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Proposal: Tagging drafts in need of assistance

In the past month since the Strickland incident (read all about it in this month's Signpost), there has been much discussion around the handling of drafts on possibly notable subjects which are not ready for mainspace. I've been thinking a lot about how we handle this, and I think I've come up with a something worth discussing.

There are a number of Wikipedia editors across this project who would gladly work on drafts and get them ready for mainspace, but they may not be interested in being AFC reviewers. I propose we create a system of tagging drafts that require improvement or editor assistance, particularly bad articles (poorly sourced, COI, etc.) on potentially notable topics. I propose that we do this in a relatively simple manner which does not increase the workload on AfC reviewers, and cannot be easily co-opted by submitters trying to push their articles to the front of the queue.

This proposal consists of three main components:

1. A set of project pages, each containing links to drafts on potentially notable topics that are in need of improvement. We could start with a separate page for each of notability categories current listed in the AFCH tool, although this could easily be reduced or increased later as appropriate. Adding and removing entries on the list should only be done by AFC reviewers or uninvolved editors, and to enforce this each of the project pages would be extended-confirmed protected.
2. Additions to the current AFCH script which would allow reviewers to tag/sort via a simple checkbox when declining a draft, along with a mechanism for tagging drafts apart from declining them, preferably with a comment.
3. A bot which would monitor the project pages and remove red links (for drafts that have been deleted) and redirects (for duplicate drafts and drafts that have been accepted). By adding links with a script, and removing them by bot, the project pages should require minimal manual maintenance.

Advantages and goals:

1. It is currently very rare for a new editor to receive actual assistance in getting their drafts ready for mainspace. They receive templated messages, brief advice, and sometimes harsh criticism, but an uninvolved editor collaborating with a new editor to get a draft accepted is not something I've encountered too often. This would hopefully change that.
2. For various reasons, some of Wikipedia's most prolific content creators currently stay away from the AfC project. If they do participate, they may spend hours clicking through drafts before finding one that they are interested in improving. With this project, they would only need to watch one or more project pages based on their interests or areas or expertise.
3. AfC reviewers are frequently targets of criticism for just templating new editors' work, rather than cleaning it up themselves and accepting it. Conversely, reviewers are also criticized for accepting drafts without any improvement at all, leaving NPP reviewers to either do the work themselves or kick the can further down the road. This project would allow reviewers who aren't interested in doing cleanup themselves to pass it off to someone who is (and may not be interested in reviewing drafts themselves).
4. Reviewers frequently have to make some tough judgement calls about notability, and presently the only way to do this is by pinging an expert in that subject area (I can think of one editor who gets pinged frequently on academic subjects). While this system works to a certain extent, this project would provide a more convenient and formal structure to encourage second opinions on AfC reviews.
5. Drafts are often submitted and declined repeatedly, often for issues that are easily handled by accomplished editors, but daunting for newbies. Perhaps (and this might be a stretch) by creating more collaboration within draftspace, we can encourage and educate new editors, reduce the workload on AfC reviewers, and improve Wikipedia's content library, all at the same time!

A final note: Before presenting this proposal, I have discussed this with Enterprisey, who endorses the idea and is willing to handle the script and bot components. I can put together the relevant project pages, and can help recruit editors to join the project. However, for this system to work it's going to require buy-in from the AfC community, and opinions on whether this system could work. Also, we would need to find a good name for this project. Draft for rescue? Drafts needing assistance? Drafts for improvement? What do people think of this idea? Bradv 01:07, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• It won't be very useful unless it is also categorising the subject. An editor may for example want to improve drafts on history or books, and not want to wade through 1000 articles on people and companies. Is this possible, and if it is, how would it work and what categories would be used? — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 01:22, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

  Frayae, I'm suggesting that we begin with separating them by the notability categories currently listed in the AFCH tool, but that can easily change. I imagine we'll have to play around with this to find a good balance over time -- fewer categories mean less work for reviewers, more categories mean less work for assisting editors. Bradv 01:27, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

  That would be a good start I think. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 01:29, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

  For reference, the current notability categories in the script are:

  • Neologism
  • Web content
  • Academics
  • Athletes
  • Music
  • Films
  • Companies and organizations
  • Biographies
  • General

  We can play around with this, but I think these categories should get us started. Bradv 01:36, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

  Perhaps separating bios into living and dead would be wise. It is the most basic filter to seperate historical and current biographies. A category for lists would be good, and a category for military history is essential.

  I think the women in red project would also appreciate gender sorting for bios, BLP's, athletes, and academics, this would suggest a two layer sorting would work best.

  A reviewer would pick one of those main categories above, then pick a second subcategory within it. Companies could be sorted by private and public for example, bios, BLP's etc by male/female, films by movie/tv series, web content by websites/games, general could contain a number of optional sub categories. I think some feedback from the script designers would be good here, I don't know how much of this is possible. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 01:52, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

  Frayae, Also as it is now, the SQL/AFC-Ores tool categorizes drafts into categories too JC7V-talk 21:42, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

  No offense to that page which is very useful—the categories it produces are comprehensively useless. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 21:55, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

I really like this idea, very well written. I suppose that this would lead to two seperate AfC workflows, reviewers and assistants (or a similar term). Now, there's nothing to say that an editor couldn't be both.

Reviewers would assess the drafts against the criteria, similar to the current workflow. Assistants would work with the article creators to improve the drafts (or in minor instances just clean the drafts themselves).

I suppose there's a question here that needs to be addressed: What should the "expected" level of involvement be from an assistant? Should the focus be on working with the original authors, or should the cleanup be independent of the process?

Besides my more open ended bit above, the phrase "Drafts for Improvement" would have my vote as the topic name.

Finally, is a bot really needed? Could we just build in a parameter to the {{AFC submission}} template and add it to a category, ie Category:Drafts in need of improvement? I think this is fairly similar to how AfC submissions are categorised now.

Cheers, ProgrammingGeek ^talktome 01:25, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

ProgrammingGeek, I anticipate that we'll need a technical measure to prevent draft creators from flagging their own drafts. Having the script add them to individual pages which are protected would do that. It would also allow "assistants" to simply watchlist a page to get updates for their topic area. Bradv 01:30, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Initial thought is very much yes! I do agree with Frayae though, there probably should be at least some level of classification involved in the process. Maybe even just to the level of a WikiProject, and if we did it at that level we could possibly create a template that would list the number of drafts needing attention in that project's purview + a button to randomly open one from the list. zchrykng (talk) 01:28, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Zchrykng, see my replies to Frayae above. Bradv 01:37, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Support/Oppose

• Support, should help dramatically when fully implemented. Having a good mechanism to draw editors with experience in an area to a draft should help get subjects that actually are notable publish and reduce the amount of policy that new contributors need to know before being able to get an article accepted. zchrykng (talk) 01:48, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support the basic principle is good. I would like to see some categorisation but I am sure the details can be worked out. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 01:54, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support I've already detailed my feedback above but the idea is good ProgrammingGeek ^talktome 03:10, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support: excellent suggestion and would streamline the process with those outside the AFC project (but active in other projects) being able to lend a hand. The list above is a good one. I would add a "Creative" category (to match WP:CREATIVE), as many drafts in the queue are on painters, sculptors, writers, poets, etc. I would add CREATIVE to the script regardless.

Another suggestion is perhaps an optional checkbox on "Women"; the WikiProject Women in Red could get involved if desired. There's a big discussion at Notability (People) about marginalised groups; this would be a great way to cover at least some of the marginalised topics. I posted to this effect there: [1], but did not get any takers. Perhaps with a system in place, it would be easier for others to participate by working on promising drafts. --K.e.coffman (talk) 03:19, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose because it runs against how AfC and Draftspace are supposed to operate and how it actually operates. Drafts on Notable topics (almost regardless of the current sourcing) should be Approved as soon as a Reviewer looks at it. Obviously non-notable topic should be declined. If the page needs a CAD it should be CSD'd. AfC reviewers should not be creating lists of notable topics in Draft space - we move notable topic to mainspace.

We actually handle 75%+ of drafts within the first day and a bunch more within the next day or two. It is common to see the 0 days at 300-400 but 5 days down at 20-50 Drafts. Many reviewers make the easy calls in the first several days and only a few tackle the tougher calls at 2 months+ where I find a lot of Acceptable material. Categorizing Drafts that are dealt with within the forst 48 hours is not a productive use of time.

By time a reviewer figures out if the topic is notable and worth placing the Draft category they might as well just accept or decline the page. Creating a list of Notable Drafts is against the plan of getting them in mainspace so the big world of editors can work on them and creating a list of nonnotable drafts encourages editors to waste time on junk. Legacypac (talk) 03:41, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• I think that the system would address two issues: (1) when notability is unclear, as is often the case with WP:PROF & WP:CREATIVE, and requires further research; (2) when the article on a potentially notable topic is overly promotional. In the latter case, an interested editor / project could improve the article to the point that it would be acceptable. In the former case, the "sponsors" can help establish notability in corner cases. I personally would not feel comfortable accepting a BLP page on a subject who I'm not sure is notable, as such pages can actively harm the subjects, whether the authors realise it or not. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:51, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes there are some cases like K.e.coffman describes. Usually the creator puts in the notable info plus plus plus. The best place they could use help is finding reliable sources. Legacypac (talk) 03:57, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't know if anyone is suggesting the all reviewers should be required to use this or that all drafts should be categorized. Just that having the tool available might help reviewers help save notable or potentially notable articles from deletion, either for being promotional, poor sourcing, etc. zchrykng (talk) 04:02, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Zchrykng, you are correct. It's worth emphasizing that I am not suggesting that there should be some new intermediate step between draft and mainspace, or that the bar for acceptance should be raised in any way. The intent of this proposal is to provide a means of collaboration and assistance for new editors in getting potentially notable drafts accepted according to our current standards. Bradv 04:09, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• @Legacypac: I realize I haven't yet replied to the first part of your comment. The intent behind this is not to tag or sort every draft, but only those where the reviewer requires a second opinion, or where the draft is likely notable but could use some extra cleanup effort (COI, unsourced, etc.). If a draft is in the majority of drafts that are easy to review on the first pass, then there would be no advantage to tagging them. Like you, I patrol mainly from the back of the queue, and I see plenty of borderline drafts that reviewers have looked at but no one has been prepared to make a decision. Those are the drafts that could use some extra attention, either from experienced reviewers, or from people currently outside the AfC project who may have expertise in a particular topic area. Does that make sense? Bradv 01:32, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Maybe makes sense. Would a tagged draft leave the backlog of unreviewed pages and move into some other basket to wait for someone to do something? Legacypac (talk) 01:36, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I would suggest that DFI (drafts for improvement) should be functionally equivalent to a decline (i.e. it's removed from the queue as "actioned"), but perhaps with a softer message: your draft looks promising but there were some issues identified. we added it to [this list] and you may see other editors improving your draft. Also feel free to improve it yourself and resubmit. Or something to this effect. Can be resubmitted by either the original author or a "sponsor"; let's not call them assistants" :). --K.e.coffman (talk) 01:41, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I left this part deliberately unclear in the proposal, as I don't really have an opinion whether a "tag for improvement" should automatically mean a decline. I would suggest for now it should be a separate button entirely, leaving the draft in the queue where it can still be accepted or declined in the current manner. This means the only change is that the draft is now listed on the Drafts for Improvement page under that topic area, and the current workflow is left completely unaffected. This could obviously change later if we need it to. Bradv 01:54, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

This will create a holding pen of notable topics almost no one will work on that will age out G13 - like category Postponed G13s. This proposal is a solution without a demand for it. Where are these mythical editors who want to improve crappy drafts but don't want to work AfC? Legacypac (talk) 12:55, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Legacypac, while I don't share your pessimism, I do agree with the importance of recruiting editors willing to help out in this way. I also hope that if we build it, they will come. Bradv 15:28, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Such "holding pen" already exists: it's the back of the AFC queue where drafts tend to congregate if they are challenging to make a decision on. So this proposal would not negatively impact the existing process. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:44, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

But the proposal would take them out of queue and tzerefore they will likely sit even longer with no "oldest" category shaming us into action. Legacypac (talk) 03:55, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Legacypac, where did you get the impression that they would be removed from the queue? Sorry if that wasn't clear, but drafts should be able to be tagged for improvement with or without being declined. I imagine most of them would remain in the queue. Bradv 04:01, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Clarification: Taking out of the queue was my suggestion; it was not part of the original proposal, so I'm not sure how that would be implemented. It could be that it's not a "decline", i.e. the draft stays in the queue. Based on the experience with the tail end of the queue, I still believe that a quick decline / "your draft has issues" message is better than the present situation, the de facto holding pen. K.e.coffman (talk) 04:06, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

My thinking is evolving a bit from this discussion, but I'm imagining this is more like "I'm not sure what to with this draft, I'd like a second opinion from someone who actively works in this topic area." If that's how it's used, the bulk of them would remain in the queue until they get a second look. Bradv 04:14, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

The holding pen contains many pages that should be accepted. The fear of making a mistake(s) and suffering a trip to AN is what keeps those pages unaccepted. No one worries about bad declines, as there is always more sources or better language that can be used, so every decline is somewhat justified. Legacypac (talk) 04:18, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Then I'm sure you can see the value of a system that allows for a second opinion, regardless of whether one is worried about bad accepts or bad declines. Bradv 04:25, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes, the question is how we can improve over the present system. I tend to comment on pages I'm not sure about, to help the submitter and the next reviewer. Is there a better system? Maybe... Legacypac (talk) 04:31, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Legacypac I think I largely agree with you that there is more criticism of bad accepts than bad declines. However this is less true since Donna Strickland. And I think Bradv's proposal might be a way to break people of the decline default and/or let subject matter experts way in. I don't know if it will make things better but it feels worth the experiment to me. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:36, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

• No Negatives, thus Support - which is the summary of my argument. I'd struggle for any real negative - the only one I could see is someone defaulting to this rather than take a "Risky Accept". I'm not sure about how much of a positive it will actually bring, but I could well be wrong, and what's the harm with trying? Nosebagbear (talk) 21:05, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose - We don't need to make our AfC processes and software more complicated. The work we're talking about here can and should happen in mainspace. Reviewers need to have the courage to accept flawed articles on notable subjects. Either that or skip reviewing these kinds of drafts. If there is an NPOV promotional issue, that can often be addressed by stubifying the draft and then accepting it. Another option is to post links to drafts you have questions about to the relevant Wikiproject talk page. Robert McClenon has been doing this with apparently good results. ~Kvng (talk) 14:26, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

  Kvng, this is intended to be an optional system that does not change our existing workflow. There are plenty of drafts that require a second opinion, or a little bit of cleanup before they can be accepted, and this would provide a mechanism for doing this. It serves a very similar purpose as tagging a Wikiproject for assistance, except it can be done with one click. Bradv 15:25, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I prefer these solutions. Follow the AfC directions. Legacypac (talk) 15:32, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't think we need or want an additional system optional or not. Reviewers interacting directly with each other other editors through Wikiprojects and other subject-matter specific talk pages is a more flexible way to fill this need. If a reviewer doesn't know where to start, start on this AfC talk page. ~Kvng (talk) 17:00, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Kvng reminded me I sometimes find related article and post about the draft on that Article talk to attract editors over. Sometimes I suggest a merge from the draft. Math drafts that can't be promoted should go on the Mathematics Project list of Drafts Taku created a while back. Legacypac (talk) 18:08, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support. My initial reaction mirrored Legacypac's - if it is probably notable, but there's other stuff needing attention, accept it, tag it (or leave for NPP to tag it) and move on to the next draft. However I do think we need a way to identify drafts that feel borderline and the issue is the quality of the sources. Often these need the attention of someone with some level of expertise to review, and marking them as such and categorising would enable someone (an AfC reviewer interested in sport, for example) to give the draft that extra level of atention. That could mean close review of sources, finding extra sources, etc. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 19:49, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support When I first started out, I got help with one my drafts by someone involved in that area of editing and it got accepted. I sort of worked with the person and it helped me a lot as an editor and inspired me to help others in their drafts (when need be) so I would love to see this implemented which can maybe help retain these editors who created these drafts. JC7V-talk 23:48, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

RFC to extend U5 over Draftspace

This will be of interest to AfC reviewers Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#Proposal/RfC_-_Extend_WP:U5_to_the_draftspace who deal with such pages regularly. Legacypac (talk) 17:37, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Draft:List of Sino-Mongolian autonomous subdivision regions

This is a list of existing place articles. Every one of them has mongolian in the name so the inclusion criteria is obvious. WP:GEOLAND applies. I understand that Lists do not always require references since the linked articles contain the refs. Twice a very high edit count editor has moved this back to draft and is ignoring my comments. What is the correct justification here or am I missing something? Legacypac (talk) 12:35, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

The justification is apparently that you can't pass an article with no sources. I added a reference and published it again. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 12:53, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Legacypac, it is untrue to say I ignored your comments, please see User talk:Boleyn#Bad draftifocation, where I replied politely and asked for clarification so I could look at it again, and you didn't reply. Most of your edits to the list article had no edit summaries at all, and I must have missed the one that did. Please see WP:SourceList: Lists, whether they are stand-alone lists (also called list articles) or embedded lists, are encyclopedic content just as paragraph-only articles or sections are. Therefore, all individual items on the list must follow Wikipedia's content policies: the core content policies of Verifiability (through good sources in the item's one or more references), No original research, and Neutral point of view, plus the other content policies as well. Although the format of a list might require less detail per topic, Wikipedia policies and procedures apply equally to both a list of similar things as well as to any related article to which an individual thing on the list might be linked...Even if you're sure that an item is relevant to the list's topic, you must find a good source that verifies this knowledge before you add it to the list (although you can suggest it on the talk page), and add that source in a reference next to the item. Sources are required for list articles. Boleyn (talk) 22:07, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

User:Boleyn you reversed my AfC accept twice and you did not discuss those actions until after. Nothing you typed above justifies your actions. This page was causing no one any harm in mainspace where it could be improved. You are incorrect about sourcing being required for lists. We have many lists with no sources where the critera for inclusion of the links is pretty obvious. . Don't do that again. Legacypac (talk) 22:13, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Legacypac, as for sources, I took the time and trouble to quote from the MOS on lists. You have responded that I'm wrong, with no justification than that WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Boleyn (talk) 22:18, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Your quoted material does not justify your case. Tons of precident justifies mine. Legacypac (talk) 22:23, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

The quoted material doesn't say list articles need references? Boleyn (talk) 22:24, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Don't take it personally. If you look at User:Boleyn/Draftify log you will see that Boleyn habitually draftifies articles that would never be deleted at AfD simply because they are unsourced. I must assume that it is a requirement at NPP for articles to be sourced, at AfC they only need to be sure to survive AfD. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 22:27, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

That's avoiding the main question too. No, articles don't need to be already referenced to pass NPP: 'A newly-created article may be about a generally acceptable topic, but be far from sufficiently developed or sourced for publication. Such pages can be moved to the draft namespace manually. An explanatory note and link to the draft should be left on the article creator's talk page.' There are, and always will be, many different opinions on that and that's OK. But to state list articles don't need references isn't true, and doesn't meet WP:SourceList. But yes, don't take it personally :) Articles accepted at AfC are meant to be reviewed by NPP. Boleyn (talk) 22:32, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

I found five articles I had accepted in your draftify log, 12345. And several notable subjects such as a village and an island, both unsourced. I don't consider there is a mismatch between your reviewing and NPP guidelines, if you look at my dratification log or anyone else's you will see the same. There is a mismatch between AfC guidelines and NPP guidelines. Right now numerous articles are being accepted at AfC and then draftified on NPP review, sometimes even redraftified on the second AfC acceptance. This is a significant waste of volunteer time. Either NPP reviewers should stop drafting articles accepted by AfC, or AfC should stop approving articles with formatting issues and insufficient sources in the article which are not current decline reasons but are generally enough to draftify an article. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 22:56, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

If we draftified everything without sources we would have a huge job Category:Articles_lacking_sources has 1468 pages just from October 2018. Since we don't draftify everything without sources at NPP, the draftification of AfC accepts over lack of sources is simply a revert of the AfC accept. An NPP flag holder needs to think carefully before reversing an AfC approved Reviewer who has determined the topic notable and likely not copyvio. Legacypac (talk) 17:47, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Adding References Only

After I have declined a draft on a company, sometimes the author takes a few hours to add more references without changing the text of the draft. I know that if the draft was declined as having no references, adding references is appropriate. My question has to do with drafts that already were well-referenced, but were written from the viewpoint of the company, restating what the company says about itself but not what third parties have written. Is the adding of more references a useful response to a concern that the text of the draft doesn't summarize what reliable sources have written? It seems to me to be saying, "Here are 50 references. You can read them and verify notability." However, since a general reader won't slog through fifty references, they will see a well-referenced corporate brochure. Have I missed something, or is just adding more references sometimes not enough? Robert McClenon (talk) 15:16, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Surely something being promotional or failing WP:NPOV should simply be denied, regardless of referencing.... Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:23, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

If it is written like a brochure, decline as ADV. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 15:28, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Any "references" that are not actually sources of article content are not references at all, thus they should be removed. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 19:11, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

User:Dodger67 - Yes, but it shouldn't be the responsibility of the reviewer to remove references that a draft has been reference-bombed with. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:25, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

It occurs to me that this illustrates one of the limitations or hazards of (ethical) (declared) paid editing, which is that the paid editor is taking a corporate-centric view, which is what an employee should take, but it isn't what a reader wants and so isn't what a reviewer is looking for. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:41, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

There is, as we know, a widespread attitude that a paid editor is the best editor. That is often not the case. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:41, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

• If this is a quick resubmission, I would simply ignore -- to forestall further submissions. K.e.coffman (talk) 23:50, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Review comments getting lost

I'll often leave comments about things that could be improved, without actually declining the submission. If somebody then comes along and accepts the draft, the comments get lost, often before they're acted upon. This seems suboptimal. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:44, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

If your comment is about something that will still be relevant after the draft is accepted you should rather put it on the Talk page. Review comments are intentionally ephemeral, once a draft is accepted as an article the reviews are no longer relevant. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:37, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

It is hard to know if the issue will be fixed before acceptance. When accepting I watch for useful comments such as on notability and sometimes copy them to the talkpage for future NPP view etc. Legacypac (talk) 07:44, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

If you put standard maintenance tags on the drafts, they won't be removed when accepted. ~Kvng (talk) 15:20, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Maybe a new system should be incorporated into AFCH, putting all past declines and comments on a separate subpage for AfC to preserve reviewer contributions and for statistical purposes. Flooded with them hundreds 18:49, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Possibly any remaining comments but definitely not any declines - that risks negative statements about the article that must at least heavily not be the case if it has been accepted Nosebagbear (talk) 20:09, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

I beleive all of this is available in the article history for those inclined to dig. No new system is needed. If it's a piece of information likely to remain relevant once accepted, don't put it in an AFCH comment; Use a maintenance tag or put something on the draft's talk page. ~Kvng (talk) 20:40, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

AfC preload

Just to get some more eyes/thoughts, there's a discussion at the template talk for {{AfC preload}} regarding potentially changing the intended output. Your thoughts are appreciated. Primefac (talk) 17:07, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Community Wishlist Survey voting is open (please vote for the New Page Feed improvements)

After a massive effort to narrow down what features are the most important, New Page Patrol put together a list of sorely needed features and bug fixes that have long been ignored by the WMF and the community tech team. This includes New page feed improvements that would also be of benefit to Articles for Creation.

You can read and vote on our proposal at m:Community Wishlist Survey 2019/Admins and patrollers/Page Curation and New Pages Feed improvements. If this does not make it into the top ten proposals, it is likely that the tools will be given no support at all for the foreseeable future (per comments by WMF staff). We have been encouraged to canvass for votes as widely as possible, but you guys actually have a vested interest in voting for this particular proposal.

Please go HERE to vote in support the "Page Curation and New Pages Feed improvements". While you are there, have a look for any other good proposals that you feel should also have some support. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 18:25, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

• Beaten here by Insertcleverphrasehere - since we are clearly heading to an ever more merged group of AfC reviewers and new page patrollers it makes sense for us to support the efforts for better NPP tools. We probably have the best goal with a co-ordinated supporter base, so we should be able to ram it through. Nosebagbear (talk) 20:08, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Also, one of the items requested would make the page curation tools available outside of mainspace which would make the issue flagging features (also requested) available in draft space in addition to tags in the toolbar such as CSD tagging, the revision deletion tool, histmerge, etc. There will be some room to further clarify what we want later if we make it in the top ten, but after the toolbar is enabled for use in draft, AfC could request that the page curation toolbar open automatically on draft articles as well, which will then highlight flagged issues automatically (ORES issues, Copyvio, COI, etc). CSD options are also available via the Page Curation Toolbar. This would of course only apply to AfC reviewers who are NPR rights holders as well, but last I checked that was the majority of active reviewers anyway and there are a number of proposals to bring these in line with each other. There is a lot for AfC in this request. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 20:29, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

A note on the backlog

Hello everyone,

I've noticed that the backlog here at AfC has decreased significantly recently, going from around ~2500 to ~1700! Thank you to reviewers far more dedicated than I for your tireless work in slashing the backlog. Let's keep up the good work! ProgrammingGeek ^talktome 16:21, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

It makes a big difference that we have cleared the older sections. I have been clearing older drafts out of the 6 week old category and the cumulative effect of all the reviewing on older drafts has been to reduce the nominal backlog time from 2 months to 5 weeks. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 16:46, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

I wanted to say my thanks as well - I feel I've had a good month if I've done 25 but there must be reviewers doing many times that - kudos to these souls. Nosebagbear (talk) 18:25, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

431 this month. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 18:41, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

That tool is pretty interesting [2] but you have to understand it does not count deleted pages (G11, G12, G13, MfD etc) or pages where your comments/declines have been deleted (accepted by someone else, creator deletes comments). The haters who bitch about several copyvios accepts refuse to note it is pretty hard to get 1500+ accepts in mainspace without Google and Earwig missing the occasional copyvio.

I'm pretty happy with the way the backlog is dropping even though the submissions have been a very high levels. We handle most submissions within the first day or two so if we can kill the backlog we can provide very good service as pages are submitted. Legacypac (talk) 20:13, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

It doesn't count deleted contributions, but it does count pages where one's comments have been deleted. It works by going through the user contributions list. I'm also happy about the backlog; I don't think we really need a backlog drive anymore, as well. Enterprisey (talk!) 21:47, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for making the tool and explaining it. That explains why comments on accepted articles get counted. The tool can only count pages that you interacted with that still exist (not deleted). Legacypac (talk) 21:51, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

That makes sense - I do a lot of CV speedies via decline. Need to do some more regular work Nosebagbear (talk) 18:16, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

So, actually, due to the existence of WP:AfC/recent, I can have the tool dig through its history to get a full picture of the fate of the user's accepts. I can do something similar with the user's CSD log for copyvios. I'll start implementing this soon-ish; Frayæ suggested it on my talk page. Enterprisey (talk!) 04:32, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

That would be very helpful in dealing with editors that want to pick on AfCer who accept a copyvio or otherwise problematic page occasionally. ANi will crucify anyone that misses a copyvio even if you caught 50 of them. Legacypac (talk) 00:23, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

• This is indeed very impressive:

5 weeks (82) 6 weeks (0) 7 weeks (0) 8 weeks (0) Very old (0)

K.e.coffman (talk) 23:23, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

• Cleared the 5 weeks section:

3 weeks (125) 4 weeks (89) 5 weeks (0) 6 weeks (0) 7 weeks (0) 8 weeks (0) Very old (0)

The backlog is ~4 weeks now. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 12:15, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

And then we go and lose one of our most active reviewers as a sock :( Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 15:31, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

It's a damn shame. Pity he was a sockpuppet but he'll be missed. ProgrammingGeek ^talktome 16:18, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

I've never been unhappier to lose a sock - god knows how he found time to mis-use accounts with all of that reviewing Nosebagbear (talk) 20:41, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

A clarification that obviously that wasn't meant as a "good to have a sock around" or "we should have kept him" - obviously you only go to such effort on a non-legit account for something particularly bad Nosebagbear (talk)

Dysklyver is a notorious sockmaster who has made a full-time hobby of disrupting and attempting to undermine Wikipedia. This latest account was nothing more than an attempt to appear constructive in order to prepare a sock for RfA. I am horrified that this went on for this long, and extremely grateful to KrakatoaKatie and the others involved in putting an end to this. Bradv 21:12, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

He handled a lot of Drafts and this helped reduce the backlog. I found one that was sent back to Draft only because he handled it - I sure hope that is not a trend. I've not seen any issues with how he accepted or rejected pages. Legacypac (talk) 22:52, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Note on Special:NewPagesFeed

I've noticed that the AfC tab at Special:NewPagesFeed produces different results than the listing at WP:AFC. In the former, I see quite a few drafts submitted in mid-September onwards. The two methods may be using different "trigger" mechanisms. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:31, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

there is a difference between create date and latest submit date. The day/week listings are supposed to be based on last submit date. Don't know about the other report. Legacypac (talk) 00:45, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

The other report (NPP tool) is by submit date also (you can toggle the display order between 'create' and 'submit' dates). --K.e.coffman (talk) 01:23, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Institute for Therapy through the Arts and some questions

So the page above was moved to mainspace when it looked like this.

I asked the mover not to move such pages to mainspace and their response was The reason why I accepted it was because the cites were all good to go and also since the writer have declared connection to the organization, it was not supposed to be in a neutral POV but once accepted and moved into the main space, it can be then tagged and improved further on later, as you did. It would be a shame to decline it blatantly. I do take the NPOV seriously and will keep it in mind for sure. Thanks again.

As it stood, that page violated WP:V, WP:OR, WP:RS (3 usergenerated sources), WP:MEDRS (health claims sourced to popular media and a promotional youtube video), and above all WP:PROMO. In my view if I were to nominate it for deletion in its policy-compliant state, it would be deleted swiftly per WP:NCORP. (I have done BEFORE). No BLP violations, at least.

So two questions:

• was the move to mainspace correct (under whatever criteria you apply)
• should pages that contain policy violations be moved to mainspace? (Just to deal with one -- namely PROMO -- per the Core purpose the only criteria is "Would this pass AfD?". I'll add that all the speedy-criteria are valid deletion rationales, and template:db-spam is one of them -- so it seems to me that a draft that is promotional should not be moved to mainspace) but what about that, and what about the others?

Thoughts? Jytdog (talk) 19:41, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Any page can be moved to mainspace by an autoconfirmed editor. AfC reviewers don't have authority to block this. I would assume this is a good-faith move by an inexperienced editor. You can nominate it for deletion and mention that as an alternative to deletion, it can be moved back to Draft space for more work. ~Kvng (talk) 20:45, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Nonresponsive.... of course any autoconfirmed editor ~can~ move a page. The question is whether this should have been moved to mainspace per the core purpose of AfC.Jytdog (talk) 03:58, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

You got a response from the mover. Legacypac (talk) 04:14, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Which I brought here for further discussion, with the mover's consent.

Why these weird responses, LegacyPac and Kvng? Your reactions make it seem that both of you see something inappropriate but I don't understand where either of you are coming from. Jytdog (talk) 18:24, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Jytdog, I think you're blowing their responses out of proportion a bit. They're saying that the editor was allowed to move the draft to mainspace, and you (or any of us) don't have authority to block it by sole virtue of being AfC reviewers. You're welcome to move it to draftspace yourself or follow Kvng's suggestion through AfD, but simply being a member of WikiProject Articles for creation doesn't give us purview of all articles moving out of draftspace. Cheers, ProgrammingGeek ^talktome 20:06, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

• So instead of answering the questions i posed, which are directed to a) helping The Herald improve their AfC reviewing or alternatively correcting my understanding of what a good AfC review does, and b) discussing the "Core purpose" a bit, people are mansplaining very basic things to me (and even mansplaining the mansplaining for pete's sake). This is going from strange to WTF.

In any case, if anybody would care to respond to the two questions, I would be happy. I do think the "core purpose" should address content policy violations, fwiw. I didn't write that in the OP to make it neutral. I may open a separate thread about that, if this continues going sideways. Jytdog (talk) 20:11, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Without passing specific judgement on the linked page, my general guidence is that a page that is unlikely to be deleted at AfD and not subject to an obvious CSD should be promoted to mainspace. Pages passed by AfC (just like hundreds of thousands of pages in mainspace) do not have to be fully compliant with V, RS, OR etc. We are dealing with Drafts from generally new editors. If we expected perfection we would need to decline everything. Legacypac (talk) 21:14, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

I find myself agreeing rather much with Legacypac (and normally I keep my thoughts about AFC to myself). To be "responsive" to Jytdog (but I am rightly not an AFC reviewer) (1) I thought acceptance was within reasonable discretion (but it would not be appropriate to say it was "correct"). and (2) yes, it is sometimes suitable to move policy-violating drafts to main space for improvement or some form of deletion. In this case I was pleased Jytdog decided to improve the article very considerably. Thank you for going to the trouble. Thincat (talk) 21:37, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

I should clarify my statement. I don't think drafts should ever be moved to main space in order to delete them. Rather, after a draft has properly been moved to main space, it may be that it becomes improved or deleted. Deletion is not at all necessarily a sign that acceptance was wrong. Thincat (talk) 21:57, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

I'll try to be more responsive.

1. Yes the move was correct because the author did it. But I think what you're really asking for feedback on is whether an AfC reviewer would deserve a WP:TROUT if they had accepted this in the state it was in. I note that there's a wide range in what AfC reviewers and AfD participants consider to be delete or decline-worthy WP:PROMO. On top of this, AfC reviewing instructions suggest declining WP:NPOV issues in drafts while AfD guidelines say that if such issues can be addressed with editing (i.e. not a WP:TNT situation), it should be kept. I recognise that's not how things are actually going down at AfD of late, especially for biographies and company articles, and this also needs to be taken into consideration. Bottom line, if notability looked good, I would have accepted this. It arguably has a WP:NPOV issue but not so much so that it would needs to be deleted. I feel like this argument prevails over 50% of the time at AfD and so meets the WP:LIKELY criteria.
2. Yes, flawed articles on notable topics can be moved to mainspace, just so long as they're not flawed enough to merit deletion. The core purpose supersedes our reviewing instructions. Not all reviewers are brave enough to do this and they're not required to. But I don't think these drafts should be declined for flimsy reasons such as "not encyclopedic" or "reads like an advertisement". If there is not a clear reason to decline, and you're not comfortable accepting, don't review it and ask for help here if you like. If you look at our oldest unreviewed drafts, many are articles flawed like this one so it looks like at least some reviewers are operating this way. ~Kvng (talk) 23:01, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

A few things to unpack:

1. Jytdog, ff I've been "mansplaining", I sincerely apologise as that was never my intention and something I try to avoid both on and off-wiki. (It's worth noting I had no idea you were female, though I can be a bit of a prick to people of all genders at times). I was just trying to examine the "weird responses" you mentioned.
2. I would say that the move to mainspace was "incorrect" by the objective sense. Not in the way that it was impermissible to move, but a rational experienced editor would not have. It's worth noting that I'll be the first to admit to not revising every single policy you've linked. I think what the accepter did (and what I'm more prone to doing) was see if the article "felt" right -- in the sense that it passed the most general, laissez-faire spirit of the guidelines.
3. Policy violations (in my opinion) shouldn't be the end-all-be-all when it comes to acceptance. If the draft is borderline with policy violations accept if it will pass AfD. Ideally we'd incubate every substandard draft but there are some things that can be fixed in mainspace.

Cheers. ProgrammingGeek ^talktome 23:29, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

In my opinion, first, the draft should not have been accepted. The fact that it was written by a paid editor is no reason for accepting a non-neutral draft for other editors to clean up. In fact, it is more reason why it should not have been accepted. The current version of the article is a stub from which all of the promotional material has been stripped out. I do not know, based on what little is left in the stub, whether the organization is notable. My guess is that it is not, and I have tagged the article as having a notability question. I respectfully but strongly disagree with User:Kvng as to "reads like an advertisement" being a flimsy reason for a decline, and I think that that attitude is a good-faith well-meaning hazard to the integrity of the encyclopedia, to which User:Jytdog is very committed. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:40, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Runa Khan

Mainspace is create protected but this draft seems reasonable and the subject notable. Can an Admin take care of this? Legacypac (talk) 00:12, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

I have entered a request to unprotect at Requests for Page Protection. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:44, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Adrian Hall (artist)

I have two comments about this article. First, I was unable to Submit the draft either as the last updater or the page creator. I tried doing that four times, and each time Google Chrome detected a non-responsive page, and the Resource Monitor reported approximately 25% CPU utilization on a Chrome process, and on a quad-core desktop machine, I think that is a spin-loop. I eventually had to Submit it as myself, and then Accepted it, and it hung in the Accept, and I had to complete the acceptance process manually. So something was wrong. Second, this is a case where I accepted a draft that I did not really think was ready for mainspace, except that there was a link in the disambiguation page Adrian Hall which was for the artist born in 1943, and the draft was about the 1943 person. I could either delete the bullet from the disambiguation page, or accept a draft about a person who appears to be notable, but the draft didn't appear to be ready for article space. Any help with the article will be appreciated. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:34, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Looks pretty good now. Legacypac (talk) 03:42, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting the bug, going to test this to see if I can reproduce it. Enterprisey (talk!) 03:49, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Decoding the AFC templates

Is there a crib sheet that explains to a human how to read the AFC templates that are inserted by using the AFC tool? Normally I don't need to try to parse them manually, but once in a while I see a a draft that causes the script to freeze or malfunction in some other way, and I would like to try to correct it so as to get a nearly normal result. The latest problem that I had was this evening with Adrian Hall (artist), which was hanging with 25% CPU utilization (and I think that with a quad-core desktop computer, that is 100% CPU utilization, which is a spin-loop). (In case anyone knows that I am in eastern North America and determines that the sun is still shining, they have also seen from the timestamp that it is dark in London, and I am using GMT just like the server is.) Can someone, maybe User:Enterprisey, please provide the information sheet for how to parse the {{AFC submission}} entries.?Robert McClenon (talk) 20:57, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Special:Permalink/560431901 (linked from the bottom of the reviewing instructions) has instructions for manually working with the templates. Enterprisey (talk!) 03:51, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

frayae accepts and declines

[3] shows about: Accepts: 508 (44.96%) Declines: 592 (52.39%) Comments: 30 (2.65%)

One editor has started undoing all the accepts using pagemover PERM to "revert sock". This is placing pages back in the que many weeks after those weeks were cleared. It has already brought a confused newbie back to help desk asking what happened to his page. It throws off the message on all 1600 pending drafts from 3 weeks to 7 weeks or longer. Further, will all the Declines be revered too? What about all the posts to AfC Help? Given there is no demonstrated problem with these reviews this seems like a very bad idea. I propose we stop such reversals until we can discuss the wisdom of them and decide if the benefit of WP:DENY outweighs the disruption to AfC workflow and upset to new editors. Legacypac (talk) 11:01, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

I think the harm and WP:BITEiness to new users well, well outweighs any benefits. This harms users other than the banned user, and so goes against the spirit of WP:DENY. Ping Onel5969 to let them know of this discussion. Galobtter (pingó mió) 11:19, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

I think they're talking about JJMC89 Flooded with them hundreds 11:25, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes I notitified them already. I believe there is another user that reversed a move or two several days ago. Legacypac (talk) 11:27, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, Onel also reverted some acceps too; additionally, most unaccepts will basically have to be re-accepted so this creates significantly more work for us without meaningfully applying any sort of WP:DENY. Galobtter (pingó mió) 11:27, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

See also discussion above Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation#A_note_on_the_backlog which does NOT seem to support a mass reversal of this user's efforts. If the purpose of the acct was to run for RfA as speculated it seems unlikely the AfC work was all that bad. Legacypac (talk) 11:24, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

• Frayae's reviewing actions should not be wholesale reverted. It is unlikely that the reviewing was poorly done. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:45, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Can you explain the rationale behind this, Onel5969? Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 12:16, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. Absolutely. I followed WP:DRAFTIFY. I did not do a wholesale revert of frayae's acceptances, simply on those where the article clearly wasn't ready for mainspace. I probably reviewed about 40 or so, and marked over 20 "as reviewed". About 15 or so clearly had major issues. In some instances they were blp's without anywhere near enough sources (this was the most persistent reason. In at least 1 case, frayae accepted an article after another AfC reviewer had declined it, without any improvement by the editor. Others were virtually unreadable. While I haven't checked all of them, at least one of the drafts was already resubmitted and declined. Hope this helps.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 12:43, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

None of that is particularly abnormal for competent AfC reviews. There is a fairly wide range of what reviewers consider acceptable here. ~Kvng (talk) 19:48, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

• Comment: In the few days before the block, Frayae was reviewing drafts incredibly fast, sometimes several per minute. If someone is willing to check their AfC actions, all the power to them. I looked at a couple that had been moved to draft, and I generally agreed with the moves. --K.e.coffman (talk) 18:00, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
• Comment Frayae told me they did 430 in one afternoon. I pushed back some back to draft, they were stonkingly bad, that had 3rd party call-outs to Black Friday deals, links to shops and so on, and completely unacceptable for main space. They were in the last entries of the day. All of them need to be checked I think. scope_creep (talk) 21:31, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

@Scope creep: I think the article you're referring to is Dangui Oduber? After you draftified it, I cleaned it up and moved it back into mainspace. It is about a member of parliament of a national government, so meets WP:POLITICIAN. I would have thought it belonged in mainspace but should have been tagged for multiple issues, rather than be in draftspace where it was less likely to be worked on. I didn't find it was that bad. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 23:21, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

• I'm hardly reverting all of Dysk's accepts as claimed by Legacypac. Last night I reverted 10/508=~2%. I'm selectively reverting ones with issues: NPOV/promo, lack of sourcing (especially for BLPs) [apparently a common problem per onel5969], unreliable sourcing, and/or notability. Given Dysk's history, they need to be reviewed correctly. This has nothing to do with DENY; it is about a sock with a history of undermining Wikipedia doing shoddy work. — JJMC89 (T·C) 21:36, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

I never said anyone reverted all his accepts, but I did see a bunch of reverts pop up with only "revert sock" as the reason which suggested the beginning of a major revert project. I encourage review of his work, but any problem pages should be actioned in mainspace via tag, PROD, AfD. Legacypac (talk) 04:30, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Just as a reminder, to quote you, "One editor has started undoing all the accepts..." Just sayin'. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 12:39, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

• Comment regarding Dangui Oduber @Curb Safe Charmer:. I see you pulled it out, how about putting in the inline citations back in, as any old muck can be in there, instead of leaving it lying. It really should have stayed in Afc until the originating editor had a chance to learn what referencing was. Now there is an article with its guts hanging out. Several people are taking a position, perhaps due to the sock had 16k odd edits, and assumed that they knew what they were taking about, that is wrong. When I was speaking to the sock, they had a completely lackadaisical understanding of policy. Of the 12 odd article I looked at 7 unsuitable for main-space. A good number will be terrible, I think in the hundreds.scope_creep (talk) 23:44, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

4 weeks and 3 weeks

Go team! 4 weeks will be cleared tonight and maybe even 3 weeks list. Good job everyone that is working on these backlogs. Legacypac (talk) 03:48, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

It appears to me that the days/weeks categories are not correctly working. I've "cleaned" some submissions and seen them move to other cats and noticed that pages that are listed as being X days since submission are actually days or weeks off. It is not all pages but a bunch of them. Legacypac (talk) 20:30, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

@Legacypac: I noticed that too: when I applied CSD tags to drafts, they would pop up at the end of the queue. I think it's some sort of a bug in how WP:AFC weekly/daily counts get displayed. Whenever someone edits a draft (leaves a comment, applies CSD tag, edits text), the draft goes to the "correct" spot. We just did not realise this before because the queue was full at 8+ weeks, so it would not have been noticeable anyway. --K.e.coffman (talk) 00:24, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Discussion: New criterion for rejected / advertisement-declined drafts

Please see the thread here:

• Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#New criterion for rejected / advertisement-declined drafts

K.e.coffman (talk) 00:51, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Disagreeing with Backdoor Deletion

I reviewed a draft and came to the conclusion that the subject is marginally notable, and that it is unlikely that an article would be tagged for AFD, but that the article would survive AFD. It is my understanding that that is considered sufficient for acceptance. However, I can't accept the article because a redirect is in place. On looking at the history, I see that there was an article briefly, and that the article was replaced by the redirect, which is a backdoor deletion. It appears that the original author of the article that was then backdoor-deleted has resubmitted the page as a draft, with no apparent change except the addition of references, bringing the number of references from 6 to 9. The edit summary had been: "(biography of a person that fails WP:NAUTHOR the sources are too weak to show she passes WP:GNG. Redirect as an alternative to deletion)". I don't think that the addition of the references is that significant. I simply disagree with the decision that the subject fails notability. This leaves me conflicted. I came to the conclusion, before tracking down the history of the redirect, that the draft should be accepted, but that is disagreeing with the other reviewer. My question is what should I do at this point. I would like to pose this as a two-part question. The first part is what is the philosophy or general approach to such a situation. The second is whether to accept Draft:Rukhl Schaechter, where I evidently disagree with User:Domdeparis. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:57, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

I agree amd I would have accepted the page. So I restored the page, with the added refs, and redirected the Draft at the existing title. If someone feels strongly about this there is AfD. I have no issue overriding another reviewer, we make subjective judgements all the time here. Legacypac (talk) 05:10, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

To answer the general philosophy, this should have been brought up at AfD (part of why it should really be called Articles for Discussion, but consensus is against me on that one) - because this is essentially the deletion of an article. ProgrammingGeek ^talktome 05:20, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

This doesn't answer your question directly, but I will give my opinion about the backdoor deletion. While this is often done under WP:BOLD, once reverted it should be taken to AfD if the person creating the redirect disagrees. I am not sure anyone at AfC should get offended with another reviewer disagreeing with their decisions. As Legacypac says, it is often subjective when reviewing here. --CNMall41 (talk) 05:46, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

I have on several occasions proposed policies against unilateral draftification, but the overall consensus is that it's a good step for further development of low-quality articles. I wholeheartedly disagree, purely on the basis that in a lot of cases it's used as a way to sidestep AfD or PROD, but I seem to be in the minority in that opinion. We really ought to rename AfD to "Articles for discussion" and make it a one-stop shop for these sorts of things, like we've done with the other XfD forums. Nathan2055^{talk - contribs} 06:56, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

For what it's worth when I replaced with a redirect I did not believe the article was suitable and would probably not have survived an afd and so it was legitimate to redirect as an alternative to deletion as per WP:ATD-R because she was mentioned in the target. I have spent quite a lot of time at AfD whilst it is impossible to have a 100% record there my voting record is somewhere around 85% and my nomination are around 82% so it was not just a frivolous act but one that was made by considering the article and the sources. The article creator decided to submit the article for review which was a good idea and when it was accepted the redirect was replaced by the accepted article. I honestly do not see what the problem is here. As per the above link I would not have reinstated the redirect if you had copied the new text with the extra references especially as it had been reviewed at AFC. You say "The second is whether to accept Draft:Rukhl Schaechter, where I evidently disagree with User:Domdeparis." but I haven't reviewed it at AFC so I haven't given my opinion so I do not agree or disagree with you. I would have probably refused it at afc as it was but that would have been a personal call. Articles at AFC should be accepted if the reviewer considers that they would probably survive AFD but as neither you nor I nor anyone else has a 100% record there so it will always be a personal call. To come back to your original point again a redirect is an alternative to deletion and not a backdoor to deletion because the article's history is conserved and if refused should not be reinstated without consensus. I hope this answers your concerns. Dom from Paris (talk) 07:47, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Changing the name of the draft and move it to the article space

Hello Everyone , I´m quite new here and I have created my first article based on the history of an Italian family . First of all I would like to ask you if it meets the wikipedia criteria and if yes i would like to know how to change the name of the draft into Morassutti family and eventually move it to main space. Many thanks for your help. Newcontributors —Preceding undated comment added 18:56, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Newcontributors, if you would like to submit your draft for review, click the "Submit your draft for review" button on the grey box at the bottom of the page. Primefac (talk) 19:04, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi @Primefac, Thanks for the info and for having moved the name of my draft . I will submit it for review but I was wondering if you could review it just to make sure is ok . Can you please do that ? Newcontributors

I didn't check the references themselves, but you've got a decent number of them and the text looks well-sourced. Good luck! Primefac (talk) 19:44, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi @Primefac, I did submit the draft . Hopefully it will not take so long . Thanks for checking and for wishing me good luck. Newcontributors —Preceding undated comment added 20:55, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 23 November 2018

Yousufmozumder89 (talk) 09:52, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. DannyS712 (talk) 10:09, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Move Over Redirect ?

I sometimes see reference to a move over redirect. Is this something that a Page Mover can do? Maybe once a day I decide to accept a draft article when there is a redirect in article space. For instance, the draft may be about an album by a singer, and there is already a redirect for the title of the album to the biography of the singer. It is usually some sort of parent-child association, where I am accepting the child after the parent exists. First, is this a direct way that I can do an AFC accept over the redirect? Second, can I do a direct move of the draft over the redirect, with cleanup to follow?

What I know I can do is to move the redirect into neverland by suffixing its title with (0) or (1) or (3), leaving it where no one will look for it, but still pointing to the singer (or whatever is the parent article). Then the draft can be accepted, and the accept script does the cleanup. Then the redirect in neverland can be tagged with G6. This isn't a move over a redirect. It is a move OF the redirect to liquidate it.

What is a move over redirect? Is it something that only admins can do?

Robert McClenon (talk) 13:36, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Any autoconfirmed editor can move over redirect provided that the target page is a redirect (with just one entry in the history page) to the page to be moved. Flooded with them hundreds 14:04, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

How? Legacypac (talk) 23:09, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Only if the redirect points to that page. Natureium (talk) 23:10, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Hmmm. Does that mean that, as an alternative to moving the redirect into neverland, I can edit the redirect to point to the draft? Well, well. The neverland sequence seems just as clean. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:00, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

To move over a redirect as a non-admin, the redirect must 1) be pointing to the page you are moving over it and 2) only have one revision in the page history. — JJMC89 (T·C) 23:10, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

So the only time that is the case in AfC submissions is when a page was just recently draftified but the mainspace page not tagged for deletion. Legacypac (talk) 23:55, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon: you can use {{Db-g6|rationale=Make way to accept Draft:Example}} to request that the redirect be deleted so that you can move over it. More information on how to handle name collisions is available at Category:AfC submissions with the same name as existing articles. ~Kvng (talk) 17:22, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

User:Kvng - You don't need to tell me what is in the instructions on name collisions. Who wrote those instructions that you moved to the category page? Robert McClenon (talk) 17:43, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

User:Kvng - Yes. I know about G6. Didn't I discuss it above? The method that you are suggesting requires that the reviewer wait for the admin to delete the redirect. The neverland move sequence for editors with the Page Mover privilege permits an immediate acceptance of the draft whose name matched the redirect, while the redirect in neverland is waiting for deletion. I prefer to get things out of categories of things to do as soon as I know what to do with them. (That is also why I reject spam as well as tagging it for G11. Otherwise the next reviewer still sees the spam listed.) You don't need to tell me all about G6 and name collisions. I had a specific question, and it was answered. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:43, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Cat name change

I just happened to notice a change to one of our templates; Flooded with them hundreds changed our "participant" category from Category:WikiProject Articles for creation participants to Category:Wikipedia AfC reviewers. If no one cares, I suppose that's cool, but I figured it should be mention since they've been doing a fair amount of re-categorization of the AFC templates (e.g. Special:Diff/870507910 and Special:Diff/870505016, etc). Primefac (talk) 16:00, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Just thought they should be centralized as the categories for AfC have been so inconsistent as no one bothered to clean up. Flooded with them hundreds 16:03, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Just remember that before starting refactoring work you need to figure out a way to determine whether the work breaks anything. ~Kvng (talk) 16:11, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, as I said I don't particularly mind that it's being done, just wanted the project to know that it was being done (if only to get some more eyes on it). Primefac (talk) 16:13, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Draft:High Watch Recovery Center (2)

Hi! I tried to move this draft to remove number '(2)' from it and found title 'High Watch Recovery Center' is create protected. The draft has one NY Times reference with 3 other references from books that I can't access. As per WP:SOURCEACCESS and WP:AGF I think it can be accepted. However, I would want to know why this title was create protected in first place. Dial911 (talk) 00:52, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Maybe someone quietly took care of this for you but I don't see a problem right now. If you run into this again, you need to look at the log and find the admin who protected and ask them for help clearing it. ~Kvng (talk) 00:29, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Sure. I thought posting it here will get the job done swiftly. Thanks! Dial911 (talk) 00:39, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Nothing to swiftly do: the draft version is create-protected, but High Watch Recovery Center is not (and never was). Primefac (talk) 00:39, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Rejection feature in the AFCH script?

Is this feature available to all reviewers, or just to select ones at this time? I'm not seeing this option when I review drafts. --K.e.coffman (talk) 00:17, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

K.e.coffman, disable the gadget and import User:Enterprisey/afch-dev.js. ProgrammingGeek ^talktome 19:27, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

What's the difference between rejecting and declining? — pythoncoder  (talk | contribs) 01:17, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

• @ProgrammingGeek: would you mind checking my User:K.e.coffman/common.js page? Something went wrong, and I now have two AFCH drop-downs, neither of which has a Reject option. --K.e.coffman (talk) 02:35, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

  K.e.coffman, double check you've disabled the AFC Helper in Special:Preferences. You're missing a semicolon after the import statement, but it's JavaScript so it shouldn't matter (?). ProgrammingGeek ^talktome 03:03, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

This fixed it; thank you! --K.e.coffman (talk) 03:15, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

• User:pythoncoder, What's the difference between rejecting and declining? Rejecting means a curt "not suitable" message is returned, and the draft will no longer have a big blue "submit" button and a saccharine encouragement to edit improve and resubmit. "Decline" means advice or pointers on the reason for the decline are offered, the reviewer thinks it conceivable that the author can improve the draft to overcome the problems (eg find better sources), and the big blue "resubmit" button will be on the draft. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:01, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
• User:ProgrammingGeek, what does "import User:Enterprisey/afch-dev.js" mean? How does one import User:Enterprisey/afch-dev.js? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:03, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

• Is the following a good answer?

You have to disable the default gadget (go to Special:Preferences and Disable/uncheck) "Yet Another AFC Helper Script: easily review Articles for creation submissions, Files for Upload, redirect and category requests" and
go to your common.js (mine is User:SmokeyJoe/common.js, swap in your username) and
add "importScript('User:Enterprisey/afch-dev.js'); // Linkback: User:Enterprisey/afch-dev.js"

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:17, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Got it — pythoncoder  (talk | contribs) 16:55, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe, that’s correct. ProgrammingGeek ^talktome 04:09, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

I can't make this work. I've disabled the AfCH script button and added the script but then I have no script to use. Most of the scripts I've tried to upload over time just never work for me. User:Legacypac/common.js I have no idea why. Any help would be appreciated. Legacypac (talk) 08:19, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi Legacypac, I have tried and it worked. I think you didnt import the new script. This is what I did. (1) go to my Preference->Gadget->Editing->unchecked "After unchecked "Yet Another AFC Helper Script: easily review Articles for creation submissions, Files for Upload, redirect and category requests" then save the changes. (2) add importScript('User:Enterprisey/afch-dev.js'); // Linkback: User:Enterprisey/afch-dev.js on your common.js and save. (3) go to any draft and when you click "More" on the menu bar you would see "Review AFCH (beta; click it and you will see the option "reject/decline" on the center red bottom. Hope this help. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 08:34, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

I turned off the AfCH script under preferences posted in the code and saved. No joy. I'll try removing the code, saving, posting it in again, saving. Legacypac (talk) 08:49, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi Legacypac, Try Wikipedia:Bypass your cache, if it does not work. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 09:13, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Another Category Question

I have another odd question about categories of articles. There is a template for {{WikiProject Articles for Creation}} which is put on the talk pages of articles that were Accepted via the Accept script. However, here is an interesting case. I reviewed a good draft on Henry Mathewson and determined that the subject just barely satisfied baseball notability, but just barely satisfying is good enough when the guideline is specific, in that he did play Major League Baseball in 3 games, and that is enough. There was a stub on Henry Mathewson. I had to decline the draft and recommend that the article be upgraded instead. The submitter copied and pasted the content of the draft into the article. No history merge is needed because there is full attribution. The author was the only author of the draft, and the history of the stub is still in place with the addition of 8K bytes.

The question is: Should the article be tagged on its talk page as an Articles for Creation product? Robert McClenon (talk) 03:49, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

No. It's not a product of Articles for Creation, we declined it. ProgrammingGeek ^talktome 03:52, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. Primefac (talk) 11:31, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Suhai Aziz Talpur

This article Suhai Aziz Talpur is already created and I see there is another draft Draft:Suhai_Aziz_Talpur submitted by an other new user about the same BLP article Suhai Aziz Talpur. Its requested further edits be made in Suhai Aziz Talpur article and improve its content and references and my question is if there is already article then is there any need of creating a Draft for the same?.JogiAsad  ^Talk 10:07, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

​ As mentioned above there is no need to go through the full AFC process just to improve an article. That being said, the draft space is a perfectly acceptable place to work on improvements to an article. Primefac (talk) 11:32, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

This draft is created by another user for the same article Which is already existed on Wikipedia.JogiAsad  ^Talk 11:38, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Right. Doesn't change the fact that there is no need to go through the AFC process, but there's also nothing wrong with them working on the page in the draft space. Primefac (talk) 11:45, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Okay thanks, and kindly put some light on this process what happens the next after the draft article is ready and however, similar title article is also already existing on Wikipedia? JogiAsad  ^Talk 12:35, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

AfC reviewers can not accept a page on a topic that already exists. Just go improve te existing page directly. Legacypac (talk) 12:40, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Legacypac Thanks you for elaborating this confusion, I have been improving the existing article besides there other user is also contributing for its improvements. JogiAsad  ^Talk 13:45, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

We can't technically accept the page - there is no where to move it because the article is already existing. Hope that helps. Legacypac (talk) 22:50, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

yeah I understand, I am working on already existing article, thanks. JogiAsad  ^Talk 23:40, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Integrate participants page into WP:PERM

Can we integrate the "request for AFCH access" page (Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Participants) into the "request for permissions" process to make AFC look more legitimate and official? Flooded with them hundreds 12:47, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

There has been discussion of merging this into WP:NPP perm. We made an effort to get all the AfC people approved in NPP in case we went that way. User:Kudpung and User:Insertcleverphrasehere were involved. Legacypac (talk) 06:05, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@Flooded with them hundreds and Legacypac: As AfC is not an official process, probably not. I introduced the system that is currently being used at AfC as a stop gap, but it would take an RfC to get it adopted as policy like WP:NPR. It wouldn't be a bad thing though, the standards for NPR are higher. See what DGG, Primefac, and TonyBallioni think. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:26, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

The odd thing is, despite the standards for NPR being higher, it's already given out to new AfC reviewers anyway as part of the above mentioned plan. I'd support just eliminating Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Participants entirely and updating AFCH to only activate if the user has NPR, rather than implementing a new bit just for AfC. That'd be more inline with what Huggle does and would keep AfC as a technically "unofficial" process (even though considering we have our own namespace and in-built software support in page curation now, we're pretty much as close as we can be to official). Nathan2055^{talk - contribs} 07:06, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

There are only a handful of current AfC regulars that don't have the NPR right anyway, and if they don't qualify for it, they probably shouldn't be reviewing AfC drafts anyway. As before, I'd support just making that the requirement for use. Additionally, the Page Curation tools will probably be available outside of mainspace soon, which would be of use the AfCers in the draft space once turned on there. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 08:07, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Kudpung, there are 415 non-admin AfC users without NPR rights. What do you say about adapting Nathan2055's suggestion below in only granting AfC permissions to New Page Reviewers? An exception can be placed for the 415 users but for everyone else they'd have to get the NPR flag. Flooded with them hundreds 10:11, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Flooded with them hundreds, That is only true if you count inactive AfC participants from the list (no reviews in 6 months or no edits at all in two months). A few months back we managed to convince most of the active AfCers to apply for NPR. Some will have applied in the meantime, and a few were turned down due to activity concerns, but most active AfCers have the NPR right. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 11:48, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

The distinction between official and unofficial is pretty arbitrary. If unofficial, how can Admins decide who should or should not participate? Legacypac (talk) 07:38, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

I'd support Nathan2055's suggestion. Admins are able to to decide simply because the AfC user page is fully protected. It's not a software thing. Theorectically, any one can still review AfC submissions manually without the Helper Script. (A bit like anyone can still bite new users by tagging for deletion without the NPR flag and not going through the Curation Feed). Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:48, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

• My view is that this should just be replaced with the NPR right, but this has received pushback in the past. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:28, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Hello, I am new to this so if something don't make sense just take that into consideration. If something is as official as official can be without being "official", especially concerning something that one would think is pretty important, what would be the "pushback"? Is it better to be unofficial? There are no limits to AFC's to explore this--correct? As for the Helper Script I am at a loss as to why, if changes would not affect the normal operation, considering there is a backlog and established editors willing to help but "new to this area" --and improvements would help-- that this would not be a good thing. Coming to this page is great for questions, comments, and concerns, but why not make things as easy as possible?

Last: I am glad I was accepted by an admin but also question what level of importance makes it so only an admin can authorize the use of a scrip, that helps a project function better, that a well run project couldn't self-perform. I understand things can be done manually but also understand the scrip offers numerous advantages over manual operations so felt obligated to seek the right before "jumping in". Legacypac's question does seem to have merit- on the unofficial side. The admin-needed part makes it seem very "official" to me. This is just for self-curiosity sake more than anything. Otr500 (talk) 18:51, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@Otr500: - I think the need for an admin to get access to the script is some combination of "We'd rather anyone reviewing AfC drafts was vetted, but the system makes it impossible to block manual editing, so this is a good proxy" and "Access to the script has to be limited since a bad reviewer could do far more damage with it than just manually reviewing" Nosebagbear (talk) 19:27, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@Nosebagbear: That makes sense. Otr500 (talk) 13:48, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

• Kudpung, I also thought the goal was to integrate the two processes, and I think that this is the time to take a further step in that direction. I consider that the standards for participation ought to be the same--the same knowledge is required, and the same good judgment necessary. The practical difficulty is the need to keep clearly in mind the differences between the two standards and between the different options at each stage. Since the requirement for passing AfC is that the article will probably pass AfD , nobody can properly work at AfC without understanding AfD, and the other things that can happen after an article is submitted to mainspace and is seen by NPP. In that sense NPP is somewhat easier--it is only necessary to know one set of rules. NPP is also easier because nothing you do there is final, whereas a declined afc may never be resubmitted--that first interaction with the submitter can be critical for whether we keep or lose them as a wikipedian. The mindset is also different--at least my assumption is that at AfC most items will not be accepted, but at NPP, that most articles won't be recommended for deletion, just tagged for needed work. So it might mmake sense to start people at NPP. If we are goign to do that systematically we need to start auditing their performance there. DGG ( talk ) 18:55, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

  DGG, I'd actually be keen to make "Experience of participation at AfD" a requirement for the NPR user-right actually. I can't see how this could be a negative and would create at least one good benchmark that admins can go by when deciding whether to give rights. Something along the lines of "participated in at least X AfD discussions (discussions must have closed to be included in the count)". Pinging DeltaQuad, Swarm, TonyBallioni, Kudpung and Alex Shih; as they might have more insight on this suggestion's utility and usefulness. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 13:57, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

If NPP became required to get the AfC script access, and any NPP right holder was granted the AfC script access as a matter of course, we would effectively merge the requirements. One problem however, is that some Admins will yank tools without a valid reason, so we could lose good reviewers from both NPP amd AfC in the same action. Legacypac (talk) 23:05, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

If an admin removes perms without a reason, ask for an explanation and go to AN if they don't give you one. That's not really an applicable argument. Natureium (talk) 23:25, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

I raise it from personal experience. The former Admin in question end up at ArbComm (via another editor) and the perm removal was a factor in desystoping them. But my experience has been that Admins do whatever they want and tend to back each other up, so keeping options open is a good thing. Legacypac (talk) 23:46, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

I mean, right now admins can already remove people from the access list unilaterally if they want. Hell, they can even straight up block people for no reason. We have policies in place, and if admins don't adhere to them, then they're probably on a one-way train to ArbCom.

In regards to reviewer retention, people who qualify for AfC/NPP should have enough time on-wiki to understand the dispute resolution process and know to take stuff like no-reason yanks to AN(I) to be looked at by the wider community. Neither is an excuse to keep separate perms, especially when the duties involved are so similar. Nathan2055^{talk - contribs} 03:31, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

I have only had one incident over the years that I felt got swept under the rug, but I let it go and it worked out, so I could see an individual might have some issue but I would hope if editors in the project saw an abuse of power it would be spotlighted.

Three points

1.

What you have to do at AFC is 3 things only:

1.If the article would probably pass AfD, accept it.

2.If the article would not, advise the contributor in specific terms what might make it so.

3.If the material is a copyvio or impossibly promotion or otherwise hopeless, list it for deletion. All the rest of the system and all the templates and formalities are irrelevant; there is no need to even use them.

— DGG[4]

2. Yes, the rights AfD reviewer and New Page Reviewer shoud be integrated - the required knowledge level is the same. The two processes are nevertheless as different as they are similar. Now that they share the same feed which includes the alerts from ORES and COPYVIO, they could choose which proces list they prefer to work at. They could keep their own process talk pages and coordinators (if appropriate).

3. It seems to have become a sport of late to criticise and cast doubts on admins even more than ever. This should stop - or the critics should run for adminship themselves. The admins who work at PERM are very experienced and IMO do an excellent job of both vetting the potential reviewers, and weeding out the hat collectors. Especally since timed probation was introduced for all user rights. No one gets kicked out on a whim. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:52, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

User:Kudpung - It is very much the Wikipedia way to identify a group of volunteer editors to whom one does not belong and dump on them (and dump on them and dump on them). The editors who do belong to that group do get tired of the dumping. We at AFC get tired of being dumped on by editors who know little of AFC, but you knew that. You are also saying, correctly, that some editors dump and dump and dump on admins. That is very much the Wikipedia way. It is easier to identify groups of volunteers to criticize than to try to propose systemic changes. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:41, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

I'd love to run for Admin and I'm more qualified than the typical Admin EXCEPT several Admins have blocked or sanctioned me over the dumbest wrongheaded reasons. That forever prevents a successful RfA. Then other Admins have twisted and lied about these prior mistakes to justify other actions. Once a block is logged it can't be removed even if it was completely without merit. I was even briefly removed from AfC by Primefac until I successfully pointed out that my "errors" were a tiny fraction of my total actions. Just this week Fram cherrypicked several copyvio accepts and tried to ban me from AfC even though I've logged numerous CSD G12s and obviously have no interest in introducing copyvio to Wikipedia. I took an AN beating for that from other Admins even though the entire premise was false. So yes, perceive it as dumping on Admins, but in fact I only try to hold specific Admins to account for their mistakes (but without the ability to block or ban them at wim). Generally Admins need to show a lot more respect to established users and be much more careful to AGF. Legacypac (talk) 21:57, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

There are relatively few admins nowadays who do not follow consensus in their decisions, but how to deal with them is a very difficult problem; experience leads me not to advise relying on arb com, unless they make a truly serious mistake, such as wheel warring. DGG ( talk ) 22:12, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Returning to the main topic of this section, I endorse Kudpung's suggestion that participation in AfD be required--either for NPP or AfC. Actually, I cannot think how I came to omit this in my own comment, for I have always recommended this as the practical way to get experience in deletion process and in judging articles. People wishing to judge contributions must first see what our current practice actually is; they have an obligation first to know it, and then to follow it themselves--regardless of our individual views on what ought to be notability, a patroller or reviewer must not use them in making decisions, but follow the consensus as it exists. The way to find out what is acceptable is to join the discussions. DGG ( talk ) 22:12, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

DGG, For hopefuls coming to me for info about how to get involved in NPP, If I don't think they are ready yet I always send them in the direction of AfD. No reason not to codify this. Looking at recent successful applicants at PERM, nearly all have at least 10 or more AfD participations under their belt anyway, so this seems to align nicely woth established practice anyway. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 22:45, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

I also suggest turning on the CSD log and getting a bunch of CSDs done as a way to prepare for AfC Legacypac (talk) 22:57, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

• For the record, I'm strongly opposed to anything that involves increasing the requirements for NPR, or expanding the purview of NPR. I mean, I get it. It all sounds great on paper. But, in practice, NPR is currently already failing. It has not been able to keep the backlog under control, which continues to grow by the thousands. The granting guidelines for NPR are fairly moderate, reflecting the fact that the only requirement for this job used to be autopatrolled, and yet in practice, a faction of strict users already seem to have this stranglehold at PERM that makes it nearly impossible to get through unless you're a perfect candidate with a high level of experience, makes no mistakes, has textbook knowledge of every specific notability guideline in existence, has a perfect AfD log, has not been inactive recently, etc. The level of vetting is insane, it doesn't matter how much experience you have, or how trusted you are overall as a member of the community, you really get put through the wringer, and ripped apart over any mistakes, even if you do ultimately get approved. Last month, no one got approved, in spite of the fact that we received multiple trustworthy applicants with years of tenure, thousands of edits and relevant experience. So, these efforts to either increase the NPR workload, which is already unmanageable, and/or to make NPR membership more restrictive, really seem to defy logic. While all these people are focusing on expanding the bureaucracy here, the actual point of all of it is falling to the wayside. People are already so focused on pre-emptively weeding out anyone with slight imperfections in their track record while the system falls apart, and yet here we are, bantering about ways to bog it down further.  Swarm  talk  23:07, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) I have noticed that some admins have extremely strict guidelines as to who they will accept for NPR. I agree that we can't let anyone into NPR, but someone who's made a single accept which contained a few peacock terms (which btw isn't a requirement for AfC; the main thing for AfC is accept if it if it would likely be kept at AfD, else decline - of course, blatant advertising such as "Welcome to XXX. We provide the best services for your computer, and you can buy from us today by calling us at XXX-XXX-XXXX and we'll make some money!" is an exception), has an ever-so-slightly different opinion on the notability of one article than someone else, or made one mistake once, but otherwise seems to be very knowledgeable with the notability guidelines and the deletion process, would clearly be a good candidate, imo. I have noticed the same thing as you have; that there have been few successful candidates, and the few ones that have been were questioned about stuff like PRODding an article from 2009 instead of A7ing it or accepting an article via AfC which could have slightly more neutral wording in one place. However, recently it seems like more candidates have been accepted without a lot of queries, and I don't think any of them have had any problems subsequently. It appears that a whole lot of whether a user applying for NPR gets approved or declined depends on what admin reviews their request; some admins will be willing to accept anybody who has a clue about what notability and the deletion process is, others will look for any mistake they've made in the past or anything that they disagree with over whether it meets the notability guidelines or not, and query the candidate over that or decline. New page reviewers are not gods; they're simply users who can be trusted to mark pages as reviewed, so I don't think the extremely high bar is necessary. One thing I will say is that the AfC bar seems to be significantly lower than NPR at the current moment; there have been a ton of AfC reviewers who've applied for NPR but were declined.--SkyGazer 512 ^{Oh no, what did I do this time?} 23:38, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

@SkyGazer 512: - I've always accepted NPR has higher entrance points than AfC, but that always appeared as a deliberate choice. Until the new curation software AfC was frequently a semi-required gateway to NPR. In regards to the first half of your post, we decline for other reasons than those (as I'm sure you are more than aware). I would say that admins need to be a little better at querying marginal cases rather than (usually) straight off going negative or (occasionally) accepting them, even if via probation. I was actually a good example of this in AfC - my stats & behaviour all checked out, but my user-page (created 6 years ago) had my then ultra-inclusionist viewpoint on it, which was queried as to whether I could follow the accepted notability rules. Some discussion was had, they accepted my answers and in I was, and a month later, into NPR. Nosebagbear (talk) 19:47, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

• FWIW, WP:RS states "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published sources, making sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered (see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view). If no reliable sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it. ". Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:16, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
• I just went through entire thread and I couldn't agree more with Swarm and SkyGazer 512. I have experienced this at PERM for NPR. Users that have less experience (in AfC, AfD, CSD, total count of non-automated edit, articles created etc,) than me got approved right away, depending upon what admin sees what while approving requests. I always get one reason or another for not being allowed to do NPR. And that makes me wonder if all users approved for NPR are really perfect at their work. Now it seems that editors like me need more of luck and less of the experience and understanding to get NPR. I kinda know every time that my request is likely to be rejected, citing some issue at AfC. And when confronting those admins I tend to be labelled as rude. Also, Legacypac is definitely way more experienced than many of the admins I happen to see at AfC and AfD. One important thing that I felt (I could be wrong completely) is that some admins take re-consideration of any request to their self-esteem and ability to make decisions. For example, if Admin A has rejected any request and Admin B and C kinda suggesting Admin A to re-consider their decision on something, Admin A tends to get offended and instead of being flexible, confident and responsible they stand by their initial action no matter what. Dial911 (talk) 04:43, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

I have said this before: There has only been one time that I can recall an issue concerning an Admin, of which I was 100% certain I was within policy that would have led to seeking another solution, but it worked out. I have seen some things that blow my mind but welcome to the crazy world of Wikipedia. I don't actually edit for "stats" and in fact just looked up those of AfD from above. Just looking at them, not knowing anything about the importance beforehand, or lack thereof, but seeing comments of 10 or more (above), I think it reflects well (more than 10) but then that may be subjective.

I don't recall ever just !voting at AFD with a reply or "just because" as I try to give substance and at the least a "per" editorX if in total agreement. I see "edit counts" that are phenomenal and suppose bot edits surly must count. I suppose I have a good edit count, have created articles with what I considered the required proof of notability by sourcing (that I consider important) and even usually take the time to make actual "Start-class" articles, and strive to supply sourcing to other articles when I have time and can find them.

I don't yet have the ability to multitask to the point of abandoning a direction I am heading to stop and find sources sometimes, so I tag issues. I do go over my contributions and revisit past articles frequently. If that is not enough to be "trusted" I don't know the reply. Having recently been granted the tool rights isn't my "new right" considered not permanent yet?

AFC: If there is an article that needs some basic things to ensure passing an AFD and there is a lack of time, inform the creator (leaving it open and under review) and carry on. I think a fear of not running off new editors would need to be a crucial element anywhere on Wikipedia. It would seem, "in a nut shell", that there would be a little more expectation of more experienced editors at least creating more viable stubs concerning NPP. Considering notability (not the state of sourcing): 1)-"Is the article notable", 2)- are there sources, and 3)-If not sourced or properly sourced are there sources "out there" to demonstrate notability". Copyvio issues and BLP's notwithstanding. In the AFD's I have been involved in that is important. I would think those valid criterion regardless concerning AFD, AFC, NPP, or any other article. What other real differences are there between the processes? The criterion for knowledge would seem to be compatible.

I had some questions, not realizing that my branching out was not into a considered legitimate or official area, and was perplexed. If NPP is "failing" then maybe looking at "it is currently failing" and "how to fix it" should be considered. Politics aside (I am not really good at politics) I am still trying to see the main issue. If it is a "stranglehold" (I was recently approved and didn't even know about differing mandates) what are viable solutions? I am hearing that the more "unofficial" is harder to get into than the considered "official" part???? I see Admins supporting a merger so I assume the concerns are that a "merge" of the two would mean members of one group (that I don't even know if I qualify for but suppose I would try to help out) would have to be "vetted" for the tools to use.

I CANNOT imagine (please help me here) that any admin would suggest a merge, that would exponentially add more of a burden to one area or the other, by proclaiming "Good, now that we merged, all without the given "tools" will have to wait" to proceed". WOW! just that thought gave me a sharp pain in the head. At the very least consideration would be paramount on how to merge the two without losing anyone. If not, then excluded editors (on one side or the other) could revolt and any backlog on both sides would be a combined "mess of no recovery". Did I miss something here?

This is not a call for merging two competing schools with rival game players. Can anyone give me a list of things, that cannot be worked out before a merge, where an editor can hopefully do good in one area then change areas with an expectation of doing the same good? My questions also include the concerns of any that "might be left out", and safeguards this would be avoided. If this is not possible then I will just continue doing what I am doing until that horrible admin I hear about (other than the first and only that was resolved) jumps on me. Maybe I can continue to avoid the "Admin cabal" I also keep hearing about. Of course apparently some have a far better tolerance than I do because I am a volunteer trying to make a better encyclopedia and think "running off" any editor would demand the harshest of penalties. Incivility, no matter where placed, would still be incivility. Wait! I hear a noise, gotta run. Have a nice day, Otr500 (talk) 23:41, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Standard of performance

Anyone handling drafts at AfC is bound to make a mistake occasionally. Either they decline something that should have been accepted or accept something they should decline.

One of the biggest places we face criticism is on copyvio. Catching all copyvio is darn near impossible, unless we delete everything brought to AfC. I just had a page tagged copyvio that I ran through earwig plus did two spot checks of sample text on Google! The insertion of copyvio is the fault of the editor that posted it, not every editor that interacts with the page.

The more you do here the more chance of an error, or perceived error, occurring. Can we develop some objective standard and process where AfC reviewers decide among themselves what the standard is and how to deal with anyone that falls below that standard? Legacypac (talk) 23:05, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

• To start the discussion ... is a 5% demonstrated error rate too high? Do we count pages deleted after acceptance? We can see that in the special logs [5] although it mixes up moves outside mainspace (user to draft for example) with moves to mainspace. Legacypac (talk) 23:15, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
• I think 5% is too high 10% maybe. There is a saying that a draft should be accepted if it has more than 1/2 chances of passing AfD, so 5% is too high. L293D (☎ • ✎) 23:17, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

• Off the cuff, I'd say the standard is between 1 and 5% of accepted pages. If more than 1 in 20 of your accepts have a copyvio, we have a problem. If less than 1 in 100 do, we almost certainly do not. Anything in between that will have a lot of discretion about how blatant the copyvio is. You should use caution applying this metric to low sample sizes. Tazerdadog (talk) 02:56, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

The requirement is that reviewers check for copyvio. If they don't do a reasonable check, that's a mistake. The question is, what constitutes a reasonable check? I assume anything less than 10% in Earwig does not need to be manually reviewed. I don't have enough experience yet with the new NPP tool to know if it is reasonable to trust that. It any case, if the check was done and then someone does a better check and finds something, no foul for the original reviewer.

As far as "wrong" declines or accepts for other reasons, there doesn't currently seem to be a penalty for incorrect declines and I don't know how to address that. If something I accept gets nominated for deletion, my penalty is to participate in the AfD discussion and receive the unsolicited assessments of my qualifications as a reviewer. ~Kvng (talk) 23:11, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

My 'penalty' is to read the marginally annoyed note on my talk page, which happens more than I'd like, to be honest. ProgrammingGeek ^talktome 23:20, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't know what % I'd say was reasonable for copyvio risk. In terms of a more general probability of deletion (usually notability oriented) I've gone by the "Less than 1/10 chance of being deleted at AfD" - a viewpoint I've seen quite frequently on the talk pages. I do find it critical for AfC reviewers to attend the AfD of any nominated reviewed article of theirs (not necessarily to defend, obviously we can be convinced otherwise) but it's worthwhile stating our reasoning. Thankfully for the 3 AfDs (2 Keeps, 1 delete) of my reviews I've participated in no-one has been more than politely irked with my judgement Nosebagbear (talk) 22:45, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

• Some copyvio is obvious even before you use a copyright-checking tool like Earwig. Most can be caught with the tools. But the rest can't be found easily, even after digging. The canonical example here is text that no longer appears online but is preserved on archive.org—you have to know what you're looking for before you can find it.

Copyvio is copyvio, but I think it's much harder to blame someone for failing to catch one of those really-hard-to-find violations. On the other hand, missing even a couple of blatantly obvious copyvio+advertising jobs suggests inattention. So if we choose a standard, it should be flexible enough to weigh the "blatantness" of the violation. I think it should also take into account the extent of the copying. If 1 out of every 20 drafts I accept contains one line that's too closely paraphrased, that is one thing. But it's quite another for 5% of my accepted drafts to be pure copyvio. (To be sure, close paraphrasing can violate the copyright policy and should certainly be avoided, but it is much more a matter of judgment than catching a pure copy-paste, and so I hope it's clear that I'm using close paraphrasing as an example for rhetorical purposes here.)

A look at the copyright contributor investigations process might be helpful. The rule of thumb at CCI is to open an investigation into an editor's edits if they have introduced at least five separate clear copyright violations into articles. The idea is that five large-scale, systematic instances of copyvio collectively signal more than mere mistake. They indicate a fundamental misunderstanding of how copyright works on Wikipedia. And they cast doubt on all of the user's other substantive edits. The investigation begins not because the editor slips up once or twice, but because they continually make big mistakes when they should have known better.

A heuristic at AfC could be similar: if a reviewer accepts, say, five large-scale, obvious copyright violations, the AfC community assesses their reviewing fitness and compiles a list of their acceptances to check for issues. I'm not talking about "oh, wiae missed 5 sentences that were closely paraphrased", but more in the ballpark of "wiae accepted these five drafts, and each contains entire paragraphs of copyvio that should have been easy to catch because Earwig's tool shows a 94% chance of a copyright violation, and Googling snippets of the draft immediately pulls up the copyrighted source, or maybe the text is clearly unencyclopedic, and all of these things should have tipped wiae off that something was wrong with this draft".

I think this way we get to the heart of the problem—not reviewers who miss a sentence that was too closely paraphrased once in a while, but reviewers who aren't even bothering to check, or who are checking using such lax standards that they have missed things that any editor should have caught. /wiae /tlk 23:33, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Let me add that CCI is an infrequently-used board, perhaps for good reason. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if people were loath to adopt a rule of thumb from a board that hasn't really been stress-tested. (Shameless plug: if you're good at checking for copyright issues, there is a huge backlog of cases at CCI; feel free to help out!) But I thought it might be an interesting suggestion and so decided to bring it here for wider scrutiny. Have at it if you hate it :) /wiae /tlk 23:38, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

This is a reasonable proposal because it applies to should have been easy to catch cases which you appear to define as some threshold based on the Earwig tool. Good, clear criteria.

But this does not addresses the example Legacypac opened this discussion with. I'm not in favor of creating any new policies unless there's a demonstrated problem the policy would address. I'm not sure we have an actual problem here but if we do consider submarine copyvios an AfC problem, this proposal will not really address it. ~Kvng (talk) 23:25, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

The actual problem is the willingness/enthusiasm of some non-AfC contributors to topic ban a very active AfC contributor from AfC based only on a handful of missed copyvio or other issues. An objective criteria or at least a sense of what an acceptable level of "errors" is would help tremendously in cases like this. If I was not in AfC there would be thousands more pages in the backlog (all else being equal). I used to review submissions for a writing site and copyvio was similarly a concern there. I use earwig on every accept, plus occasionally Google searches, but neither is infallable. Legacypac (talk) 00:05, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Legacypac, I'm with you on this one. Let's all just settle down and fall back to the basic principles of WP:AGF and WP:Competence is required. As long as editors are making good-faith attempts to do due diligence with regards to copyright, I think that the system is working fine as is. ProgrammingGeek ^talktome 00:30, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

December 2018 at Women in Red

		The WiR December editathons provide something for everyone. New: Photography Laureates Countries beginning with 'I' Continuing: #1day1woman Global Initiative
		Latest headlines, news, and views on the Women in Red talkpage (Join the conversation!): BBC 100 Women 2018 (To subscribe: Women in Red/English language mailing list and Women in Red/international list. Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list) --Rosiestep (talk) 13:54, 27 November 2018 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Comments on the talk page, AFCH

We are we at with getting AFCH GUI assisted comments to go on the talk page? I thought this was agreed to be done? I’m still seeing draft page proper comments, failing the usual methods of threading, very unclear who is talking to who, and whether the author is invited to participate. Discussion NEEDS to go on the discussion page. Please. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:01, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe, Agree 100%. New Page Patrol has also decided to move in a direction of more talk page comments, copying messages to the author to the article talk page in addition to the author's talk page. The community wishilst listing lists this as well as a reviewer notes system amongst improvements aimed at increased use of talk pages in the review process. AFC should deffinitely be using the talk page for 'comments' per other discussions about the topic that have taken place on this page. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 09:15, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. I assume that this is dependent on one or two people in control of the scripting?

I think I recall discussion and some agreement of desirability of options to put comments on the talk page, or the authors usertalk page? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:08, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, it's basically waiting on me. I have some other helper script stuff in the pipeline, which itself is blocked by other stuff. In particular, rejection is blocked by getting a consensus on guidelines. Multi-decline is also blocked by a few technical things on my end. When those two get into the main script, I'll start on putting comments on the talk page. Enterprisey (talk!) 19:08, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Brushless DC three phase motors

I have a three phase brushless dc motor on my bicycle. yet I cannot find any information about them. I now that it is new technology because three phase motors are only possible in AC power. so I am hoping that someone will write an article about them. ......I have no idea how to use this.....Nhoj Yesdnil — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.63.205.243 (talk) 22:22, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

You're probably looking for Brushless DC electric motor. ~Kvng (talk) 18:33, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

If that doesn't help, you could ask at the WP:Reference desk. ProgrammingGeek ^talktome 19:13, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Location for Category:AfC submissions with the same name as existing articles

Flooded with them hundreds has moved our guidance for dealing with items in this category from Category:AfC submissions with the same name as existing articles to Category talk:AfC submissions with the same name as existing articles. I could be convinced that Category:AfC submissions with the same name as existing articles is not the bast place for this information but I don't see Category talk:AfC submissions with the same name as existing articles as being a better place. I have not yet reverted this change in case someone has a better suggestion as to where to put this material. ~Kvng (talk) 14:59, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Kvng, the way it's written it looks like a talk page discussion which was why I moved the content to the talk page. Also, categories don't usually hold information such as this, maybe an information page in the project space will be a better idea. Flooded with them hundreds 15:07, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

It was developed here on this very talk page so maybe that's why it looks like talk page content. These are reviewer instructions or suggestions. One clear problem with having them on the talk page is that then there's nowhere to discussed proposed changes to these instructions. I have some sympathy for your, we don't usually... justification. We also don't usually put instructional stuff on talk pages. Somewhere in Wikipedia: space would be appropriate for this sort of material. Maybe a subpage of Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation or Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Reviewing instructions. In either case we'd want to link to it from Category:AfC submissions with the same name as existing articles and so I thought it would simpler to just put it there in the first place. ~Kvng (talk) 17:41, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Should I revert it? Flooded with them hundreds 07:56, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

As User:Kvng says, those instructions were developed on this talk page, that is, WT:AFC, ,mostly by me, to discuss how to deal with them, not in a category page or a category talk page. When they were copied from here to the category page as instructions from the reviewer, that was fine with me. Moving them to the category talk page is also fine, but it would then be helpful for the category to say to look to the talk page. The best answer, it seems to me, would be to create a project help subpage for them, and to have the category say to see them. As a project help subpage, they would have their own talk page. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:49, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't have a strong opinion about where this content lives. What I do have a strong opinion about is edits that change stuff but regress or make no clear net improvement. So either revert it or implement one of the other suggestions discussed here - presuming you can justify why that is better than what we had. Also, know that you've committed no foul in any of this. My moving that content to the category page was a clear net improvement over having it roll into the archive of this talk page but it was not a beautiful thing. I support WP:BOLD edits and we're just doing a healthy WP:BRD cycle here. ~Kvng (talk) 18:31, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

I've created the help page - Wikipedia:Processing drafts with duplicate titles. Flooded with them hundreds 08:03, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Please be on the lookout at new drafts for Pavan Kumar N R or similar, and notify an admin

An IP is asking for the FP to be removed from the multiple deleted Pavan Kumar N R. My answer was 'No', because the article, a highly promotional piece masquerading as a BLP, is the subject of persistent socking by a large sock farm and attempts to create/re-create the article by hijacking other articles. The master account, the eponymous SPI, is globally locked across all Wikimedia projects. I have blocked this IP, and in any case, IPs (and new users) can't create articles. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:05, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Pending AfC submissions without a section

Category:Pending AfC submissions without a section can be populated by pending submissions that do not have any sections. It may be helpful for reviewers to quickly find one-liner or nonsensical drafts because most of the time sectionless submissions are likely of poor quality and thus non-approvable. Consensus is needed to implement. Flooded with them hundreds 20:18, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

The full discussion is here. Primefac (talk) 20:22, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

What is the definition of the number of sections? Is that the number of headings marked off with equal signs? If so, I agree that a submission that has no sections is problematic. If so, it may be a valid stub where the submitter didn't enter the title as a heading, in which case it can be fixed, but, as noted by Flooded, is likely to be a one-liner or nonsense. If I understand it, it is a reasonable supplement to the category of less than 450 characters, and is not a substitute for that category, because they are two categories of usually useless submissions. So is it what I think it is? Robert McClenon (talk) 03:20, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

It's also worth noting that, due to MediaWiki technical limitations, the default process of submitting a draft adds a new section to the end (it's generally silently deleted by AFCH during the review/cleanup process). Therefore, a category indicating drafts without sections is going to almost always be empty, and even if you configure it to populate with drafts with less than two headers it's not going to have much value considering the number of stubs we process (and stubs aren't inherently a bad thing). I think the existing "drafts with less than 450 characters" is a much more useful category that already accomplishes what Flooded with them hundreds is trying to do here. Nathan2055^{talk - contribs} 04:41, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

The difference of this and the 450 one is that the latter can only find pages with less than 450 bytes but the former finds any pages without a section. This is helpful because sometimes a sectionless submission can be bigger than 450 bytes (i.e 5,000, 10,000) and problematic (i.e. copyvio, hoax, etc). Finding sectionless submissions can help in identifying, although subtly, users who know the proper formatting and novice editors who are likely not here. The number of sections can be adjusted to suit the technical limitations. Flooded with them hundreds 07:15, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

I still haven't gotten an answer. Are sections what are delimited by headers with equal signs? Also, is it correct that the submission process creates a section? If so, should there be a category that selects drafts with zero or one sections? If one is written, I am willing to alpha test it. (Between 2004 and 2014, I was primarily a software tester.) Robert McClenon (talk) 18:34, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

If Article Wizard is used, only the references section is added to the submission. With the regular {{subst:submit}}, no section is added. Setting it to <2 might solve this as only pages with one or zero section are added to the category. I'm not sure what you mean by "sections what are delimited by headers with equal signs". Flooded with them hundreds 04:06, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

What is a section and how is it delimited? This is a serious question, because I thought I knew, but maybe I don't know. I am inferring that a section is created by the wiki software by having a heading that is delimited with "=" or "==" or "===" or "====" or "=====" (and presumably with turtles all the way down - I've never tried "======"). If that isn't what a section is, will someone please tell me what a section is? When I know what a section is, I will have a better idea of what the query does. I know how the 450 query works. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:54, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

According to Help:Section#Creation and numbering of sections, section is the level two heading (==S==) and this implementation means only pages without the level two heading are shown ({{NUMBEROFSECTIONS}}). Flooded with them hundreds 07:59, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Diotima's Ladder of Love

Why is this draft listed? It appears to have sections. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:55, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

User:Flooded with them hundreds - Please advise. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:02, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

I don't know! Maybe more needs to be done to fix the issue. Flooded with them hundreds 11:37, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Not Useful Category

I have seen the result of listing the submissions that are in the category. It isn't useful. Most of them appear to have content, and some have lengthy content and detail and will require a detailed assessment. It isn't a useful category for getting a short list of submissions that need deleting. Was it meant to have some other use? Robert McClenon (talk) 09:18, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

It is an experiement. It is picking up short pages but they get actioned quickly so what is left in the category are longer pages with more substantive content. Legacypac (talk) 20:02, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

It may be a reasonable experiment that does not need to be pursued further. It does pick up a lot of crud, but it also picks up drafts by authors who don't use sections. It also has at least one bug, and it isn't clear to me that it is worth pursuing the experiment aggressively. That is my opinion. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:02, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

This category is helpful because it finds promotional pages like User:Machint/sandbox (2,000+ bytes) that aren't tracked in the 450 bytes category. Flooded with them hundreds 13:33, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost WikiProject Report

Hello everyone,

I'm going to be writing the WikiProject Report for the next issue of the Signpost. I'm really in need of a WikiProject that I know is active, like this one (ironically, I got no replies at WikiProject Editor Retention). If you'd be okay with answering a few general questions about reviewing (this won't be an interrogation), please reply or ping me and I'll get you set up. visit this page and click the link at top(20:20, 4 December 2018 (UTC)) Thanks a lot! programmingGeek(talk, contribs) 16:58, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

I have one participant already, but there's no limit as to how many editors can be interviewed. If you'd like to answer questions, just visit this page and click the big friendly link at the top. Thanks. programmingGeek(talk, contribs) 20:19, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

RfC: Future of Category:Articles created via the Article Wizard?

I would like to propose that we delete Category:Articles created via the Article Wizard because this is useless tracking and it already has over 40,000 pages which don't need to be tracked. ArticleWizard is the process that many new editors use to create new articles or new drafts for articles and it is pointless to track this. Two years ago, Commons got rid of a similar category that tracked images uploaded with UploadWizard. It is just useless to track pages created with the ArticleWizard. I recently got rid of Category:Unreviewed new articles created via the Article Wizard over two weeks ago and that was useless tracking as well. There was a CfD at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 February 4#Category:Articles_created_via_the_Article_Wizard over four and half years ago and at that time, AfC wasn't that stabilised but now it is. There are over 40,000 pages which don't need to be tracked with this category and 109 useless monthly subcategories of this category that are being tracked at Category:Userspace drafts created via the Article Wizard that don't need to be tracked. A lot has change in the last four and a half years and Category:Articles created via the Article Wizard as well as Category:Userspace drafts created via the Article Wizard is at a very unmanageable size. We don't need tracking for every single page that is created through the ArticleWizard and that category is just indefinitely growing. Instead of taking it straight to CfD, I decided to open a RfC here and it is big and has been there for over nine years. Pkbwcgs (talk) 11:57, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

I have come up with some options:

• Option A - Delete this category, Category:Userspace drafts created via the Article Wizard and Wikipedia:Article wizard/version1/List of articles created by the article wizard. because there is no point tracking Article Wizard usages anymore
• Option B - Delete this category but keep Category:Userspace drafts created via the Article Wizard because monthly tracking of Article Wizard is useful and Wikipedia:Article wizard/version1/List of articles created by the article wizard. because historical usages of Article Wizard is useful to retain
• Option C - Leave both categories and Wikipedia:Article wizard/version1/List of articles created by the article wizard. as it is
• Option D - Delete this category and Category:Userspace drafts created via the Article Wizard and track the usage of Article Wizard at Wikipedia:Article wizard/version1/List of articles created by the article wizard. instead
• Option E - Merge the pages from Wikipedia:Article wizard/version1/List of articles created by the article wizard. into Category:Articles created via the Article Wizard and delete Wikipedia:Article wizard/version1/List of articles created by the article wizard.
• Option F - Deprecate the usage of Category:Articles created via the Article Wizard and redirect it to Wikipedia:Article wizard/version1/List of articles created by the article wizard. where all future tracking of Article Wizard is going to go to
• Option G - Deprecate the usage of Category:Articles created via the Article Wizard and redirect it to Category:Userspace drafts created via the Article Wizard and the monthly usage of Article Wizard will be tracked there
• Option H - Delete this category and keep Category:Userspace drafts created via the Article Wizard because monthly tracking of Article Wizard is useful but delete Wikipedia:Article wizard/version1/List of articles created by the article wizard. because there is no point retaining old usages of Article Wizard
• Option I - Delete this category and Category:Userspace drafts created via the Article Wizard but keep Wikipedia:Article wizard/version1/List of articles created by the article wizard. because there is no point tracking Article Wizard usages today but historical usages can still be retained as they are useful to Wikipedia

Pkbwcgs (talk) 07:58, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Survey

• Option C, which doesn't change anything, since after asking what the reason is for the proposed change four days ago, I haven't gotten an answer. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:21, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Threaded Discussion

Leave it alone and stop looking at it. It has uses that you don’t imagine or don’t value. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:58, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

User:Pkbwcgs - Is there any harm in keeping it? This is a serious question. There seems to be sometimes an attitude in Wikipedia that getting rid of something because we don't know what it does or don't think it does anything is a step forward. Is it a step forward? Does an unused category do any harm? Robert McClenon (talk) 01:29, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

• In userspace the tracking helps in cleanup (deleting problematic pages) and users looking for useful pages to send to mainspace. These are the only categories that some of these pages are even in so should be retained. I don't know the use of the mainspace cat for created by the article wizard. Seems pretty useless to me. Legacypac (talk) 02:35, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
  • I have used it for random spot checking of old AfC articles. I'm sure others can do more rigorous surveys. Tracking information is useful, even if tracking is not for everyone. The category is appropriately a hidden category, there is nothing to fix. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:49, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

• This seems like another "if it's not broke, don't fix it" proposal. It's not inherently harming anyone (it's a hidden category, so nobody will even see it unless they're logged in with "view hidden categories" turned on) and it's useful for tracking purposes, as others have discussed. I say keep it, unless an actual reason beyond "it's growing in size indefinitely" can be given. So is almost every other tracking category we have, that's not a reason to delete them all. Nathan2055^{talk - contribs} 04:29, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
  • I don't know what useful tracking is in that category but it is growing by an average of 100 pages a day but over 40,650 pages is a lot in that category and it is huge. Pkbwcgs (talk) 07:53, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
    • User:Pkbwcgs - If the category is huge, a key question is whether it has a global performance impact. First, is there any background process (run without human action) that will have an adverse global impact due to the size of the category? Second, is there any user action (such as transclusion, or such as issuing a command) that will have a global impact, as opposed to a local impact on the user, due to the size of the category? (I have personal experience in this area. See User:Robert McClenon/Oversized Queries.)
    • User:Pkbwcgs - Is there any process or action that causes either all of the articles or a list of the articles to be loaded into memory on the database server? If so, that is a problem. One possible action that should be considered is substituting (rather than transcluding) a template that contains the category. If the articles or a list of the articles are loaded in the web browser, that should only affect the user who is performing the action. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:34, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
      • @Robert McClenon: There is something which hasn't been raised which is the use of this category. So far, no one told me a good use for this category. If there is a good use for this category then perhaps I can close this RfC. The only thing for this category is some useless tracking of pages created using the ArticleWizard and nothing else. Many users use the Article Wizard and there is no need to track it by listing every page that has been created using the ArticleWizard in the form of a category. Who would want this information? Pkbwcgs (talk) 17:42, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
        • • User:Pkbwcgs - You have been told that there are some uses for the category. You don't consider them to be useful uses, but their uses consider them to be useful uses. You haven't yet however answered my question. If the category has no useful uses (but it does) and does no harm, why run the risk of accidentally breaking something? Robert McClenon (talk) 18:30, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
            • @Robert McClenon: I found some good uses for Category:Userspace drafts created via the Article Wizard and that I can find stale drafts easier with that category. I would support keeping Category:Userspace drafts created via the Article Wizard but is the deletion of a category called Category:Articles created via the Article Wizard going to affect Category:Userspace drafts created via the Article Wizard? Pkbwcgs (talk) 18:50, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
    • Being very large is not in itself a problem. If there is a Wikipedia:Performance problem, someone who knows will tell us. One could say that all of the wiki category system is primitive and defective, however, see Wikipedia:Category_intersection#Tools_currently_available for a variety of tools and tricks to extract all sorts of things. Deletion would be destructive, and no support, i.e.oppose any fiddling of the category unless done by experienced category editors via a WP:CfD proposal. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:52, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
    • Consider Category:Redirects from moves by analogy. That category is also growing indefinitely every time we move a page and leave a redirect behind. Does that mean we should get rid of that category? Of course not. So for the same reason, we should not get rid of Category:Articles created via the Article Wizard without providing a better reason than that. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 21:42, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
• Solution looking for a problem. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:07, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Were the Submissions really that low?

User:Primefac/AFCStats which I look at each month to see the reason for our backlog going up or down, seems to be indicating that the submission total was vastly smaller - 3400 in November vs 9000 in October. It's not yet fully been updated, so it's possible that was a half-way count or such, but I was wondering whether that might tally with what other people might have seen?

Nosebagbear (talk) 21:31, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

We were moving towards a backlog drive and then reviewers were able to widdle things down to about 1000-1200 entries in queue where it has remained steady for the last week or so. --CNMall41 (talk) 21:38, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

I can't confirm the numbers but a good way to reduce submissions is to CSD, MfD, and reject more aggressively. It really cuts down the resubmissions. Legacypac (talk) 21:43, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

I'll echo that. I try to clear out as many recently submitted ones that I can (no references, promotional tone, etc.) to try to keep the queue manageable. I've seen a lot of deletion requests from your end for the same (advertorial, etc.). --CNMall41 (talk) 21:44, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

• I think that the rejection feature is helping; I'm not seeing drafts that have been resubmitted two, three, four times any more. Fewer resubmissions mean fewer total submissions. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:32, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
• Honestly, I stopped keeping track about ten days into November (hence the lower total count, but per-day is actually higher). If you look at the October numbers, you'll see that reviewers did about 2k more reviews than there were submissions, and this trend held in November as well until the numbers dropped back to the 1k range. Primefac (talk) 12:16, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Test Edits

Should test edits be Declined or Rejected?

I think that blank submissions should be declined, because they might have been submitted by mistake. Offensive submissions should be rejected and then tagged for speedy deletion as G3. My question is about test edits. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:44, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, Depends on what kind of test. For the kind of test that was a mistake, it is unlikely that they will submit again anyway. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 10:24, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

User:Insertcleverphrasehere - Usually they are obviously meant as tests, such as entering random text, or entering "Hello", or entering the name of a soft drink, or whatever. Should they be declined or rejected?

Also, what about attempts to communicate with someone about some issue in Wikipedia? (Communicating with the world about some real-world issue is [[WP:POLEMIC|a polemic and can be rejected as contrary to the purpose of Wikipedia.) Robert McClenon (talk) 16:55, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

My question basically has to do with stupid stuff that isn't clearly against the purpose of Wikipedia and doesn't even involve notability, because there are at present only two main reasons to reject. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:55, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, I don't think it matters, but when the title is something plausible I'd lean toward 'decline' as they might come back and actually write an article, and if they don't, they are unlikely to re-submit. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 16:57, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

User:Insertcleverphrasehere - I agree as to the title, which can be either the title of the subpage or the dummy title line at the bottom of the page. If the title is plausible, then allow resubmission if it is clearly not a real submission. If the title is plausible and it is a real submission and a case of no credible claim of significance, reject for notability. The converse seems to be that if there is nothing that can be construed as a title, it doesn't matter unless it needs rejecting for G3, G10, or G11. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:08, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Almost all the "tests" I find are blank or nearly blank. If in a samdbox I don't even decline I just remove the AfC template. If a Draft page I tag speedy as a test edit Legacypac (talk) 18:26, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Rejection is now in the main script

The rejection feature is now in the gadget, so you don't need User:Enterprisey/afch-dev.js installed anymore. I also put the guidance for rejection discussed earlier into the reviewing instructions, reproduced below for convenience:

Drafts on topics entirely unsuitable for Wikipedia should be rejected. Rejection is a good choice when the page would be uncontroversially deleted if it were an article, for example if the page would be an overwhelming "delete" at AfD. If a draft meets one of the CSD criteria that aren't for articles, an appropriate CSD tag should be added in addition to rejecting.

Happy reviewing! Enterprisey (talk!) 00:12, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Thank-sou so much. I was never able to make the patch work anyway so this is much better. Legacypac (talk) 22:03, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

@Enterprisey: I'm finding that, even if I select "decline", that it's marking the articles as "rejected" instead. I've tried three times to "decline" Draft:David M. Graziano for being written like an advertisement, but each time, despite checking the "declined" option, it's showing up as rejected. Is the intention that certain "decline" rationales automatically get promoted to "reject"? --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 23:40, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Ahecht, which steps are you taking that result in the draft being incorrectly rejected? Enterprisey (talk!) 00:55, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

@Enterprisey: I hit Decline/Reject, I made sure the "decline" radio button was selected, I choose the reason from the drop-down, and I hit "decline submission". I tried it again now with another article from another computer and it seemed to work, so it may be a browser incompatibility (I was using a computer that only had IE11 on it earlier today). I'll give the other computer another shot tomorrow. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 04:11, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

I think it's an IE issue too. Unfortunately some of us are forced to use Microsoft browsers (not to mention Sharepoint and all the other things Microsoft badly stealscreates) at work, due to deals Microsoft does with many workplaces. Iffy★Chat -- 09:19, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

@Enterprisey: I just tried those same steps again on the IE11 computer and it resulted in a reject, not a decline, on Draft:Toni Crichton. If you can't identify a workaround, you might want to at least have the script disable the decline/reject function on IE11 (similar to how editProtectedHelper does). I wouldn't be using IE11 on this computer if I had a choice, but alas, I don't. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:51, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Ahecht, I'll test this out when I can get my hands on an IE setup, probably sometime over the weekend. For now, a version without rejection has been uploaded at User:Enterprisey/afch-old.js. Enterprisey (talk!) 22:54, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

@Ahecht: Fixed it for you, no bug on my side. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 23:44, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Legacypac, thanks! PrussianOwl (talk) 02:47, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Draft Diff Issues

The fairly recent helpful "Draft Diff" addition seems to have been playing up recently - frequently not detecting a past review of a draft, despite between 1 to 3 prior reviews. I don't think it happens on every draft but on most.

I was hoping to check a) Whether other people are having the same issue b) If someone with the knowhow can see if the script is playing up?

Cheers Nosebagbear (talk) 23:19, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

AFC Submissions Without Sections - False Positives

The category of AFC submissions without sections has occasional false positives, that is, it includes AFC submissions that have sections. I think that these are bugs. I don't know whether the bugs are in the category itself or in the software behind the category, although I think in the software behind the category. To whom should these bugs be reported? The developer of the category? Is that User:Flooded with them hundreds? They may then need to be reported to the WMF developers. What is the procedure?

Robert McClenon (talk) 03:51, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

See Draft:Domestic & General.

See Draft:Ken O'Rourke (hair stylist).

See Draft:2017 General Assembly election for New Jersey's 24th District.

These are showing up in the list of drafts without sections, but they have sections. Robert McClenon (talk) 07:39, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

{{NUMBEROFSECTIONS}} is broken, according to Primefac. Something needs to be fixed in the module and a Phabricator report should be filed to get someone to do something about it. Flooded with them hundreds 07:55, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Looks like it was a parser function error, actually; this edit seems to have fixed the issue. Primefac (talk) 12:13, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Is Phabricator the bug tracking system? Can editors use it to file reports (or is limited to editors with certain privileges)? Robert McClenon (talk) 16:58, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

The category is now empty. Is that a correct result of the bug fix? Were all of the listings in it incorrect? Robert McClenon (talk) 16:59, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

I believe so. The platform is used for making bug reports and feature requests. Anyone can use it but an account is needed either via SUL or manual registration. Fred Gandt seemed to have been working on this in the past few days but said he's unable to find a solution. Flooded with them hundreds 09:22, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Still a False Positive

See Draft:Omaha We Don't Coast.

See Draft:Hugo "Juice" Tandron Jr.

See Draft:Department of Classics, King's College London

Robert McClenon (talk) 20:19, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

 Fixed by this adition of a function to unescape certain character entities with inspiration from Johnuniq during this conversation. Bear in mind though, that its current usage will categorize pages with improper sections like a bunch of <h1>...</h1>s or <h3>...</h3>s. If it's prefered that only pages with absolutely no sections are categorized, the specificity of |levels= will be required. Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 09:10, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Sectionless Category - Again

I have a few more comments on the category of submissions without sections.

First, it is now coming up with three templates in the list. Perhaps the query should be tweaked so that it doesn't include anything that is in template space.

Second, it is returning some submissions that do not have a second-level header (a section) but may have one or more third-level headers (subsections). Am I correct that they should be improved by inserting a second-level heading, unless they call for straight-off rejection anyway? I haven't yet seen any submissions that do not have any sections but that do have a first-level heading, but I have seen those in the past. I assume that the proper action then is to downgrade that heading to second-level.

Third, there are also some submissions where the author doesn't know how to use wikimarkup for headings, and has used some sort of manual formatting, such as manual bold face. I comment on them {{subst:seemark}} to give instructions on improving the formatting.

Fourth, one could in theory find a submission that doesn't show any sections but is otherwise ready for acceptance either as a stub or otherwise. In that case, fix the formatting as required and accept it. I haven't seen that, but it could happen, at least with a stub.

Robert McClenon (talk) 20:16, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Obviously lack of sections is not a decline reason. Working correctly this should just flag pages that may be problematic. Legacypac (talk) 21:10, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

A draft may be categorized as not having sections for at least two reasons. First, it doesn't have sections. Second, it is erroneously tagged as not having sections. The latter is not a reason to do anything to it, positive or negative. The former may either indicate a very incomplete draft that should be rejected, or may simply mean that the draft needs editing for proper mark-up. I think that is what User:Legacypac has said. If it works correctly, it flags pages that may be problematic, but may or may not need to be declined or rejected. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:48, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

It has 35 pages in the category now. The number of pages in the category fluctuates wildly. Maybe it should be used for gambling. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:48, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Now it is at 23. Are they really being worked off, or does the nature of the test vary? Robert McClenon (talk) 19:17, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm targeting them as part of a process to understand how this tagging works or does not work. Legacypac (talk) 19:42, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

User:Legacypac - If that means that you are doing semi-systematic testing, then thank you. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:23, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Templates being included is also (see thread above)  Fixed as of this edit. See note in thread above for details regarding only a lack of <h2>...</h2> sections being a trigger for categorization; this could be addressed by specifying which |levels= {{NUMBEROFSECTIONS}} looks for if desired. Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 09:20, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Edit summary for decline and reject notifications

Previously, when declining a submission, the edit summary for the user talk page notification says "Notification: Your Articles for Creation submission has been declined (AFCH 0.9)". Now it simply says "declined (AFCH 0.9.1)" regardless of whether one chooses to decline or reject the submission (Example: Special:Diff/872514127). This edit summary bug should be fixed. In particular, the edit summary should say "Notification: Your Articles for Creation submission has been declined (AFCH 0.9.1)" or "Notification: Your Articles for Creation submission has been rejected (AFCH 0.9.1)" instead, exactly as it did in version 0.9. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 22:00, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I am aware of this bug; I looked into it for an hour or so recently but got nowhere, but will try and fix it in the next few days. It's not too terrible of a bug, but it is an inconvenience. My bad. Enterprisey (talk!) 23:13, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Technical issue -- reject vs decline

With the new beta version of this script, when I decline a submission, the "reject=yes" parameter is being added to the AFC template, which I would expect only if I choose the "decline" option. This seems like a bug in the script. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 12:59, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

WikiDan61, which browser are you using? Enterprisey (talk!) 22:43, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

@Enterprisey: I use IE11 at work (not my choice!). I understand there is a bug in the script related to IE11. Hoping it can be fixed. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 01:16, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Is this process broken?

Here is a draft that is clearly notable and encyclopedic, has 22 high quality citations, and is better than 99.9% of the articles in Wikipedia, yet it failed AfC review and has been rotting in Draft namespace for a year and a half. Something is seriously broken with this process if drafts that are obviously notable and high quality (and would be snowball kept at AfD) can't be moved to mainspace. Is this example just an anomaly or a symptom of a larger problem? Kaldari (talk) 19:31, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Courtesy ping for Eddie891, as they reviewed that draft --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 19:44, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Kaldari, as the last external link on the page says, this was a student project in April 2017. The student never came back to edit again after the request that each section have a reference. Student articles are often graded in Draft and never returned to again. We tend to review at AfC as if we are encouraging ongoing editors. The original author is the best person to provide references for their work. The student process is getting better, though this time of year (end of semester) a lot ends up at AfD and a lot will be stranded in Draft. StarryGrandma (talk) 19:59, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi Kaldari,StarryGrandma Most of that seems to be process, and doesn't address the fact that a potentially decent article is sitting in Draft. After reviewing it, it would easy to add additional references in the four sections that don't have any. I dont mind adapting/ adopting the poor thing and cleaning it up once it is mainspace. If somebody could remove the redirect.scope_creep^Talk 20:23, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

scope_creep, it takes a lot of domain-specific knowledge to add references or do rewrites on articles while reviewing. Years ago I reviewed a lot. Now I review a few old technical articles a month, rewriting and adding references, because it is very time consuming. An editor can either keep up with reviewing or fix articles, but not both. The current goal at AfC is to get articles reviewed and back to editors in a timely manner. We could have an additional goal here of rescuing abandoned articles, but we don't. DGG is the only current rescuer I know of. Anne Delong rescued 1723 before going back to writing articles. StarryGrandma (talk) 20:49, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

@StarryGrandma: Personally, I don't think the function of draft review should be to encourage people to keep working on their draft until it is perfect. The purpose of draft review should be to keep bad content out of Wikipedia. If a draft has promise, we should move it to mainspace so that it can be improved by other editors and grow into a healthy article. It seems the standards we using are closer to the Good Article standards than the AfD standards. For example, does a draft really need to have citations for everything? Most articles don't. Kaldari (talk) 20:38, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Kaldari, I agree and we are much better than in 2017 in seeing that reviewers follow the "Avoid the following errors" section of the Reviewing instructions. Basically any form of referencing is acceptable. But we do expect editors to respond to reviews. However we don't have a process for going back over abandoned declined drafts. StarryGrandma (talk) 21:06, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

StarryGrandma, We have a process for that Wikipedia:WikiProject_Abandoned_Drafts. JC7V (talk) 00:57, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

The correct process is: 1. Should this be speedy deleted (G11, G12, G2, G3 usually) 2. Is this topic notable? Does is have some references? 3. If #2 is yes and yes the page should be accepted. Reviewers can not take the time to fix everything and should not be expected to. Legacypac (talk) 21:03, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Kaldari: The standard for accepted drafts at AfC is, and always has been, "likely to survive AfD": see the reviewer instructions. But yes, the process is broken. Reviewers are wildly inconsistent and there is little if any quality control. It's been like this for years. We just don't know how to fix it. – Joe (talk) 21:06, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Accepted and tagged, a quick action any of the above participants in this conversation could have easiliy done. -- Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 21:13, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

I agree that a lot of articles should be passed on sooner. If the article isn't a copyvio and isn't overly promotional, often a quick check with a search engine shows that there are a lot of references available online, so even if a reviewer doesn't want to take the time to add them, the article should be moved to mainspace for others to work on. In the past some AfC reviewers have been hesitant to be too lenient because they are criticized by other editors who check newly created articles. I'm sorry that I haven't been helping much at AfC lately, but I keep getting caught up working on the gazillion poor articles already in the encyclopedia.—Anne Delong (talk) 21:14, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Legacypac, I like your brief list, but I will add another criteria, especially for student work: "Is the material correct?" I've just run into a student who misread the sources. StarryGrandma (talk) 23:32, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Often an article will have a much better chance of passing afd if some improvements are made. This is especially true in areas where there is a certain degree of suspicion about new articles, such as commercial organizations, schools, community groups, and some types of bios. This often applies to removing promotionalism , but also to highlighting the factors that make for significance, or improving the presentation of the references that show notability , or removing POV material This can even extend to matters of presentation: people at AfD often do make snap judgements based on factors which seem to reflect the quality of the writing . I consider it responsible reviewing in such cases to either fix it somewhat or see that it gets fixed. If the contributor is still around, it is sometimes the best course to return it to them. This is of course more likely when reviewing is very prompt, and there has been a trend lates to do some reviewing as soon as possible , in addition to clearing the backlog. (This draft was not of that nature, and should have been accepted).

If I am going to make the improvements myself, I sometimes do it before accepting the draft, sometimes afterwards, sometimes both, for I tend to work in incremental steps. I will also sometimes make an obvious improvement in a draft I see but am not going to review because it is our of my field, or because someone else may have clearer opinion about it. I work at AfC, but I also work to improve articles generally. The important thing is not to hold up acceptance of articles over relatively minor points, especially minor points which merely reflect one's personal preferences

We are getting better. I see only half as much idiosyncratic reviewing as I did 2 years ago . One of the things I do is ry to call repeated errors to the attention of the reviewer, but this is something which if not handled just right can lead to unpleasantness or at least a long discussion--Ido it only for repeated errors by someone still quite active, and I do not have time & energy for this more than once a week or so. The 4 most important errors in reviewing at present, besides holding articles up for minor improvements, are:

• Using GNG instead of the WP:PROF criterion when applicable,
• insisting in inline refs for non-bios.
• not giving promotionalism and notability as reasons when both are applicable
• not recognizing when something has an article in another WP. It varies by language, but anything that can pass the very high notability standards of the German WP will pass ours, and this is often true for others. It should at least be a warnign against over-hasty rejection. DGG ( talk ) 00:19, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Another part of the problem is the G13 process itself. Some of the people doing many G13 deletions do not actually check the articles for whether they are rescuable--or even accepable as is. I don't like confrontation here, especially with people I know are unlikely to change, but I do try to persuade them a little sometimes, and have had some successes. DGG ( talk ) 00:19, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

• I don't think that the process is broken; we've recently made big strides in trimming the back of the backlog, so all drafts are reviewed within four weeks, which is a reasonable timeframe. Hopefully, the authors are still around. Many drafts are reviewed much faster than this.

Where we could use help is to have more reviewers, with experience in a variety of notability guidelines. For example, it's hard for me to judge notability of mathematics or physics topics, etc, while I feel fairly comfortable with ORG and BLP. It probably varies from reviewer to reviewer. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:23, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

• In 2017, I was a very inexperienced editor. I left the project in December 2017 I think, and re joined after becoming a new page patroller , contributing AfD, and having a better handle on notability. AntiCompositeNumber, thanks for the ping. I recognize that several of my declines back in early 2017 were ill-informed, and poorly educated, but I maintain that I have learned from my mistakes and now consider myself much more competent. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 03:07, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

• I used to strongly advise student work to avoid going through AFC, mainly because of it being incompatible with the usual college course timelines. I'm not sure if that's still an issue under the current AFC system/rules.

An issue I still feel strongly about is proper implementation of a draft sorting/tagging system to attract subject specialist reviewers. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:07, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Dodger67, First, yes I would still recommend good faith students avoid AfC like the plague. Despite efforts to clean up AfC, there is still a lack of multiple eyes on stuff, which leads to inconsistent treatment (some demand perfection, while others will do search for sources and accept anything that passes GNG based on what they find).

One of the things we requested for the new page feed improvements wish list was a keyword search function at Special:NewPagesFeed. This should be available to AfC as well once implemented and might serve the function you are requesting. The community Tech team will be working on it in the coming year. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 08:55, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Insertcleverphrasehere adding "class=Draft" to a Wikiproject banner has in my experience been almost useless, most projects don't notice them. I had in mind something based on the Stub sorting tags. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:48, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Dodger67, When I say keyword searching, it would work similarly to the New Page Patrol Browser keyword search. It would simply search the articles for key words. Clever thought about keywords can pretty easily find articles or drafts from certain categories without needing people to tag all the drafts (which simply isn't going to happen; it is too much work). — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 09:51, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

This draft was rejected basically because of a perceived quality issue. Some reviewers do not want to be responsible for moving rough material into mainspace. It will be difficult to change that. What we should be able to do is convince these quality-oriented reviewers not do decline these and let other reviewers handle flawed drafts. ~Kvng (talk) 15:59, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Students and AfC

Can we steer students away from AfC? The Wiki Education program's training materials teach students to use sandboxes and move finished articles themselves. Those students are under a fair amount of supervision and have access to help here. But there are definitely student assignments outside of the program. If students don't start the article on the day it is due maybe we can point them to the WikiEd training materials and send them off to their own sandboxes, telling them to come back to AfC after the work is graded. One can't always tell what is student work. It's the end of the semester and we've gotten three drafts on applications of optical coherence tomography - definitely a class. But in other areas it might be hard to tell. StarryGrandma (talk) 18:04, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Don't all student drafts have a WikiEd template on the talk page? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 22:06, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Only those whose courses are being run through WikiEd, and if they follow the training their contributions aren't here. We find that other instructors around the world assign writing Wikipedia articles. Sometimes students put something on their user or talk pages, or in the draft itself. StarryGrandma (talk) 22:23, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Here at the dashboard is a summary of the current Fall 2018 WikiEd students and their edits. Most classes will be over in a few days so this is nearly complete. StarryGrandma (talk) 22:53, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 13 December 2018

Kakaya WPHIMANGSHUBALLAVBARMAN (talk) 14:39, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Danski454 (talk) 14:41, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Completely Stupid Test Submissions

If a submission to AFC is completely pointless or stupid, check the edit history. Sometimes these turn out to be vandalism-only accounts. Often the vandalic edits have already been reverted, but it may be in order to report the account to the vandalism noticeboard as a Vandalism-Only Account. A stupid submission (even just "Hello World") may be a minor sign of a disrupter. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:47, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Changed user name

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

My user name changed from JaconaFrere to simply Jacona, and now the AFC helper script doesn't work..What do I need to do? Thanks! Jacona (talk) 14:08, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Your name needs updating on the protected userlist by an Admon which can be requested here Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation/Participants Legacypac (talk) 14:16, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Reviewer Failures

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Can a reviewer with half a brain please re-review Draft:GoRuck and not blindly quote non-applicable guidelines like HighKing did or hit the "I'm being lazy and decline for Advertising" that K.e.coffman did. Are we really being that lazy that editors are now declining for completely inappropriate reasons? I'm asking as it will help me justify the disbandment of AFC. Hasteur (talk) 01:38, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

not sure what percentage of a brain I have but I accepted it. Getting pages about businesses approved here is almost impossible. We might as well put up a notice "if this page is about a business just forget it". Legacypac (talk) 02:09, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

It is promotional, most of the business articles are promotional, due to the nature of the people who are writing it, and the budget constraints of the companies employing branding outfits. All of them are like that with exceptions as they are in the business of generating profit. For example looking at this one, Jason McCarthy founded the company to serve as-as voice for good, weasel words, launching a series of events to give back to the communities. What does that mean? It soft marketing meant to elicit an emotional response so you can buy their kit. The whole article is rank and is completely unencyclopedic. scope_creep^Talk 13:25, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

And true to class, all the references are blogs, press release and general churnalism. It is really not that decent. Not a single one passes WP:SIGCOV, and its fair shot at asserting WP:NCORP. I don't think it would be entirely true that no business articles are passing, there is quite a few articles that pass muster when they are written in an entirely neutral and factual manner. My experience is there is a genuine core of folk who really care about the businesses they are writing about and it is these that tend to be very well written and stand the test of time. scope_creep^Talk 13:41, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

@Scope creep: You're the kind of person I was referring to in my initial post as "with half a brain". You're quoting the policies without understanding them. You're looking for specific quoting without actually reading the references to see that (while yes some are overly promotional) others are completely neutral or independent people writing about their experiences. Surely you can accept that The Art of Manliness is an independent source of various rugged/outdoors/unique descriptions/experiences? What I'm trying to communicate (and you've chosen to paint over with broad brush strokes) is that in the whole it's already well above the WP:AFCR ruleset. Hasteur (talk) 14:00, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

@Hasteur: Possibly, but I don't think so. I take a lot of stuff to Afd. Most of my information comes from taking part in 1600 odd Afd's and dozens of visits to Reliable Sources to determine what can be used as a source. There is some coverage in the mainstream news about the events they are holding when they are marching to honour the American military, and eventually, that will be enough for an article, if they keep doing it. I've added a news reference for that march, and have taken out the blog references. The The Art of Manliness is not an independent source. It explicitly states that at Welcome to The Art of Manliness that it is blog. It is not under editorial control, meaning it is Non RS. I will check across at the Reliable Sources to make sure. scope_creep^Talk 14:25, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Its a blog. Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Art of Manliness It is a blog. scope_creep^Talk 14:35, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

It's a blog, but of a notable person who wad giving his review of an doing the event. If we were to disclude blogs because its a blog then many movie reviewers should be excised too.Hasteur (talk) 16:45, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

scope_creep has a point. The new WP:NCORP has raised the bar for articles about organizations. The fact that they're hard to get accepted here at AfC reflects what is happening at AfD. ~Kvng (talk) 15:53, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

With respect, please go back and read that policy you linked: WP:ORGCRIT says: A company, corporation, organization, group, product, or service is notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject. As I demonstrated significant coverage, in multiple reliable secondary sources, independent of subject. Hasteur (talk) 16:45, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have linked to WP:CORPDEPTH. Local news, anything that smells like a press release and any kind of blog are off the table for company articles. I have not looked at the sources in GoRuck but it looks like they're being looked at carefully in HighKing's AfD. ~Kvng (talk) 15:37, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

@Hasteur:, you should really have tagged K.e.coffman on this also. FWIW, NCORP had some clarification added earlier this year on the point of "independent" so that editors would clearly understand that Independent content, in order to count towards establishing notability, must include original and independent opinion, analysis, investigation, and fact checking that are clearly attributable to a source unaffiliated to the subject. A lot of so-called "independent" articles fail this test since the journalist/author relies on interviews/quotations/announcements with no indications whatsoever that there is an original and independent opinion/analysis/investigation or fact checking. I've pointed you several times to the applicable guidelines - you can't just pick and chose the parts of the criteria that you believe the references meet and ignore all the others that it doesn't. We're trying to help you understand the reasoning behind declining the draft and help you understand the types of references that are required to meet the criteria. I (and I'm sure others) have also searched for references that meet the criteria and am unable to do so. HighKing⁺⁺ 19:05, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

A Portrait of An Artist As a Young Wikipedia Article

Greetings, editors! I've recently joined this project. I was excited to see what encylopedic contributions newbie editors were offering to us. And I've seen one or two very interesting subjects covered, like Night of the Amazons (a 1930s Nazi summer festival with lots of nudity), and Efiewura, the longest running, and very popular TV show, in Ghaha. But mostly I am reminded of what I often saw and dreaded when I used to frequent AFD, or worked on sourcing BLPs with no sources a few years ago: the articles on the struggling artist/actor/dancer/author, filled with detail and non-independent sourcing. How do you editors handle such articles at AfC? Some of these folks likely are notable despite the too-long articles. Say, for instance, Draft:Lerato Shadi, there are some newspaper articles talking about her art, but's a lot of fluff on her beyond what independent secondary-sources have cited. Deny, or approve, and hope someone improves the article later? In the case of Draft:Valentina Lombardo, though, I declined as being full of sources that don't show notability, and a few stray newspaper mentions are not enough. These are articles I would never write, and usually no one would write until the person was actually "famous", except for their friend who thought they merited a wikipedia article. These are articles are all coming from first time editors, almost surely "the only time I'll ever write an article" people. Do you err in favor of "approval" or "denial"? I'd love to deny the lot unless they have a profile in the largest newspaper in their home country. (Yes, Efiewura is all over top Ghana media, and you can enjoy some episodes on youtube as well.) Thanks for any thoughts, or perhaps you'll refer me back to endless prior conversations on the same.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 22:49, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

The goal here is to accept stuff that would WP:LIKELY be kept at AfD. With your AfD experience you should know that if there are a ton of crappy sources and a lot of crappy content, the article should still be kept in most cases if the subject meets the respective WP:N criteria. This usually means digging through all the crappy sources in the draft to find the two or three reliable sources that demonstrate notability. And, yes, we expect the article to be improved at some point, that's why anyone can edit WP. ~Kvng (talk) 01:16, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

• Thanks for that input, Kvng. That gives me a bit more comfort if accepting something on a notable topic despite other flaws in the draft.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 18:45, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

St. Stephen's College, Balla Balla

May I ask who the author / editor is of the St Stephen's College, Balla Balla wikipedia content is. I am the Honorary President and Chairman of the St Stephen's College Old Boys Association based in Pinetown, KZN, Rep South Africa and would like to enter into diaogue with the author. Peter Morrissey (talk) 16:50, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Peter Morrissey, you can find that out by looking here. Primefac (talk) 17:41, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Category:Aliases of 76.66 has been nominated for discussion

Category:Aliases of 76.66, which is within the scope of this wikiproject, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 19:12, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

A question.

What should we, as reviewers, do when we disagree with a rejection and plus the user requested help on the Help Desk/there was some improvement? Should rejections be reverted, rejections turned to declines be removing the reject=yes line, articles resubmitted over the rejections, just leave it be regardless? Regards, Jovanmilic97 (talk) 20:11, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

I have removed a couple rejections already. I urge caution in rejecting too heavily. An early version was a template I started called "not suitable for Wikipedia" and the thought behind it was applying to pages that are total unnotable crap but not CSD eligible. Legacypac (talk) 22:07, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Exactly my opinion there. I also tend to shut down tendentious resubmissions with bare improvement (after 3-4 times). For example this one was rejected instantly at first, despite showing slight notability (not strong, but for sure not beyond saving) Draft:The Legend of Hallowaiian, the reject I demoted to a decline so it could be submitted. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 22:42, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Personally, I’m of the opinion that it should be policy not to reject on first decline, even if the subject is clearly non-notable. The policy was implemented mainly to deal with repeated resubmissions that don’t qualify for CSD, and I think that’s what its main use should be. People should have an opportunity to rework their declined drafts, the article writing process is pretty obtuse for new users and they deserve at least two shots to get a reasonable draft in before we bust out the more forceful no buttons. Nathan2055^{talk - contribs} 19:59, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Readd to active users.

I have been inactive a while, would like to do some AFC work again. I have 10 years experience and 25k or so edits and 100 or so articles written. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 19:09, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Welcome back! Out of curiosity, when did you last do AFC? I don't see you on the inactive list. Primefac (talk) 19:16, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

I didn't either which I thought was odd. Here is the last one I did, it's been a while [6] Hell in a Bucket (talk) 19:20, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

 Done. Welcome back. Primefac (talk) 21:02, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Rejection - Which reason ?

Have any reviewers encountered any submission that they wanted to Reject, but were not sure whether they could fit it in under Not Notable or Contrary to the Purpose of Wikipedia? I have sometimes encountered completely stupid submissions and, perhaps because I take both Not Notable and Contrary to the Purpose literally, had trouble assigning a reason to Reject. I don't want to say Not Notable for something that isn't an encyclopedic draft at all, and I don't want to say Contrary to the Purpose for something that isn't actually vandalism or spam. Is it easier for other reviewers, or does someone have advice? Robert McClenon (talk) 02:08, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

• I would go with the latter. "Completely stupid submissions" are contrary to the purpose of an encyclopedia :). --K.e.coffman (talk) 17:00, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

But how can rejecting a submission as completely stupid be reconciled with the commandment, which has come to exceed the status of Wikipedia policies, that one must not bite the newcomers? Robert McClenon (talk) 19:15, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

It is kinder to subject the page and the creator to a week at MfD. Legacypac (talk) 19:40, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

• I don't think anybody would put "this submission is stupid" in the comment window. The rejection notice is worded neutrally; I don't see a rejection in this case as biting the newcomers. --K.e.coffman (talk) 17:55, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
  • No. Rejection is not biting the newcomer. It is saying that the submission is stupid that is biting the newcomer. But I, for one, won't reject a submission without entering any comment, because I don't think either Not Notable or Contrary to Purpose of Wikipedia is self-explanatory in itself. On notability, in the rare case that I reject a draft, I cite the notability guideline that it doesn't meet, and that it doesn't make a credible claim of significance. On Contrary to the Purpose, I want to cite one of the Not guidelines. That was my whole point. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:29, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
• @Robert McClenon: Ah, I see. I think either of these three could work, depending on the circumstances:

• Wikipedia:Wikipedia is an encyclopedia
• Wikipedia:No original research
• Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not

For behavioural issues, Wikipedia:Here to build an encyclopedia probably works. In some extreme cases, Wikipedia:Competence is required may be applicable, but I would reserve it for ppl who are being disruptive. I've not had to use NOTHERE and CIR yet; these issues can be generally handled via CSD / MFD, because NOTHERE editors typically create drafts that suffer from both promotionalism and lack of notability. --K.e.coffman (talk) 04:49, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

• I suggest replacing "Contrary to the Purpose" with "Not suitable". Keep it simple. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:42, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

"Exists" seems like a very good third reason to reject. Legacypac (talk) 06:01, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

No, "Exists" is a very good reason to speedy redirect with "exists" as the edit summary. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:17, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Disagree with both. "Exists" is already a perfectly good reason to decline a draft. It may or may not be a redirect. It is only a redirect if the reviewer has determined that either the draft duplicates the article, or the draft contains nothing that isn't in the article. In those cases, it is a redirect. In some cases, the draft either is better than the article, or contains some information that is not in the article. In those cases, the existing decline advises the submitter to edit the article, and in those cases, I add a comment asking the submitter to review and improve the article. I have also occasionally added a comment to the article talk page asking to review the draft and see if it contains information that should be added. To Reject a draft because the article exists is really pointlessly harsh. I would say that it is bitey except that I dislike the rule against biting the newcomers, because it has been carried out of proportion. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:49, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

I prefer Contrary to the Purpose. Some things that are simply Not Suitable can be declined and improved. Rejection should be for crud, not for flawed submissions. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:49, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

A reject for Exists need not be harsh, but if it exists there is no reason to improve and resubmit the page. That was my point. Legacypac (talk) 02:55, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

My point is that any Reject is harsh. The Decline reason of 'exists' provides an explanation saying that the user can improve the existing page. It is sort of a rejection because it is not suggesting a resubmit, but it doesn't just tell the editor to go away. Reject does tell the editor to drop the subject, which is correct for something that is inherently non-notable or is contrary to the purpose of Wikipedia. If we were to make Exists be a reason for Rejection, it would be necessary to make other changes to the the dialog to encourage editing the article, etc. If we are looking to incremental changes to the Decline/Reject interface, rather than another rewrite, 'exists' should continue to be handled as a Decline. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:53, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

It's a little harsh, but what else can we do? MfD is harsh, CSD is harsh, in the end they aren't that different. A reject with a nicely-worded comment and advice for future improvement is the best of bad options, in my opinion. PrussianOwl (talk) 22:04, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

User:PrussianOwl - I don't understand the context. MFD and CSD and Reject are harsh. MFD and CSD are meant to be harsh. Reject for notability or for inconsistency with Wikipedia should be harsh. Since the Decline option for 'Exists' works fine, I don't see why we need to change to using a Reject for 'Exists'. If we have decided, over the past months, that the wording of Decline is unacceptably saccharine, why not change the wording of Decline rather than shifting things to Reject? Robert McClenon (talk) 02:25, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

If we get Draft:Foo and Foo exists why give new editor the option to resubmit? It does not need tk be a harsh reject, but a clear one. Legacypac (talk) 02:34, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

I think of it like this. If Draft:Foo will never become an article, it would be way nicer in the long run, if a bit harsh in the moment, to use some form of a reject, rather than wasting everyone else's time and effort, especially the original/submitting contributor. If we can explain in a way that doesn't come off bitey why their proposed page won't work, everyone will be happier and time/effort will be saved. A decline, becoming two declines, becoming five declines and an editor who leaves in frustration, instead of a reject is way worse for everyone involved. Honesty is the best policy, after all. PrussianOwl (talk) 21:20, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

User:Legacypac,User:PrussianOwl - I see. Your concern is about the standard language with Decline, and that it implies the possibility of resubmit. First, I have not known of a case where an editor tried to resubmit after a Decline for 'exists'. This does not mean that it hasn't happened. Second, in that case, if we add 'Exists' as a reason for Reject, we need to make the specific language be encouraging, about editing the article, rather than harsh. We will now be using Reject for two different cases, where we want the submitter to go away, and where we want the submitter to help us in a different way; We need to appreciative in the specific language then, because the general language is and should be harsh. However, I think that the two of you are trying to solve a non-problem of the risk of a resubmit on 'Exists'. I haven't seen it happen. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:18, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

I agree that I haven't ever seen someone resubmit a draft declined as already existing, but I'm talking about the other cases in which the subject just isn't notable/is spam, or the subject is theoretically notable but the article is too poorly written/has too few references and there isn't momentum to improve. The trick is to tell them why their proposed draft doesn't hold up without driving them away if they aren't just a spammer. PrussianOwl (talk) 00:49, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

WP:NPP Curation Tool Gone

I shrank the curation dialog and now it has dissapeared. How do I get it back. Thanks. scope_creep^Talk 17:28, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

I got it back in less than 60 seconds. scope_creep^Talk 17:29, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Highbeam

So, I was looking for references for an AfC and clicked on the Highbeam link under the editor resources. This page explaining that Highbeam doesn't exist anymore popped up. Now I don't know what if any agreement we had with Highbeam but someone might want to see if it transferred over to the successor Questia. Whispering^(t) 17:44, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Highbeam has closed and the consequences have been discussed here. Thincat (talk) 22:13, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Repeated Resubmission Question

This is a question about repeated resubmission, in particular of Leonid Afremov and Draft:Leonid Afremov and what to do next. I found a biography of a living person of this artist in a sandbox and moved it to draft space. I then saw that it had been deleted 5 times, mostly as G12. So the next step was to search for copyvio, and it is a copyvio from the artist's web site. That is a straightforward G12 nomination yet again. The question is whether there is anything I can do next. The submitter is a single-purpose account, but has no history other than submitting this draft, so that the submitter looks like a sockpuppet of a previous submitter, who may have been blocked or may have gotten tired of the warnings. However, since the previous versions of the BLP have been deleted, I can't see who originally submitted them, and so can't identify a sockmaster. Is there a next step, or do we just have to put up with spamming under the radar? Robert McClenon (talk) 16:42, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon: next time the draft or mainspace article re-appears nominate it for XfD before anyone tags it for speedy deletion, and in your nomination request for the title to be salted? Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 09:01, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, Galobtter's protection of the title (after your post) in draft & mainspace should help quite a lot. If it's still a problem, I'd ask them or one of the other admins who've dealt with the article/draft recently to check the deleted versions. Afremov's the earliest related editor I found; they also uploaded pictures of Leonid Afremov to Commons, but unless they worked on the most recent version, it won't be any help in a potential SPI. Some of the other editors can be found in these search results. Cheers, BlackcurrantTea (talk) 12:53, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Question

Where do I apply to be an AFC reviewer? Kamafa Delgato _(Lojbanist)^{Styrofoam is not made from kittens.} 22:23, 20 December 2018 (UTC).

Click this link programmingGeek(talk, contribs) 22:26, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Empty Inquiries

A lot of the posts to the AFC Help Desk are blank or otherwise are clueless. If there was a previous submission, it can at least be taken as a request to take another look at the submission, in which case maybe a restatement of the reason for the decline is in order. But my question is what should a reviewer do when both the submission and the question are blank. When a submission is blank, I have tried to say something to the effect of please ask for help if you are trying to submit a draft and are unable to do so. But in some cases it isn't clear whether the person is trying to do anything, or is just pushing buttons to see if they get help, but we don't know what they need help with. What do we, the reviewers, do with completely clueless editors other than ignore them? Robert McClenon (talk) 20:54, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Ignore. If someone can't post some text how to help them? Maybe we should remove blank requests? I do often review pages users post about even when there is no question but yes they must just be pushing buttons. Legacypac (talk) 21:33, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Maybe I am wasting my time even asking about such completely clueless users. It is said that, on the Internet, no one knows that you are a dog, but a few of them really seem like a monkey or two-year-old playing with the keys. (Dogs don't have monkey-fingers to play with a computer keyboard or smartphone keyboard, but a few users just act like babies with keyboards. Babies are more fun up close and personal.) Robert McClenon (talk) 21:55, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

There have always been some blank inquiries at the AfC help desk, but the percentage is way up since the adoption of rejection.

Before rejection became an option, the draft would have been declined. The main path forward from a decline is "Resubmit" (ideally after some attempt to improve the draft). The "ask us a question" path is followed less frequently. The main path forward from rejection is "Ask for advice". So rejection is likely to increase the number of help desk postings, and posters are likely to spend less time formulating a question ("Ask for advice", in a nutshell, is their question).

If, at the next screen of gobbledygook, they simply click "Publish changes", then an empty inquiry is posted. If their blank posting isn't answered promptly, or they miss the answer, they may return to their draft and click "Ask for advice" again, producing yet another blank question. If you have any opportunity to work with newbies in person, take it. It's instructive to watch otherwise intelligent people struggle with Wikipedia's quaint interface (not to mention its policies and guidelines). --Worldbruce (talk) 23:37, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Well, I don't find the interface to be quaint (except for its handling of edit conflicts, for which there is no right answer), and I find the policies and guidelines to be simply another set of rules that one should understand in a real workplace or electronic workplace, but I was an information technology engineer for 45 years. So I think that the thing about the interface is that it was designed by IT people for IT people. The main effort to design an interface for non-IT people, the Visual Editor, was a disaster, probably because the designers just guessed at what non-IT people wanted rather than using Human Factors people. I can try to explain the policies and guidelines, which make sense to me, but what does one do with people who just are blank about the interface? I have said from time to time that we need a meeting and greeting group of volunteers, and no one listens. Instead, volunteers dump on other volunteers for not being sufficiently welcoming. It is very much the Wikipedia way to dump on other volunteers for not doing enough. But maybe we need to be realistic and realize that people who go blank about the interface are people who have difficulty with information technology, and that we may be better off not to tie ourselves in knots trying to help them. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:25, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Indeed Worldbruce is correct - many of the blank help desk posts are for rejected drafts. Legacypac (talk) 23:46, 19 December 2018 (UTC).

Perhaps it would be beneficial to route them through a page explaining next steps before allowing them through to the helpdesk? A quick example page might be like the one here. programmingGeek(talk, contribs) 20:14, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

• This is indeed a useful page by ProgrammingGeek: User:ProgrammingGeek/AfC rejected. Perhaps, turn this into a project essay and route people there? K.e.coffman (talk) 01:06, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

January 2019 at Women in Red

January 2019, Volume 5, Issue 1, Numbers 104-108 Happy New Year from Women in Red! Please join us for these virtual editathons. January events: Women of War and Peace Play! January geofocus: Caucasus New, year-long initiative: Suffrage Continuing global initiative: #1day1woman2019 Help us plan our future events: Ideas Cafe To subscribe: Women in Red/English language mailing list and Women in Red/international list Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list Image attribution: Nevit Dilmen (CC BY-SA 3.0) --Rosiestep (talk) 17:40, 21 December 2018 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Category:AfC pending submissions by age issues....?

Hi, something seams to have gone wrong with the categorisation by age... I just picked a couple at random in two sections and all wrong...

• In 0 days ago

Draft:Denise Rosier submitted on the 19th Dec - but the cat on the draft is 4 days ago

Draft:American Society for Engineering Managment (ASEM) submitted 8th Dec - but the cat on the draft is 14 days ago

• In 12 days ago

Draft:Stefan Stanciu submitted 26th Nov - but the cat on the draft is 3 weeks ago

Draft:The Great Hotel submitted 6th Dec - but the cat on the draft is 17 days ago

Wondering if this is specific to these AfC cats, or if this is a bigger issue.... any ideas? Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 14:18, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

• I noticed that doing a null edit on the page fixed the issue, so I'm running a null edit update on all the pages (just stopped it as it had the wrong edit summary, and for some pages it is actually showing an edit if the page ends with a blank line, even though I'm just doing a load and save). It's already showing large changes, it was 0 over 3 weeks now 21, and was showing 26 in 3 weeks now 190. I though the backlog was looking a tad good these days :/ KylieTastic (talk) 16:34, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

  KylieTastic, User:Joe's Null Bot is supposed to go through all AfC pages and do a null edit every day, but unfortunately the way it did that was broken (see phab:T210307) so the categories stopped updating. Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:07, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

• Thanks Galobtter - KylieTastic (talk) 17:19, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

• I couldn't fix the issue why some articles would be loaded ending with a double linefeed but the save ignores, so I just did I final full run so at least we have an indication of age for now until the 1.32 update comes next year. Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 20:14, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

One solution is to go to the right little arrows and clean every page you don't want to action. Legacypac (talk) 20:24, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

• Hey Legacypac sorry I don't understand - I'm not sure what right little arrows you mean? Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 12:23, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

User:KylieTastic when you open the AFCH tool, to the right of the Accept/Decline/Comment are little arrows. One of the options is to "clean" the submission. It fixes the days sitting category and moves the review box to the top, and sometimes other small things. Legacypac (talk) 13:23, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

• Oh, never noticed that - thanks Legacypac — KylieTastic (talk) 13:40, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost WikiProject Report

Hi all.

Just a heads up that the latest Signpost contains a feature on WikiProject AfC. Thanks to Nosebagbear, Legacypac, and K.e.coffman for their time in being interviewed.

Thanks and happy holidays,

programmingGeek(talk, contribs) 01:27, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Request Thoughts on Notability of Savannah Phillips

I would like the comments of other reviewers on what to consider with respect to Draft:Savannah Phillips. The guideline on minors says that we need to take extra care with regard to this subject. I don't see any obvious issues, but she is a child. I don't see a guideline that says that we should have her own BLP; I also don't see a guideline that says that we shouldn't include her own BLP. I also haven't found any guideline about royal families in general. Some of her minor cousins have their own BLPs, but they more clearly satisfy general notability guidelines because, due to primogeniture, they are more immediately in the line of succession to their great-grandmother. Thoughts? Robert McClenon (talk) 03:33, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

Articles about her birth. Satisfies GNG. programmingGeek(talk, contribs) 03:35, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

When Savannah Phillips was redirected to Peter Phillips in August 2013, the edit summary was "Per talk page consensus. This 2-year-old child is, as of August 2013, entirely unnotable. Furthermore, she is not expected to have any public role whatsoever. Her own parents are private citizens. Please discuss first." Do you feel that her notability has changed or the consensus may have changed? --Worldbruce (talk) 03:45, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

I accepted the article. It was tagged for PROD, proposed deletion. I have removed the PROD tag, not to express an opinion on notability, but because this is not a non-controversial deletion. I am expecting that the next step will be Articles for Deletion. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:16, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

Shall I take your accept as an assertion of your's believing that the notability has sufficiently changed? ∯WBG^converse 04:21, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

Notable because of public interest and coverage. The great grandchild of the Queen is going to get sustained coverage over time. Legacypac (talk) 06:18, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the page is now at AFD. Primefac (talk) 15:03, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon: thank you for recognising that this is not an appropriate WP:PROD candidate.

The ...

An IP-editor has been adding lots of entries for reason "alt form", where the first article word "The" was removed. For example, a redirect from Sweet Hereafter (film) to The Sweet Hereafter (film). You're accepting these requests, and, despite WP:CHEAP, I don't understand why. As far as I've seen, a (reliable) source is never included, and I don't see any (main namespace) Wikipedia articles that, for example point to the redirect example I mentioned above. This makes me wonder, are you going to create redirects for all articles that start with "The"? Because that's what you've started doing. If you are, you may be better off simply having MediaWiki check if requested-but-non-existing articles have existing articles that start with "The", and then auto-create a Template:Did you mean/box for the visitor... --77.173.90.33 (talk) 23:49, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

In fact, such redirects may unintentionally create unnecessary user-redirects because you're 'removing' red links from future edits. Something like "Sweet Hereafter (film)", with the "(film)" bit, is not a subject. If nobody is linking to it internally (or externally), then why create the redirect? Nobody misspells "The Sweet Hereafter (film)" as "Sweet Hereafter (film)". --77.173.90.33 (talk) 00:13, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

Category:AfC pending submissions by age/3 weeks ago

The category is filling up, now at 299 drafts. I wonder if editors here could have a look:

• Category:AfC pending submissions by age/3 weeks ago

--K.e.coffman (talk) 20:23, 30 December 2018 (UTC)