikipedia editors (That's how I have perceived AfC in the past three years). There are significantly more submissions than there is reviewing capacity. Reviewing a single draft, if it's supposed to be done right, requires effort worth one hour, at least (ignoring drafts that are obviously unacceptable). I agree that, in general, in an ideal AfC system, the same reviewer should not review an article multiple times. However, given the current situation, I oppose introducing such a policy. I would support a submission limit per draft, i.e., that a draft can be submitted only once in a specified time period, for example, once per week. This would force submitters to improve their drafts rather than resubmitting them with the same obvious errors.

The particular case that you have described, Andy, would be such a situation: composing a draft without citing sources doesn't yield a Wikipedia-compliant result. Adding sources to such a draft as an "afterthought" isn't going to work, at least that's what I reckon. There is a very high chance that the sources won't support the article as they ought to, thus, the draft is having a hard time demonstrating how the sources indicate notability. The sources must be sought prior to draft creation. Therefore, rewriting large sections of the draft from scratch – not all of it but most of it – is the right thing to do. But who knows that? In my perception, COI submitters who go the fast route – and seek to avoid learning how Wikipedia works – will never know. Due to the system's submission incentivisation – not submitting a draft is equal to a 100 per cent chance at the draft not being accepted, submitting it lowers that chance – submitters will keep submitting their drafts no matter how bad the drafts are or whether or not these submitters are even aware of their drafts' quality. The result is the huge number of unreviewed submissions. Therefore, I believe that, and unfortunately so that reviewers must retain the right to decline a draft more than once. Best regards, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 18:11, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Reviewing a single draft, if it's supposed to be done right, requires effort worth one hour, at least (ignoring drafts that are obviously unacceptable). That seems like too long to me. I think 10 or 15 minutes might be a more reasonable "worst case scenario" time. The bulk of the time spent during NPP and AFC is checking citations for GNG. If it's REFBOMBed with 100 citations, then just checking the most promising looking ones is probably acceptable, as analyzing 100 sources for GNG is probably not a reasonable thing to expect a reviewer to do. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:02, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Accepted. Rejection reverted. I'll leave the rest of this discussion to others. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 18:21, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Courtesy link: Draft:Logan Henderson (engineer) –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:09, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

I am more than willing to reject it multiple times if it's blatantly non-notable or deficient. If it's something I personally believe but not super obvious I will usually just leave a resubmit that I don't think passes to a second opinion.

I do think that "conflict of interest submissions" are kinda the entire point of AfC being there; we encourage people to go through AfC if they have a conflict with the subject matter to make sure it's neutral. I will still reject blatant advertisements. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 18:56, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

"conflict of interest submissions" are kinda the entire point of AfC being there - not really; see WP:ACTRIAL and WP:ACPERM. The point was to reduce the prevalence of junk in the article space, not just COI or PAID drafts. Primefac (talk) 20:44, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

I do not see the vast proportion of those I review as being COI or Paid. The vast majority are real editors wishing to get a draft accepted. Many make a good job of it and get through first time. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 21:21, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

@Zxcvbnm I am willing to reject a draft once. I usually review it and accept or decline once only, and very rarely touch it again. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 21:20, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Same. I don't think it's a good idea for the same reviewer to decline a draft multiple times, since that can lead to problems if that reviewer's standards are out of step with everyone else's, and also because it encourages submitters to keep hassling the same reviewer every time they resubmit their draft. I do accept drafts I've previously declined reasonably often. -- asilvering (talk) 22:02, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

I'll third that; I personally do not re-review drafts, with the only exceptions really being when something hits the back of the queue twice and I'm the only one that seems to want to deal with it (and I think that's only happened a few times over the years). Primefac (talk) 22:34, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

• That's the sort of thing I'd see as a good general policy. I was wondering if there was anything concrete about it. This was not about any one specific draft, just something that came up.

TBH, I'm not convinced this one even does demonstrate notability, although I have a few other sources to check first. But the only good archive for this stuff is physical access only and a hundred miles away.

I wasn't going to move it to mainspace because I don't have the AfC tools and was previously warned off doing one manually. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:45, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

I think, Andy Dingley, that it ought to be framed as good advice for which there may be exceptions. Making it a rule would be too prescriptive.

With regard to being unsure on the notability front, our standing instructions are to accept any draft which we believe has a better than 50% chance of surviving an immediate deletion process. That means we are entitled to be unsure, but only unsure.

I accepted the draft on that basis. I feel it has a way better than 50% chance of survival. If it is sent for deletion I will remain neutral and watch with interest.

I see "immediate" as being "in the next few days after acceptance without any significant intervening edits"

We need to have the courage to risk being wrong, to accept borderline drafts, and to allow the community to look at such a draft and make their decision. I'm always disappointed when I have been shown to be wrong, but take that disappointment cheerfully. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 08:10, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

@Andy Dingley I hope you weren't 'warned off' in such a manner as to leave a nasty taste in your mouth, though it sounds as though you can still taste it.

I'm going to make a guess. My guess is that you may have moved a draft to mainspace when you thought it ought to be there. That is a good thing, even if you were in good faith error. The request (I hope it was a request) was potentially "When you do this, please tidy the AFC artefacts from the head of the article before you declare your work done."

I really hope it was along those lines, and hope, if it was me(!) it was as polite as that.

AFC welcomes experienced editors finding wheat in the chaff and handling it well, with or without the toolset. The only extra things the toolset gives you when you accept a draft are pleasant "Your draft has been accepted" notes on the submitting editor's talk page, and that it does the tidying up for you, plus giving you prompts in its user interface for categories, etc etc. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 09:34, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

You can move whatever you want from draftspace to mainspace per WP:DRAFTOBJECT. Whoever warned you in the past was probably mistaken. Since you are autopatrolled though, if you are not confident that what you're moving is a notability pass, you should probably un-autopatrol it after the move to get a second set of eyes on it. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:05, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

It was probably someone moaning about not removing the AFC-related templates and tags. Probably worth mentioning but this sounds more like someone complained rather than leaving a nice note. Primefac (talk) 15:59, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

In general moving AfC drafts to mainspace directly is a bad idea since the vast majority of people who do this are doing so disruptively, so it's reasonably likely someone will assume the same of you. In your case, better imo to avoid AfC entirely, and simply let NPP handle it, as @Novem Linguae explained. -- asilvering (talk) 18:32, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Probably good to just suggest that reviewers not do multiple reviews on the same article (unless the creator requests it e.g the reviewer is guiding them). Two things I've seen....one is rejections for article quality issues which are not in the AFC standard. The other (I'm an active NPP'er and just an occasional AFC reviewer) is the AFC reviewers on average play it extra "safe" which means that many AFC reviewers have a tougher standard than NPP or AFD. North8000 (talk) 18:48, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

NewPagesFeed

I was reading m:Wikiafication, an essay over at Meta opposing old WMF stuff that would've been done by the growth team nowadays. Examples included Special:NewPagesFeed, which includes AfC drafts and seems like a really useful and interactive way to browser AfC submissions! Pages can be filtered and sorted, sort of like the watchlist/recent changes. How should we incorporate links to this? The tab for submissions is squished enough already, and I can't decide where to put it. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:15, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

You propose to add Special:NewPagesFeed to Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/tabs? Seems like a great idea. How's this? –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:15, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Ah, the problem was me attempting to make it "JS Feed" due to the page requiring JS.  Self-trout Aaron Liu (talk) 02:59, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Other than having the first sentence of the draft, does this do anything different than just browsing the AFC submission pages/cats? Primefac (talk) 12:02, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

It's a more intuitive interface that can filter things and generally get to a draft to review faster. Aaron Liu (talk) 12:04, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Page info comment

Anyone know what the 'page info' blurb on top of the Draft:ExoSat Aerospace Industries page is? -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 14:14, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Removed, original in Special:Permalink/1245009798. I believe it is likely to be a comment that was copy/pasted into an external processor, formatted by said processor, and then copied back to Wikipedia. If not, I have no idea what it is or why it is there, but the weird formatting on the <!-- makes me think it's not directly related to us. Primefac (talk) 15:03, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Category machinations

Tracked in github.com
Issue #381

I would have expected this to have been removed by the script when I accepted the article. {{Draftcat}} detects when the article is moved to mainspace and does the right thing so as far as readers are concerned there's no issue. ~Kvng (talk) 14:25, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I believe it removes the full version {{Draft categories}} but not the redirect. Also the redirect version does not stop them appearing in Category:AfC submissions with categories. The redirect was only created in Oct 2022 presumable because typing "Draft categories" was to much, but none of the tools and templates where updated to deal with it. KylieTastic (talk) 15:58, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

If it doesn't work, we should probably delete the {{Draftcat}} and any other redirects to {{Draft categories}} while we're at it. ~Kvng (talk) 20:17, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Or we can write a patch for AFCH. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:34, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Patching AFCH won't fix the redirect. The intent with {{Draft categories}} is to keep drafts unlisted in the category system until a draft is accepted. According to KylieTastic {{Draftcat}} isn't doing that. I don't know if that can be fixed. Even if it can, deleting the redirect seems to be an easier solution. ~Kvng (talk) 12:59, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Or we just update Module:AfC submission catcheck... Primefac (talk) 13:09, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Any templates that are redirects to {{Draft categories}} either need to be removed, updated by a bot, or supported by AFCH and Module:AfC submission catcheck (possibly others I'm not aware of?). AFCH would need to remove all the redirects as well as {{Draft categories}} so include {{Draft cats}}, {{Draftcat}}, {{Draft Categories}}, {{Draft category}} and {{Draft cat}}. Module:AfC submission catcheck would also need to be updated in the removeFalsePositives() check to also detect these as it currently only supports {{Draft categories}} and {{Draft Categories}}. KylieTastic (talk) 13:10, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Draft:Film Afrika - sigh

The org is likely notable, but this is not helped by the paid editor who is failing to heed advice. I'm not interested in helping them get paid. I see them as a promotion only account, but do not feel able to report them as such since I have been trying hard to help them,

Perhaps someone might take a look at the draft and make a decision. I no longer feel able to. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 16:31, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Won't be me, I don't want to get my head bitten off. Someone braver than me is needed... -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 16:40, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

We could just accept it and tag it for all the stuff that's wrong with it, but I'm uncomfortable bout writing a paycheck by doing that. Call me selfish, if you like. I just dislike paid editors who do not learn. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 16:46, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I have selfishly declined on the grounds that it is overtly promotional. Theroadislong (talk) 16:50, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

It could be remedied. I have done about 20% of what is needed, but just don't feel like it. Maybe I'm being unreasonable, but I have had more than sufficient dialogue with this editor. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 16:59, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Let the paid editor earn his money. Theroadislong (talk) 17:09, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

We don't often delete articles for the flaws identified here. Why do we think it is justified that we decline it (three times now)? ~Kvng (talk) 20:24, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I declined it because it was over promotional paid editing. Theroadislong (talk) 20:38, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Theroadislong's draft comment makes a good case that the last decline for being egregiously promotional was reasonable. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:41, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Agree. We cannot accept an overly promotional draft just because it has been declined too many times before. Especially if that draft was composed by a paid editor. Paid editors capable enough to create high-quality articles exist but who ever wrote that draft isn't one of them. I don't feel that it's right to waste reviewers' time by writing advertisements disguised as Wikipedia articles. Declinging – or even gelevening them – is reasonable. The paid editor must do the work, and if he is unable to do so, the former applies. Best, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 06:52, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

A 'gel evening' sounds fun, where can I find one of these parties? --DoubleGrazing (talk) 07:09, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Maybe this is an evening versus night perception cultural difference. You'll find the 'gel evening' at WP:G11. Best, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 09:04, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I like 'declinging' even more. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 17:21, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

If one of us wanted to do the paid editor a favor that they do not deserve, one of us could delete about half of the draft, the most blatantly promotional portions. Then the draft might be acceptable. The paid editor should do that themselves, or forget about it. We, the Wikipedia community, have no obligation to the paid editor.

It is justified for us to decline a draft three or six times if it is being tendentiously resubmitted. At about five or six resubmits, we often Reject a draft, and have been known to send drafts to MFD to reduce the waste of our time.

In case it isn't obvious, I concur with the declines for being overly promotional, and would have either declined or rejected it if I were the reviewer. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:59, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I have done it with unsourced biographies, and I'm pretty sure we could do it here (haven't had a chance to really look at the draft) but if there are large swathes of unsourced or overly promotional material, but the rest of it is sourced, neutral, and demonstrates notability, then just remove the offending content and accept. Honestly I don't give a rats arse whether someone is getting paid for their edits as long as we can get a reasonable article out of it and they're following our other rules like disclosure. Primefac (talk) 12:05, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

We don't have to do it here; it can be done in mainspace by editors that are more generous or have more time for this sort of thing than us. If you don't believe it will be improved, try it sometime, accept something marginal and keep it on your watchlist; you may be surprised. ~Kvng (talk) 15:38, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

This is true, of course. But on a point of principle, I don't think a paid editor should rely on the community to get their draft/article up to an acceptable state, not 'mainspace editors' any more than AfC reviewers. I for one don't mind providing advice, but I won't do their work for them. (In this particular case even advice wasn't always well received, but that's a separate issue.) -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 15:47, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

My point is that other editors are likely to feel differently and they will have their own principles that I assume could be argued to be just as valid, e.g. we're here to improve the encyclopedia and blocking a submission on principle prevents others from doing the work to that end and so blocking is not furthering the cause of improving the encyclopedia. This is certainly not a WP:G11 situation so I assume the basis for the decline is WP:NPOV but that's a judgement call and the way we make that call is to ask ourselves, "Is this something that would be deleted at WP:AFD?" I beleive the answer here is no. ~Kvng (talk) 16:10, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

I've given it a light trim if anyone wants to move it to main space with appropriate tags. Theroadislong (talk) 16:27, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

As a reviewer, accepting promotional drafts gives paid editors an incentive not to do their job right, which, in the long run, does damage to Wikipedia. Casual editors willing to improve promotional drafts may still do so at AfC; drafts can easily be found through the search function. Nobody is prevented from improving promotional drafts by a reviewer not accpeting such drafts, i.e., I disagree with "blocking a submission on principle prevents others from doing the work to that end". And even if others were prevented from doing the work, always keep in mind that someone is getting paid for that work, and it#s not the volunteers. Best, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 17:35, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

I have tried to guide this paid editor, a paid editor who does shoddy work. I accepted their draft on David Wicht eventually, after much shenanigans, and after not a small number of hostile posts from them. Even so I accepted that.

This one, however, is one where they are taking no real notice of advice. I have no interest in helping them to get paid. I have no longer any interest in assisting this editor, either. If others want her to be able to present her invoice and be paid for it, that is on their conscience. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 17:52, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Tim, frankly, I reckon that this is dragging you down. I hope you won't perceive this as insolent, but let me give you advice: stop wrapping your head around it. Fellow reviewers have taken sufficient note of the matter. All the best, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 18:57, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

I have stopped, my friend. I was just stating clearly my position. It is in the hands of whoever wishes to handle it. I may not even watch the outcome (bet you I will 👀)

I don't let things here drag me down, nor should anyone.

Insolent? Not at all. Helful and showing empathy is what it is. Thank you. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 20:43, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

If I wasn't Involved I'd have blocked her months ago. Gold stars to you Paid is fine but she's literally only here to promote herself and her fellow film workers. She is not here to improve the project and we're not missing anything without her walled garden. Star Mississippi 02:21, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

If she is following the rules, it doesn't really matter what her motivations are; if we have neutral articles on subjects that we did not have before, the project is improved (not every editor has to contribute more than one or two articles to WP). Primefac (talk) 10:21, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

That's the issue, I don't think she is. She proposes a merger at Talk:David_Wicht#Merge_proposal (as directed, no issue there), there's at least one oppose, and she implements the merger anyway. I think she's poking the edges to see what we'll notice and what she can get away with. To me that's not good faith Star Mississippi 13:12, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

@Star Mississippi My recollection is that the merge was reverted prior to my opinion here to oppose, but my memory is hazy. Yours may be better.

My view is different from yours. I think it's a case of an apparent willingness to take help and advice, but a selective ear for the advice. See my own talk page, the culmination of substantial well delivered, correct advice comes down to "shoudl I do this thing, then?" I am paraphrasing.

The editor is following the rules. They seem to follow them without following through completely and doing 100% of what is suggested (they are free to do so), but the re-askng what they should do. I have an abundance of good faith, but am no longer deploying it actively in their direction

I have long been tempted to agree with @Primefac's thinking. I know a good, neutral article improves Wikipedia. I know, too, that a poor article that is not susceptible to improvement which is deleted improves Wikipedia. I know that a poor article that is improved itself improves Wikipedia. I just cannot bring myself to trigger the payment of an invoice to a paid editor for something wrenched into neutrality by others. This may be a minority view, but it is the view I hold. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 18:09, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly concur with you on this, we have expended so much time on this draft when we could have been helping more deserving volunteer contributions. Theroadislong (talk) 18:19, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Nothing more true can be said. --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 18:40, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Please keep in mind that regardless of advice or even telling them what to do, some of the AfC authors you'll encounter will be unable to follow the advice for whatever reason. I don't know how much it helps to try to figure out why in each case. ~Kvng (talk) 20:16, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

I may be wrong with timing of your decline and @SafariScribe's, @Timtrent but the merge was not one to proceed with unopposed. @KylieTastic and based on the DRV, we're probably about to have a long slog with her autobiography. That's what kicked it all up again after a summer hiatus. Happy to help paid editors in general, but not this paid editor. I did so for several months and it got us nowhere but legal threats and do you know who I am? Fully concur with @Theroadislong, but I'm sure someone will help her. Star Mississippi 23:43, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

• I wonder how much time this editor has taken up indirectly with all the posting here and so much more with all those notified/reading this thread? IMHO if you don't wont to engage with a submitter for whatever reason, just don't. Just leave it for someone who will/wants to review or let it fester in the !queue for months. There are plenty of good submissions from good-faith submitters that are awaiting review. This thread has given this submitter so much attention and thus taken it away from those patiently waiting. KylieTastic (talk) 18:41, 13 September 2024 (UTC)
•  Comment: I have gone ahead and accepted the draft. Although I tidied it up and ignored paid editing lifestyle of the creating editor, I'd think she is learning how to promote herself but first, to see others. I also removed the paid tag because it's likely that I rewrote a handful; you may revert if you feels it's awkward and that the tag is still needed. We shouldn't have given much attention to this, as to me and my thinking, it doesn't worth it. Cheers! Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 02:14, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you for resolving this. I disagree but will ignore the whole thing. Probably. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 07:34, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Draft:List of storms named Pulasan

Buongiourno tutti,

Can anyone do justice to this draft. Cheers! Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 06:14, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean, it's pretty darn close to "not ever". Primefac (talk) 13:38, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Rate limit (redux)

As discussed in June, we're still having a ton of issues brought up at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/Submission wizard indicating that the rate limit is still showing as an issue for folks trying to submit. Does anyone know if we've made nay progress on fixing that? It looks like the proposed fix was denied (I'll hold off on my thoughts about that...), and I'm not sure if anything better has been thought of to mitigate the issue. Primefac (talk) 12:56, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

From the uses this month so far, the mean rate limit hits was 42 times for 173 successes, so clearly still a big issue. Ping SD0001 as they raised MediaWiki_talk:Captcha-addurl-whitelist#Protected_edit_request_on_8_June_2024 initially. KylieTastic (talk) 15:05, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Looking back at the discussion in June, the issue was the links to Google and Bing. Google is used in both the Editor resources and Review tools sections but Bing is only used for Reviewer tools. Removing Google from Editor resources helped a little but because the links are also used in Reviewer tools, the issue still remained. SD was hesitant to remove Google and Bing from Reviewer tools. I never use those search links. Do any other reviewers? Any harm in removing them? S0091 (talk) 15:45, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

I've never used them. KylieTastic (talk) 15:51, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

I also have never used them. I say we remove them right now and then see if anyone actually cares/notices. Primefac (talk) 15:52, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Be bold, Primefac! :) SD added back the Google links in Editor resources so I suppose you will need to remove them there as well. S0091 (talk) 15:57, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

I missed that Google exists on the interwiki map, eg. google:test. That way, it doesn't count as an external link and hence won't trigger captcha! Only Bing needs to be dropped. – SD0001 (talk) 18:52, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

 Done [3] [4]. According to Special:AbuseFilter/examine/1818758338, no external link additions (except toolforge/wmflabs) were recorded on submit, so unconfirmed users should no longer need to enter captchas. – SD0001 (talk) 19:06, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for sorting that out. Primefac (talk) 13:37, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Looks to be working, over the last 12 hours 112 successful submits, 0 captcha and 1 rate limited. Worth reviewing again in a few days just to check but looks positive. KylieTastic (talk) 14:34, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

OKA

AfC reviewers might be interested in WP:COIN#Request to give Kseni-kam a leeway. C F A 💬 01:01, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

AFCH and copyvios

If I decline a draft as a copyvio and tick the CSD box it does not seem to notify the creating editor of thge copyvio/CSD.

Example User:Cmm66930/sandbox probably now deleted and User talk:Cmm66930

Or is it me? 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 16:43, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

It says that it's a copyvio in the decline notice so if already deleted when they go to look they will have a reason, so yet another template is a bit overkill. Rather than add another template the copyvio decline message maybe should say something like "some or all of your article may be deleted to remove the violation". KylieTastic (talk) 16:48, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

That extra verbiage makes sense. I knew it was me! 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 17:04, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Problem with terminology

At the Teahouse, a colleague recently gave the advice: "Rejected means stop, don't go on. Declined means it might be accepted with revision."

I'd love to know which dictionary makes this distinction. Or does it just exist in the minds of AfC reviewers? If so, please pick better terms, as the confusion between the two phrases quoted is a frequent cause of confusion among new editors commenting at The Teahouse and Help Desk. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:18, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

We've been using this wording since rejection was brought in to use in 2018. Yes, there is sometimes confusion about the terms, but it is easy enough to clarify as you just indicated above. Personally speaking, I find a much greater distinction between rejection and declination, where the former is a hard "you done fucked up" and the latter is more of a polite thing. Of course, this comes as a native English speaker; anecdotally most of the confusion seems to come from ESL speakers (and even more anecdotally, from India).

As a minor point, coming in and insulting us straight off the bat is a really good way for us to get defensive; there are better ways to start a discussion. Primefac (talk) 11:46, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Actually, to answer your asinine question, Merriam Webster gives:

• decline often implies courteous refusal especially of offers or invitations.
• reject implies a peremptory refusal by sending away or discarding.

So yes, there is a lexicological difference. Primefac (talk) 11:48, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

You're welcome to quote the insult you imagine I made, but meanwhile, I didn't say there was no difference in dictionary definitions; I asked which dictionary made the distinction which I quoted. I note you have no source for that. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:41, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

You know as well as I do that such a thing doesn't exist; the words are different, and have been used to mean different things by this WikiProject for six years now. The fact that one user has come up with (in my opinion) a short and simple way of remembering those differences does not mean they are wrong. Primefac (talk) 12:47, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

"used to mean different things by this WikiProject" Indeed. This is exactly the problem which I seek to resolve. You've already acknowledged that "there is sometimes confusion", and that there is cultural bias in the jargon being used. You have advanced no argument (except, perhaps one equating to "we have always done it this way") why the status quo offers more benefits than does fixing the issue. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:52, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

That's mostly because I wasn't trying; that is not how you phrased your initial post and not what you appeared to be looking for. Primefac (talk) 12:57, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Primefac, I think asinine is too strong a word, although your defensive response is understandable. User:Pigsonthewing, it seems like the confusion is on your end because you don't quite grasp the AFC process and terminologies. Instead of asking for clarification or seeking help to understand the terms, you jumped to conclusions with your question, implying that the phrases in question only exist in the minds of AFC reviewers. Really?

To clarify, "rejection" as it was already explained by Primefac, applies to drafts that are not notable and will not be for the time being, or falls under WP:WWIN to thr sight of God and man, and it's given no option for resubmission except in rare cases of re-review. "Decline" means the draft fails to meet the WP:AFCSTANDARDS. Perhaps, hed suggest that the decline message should exclude Teahouse as where to ai question about the decline to avoid all this confusion, as some editors from there seem to misinterpret AFC wording and try to favor unintentionally non-notable drafts in the name of fighting for new cheated editors. Next time, please ask questions instead of making assumptions or final conclusions. Cheers! Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 12:24, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

There is no confusion on my part, and no assumptions. I fully understand the process; having both submitted articles via AfC and reviewed and rejected and published others' submissions. The confusion is experienced - frequently experienced, as I said - by the people to whom I referred; not least the individual to whom the quoted advice was given. But thank you for confirming my point, that the distinction is internal to AfC. That, no doubt, is why it is often misunderstood by people new to it, and why less ambiguous phraseology will benefit all concerned. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:41, 26 August 2024 (UTC).

If you have an alternate suggestion, I'm all ears (and yes, this is a genuine statement, not sarcasm). Primefac (talk) 12:53, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Find an alternate phrase instead of "Declined"; one which actually relates to what is being done - maybe "Referred for further work". I'm not precious about the exact phrase, nor clear whether a single-word verb is needed. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:09, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

This comes up semi-regularly but I've not yet seen a suggestion that gets more approval that the status-quo. "Referred for further work" along with similar suggestion is often criticised for suggesting that with further work it will get accepted which is often not true. Declined (or its replacement) has to say that it may or may not be acceptable with more work. Note that the notice posted on the submitters page does not even mention the word decline. The message on the submission does though but explains the issue - people just don't/won't read what it says. A lot of the time submitters ask why a submission was "rejected" when it was declined and I think regardless of what wording is used for a declined draft they will still see, and refer to it, as a rejection, which is what happened in this case. KylieTastic (talk) 13:45, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

"This comes up semi-regularly" I'm not surprised. As I say, the confusion occurs frequently.

"criticised for suggesting that with further work it will get accepted" Is there ever a case where an article is "declined" without a prose comment suggesting or implying that further work should be done? If not, the objection seems spurious.

"Declined (or its replacement) has to say that it may or may not be acceptable" Isn't that the job of the prose component? The word "Declined" does not say that.

"A lot of the time submitters ask why a submission was "rejected" when it was declined" This again reiterates my point - to most people, the two words are close synonyms. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:05, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't think there's too much wrong with the terminology. Yes, it may be that it's no immediately obvious to a newbie, but then neither is the difference between 'page' and 'article', or that between AfC and AfD, or any number of terms of the trade. Until the meaning is explained to you, and then it's usually clear; it's called learning the ropes. Of the million things one needs to learn about Wikipedia, I don't see this one as a biggie. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 14:00, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

I have taken the liberty of improving the iconography on the reject talk page message to use the same more emphatic stop icon used on the draft page. This should help especially if this is an ESL issue. ~Kvng (talk) 15:30, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

In the two days since I raised the matter here, I have seen at east three more editors, at the Teahouse or Help Desk, who are confused by this issue. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:13, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Got any ideas for new terms? I can't think of anything better than decline and reject. Could change the two terms to "fix and resubmit" and "do not resubmit", but then those don't work well as nouns. "Your articles for creation submission has been tagged as 'do not resubmit'" is a bit of a mouthful. –Novem Linguae (talk) 13:24, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

""Got any ideas for new terms? - Yes, answered above. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:26, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Is your proposal to change declined to "Referred for further work"? What do you propose changing rejected to? –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:58, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

What I wrote above was "maybe 'Referred for further work'. I'm not precious about the exact phrase". I have made no proposal to cease using "rejected". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:36, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Separately, I suggest unchecking Teahouse for editors whose drafts have been reviewed and declined/rejected. What they always ask is about their draft's review and ways to improve it. Both AFC helpdesk and Teahouse should re-examine the draft and corresponding decline or reject messages when providing feedback right? @Pigsonthewing, I understand your point, but my concern is that we need to focus on constructive guidance, such as giving additional sources, ways to delete peacock-promotional language, etc., rather than simply knowing whether a draft was rejected or declined. In this context, 'decline' is a more suitable term for not accepting a submission, whereas 'reject' comes across as more absolute and dismissive, implying 'this can never be accepted'. On another note, reject gives no room for resubmission while decline does, hence if one says their draft was rejected but actually, was declined, it isn't a problem. What they need is how to go further. It can then be a different case if it was actually rejected, then tell the editor that there is no room for resubmission with reasons. Is that a big deal? Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 13:28, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Philosophically, probably not a big deal, but I believe the concern here is that there is any confusion in the first place. I understand where Andy's coming from, but unless someone can come up with a more clear (but still as succinct) way of separating this "decline/reject" issue I think TEA helpers will just have to include the explanation in their answer. Primefac (talk) 13:37, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Not so: some confusion is inevitable. The concern is that there is frequent - and avoidable - confusion. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:26, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Actually, I have a related question - how is this confusion dealt with? If someone comes to TEA with a declined draft and they say "my draft was rejected, help!" do they still receive help, or is the knee-jerk reply from the first helper "your draft was rejected you can't do anything about that"? Like... if someone says the wrong word, and the person helping them knows they used the wrong word, do they still try to give advice? Primefac (talk) 15:37, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

They get helpful advice, of course. First to clear up the confusion caused by the terminology, and then, to address the reason for the draft not being published. The former, in addition to being an unnecessary cognitive load on the new editors, is an unnecessary burden on Teahouse volunteers. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:49, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

"'decline' is a more suitable term for not accepting a submission, whereas 'reject' comes across as more absolute and dismissive" - to most people it does not, as I again addressed above. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:26, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Andy, look at what I am saying: it's still not bad advising a rejected draft, it can help the editor and may not for the draft anymore. However, Teahouse is to help editors right? It serves as a general help guide to the editors to know what -and-what to do to the drat and subsequent articles. If someone says "my draft was rejected (though it was declined)", won't you help? If another says "my draft was rejected (though it was rejected)", won't you also help? At this point, I think it is not due for change because it serves as a general term out here: decline equals to reject. Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 16:39, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't disagree with your former point; but the issue you discuss is not what I am talking about. Your last sentence, however, makes no sense, since AFC folk keep telling us that the two terms do have different meanings. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:51, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

I was referring to what outside folk will think about: decline equals reject. I don't seem to find what you said is the best to replace. Can I see it here? Thanks. Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 17:03, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

See what? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:36, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Restored from archive as unresolved. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:26, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Please make sure when you restore discussions from the archive that you remove them from the archive. In this case I have already done it for you. Primefac (talk) 12:33, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

YOU didnlt give me long enough. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:41, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

My apologies, I misread the timestamp of the edit. Primefac (talk) 12:52, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

As to the substance of your restoration, I believe the resolution was that the project does not feel that any action needs to be taken, which is why discussion stopped and the thread was archived. Primefac (talk) 12:34, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Not so; there are unanswered questions; and others here have acknowledged the issue, which persists and which is causing unnecessary work for editors outside of the project. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:41, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

G6 / Db-afc-move deletion of a redirect that used to be an article

I was planning to accept Draft:Mummification (Bondage) but as Mummification (BDSM). The latter is currently a redirect but it used to be an article. Is it appropriate to put Db-afc-move on a redirect that has a history? And more broadly, is it appropriate to accept the draft at all, or should it be rejected as "article already exists" and the submitter asked to edit the existing redirect? Thanks 20:41, 19 September 2024 (UTC) Mgp28 (talk) 20:41, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't personally think the deletion of redirects with history constitutes the "uncontroversial maintenance" that CSD G6 is for. The easiest thing to do in this situation may be to move the existing redirect to another title without leaving a redirect, which would then allow you to accept and move the draft to the old title. I can do that for you here if you'd like, or you could make a technical move request. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 20:52, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. The current redirect could go to Mummification (bondage). Would I first need to nominate that redirect for speedy deletion, or is that something you can do as part of the move?

Or am I making things too complicated? I could just request deletion of Mummification (bondage) (which has no significant history) and move the draft there. Mgp28 (talk) 21:03, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

The title is now available for you to accept the draft. The cascading deletion of redirects would be unnecessary; there's almost always an available title to move to that can serve as an {{R from unnecessary disambiguation}}, which is what I did in this case. There's some argument to be made that the disambiguator bondage is more straightforward than BDSM, but that can be handled with a requested move discussion if necessary. Also, make sure to target all the related redirects to the new article when you accept it. Let me know if you have any other questions! —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 21:11, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

That's great, thank you. Mgp28 (talk) 21:14, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

@Mgp28: No problem! I have a bit of feedback for you on this article (and Slgrandson, who reviewed it): none of the sources, except possibly the Cosmopolitan, look reliable on a quick glance, and many were lacking in significant coverage of the subject. I found and added a couple of scholarly sources which might hold up a notability claim, but I don't believe the draft demonstrated that the subject passed the general notability guideline when it was accepted. Just things to keep in mind for the future. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 21:47, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

WP:AFCRD: redirect requests not archiving correctly

I wanted to bring attention to the two top redirect requests that have been stuck at the top of that page for more than a week now, while other topics have already been archived several times. If someone else could quickly re-look over it, that would be great. Cheers :-). LR.127 (talk) 00:28, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

That page uses an unusual archive bot that may have custom code. Said custom code may be getting confused by having AfC comments outside the collapse bottom template. Let's see if this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:17, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Novem Linguae, that is the issue, I talked about this with the botop back when I was active at AFCRC. It's intentional. — Qwerfjkltalk 16:27, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

WP:AFCRD suggestion: Automatic reminder of WP:SALTed articles or recently deleted articles

A few times now, users have requested redirect articles be made, and then create the article at that title, bypassing AfC. While reminding reviewers of WP:SALTed pages or recently deleted articles wouldn't solve the problem, it seems like an intuitive reminder to exercise caution when making the redirect. Cheers. LR.127 (talk) 18:13, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

We are about to break through the 1,400 drafts barrier, DOWNWARDS

This is by ordinary reviewing, not a backlog drive 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 20:05, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Are we reviewing much more than normal? Or are we just getting fewer new articles for some reason? -- asilvering (talk) 20:21, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

We (some) are review are reviewing much more. A quick check says about 8380 in the last 30 days, for a long time AfC has run in the 5000-6000 range. KylieTastic (talk) 20:26, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Wow! Sure wasn't me. Go team!! -- asilvering (talk) 20:28, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I noticed this today too - exciting! Thanks to those who have put the effort in, especially SafariScribe, DoubleGrazing, KylieTastic, Utopes and OhHaiMark as the big hitters in the last month. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 20:29, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

It had been the silent backlog drive till this post..... I was quite enjoying it even though I haven't had the time as I used to hit the rally big numbers. KylieTastic (talk) 20:37, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Is that like a silent disco? Sorry to make a noise. I was enjoying it too but it is worth shouting about!

1,399 just flashed past! 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 20:42, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! OhHaiMark (talk) 21:27, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I haven't looked at any numbers, but my gut feel says a lot of the credit for the recent boost in performance goes to @SafariScribe. Such volumes can come at a price and may not be sustainable in the long run, but nevertheless due credit to Scribe for the massive effort! -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 05:12, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Your intuition is correct, they are leading the charge by far and although still processing impressive amounts of submissions they slowed down from the rate in July when they did 2182 reviews! Good work SafariScribe (and others). We have had people burn out before, some just disappear, others take a break: so it's important to recognise when to slow down before you burn out.. although I understand the draw of just one more review.... KylieTastic (talk) 08:55, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Probably a bit more reviewing, just going through for example Category:AfC submissions by date/August 2024 it looks like about the same number of pages every day. Primefac (talk) 20:30, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

and the submits via the wizard agree with a mean of 178/day in the last month. KylieTastic (talk) 20:39, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Wow. I'm amazed by how much that captcha filter is saving us from being buried in nonsense. What's "opened" mean on that chart? -- asilvering (talk) 21:32, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

The high capture rate was caused by another issue see #Rate limit (redux) above. Not 100% sure at what point the opened event is triggered but I believe it's when you get click on the "submit draft" as part of Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Submitting. KylieTastic (talk) 21:43, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes it's when the form is opened, which typically occurs on clicking the submit buttons on AfC draft or declined templates, or the one on WP:SUBMIT. – SD0001 (talk) 07:49, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

1,350 seems to be a threshold that refuses to be broken. Every time it gets to 1,351 it races back up again. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 21:56, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

It's at the level that the declines from the older reviews getting resubmitted starts pushing up the daily submits making clearing harder. Also having a smaller !queue encourages some to submit more. It happens in the backlog drives, but then we push through, which is more difficult with a stealth one. KylieTastic (talk) 22:03, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Yup. Well, I have hit my brick wall for the day. I've being trying hard on the oldest, with a bit of leavening from the newest. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 22:09, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

At this writing, we're now at 1,347. Will this figure reach three digits for the first time in how long? Tune in to this thread and find out. --Slgrandson (How's my egg-throwing coleslaw?) 07:31, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

The last time we would have been at three digits was in the rebound a few days after it last reached zero @ ~20:22 UTC on the 20th November 2023. What will be first a 3-digit backlog or clearing the monthlies... KylieTastic (talk) KylieTastic (talk) 08:41, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

I believe I am in the minority here, but honestly I don't really care what number we're holding steady at, as long as we're holding steady. Psychologically (and somewhat anecdotally) we seem to do better keeping "on top of things" when the queue is 1-2k deep, probably because we see it as "a backlog" but not so much of one that needs fixing, but yet isn't so low that folk think they don't need to help out as much. Primefac (talk) 11:49, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

I also care not for the number but I do for the !queue length and in reality they heavily linked. When you accept one that has been waiting several months and then see the submitter disengaged and did no more editing it's easy to see the long queue length is anti editor retention. Which is why I think AfC should have a max hold time then automatically moved to main-space for NPP... but I know that will never happen. We are here to protect the main project from junk and promotion, but we also demotivate good contributors. KylieTastic (talk) 11:58, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

• We appear to have to stabilised on the number of outstanding, but the more important metric of oldest is down to 2 months. That is amazing on it's own as in the last 9+ years of doing this I don't remember it happening out of an official backlog drive. If we can get down to < 2 months that truly would be impressive. NPP is also having a very solid push at the same time that makes this even more impressive as the two side often peak and trough anti to each other. KylieTastic (talk) 20:14, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

  What is depressing is the oldest ones which have not had a first review. A good proportion of these are easy acceptances. A further proportion are just the right side of the border. We need never be shy of dipping into the oldest. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 13:44, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Just for clarification, this number is just drafts submitted for review, not all drafts, yes? BD2412 T 02:00, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Correct. -- asilvering (talk) 02:15, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

I just checked and there are 47788 drafts (plus 201946 redirects) so only 2.6% of drafts are submitted at the moment. KylieTastic (talk) 08:29, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

4134 have been edited in the last week, 6691 in the last two weeks and 12559 in the last month.... so lots of potential incomming to re-fill up the backlog :/ KylieTastic (talk) 08:38, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) § Fix Draftification with a new template

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) § Fix Draftification with a new template. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:28, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Do I need AfC review?

I don't usually use the draftspace, but some months ago I started an article there, Draft:Regenerative dentistry, because the topic and sourcing looked a bit complex. Not0nshoree tagged it for AFC, three minutes after I had last edited it, so I left it for a while. I've now edited it a bit more, as it was going to expire, but I'm still unsure about what I ought to do next. Am I required to go through the AfC process before moving it into the mainspace? It's not quite ready yet, but getting there (contribs very welcome). I've been editing for about two decades, though I don't think I've ever actually used AfC before. Should I avoid using the draftspace in the future, to avoid clogging AfC?

I also created a mainspace stub article yesterday, Draft:Confirmat screw, and it was moved into the draftspace and listed for AFC before I'd finished. I got a (template?) notification on my talk page, which I found a bit confusing; I think Dan arndt was challenging the verifiability of some or all of the article text, or challenging the notability of the topic, or both. I'm not saying my uncited stub was brilliant, but I'm not sure it makes sense to add it to AfC. Charmk had already tagged it with Template:Unreferenced, which was entirely appropriate at the time. If an editor who doubted the notability checked, and then either tagged it with Template:Sources exist or nominated it for deletion, it would avoid adding it to the AfC queue.

My understanding is that topics are required to be notable, and statements are required to be verifiable, but policy is that citations are only required for WP:BLPs, unless an editor challenges the verifiability/notability. I drafted a user information template on this topic a while ago, because new editors are far more affected by this than I am.

It's not that I don't appreciate review, but I seem to be adding to the AfC backlog, and I don't want to waste your time. HLHJ (talk) 19:49, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Hey HLHJ, short answer no, you don't have to use AfC (in most cases). Sometimes people tag drafts so people can submit to AfC because they don't notice it's an experienced user just using draft to draft. New articles like Draft:Confirmat screw with no sources are likely to be drafted if they still have no sources after an hour of existing, although if still being edited are usually left until they have not been touched for an hour (or more) after the last update. I'm not sure on your third point as you say you realise that articles should be verifiable, (i.e they require sources) but then say "citations are only required for WP:BLPs". The BLP policies require some things to have inline citations, but citations should always be included per Wikipedia:Verifiability that states The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Yes {{Sources exist}} can be used to defend from deletion or draftifying, but it is not meant to encourage creating unsourced articles based on "I have the sources but I've not added them". However I may have just misunderstood your last point and you are just talking about inline citations. Back to your first point, just because a draft has an AfC tag added does not mean you cannot move to main-space yourself in most cases (unless under community enforcement or paid editing etc). If your happy your articles are now notable and verifiable you can move main-space, or if you want a second opinion can can add to the AfC !queue... but it can take a while. Regards KylieTastic (talk) 20:32, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, KylieTastic! Should I use the Articles for Creation helper script? Or just Tools>Move?

I think I've seriously misunderstood Template:AfC submission. It seems it is being added to every draft (it was added to Regenerative dentistry less than ten minutes after the draft was created and while it was still being actively edited). But I understood it to mean "I think something is seriously wrong with your article (like an editor COI), and you shouldn't edit it without independent review before it goes in the mainspace". It tells you what to do to get your draft accepted, and provides a means to submit it for review. The implication is that the draft is not acceptable, nor will it be acceptable without independent review. Could we replace this with something that clearly presents AfC review as an option, not as something mandatory, and presents the alternative of moving it to the mainspace yourself? This could seriously reduce the backlog.

"Verifiable" does not quite mean "cites reliable sources"; it means "reliable sources that could be cited exist". A statement may be verifiable but uncited.

Why uncited content isn't all bad

Historically, creating uncited articles has been both common and widely-accepted (Wikidragons did it all the time), and it is still permitted by policy. Dog, the standard example article, had no cites for over three years.[5] We could of course change policy to make sourcing mandatory. I don't think that would be a good idea, though. I created Draft:Confirmat screw from my own knowledge, and posted it (and then went looking for sources). There is research to show that new editors also often add content from their own knowedge. Typing up your own knowledge is easy. Citing sources is much harder. I just find it slower; new editors often find it difficult. If experienced editors add sources to the new editor's text, or tag it with {{cn}}, then the new editor has made a useful contribution and will probably stick around. Wikipedia also has useful new content. If the new content just disappears, the new editor will be discouraged and go away. It doesn't matter if it was reversibly reverted or draftified; new editors won't know, they often don't realize they have a userpage. See WP:Encourage the newcomers for the evidence base. The rule is, indeed, that the burden of verifiability is on the person who thinks the content should be in the encyclopedia. This is a way of resolving disputes. If someone says that a statement I've added or restored is unverifiable, or removes it as unverifiable, I mayn't just say "Is too verifiable, verify it yourself" and cock a snook. I have to either add a cite or admit it's unverifiable and leave it out of Wikipedia. But, on the other hand, I also may not challenge the verifiability of things I think are verifiable, even if they aren't sourced yet. In this case I'm not even sure if the verifiability of any of my statements were challenged or not!

HLHJ (talk) 21:52, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

@HLHJ, honestly, I don't think anyone should be adding AfC templates to drafts that are not theirs, unless they've moved them to draftspace themselves as part of page patrolling (as happened to your stub article yesterday - that one I would say is fine). @Not0nshoree, this was quite a while ago, so maybe you've stopped doing that, but if you haven't - please don't do this anymore. There's no obligation to use AfC and we shouldn't be implying that there is.

I've resubmitted and accepted your article on the screw. My advice here is a weary "if you can't beat them...", I'm afraid: just make sure every stub you create has at least two footnotes. -- asilvering (talk) 01:29, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Asilvering, per Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Qwerfjkl (bot) 15 my bot does this. — Qwerfjkltalk 19:35, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl, this is just for non-confirmed editors though, right? Those editors do need to use AfC, so adding the template there makes perfect sense. -- asilvering (talk) 19:47, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

That's true, I forgot about that. — Qwerfjkltalk 20:05, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Should I use the Articles for Creation helper script? When using WP:DRAFTOBJECT, in my opinion, should avoid the helper script and just move it yourself. The helper script is more for when you're acting as an uninvolved reviewer. It gives a draft an official AFC seal of approval. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:59, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

As the others have said it is not normal to add that tag and yes I can see that it would confuse people into thinking they must use AfC. If anyone is going to tag to help the draft move onto the next step {{Draft article}} is more appropriate as it gives both routes. As for the other point it is just a terrible idea not to give sources. Using Dog from 2004 is a terrible argument. That was 20 years ago from the very wild-west beginnings of Wikipedia and also it was not actually unsourced it had one reference and 12 external links. Yes some editors are experts in an area and can write from knowledge, but there are way more who think they know facts that are wrong. No one apart from another person with knowledge of the subject can tell facts from misunderstandings, errors, hoaxes and lies which IMHO make any unsourced content of little value. Wikipedia:Verifiability is what makes Wikipedia different to social media. KylieTastic (talk) 09:28, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone. I was going to suggest creating Template:Draft article, so good to know it already exists. It might be improved by explicitly listing the "move" option, and saying when you should use which option.

Uncited but verifiable content can be really valuable

I entirely support the idea that sources make articles better, but there is excellent unsourced content on the wiki, even today (Dog was an example of historical practice; I showed the diff in which it gained its first citation). Even wild-west early Wikipedia was not much like modern social media. It worked. People fixed stuff that was wrong (more than they do now); the ancient uncited "dog" article was actually pretty reliable, with the single really dodgy statement being the one cited to an inline link. Lots of readers do have knowledge of subjects they read about, and many start with Wikipedia and then learn about a topic in detail, coming back to fix any errors. Unsourced content was and is really valuable as a starting point for sourced content. Even incorrect content is useful, because it tells us we need correct content on that topic, and motivates the creation of such content. The social context matters. For example, anyone who has used confirmat screws must know some basic facts about them, and I can't imagine very many people would make up stories about confirmat screws anyway, and any misinformation about a screw isn't exactly slander, and will probably get fixed soon because the people reading this article will be people who use these screws, even if I don't fix it myself in a few minutes' time once I've read some sources. The ratio of misinformed to informed editors varies by subject, but even if the misinformed ones are a noisy majority, the statement will get challenged and corrected and cited. And making it easier for newcomers to productively contribute is really valuable, because more editors means more factcheckers. Deleting solid but uncited content in practice means rejecting new editors ("Wait, it vanished! I put a lot of effort into that, and it still isn't good enough? I give up."); citing it, improving it or promptly tagging it with "cn" actually encourages new editors ("I made a useful edit! Someone noticed and wants to make it even better! Yay, I am editing Wikipedia! I'll copy what they did! And I'll click on the tag and find out how to add a citation.").

HLHJ (talk) 01:06, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

There are some cases where this philosophy works, but in a lot of situations it is better to be safe rather than sorry. I don't write anything in an article if a source doesn't back it up - if it's not verifiable, it doesn't belong on wikipedia, that's just how the site works and how a whole lot of other guidelines get built up like "righting great wrongs". Reconrabbit 02:19, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Unreferenced is not the same thing as unverifiable. The "way the site works" (and please remember that you're replying to somebody who has been here for 17 years) is that all content must be verifiable (as in, it must be possible with a reasonable amount of effort to find a source that backs it up). It doesn't have to be referenced (as in, have a little clicky number next to it), apart from in a narrow range of circumstances. That is all HLHJ is saying; the philosophy described above is just Wikipedia policy. – Joe (talk) 11:04, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

{{Draft article}} does explicitly list the move option. – Joe (talk) 10:35, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Then again, for pages covered under the BLP policy, uncited material naturally (and if I'm not mistaken, officially) goes against its very strict expectations/criteria. --Slgrandson (How's my egg-throwing coleslaw?) 02:27, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

I created Draft:Confirmat screw from my own knowledge, and posted it (and then went looking for sources). There is research to show that new editors also often add content from their own know[l]edge. Typing up your own knowledge is easy. That's writing something WP:BACKWARDS and is really not encouraged. Cremastra (talk) 21:19, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Just to note that I've asked Not0nshoree not to do this again on their talk page. I think this is a good example of why AfC is optional. Perhaps we should do a better job of communicating that. – Joe (talk) 10:39, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

If I recall, I was under the impression that "articles for creation" was the process assisting with creating articles in draftspace, and that the template simply gave information on drafts and added shortcuts. I had in my mind that all drafts should have had that template. I guess thought this because I had seen a bot, @Qwerfjkl (bot), automatically put up that template on some newly created draftspace articles. I assumed that the draft article created by OP did not have it because the bot had made an error, and so I put one in myself. If that was a mistake on my part, then I take responsibility. (Discuss 0nshore's contributions!!!) 13:53, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

@Not0nshoree, articles for creation is an optional process for almost everyone, so most draft articles don't need the template. The bot handles most of the drafts that do need it, so there's rarely any reason to add the template manually. -- asilvering (talk) 14:01, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Just noting that the bot has specific rules for which pages to add it to, based on things like the age of the draft, user account, and other things. Primefac (talk) 15:35, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, Onshore. I mean you had a very minor misunderstanding, and you made a small mistake, but it really wasn't an important one, and my own misunderstandings contributed. I never doubted that the template had been added in good faith, and no harm was done; in fact I think it was helpful, since it's improved some templates, making future misunderstandings less likely. Your actions didn't upset me, and I wouldn't have bothered mentioning the matter on a talk page at all if it weren't that I thought the error might be being made commonly, with wider effects, which is what this discussion is about. I'm sorry for embarrassing you by having the discussion in relation to one of your edits; my only defense is that the discussion would eventually be had in relation to someone's edits (and you've actually taken it really well, and behaved admirably). TL;DR: Really, don't worry about it. HLHJ (talk) 17:17, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 September 2024

This page is semi-protected for some reason. I cannot request a redirect from Kasibelinuridae to Kasibelinurus because of this. FortanEvirwoods (talk) 18:24, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

The page was temporarily semi-protected due to sock puppetry, according to logs. The protection expires today, so unless it's urgent it would be easier to wait it out and make the request yourself later. Liu1126 (talk) 08:22, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Draft:Lu Ting and Eastern name order

This question is about Draft:Lu Ting, and also about drafts that appear to be inconsistent as to whether they use Eastern name order or Western name order. In this draft, the subject's name is given as Ting Lu. I am not about to accept this draft, and so am not asking what name to accept it under, but I would like some general advice about Asian names in drafts. First, it isn't clear to me which name is the family name and which is the given name. I assume that I should ask the author to indicate which is the given name and which is the family name. I also think that I understand that the name is shown in Western name order if the subject currently resides in the Western world, and in Eastern name order if the subject currently resides in a country that uses Eastern name order. Is that correct? Is a hatnote used in both cases to indicate which name order is used, so that the reader knows which is the family name and which is the given name? Robert McClenon (talk) 16:59, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Family name is Ting, given name is Lu. My understanding is that the article title is dependent on how sources are referring the subject generally, and most scientific papers would style as <given name> <family name>, assuming that <given name> is the <first name>. A {{family name hatnote}} is sufficient to let the readers know which is the family name. – robertsky (talk) 17:22, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Television Episodes

This question is sort of about Draft:Iron Marge, but it is really about television episode drafts in general. In reviewing a television episode draft, if there are existing articles about many of the episodes in a series, are there any rules or guidelines that I should follow in accepting another episode? I have asked a similar question on the WikiProject talk page, WikiProject The Simpsons, but the project is characterized is semi-active, so I expect to get an answer sometime, but not until I have accepted or declined the draft. I know that I should check the parent article for the link to the episode article if I accept it. Is there any other general guidance for reviewers about television episodes? Is there a general rule to accept a draft if the series has many episode articles and the draft is sourced and otherwise satisfactory? Robert McClenon (talk) 17:47, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Try asking WikiProject Television, maybe? They're quite active. – Joe (talk) 07:11, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Potential AFCH enhancement

Tracked in github.com
Issue #385

I like the opportunity to copy comments to the talk page on acceptance. I use it often but not always. When the comment has expired it is nt really worth copying it.

I would like to have the opportunity to leave an "Acceptance comment" from time to time when I accept (eg) a borderline draft.

I know I can leave a comment first and then accept, while copying that to the talk page.

I think this is worth a discussion. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 05:45, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Sure, if it's relatively easy for the developers to implement this I wouldn't be opposed to it. However, since your goal will be accomplished much the same way by just leaving a talk page comment the usual way, I don't think this is something that needs implementation if it would require more time and effort. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 14:50, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree that I/we can do it either before or after acceptance with an additional edit. I also agree that a disproportionate amount of effort spent on a 'nice to have' feature would be wasteful, though waste rarely deters a programmer from elegance!

So I guess I'll just say "Please will our AFCH gurus consider the request, especially if it's a quick thing?" and follow it with "Pretty please?" 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 07:27, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Draft:The Bear season 3

I have a question about how to proceed with this draft. It appears to be up to the standards of the two previous season articles. However, the issue is that The Bear (TV series) has summary lists of episodes for season 1 and season 2, while it has detailed descriptions of episodes for season 3, that appear to be the same as in the draft. I can decline the draft or accept the draft. If I decline the draft as duplicating what is in the series article, I will be avoiding duplication, but persisting an inconsistency. If I accept the draft, I will be introducing duplication. I don't want to do the work of cutting down the detailed list of episodes to a summary list. Should I accept the draft, but tag the series article for cleanup consisting of cutting down its list of detailed episodes to a summary list? Robert McClenon (talk) 04:53, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon I suggest leaving an AFC comment describing your dilemma, then accepting and copying comments to the talk age, and flagging it for the cleanup you suggest. That way you have covered all bases and are letting the community do what it does best

See also my suggestion below (which will doubtless be archived above, and on a different archive page - such is life) 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 05:48, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon Hi, creator of the draft here to explain how the episodes list work. The season article includes the episodes list with the detailed descriptions. This creates a unique template (titled :series season x). The series article then transcludes the template created from the season article into the series article, and thus doesn't show the descriptions. You can see what I mean by looking through the articles for the other seasons. Once the article is accepted, I will clean up the series article. Hope this helps. Mjks28 (talk) 07:12, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

(TL;DR: if you accept the draft, there will be no duplication) Mjks28 (talk) 07:13, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

@Mjks28: You're an experienced editor, you really don't have to use AfC. – Joe (talk) 07:52, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

I like to use AfC to have the drafts peer-reviewed (I don't trust myself to review them without bias), and I also don't know how to move them into the mainspace when there is already a redirect with the same name. Mjks28 (talk) 07:54, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

You can add {{db-move|Draft:name of draft}} to the redirect and an admin will delete it. Or, you can just start the page directly in mainspace by editing the redirect.

I respect the desire for a peer review, but AfC is quite backlogged and really oriented towards newbies. Reviewers also can't be expected to be familiar with conventions in every area of the project, like the TV series tranclusions you mention above. If you create the page directly in mainspace or move it there, it will still be reviewed by a new page patroller. – Joe (talk) 08:32, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for letting me know, I was not aware of that. I will be doing this in the future. Cheers. Mjks28 (talk) 08:36, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Also if you want feedback on TV related articles you can ask at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television as they are quite an active project. Regards KylieTastic (talk) 08:41, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

I see that the former draft is now in article space. That is good, and is what I was saying should be done. However, I have a procedural comment. Once a draft has been submitted to AFC for review, if it is moved from draft space to article space by a simple Move, the draft is left in a state where it requires cleanup. I see that the cleanup was done. Once a draft has been submitted to AFC for review, it is expected that it will be moved by an AFC accept rather than by a simple Move. So in the future, it might be simpler to request the peer review at WikiProject Television without using any of the AFC constructs. Anyway, it is now in article space, which was the objective. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:45, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon I think I woudl change 'expected' to 'anticipated', primarily because I have no expectations of those who make simple moves of drafts to mainspace.

I have a hope, one which I often ask the mover, which is that they will clean up after themselves next time they make this move, and remove the AFC artefacts left behind. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 07:31, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

From now on, I will follow Joe's above suggestion and use {{db-move|Draft:name of draft}} on the redirect I want to move the draft to and do the clean up myself. Thank you everyone for your advice and help. Mjks28 (talk) 07:47, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

drafts are too long

Could the new authors be pointed to something like

http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Special:MyPage/sandbox?action=edit&preload=User:Gryllida/NewArticleBLPv1/preload
User:Gryllida/NewArticleBLPv1/preload, used as a preload template, for example, this

to demonstrate notability before they start a full draft? Maybe it was discussed before I did not have the capacity to check the prior discussions, sorry. Please advise. Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 10:32, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

(I am helping on irc, I have not been formally reviewing for a while, though did that previously) Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 10:33, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

(If the link does not work for you because you already have a sandbox, try [6] instead) Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 10:43, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree it would be better we did not get extremely long submissions aimed more about showing notability, but I don't like the limitation to be "one paragraph (80 words maximum)". I would prefer drafts to be up to Start-class rather than Stub-class, I like to see articles 200-1000 words long. However, I agree things like Draft:Tulunid Emirate do tend to sit in the !queue longer probably due to length (16,915 words) and number of sources (140) and do clog up the process. KylieTastic (talk) 11:47, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

"200-300" then? They need to not get carried away to write full page. Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 11:53, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Just noting that even if a page is really long, we don't need to necessarily verify the entire draft. For a draft with 140 references, I would probably spot-check maybe 15-20 of them (10%) to see if they're reliable. If they are, then I would check to make sure everything is reasonably supported. If things are more or less supported by more or less all of the references, the page should be accepted. Primefac (talk) 14:59, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, yet long draft being written without understanding notability criteria leads to increased author frustration and reduced success rate. Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 02:34, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Every so often I poke away at a userspace essay about how to get through AfC quickly, and "Article is just really heckin' long" is indeed one of the "Common reasons for delay" I list. I think it's worth letting submitting editors know that longer isn't better, but I think setting a hard limit would be obnoxious to some editors and completely prohibitive to others (like the ones DoubleGrazing describes below). -- asilvering (talk) 16:36, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Oh, don't get me wrong, a huge draft is a daunting task (and I will admit I have skipped pages like that before) but ideally speaking we should be operating a workflow that allows for reviewing long drafts without too much extra time taken. Primefac (talk) 17:47, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Oh, to be clear, I agree with your above comment. Myself, I'd quickly skim the whole list of sources for reliability rather than spot-checking a subset, but I'd skip over the ones that weren't obviously one way or the other unless I found that was an alarming % of the total. In the end I think that works out to the same result: draft is accepted, maybe with some maintenance tags. -- asilvering (talk) 19:05, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

userspace essay about how to get through AfC quickly. User:Asilvering/AfCguide? Nice start. I like it. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:42, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll finish it... someday. -- asilvering (talk) 04:53, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Great essay. When it's ready, this should be required reading for anyone about to embark on drafting their first article. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 12:11, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

While I empathise, the problem (well, a problem) with setting a size limit is that it would make it difficult to translate a fully-fledged comprehensive article from another language version, because it would require the translator to first prepare a précis or synopsis of some sort, get that accepted, and only then replace it with the full version. This isn't a hypothetical problem, either: there are at least a couple of editors working on a stipend or similar for a foundation of some sort, who submit very long, and very heavily referenced, translations from de./ru./fr.wikis (from memory). -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 15:21, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

PS: Open Knowledge Network, that's the 'foundation' I mentioned. (See the talk page of the author of the Tulunid Emirate draft, linked to by KylieTastic, above.) Just out of curiosity, does anyone know what this is? -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 15:24, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

"a non-profit organization dedicated to improving Wikipedia and other open platforms." See: https://oka.wiki/ KylieTastic (talk) 15:34, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

In short, it's a person who has dedicated quite a bit of his time and also money to improving cross-wiki coverage. A rare example of paid editors without COI. They've now created their own wikiproject, which is at WP:WPOKA. They tend to target GA- and FA-level articles, which is why so many of them are absurdly long.

Note to reviewers that, since these are translations from other languages, earwig is useless on these articles if you run it in English. Make sure you run it in the language of the original page. The editors always attribute their translations correctly in edit summaries, so it's easy to find which one they've been working from. I warned them about this a ways back and I don't think I've seen a single copyvio since, but it's always worth a quick check. -- asilvering (talk) 16:29, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

They can translate a part to demonstrate notability, and after approval they can expand it later. Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 02:36, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Actually, I think this is a great suggestion; I've expanded on this in the sub-section below. Mathglot (talk) 07:37, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Besides, DoubleGrazing and Primefac, I'm not proposing to set a hard limit, only make my linked template above a new option in draft writing wizard, with a note 'for new editors, this will reduce your writing time by a factor of five or ten'. Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 02:37, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Gryllida, I have boldly altered your OP above, in order to fix the link so it points to your preload file located at User:Gryllida/NewArticleBLPv1/preload. This change of mine is technically a TPO violation because no editor should change the comment of another, but I think it is justified in this case because I believe it represents your original intent. The problem with the link you posted, is that you included the term Special:MyPage in it, and that targets different pages depending who is looking at the link. For example, when I clicked it, it went to *my* userspace and tried to bring up a page there, which is surely not what you wanted. Feel free to revert my edit if you feel you need to, but I believe this change will allow other users to see the preload page you intended to link. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 21:07, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

That looks intentional as they mentioned the link won't work if user already has a sandbox, and gave alternative link. Looks like user can click it then create a sandbox in their userspace using the template. Indagate (talk) 21:17, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

If you think so, it's fine to revert it. Mathglot (talk) 18:33, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Hi Mathglot, thank you, I've clarified. I've changed link to point to a page which doesn't exist; if sandbox exists, the preload template does nothing, which may be confusing. --Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 02:39, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

I find this whole discussion befuddling. I have, at times, created really long drafts in the process of making a draft thorough and fully fleshed out before moving it to mainspace. I can't be the only one who does that. BD2412 T 02:45, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

BD2412, you're not. See War guilt question, rev. 1011491911‎ (141kb at release); Offshoots of Operation Car Wash, rev. 937805602‎ (172kb at release). But don't be befuddled—this is an Afc page, and the discussion is about the burden of long drafts on Afc reviewers, which is a real issue worth discussing. But it doesn't apply to you, because it is not how about long drafts should be in general, or when experienced users working outside the Afc system should release their draft or how big it should be. It's also isn't concerned with when I finally get off my duff and release my two-year old Draft:French historiography (pls ignore the Afc draft header; that is strictly a test and nothing to do with Afc or when it gets released). Hope this has satisfactorily unfuddled you. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 05:52, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

The proposed process would be opt-in, designed to reduce burden of working with coi editors. I could go as far as to say that coi editors do not benefit from writing long drafts. Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 11:28, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

As a supplement to this discussion, allow me to suggest WP:Database reports/Long pages/Draft. --Slgrandson (How's my egg-throwing coleslaw?) 11:34, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

This could be done as a supplementary section in draft talk oage, for example:

• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?preliadtitle=Notability&preload=User:Gryllida/NewArticleBLPv1/preload&section=new&title=Draft%20talk:Media_Press_Group&action=edit&preloadtitle=Notability

Then the translators and others don't need to worry so much. Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 10:00, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Translations: do just a part to establish notability

Regarding translations, Gryllida wrote above:

They can translate a part to demonstrate notability, and after approval they can expand it later.

This is a great idea. It might be hard to establish this as general practice among disparate, independent new editors (we can always try), but among one subset of editors, this is eminently doable. The OKA team of translators are organized, and if there is a consensus at Afc that this would be a good idea, something about this could be added to the OKA translator instructions, thereby reducing the load on Afc reviewers considerably for OKA translations, while simultaneously getting OKA drafts reviewed and released to mainspace faster, in many cases, much faster.

I'd like to brainstorm some suggested verbiage to add to translator instructions and would like to hear from Afc reviewers and other interested parties about this. (Note that for OKA translators there is already a section, § Don't always translate the whole article and that would be the natural place for any new suggestions about this.) Here's my first attempt:

Mathglot's trial #1: suggested translator instructions for rapid Afc review

When preparing a draft translated from another Wikipedia for submission to Afc, especially if the original is long, consider translating the minimum necessary to pass Afc. A shorter draft has a much higher chance of being reviewed quickly, possibly within 24-48 hours. A typical minimum is three solid references to establish WP:Notability, with inline citations to match. A single paragraph, or even two, well-researched, well-cited sentences may be enough. Even very short articles with three solid sources establish WP:Notability are rarely deleted at Afd. Once released to mainspace, you can continue working on it at your leisure. Further tips: see Help:Your first article#Notability, WP:THREE, and avoid the pitfalls listed in Afc reviewer instructions steps 1–3 at WP:AFCRI. Aim to get just the minimum needed (plus a bit of safety margin, go ahead and use *four* great citations), keep it short, and that should speed approval.

Feel free to comment, steal & modify mercilessly, or come up with your own wording. I think this could really reduce Afc's workload wrt OKA editors, while speeding throughput for them. Adding 7804j. Mathglot (talk) 07:37, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

I dont think this is a good idea, as it introduces even more process for OKA editors, and could in some cases lead to rejections of the draft. Eg, we translated many "History of Xxx" articles, which only deserve their own article if the main content is long enough. These articles would be rejected if they were submitted as stub, as they would be unjustified fork.

(another risk is that some may perceive this as going around the COI policy which requires that all articles from paid editors be created through AfC).

If the main concern is that AfC reviews of long articles is daunting, wouldn't a better solution be to only require from AfC reviewers to check overall notability? I think it would be easier to change the review criteria than what gets submitted 7804j (talk) 07:56, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

No; Afc procedures have evolved over a long period, and that is pretty much a non-starter, imho. As a corollary, though, consider for example, OKA translation Draft:Viticulture in Stuttgart, which has been pending review for a while. It is 25kb and has 17 citations, most of them in German; in other words, a lot for an Afc reviewer to review. What if I picked the best four sources in English, moved them into the lead (adjusting the lead as needed), and deleted everything else in the draft? That would leave a one-paragraph, seven-sentence, sourced draft with clear notability. My theory is, that in this stub form, the draft would be much more likely to get reviewed quickly, than the draft in its current state. I would be curious what Afc reviewers would think about that. (edit conflict) Mathglot (talk) 08:15, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Shortening could help a lot. I'd just computer-translate a foreign source. Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 19:28, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

That reminds me, there is no way that I know of to filter new submissions by language of sources, is there? Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 19:28, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Hi @7804j it is my understanding that the proposed process is opt in. So if you are confident the "History of" requires a long submission, that's fine, you would be able to keep doing that. Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 19:24, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

For an experienced editor it may be easy enough to look at a lengthy article with lots of sources, pick the bits that establish notability, skip the rest, and still weave it into a coherent draft. But we're seldom dealing with experienced editors, for obvious reasons. Many new editors, meanwhile, struggle to even understand the concept of notability, let alone objectively evaluate sources from that perspective.

All that said, this OKA group may be an exception, so it could be worth running this by them, and if they're amenable, trying this out on a couple of drafts. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 08:26, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

I suspect this will confuse even the OKA editors more than it helps them. -- asilvering (talk) 19:29, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

I think both this and the above section are too complicated and too much a departure from our normal workflows. Our normal workflows are to either just write a draft and submit it and get a notability review that way, or to post a list of sources at the WP:TEAHOUSE or WP:AFCHELPDESK for help with source analysis. If we want to make a big push to have folks get source analyses before writing drafts, we should probably put it in our messaging somewhere such as in editnotices and templates. Although in the long run that may be more inefficient/complicated than just submitting a draft. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:50, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae:, I think I was unclear, or perhaps I do not understand your objection. I am not proposing anything different at Afc, nor proposing a new process of source analysis to be created somewhere else; so the review process, in my proposal, would remain entirely as it is now. The only difference would be to recommend that OKA users create a draft translation of no more than a few sentences with impeccable sourcing clearly establishing notability, and submit it. Then, the normal Afc processes would take over. With luck, the draft will be reviewed in a few days, and the OKA editor can pick up the article again in main space, and carry on as before, translating the rest of it. Win-win: a much easier review for the Afc reviewer, a slightly smaller backlog for all the other reviewers, and much faster throughput for the OKA editor. I do not see a downside, here. If you do, please elucidate. Mathglot (talk) 23:06, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

The one I can immediately see is that many of the OKA drafts are getting tagged with various maintenance tags by AfC reviewers and NPPers, and if they get accepted through AfC in an abbreviated form, they'll miss that second look. -- asilvering (talk) 23:11, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

The only difference would be to recommend that OKA users create a draft translation of no more than a few sentences with impeccable sourcing clearly establishing notability, and submit it. Ah, I misunderstood. Sure, that sounds fine. Although maybe that idea should be discussed on WT:OKA as they would be the ones to benefit from it and AFC reviewers probably wouldn't need to be directly involved in the change :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:09, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

WT:OKA (WikiProject Okanagan) would be confused ;) it would be WT:WPOKA. However, as they are paid editors that must use AfC for new articles. So if this just get a minimal draft through AfC then expand was encouraged, the question would be is the intent of the AfC check on WP:PAY just for nobility or for the editing as a whole? Considering the strong opinions on both paid editing and AfC I can see there been strong views on both sides, so it would probably be best to bring up at WT:COI. KylieTastic (talk) 10:04, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae: One of these moments I wish WP comments supported upvotes--but that's besides the point of this site's ultimate mission. --Slgrandson (How's my egg-throwing coleslaw?) 11:37, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Not sourced and AFC/R

Is indicating the target page where the redirect term directly appears in the page and has a reference attached not a proper "source" to support the redirect?

If that term within the target page is also footnoted with its own reference, do we need to copy that reference into the AFCR request?

-- 65.92.246.77 (talk) 07:58, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

For me, request title being mentioned (and preferably sourced) at target is almost always enough. I don't find it necessary to copy an exact reference. NotAGenious (talk) 13:42, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers § Authentication is now required for search engine checks on Earwig's Copyvio Tool

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers § Authentication is now required for search engine checks on Earwig's Copyvio Tool. –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:39, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Invitation to WikiProject Council

The Wikipedia:WikiProject Council is a group that talks about how to organize and support WikiProjects. If you are interested in helping WikiProjects, please put that page on your watchlist and join the discussions there. Thanks, WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:45, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Nominating Drafts for MFD

I would like to verify that we, the AFC reviewers, are aware that drafts should only be nominated for deletion at MFD when there is tendentious resubmission or other conduct issues. Drafts are sometimes nominated for deletion at MFD for lack of notability. They are usually Kept, and the regular editors at MFD cite drafts are not reviewed for notability. I sometimes wonder who is looking at drafts and nominating them for deletion, because AFC reviewers should know that nominating the draft for MFD should only be done for reasons of conduct. Within the past 48 hours, a draft was nominated for deletion at MFD by an AFC reviewer. The nomination was then withdrawn as a mistake by the reviewer, but I would like to verify that the instructions for AFC reviewers are clear that drafts should only be nominated for deletion under rare circumstances, not including a lack of notability.

Having just reread the AFC Reviewing Instructions, I see that they do not mention nominating the draft for deletion, which is all right, but maybe they should list the extraordinary circumstances in which a reviewer should either nominate the draft for deletion or consult with other reviewers about nominating it for deletion. I also see that the reviewing instructions do not refer to rejection. Perhaps that was not included in the reviewing instructions when the option to reject was added. Maybe it should be added. Reviewers should know, and most of them do, that rejection is available but should only be used in rare circumstances, and that nomination for deletion should only be used in even rarer circumstances. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:07, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Just a small note before I head out for the night: rejection is mentioned at the bottom of the page (see here). I do agree it might be worth adding a sentence, pointer, or brief mention (with section link) in the "Workflow" section to increase the chances of it being read. Probably worth mentioning MfD in there somewhere as well. Primefac (talk) 21:12, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

It should not be possible for an IP or a newly-created account to make a drive-by submission of a draft that they have never worked on.

I have seen this happen on several occasions, almost always with drafts that are clearly not ready (sometimes my own drafts in progress), and it is irritating. When new accounts do this, it often seems from their later edits that they are here to do paid editing and just getting a little artificial credibility under their belts by submitting drafts, as if they have some authority to do so. It is also irritating to me that as the creator of a draft, I get no notification when such a submission takes place, as I would for the deletion of the draft. BD2412 T 15:37, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

So revert it when you see it? There's nothing that says submitted drafts must be reviewed or that pointy draft submissions cannot be un-submitted. As far as notifications go, put the page on your watchlist? Primefac (talk) 15:55, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

My drafts are on my watchlist—but so are 8,000 other pages. A talk page notice would have provided a nice and immediate yellow flag. Cheers! BD2412 T 16:18, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

I quite agree. This hardly ever happens bona fide, so it's usually a red flag for something dodgy going on. In fact, some sock farms routinely do it (eg. Isuzu.tf), so I guess on a positive note it helps to identify them. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 16:03, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately a lot of these I've seen do not use the wizard to submit but add the template themselves, so it would need a friendly bot operator to look for these and revert. However I also see that those that defend the anyone can edit mantra would strongly disagree. If a bot operator wanted to see if they could get approval why not give it a go. A backup option is reverting such submissions is to unpalatable for some would maybe to post an alert on the creators talk page that it had happened pointing out they can just revert if they are still working on it and disagree. KylieTastic (talk) 21:44, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Submitting involves changing template values, so would need to be detected with a bot, which is a little complicated. Also the consequences of submitting something early is pretty much zero, since the worst that happens is it gets declined and can be resubmitted again when ready. Seems like something that is annoying but might be a lot of effort to "fix". –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:47, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Blacklisted or Salted Titles

In re-reviewing the AFC Reviewing Instructions, there are two paragraphs in a collapsed section with which I disagree. They are almost correct, but they omit an important detail, and so are problematic. Most of Step 4, on Accepting a Submission, is collapsed. It includes a section on If you cannot publish the draft. The case of a blocking redirect is correctly described, in that the reviewer should tag the blocking redirect with {{db-afc-move}}, which is a specialized G6. Yes.

However, the other two cases listed are where the title is on the Title blacklist, or if the title is fully protected (salted) against re-creation. It says, in the first case, to request a Technical Move, and, in the second case, to request Page Unprotection. No. Those are sometimes the right next steps, but the reviewer should first research the history of the title, and determine why it has been either blacklisted or salted. If the reviewer is not sure of the reasons or the history, the reviewer should consult with other reviewers, here, at this AFC talk page, and ask why the title is blacklisted or salted. It is true that the admin who is reviewing the page move request or the unprotection request should also research the history, but it is best not to waste their time, and possibly annoy them if the reviewing admin is one who expects requesters to have done the research. If, after research or consultation, you are reasonably sure that the draft has addressed the issues that resulted in the blacklisting or salting, then you should request a technical move or an unprotection.

The reviewing instructions should say to research the reasons why the title was salted or blacklisted, and only request action if you have reason to think that the draft addresses the previous issues. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:08, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. Primefac (talk) 10:18, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

AFCH tags

Tracked in github.com
Issue #320

How much work would it be to make AFCH use tags instead of just appending "(AFCH)" to the edit summary? I recently came across this where a sock used a fake edit summary imitating AFCH's when moving a draft to mainspace. It might be more obvious when this happens if tags are used. Or maybe an edit filter could prevent this altogether? C F A 💬 01:08, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

You beat me to it, I was going to suggest the same thing. I thought we had tried this before, good to see I wasn't going crazy. Primefac (talk) 10:16, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Rolling sleeves up. I was wondering about it too, but it wasnt urgent... – robertsky (talk) 12:00, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. I cross-posted to Wikipedia:Edit filter/Requested § New tag for WP:AFCH as I was hitting a wall (and had to, you know, do some real-life work). Primefac (talk) 12:02, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Wizard puts banners outside the banner shell

Tracked in github.com
Issue #1

I've noticed quite a few edits like this where the AfC wizard is putting project banners outside the banner shell — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:00, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

SD0001, I think you'll be best to troubleshoot this, since you wrote it originally (also noting this is the submission wizard and not AFCH). Primefac (talk) 13:45, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

AfC wizard always puts banners outside the shell (issue #1). The fix for it is rather complicated. – SD0001 (talk) 13:59, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

It is problematic if a script is editing outside of expected norms. It should really be fixed or withdrawn — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:58, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

It's a minor format issue, on talk pages, in draft space that would be fixed if accepted via AFCH. Also if I remember correctly a bot will get around to fixing any issues. If you junked the wizard you get more problems including more people putting what they want on the talk page which is very unlikely to follow your "expected norms". Hopefully someone will fix, but as far as I can see it has almost zero affect on main-space articles and then only on talk pages, so to suggest it should be withdrawn and remove the benefits of the wizard for the sake of a rare, temporary issue only in draft makes no sense. KylieTastic (talk) 22:06, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Student projects

I've just reviewed three drafts (Draft:Dependence of Thermal and Hydrodynamic Boundary Layers on Prandtl Number, Draft:Scale Analysis of Air and Water Interaction in Urban Drainage Systems, and User:Vinny0001/sandbox), all written as research papers. Two of them gave the names of the editors, in both cases a group of students from IIT (BHU) Varanasi; I assume the third was likewise.

I rejected all as OR. Anyone have contrary views? And should I do something about these? -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 11:53, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Another few: Draft:Scale Analysis on Phase Change Process., User:Im chirag18/sandbox, User:CognifyEdits/sandbox; again, all are from teams at IIT Varanasi. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 10:41, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Same with four of my recent declines: Draft:Dependence of Boundary Layer on Rayleigh Number, Draft:Scale analysis for Couette Flow and between one fixed and one moving plate, User:Sahilsingh0/sandbox and Draft:Scale Analysis of Viscous Rotational Flow. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 10:56, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I've brought this discussion to the attention of Wikipedia:Education noticeboard. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 11:04, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I've added a few {{subst:Welcome student}} templates to user talk pages. Will see if I get any response. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 13:44, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Cheers. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 13:46, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

There are a few more of these, if you search drafts for "article prepared by". Wikishovel (talk) 14:14, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Draft:Scale analysis of natural convection in tall enclosures

Draft:Scale Analysis of External Natural Convection

Draft:Scale Analysis of Flow Through a Woven Mesh

User:Mk21134018/sandbox

-- DoubleGrazing (talk) 16:19, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Are these actually presenting new ideas that have never been previously published? If not, then it's not OR. OR==no source has ever published that before. In my experience, that is very uncommon for undergraduates to come up with completely novel ideas. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:45, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

WP:SYN is a form of original research, though.

I've just rejected User:Transport phenomenon 45/sandbox and User:AnjaliChaudhary2/sandbox. --bonadea contributions talk 18:50, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I think what I'm going to do is ping them all at Wikipedia:Education noticeboard#IIT Varanasi and see if one of them will explain what they're doing. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 19:08, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

@Curb Safe Charmer Please add User:Aditya gupta456/sandbox to your list 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 20:36, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

• WP:NOTESSAY is policy. SerialNumber54129 09:56, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

  WAID is correct that undergraduates rarely make an original cntribution—it's effectively impossible for them to do so—but the converse of this is that most of what they write is summarising/picked out from established academic authors on a reading list. these, we usually call reliable secondary sources. So if it's possible, they should be able to go back and source most of what they have written, or insert inline citations where they have listed sources. In fact it's odd that they are allowed to submit unsourced papers, but maybe that reflects the philosphy (ahem) of their institution. SerialNumber54129

What's the matter with major internet personalities rarely meeting notability?

Consider e.g. the fairly well-known Draft:Patrick Bet-David, Draft:Brandon Herrera or Draft:J.J. McCullough.

If you compare this to the requirements under WP:ACADEMIC - remembering that millions of people watch these peoples' channels - the standards here, frankly, seem laughable. What could be done to fast-track such cases? Biohistorian15 (talk) 08:28, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Well, Herrera would have been accepted had he actually won the election, but otherwise? Find three good sources. They would be reviewed faster if they are absolutely unimpeachable on all four of the criteria. Alpha3031 (t • c) 08:38, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

WP:ACADEMIC is purposefully very generous. I think the goal when creating that was to make sure that we squeezed in some academics into the encyclopedia, instead of just all soccer players. Internet personalities do seem to have a lot of trouble meeting WP:GNG. The fairness of the various WP:SNG notability guidelines might better be discussed at WT:N. Although the trend lately has been to get stricter, not looser. –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:35, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Subscriber figures/viewership aren't accurate indicators of notability and can be gamed. That's at least part of why those aren't hard notability criteria. It's possible for someone with 5 viewers to be notable, and someone with 5 million to not be notable. It depends on the coverage in independent sources. Someone with 5 million viewers may be more likely to draw coverage, but it's not a guarantee. 331dot (talk) 09:38, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Back in 2007 as a new AfC reviewer who came across a lot of articles about social media personalities I felt there should be guidance on notability of such people. I started an essay to document my findings on policy and consensus around YouTubers, having trawled through hundreds of AfDs. I later moved it to WP:NYOUTUBE. I didn't keep the list up to date, but I suspect the pattern still holds. Given the impact of YouTube on how many people access entertainment, I think the Wikipedia community's distaste for YouTuber bios seems out of step. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 09:58, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

AfC-tailored Welcome template

Hey folks - I'm looking to get some feedback on potentially introducing a new welcome template specifically tailored to AfC submitters who have already begun creating draft articles. I created User:Liance/s/afcwelcome around 3-4 months ago after noticing the lack of a welcome message suitable for users who have already gone through the process of creating a draft, but still may need help with getting it suitable for mainspace. I've been reviewing drafts at AfC for several years now and included links to resources which I've found have been most helpful to submitters from experience.

AfC welcome message

Thanks for creating a draft! Hello WELCOMEUSER, welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Liance, and I've been editing here for a while. I wanted to thank you for submitting Draft:Sample to WikiProject Articles for Creation and helping to grow the encyclopedia! We appreciate your contributions and hope you stick around. I can see you've already started writing draft articles, so here are a few more resources that might be helpful: The Teahouse - ask Wikipedians for general editing help Articles for Creation Help Desk - ask reviewers for draft article help Creating your first article Referencing for beginners Wikipedia Manual of Style I highly recommend visiting The Teahouse if you are unsure about anything Wiki related. It's a place where experienced editors answer questions and assist newcomers in the editing process. In addition, please do not hesitate to reach out on my talk page if you have any specific questions. Once again, welcome! I hope you enjoy your time here.

In using this template over the past several months I've seen very good rates of engagement from recipients (far above what I usually get with welcome templates) and users have let me know that the resources have been helpful. I've started leaving the welcome message almost always prior to declining with AFCH in hopes that submitters don't get discouraged.

With encouragement from S0091 I wanted to post the template here to gather any feedback other reviewers might have regarding the template, and am hoping that it could be more widely adopted by AfC reviewers. Eventually I'd also like to see an option added to AFCH to leave the welcome message prior to a decline to soften the blow new editors might get after their hard work is denied. Any feedback or suggestions are appreciated! Best, ~Liance^talk 20:10, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

• I like the template. Can the eventual final template be added to the Twinkle Welcome list, please? 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 20:23, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Another wonderful idea - unfortunately I'm not entirely sure how the process for that works, likely we'd have to contact a Twinkle maintainer? ~Liance^talk 20:26, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

@Liance Once we have a consensus, that is the route. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 20:28, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

When you're ready to have it added to Twinkle, you can make a ticket on GitHub or post at WT:TWINKLE to start the process. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:39, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Seconding. -- asilvering (talk) 20:40, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Thirding that looks really friendly and useful. Theroadislong (talk) 20:45, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I like the template also and will prefer that it'd be navigated easily through the AFC accept and decline buttons just as the TeaHouse invitation check box, which can be auto-unchecked if it already exist. It's good especially when we usually have new unwelcomed users submit drafts daily. Cheers! Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 21:09, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

That's kind of what I was thinking, Safari. Either replace the current 'hook on' that invites the User to the Teahouse or an additional one. One step at a time, though. Thanks for creating it @Liance! S0091 (talk) 16:05, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, also seconding the replace the Teahouse template idea. -- asilvering (talk) 16:33, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Definitely a +1 from me, this is pretty much what I envisioned as well. If it'd be possible to slip the welcome message in before the draft accept/decline one is left, that would be best. ~Liance^talk 16:25, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I like the template, it's friendly and welcoming, and conveys many important points succinctly. The one thing I would like to see is making it even clearer when to go to the Teahouse vs. the AfC help desk (general editing questions vs. questions specifically about the review process). We don't get so many general questions at the HD (although we do get some occasionally), but I often see questions at the Teahouse which (I think) would be better asked at the HD. And perhaps also make in this context the point that they should ask at either one venue or the other, not that they post the same question in quick succession at both (and then the general help desk, and the reviewer's talk page, and...). -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 16:35, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Maybe take out the manual of style link to reduce information overload, or replace it with a link to MoS/Layout, which might be more immediately useful to a new user (to know what the bones and structure of a Wikipedia article is supposed to look like) –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:32, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I think it's probably more confusing to be directed to a specific part of the MOS than the main MOS page. -- asilvering (talk) 22:48, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I think many Welcome messages use WP:Simplified Manual of Style for a starter. S0091 (talk) 14:10, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

That does not look good... it has over 10 links too "read more ..." on the actual MOS that are broken. KylieTastic (talk) 14:19, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

That is a mess! It looks like at some point the shortcuts used were deleted. And what's worse is according to this edit summary it is also being used in the Growth Help panel. The other option is Help:Introduction to the Manual of Style/1. S0091 (talk) 16:21, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

I have fixed it. MOS: recently became a namespace, which broke all the MOS:#section links. — Qwerfjkltalk 16:48, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Qwerfjkl! I didn't know MOS had not been a namespace. S0091 (talk) 20:08, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

It was a pseudo namespace before, like CAT:. — Qwerfjkltalk 20:33, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

If you're curious why it was changed, see m:Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Mooré. jlwoodwa (talk) 01:00, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Revised version

I got around to making a revised version of the template (User:Liance/s/afcwelcomerevision2), specifically implementing the suggestions about making it clearer where to ask questions and linking to the simplified MOS. This version also has a named parameter for the linked article to conform to other welcome templates (hopefully making Twinkle implementation easier).

Revised ver.

Thanks for creating a draft! Hello Example, welcome to Wikipedia! I wanted to thank you for submitting Draft:Example to Articles for creation and helping to grow the encyclopedia. We appreciate your contributions and hope you stick around. I can see you've already started writing draft articles, so here are a few more resources that might be helpful: The Teahouse - ask editors for general help Articles for creation Help Desk - ask AfC reviewers for draft help Creating your first article Referencing for beginners Simplified Manual of Style If you have general editing questions, the Teahouse is where you can seek help from experienced editors. Questions about the draft creation and publishing process should be directed to the Articles for creation Help Desk instead, where you can get assistance directly from reviewers. Don't hesitate to reach out on my talk page if you have any specific questions. Once again, welcome - I hope you enjoy your time here! ~Liancetalk 17:18, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

If we think this is a good starting point I can go ahead and move it to the Template namespace and submit requests for AFCH/Twinkle integration. Thanks all!! ~Liance^talk 17:18, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks again for creating this! -- asilvering (talk) 20:16, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Published as Template:Welcome draft and submitted a request at WT:TWINKLE to add it to the welcome menu. @Novem Linguae, apologies for the ping, but I'd like to move forward with getting this added to AFCH (with implementation as proposed above), would appreciate some next steps as I don't have a Github account right now! Thanks, ~Liance^talk 16:32, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

@Liance. What's the exact change being requested in AFCH here? –Novem Linguae (talk) 15:48, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

As suggested by SafariScribe and seconded by some other editors, a checkbox with functionality similar to the Teahouse invite option currently implemented in AFCH that would leave the welcome template above the AfC accept/decline message would be fantastic. Welcome message should only be left if the user has not been welcomed by another editor yet. ~Liance^talk 16:46, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Tracked in github.com
Issue #386

Should User:Liance/s/afcwelcomerevision2 be moved to template space and use the standard welcome template format, e.g. Template:Welcome-afc or similar? –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:59, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

This was already done – it's now at {{welcome draft}}. jlwoodwa (talk) 18:09, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for making this, Liance. I think it's a good idea; it seems likely to improve editor retention. My one concern is "We appreciate your contributions"; if the AfC then gets declined, I'm worried it could come off as insincere ("we appreciate the contribs we rejected"). Perhaps something similar like "We're glad you've decided to contribute" instead?

A param for human-written or at least human-chosen comments about their contributions would be good, because personal responses are always nicer than bot messages and also seem to get a better response from new users. New users actually seem to respond well to negative personal feedback, as long as it's constructive; they take it as praise ("they wouldn't want me to improve them if my edits weren't somewhat useful") and are more likely to stick around. Yes, I wrote a lot of that essay I linked. HLHJ (talk) 02:30, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Battles in the Pontic–Caspian steppe

A large number of well-written articles of 15th-19th century battles that purportedly occurred in the Pontic–Caspian steppe have been submitted by Enver Ottoman. I approved Avar-Kabardian campaign (1618) earlier today based on accidental conflation with a different event during my background investigation. I have now nominated it for deletion.

Two other articles by the same user have also been declined. In the case of Draft:Battle of Adji-Gozle, I wasn't able to verify that some of the sources even existed, let alone that they supported the content in the article. Killarnee also declined an article by this editor (Draft:Battle of River Khabl).

Unfortunately, I don't have time to go through these as thoroughly as I'd like at the moment and, without doing that, I can't definitely say they are part of an elaborate WP:HOAX. However, if someone has a few minutes to spare I think a detailed audit of the sources on this user's articles would be warranted. Assuming good faith, but with a measure of caution, this very well may simply be a misunderstanding by me or a case of some very obscure, offline sources that might be verifiable with a more thorough check. Chetsford (talk) 02:55, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Note, I've just declined another this editor's articles (Draft:Attack of Nogais on Cossack Patrol) as a possible HOAX. Chetsford (talk) 03:16, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

The mere fact that the link format for the purported Eastern Herald link is not their current link format or close to it by any means seems to suggest that source may be fabricated. I'm also concerned about the fact that the three book sources seem to have been published in Russia, two of them in the 1800s, yet have English titles and authors. The user obviously isn't opposed to using Cyrillic text in references, as they've done so in at least one other submittion. Lastly, the user has blatantly fabricated a DOI for two completely separate "journals" - the Journal of Ethnographic Studies and the Journal of Caucasian Studies - I'll email my reason for believing this to Chetsford directly per BEANS but I do not believe there is any way this was a mistake. All in all, even if the events are not hoaxes, this user is fabricating references at a minimum. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 04:33, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

berchanhimez - thanks for this additional research. This satisfies the matter for me and I've blocked this editor as a vandalism-only account. I'll tag the drafts accordingly. Chetsford (talk) 05:22, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Pretty sure that the fourth reference (published in Journal of Ethnographic Studies) is fabricated. No such paper was published that year. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 06:10, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I think this is enough evidence to presumptively delete all of the drafts and save ourselves the time of further investigation. -- asilvering (talk) 17:51, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I wasn't able to verify any source, which isn't a surprise because the references included minimal information only about the sources used. I'm really careful with articles about ancient battles/sieges because hoaxes around this topic have been common in the past. Killarnee (talk) 12:48, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I recommend checking every article/draft the user created. All of the references seem to be fabricated. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 14:20, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Misleading decline message

@Maproom has commented on a post at the Teahouse:

This happens so often. A reviewer declines a draft with the words "This submission is not adequately supported by reliable sources" or the like, intended to mean "there aren't enough good references". But the submitter reads it as "there aren't enough references", and adds many more references, often of even lower quality than the ones that were there already. I used to think that the submitters were trying to disguise the lack of good references by putting up a smokescreen of garbage. I now realise that the submitter is acting in good faith, but the templates "not adequately supported" are misleading, and should be rewritten

.

@Nick Moyes has agreed, and I also agree strongly; but I think this is a better place for the discussion, so I'm moving it here. I see a further issue beside the one Maproom pointed out: that the message mentions "reliable sources", but doesn't mention "independent" sources. Often, as Maproom says, people add poor references to reliable sources and feel justifiably aggrieved when those aren't successful. I realise that the message has to have a degree of concision, but I think we would reduce the pain for both submitters and reviewers if we find a way to improve the message. ColinFine (talk) 16:50, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree, and have raised this here before, that the decline reason v - Submission is improperly sourced (= "This submission is not adequately supported by reliable sources...") can be ambiguous. It can mean the sources are not reliable, or the draft isn't adequately supported by them (as in, a lot of unreferenced content), or even that the sources don't actually verify the information they're cited against. That's why I try to (not always succeeding) remember to include a clarifying comment with the decline, if declining only for this reason.

Mind you, sometimes it's pretty clear-cut, eg. when the draft is completely unreferenced, or only cites Twitter etc. as its sources.

Feel free to suggest a better wording. ;) -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 17:16, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Context note: this is about Draft:John James (businessman and philanthropist) and both times the reviewers did not rely on the template but added that "claims are unsourced". The first decline also used 'bio' so included the need for "significant coverage (not just passing mentions) about the subject in published, reliable, secondary sources that are independent of the subject". I think it's an assumption that the submitter read "This submission is not adequately supported by reliable sources" and read it as "there aren't enough references", they may have just read "Most claims are unsourced" and "Many claims are still unsourced" and thought they had to add more as that is what was requested. As has come up many times articles should not be declined if notable just for having parts unsourced - those issues should be tagged or removed as appropriate. Also ColinFine and Maproom feel free suggest any changes to Template:AfC submission/comments to make them better - especially 'v' that has been discussed before as bad to use alone and often used incorrectly. Lots of those decline reasons can/should be improved, the best improvements I think have been to 'nn' and 'org' when we added clear bullet lists of the requirements but still many never read and ask the reviewer, the AfC Help desk, Teahouse etc. I've never liked that wording, but no one has yet suggested wording that has got agreement... maybe this time.... KylieTastic (talk) 17:28, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

If people get a boilerplate decline and further comments indicating issues that clarify the boilerplate, and are still somehow confused, we can't really help that or fix stupid... (this is not to say we shouldn't work to make our decline 'plates as clear as possible, this is just snark about people who don't pay attention) Primefac (talk) 10:11, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm a bit more charitable than that. The concept of getting significant coverage in reliable sources doesn't appear to be intuitive, and is a result of trying to write a new article before improving an existing one. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:06, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I hardly ever use v on it's own as a decline, but maybe merge it with ilc now that that doesn't mention BLP any more? Or I suppose just explicitly mention something like however, excessive citations (for example, more than 2 or 3 in a single place) is rarely helpful. Alpha3031 (t • c) 10:36, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

I think ilc still mentions BLP – see Special:Diff/1252918105, for example. jlwoodwa (talk) 17:41, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

In the edit summary, true, but I'm not sure how many of the people we'd complain about would be reading that. Alpha3031 (t • c) 08:39, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

The template language should mention that the quality of the sources is vastly more important than the quantity, and that the only sources that help establish notability are those that are reliable and that are independent of the topic, and that devote significant coverage to the topic. If I had a dime for every time I have explained those basic concepts at the Teahouse or the Help Desk or at WP:AFCHD, I could take my wife out to dinner at a Michelin-starred restaurant. Cullen328 (talk) 08:58, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

How about something like "Wikipedia articles are required to have multiple published, reliable sources that are independent of the subject."? Removing the "sufficiently" helps, I think. -- asilvering (talk) 18:00, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Is it worth mentioning WP:SIGCOV? I think it could be, but I'm not sure – brevity is even more important than usual here. jlwoodwa (talk) 18:25, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps, but sigcov doesn't fit with the others in that sentence without making it a bunch longer (it's the subject of the article, not the article itself, that needs "significant coverage", whereas everything else hangs on "articles are required to have ... sources"), so I'm on the side of brevity. -- asilvering (talk) 19:13, 28 October 2024 (UTC)