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WP:AFC/R archives

Idea: from next month, could the AfC redirects monthly archive be split into groups? Recently there have been more and more requests per month – there were just over 200 in the May 2014 archive, but there are already over 350 in the the June 2014 archive. This makes the pages very hard to load and edit, especially for users with slow internet connections. Perhaps (from July) splitting them into groups of 200 or 300 requests? Ollieinc (talk) 02:47, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

• Sections seem to average about 850 bytes a piece. This means that if we want to keep page load times and archive size down to the 150kB line (which is fairly reasonable), we should be keeping it at around 175 requests per page. However, AN and AN/I archives are often 700kB - 1mB in size, and the administrators insist that pages this size aren't a problem. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 12:12, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

• I would endorse smaller archive sizes in this WikiProject from a human-factors standpoint (in particular: faster load times or more reliable loading for those with slow or iffy connections), but I also agree with the gist of the AN/I discussion: If large archives are breaking the Wiki on the server end, this needs to be fixed by a code change, not by reducing the sizes of archives. As a "quick fix" can we go with twice-a-month archiving from here on out? davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 18:22, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Proposal: make AFCHRW our production script

So, there are about two days left to this backlog drive, and apparently no-one had noticed until a new reviewer came along last night that the production version of the script doesn't work on WP:AFC/R (returns a token error, see this screenshot). As such, I'm asking Theopolisme and all of the reviewers that have been using the AFCHRW version of the script, do we think it is ready to become the production script? I'm ideally thinking it is ready (there are a bunch of feature requests, but no outstanding bug reports for things that aren't broken in the existing script as far as I can tell) and would like to see it rolled out as such on or as close to July 1st as possible. This will give us a month or two to work with the script and find new bugs and whatnot before the next BLD is proposed. What does everyone think of this? — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 12:12, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

• Support - I have been using the new script for some time now. The visual interface is suboptimal on my short, wide screen, but I haven't posted a bug report for several weeks, and it appears to work smoothly. I've been using mainly the "postpone" and "comment" functions, though, so others may have more to say about the submit/decline sections. Does the fact that no one noticed the problem mentioned above with the old script mean that it is rarely used? —Anne Delong (talk) 12:53, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
  • No Anne, just that WP:AFC/R rarely visited by those using the old version. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 13:13, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
    • Or maybe making a redirect doesn't necessarily require use of the script? —Anne Delong (talk) 13:39, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
      • Maybe. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 14:13, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

• Update: I just emailed Theo (he got a new job and doesn't watch the wiki much right now) and hopefully he'll see that and reply soon either here or via email. :) — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 14:13, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
• I updated the reviewing instructions over a year ago to reflect the fact that the helper script did not work on AFC/R and was told it was 'work in progress'. Many scripts ago, the helper script did work on AFC/R. It was very useful and made creating redirects and categories a doddle. There never used to be a backlog at that page, now there is; probably because more effort is required to answer those requests. I have not tried the re-write script and so cannot comment on its 'readiness', but if it works on AFC/R that is support-worthy in its self. Bellerophon _{talk to me} 06:54, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
  • beta version has a working copy of AFC/R script (which I've posted a PER to get pushed live to fix the current problem), rewrite doesn't yet have support, but it won't be hard to have it call the existing AFC/R and FFU modules. I'll work on getting that ready today, unfortunately it doesn't look like we will be getting enough support for making RW the live version of the script by the 1st atm... Fingers still crossed. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 12:05, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
• Support. I've been using the rewritten version for most of the backlog drive and have yet to notice any problems with it. APerson (talk!) 14:12, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
• Does this still need support? Because, if it does, I do. Fiddle Faddle 14:49, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Duplicate submissions

Something to watch out for: I just came across a draft article that was declined because there was another submission about the same topic. I looked at the other submission and it was declined because there was another submission (the first one)! Needless to say, both were abandoned. A third submission and ended up in mainspace, but less developed than the second one. —Anne Delong (talk) 04:01, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Those blank submissions are our fault

If there were one or two I would assume simple error, but there are so many that I think it must be our fault.

What are the folk who create blank submissions expecting to happen?

I suspect the answer is that they are expecting either someone else to create the article (where they provide a basic heading and that is all) or are expecting a placeholder to be created for them to create the article themselves.

So, how do we set their expectations correctly before they hit submit for review, and they set themselves up for a summary rejection of a blank submission? Fiddle Faddle 09:57, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

As suggested by isaacl, I have reported my proposed addition to the submission process at WP:Gadget/proposals. If this is approved, it will likely cut down on submissions that don't have any references - including blank submissions and test pages. I know that Technical 13 is interested in this topic as well, and would likely have started a discussion about it already had I not suggested that he wait until the backlog drive was over (sorry, T13). —Anne Delong (talk) 14:08, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

• No worries Anne, I'm not really in a position to do much of anything this week (or probably next) as I have three final exams and a group project due this week in school. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 14:22, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Timtrent, it doesn't take much time to decline a blank submission, and the decline template directs them to Requested Articles, so it's not that much of a problem, really, but maybe we could tweak the wording in the grey draft template, and a few of them might read it. —Anne Delong (talk) 14:26, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

@Anne Delong: It's not our time that I'm concerned about. It's newbie biting by accident. These submissions must happen for a reason, and by no means everyone who creates them is doing it out of madness, badness or idiocy. Fiddle Faddle 14:48, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, I agree that a pre-notification of some kind would be preferable, mainly because when the submission process is backlogged, the blank submissions may not be noticed for some time, and by the time they are declined and the messages about "Requested articles" sent, the users may have lost interest. There's a good chance that a user who dropped by to leave an article request may never have had any intention of becoming an editor, but timely information may leave him or her with a better opinion of Wikipedia. For the others who really did plan to write an article and just submitted prematurely, it seems to me that after submitting their blank pages they would continue to edit them, whether or not they had yet been declined. —Anne Delong (talk) 15:24, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

A pre-notification (at minimum for blank pages) would help all parties - reviewers and newbie users alike. --ThaddeusB (talk) 15:36, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

A possible mechanism for blank pages

Try this for yourselves:

1. Create a blank sandbox and ensure template {{User sandbox}} is in it
2. Type stuff. Do not save.
3. Preview the stuff. Do not save.
4. Submit from the Preview pane
5. Note there are two dialogue mechanisms between now and saving, but be a new user and 'leave the page' and then 'save'
6. Voila! A blank submission

I tried this after responding to Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions#Submitted_a_post_-_content_showed_up_empty.3F and finding inspiration. It may not be the mechanism the victim has used, but it is certainly a mechanism

So, this leads me to submission mode. Is there a way that this route can be intercepted and turned into a valid submission? I suspect it explains at least some of the blank submissions. Technical 13, this can wait until your finals are over, but thoughts would be welcome Fiddle Faddle 14:55, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

• FF, with that expansion on how you did it, that is certainly a MediaWiki bug and should be reported on Bugzilla or VPT if you wouldn't mind. Thanks. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 15:07, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

• Depressingly, I have no idea how to report it as a bug. I also doubt it to be a bug. I see it as a user workflow error, with the software working as designed. With VPT I have never had a great experience Fiddle Faddle — Preceding undated comment added 2 July 2014
  • I'll report it once I'm done with my finals today. The system shouldn't be dumping the page and asking if you want to leave unsaved changes if you clicked on Save page. Core bug for this reason. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 15:35, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

• Do check my workflow before you report it as a bug (by repeating it yourself). I still suspect user workflow error, but I bow to your techknowledge. Fiddle Faddle 15:39, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I've fixed {{User sandbox}} and {{Userspace draft}} to not include the submit button while previewing. Jackmcbarn (talk) 17:32, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

@Technical 13: There's no bug in MediaWiki here. Everything is working as intended. Our templates were just confusing. Jackmcbarn (talk) 17:39, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

• Jackmcbarn, while I agree that may have been a source of confusion for some, it doesn't change the fact that I've personally experienced issues with losing edits when I hit Save page after pressing Preview. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 18:50, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

@Technical 13: Under what circumstances exactly did that happen? I don't think I've ever experienced that. Jackmcbarn (talk) 18:51, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

I've now also applied the same fix to the {{AFC submission}} family of templates and added messages in place of the submit buttons. Jackmcbarn (talk) 15:48, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Are we experiencing fewer blank submissions?

After Jackmcbarn identified a mechanism for 'preventing' folk form submitting from the preview pane, I have noticed fewer blank submissions. The question is, am I alone or am I seeing what I hope to see?

If we now see pretty much only submissions with text, good, excellent, poor or downright dreadful, then an excellent result has been achieved. Even if the number of empty submissions has been cut by a quarter we are alienating fewer new editors. It is an awful slap in the face to have something you think you have submitted declined because it's blank when you are sure it really was not. Fiddle Faddle 20:14, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I reckon there are indeed less. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 21:49, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Technical 13 has opened edit requests saying that these changes don't have consensus and they should be reverted, but given this discussion, it seems to me that they do indeed have consensus. @Timtrent: @FoCuSandLeArN: @Hasteur: ping. Jackmcbarn (talk) 15:25, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

• They do not have consensus, are disruptive, and they need to be reverted in favor of finding another way of dealing with the situation. There was no consensus to make the change, and I oppose the change so there is still no consensus that experienced editors should have their processes disrupted. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 15:29, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Four editors (me, plus the 3 I pinged above) all seem to support my changes. You're the only one I know of who doesn't. Jackmcbarn (talk) 15:31, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Please do not drag me into this. I merely said there were less blank submissions. I have nothing to say about any changes made. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 16:13, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

• So I get this right, previously we wanted to have a pretty parade of ASCII arrows to draw users to the save page button that was argued about to protect users from the dangers of forgetting to save, but now we want to enable users to potentially do something destructive by allowing the user to submit and potentially loose their content. Great Irony abounds here. I'd be open to a compromise of having the submit be hidden on the preview page via a collapsed div by default (thereby protecting normal users) but let people override the div's display rule via the CSS (i.e. User:Hasteur/vector.css sysop-show lines) (thereby empowering the power users). Hasteur (talk) 15:37, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

I'd be open to such a compromise as well, assuming nobody else has objections to it. Jackmcbarn (talk) 15:41, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Technical 13 has now requested that I lose my TE rights for not reverting the changes. See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive263#Template Editor Jackmcbarn. Jackmcbarn (talk) 15:46, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

• Jackmcbarn, now you are CANVASSING as well? Doesn't seem like a very model thing to do... — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 15:52, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Specifically, which section of WP:CANVASS do you think I violated? Spamming/excessive cross-posting? You can hardly call a single post excessive cross-posting. Campaigning? I factually stated the topic of the WP:AN thread. Votestacking? This is the thread that led to the WP:AN thread, and all involved users are aware of it. Stealth canvassing? Everyone can see the message. Jackmcbarn (talk) 15:53, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

• I'd be open to adding a class to the button of "reviewer-show rollback-show templateditor-show sysop-show" so that it is only hidden from users without some kind of advanced permission that suggests they should be experienced enough to realize what they are doing. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 15:52, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Rather than reusing an existing class, I'd want to use a new class for the purpose. Jackmcbarn (talk) 15:53, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

• I don't see how a new class would be able to detect how experienced a user is or what usergroups that they are part of, but if you can make that work, kudos. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 16:28, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

@Technical 13: It wouldn't be automatic. Users who want it would opt in specifically by adding an appropriate entry to Special:MyPage/common.css. Jackmcbarn (talk) 16:32, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

• That's not an acceptable change. Users shouldn't have to add specific code to fix a change to the way the template has worked forever to support what you want the template to do. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 16:54, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

There's no guarantee that users know that the submit button doesn't autosave just because they have advanced permissions. I also don't think most users with advanced permissions would want it. Jackmcbarn (talk) 17:12, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

• I agree, which is why I have no objecting to you adding your specific new class to allow them to opt-out. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 17:23, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

IMHO the previous version of the template, which allowed people to submit without saving first, broke the wiki, at least for affected editors. This warrants invoking the Wikipedia:Ignore all rules policy and implementing a fix without discussion on an emergency/very-temporary basis, even if it means losing some ease of use useful to reviewers (no functionality is lost - reviewers can still edit the submission template by hand to "submit" the page). Changing BACK to the broken version would re-introduce the breakage and should not be done. However, as there appears to be at least some controversy of whether the current version is the best way to solve the problem, we should be (and already are) discussing better solutions. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 03:19, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Solution to "Submit on Preview" problem

Since we have a vocal minority attempting to overturn the suppression of the AFC submit button when the page is being previewed, I'm going to explicitly call for a consensus decision on the following Implementation

New logic shall be included into the template so that a CSS class is injected into the div if the page a template is referenced to is in preview mode. For the time being the CSS class will indicate that it is related to the AFC submission template in preview mode and shall by default in preview mode collapse the submit buttons. Instructions will be added to the AFC Frequently asked questions/Template documentation indicating how users who are missing the old functionality may restore their desired behavior.

Now with that said, I'd like a Simple Yes/No to this proposal

Support implemenation #1

1. As proposer, and as I think this accomplishes the goal of protecting users who may potentially do something undesirable and also gives power users the ability to restore their previous behavior. Hasteur (talk) 12:59, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
2. As identifier of the problem, a user workflow problem, I applaud the solution, a solution which is simple and seems to be effective. Our job is to make life easier for new editors, not to slap them down with a "Your submission is blank" notice. Fiddle Faddle 13:08, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
3. Simple solution that should benefit the people the template is aimed at. Sometimes, you need to consider who the template is aimed at, and engineer it to meet their needs, just like commersial software. Sometimes, taking choise out of the end-users hands can be a good thing, as it appears to be here. --Mdann52talk to me! 13:54, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
4. This is basically the same as what I suggested above. Jackmcbarn (talk) 15:19, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
5. I am unsure exactly what the nature of the contention to this change is? I've read the related discussions, but I've either missed something or the contention is based on nothing more than: "There was no consensus to make the change, and I oppose the change so there is still no consensus that experienced editors should have their processes disrupted." In the case of former then I apologise in advance for my uninformed comments; in the case of the latter then WP:DIVA would seem to apply... Bellerophon _{talk to me} 19:47, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

   We're trying to establish a positively asserted consensus based implementation for how to handle this because the minority is working the "Parlimentary Procedure" rights of the minority to the fullest. Hasteur (talk) 20:50, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

6. AfC is supposed to be for new and inexperienced users who may be confused by how Wikipedia works, technically as well as philosophically. Therefore any proposal which causes them not to lose their work by accident, and so become frustrated or disheartened, is welcome. It seems to me that saying to new users "make sure you click the right button, because I know which is which but you don't" is surpassed for biteyness only by direct verbal unpleasantries. BethNaught (talk) 21:01, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Oppose implementation #1

1. Oppose forcing undesired new behavior on established editors, support using existing classes that were designed for this exact purpose and an additional new class to allow established editors to toggle it hidden if they so choose. I'm unsure why we are having this discussion instead of just using the solution that produces EVERYONE'S desired result. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 13:39, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Comments about implementation #1

• Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the goal to have as granular permissions and controls as possible? Therefore attaching the other "privilege classes" bundles new functionality with completely unrelated functions. Us protecting the users and requiring them to positively opt in on this factional of a fractional edge case is no worse than us requiring users who want to use the AFCH* gadget to list themselves on the reviewer list. Hasteur (talk) 14:00, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

  Indeed. I don't see any reason that this should be linked with any permission. Jackmcbarn (talk) 15:19, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

• There is no bundling, and it can't be more granular than adding an additional class to allow established users to opt-out. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 19:25, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

• You do realize you're suggesting is for a complete negation of the entire thread all the way back to the root "Those blank submissions are our fault". Technical 13, I say this with all respect, but you're so far round the bend that you've overflowed your own position and have wraped back around to the other side of the debate. Bottom line is we need to try and prevent newbie users from accidentally submitting blanks while they're in preview mode, potentially costing them their hard work and causing reviewers to have to review blank pages. Making the default of hiding those fields is a reasonable way to prevent this from hapening in accidental cases. Yes a user could still find the submit button in the text and push it, but we make it more difficult to do. Power users who have lost this functionality will ask why the change happened and either adapt or opt-in to a less safe method of the template. Hasteur (talk) 19:41, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Draft retention

Hi. I received the following message after I declined an article:

"Thank you for reviewing my article Narrows Center for the Arts (draft). I'm a fairly new Wikipedian, so I'm going to let the draft sit for a while and help with the cleanup of other articles for now to learn more about acceptable articles before trying again. Am I right that my article will not be deleted but will remain in my subpages as a draft? Thanks again!skatoulaki (talk) 18:49, 30 June 2014 (UTC)"

Is he right that is article will remain in his subpages as a draft? Thanks. Onel5969 (talk) 22:18, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

The page has already been moved to the draft: space to Draft:Narrows Center for the Arts. It will sit around for about 6 months and then be considered for G13 speedy deletion. I have removed some promotional text, but it is not that much like an essay, so is close to ready for article life. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:52, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

In any case, the author has six months and will be warned prior to deletion. The draft can be userfied to keep it in a user sandbox longer than that. I agree with Graeme Bartlett that it can likely be accepted well before that. Chris Troutman (talk) 22:56, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

The AfC banners need removing as part of the userfication process- userpages with AfC banners are as eligible for G13 as draft space and wikipedia talk space articles. If the article is edited (other than for bot-like maintenance tasks) it resets the 6 month clock. :::So, I dunno, if the user intends to continue working on it, but slowly, it's OK where it is. If "for a while" means more than 6 months then userfication may be best. The advantage of leaving it where it is will be that if in six months time the article has slipped to the back of the user's mind then they will get a handy reminder that their work exists at that point. Rankersbo (talk) 07:39, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Commentators (One15969—Chris troutman—Rankersbo) Couple points of order:

1. The G13 rule reads: Rejected or unsubmitted Articles for creation pages that have not been edited in over six months. There is no exception for bot-like maintenance tasks. If the edit causes the page to register a new revision, the clock is reset.
2. The primary automated editing process (HasteurBot) takes the rule further by only operating in 2 prefixes: Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/ and Draft:. This means that the automated editing process will never be warning users or nominating for G13 on userspace pages.

This means that userspace G13 eligible pages are the perview of manual editors to determine if they should be kept or dealt with by G13. Hasteur (talk) 18:16, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Reflinks is no more

See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#No_more_reflinks where, it seems, folks have all known about this for some time. Of course it is still in the left hand margin. Click that margin item and see what happens!

The thing is, we need this tool. PLease pile in there to add weight to its return. Fiddle Faddle 08:31, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Drat - I just finished putting ref tags around several hundred URLs in preparation for running Reflinks - it'll take ten times as long to add titles manually. —Anne Delong (talk) 14:08, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

This is an outrage! Some sort of revolution is in order... The single most useful tool ever created for Wikipedia died today. Bellerophon _{talk to me} 20:10, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

I used it extensively for years. My being pissed off threshold has been breached, as you can see from my comments over there, where I see complacency and feelings of superiority. Lucky it did not die during the June backlog drive, but, dammit, this sucks. We need to mobilise! Fiddle Faddle 20:25, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed the air of apathetic revelry at that thread, which is why I haven't posted there. Unfortunately, Wikipedia is, from time-to-time, stalked by hyenas who will notice your pissed-off-ness and interpret it as weakness. Before moving in for the kill. Best to take a break rather than get too worked up. The only way we'll get it back is if the original creator releases the code or comes to an accord with WMF... Either could take years. Bellerophon _{talk to me} 20:38, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

I am hard to kill . I have more stamina than the wonderful ladies and gentlemen there can possibly imagine, and enough wit not to break any of our arcane rules. It is, of course, the act of a very unwise person to allow Reflinks to have died. I blame the alleged wisdom of crowds. Far too often we get the lowest common denominator. I shall now ignore bare links. We will suffer form linkrot. I care, but will not let this affect me. Fiddle Faddle 20:44, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

• I understand everyone's frustration here, but I encourage everyone to take a slow. Worst case scenario I create a new tool as part as my Fall C# class. Something WILL come to replace it. So, I encourage you to be virtuous. :) — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 21:28, 1 July 2014 (UTC)Fiddle Faddle 21:39, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

• Like Fiddle Faddle 21:39, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

• Someone with time and technical skills may want to check out the IEG Grants, which may actually pay money for things that will benefit the encyclopedia, but which are not content creation. —Anne Delong (talk) 17:49, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

And is back

It seems to have been migrated and has returned. I found out by an absent minded click on the link. Fiddle Faddle 14:28, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

What a relief! However, according to the discussion at WP:VPT, it is running on the developer's personal computer through a virtual server, so this may be temporary. —Anne Delong (talk) 15:10, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Copyvio boilerplate message

During the Backlog Drive I had several authors ask me why their drafts were declined as a copyright violation when they owned the copyright themselves. I suggested that the boilerplate message be amended to mention such a situation, and Technical 13 encouraged me to post a draft including that, and close paraphrasing as well. So here it is.

The submission appears to be taken from --Website--. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously and cannot accept copyrighted content from websites or printed sources. Note that copyright protection is granted to all works automatically, whether it is asserted or not. Unless stated otherwise, assume that most content on the internet is copyrighted and not suitable for publishing on Wikipedia. (Close paraphrasing of copyrighted sources is also not permitted.) Copyrighted content can be cited as a reliable source if it meets Wikipedia's guidelines; however, your submission must be written in your own words, and in continuous prose. If you own the copyright and wish to use the material on Wikipedia, you must first release it under a free licence.

Feedback on whether this is a good idea or how to better reword the message would be appreciated. I'm afraid that at the moment, with the new material, it's a bit dense. Thanks, BethNaught (talk) 12:55, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

This is good. I would change:

• "The submission appears…" → "A substantial part of the draft appears…" (as it's not always the entire draft)
• "cannot accept copyrighted content" → "cannot replicate copyrighted content".
• "your submission must be written in your own words" → "submissions must be written in editors' own words" (to discourage WP:OWN)

If we're looking to lose some text, the bracket about close paraphrasing can probably go, as its a more nebulous point than the rest. --LukeSurl ^{t c} 13:18, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) For comparison, the existing wording is:

This submission appears to be taken from --Website--. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously. We cannot accept copyrighted content taken from websites or printed sources. Note that copyright protection is granted to all works automatically, whether it is asserted or not. Unless stated otherwise, assume that most content on the internet is copyrighted and not suitable for publishing on Wikipedia. Copyrighted content can be cited as a reliable source if it meets Wikipedia's guidelines; however, your submission must be written in your own words, and in continuous prose.

As to the replacement, when I said mention paraphrase, I meant in a manner such as: "Editors should summarize source materials in their own words..." A replacement I might suggest is:

The submission appears to be taken from --Website--. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously and cannot accept copyrighted content from websites or printed sources. Note that copyright protection is granted to all works automatically, whether it is asserted or not. Editor should summarize source materials in their own words, in continuous prose, and cited as a reliable source. If you own the copyright and wish to use the material on Wikipedia, you must first release it under a free license.

— {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 13:25, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Ah, I misunderstood what you meant. So a draft we could all agree on could be:

Some or all of the draft appears to be taken from --Website--. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously and cannot reproduce copyrighted content from websites or printed sources. Note that copyright protection is granted to all works automatically, whether it is asserted or not. Editors should summarize source materials in their own words, in continuous prose, and cite the materials as reliable sources. If you own the copyright and wish to use the material on Wikipedia, you must first release it under a free license.

This seems to incorporate the ideas of all of three of us. BethNaught (talk) 13:35, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

 Great! --LukeSurl ^{t c} 13:53, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, this message is usually accompanied by a speedy deletion template, so it is usually a race against time for the author to see this decline message. Furthermore, Template:Afc decline does not encourage users to see the "comments left by the reviewer" if the submission has been marked as a copyvio. In order to be effective, we should update Template:Afc decline as well. Mz7 (talk) 15:39, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

• Mz7, adding the decline reason to {{Afc decline}} is already on the todo list. :) — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 16:04, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

• The existing {{Afc decline}} template already supports having different text if there is a copyvio. --LukeSurl ^{t c} 16:53, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

@LukeSurl: I am aware that there are different texts for copyvio. The normal text for all other reasons beside copyvio directs authors to review the comments left by the reviewer at the draft page. If a submission is declined as a copyright violation, the text instead states that copyrighted information cannot be accepted, and does not point the author to see the comments left by the reviewer. In this section, it has been proposed that the boilerplate message for copyvios is updated. This message won't be very effective unless we either direct authors to see the message or we update the Afc decline template with new text. This appears to already be under discussion (thanks Technical 13). Mz7 (talk) 17:54, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

I don't get how the author can "see the comments left by the reviewer" if the page has been deleted per CV. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 18:54, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

@FoCuSandLeArN: Exactly. It's a race against time for the author to look at the message before it gets deleted. Instead of In addition to updating the boilerplate for {{AfC submission}}, we should update the text at {{Afc decline}}. Mz7 (talk) 19:00, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

I'd say in addition to rather than instead of, but yeah, already on the todo list. :0 — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 19:05, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion, I forgot to mention the update to {{Afc decline}} in the OP. Thanks Technical 13. BethNaught (talk) 19:18, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Agree —Mz7 (talk) 21:18, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

BackLogDrive page locations

I was thinking (uh-oh), it would be useful to have an editnotice for editing BLD pages that would include instructions (a copy & paste version of the template) for re-reviewing and other such technical things. The edit notice would serve a similar function as our existing Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation with the collapsible table of acceptable templates to use. In order to most easily accomplish this, I am asking if there would be any objection to me moving all of the existing BLD pages by adding a /BLD subpage between the project and the drive. This would allow me to make a group editnotice that would show when editing all future drive pages. Thanks for your consideration. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 15:04, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

As someone who has been doing AfC a while, but only just started participating in backlog drives, I can tell you that the instructions on how to do re-reviews were basically nonsensical. Put a template somewhere... where? If they approved the article, put it in a mainspace article? Is that really how it works? (I didn't really dig deeper to find out at that point) So yes, please improve the instructions. Gigs (talk) 16:49, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

If the instructions aren't clear, then by all means let's improve them. I do seem to remember having trouble figuring out have to work with the reviewers' pages when I participated in my first drive, but I think that they've been improved once since then. However, the question seems to be: where is the best place to put these improved instructions? —Anne Delong (talk) 08:08, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

It looks like the instructions occur in two places: the current BLD page and {{AFCDriveQC}}.

I don't really see how the instructions could be clarified further beyond improving the explanation of how to find the "backlog drive page of the user". APerson (talk!) 13:48, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

• It's not a matter of clarification (even though for some it will serve that purpose), it is about making it easy to click on a link and not have to remember the exact template name, format, or casing and saving typing time. {{AFCDriveQC}} is not the same as {{AFC Drive QC}} or {{AfcDriveQc}} or {{AfcDriveQC}} and doing this seems easier than making 100 redirects for casing and spacing. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 20:35, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

• Questions for Technical 13:

1. Are you planning to display the edit notice on the main drive page (for example, the June 2014 drive page we just had) or on the individual reviewers' drive pages? I presume the latter, and, if so, how will this affect AfC Buddy?
   • Yes and yes and it won't (as long as Excirial makes the minor adjustment to the path of the pages which will be four characters longer "BLD/") — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)}
2. What is the benefit that you perceive of having the instructions in an editnotice instead of as a hide/show section in the text of the main drive page, where an editor could have them handy by opening a second browser tab?
   • It will be in a hide/show section in the edit notice of all of the individual reviewers pages, this will make it easy to copy and paste or I could even set it up using <charinsert>...</charinsert> and then you wouldn't even have to copy, just put the curser where you want and click the link of the response you want (I'm lazy and don't like typing them out, don't like remembering the exact casing and the exact template name). — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)}
3. Would the editnotice actually contain all of the instructions, or would it contain a link to the instructions? If the former, wouldn't it be rather long? If the latter, wouldn't a re-reviewer have to leave the edit window to follow the link? (Or would it open in another tab?)
   • It could contain all of the instructions in a collapsible section so they're easy to get to without having to navigate away from the page and not intrusive for those that remember and don't care. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)}
4. The individual drive pages are very long already and I often experience significant delays when editing them. Aside from the obvious extra scrolling involved to get past the edit notice, would its existence worsen this problem? I am thinking not, but just checking.
   • Since it would be in a collapsible section (or nested collapsible sections), it would add exactly one line of text to the length of the page which is fairly insignificant. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)}
5. # Ahem, shouldn't you be studying...Sorry, not your mother —Anne Delong (talk) 08:03, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
   • Don't be sorry, I appreciated it. My exams for this week are over. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)}

APerson, the instructions must seem clear to you because you already know how to do it. {{AFCDriveQC}} is pretty clear. Wikipedia:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation/June_2014_Backlog_Elimination_Drive#Reviewing_Reviews is not clear at all. It gives you no clue where to put the templates. Gigs (talk) 17:38, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Would you like to suggest some improved wording? —Anne Delong (talk) 17:55, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I feel like it would be perfectly fine if we were to copy over {{AFCDriveQC}}'s documentation over to the BLD Preload page (which is where we should be putting the improved rereview documentation anyway). APerson (talk!) 13:44, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

• I've responded to all of the questions in thread. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 20:35, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

• We appear to have two topics interspersed here (1) Technical 13's editnotice idea and (2) Gigs' request for clarification of the wording of the instructions. Should we separate them for easier reading/discussion? —Anne Delong (talk) 00:19, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
  • My editnotice idea should include Gigs clearly worded instructions. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 00:38, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
    • I don't know where the "proto-page" is for the current backlog drive page, but has someone put the better instructions on it? Gigs (talk) 17:06, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Gigs, the proto-page is located at Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/BLD Preload. Are there any drafts of the instructions I should copy over, or should I copy from {{AFCDriveQC}}'s documentation? APerson (talk!) 02:11, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

APerson AFCDriveQC would be a vast improvement and I'm not aware of any other drafts. Thanks. Gigs (talk) 18:37, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

I just updated the documentation at the BLD preload page. What do you all think? APerson (talk!) 15:00, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

• A very basic start to what I have in mind is Template:Editnotices/Group/Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/BLD. This edit notice will be shown on all BLD pages (once the existing ones are moved and the template to make new ones is updated). Feel free to add stuff in the wrapper template which can be collapsed (or make suggestions and I'll add it if you are unable to edit yourself.) and we'll collaboratively construct this to be something useful to everyone that wants it and non-intrusive to everyone else. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 16:14, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

What are the "minimum standards for inline citations"?

I am seeing articles about living people rejected for not meeting minimum standards for inline citations, when inline citations don't seem to be needed. For example, an article was recently rejected with the comment: For a living person we have a higher standard if referencing. Every fact you assert requires a citation with a reference that is about them, and is independent of them, and is in WP:RS. On reading Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Reliable sources my understanding is that only facts that are likely to be challenged or are contentious (likely to cause an argument) need this level of referencing for a biography of a living person. Otherwise footnotes aren't needed at all, and only references to establish notability are needed for acceptance of draft articles. Do we have a clear statement on this for reviewing articles? StarryGrandma (talk) 21:42, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, we do have a clear statement on this near the top of the reviewing instructions. 1.Avoid declining an article because it correctly uses general references to support some or all of the material. The content and sourcing policies require inline citations for only four specific types of material, most commonly direct quotations and contentious material (whether negative, positive, or neutral) about living persons. StarryGrandma (talk) 23:14, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

The "four specific types of material" policy is spelled out at Wikipedia:MINREF#When_you_must_use_inline_citations, if that helps. It's probably linked in the reviewing instructions, too. --j⚛e decker^talk 23:23, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Starry, That does sound like a bad decline explanation. The decline might have been fine but you are correct that we don't require citations for every factual claim in a BLP, and whoever left that comment should be left a note. We have a duty not to mislead newbies with regard to policy matters. Gigs (talk) 17:09, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

It is about

Teso College Aloet

The school page article was accepted a while back. I have been working on improving it but the comments on top of the page are still there. How do they go away?

Thanks Josire12 (talk) 04:50, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

@Josire12: We don't answer this sort of question here. Chris Troutman (talk) 05:26, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Chris troutman, I think that is is quite unhelpful to tell a new user that they've asked a question in the wrong place, without saying what the right place is. Josire12, if you sincerely believe that the issues with the article have been resolved, then please remove them yourself. They will be the initial lines in the wikicode. Erase them, explaining your edit in the edit summary. If you want a more friendly answer, please try the Teahouse, where there is an expectation of friendliness and helpfulness. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:46, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

The maintenance tags are still perfectly valid, a quick read of the article confirms this. Bellerophon _{talk to me} 16:52, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Following the deletion of all the tags, I have added {{advert}} since the tone of the article needs quite a bit of fixing. I'll note this on the talk page of the article. APerson (talk!) 13:48, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

After a 'decline'

Do we have any stats on what happens after an article has been declined? Fiddle Faddle 14:33, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Nothing specific that I'm aware of; however, historically it depends on the type of submission/draft and goes something like this:

1. - Non-notable, overly optimistic articles about uninteresting products/organisations/websites/people. The author realises the error of their ways and goes elsewhere.
2. - As above, but also includes partisan screeds, blindingly complex word salads and original research or extremely-imaginative-newly-evolved-science-of-truly-epic-proportions-but-nevertheless-based-on-WP:CALC. The author(s) repeatedly argue the validity and notability of their subject and endlessly resubmit them, having made trivial changes, in the hope that shear bloodymindedness will win the day. Reviewers become so disenfranchised with these zombie-like submissions that just wont DIE! That they come to view them with hatred and wish to see them burned with fire in a big pit.
3. - Stuff that perhaps should not have been declined, or could be rescued. The author(s) have given up, but, just occasionally, a small and secretive cabal of reviewers and ex-reviewers nurtures these into mainspace. And there is much rejoicing...

Ultimately, everything that stays declined ends up going the way of CSD#G13. Bellerophon _{talk to me} 22:14, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

It would be worth a study. I'm guessing that partisans and crazies make up maybe 25% of the inbound flow and they eventually get

help towards acceptance or simply wait until they're autoconfirmed and they edit in the main namespace. The other 75% are people that learn their lesson the hard way and give up. While I know some editors are in the rescuing business I'm of the impression that it's a very small minority. Anything or anyone of real important is either already covered in Wikipedia or will be thanks to existing editors. AfC is just a bug zapper for hapless people with no internet experience pursuing an article because they don't know any better. Chris Troutman (talk) 22:25, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm going to have to dispute the "Anything or anyone of real important is either already covered in Wikipedia or will be thanks to existing editors" comment. There are probably well over a billion notable topics in the world - there is just no way existing editors will ever write all these topics. OK, maybe not everything notable is of "real importance", whatever that means, but even so I have personally written from scratch several articles of "mid" or "high" importance to one or more WikiProjects within the lats few months. Of course, as an existing editor that wouldn't contradict your statement, but does show there are high importance topics left to be written - I just don't see existing users ever writing them all. --ThaddeusB (talk) 04:50, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

I don;t subscribe to the bug zapper concept. There is a technical reason behind, for example, the blank submissions (I've covered it somewhere, maybe ^^^ up there). And most of the drafts I declined during the recent drive had some merit, just not enough merit. BUt there were loads of them. And I am concerned that they go nowhere. No-one has the time or energy to follow them all up. I doubt we even need to, but I am concerned that we are 'just a nicer form of speedy deletion' Fiddle Faddle 22:43, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately I think there's a lot of truth in Chris' post above. I'd be interested to see a breakdown of how many simply give up after the first decline instead of fixing something that is actually easily fixable. Many of our declines are "this is the problem, here's how to fix it", as opposed to "never going to happen, go away", the latter group of submitters are generally no loss but if our declines are scaring away too many of the fixable submission writers we have a problem. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 22:52, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

• EpochFail may have some data on that topic for you Timtrent. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 23:33, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Yes, Aaron can definitely help answer this question. He's off on vacation in the wilderness though, and won't be able to help until next week. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 19:10, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
    • Hey folks. I'd love to dig into this, but time is tight until after Wikimania. --EpochFail (talk • contribs) 21:34, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

• If you would like to see the submissions themselves, click on the word "Submissions" on the third tag at the top if the page. You can see all of the submissions for each day. Ones that begin with "Talk" have been accepted. —Anne Delong (talk) 23:57, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

I do try and fix up an article if I think it's got a chance of passing, and if it doesn't, I will always try and use a comment to nudge the submitter in the right direction. I think most people want to succeed, and the reason they don't edit existing articles is probably because it's harder - there's a substantial amount of skill to edit a featured or contentious article and make your edit stick. I doubt a newbie would do this.

I don't subscribe to the idea that "anything or anyone of real important is already covered" - I'm convinced there are plenty of historical figures, particularly in Africa who would qualify for WP:POLITICIAN if only somebody knew and cared to write about them. The 2013 meat adulteration scandal came through AfC, and I can't think of a good reason for Rainthorpe Hall or Symphony of the New World not to exist. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 08:49, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, we're still missing several million articles about insect species, hundreds of millions of plants and nobody knows how many millions of articles about bacteria species. At a thumbsuck we're at least a billion articles short just on the topic of living things (which btw are notable just by existing). At our current article creation rate it will be at least a thousand years before anyone could seriously make the claim that "everything important" is already covered. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 10:21, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

There are about 2000 pages every month that have been declined , abandoned for six months and yet not deleted for any obvious flaw such as copyvio. A good proportion of these could be in mainspace with a little TLC, and although DGG and Rankersbo and I, and occasionally a few others are postponing their deletion, it seems a shame that they weren't improved while the original editors were still active and could see it happening and participate. The problem is the sheer number of these submissions compared to the number of editors willing to work on them. Reporting them to Wikiprojects is a good way to recruit help; FoCuSandLeArN has had success with this approach. Maybe during backlog drives each reviewer could pick out and make a note of a few promising submissions to go back and check on after the drive is over. —Anne Delong (talk) 15:44, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Can someone stick submission templates on...

1. Draft:Vilofoss
2. Draft:Ashish Hindu (Ashish Kumar Garg)
3. Draft:Ward Thomas

I'm using the beta script and apparently that won't let me place templates, and I don't want to submit them in my own name. Bellerophon _{talk to me} 15:47, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

• Bellerophon, you can do it in anyone's name... {{subst:Submit|user=username to submit as}} — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 15:53, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, learn something new everyday. All done. Bellerophon _{talk to me} 16:00, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

• For the record, I've just modified the template so the |user= is no longer required... {{subst:Submit|username to submit as}} will now work. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 16:04, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

• Technical 13, I hope that this doesn't mean that the old format with the user=, which was less cryptic and is commonly used by many editors, will no longer work. I don't see the purpose of making this change to something that already works well. Bellerophon, I am using the rewrite, and it allows submitting under any username. It also doesn't disable the original script, so you can use them both if you like. —Anne Delong (talk) 16:37, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

• Anne, no worries, it is fully backwards compatible with using the old method as well. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 16:41, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

@Anne Delong: I'm using Beta rather than re-write, because I want to be able to handle WP:AFC/R using the script. Beta does seem to let me use the script to submit pages with a draft template on, but if the page is missing any kind of template the script just runs autoed and stops. Bellerophon _{talk to me} 16:44, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

• Legoktm, did you ever get back around to pushing MediaWiki talk:Gadget-afchelper.js live? — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 16:52, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Template:AFCHD/u

@Technical 13: could you remove the links to the submission/draft from Template:AFCHD/u please. They don't work very well and are not very helpful as all they really do is make the message longer. All the user needs to know is that they have a reply at the help desk. I was going to do it myself, but I'm worried I'll break something in the preload. Bellerophon _{talk to me} 08:08, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Presumably the template still has the link to the actual thread on the help desk if supplied? That's really important, as just telling a new user won't go to the helpdesk isn't any guarantee that they'll find the answer to their question. I have long been concerned about users not picking up on replies (either on the help desk or my talk). Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 08:38, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

• What exactly is the issue with it? I can't fix anything until tomorrow night when I get home from out of state. I agree it looks ugly (I thought so before I started working on it). I can make it a piped link to fix that or if there is community consensus I can just remove it. Hopefully there are no protected templates anywhere because I can't edit them. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 11:49, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

@Ritchie333 and Technical 13: Yes, it would still contain a link to the exact section on the help desk where the reply has been given. I'm asking for the link to the submission to be removed or nullified when using the talkback link on help desk questions. The submission link rarely seems to format correctly. Sometimes it has extraneous brackets around it, sometimes it renders as a redlink, sometimes it renders as a link directly to main space. I've no idea why this is, but in actuality, when considered against the purpose of this template, a link to the submission/draft is unnecessary. Bellerophon _{talk to me} 23:24, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

• I'll look into it tomorrow night when I get home to q computer. :) I'll either fix the link or delete it. Are you just using the TB links or are you placing it with Twinkle (which I never got to finishing the patch for). — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 00:24, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

 Done --Mdann52talk to me! 12:57, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

•  Done, Mdann52, your fix didn't include the links to the section and the draft. I've properly fixed it so it looks better and has both. I need to go to English class for the next three hours, but will work on the finishing the pull request for applying the template with Twinkle after that. Please check out the Template:AFCHD/u/testcases and feel free to add specific cases if you have come across one that still looks "broken" to you and I'll adjust as is necessary to fix it. Thanks. — 16:56, 7 July 2014 (UTC) — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)}

Thanks, and I was only using the TB link on the help desk. Now that exists, I don't need to use Twinkle to place this template. Bellerophon _{talk to me} 17:28, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

@Technical 13: It's still broken look. Bellerophon _{talk to me} 17:47, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks for the diff link. I know exactly the problem now (it's actually in the TB link preload and not in AFCH/u and I'll fix it in an hour and a half as soon as I'm out of English. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 17:53, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

I've made an adaptation to the preload, which should reduce some errors. The problem you linked I've tracked down and was actually a user error where they forced the prefixing / in the page title (diff then diff). I'll add some error catching for that once I'm out of class.  :) — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 18:12, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

•  Done Bellerophon, I've modified the Lafc template to not include the submission parameter if the link that would be created is to a non-existent page. Let me know if you find any more issues. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 21:44, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Ok, that sounds good. I look forward to testing it :) Bellerophon _{talk to me} 21:49, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

@Technical 13: It works much better now, but contains a grammatical error. See [1] "I have replied to your question the submission at the..." Bellerophon _{talk to me} 14:03, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

•  Done, I believe this fixes it. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 14:34, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Okay - non-English sources

Okay, perhaps another silly question, but how do we ascertain notability if we can't understand the sources cited? There's a very brief article, Draft:Başakşehir Living Lab, where all the citations are in (I'm guessing) Turkish. While the citations look substantial, I have no clue as to judge the notability of this entity. What are the standards? Onel5969 (talk) 15:07, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

I frequently call on Wikiproject expertise (in this instance, WT:WikiProject Turkey) for assistance in cases like this. Also, Google Translate can be very helpful, allowing at least an idea of what is being said in the references, although not always giving an indication of their reliability. —Anne Delong (talk) 15:18, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

In my experience Google translate works fine for routine newspaper sources in many languages. It is also worth checking for news sources & institutional pages whether they have an English version available: look for the US or UK flag icons at the top of their page. (but these version may sometimes be incomplete). — Preceding unsigned comment added by DGG (talk • contribs) 18:43, July 8, 2014

Ease of using the Help Desk

Does anyone else who doesn't speak Matrix find these instructions confusing? We get a lot of malformed posts at the help desk and very frequently the link to the draft they are asking about is broken. I submit that this is because {{lafc}} is too confusing for new user the complete correctly. This really should be a lot easier for new users to navigate. The whole reason we originality started using a pre-loaded link for help desk posts is because new users often could not be relied upon to give us enough info in the post to know what they were talking about. I've been thinking about how solve this problem for a while now and the only solution I can come up with is to have a pre-loaded subject/headline field with the date and time stamp and the revision user. Then let them write a free text message in the message box. That way there is nothing that needs explaining to them and very little they can screw up. The worst case scenario is that we are forced to look at their contribs to find the draft. Which is what I end up doing most of the time anyway. Thoughts? Bellerophon _{talk to me} 00:38, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

In common use (clicking on the "Help Desk" link on a pending submission), the complicated instructions will be skipped and the editor will see clear instructions embedded as html comments in the pre-loaded wikicode that tell him where to put his comments and tell him to click "save." davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 03:29, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

this is hardly a satisfactory situation. If we have complicated instructions that people do not understand, but the system works just as well if they do not follow them, the obvious thing to do is to remove the instructions. In my experience, not just this part of the system, but everything connected with afc , would work better if it were free-form--the instructions and procedures are needlessly restrictive and interfere with asking the proper questions and giving the proper advice. Let people submit articles however they please, and let qualified people comment on them., in English, not in templates and checkboxes. I was foolish enough to try to use the system as set up at first, but soon learned better. Anyone who understands WP will do better without it, and anyone who does not, should not be advising others. DGG ( talk ) 04:36, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Davidwr, the sticking point there is 'where they insert their comments' it's not very intuitive. I had to read it several times and still wasn't sure. Bellerophon _{talk to me} 08:31, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

I guess no-one else has answered the original question because the answer is obvious. My best guess is that "the white boxes below" refers to the four non-pink-background lines of text. I see these as having (what I know to be) templates in them, so I go on to bullet 2, "If they are not empty, please follow the instructions in the box." In what box? I really have no idea. The only thing that looks to me at all like a box with instructions in it is the "Save page" button. Maproom (talk) 21:06, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

What if we wrote some JavaScript to make it easier, like the Teahouse has? Jackmcbarn (talk) 01:56, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Sounds interesting, can you write such Java script? Bellerophon _{talk to me} 16:07, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

August Backlog drive?!?

Just so I understand, the standard operating procedure now is to be one month on backlog drive and one month off? I'd rather take the time and figure out why we can't keep a stable backlog and try and get the queue to a more stable state, but I guess Einstein's definiton of Insantity works too. Hasteur (talk) 22:29, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

This happened because anyone can press the button to start a new drive. In this case, I told that editor to nom it for CSD. Alas, this has not yet been done. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:50, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi. Just joined the project last month. Didn't realize there was a drive in progress until a week into it. I try to hit a few articles a day, let an author know what the issue is if I decline it, and (it seems way too occasionally) approve an article. But even though I do a few a day, the total keeps growing. I know I tend to pick off the low hanging fruit (like someone simply posting a CV for a bio), and I skip over those which I think more experienced editors should be taking a look at. Hopefully, I'll get better at, but it is discouraging to see the total growing so quickly. Onel5969 (talk) 01:12, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Onel5969, welcome to the review process; your plan to review only the articles that are within your experience is the right approach; we each have different areas of expertise. Reviewing submissions recklessly just because a drive is on has caused a lot of problems here in the past, so your measured approach is appreciated! Don't forget that you can also ask for advice at the Reviewer help page. —Anne Delong (talk) 00:53, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

User:Anne Delong Thanks. If you look at the talk page on the project (and the last drive), you'll see I'm not shy about asking questions... I'll just keep muddling along. Onel5969 (talk) 03:37, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Where is that stupid button anyway? Jackmcbarn (talk) 01:18, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

@Jackmcbarn: It's coded into Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/tabs. If there isn't a current drive or a drive scheduled for next month and there's 1000+ submissions, the BLD tab says "New Drive!". Any editor can then press that, hit save, and a drive is underway starting the next month. @Anne Delong and Technical 13: This WikiProject would do well to restrict new drives to a WikiProject consensus. Chris Troutman (talk) 01:45, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm definitely in favor of that, and I'm also in favor of removing the button. Jackmcbarn (talk) 01:56, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm also in favor of removing that "create"-button. I am also in favor of not having a backlog drive next month. If still want a BLD, you can have an unofficial BLD of your own user page, but until there is consensus that we should have one here, there should not be one. Happy editing!! (t) Josve05a (c) 08:14, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

I have removed the creation logic from Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/tabs. Please let me know if it needs removing elsewhere as well. --Mdann52talk to me! 13:09, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

I have never tried to set up a drive, so I don't know if that "button" was needed or not. There should be a straightforward process for setting up a drive, but it should be surrounded with text indicating that a consensus on this page is required first (which would allow anyone to legitimately revert a spurious drive), or, if that doesn't work, some other means of discouraging random use could be implemented. I can think of several ways - for example, maybe the "button"'s location could be made non-obvious, but known by a group of long-time reviewers who would "press" it when the consensus formed. —Anne Delong (talk) 00:33, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

I have nominated the BLD for deletion. Chris Troutman (talk) 01:29, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

@Anne Delong: I think that somewhere on the main BLD page, such as the bottom, would be the best place to put the "button". It would be hard to come up with a non-obvious location for the button (might be security through obscurity, too), and text saying that consensus is required would be easy to add if it were on the main BLD page. Wherever it is, the "button" should include a very noticeable edit notice repeating the same things in the text. APerson (talk!) 02:19, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

• Chris, have you notified the other participants? — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 02:44, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

• No. I felt the deletion banner was obvious enough. I mentioned my deletion nomination above which should reach regular contributors. The mistake maker was of course notified when I nominated the page and they haven't been heard from since. Chris Troutman (talk) 02:49, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
• *Cough*Consensus*cough* The June backlog drive had success in reducing the backlog to ~400 articles, but did not meet the goal of burning all the submissions. The majority of the burn was within the first few days of the drive with the backlog hovering right around 400 articles for most of the drive. So we declare a special activity and most of the effort of that activity happens for only a few days and then we go back to where we were previously. I say again, we need to understand why we can't keep a stable backlog we have no business declaring a special drive if we're going to lapse into a perenial cycle of backlog drives.. Hasteur (talk) 22:59, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Not sure why another drive is planned quite yet. 1200 or so backlog would take less than a month to clear and then we'd be left with everyone fighting like weasels in a sack for the scraps. Unfortunately 1200 isn't a particularly unusual backlog these days. And it's strange that a new backlog drive will be starting before the prizes have even been awarded for the last one :) Sionk (talk) 10:01, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Sionk, the most recent backlog drive did not clear all the pending submissions; however, Hasteur's idea of a backlog "blitz" would probably prevent the issue you mentioned. I would support a backlog blitz, but I feel that with consensus here, a drive (September?) would be the best way to get rid of the current backlog. APerson (talk!) 23:31, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Blitz is just a annother word for drive. I'd like to hold off and see what the trendline for July and August looks like before starting a discussion about September. Hasteur (talk) 23:34, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

I have no idea what you are talking about Hasteur. We know exactly why we keep falling into a state of backlog every month or so.

1. We don't have enough regular reviewers
2. Reviewing is boring for most on most topics (not everyone finds every topic interesting)
3. People are afraid to review out of drives because of various reasons
   1. They think that they can only review during drives
   2. They are afraid they are going to break something or do something wrong and there won't be someone around that will know how to fix it
   3. Who knows what else
4. The number of incoming submissions per day has increased in the last couple years and our threshold for "backlog" status is out of date

Those are the most prevalent reasons. So, how do we fix it?

1. We adjust our threshold for what backlog status means (maybe double it?). This will increase the amount of time between drives because we won't be in backlog status
2. We protect the participants page so only people that can actually produce productive reviews can be added. This will reduce our issues with bad reviewers (we get one or two that show up every drive)
3. We change our BLD scoring system to emphasize quality reviews over quantity of reviews. This will also reduce bad reviews by only giving credit for good reviews.
4. We stop telling people that they can't participate by holding a backlog drive. There is really no reason to be objecting to a process that improves the wiki by creating new articles and reducing the backlog of this project.

As such, I will be participating in the August BackLog Drive and encourage everyone else that is interested in reviewing drafts and getting new good content on the wiki to do the same. If this means I need to host the drive, so-be-it. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 23:37, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Going off the deep end to prove a point much? If you have half the items you've recently complained about as stress inducers in your life, you should take a month or two off completely from editing, not looking for fights to pick everywhere. We have a project sanctioned backlog drive when it's endorsed by a plurality conesnsus, not a beat of a single drummer. Hasteur (talk) 00:51, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

• Only one going off a deep end is you, but this discussion isn't productive. In the few days the BLD was there before it was nominated for deletion, there where already four participants signed up. I hardly consider that 'a beat of a single drummer'. Speaking of which, I think it was improperly closed against consensus due to the fact that the handful of people that endorsed its deletion didn't outweigh the number of participants signed up by the 2/3s or so needed. At best it was a no consensus to delete. Anyways, things to do. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 01:39, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

  You don't seem to understand how the MFD process works. LHM^{ask me a question} 12:58, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Reviewed my first AFC

I declined the article here, but made some sort of formatting mistake that doesn't put the "Declined by" tag at the top. Can someone let me know what I did wrong, formatting-wise, and how to fix it? Lithistman (talk) 19:32, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Couple of suggestions:

1. Reviewing AFC submissions has a lot of moving pieces involved and can be tricky. Using something like the AFHC-Helper gadget or the AFC-Helper Rewrite makes it a lot easier.
2. The reason why your name/date did not show in the header of the AFC decline banner is because your name/rev timestamp was not in the decliner/declinets parameters.
3. It's common practice to notify the submitter of the draft that their page has been declined. You probably should do that.
4. Technically, having a previous AFD is not a valid reason for declining. You might positively assert that there is too much self promotion, but it's better to give a positive reason rather than a reason by reference.

Hope this helps Hasteur (talk) 19:50, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

• It does, thanks! In my review, I tried to make the point about self-promotion with the note about not using Wikipedia to establish notability. Perhaps I should have gone further--and been more explicit and detailed--in that critique. Thanks for the feedback, Hasteur! Regards, Lithistman (talk) 23:54, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Review quality control

I am concerned about the quality of our reviews. I include my own. I am, of course, certain I am doing a fine job. You are certain you are doing a fine job. So are they, and so is the chap in the corner. But the only time so far I have seen quality control attempts is during backlog drives.

I would like to explore our giving consideration to a formal review of reviews such as we have in backlog drives, though not necessarily by the same mechanism, a mechanism which seems to rely on the extreme goodwill of one editor who runs some sort of ruler over the work done.

We have nothing to fear from having our reviews reviewed and even scored, because we are working towards the same goal of continuous improvement. We can learn quickly where we are going astray and correct it. We win and the project wins. So I am raising it for discussion, both on the concept and on the mechanism to implement it if there be consensus for it. Fiddle Faddle 14:56, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

This is a good idea. There's no particular reason why our degree of oversight should fall so dramatically upon the end of a drive. A solution which uses our existing infrastructure, we could effectively have a drive-like page for every month, however without the promise of barnstars or the leaderboard. Would Excrial be able to do approx. weekly updates to such a system? --LukeSurl ^{t c} 15:10, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

I imagine any individual editor could do something manual and at intervals, but I don;t think we should make this a job of work. I'm sure things are 'bot-able' and runnable at set times. What I hope we can do first is to agree that it is a good idea. Once we have consensus to do it then we can design what we do. The current drive solution looks simple from where I stand, but all hell may break loose under the covers and it may be more than awkward to run regularly. Fiddle Faddle 15:22, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

I think that review-reviews is a good idea. You wouldn't believe all of the abandoned articles about notable topics that I am seeing at the six-months mark, and there are hundreds that have been declined for invalid reasons, such as "use Citation style 1" or "There are six facts that don't have a citation". However, I would prefer something simpler than a drive-like process. Maybe the script could add a category "re-review needed" or something like that for certain categories of declines (never mind copyvios - they already are rechecked by admins; not blanks and test pages, or not in English). A link to the category page can be added to this project. A reviewer looking over the article could then remove the category with an appropriate edit summary if they agreed, or take some other action if they didn't. Resubmission could also remove the category. The only problem is, no matter which method of doing re-reviewing we choose, it still takes time, and we don't have enough reviewers in this project to properly handle all of the submissions and help the new editors as it is. —Anne Delong (talk) 00:52, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

I'd like to see more thoughts here. Three of us in outline agreement is not a consensus yet. Fiddle Faddle 17:27, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

• I think this has been a perennial problem, which is why we've ended up with restriction to the reviewing tool, and why there's a backlog. From my experience, reviewing can take anything from two minutes for a simple decline, to several days if I feel I need to work on the article to make it withstand an AfD, such as Draft:Graham Marsh. I would imagine re-reviewing to take even longer, if done properly, as the consequence of both reviewers making a mistake can be more severe. I'm not really sure what the answer is, to be honest. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 17:39, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I think Anne hit the nail on the head. If the tool was flagging specific decline reasons apt for misapplication it would help re-reviewers target those problems. While I think the idea is good in concept, there's no way we have enough volunteers to make any meaningful effort on that front. Certainly it behooves this WikiProject to screen out problematic reviewers. However, we already have avenues for the submitters to ask for a second opinion. If an editor abandons their draft after one faulty declination then they're not fit for this environment. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:44, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

• Perennial proposal... I've suggested and requested that the participants page be protected multiple times now on this talk page and every time there has been objection. So, as a result, we keep getting non-qualified people adding themselves and crap reviews which only show up when we do backlog drives because those reviewers get all excited about winning awards that they bulk review everything poorly and we can see it upon re-review. This project is simply going to continue having backlogs and these kinds of issues until the guided tour is created for this project to reduce the number of problem submissions, the reviewer script is adapted (I was going to say fixed, but it isn't really broken per-say; it just doesn't do what is needed as is needed because other elements aren't in place yet) to make reviewing easier. I'd be happy to work on the guided tour at some point, but it's just not going to happen any time soon. Good luck! — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 19:47, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

• I suggest individual reviewers who are concerned about the quality of reviews can be bold and thumb through some recently completed reviews, touch up drafts and new articles and leave constructive notes on reviewer and author pages. I don't feel like this process has to be scientific or perfect. This may be a controversial position but I am not convinced that the quality of reviews (much less the quality of re reviews) is so critical. If we accept a bundle of crap articles, it is a drop in the bucket compared to the crap articles that have languished in the encyclopedia for years (spend some time at the WP:ORPHANAGE if you need some perspective on this). I'm more concerned about reviewers who blast through reviews eagerly declining. This only defers the backlog and it discourages new editors. ~KvnG 22:12, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Three strikes and out for repeat offender drafts

I propose this WikiProject determine a three-strikes rule for submissions. Some submissions (I have no idea how many) are editors just re-submitting without changes made, decline after decline. Some submissions will likely never be acceptable. Even if we're not deleting the submission, it would be good if we could tag the draft as third-time failure and remove it from the "drafts waiting" categories and backlog count. This would allow us to focus on new submissions waiting for their first review and portray a more accurate picture of where we sit. Chris Troutman (talk) 01:33, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

As much as I'm for rules, I'd rather not have a hard and fast rule on this. I prefer adding a suggestion in the review guidelines that says "Repeat submissions without improvement can be sent to MfD as being a net drain on community resources in addition to the decline reasons for the review. Doing this is a bite-y action and should only be used as a last resort.". This gives reviewers the authorization to dispose of submissions that just aren't going to make it, and at the same time encourages reviewers to give the benefit of the doubt before reaching for the nuclear football. Hasteur (talk) 01:46, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

But is there some way we could tag these problem submissions to take them out of our metrics? I'm concerned that our high numbers are due in part to the repeat offenders, not a flood of new submissions. But yes, I'd support going the MfD route. Would we have to make a change to WP:DEL? Chris Troutman (talk) 02:43, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

The drafts that are lingering at the rump end of the process (oldest drafts pending review) are the ones that need finessing to determine what the best solution is in terms of declining/deleting/accepting. The brilliant part about sending these troublesome submissions to MfD is that the venue is designed as the "junk drawer deletions" location including WP space, user space, and draft space. Obviously if you're considering reaching for MfD also consider if a G-series CSD strictly applied would work (but don't even think about trying to apply a A-series one to draft namespace as an admin has been significantly admonished at ArbCom for that). The bonus to MfD is that it brings eyes outside the AfC community to look at the submission to help evaluate consensus for keeping/deleting (as in the case of a recent MfD). Hasteur (talk) 03:08, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Decline reasoning

I would like to make sure that I'm not off in the boonies with a specific type of decline. When I come across a article, if I see that there are no inline citations I read the content carefully to see if there are any claims in the text that could be challenged. If there are then I decline it with {{AFC submission|d|ilc}} which invokes the inline citation text (The content of this submission includes material that does not meet Wikipedia's minimum standard for inline citations. Please cite your sources using footnotes. For instructions on how to do this, please see Referencing for beginners. Thank you.). My justification is that we should get the submission back to the submitter as soon as possible if there are no inline citations for content that could be challenged. I tend to treat anything that would qualify the subject of a submission to be notable as something that could be challenged so if there is no claim for notability it gets notability declined, whereas if it makes a claim for notability, the reliable sources have to back the claim up. Is this a reasonable line of thinking? I'm asking before I request that the AFCH-RW gadget change it's definition in the decline box. Hasteur (talk) 20:39, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

It's not a reasonable line of thinking, no. The reason is that the decline text is completely unintelligible to the average submitter, and indeed to the average person in general. Please do not ever use that decline reason without explaining it properly in an accompanying comment. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:10, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

If the text is unintelligible then we need to fix the text, not stop using a valid justification that's in our perscribed review workbook . Hasteur (talk) 04:00, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

This is also a problem, and a more frequent one, with all the notability-based declines (nn, bio, web, film, corp, etc.) --j⚛e decker^talk 04:45, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

The boilerplate reasons are, each of them, imperfect. We need to complement them with a comment wherever we can. We need to work on them all, starting with the most common reasons. They need to become less "in Crowd" and more "Newbie Friendly".

This is an excellent topic, and I thank Hasteur for it. Fiddle Faddle 06:44, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

I tried to put together an essay about "general notability" in terms that are focused on the most common issues we see here, and writing in language that assumes little about Wikipedia policy beforehand, it's at User:Joe Decker/IsThisNotable. Edits welcome. But I doubt anyone is willing to seriously entertain the idea of introducing that much material into a template. --j⚛e decker^talk 16:39, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Joe Decker HOT DAMM that's the kind of explanation that needs to included whenever we discuss notability. It does feel like it needs a bit of polishing, but I'd love to see it in WP namespace and crowned with {{Notability essay}} Hasteur (talk) 16:52, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

It probably needs more than a bit (you're very kind), but I do think it could be the start of something useful, and all improvements appreciated. --j⚛e decker^talk 17:02, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

I know some are down on the standard decline reasons, but unless there is something specific to be said about a submission, then given they have been refined by many minds, they are probably better than one person can come up with off the cuff- particularly given the numerous links to helpful pages that are absent from most custom reasons. Rankersbo (talk) 12:07, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I've made some edits to your essay. This is helpful but are you sure it doesn't already exist somewhere? ~KvnG 23:16, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

With few exceptions, we want to keep the quality bar as low as possible when considering and AfC (or AfD) submission. If you're reviewing a BLP, then you do need to look for and strike unsupported controversial statements. If you suspect a copyright violation, you need to strike or reject. Inline citations, formatting, copyediting, NPOV are all issues that can be worked out once the article is in mainspace. We need to find notability evidence that allows us to accept articles not aesthetic or bureaucratic reasons to reject them. ~KvnG 23:16, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

I may be wrong on this thinking, but with regards to copyvio's, I use Earwig's copyvio tool, and if it reports that the article/draft is an out-and-out copyvio, then I'll CSD tag it as such and move on to the next. There are plenty of drafts out there that could be viable as articles, but I'm afraid that I am not going to spend time "fixing" copyvios to make them viable for submission.   ArcAngel   (talk) ) 23:31, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Multiple submission templates

People love pressing submit. They seem to think it will hasten their review by emphasising it with multiple submission templates. My suspicion is that it delays it by virtue of a later date/time stamp. Can we do something technical to handle that? Fiddle Faddle 07:56, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Timtrent Actually, if there are multiple submission templates, it adds the article to multiple categories (Submissions by date and Pending submission age). Depending on how reviewers handle the worklog determines how the submission will get addressed. Having multiple submission templates doesn't penalize the submission and when our review gadgets go through to clean submissions, we take the oldest pending submission template and throw the rest of the pending submission templates out. Ideally the best solution is to have some sort of automated process that cleans runs the clean routine on all of the pending submissions to ensure that reviewers see a pre-cleaned version of the submission. Hasteur (talk) 13:11, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Good news indeed, thank you. Fiddle Faddle 16:34, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Template used for accept or decline notifications

Hi all - as a result of helping editors via OTRS sometimes I end up appearing as the original submitter of an article, which leads the reviewer to notify me instead of the actual creator (e.g., here which should have gone to Blah161). I've looked high and low and I'm unable to find which template you guys use to notify the accept or decline at the user's talk page. I assume it's substed and I see a TW-like script is used, but for the life of me I can't find it. I just want to know where they are so I can use them to quickly let the creator know what happened to their submission. Thanks :) §FreeRangeFrog^croak 18:01, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

FreeRangeFrog The parameter you want to be careful of in helping a advocate for a page is the u= parameter in the {{AFC submission}} template. If your username is listed in the parameter you're the "submiter of record". You can change this parameter value to the wikipedia username for the person who did request help and the AFCH gadgets will get the decline/acceptance notice back to the right user. Hasteur (talk) 18:26, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

@Hasteur: Thanks! §FreeRangeFrog^croak 19:22, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

FreeRangeFrogIf it's too late there is a "notify user" button on the decline header which you can push after correcting the U= field. Actually you can probably just cut and paste the template on your talk page. Rankersbo (talk) 12:00, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Strange decline reason text

Dear editors: Lately while checking through the G13 eligible submissions, I have been coming across some rather terse decline reasons. For example, the two in this submission: Wikipedia_talk:Articles for creation/Abuelas: Grandmothers on A Mission just say "film". Is there something wrong with the transclusions? —Anne Delong (talk) 15:48, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I think there was, and that, I'm guessing, a bad result got stuck in the cache. I purged that page and the problem disappeared. (But I did see it!) --j⚛e decker^talk 16:59, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Me too, on a different draft, a few days ago. And when I checked back yesterday, it was fine again... (t) Josve05a (c) 17:07, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Well, as long as it wasn't there at the time the article was first declined, it's a minor bug that will hopefully disappear. Thanks for checking it out. —Anne Delong (talk) 17:11, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

The weird reasons were my fault; I accidentally disabled the switch statement that converts reason codes, which were the "terse reasons" you were seeing, to actual reasons. I was trying to get the decline notification template working. I fixed my screw-up after approximately one hour, when I discovered what I had done. (Whoops...) APerson (talk!) 19:06, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it might have been there at decline time, hard to say. The MediaWiki software has a variety of quirks and problems around caching of templates and any sort of conditional or time-dependent execution. I grok some of the reasons why these misfeatures exist, but User:Joe's Null Bot is a testament to the problems those misfeatures sometimes create, in fact, that bot has a task to handle the AfC pending "by days since submission" problem for just that reason. --j⚛e decker^talk 18:03, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

How do I get a list of those that haven't been declined?

I'm looking at Category:Pending_AfC_submissions but even in the entries there, I'll find ones that have been declined by other people, is there any way to not see those? Do I need to do a purge on the category? (I'm also seeing ones that when I go into them, I see "Draft article not currently submitted for review."Naraht (talk) 16:14, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Naraht Anything that is in that category has at least one pending AFC submission template on it to indicate that the advocate for the article is seeking a review. Just because they've been declined once doesn't mean they're permanantly consigned to the decline pile. I bet if you look further down the page you'll see a pending template. Hasteur (talk) 17:43, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Naraht Don't just look at the topmost template. Check at the bottom of the page, the yellow submission template is possibly there- they are usually added at the bottom. If it is, the article is up for review. Rankersbo (talk) 09:49, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Articles for Creation people at Wikimania

Who will be at Wikimania, and do we want to have an informal meetup? I will be around Wednesday through Sunday. Arthur goes shopping (talk) 11:28, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

... I guess not. It was good to meet User:Soni and User:RHaworth and a couple of other people involved in Articles for Creation though. Arthur goes shopping (talk) 08:44, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

@Arthur goes shopping: - I would have loved to have attended one of the events, but I had to commit to family stuff over the weekend, and that comes first, no exceptions. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:49, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Script idea

We get quite a number of submissions from COI editors whose accounts are also violations of Wikipedia's WP:Username policy, would it be of value to include a script that would allow for a one-pulldown choice to notify people of good-faith violations with a template and/or allow reporting of more serious violations? --j⚛e decker^talk 15:25, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Isn't that what TW is for or do you have something more specific in mind? — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 15:37, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Joe, are you talking about an option (i.e. checkbox) to be added to the helper script that would add a COI username notice to the talk page of the submitter? I think that would make a lot of sense. APerson (talk!) 15:46, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Aperson, yes. But Technical 13 also has a good point, short of that, Twinkle can (I think!) aid here until/unless such a feature is added. --j⚛e decker^talk 15:49, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

in particular, it appears to me that {{Uw-coi-username}} would be the first and most valuable addition for a one-button push. --j⚛e decker^talk 15:56, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Joe Decker Beware the Jabberwock my son, the editors that snipe, the shortsightedness that causes future problems. I recently proposed at VPI that we fork the coi-username template to split the non-corp names (which I got scolded for) from the CORP which is what coi-username is aparently only to be used for. Please feel free to apply some cluebat to those editors who think coi-username is only for CORP editors. Hasteur (talk) 17:25, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Oh dear. I'll go argue something safer, like .... (oh, I was going to snark here, but pretty much anything at WP:HOWMANYANGELS would work.) --j⚛e decker^talk 17:33, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Oh dear, more scripts, more palliatives. Time to use the Draft namespace for what it was intended, scrap the entire current AfC system, and listen to what others are saying outside of the AfC magic circle. Joe? See also WT:Page Curation and above all, this, especially the comment by DGG - a user whose comments are not to be taken lightly. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:48, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

I do think we could get some real benefit out of an Page Curation like tool, absolutely. I also think a lot of broader issues need to be addressed at the time time: some general policy discussions about process, about how to educate incoming editors as part of the work flow, about how to gatekeep the gatekeepers, so many things. As a single example, I'm getting to the point where I'd like to see some hard-line minimum requirements (in special notability guideline form) for corporations and organizations are required, the energy for volunteers to archeologically excavate infodumps of 200 reprinted press releases over and over again, as volunteer work being balanced against policy-avoiding paid SEO experts is energy that could be more productively used to build an encyclopedia in other ways. --j⚛e decker^talk 17:31, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Joe, one of the fundamental problems of getting any collaboration together on Wikipedia is that very few of the people who are even broadly concerned with the same issues have enough courage to come out in support of the obvious, and/or your excellent observations above. How long have I been talking about doing something similar to the NPP system? How long have I been fighting the corporate spammers and paid advocates (and getting scolded in the process by some admins who blatantly advertise their SEO firms on Wikipedia} ? 1 year? 2 years? 3 years? KudpungMobile (talk) 10:15, 12 September 2014 (UTC)