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Individual Engagement Grants: Notability Detection helper

Hi folks, My collaborator is proposing an Individual Engagement Grant & looking for feedback Automated Notability Detection. I'd appreciate it if folks could comment there with any feedback, positive or negative. IEG's go in on Sept 30th, so comments in the next 2 weeks would be of particular help.Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 14:18, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Please explain the purpose of Category:Wikipedians who have received a Teahouse invitation

An administrative category of 100,000+ users who have been "invited" to the teahouse seems ponderously large for any effective administration. Moreover, the category is permanent - lest the user actively delete the invitation - and migrates through the archives, etc. If the invitation is for everyone (I assume there's no dress code or other reason barring any Wikipedian's entry) then the cat is of no real use. If an invitation to the teahouse is akin to an invitation to detention, then it's clearly impermissible. If it has some useful lifespan, it ought to so indicate, and not be some permanent category for 100,000+ users. What is the explanation? Carlossuarez46 (talk) 21:03, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi @Carlossuarez46: - The AfC reviewing tool invites new editors to the Teahouse -- but we don't want them to receive multiple invitations (which would happen a lot here, since editors may be repeatedly contacted about their draft article). This category is used to implement that; see line 1939 of this JavaScript part of the tool. Does that make sense?Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 09:59, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I cannot read code (humanities major, sorry to say) but it makes sense, I suppose to prevent bombardment, but perhaps it would be better as a hidden category. Any thoughts on that? Carlossuarez46 (talk) 19:03, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

It's already a hidden category, isn't it? -- John of Reading (talk) 20:36, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

@Jodi.a.schneider, could the code be changed to use getTemplates() rather than getCategories() ? For example I beleive that when code needs to know if a page is a disambiguation page it looks at templates directly rather than at categories. DexDor (talk) 20:46, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea. I don't think it's a good idea to be using categories for essentially technical purposes so a bot won't leave a welcome message. Categories are to be used for collaboration, not so a bot knows whether or not to invite them to a particular Wikiproject, in my view. VegaDark (talk) 21:04, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Surely this would then invite people who had the template but removed or archived it? Sam Walton (talk) 21:13, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, just the same as detecting the template indirectly (using category). DexDor (talk) 04:34, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

My point being do users stay in the category even after the template is removed/archived? If so then this is an obvious improvement on just detecting the template. Sam Walton (talk) 08:51, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

How could that possibly happen? DexDor (talk) 05:41, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

• VD, that is your opinion. I see categories as a tool for maintenance and bot work first, then possibly human collaboration later. Categories are essentially a database, databases are used by bots and computer software, databases need to be formatted to be human readable (just like categories). — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 22:34, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

• The point here is that the bot wants to know whether a page has the template on it. Using the template to populate a category and then having the bot detect the category is an unnecessarily convoluted way of doing it. DexDor (talk) 04:34, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Some more points: Do we need a bot going around inviting people to the Wikipedia Teahouse? Wouldn't manual invites work just as well? This looks like a project to support new editors - presumably if someone has archived their talk page already, they aren't new anymore. Is there a way to check on the age of the account before leaving this message? That would fix the archive issue. Another point, I'd be pretty annoyed if someone left something on my talk page that put me in any user category, hidden or not. I can't think of any other categories that do something like this. Ultimately I would support deletion of this category if nominated for these and the above reasons. If you still want a bot to go around inviting people, you can work around that decision easily by searching for the template instead of the category. VegaDark (talk) 00:45, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

• I couldn't comment on what a bot may or may not be able to do functionally, but I kind of had the same sense that VegaDark's comment mentions. How does newbie get channeled into some category he/she probably doesn't understand and does look a little like an invitation to a woodshed to those who appear to have had some initial problems with their edits (as we all have done early on). Carlossuarez46 (talk) 00:58, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
• I'm surprised this discussion is going on as long as it is. You want to know how the bot uses the category, ask the bot's creator/operator. I suppose I could have done this sooner, but I'm not really that active anymore and don't care too much about this discussion. It's now bordering on TL;DR and becoming slightly annoying. Anyways... — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 15:19, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

We definitely need a bot to invite people to the Teahouse. You have to invite a lot of newbies to get a few to show up: most people who create accounts never edit after their first day. HostBot currently invites 100+ new editors to the Teahouse daily. About 5% of them end up visiting. You couldn't easily sustain that level of invitation on a manual basis. Regarding the category... I didn't create it and my bot (HostBot) doesn't need it. HostBot scans the user's talk page text for mentions of the Teahouse before deciding to leave an invite. And all HostBot invitations are logged in a database on Labs. So whether or not the category stays or goes is a matter for the maintainers of the AfC tool, I suppose. Cheers, - J-Mo ^{Talk to Me} _{Email Me} 22:02, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Template edit needed -- updated tool location for User:Citation_bot

One of the "reviewer tools", User:Citation_bot, has moved to a new location.

Based on this note from the tool maintainer, I've updated the link as a test edit in the tools sandbox, could somebody please check this and apply it to the real template?

Thanks! Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 10:06, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

• Created the edit template-protected structure to get this on the track to being accepted on behalf of Jodi.a.schneider Hasteur (talk) 13:36, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
• Hail ToolLabs the toolserver is dead. A cosmetic change that I see no reasonable argument for not speedy applying ;) Hasteur (talk) 13:37, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

 Done -- John of Reading (talk) 14:26, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

More than the past 10 articles?

Currently, the past 10 accepted articles are shown in Wikipedia:Articles for creation/recent. This is a useful list on the main AfC project page (though also used elsewhere).

I'd prefer if we showed the last XX hours of accepted articles (e.g. 24 hours, 12 hours, 2-days). That would have the advantage of showing the ebb & flow of acceptance -- and would make sure that the recent articles don't "scroll off" the list in heavy reviewing periods. Anybody else have thoughts about that? Both the concept, and whether it would be difficult to change? Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 17:16, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Assuming it to be technically possible and that someone is willing to do it I like the idea a lot. Fiddle Faddle 12:31, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I believe the following is correct, but please excuse any misunderstanding. The current script submission.js edits the recent page when you accept a submission. To do this it looks at the list of afc templates on that page and loops through them using "matches.length >= 10" in order to delete the oldest but 9 before adding a new one. This presents a few challenges. If you want to show the last XX hours - when do you want to measure that from, when you viewed the page or when the page was last updated? It would seem a small change to swap the number 10 for a larger number. This might be complicated however if you can't guarantee there is anyone using an older version of the script which on submission would cut the list down to 10 again. It might be easier compromise to output the recent acceptances to that page in a table format, say the last 100, and include a column with date/time of acceptance. The table format rows would not be deleted by older versions of the script as they wouldn't match the expression "/{{afc contrib.*?}}\s*/gi" used. --_nonsense ferret 13:44, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

It would be great if we could make the list longer. ~KvnG 14:04, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Duplication in mainspace and Draft: space

What's the procedure when a page originally in Draft: space also gets created in main space, at a later date? See

• Draft:Jonathan Solis (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Jonathan Solis (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Should I put a {{histmerge|Draft:Jonathan Solis}} on Jonathan Solis? or is the later creation a WP:CSD#A10 candidate? --Redrose64 (talk) 20:19, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

The two articles are completely different, by different authors. Drafts are no A10 candidates. If the main article is going to stay, then a content merge would be a good idea, and then the draft can be redirected to the mainspace article. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:32, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Why do you say "the two articles are completely different"? Here is a direct comparison - the Draft: one has two instances of {{AFC submission}}, an extra heading and a {{reflist}}, the mainspace one doesn't, but does have a new row marker in that table. Any other differences are insignificant; but crucially, the article text is 100% identical.

The creators are different, yes: but the last person to edit Draft:Jonathan Solis is the same person that created, and made most of the edits to, Jonathan Solis. I suspect that Gellocsin1 (talk · contribs) made a copypaste from Draft to main, contrary to WP:CWW. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:00, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

• Which one is "better"? Is the copy in article space worthy of being an article or would it fail an AfD? If you can't say that you think it would, put the article up for AfD and if it passes, then merge whatever extras there are from the draft into it and delete the draft, but if it fails then delete it and WP:SALT the page pending acceptance of the draft. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 13:57, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

• What has happened here is that an editor has started an article in mainspace, had it marked for deletion because it was unacceptable, noticed the draft in AfC, and copied the other editor's work into their own. There are overlapping timelines, so a history merge can't be done. However, if the resulting mainspace article is okay, a content merge giving credit to the original author would work. Alternatively, if the topic is thought not to be notable, the mainspace article should go to AfD, and the draft should be left alone for now, until the results of the AfD are seen. So, is it a notable topic? —Anne Delong (talk) 14:33, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

We seem to have gone off the boil

What is perturbing me is the number of easy catches that have remained unreviewed for over four weeks. I've just spent a happy 30 minutes or so handling 10 of the oldest submissions to find that most were unreviewed submissions. I normally expect only the difficult ones to be in this category. Fiddle Faddle 14:20, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Not sure it speaks to this at all, but I find that the "randomizer" is anything but: I get the same articles after about 5 or 10. It might help to have a tool that would load the Draft with the fewest pageviews + no comments. Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 10:58, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Why review random drafts? Shouldn't they be handled FIFO? ~KvnG 16:38, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Being "on a boil" seems undesirable! Gigs (talk) 16:57, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

I tend to review selectively drafts in fields I know something about, or which I work with most on WP. DGG ( talk ) 17:59, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

@DGG:, how do you find those? @KvnG: if I have 5 minutes, it's the easiest way to get something in front of me. I prefer looking at older stuff that has a chance of rescuing through editing when I have time... I'm really open to better procedures, curious to hear others' draft-finding strategies! Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 08:47, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

SInce the categories sort into date order, I start at the top and look for ones I feel competent to review. Each one I feel I am able to accept or decline I accept or decline. Many I find I am not competent to and pass on by Fiddle Faddle 13:30, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Specifically, go to Category:AfC pending submissions by age/Very old and click on anything or look for something fun. The random article button was reimplemented a few months ago after it stopped working due to toolserver issues. I think the new implementation may have problems. ~KvnG 13:48, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

I never knew, apart form the main sidebar, we had a random article button. I just start at the top left hand corner and go down the list. I try very hard to avoid drafts I've reviewed before. I've just thinned 10 or 11 drafts out in the very old category, and a great number, still, are previously unreviewed. We really do need to get this oldest category under control or we'll be under huge pressure to have another drive, something I oppose for the moment. Just cracking through 10 each and reaching a verdict on them each day by us all will help. More is great, but who has the time for that? Fiddle Faddle 14:19, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Sometimes I do browse by category (often starting with "very old" or "4 weeks ago"). Agree with KvnG: the new implementation of random has problems. Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 09:43, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

---

The oldest submissions category is starting to be unreasonably full. I've done a good few, honest! But it fills at present faster than we are emptying it. All hands to the pumps, chaps. Fiddle Faddle 16:02, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I have now done this edit to the template that is shown on top of e.g. Category:AfC_submissions_by_age/Very_old, to allow users to get random drafts in these categories. (t) Josve05a (c) (on a break) 16:39, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

For those who like this random thing it;s excellent, thank you. I prefer the other approach which is also fine.

We seem to be just about keeping pace in this oldest category. A good few of us are attacking the backlog, which is great. More, please

What I can't get my head round is the number of new folk who add themselves to the list of reviewers and who proceed to review very little, if at all. If they would join in wholeheartedly after finding their feet we could be in a good state all the time. Fiddle Faddle 19:02, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

1002 submissions in the oldest category Category:AfC pending submissions by age/Very old

Even with those of us being good boys and girls this is rising inexorably. Please, start at the top left hand corner and work down the list. If you can't review one, move on, but please try. They are filed in order 'oldest first'

I can't believe that we have exceeded 1,000 of these in our oldest category.

The quick wins in the newest category are unimportant. Blank and test submissions and vanity submissions can wait. Please help clear down the oldest category. The tide is rising so fast we may need a backlog drive, with all the drawbacks that those have. Fiddle Faddle 08:52, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

This is indeed an emergency brewing. Please include the link to the category in question, as I'm sure the however-many clicks to find it don't exactly help. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:42, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

You are right, Demiurge1000, I ought to have linked it. Category:AfC pending submissions by age/Very old is the one, and the emergency is here. As I write it is down(!) to 959. Several of us have done quite a few each, but we need to do a huge number more. Doing too many makes the eyes cross and causes mistakes. We already have many upset submitters and I don;t want to make mistakes and upset a few more.

Current figures can be found by purging the page:

• 0 pending submissions in Category:AfC pending submissions by age/Very old have been waiting more than 1 month for reviewer attention.
• 155 pending submissions in Category:AfC pending submissions by age/4 weeks ago have been waiting 4 weeks for reviewer attention.
• 273 pending submissions in Category:AfC pending submissions by age/3 weeks ago have been waiting 3 weeks for reviewer attention.

We are not doing well, despite sterling efforts from the regulars, new and old. Fiddle Faddle 22:54, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

• If the project is going to keep doing it Hasteur's way, ie without holding backlog drives until he understands why there is a backlog in the first place, then this is going to be the continuing trend. it's going to keep getting worse. The solution of course is an every other month backlog drive until someone regains the interest in creating a new system using a guided tour to reduce the number of junk submissions and make reviewing more enjoyable for all of those that enjoy being on the cutting edge of reading new content... — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 23:37, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

@Harej: I've left a comment but I don't think many editors watch meta.mediawiki.org so don't expect to reliable have a two-way conversation there. ~KvnG 13:54, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Maintenance category for articles whose names are duplicates of mainspace?

Maybe we should generate a maintenance category for articles whose names are duplicates of mainspace? Some of these (mainly proper names) will just need a move -- but many may be actual duplicates we could get out of the queue. Thoughts? Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 09:52, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

This would be useful if we could get a bot to maintain it. Otherwise, it's just as easy to reject these submissions as dups as it would be to add them to the proposed category. It may help you to know that the reviewer tools in the Awaiting review box contains a mainspace link to the proposed article. That link will be red if there's no duplicate. ~KvnG 13:59, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

I've just set this up in the AfC banner template. It will fill Category:AfC submissions with the same name as existing articles. Jackmcbarn (talk) 14:19, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

The reviewer tools & its usefulness is part of what suggested this to me. Thanks @Jackmcbarn:!Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 15:53, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

In fact, @Kvng:, I'd suggest making that "Awaiting review" box larger & at the top -- since if the article exists there's no reason to look further. Drawing the eye to this would help, for me at least. Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 16:10, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Ok, one more question here, now that we have the category. Should we be tagging the actual duplicates under G6? Or is this already being handled as part of the G13 project?Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 16:17, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

@Jackmcbarn: -- to the extent that it's the queue we're worried about, it seems like it would be helpful to show the subcategory that are submitted for review...Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 16:17, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

@Jodi.a.schneider: I've just updated it to only categorize pages awaiting review. Note that you won't see this right away because the job queue takes a while, but it should become active soon. Jackmcbarn (talk) 17:33, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

@Jodi.a.schneider: The job queue has now caught up. Jackmcbarn (talk) 00:09, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Cheers! Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 09:45, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Button change

I've tweaked the button to give articles from Category:AfC_submissions_by_age/Very_old. I realize this will need to be adjusted again when we get the backlog under control. I will keep an eye on it. I don't know what the issue is with (non) randomness. The button uses Special:RandomInCategory to pick something random so the problem must be in there. ~KvnG 13:51, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

• If you want to make a new button that only picks from a population of the very old submissions, go for it. Changing the existing button that just picks a random submission trying to trick reviewers into reviewing the ones YOU want reviewed is not the way to go. If you are interested in a new button, I'd be more than happy to help you code it. Happy reviewing! — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 14:16, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

If I was actually trying to trick anyone, I certainly would not have announced my change here. ~KvnG 14:40, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

I got a popup but don't know why

Hello there,

I am a fairly experienced editor but I am not used to AfC. I hang out in WP:RfD and WP:PNT and tend to be a bit of a hyena in that I scavenge the things that others aren't interested in – which are usually the tastiest bits. And that I laugh too much and too loud. A strange popup came up just now asking me to review or whatever this article. I don't know why that should be.

So, an RfD something came up for Edifecs Inc., which is still open but likely we will reverse the redirect (so that Edifecs is the article title) per WP:NCCORP. I edited and changed the references (often they were both raw in the article and as a cite ref) and added stub tags and placed into categories, various bits of gnoming, which did not impinge on other editors' opinions on whether it is the right title for the article or not (essentially what we do at RfD). I didn't remove the AfC tags cos I don't know process; as the last editor it would seem odd to review one's own work, anyway. Remove them if that's right. If I need to do anything else, let me know. 03:58, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

go away

This is the second time now in a bit over half an hour that your script has popped up asking me to register for your script. So these comments I wrote before, but you understand my frustration:

I do not want to be an AfC reviewer with your script. I edit at RfD. A new article, created badly after two requests at AfC, Edifecs Inc., is currently being discussed at WP:RfD. I edited the article to fix the constant double repetition of refs (i.e. an inline raw ref followed by a cite to the same ref). I added stub templates and fixed the categories, which for some reason were all predecessed with colons. I did various other markup on it. It is still very much a stub, so I marked it as such. I noted EDIFECS was in a deletion discussion in 2012 and went under WP:CORP. I have done my homework. I didn't remove the AfC tags because I don't know the AfC process. And if you bug me with popups, I don't want to.

— Si Trew (talk) 04:12, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Si Trew (talk) 04:17, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Si Trew. AfC doesn't usually pester people to join up. It's possible that sometime in the past you may have enabled the AfC script in your preferences, before we had our sign-up list. If so, you can just de-select it and that will make the reminders go away. Sorry if this has inconvenienced you. —Anne Delong (talk) 04:33, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Anne, I'll look into that. Sorry if I am a bit grumbly. Nothing else pops up like thatl, I didn't realise it was even possible. Si Trew (talk) 04:53, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

I hope that fixes it. We had to create a list of AfC editors because a lot of new users, who come through AfC, were starting to review other people's pages when they themselves have only a few dozen edits, and, of course, making a mess of it. Thanks for taking on a draft and improving it. There are so many.... —Anne Delong (talk) 05:10, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Yeah I can see why you have big banners etc. per WP:NEWBIES. Wikipedia editors are a club, like any other, and is getting to be an exclusive club sometimes. So all power to your elbow, or keyboard.b I just didn't know what to do: and apparently did the right thing.

What worried me a little with the draft, is that whoever did take it on did a bad job of it, could have hand-held through here is how you add references, here is how you don't put inline citations, here is how you sign your edits. It seemed a little left high and dry. Up in the heady realms of RfD, where we oversee all that come before us without actually changing copy but dictating from on high who is to be saved and who is to the slaughter, we forget occasionally that people do what Wikipedia is for: adding constructive content, however badly, to make it the Wikipedia that everyone can edit. And read. Si Trew (talk) 12:39, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Nope, still popping up. Three times now in ten minutes, when I list something from RfD at AfD. Stop it please. Si Trew (talk) 14:23, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

• Unfortunately, Si, you had to initiate it at some point, and as such, only you can make it stop. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 02:03, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Righty ho. It seems to pop up almost randomly. There is probably a bit of Javascript lurking around somewhere, I dunno. I ain't having a go at any of you personally. I still edit on ye olde plain text editor etc, so it came as a bit of a surprise to have these things. Don't worry I'll sort it out. Really I just wanted to let you know — if I am the only editor being annoyed about it that's fine, but if it were a more general problem I am sure you would want to know. Si Trew (talk) 05:09, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I got it: says right at the top! Disable it in prefences/gadgets! I am an idiot.

But I wanted to ask, after CE'ing the draft, which I came to by a different route (something at RfD I recall) I would have liked to have marked it as reviewed or whatever to take it out from your stack, but I didn't know how I should do that, or whether I should. So I just left it. It had two RfC tags on it, which seemed a bit unusual to me. What should I have done? Si Trew (talk) 07:19, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

AfC & Draft -- potential for improvements?

Is anyone else troubled by the universal encouragement to resubmit? "You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved." To give this "advice" when we mark something as a duplicate is disingenuous.

I think of draft articles as falling into three categories
-- unfixable (duplicates, ...)
-- presumed junk (probably not fixable inside WP:CRYSTAL)
-- probably fixable: notability is plausible but not clear, needs a rewrite but has promising content, too soon (sports players who will probably cross the threshold soon, future films, ....)

I think that the G13 trawling shows that there's a lot of abandoned stuff in Draft that has potential. In my opinion, we don't want to "reject" this -- we want to mentor creators, or at least tidy up the content. Using the mainspace tags to indicate problems (and maybe also indicating NON-PROBLEMS, like copyright checked, notability ok, ...) might help in Draft.

Are there ways that we can make AfC quality control more like the process in mainspace, in order to attract more attention to drafts and their authors? And where are bigger discussions about Draft happening (since we're just one of the contingents using it...) Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 10:05, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Here's an example. Draft:World Chess Championship 2015 is clearly not ready for mainspace, but it needs to be incubated here in Draft. Sending a rejection notice to the author is no more helpful than sending a comment. No?Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 19:54, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

We do need to be able to kill off unfixable trash without encouraging the resubmission. We do need to put things in the pending shelf like your example. We do need not to piss people off. Fiddle Faddle 22:01, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

I personally like your suggestion. Some pages are just not fixable and we need a way to tell people to stop wasting time on them. It's quite hard to do that without making people angry though. Thoughts? Darylgolden^(talk) 03:26, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Often would-be contributors get told "Sorry, this article about your favorite band is not acceptable as it stands. You need to provide evidence that it is notable". This does not make them angry, but it is cruel. They then waste their time (and ours) dredging up inadequate references. It would be kinder and more honest to add "and personally, I don't think there is any". Maproom (talk) 07:05, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

I also think there should be an option for multiple decline reasons. Most of the time an article has multiple issues. Darylgolden^(talk) 01:48, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Multiple decline reasons do make sense. @Maproom: I usually add something like that in the comments, e.g. "There is no point in continuing to submit this until other content is available from reliable and INDEPENDENT sources; I don't expect that to ever be the case." However, I'm not sure whether people *see* the comments -- they're not directly copied over to the submitter's talk page, and they appear below a bunch of templates. Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 10:45, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Support multiple decline reasons. Fiddle Faddle 10:49, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

And I'm particularly interested in pending stuff. For instance, this Draft:Years & Years is nearly or barely notable (you decide) -- but in the future it probably will be. In these cases I am currently trying not to "reject" (because I don't think it helps) -- but from the point of view of our queue, that's a problem. We need to be able to mark the promising stuff and get interested experienced editors involved. Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 10:45, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

I am not the reviewer but I feel there is one more case possible. Where draft might be good but for very simple issue may be of providing references or removing a copyright content. If the resubmission template can take input from editor that he has fixed the said issues. These articles can be speedily reviewed and published. Yndesai (talk) 06:43, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

In that case, the author of the draft can simply ping the reviewer who declined the article and ask them to take a look at it again; or, they can simply wait for another reviewer to get to it. APerson (talk!) 16:13, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I was wondering if there is list of such re-submitted articles which can be cleared on priority to clear backlog. Yndesai (talk) 11:42, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Friends (Yndesai—APerson) I'm actually going to say no on this. Consider if you will this average case

A editor slaps together a just above the CSD threshold level draft and it gets rightfully declined by a reviewer. The editor makes a minor change and petitions (the reviewer/the AFC-Help Desk/Admins/Jimbo) to get their submission reviewed again. There's only so much visual bandwidth that the reviewers have to look at articles. So by making all this noise for their draft, other drafts (and editors) that have waited their turn patiently in the Pending review line are now being punished because one editor is trying to push their draft.

The disconnect is that if we open this gateway for editors to get a rapid re-review it's only going to cause us to fall even further behind on our Category:AfC pending submissions by age backlog.Hasteur (talk) 13:39, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

I would like to state 3 points: (1) The backlog reduces only by giving final decision of approval/rejection to proposed new articles. Keeping them pending for re-review will keep them in backlog. (2) Reviewer who reviews the article first time can decide if the article is promising and can be nominated for speedy re-review. (3) Going further I even suggest if first reviewer feels that if his/her comments are taken care by the editor than article need not come for re-review (taking hint from Assuming good faith).Yndesai (talk) 12:40, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

(1) Quick reject does not necessarily reduce backlog as it often leads to a quick resubmit. If an author knows it will take a while to get a second review, he/she is probably more inclined to put in the required work. (2) If the submission looks promising, why not just accept it? This will definitely reduce backlog. (3) If you have suggestions for improvement for a submission that otherwise meets inclusion criteria, put those suggestions on the talk page, accept the submission, and let the improvements be done in mainspace where other editors may be interested in helping. ~KvnG 16:06, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Backlog can be better managed if FIFO is implemented is my simple suggestion. If the review rate is less than the rate of submission of new articles then there are chances that re-submitted articles will never be reviewed (Hypothetically). When acceptance of new article has a mandatory stage of re-review than the re-review must be given priority to clear backlog. As we say in our place: It is like barber shop, where every customer is having shaving foam on his face and none has been cleaned since new customers are arriving and barber is busy applying foam on them. Yndesai (talk) 09:35, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 October 2014

114.79.12.123 (talk) 20:39, 11 October 2014 (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. Cannolis (talk) 20:57, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Template:AFC submission

Suggestion regarding Template:AFC submission. Maybe make the "Click here to get assistance via live help chat" link open in a new tab (target="_blank"). It's probably more difficult for the group of editors who click that link to find back their drafts than it is for editors in general. Even if they understand they can press the back button, they may prefer not to do so if they're already engaged in a chat session. (I've noticed several times that visitors of #wikipedia-en-help were wondering how to return to their drafts.) --82.136.210.153 (talk) 23:53, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

• Support This is an excellent suggestion. Most new editors are unfamiliar with computers sufficiently to not open new tabs/windows themselves. Fiddle Faddle 10:47, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
• Comment: I'm not sure if this is technically possible; the only method I can think of to get this done is to stick the link in an <a> element with the target attribute set to open in a new tab. However, MediaWiki doesn't allow <a> elements. There might be some magic word that gets this done, however. APerson (talk!) 16:24, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

  Just create the link as an external link. All external links get opened in a new tab. I am confused by this request however since it seems that it already does this. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 16:44, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

  No, 82.136 is correct: even though an external link is being used, the IRC page doesn't open in a new tab. APerson (talk!) 17:50, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Woe! Woe! and thrice WOE!

For the past many days several of us have been working at the coalface of the least easy seam to mine. While the overall backlog of some 2,700 drafts seems to remain broadly stable, the oldest submissions are rising, rising, rising. I've just reviewed some 20 or so and it's still at 762 right now. See Category:AfC pending submissions by age/Very old for the bad news.

Please roll up your sleeves, decide on a number you will review come Helen Highwater, and please do that number. And do it again tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. Our authors deserve your attention.

Even if you raise your game by a single review in the oldest category, that is one more that we do not have to make wait any longer. Fiddle Faddle 10:45, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Yikes! And it's now up to over 900! --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 20:33, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

WP:WPAFC shortcut

Maybe mention the WP:WPAFC shortcut at Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation. --82.136.210.153 (talk) 18:55, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Template:WPAFCInvite

This new template may be useful to somewhat diminish the severe backlog. It can be used to invite experienced editors to become draft reviewers. --82.136.210.153 (talk) 20:24, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Edit request for Template:AFC submission/tools

The Template:AFC submission template currently links to Dispenser's no-longer-working Reflinks tool under "Reviewer Tools". It should be updated to instead use the User:Zhaofeng Li/Reflinks version. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 22:07, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Done — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 23:21, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

To make the Decline templates more friendly

A symptom of lack of editor-friendliness is the quantity of questions at the AFCHD "WHy has my thing been declined?"

I believe that we need to add to the decline template a simple line:

"To see the reason your draft has been sent back to you, please CLICK HERE" (linking click here to the draft concerned)

It needs to be screamingly obvious. The words may be discussed, but we need something, please. My hope is that it will reduce the pointless questions at the help desk, all of which must be answered, and all of which remove time when we might be reviewing.

Please would an appropriate person make a bold change? We can titivate it at leisure later. Fiddle Faddle 10:49, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

The decline template itself already contains the reason for the decline. If users won't read it, they won't read a page linked from it either. Jackmcbarn (talk) 00:34, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

I think it is not a matter of 'will not', rather a matter of being too upset to notice. So we need to grab their attention. It has to be worth a shot, surely? Fiddle Faddle 15:01, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

I think it's worth a try. I'd prefer that we'd transclude the comments. Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 15:08, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Also, what about putting it first "CLICK HERE to see personalized comments about why your draft has been sent back to you" -- i.e. the first line of the message? Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 15:09, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

That could be done, as I don't see a reason why we couldn't make it more obvious to users about their decline reasons. One reason for supporting this is because we often have so many people asking why their article is not notable, and it's quite obvious that they haven't seen the information stating just that on the submission page. On a related note, this reminds me of two years ago when I systematically went through all of the decline template rationale in order to make them seem nicer (they were very blunt at the time), so any and all improvements to that are welcome. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 17:51, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

I've got a lot going on for the next couple months so I'm not sure I can make significant contributions right away (especially since I don't usually edit templates). What about adding the "click here" as above? Longer term I'll see about making some time for this...Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 09:18, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

If you're referring to {{Afc decline}}, I started a conversation about removing the help desk links. I got push-back on removing them but APerson wrote some code to include the decline reason on the message. It appears to work although I'm having issue with the AfC gadget just now. Chris Troutman (talk) 21:50, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Recent creation

Devastation Turret Class Ship was recently created. The topic already exists at Devastation-class ironclad, so the article ought to have been declined under the Quick-fail criteria. Benea (talk) 16:10, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

@Benea: We don't get everything right. Change it to a redirect or do something else. Shoot me if it makes you feel better. I accepted it. Fiddle Faddle 16:28, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

• Devastation Turret Class Ship at first glance seems far more comprehensive than Devastation-class ironclad, so I've changed the merge proposal templates to properly reflect that. You are welcome to suggest a name change once the pages are properly merged. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 17:20, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

• Good call, T13. I was tempted to deploy {{Sofixit}} in my reply above. I love it when self righteousness trips over facts. I shall now go and be smug for five minutes. Fiddle Faddle 17:45, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

OTRS template

If anyone with OTRS permissions is interested, I have gone ahead and created an e-mail template to respond to people who ask us to help them create an article. To every non-OTRS person out there, we'll often get requests to personally help them with an article, and oftentimes they are better off going to AFC or the Teahouse for advice, since individually helping people would take a lot of time. Feel free to change it or suggest corrections here, as I would love to be able to advertise the project more to people who really want to add an article. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 17:58, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Did you want feedback on the wording, or just to announce this? (I don't have an OTRS account but can comment if you paste this in.)Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 09:20, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Jodi.a.schneider, I was just announcing it, but feel free to provide feedback on the wording if you want! Kevin Rutherford (talk) 02:29, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

@Ktr101: Ok, thanks! (I can't see it but since you don't need feedback, no problem.) Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 02:18, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Here is the text, since it is not confidential to see what our templates look like:

Wikipedia relies on the will of its volunteers in order to create the encyclopedia that exists today. One such benefit of this is that there are also volunteers who are willing to help users create new articles. One such venue for doing this is the Articles for Creation project, which will help you to write an article <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:AFC>. The members of Articles for Creation consist of experienced Wikipedians of many different backgrounds, many of whom will be able to help you with your request.

If you are interested in this route for article creation, please visit the Article Wizard <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:WIZARD>. Once you submit your draft, it will be placed into a queue which will be open for review by anyone who reviews submissions. If your submission is not accepted, then a note will be left on the page and your talk page describing what can be improved. If your submission is approved, then an editor will leave accept it and you will be notified of the article's creation.

Please note that a submission may take over a month to be reviewed, as there are a limited number of editors who review submissions, and many more who submit drafts on a daily basis. Thank you for your interest in Wikipedia, and I hope that you will join us in the future.

Let me know if this works, as anyone can correct this if they want! Kevin Rutherford (talk) 03:02, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Page Recreation : Prajyot Mahajan

Prajyotmahajan. I have removed the article draft you pasted here. This page is for discussing the AfC project administration only. I suggest you first create Draft:Prajyot Mahajan and then seek help advice about it at Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Help desk , but be aware that your article on this person has now been deleted 3 times as "Unambiguous advertising or promotion" [1]. If there is no significant improvement from those versions, your draft will never be accepted and may well be deleted outright. Voceditenore (talk) 09:00, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

New backlog drive?

The backlog is about to break 3000 if we don't stop it soon. We really need a new drive. Grognard Chess (talk) Ping when replying 13:17, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

And maybe drop Template:WPAFCInvite on some talk pages to remind experienced editors of this WikiProject. Many hands make light work. --82.136.210.153 (talk) 15:52, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

• I don't think that {{WPAFCInvite}} is appropriate on pages of experienced editors who have reviewed before. As such, i propose a new template that be created to notify former reviewers who haven't reviewed in X number of days. Something along the lines of:

  Hello {User}, we've missed you over at AFC and our backlog has grown to {NUMBEROFSUBMISSIONS}, as you don't seem to have any reviews in the last {NUMBEROFDAYS}. If you might have a few minutes to review {RANDOMPAGEFROMOLDESTSUBMISSIONCATEGORY}, that would be a great help! {SIGNATURE}

The wording is almost entirely up for criticism and revision as long as all of the arguments are there. :) — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 17:47, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

I like this idea. Maybe use a bot to automatically notify such editors. Possibly add a line that explains it is a one-time notice, unless the editor decides to once again partake in the reviewing process. --82.136.210.153 (talk) 18:09, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

I support canvassing reviewers to keep up activity at AfC, but I oppose any backlog drive. This rudderless WikiProject can't properly manage a backlog drive and doing so will only result in more discussion here about how it was implemented wrongly. Why don't we get the word out in The Signpost to remind folks the backlog is still here? Chris Troutman (talk) 18:22, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

CT has my support in this. No to a drive, yes to SIgnpost. Who will write that? Fiddle Faddle 20:28, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Signpost is a good idea & I'd support pestering reviewers - I'd definitely do more if I was being reminded. Sam Walton (talk) 22:18, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

There's still plenty of opportunity to have Rcsprinter123 interview members of this WikiProject. I'm not sure if that would do as well as an op-ed to get the word out. It would then be a matter of who wants to write and how true it would be to the feelings of project members. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:47, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

A reminder to the members is okay, but if it's to be an on-going thing instead of a one-shot, there should be an opt-out, which means more red tape, unless the opt-out says "remove your name from the participants' list to stop receiving these messages". How about a message in the WP:Signpost or the Wikipedia:Community bulletin board? —Anne Delong (talk) 03:14, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

I'd also point out that I am still owed a Teamwork Barnstar from our last backlog drive. I can place no confidence in organizers that can't handle small details like that. Chris Troutman (talk) 06:06, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Chris, I'm just guessing, but, seeing how 25 rereviews was used as a tipping point, maybe this is because there are 21 rereviews listed while you did 29 rereviews? --82.136.210.153 (talk) 15:53, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Oh, never mind, those 21 were rereviews of your reviews. I've given you the barnstar. :) --82.136.210.153 (talk) 16:04, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

I think CT's is the only one to have been given out, now. Fiddle Faddle 22:14, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Synonymous terms

I wonder if anyone could create REDIRECTs from Systematic literature review and Structured literature review to Systematic review, as these are widely used synonyms. 192.38.121.229 (talk) 00:35, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

 Done Apparently the redirects have been created by User:Jfdwolff on 26 October 2014. --82.136.210.153 (talk) 17:28, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Category:AfC pending submissions by age/Very old

A number of us have been slogging away at this category, and I think we have taken about 200 articles off the list today. Woefully few have been acceptable. Almost all of these have been reviewed for the very first time, something I find difficult to see.

Why do I find it difficult?

Because these drafts are meant to be the tough ones to review. So it feels as if they have slipped through the net, and badly.

A number of them were blatant copyvios. These are not hard to catch, especially with http://tools.wmflabs.org/copyvios/ And they really ought to have been caught at first submission by those of us who feed at the output of the great firehose of ordure, or GFOO.

Several were simply unreferenced. Again the GFOO feeders should have caught these.

Can we direct our newest reviewers to the GFOO with guidelines on how to shoot fish in a barrel so they may gain experience and enjoy working at thje coalface at the hardest part of the mine? WHo guides our reviewers? I had no guidance when I started, I just leaped in. Fiddle Faddle 22:49, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

It has been fought down to a current number of 675. Because of the huge amount of work that is something to be proud of.

Back in May 2014 it was regularly down to under 20 each day. That, too, was something to be proud of.

I wish we were still being as proud as we were in May, not being as proud as we can be today. Fiddle Faddle 22:12, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Is the number of submissions constant? --_nonsense ferret 22:53, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

No, it varies. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:06, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

I may misremember, but I think it used to be difficult to work out how many new submissions occur in a given time period. Has it become any easier to do this with the new draft namespace? I think this would be a fascinating graph. --_nonsense ferret 00:17, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps http://tools.wmflabs.org/copyvios/ should be added under "Reviewer Tools" in Template:AFC submission. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:58, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

The problem i see is the number of unimproved resubmissions. About one-third of them are the fault of the individual reviewer, who gave incorrect advice--such as fixing reference format where it's hopelessly promotional; or , in the opposite directing, something trivial when the article could have just been accepted, and improved afterwards. But the other two0-thirds are the inability or unwillingness of the submitter to write an adequate article, often because there is no possible way an adequate article could be written. We don;t have a speedy category for these, and I don't think we should have one, because it is often a matter of judgment, and any one particular admin might well have a looser or stricter standard than necessary. The proper course for these is MfD, and I've started sending them there instead of giving a 4th decline. I've also just started sending articles there with the reason: "will never make an article" the very first time I see it.

There's another course of action I'm reluctant to take, but I think i may need to start--which is to quite literally accept everything that would stand a >50% chance at AfD. That is after all the quoted standard, though in practice all of us ask for something better. and I will often improve a borderline article so it won't get listed at afd, even if I think it would be kept there.

these are things we can do ourselves, not dependent upon getting anything in the system fixed or even improved. DGG ( talk ) 21:54, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

And, as we go forward, we do improve. I try to and I am sure others do, too. But slogging through the very oldest that have not even had a cursory review is pretty soul destroying. I mark the no hopers as no hopers where I am certain. But none of this removes the fact that we have a mountain of very old reviews to get through.

Accepting crap just devalues Wikipedia or I'd accept the lot and let the rest of the community sort the mess out. I aim for a high standard. Even so I have accepted borderline pieces because they are borderline with no hope of the author managing to do any better.

I also take a pride in adding a welcome message to each author's talk page where one is absent, either on acceptance or on declining their piece. I want to encourage them. But there is an infinite supply of hopeless, useless, vanity inspired authors. Maybe we should start Vanipedia! Fiddle Faddle 11:15, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

• I object to adding /copyvios/ to the reviewing script. There's already a user script that makes it easy to do a /copyvios/ check. My basis for objecting is for the same reason we don't add things identical to what TW does. I'd be happy to expand my script or modify it to make it easier to use. I'm on mobile, so I can't type in instructions to add it to your skin.js. perhaps FF will do it since I seem to remember he uses it, or I can do it when I get home. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 15:16, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

I just have it bookmarked and copy and paste the article title in. Fiddle Faddle 16:02, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

• I had thought you were one of those using it... Either way... To use this script, add:

mw.loader.load( 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Technical_13/Scripts/CVD.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript' );//Beta testing for [[User:Technical 13/Scripts/CVD]]

to your your skin's .js page. This will introduce a new link in the sidebar that reads "CVDetector (<number of new tabs it will open>)" that will open a new tab with the comprehensive copyvios report and new tabs in the dupdetect for each URL it finds on the page (there is some filtering for internal pages and PD stuff like Goggle search pages to reduce the number of tabs opened). I'm willing to make many modifications to this script. I've considered adding in a parameter that will let you specify if you want just /copyvios/, just /dupdet/, or both (default) tabs to open. I've also debated having it popup an overlay or a create a single new tab with an overview of the results with links you can follow to see more detail or verify the results. I've also debated having it check the results for you and instead of showing how many tabs it will open offering the percent chance of it being a CV. I need feedback saying that the community wants any or all of these features before I spend time coding them, and I'm open to features or changes I haven't thought of if you suggest them and there is a backing for them. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 16:54, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

I am now :) Fiddle Faddle 17:22, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

We have the category down to about 600 items. This is no mean feat since it gets refilled throughout the day, too, not just with submissions that get added as they age, but also by submissions that the folk who are trying to save 6 month old drafts are reviving. Let me ask them for a serious service: Please do not just revive it. If you think it is worthy of being revived, please review it. If it passes, great. If it fails, and if you cannot improve it, it is not sacred. Let it topple over the G13 threshold. Fiddle Faddle 11:12, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Timtrent, I suppose it's at me that this is aimed. I do sometimes review and accept the old submissions directly after I improve them, but in cases where serious changes were needed I prefer to let the draft have an independent review. However - I will pledge that for each one I submit I will review one from the very old list. —Anne Delong (talk) 12:20, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

@Anne Delong: I honestly didn't aim. I was simply expressing a tiny frustration, and using a blunderbuss. I like your pledge . It is pledges such as this that solve the backlog problem we have. I am pledging to review at least 10 a day that I find in that category for the foreseeable future. Often I manage a few more, but others are doing most of the donkey work. Fiddle Faddle 12:46, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that the abandoned submissions are on all different subjects, about many of which I am ignorant. I do put out requests to Wikiprojects, but many are not active or the participants are not interested. I also pass some along to editors who I know are interested in specific topics. I am sometimes rushing because there are so many old drafts circling the drain, and each one I spend time on means several others aren't even looked at. You caught one yesterday that I submitted without enough scrutiny. I know that I am adding to the queue, but these submissions are part of AfC too. Many are casualties of bad or unhelpful reviews during backlogs drives by editors now blocked or banned from AfC. Are these really showing up immediately in the very old category? I assumed that they were appearing there after a month or so had passed.—Anne Delong (talk) 14:47, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure that I mind about their circling of the drain, or even their vanishing down it, but we all have different priorities, and that is fine. I reason that we cannot catch them all. I'm not sure what the circumstances are under which they appear at once in the category. It may be when they have been edited in some way (any way) that does not resubmit them? It depends on how the things we add to them categorise them, and their being refreshed and thus becoming part of that category. Fiddle Faddle 16:02, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

I think that's an AFCH thing- unsubmitted drafts that are submitted using the tool just have the t taken out of the template so they go in the queue at the date when they were created. Rankersbo (talk) 09:53, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

If you're looking for a break, why not look at the 19 days category which could be cleared and create a breathing space? I think there are no soul destroying quick declines there. Rankersbo (talk) 09:59, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi all, I'm back! I've been very busy with university exams for the last few weeks, I'm ready to get stuck in here again. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 12:44, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Quite a large number of oldest submissions are Musical

I am not an expert in the notability of musicians, but we have loads in there. I know there is no obvious way of finding them except opening them, so, please, would a reviewer or two well versed in the Music criteria do a fast pass down the list, accepting or rejecting the music related submissions?

Each of us is good in some areas and weak in others. This one is one our submitters adore submitting in, so we are somewhat overloaded with music and musicians. Paring the list down in this way would be a great service. Fiddle Faddle 17:54, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

If anyone sees a submission about a record label that appears reasonably notable, reporting it to 78.26 might be a good idea. 78 enjoys working on these. —Anne Delong (talk) 11:53, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Anne. I wouldn't say I enjoy working on the latest rap label, but I'm willing. Now, if you have a record label in existence pre-1980, I'd love to work on it. Also have some expertise on musicians active pre-1980, and old radio shows. I try to check the backlog for these topics occasionally, but don't get around to it as much as I should/want to. 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 12:47, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

The handle turns

It seems that the process that nudges each article into the next category daily hasn't been working for over a week now, with only articles that were cleaned up or otherwise edited while in the queue moving along. But it kicked in last night. Very Old is back up to over 600 with 3 weeks and 4 weeks still being high. Nethertheless, the majority of the previous very olds have been dealt with, and the level of both very olds and total pendings is lower than when this thread started. Rankersbo (talk) 09:26, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Ah, what a "joy"! I've been away for a while and will start on a relentless 10 per day from the oldest category again. Ok, 10 isn't huge, but, if we could all do that, then we would make a huge inroad. I have managed one, so far! It's simple. Start at the top left hand corner, go down the list one at a time until you find one you feel competent to review, and review it. Then move on down the list. Fiddle Faddle 11:42, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

I start at the bottom right hand corner, so hopefully you and I will meet in the middle eventually... Arthur goes shopping (talk) 13:16, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

I've been doing "firehose" duty (I think alongside MV) and trying to stamp on all the CVs, in-jokes, "Brian is in my class and he smells", and similar quick declines. It's exhausting and I'm not sure how much longer I can do it. Rankersbo (talk) 08:43, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

I've tried to improve the workflow around reviewing very old drafts by proposing that a link to a random very old draft appear when the script's done working (next to ones for a random pending draft and a random GFOO draft). APerson (talk!) 01:04, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

AFCH Requirements for use

The AFCH script has helped people clear our enormous backlog of submissions. I cannot use it anymore because I don't meet the five -hundred edits requirement. I used it fine before, before the requirement. I believe the five-hundred article edit count is unfair and arbitrary. My suggestion is to lower or remove that requirement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JDgeek1729 (talk • contribs) 23:53, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

• That specification is not preventing you from using the script. Your continued use of the script should be discussed before you are added to the script's whitelist however... — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 00:38, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

My use of AFCH

I have used the AFCH script before the 500 edit criterion. I was told that I don't have to meet the 500 edit criteria, but I had to discuss my continued use of the script. I was removed from the whitelist, what now? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jjjjjjdddddd (talk • contribs) 02:45, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

• Note, Jjjjjjdddddd is apparently JDgeek1729 from the section directly above this. I'm looking through their contributions (mainly the drafts they have accepted), and I see a lot of promotional content getting through. Copyvios is apparently off-line atm, but I'm thinking some of them are copyvios as well... It is certainly worth looking deeper into... — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 03:23, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi Jjjjjjdddddd. My suggestion would be to leave the script alone for a while until you have 500 edits. Maybe you could create a couple of articles or help fix up formatting or add references to some existing articles or drafts. It doesn't take long to rack up a couple of hundred edits doing those things. Then please read the reviewing instructions carefully, including any links to policy pages, before you start using the script again. We'd be glad of the help when you have a little more experience. —Anne Delong (talk) 03:29, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

I think I was a bit off that day, I'll try to do better — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jjjjjjdddddd (talk • contribs) 03:34, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

• Jjjjjjdddddd, where were you told you didn't need to meet the 500 article space criterion to use the AFC helper script? I can see no evidence of that. I have looked at your contribution history and have also been looking at some of your acceptances. Several of them are very problematic, as are other edits you have made to article space. They all need to be checked. Anne is correct. Please follow her advice. You need far more experience here before you start moving drafts into article space, with or without the tool. In general, inexperienced, new editors should avoid the use of any automated tool. You need the experience of actually reading edits and their context carefully before reverting, removing or adding tags, etc. The same advice applies to participation in AfDs. You need a clear understanding of Wikipedia's notability and sourcing requirements. Voceditenore (talk) 09:07, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

I think Jjjjjjdddddd was told that technically the script is blocked to anyone who wasn't a whitelisted user and at the same time discoraged from seeking inclusion on the white-list and misunderstood that to mean "actually you're fine, go ahead". Rankersbo (talk) 12:10, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes I imagine he misinterpreted this reply made yesterday after his name was removed from the whitelist. That reply was based on the fact that he appeared to already be using the script anyway. What had happened was that Jjjjjjdddddd had used the script twice in March before the whitelist was implemented and then edited only sporadically (not at all in August, September, and most of October). On 2 November he must have found he no longer could use the script so added his name to the whitelist [2]. He then moved over a dozen drafts into article space before his name was removed later that day [3]. Voceditenore (talk) 14:37, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

• Actually, that particular comment was not based on the fact they had previously used the script. It was based solely on the opening comment the user made on this page where they admitted they hadn't reached the indicated 500 edits minimum to have some level of understanding of how Wikipedia works and what may or may not be relevant. It wasn't until after I made that comment and saw this new section that I decided to look into the contributions of JDgeek1729 and Jjjjjjdddddd (which the inconsistency set of an internal red flag and I was checking to see if it was a name change (which it appears to have been) or if it was an alternate account) and found the troublesome reviews (which reminds me I wanted to do a copyvios check on those, maybe it is back up today). What I simply meant by the your continued use should be discussed was that even though he is below the 500 edits we desire for new reviewers to use the script, if he had contributions on other wikis that demonstrated the required competence for editing and reviewing, we might ignore the 500 edits and let him use the script anyways. However, after digging in a little bit into the editing history, and lack of understanding that has been shown in the discussion here, I'm not thinking such an exception would be appropriate. Also, Jjjjjjdddddd, please note that the 500 edits is not a hard set line or rule. As we can make exceptions to allow usage without at least 500, we can also require more than 500 if competence is not evident in the user. Please keep that in mind as you continue to edit. Your 500 contributions need to be meaningful and show some level of understanding of what's going on on Wikipedia. Please don't confuse that to mean that you need to be a guru and understand all of Wikipedia politics and contradictions and frustrations (you'll learn more in time and they are often evolving in one way or another). Happy editing! — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 15:07, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

It's back...

See Draft:Nabi Su + Nabi Su + Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nabi Su + User talk:Bellerophon/Archive 13#The Nabi Su article was suddenly deleted - what happened? Bellerophon _{talk to me} 09:57, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

• I guess I missed the previous drama associated with this topic. It looks like everything is under control, is this just a "keep your eyes open" post? If so, will do. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 16:04, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

It's been recently submitted for review (31 October), and should simply be declined. There is nothing substantive added which distinguishes this version from the version previously deleted at AfD. I can find zero coverage of "Nabi Su" as a known or accepted style/branch of mixed martial arts, and in fact there is virtually no coverage of its alleged founder. It is the name of a martial arts school in New York City, now run by someone who studied with the founder. The article, despite the copious "padding", is basically just a subtle advert for the school. The references are only passing mentions of the school itself, sources which do not mention either the school or the "style", or sources written by the current owner of the school. Voceditenore (talk) 18:00, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

• I've declined it and explained in depth why I've declined it and what options the advocate has. I also rattled the saber somewhat by suggesting we might pull a MFD on this draft to be rid of it. Hasteur (talk) 18:21, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
• I see... I guess it doesn't matter, based on the Copyvios report, it is a copyright violation anyways... Been tagged for CSD as such. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 18:30, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Frankly, the I don't the think the overlap is enough to qualify for a speedy. Normally, if this were in article space, or even another draft, the offending bits would just be removed or the article stubbed. Voceditenore (talk) 19:26, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 5 November 2014

If possible, it would be desirable to change the IRC link to [4]. This is due to the over unfriendliness presented by the normal webchat client, as well as feedback from various people I have talked to on IRC. This could be a test case; If it goes well, it may be worth rolling this out further. Thanks, --Mdann52talk to me! 15:17, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

I fully support this. KiwiIRC is so much more user friendly than webchat. Darylgolden^(talk) 23:41, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

I agree with this. Many, many users who come in to the channel currently have trouble finding where to type. Howicus (Did I mess up?) 23:42, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

As suggested on IRC, I left a note on Stwalkerster's talkpage about this edit request. GermanJoe (talk) 00:14, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

I've adjusted Helpmebot's configuration to welcome users from this client as well. Instructions available if anyone wants to add more clients etc. [stwalkerster|talk] 01:03, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Since Helpmebot will now welcome users from that client, I think it's all good if @GermanJoe: wants to change it. Howicus (Did I mess up?) 19:22, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

It's a relatively trivial change, but we should wait atleast a few more days for possible additional opinions - the change will affect a lot of future AfC-related usages. Just a quick note in the meantime: For consistency, the same link should be used in all AFC submission sub-templates, namely "pending", "declined" and "draft" (template:AFC submission proper is just their collective frontend). GermanJoe (talk) 21:32, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Done Affected templates are Template:Afc decline, Template:AFC submission/pending, Template:AFC submission/declined and Template:AFC submission/draft. Note (for future template changes): several sandboxes are out of sync and should be cleaned up, before they can be used again. GermanJoe (talk) 21:32, 10 November 2014 (UTC) GermanJoe (talk) 21:32, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Potential solution to questions without a draft at WP:AFCHD

I've noticed that there are a lot of questions submitted to WP:AFCHD that don't specify a draft. Looking at the gobblygook of wikicode that gets presented to new editors when they try to ask I question I completely understand this. Instead of having a big giant link at the top of the page to ask a new questions, what about editing Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Help desk/header to provide a text box for editors to first fill in the name of their draft, such as the following:

Extended content
Ask a new question: Enter the name of the draft you want to ask a question about in the box above and click on the button to create a new question. A reviewer should soon answer your question on this page. Please check back often.

--Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:22, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

• You're fairly new here, so you likely don't know unless you've spent an extensive amount of time digging through the page archives. Extension:InputBox can't be used in that way (it only allows you to create or search for whatever is typed into the input box, it doesn't allow creation of a new section on the talk page with that header or any of the other things it would need to do), and we have no way to offer that type of box and have it be functional at this time. That is part of the reason the template system is set up so that the user that post's the request has their name (or IP) in the section they created with a link to their contributions. Most of the time it is fairly easy in a couple clicks to see what they are asking for help on using the links provided. Occasionally, it just can't be done and you need to ask the editor what their draft is and see if they respond. It's the best we can do at this time until the InputBox extension changes or there is a guided tour added to the page (there need to be many such tours added to this project, I just don't have the ambition and others apparently don't either). — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 19:06, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
  • I didn't completely read through the documentation, and I guess I assumed inputbox was more functional. It would be nice if inputbox would function as a template and treat the input text as a variable, as there are plenty of places where users are asked to comment in a certain format that would be much better suited to a form than an inputbox with a ton of wikitext that they gloss over, missing all attempts are directing their attention with inline comments. --Ahecht (TALK
    PAGE) 21:03, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

An easier way to see your subpages

Dear editors: I noticed a thread further up the page which noted that editors sometimes have trouble finding their subpages. I started a discussion about this at WP:VPI, and as a result I have been informed of a way to add a "Subpages" link next to the "Sandbox" link at the top of each page. You can see how to do it yourself if you look at my javascript page. I'm finding it very handy. It would also work for user pages that are moved to Draft, because a redirect is left on the user page. —Anne Delong (talk) 19:44, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

{{AFC notification}}

I don't think {{AFC notification}} is currently being mentioned at WP:AFCR. I've seen a reviewer, who possibly didn't use a script - or used a script that's not normally used - accept an AfC draft and move it to mainspace without notifying the draft's author. I don't know if this is a problem or not. Maybe it could be, especially if it's possible to not use {{AFC notification}} when declining drafts. --82.136.210.153 (talk) 14:41, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

WP:AFCR is about using the script, so it's not surprising that it doesn't mention how to review without the script, although it does say that it will notify the user. I believe the old script also included notifications, so what you saw must have been a manual move. AfC doesn't "own" the drafts - all we can do is recommend that the script be used, prevent its use by inexperienced editors, and do damage control if something inappropriate happens. —Anne Delong (talk) 17:46, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Reviewer comments

Would it be useful to retain reviewer comments on a submission's talk page once accepted? There are often useful discussions about notability which would be useful context if the article ended up in AfD. ~KvnG 20:39, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Can somebody remind me why the script doesn't put comments on the talk page? They would be permanently kept (just like a PR, GA, FA or AfD), and I don't imagine it to be too difficult to add the extra link to talk when notifying the submitter. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:10, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, this would be beneficial and should be implemented ASAP. A long term aim might be to move all the AFC-stuff to the talk page (perhaps with the exception of a simple notice at the top which says "see the talk page for details on the status of this submission"). — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:36, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Wasn't this all discussed in an RfC not that long ago? Bellerophon _{talk to me} 20:46, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

• Do you mean this one or this one that both suggest we should use the draft talk pages... — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 21:37, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, they're the ones... When you say "use the draft talk pages", yes, I agree the talk page should be used. However, the suggestion above to move all the AFC 'stuff' over to the talk page did not achieve consensus in the RfC. Ritchie's suggestion about moving comments (in so much as: discussions of the subject matter and suggestions for improving the draft) to the talk page strikes me as quite sensible and within the result of the RfC. Bellerophon _{talk to me} 16:41, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

I suppose the idea here is that if we used the Draft talk page for all AfC correspondence, it would automatically be transferred to the article's talk page when accepted. But this is different and a bigger deal than what I had in mind. I would suggest that approval scripts create a new AfC reviewer comments section in the mainspace article's talk and put a copy of all {{AFC comment}} entries there. ~KvnG 22:03, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

More than the past 10 articles? revisited

Further to the previous discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation/2014_8#More_than_the_past_10_articles.3F, I have a suggestion that might give the functionality that is desired while avoiding the problems arising from anyone using a legacy version of the helper script. How about creating a new page say Wikipedia:Articles for creation/recent 100 that can be updated by the latest version of the script and give an alternative longer list of recently accepted articles than the current one? It is sort of duplication, but would be easy to implement. --_nonsense ferret 22:17, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

A lot of recently declined articles and other info can be seen at this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:AFC_statistics . I seem to recall that it updates once per hour. It used to be accessible by clicking on the word "List" in the Submissions tab at the top of this page, but because of the size of the backlog right now it won't transclude. It takes a while to load, but has a lot of useful information. —Anne Delong (talk) 16:58, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, that looks absolutely fine for the purpose. Please proceed to ignore my comments. --_nonsense ferret 17:04, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 24 November 2014

Diff: [5]

Remove Spanish Category inclusion from template. Not sure why it's there, but It doesn't make sense for us to include it. I think this a uncontraversial change. Hasteur (talk) 17:15, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

 Done Thank you for your attentiveness. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:55, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Pigsonthewing Um... While the doc page is also important, the template Template:AFC submission/tools still shows the category I asked to be removed as still there. I'm reactivating the template request because I don't think this is "Done". Hasteur (talk) 19:15, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

 Done. The text you propose to be deleted is not a category; it's an interwiki link to the Spanish Wikipedia. The page it links to was deleted three years ago, so I removed the link. The link Andy removed from the /doc page is not broken, but it corresponds to Template:AFC submission, not the /tools subpage. SiBr₄ (talk) 19:35, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Note: I don't object to its removal, but did anyone take the time to ask Poco a poco why they added it back on May 23, 2010, in the first place or if they objected to its removal? I find it poor form to remove such things like this without at least notifying the editor that added it and seeing if there is some strange reason it is there. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 20:07, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

@T13: In May 2010, the esWP page in question, es:Plantilla:Enviar artículos/herramientas, still existed; it was deleted in September 2011. I don't see a reason to keep a broken interwiki link pending a response from the user who added it. SiBr₄ (talk) 20:26, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

• SiBr4, I never suggested we should keep it pending a response, just that the user should have been (and now properly has been via my ping, assuming they haven't turned of notifications, which I expect them to see within a few days as they have been active this week based on their contribs) notified that the defunct link has been removed from the template to give them to opportunity to pop on here if they have any objections post-edit. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 20:30, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

  You did imply so with your first sentence (unless you suggested notifying the user and then making the edit before (s)he has a chance to object). I do agree with Hasteur that there is no reason to assume someone might object to removing an interwiki to a deleted page. If the page is recreated, or a replacement interwiki found, it should be at Wikidata anyway. SiBr₄ (talk) 21:07, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

  • Almost, what I was suggesting was making the edit and then notifying the user that the edit had been made. That is all. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 21:34, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

@Technical 13: If the user can present a compelling case for why the interwiki should be in place then I'm perfectly happy to give them the space, however using WP:COMMONSENSE along with a healthy dash of WP:NOTBURO this should have never needed a follow up after the request was completed. Also something that was added in May of 2010 to now is a half-life of the internet ago. Hasteur (talk) 20:34, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

• The user specifically added that interwiki that was doing no harm as it was noincluded and no-one even noticed it for 4 years. Also, I take offense that you think it is perfectly okay to remove a comment by someone else (especially someone of whom you've initiated an interaction ban of sorts with). It was quickly reverted by an administrator and I believe you've already been admonished for it. Please, don't let your personal feelings for me cloud your ability to make competent contributions to Wikipedia; you are so much better than that. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 21:34, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

• You seem to think it's perfectly fine to delete other editors commentary, so I was only serving you your own behavior on a platter. Didn't like it? That's funny cause you imply that your commentary is more important than mine. Hasteur (talk) 21:47, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

• Is one of you two children standing for Arbcom right now? Well, Hasteur seems to have been less irresponsible here, but really, does this need to go on year after year? I'm not even going to bother commenting at the election pages; I think a certain person should take the impending result as feedback on his behaviour. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:35, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
  • D, thanks for your comment. I've made my statement here and had no intention of pursuing it further. I see no reason for it to go on, and I really do wish Hasteur would just let it go. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 22:49, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

• The removal is uncritical and fine with us, thanks for asking, though. Poco² 16:20, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Further deprecation of the "Wikipedia talk:Articles for Creation" prefix for AfC pages

In keeping with our goal of being completely in the Drafts namespace, and keeping in mind the previous steps in deprecating the WT:AFC prefix for AFC work as enumerated here, I propose that we change the {{AFC submission/tools}} template in a similar way to this diff so that drafts that are in the WT:AFC prefix now display a nag suggesting that the page be moved to the Draft Namespace. At this point I am only establishing a consensus/discussing the change so that the template-protected edit can be rubber stamped through. Hasteur (talk) 17:38, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

I agree. Chris Troutman (talk) 20:30, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

• Neutral: I will note however that the backlog has never been as high as it has been since we started nickle and dimeing the migration to the Draft: namespace. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 17:00, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
  • How does the size of the backlog impact our migration to the Draft namespace? How does migrating to the draft namespace affect our backlog size? Hint: IT DOESN'T. T13 has been on record multiple times that we need a big-giant-honking cut over from one style of reviewing to another, yet hasn't made any proposals, nor has he spent any substantial time working on drafts recently. By doing this "nickle and dimeing" we divide the migration from WT:AFC to Drafts into more digestable portions that are easily understood than a grand "Make AFC be in Drafts". I express disappointment that I have to reiterate this bite-sized strategy again since it has been explained to T13 multiple times before. Hasteur (talk) 17:08, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
    • What I've been saying from the start, is that moving the problem from one namespace to another resolves nothing. It's been around a year now and can anyone show how the issue has gotten any better? I certainly doubt it considering the backlog is higher than ever and the number of participants is lower than ever. If things had been thought out and better planned from the get go to reform the article wizard and integrate all of the pieces of the project into a single efficiently manageable unit, then things would be getting better. Considering not all drafts are in Draft:, only looking at my "Draft:" ns contributions is not representative. I have been working on cleaning up some of the mess left behind in WT:AfC for example. Anyways, I maintain my neutral position at this time. Happy reviewing. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 17:22, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

• Comment. I wonder if there are perhaps more downsides to this than advantages. If someone is knowledgeable about the Articles for Creation process, then they will know that drafts in non-draft namespaces should be moved to the Draft namespace, or not. They don't need a template telling them so. Conversely, most of the people looking at articles for creation pages are going to be the draft authors, who in general are not knowledgeable about the process, and therefore are liable to be confused by yet another template telling them that something is wrong with their draft. We already have many draft authors confused about whether their draft is correctly submitted for review or not, and some draft authors expressing further confusion about templates telling them things are in the wrong place and suggesting they move pages which often they can't do anyway. I think this may just be another source of confusion to these draft authors, without providing any tangible benefit to anyone else. Arthur goes shopping (talk) 07:40, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Arthur goes shopping All that I'm proposing is that the template (down in the nags section) tells the user "This draft should probably be at Draft:TITLENAME (move)" with the move being a link to the move functionality that has the info filled in for them.

Semi-protected edit request on 14 November 2014

I would like to become an article reviewer, please. Mrfaustomendez (talk) 21:41, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Not done: Before you can become a reviewer, your account must be 90 days old and you must have 500 edits to articles. Jackmcbarn (talk) 21:46, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Recent mass message

Hi all,

Just a note that if you are going to send out mass-messages about a project, you should gain consesnsus first. This specifically relates to the message sent out by Fuhghettaboutit earlier today. Raising the issue here first, then maybe sending out a less intrusive message may have been better, but no point arguing over what's already happened. --Mdann52talk to me! 11:07, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

A much better idea would be to make the AFC helper script automatically call one of the copyvio checker APIs and put up a large message saying "warning - this article has an xx% chance of being a copyright violation of abc" with a link to CSD it per G12. If you make it simple, people will do it. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:18, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

For better or worse, we have not been able to automate copyvio checks. The bots that do so miss vast numbers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:25, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Copyright is one of the most misunderstood areas of Wikipedia. I've lost track of all the "why was my picture deleted?" questions on the help desk. It seems to be counter-intuitive to human nature, and I would always AGF when doing copyvio speedy deletes. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:48, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

• As I've already said, adding any code for CV detection to the AFCHelper script itself is scope creep, and not a good idea. What I've also already said, is there is another userscript that can be used for detecting CVs (User:Technical 13/Scripts/CVD.js) and I'm more than willing (I've been begging actually) to make changes to make it work in the most efficient way that does what people think it will be easiest to use. I'm prepping for a four hour discrete math exam, have another class this afternoon today, and I'm going back into surgery with my 3yr old daughter tomorrow to get her adenoids out. Between those things and the ArbCom elections, my brain is slightly fritz for doing any advance coding this week, but I'll be happy to expand and work on the script next week. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 12:59, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

If we can't get a bot to do this, perhaps there are some reviewers that are interested in screening submissions for copyvio. If a problem is found, the submission can be deleted. If no problem found, the screeners could leave a comment to that effect to streamline things for final reviewers. ~KvnG 15:54, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

(e/c) Assuming good faith—the intent of the creator—bears little relationship with whether a page is a blatant copyright violation or not, and has nothing to say about whether the deletion should or should not be carried out. We certainly should, however, not assume that the creator knowingly engaged in copyright infringement. In fact, my experience is that the majority of people who post copyvios are unaware of the issue.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:04, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

I sort of had the same initial reaction as Mdann52 but once I appreciated that checking for copyvio is, per reviewer instructions, the first thing we're supposed to be doing as reviewers (and I've not been doing that) I calmed down and appreciated the reminder. ~KvnG 15:51, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

• Checking submissions for copyright problems is not always as simple as it seems. This is likely one of the least efficient processes in a review. It's tempting to ask editors to do a Google search and report the page copyright clear, even if they aren't planning to review the page, but this won't always work: (1) sometimes pasting "text strings" missed the copied parts if one or two words are changed from the original (2) sometimes the new editors add new copyright material between submission and review (3) the text may be copied from a source that's not online, or is behind a paywall (4) as DGG has pointed out to me, many universities (and I'm sure other websites as well) have their staff profiles set to NOINDEX (5) with the long delays in review, the original source may even have been changed or removed. While checking through the six-month-old declines, I am coming across quite a few missed copyvios, and a few times another editor has later found copyvio on one of these which I was sure that I had already checked. Likely reviewers who pick out specific submissions to review because they are familiar with that type of submission will know better where to look for copyvio, or have the right permissions to search databases, etc., than a reviewer who tries to check them sequentially—Anne Delong (talk) 16:41, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

• Tell you what. I'll just carry on doing my best. I find a lot and flag them for deletion. I miss some. LIfe goes on. Fiddle Faddle 16:59, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

• I recognize that the intent was simply to provide a reminder and suggestions, but distributing them in this way, might cause it to be misunderstood as an attempt to pre-emptively create firm guidelines.

My experience is that many of the indications you listed are at most merely cause for checking further or even usually innocuous: a great many new editors routinely use the plural, or an incorrect tone, because they do not understand the requirements of Wikipedia. We're a unique type of communication, and what seems natural to us will seem very artificial to others. Some editors with a degree of skill are capable of writing error-free drafts, even in their initial edits. Many writers on commercial subjects use copyright and trademark symbols here because they are accustomed to use them in other writing, and do not realize our style is different. Many people, especially those preparing the drafts in a word processor, use smart quotes either as a learned routine or as the default setting of the software; some programs automatically correct to this if not set otherwise. Use of vague terms of quantity and weasel-word expressions is common in all forms of writing and permeates the encyclopedia; the need for exactness is not obvious. Promotionalism should be rejected, but promotionalism is not always copyvio. The world is full of promotional writing, and people simply imitate it. Indeed, Wikipedia is full of promotional writing, and well-intentioned people may not realize it is not wanted. Promotionalism and copyvio often go together, but not always.

There are many submissions that are almost certainly copyvio, but for which I cannot find a source. There are many that look like copyvio, but aren't. The copyright detectors are unduly sensitive to coincidences of words in long names of organizations and similar material that cannot be expressed in different ways.

And, as pointed out at many places in Wikipedia, Copyvio is often fixable. In some cases, I simply fix it myself. We stubbify at WP:CSD when possible, and I've sometimes done it at AfC and then accepted the article if there is sufficient sourced material remaining. DGG ( talk ) 04:05, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

• Over the past few days I've flagged copyvios, BLPs of minors, and that amount to 5-10% of the surviving pages. Perhaps Monday morning is a particularly bad day for it, but the reason so many get through isn't simply because we're not thinking to check. Most copyvios are not causing the harm asserted, they are people who've re-used their own text without giving the correct permission. The mass mailing said don't flag copyvios by failing them at AfC because they don't get dealt with by the admin team- I think this is a misunderstanding of our script's capability. When I do this, the {{db-g12}} gets flagged. Maybe it didn't in the past, or maybe it only does it if you have twinkle installed.

I know this is a common complaint and can seem like apologism, but the decline message for copyvios could make clear that you can't simply copy and paste copyright work that's been used elsewhere even your own. Or it could paste the normal G12 message below that makes it much clearer. If a work sounds promotional- I fail it as advertising and then do the g12 bit separately so the message gets through that it wasn't just some bone headed thoughtlessness that got the article deleted and getting the copying permitted isn't going to fix the real problem.Rankersbo (talk) 09:23, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

• I've modified User:Technical 13/Scripts/CVD.js to all editors to toggle which tool(s) they want to use. The default is copyvios only. In order to use this feature (changing from the default):

if(mw.config.get('wgNamespaceNumber') === 0 ||//Article space
   mw.config.get('wgNamespaceNumber') === 2 ||//User:
   mw.config.get('wgNamespaceNumber') === 118 ||//Draft:
   ((mw.config.get('wgNamespaceNumber') === 4 ||//Wikipedia:
     mw.config.get('wgNamespaceNumber') === 5) &&//Wikipedia_talk:
     mw.config.get('wgPageName').indexOf('Articles_for_creation/') !== -1)){

    var dupdet=true;//will enable dupdet
    var copyvios=false;//will disable copyvios

    // Beta testing for [[User:Technical 13/Scripts/CVD]]
    mw.loader.load( '://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Technical_13/Scripts/CVD.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript' );

}

I'd be happy to add further features next week. Let me know... — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 11:15, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Suggestion: Watchlist drafts you decline

Hey guys, just wanted to throw out there that it may save some time if we watchlist drafts we decline. A lot of submissions are resubmits, and it seems like it would be faster for the user who originally declined them to review them again, rather than a new reviewer who has to go through all the sources for the first time. If you have your declined drafts on your watchlist, you can easily see when they are resubmitted. Does anyone else do this? Or is there are better way to see when drafts you've declined are resubmitted? --Cerebellum (talk) 06:44, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Except in the most obvious cases, I generally try to avoid re-reviewing drafts that I have previously declined, largely because I think it is fairer for the draft author to get a different reviewer who may not share my biases or my possible misunderstandings of the quality of the sources provided or the significance of particular claims to notability.

I make an exception where I've declined an article but see it as very close to being acceptable... in those cases I generally offer specific recommendations for getting it over the finish line (so to speak), and am then very happy to accept the draft once these steps are carried out. On the other hand, some draft authors react to such "final steps" recommendations by having their own drafts deleted! It's a funny old world. Arthur goes shopping (talk) 07:47, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Arthur, it's not a good idea to have one reviewer "tied" to a draft as the article could be skewed by that reviewer's personal biases - getting multiple reviewer opinions is an inherent feature of the AFC process. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:12, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

I tend even to decline requests from authors to re-review, unless they have fixed an obvious and simple fault. I watchlist them by default anyway, and look to see what has changed, but a new set of eyes provides a better review. Fiddle Faddle 10:00, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Watchlisting won't help with the most serious problem - editors who are discouraged by the decine and never edit the article again.... these are the pages showing up six months later on the G13 eligible list, but by then it's too late to encourage the new editors. —Anne Delong (talk) 13:44, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the input everyone, I'll stop doing this. @Anne Delong:: I notice that some editors leave the review open and give suggestions for improvement in the comments, do you think this is better than declining right away? --Cerebellum (talk) 14:54, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Well, in general, Cerebellum, if there is an obvious problem I would decline right away. However, if I don't have the time or the knowledge to do a full review, but have a comment that I feel may help the editor or other reviewers I post it. Today I left a comment instead of declining for an unusual reason: The subject of the article is actually a fellow musician in my own relatively small community, although I haven't met him (yet, that I remember), and since I edit under my own name I just wimped out.—Anne Delong (talk) 23:49, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm already hailstormed on my talk page (and after they see my edit notice) by draft authors that because I've declined it and they don't like it, they can argue repeatedly with me or beg for annother review. We have ~500 very old (over 4 weeks) drafts that need attention, so I'm not going to take time away from those that have been waiting patiently to review yours again after I've declined it for a reasonable reason. Hasteur (talk) 16:05, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

In answer to the other part of User:Cerebellum's question, if I am reviewing a previously-rejected article, I will look at the revision history and pull up a diff to see if there's been any good work done on the submission since the rejection. If there hasn't, I will do a quick sanity check on the previous reviewer's work. ~KvnG 14:43, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Dupe Detective Down?

Hasn't been working for me since last night, just sits there and hangs and eventually doesn't find even the most obvious match.

Anyone know of alternatives? --j⚛e decker^talk 19:04, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

• Copyvios FAQ and there is also a handy userscript (User:Technical 13/Scripts/CVD.js) that adds a link on all pages in the sidebar to one click and open the tool in a new tab. It has toggles for dupdet and copyvios and the default is copyvios=true;dupdet=false. If you are interested, I'd be happy to help you set it up for what you want. I also plan on adding some api checking stuff so that it will return a percent based on the copyvios api. Happy editing! — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 20:56, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

I'll check it out when I'm back home tonight, and ping you if I need a hand, thanks. Still, my question is unanswered, has Labs/DupeDet been broken for others today? --j⚛e decker^talk 23:16, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

• Duplication detector has had issues for quite some time, often being down or failing to run a comparison (while others work). Labs has had its shared of issues since TS was completely shut down as well. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 23:55, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

• Got it, thanks. --j⚛e decker^talk 01:49, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Warning: "By days" values are going to jump today

The machine that runs User:Joe's Null Bot had stopped doing so after an OS upgrade, that's been resolved, but it likely means that some of the categorization by days since submission will jump to correct values, by as much as the better part of a week. Sorry for the confusion. --j⚛e decker^talk 23:19, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

• Perhaps getting the Joe's Null Bot into the ToolLabs might be worth while.Hasteur (talk) 23:22, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
  • I suspect it would be an idea, it's been a plan "when I have time" for a while. I'll ping you sometime, I would expect that with someone with a modest clue about the Labs setup it would be very simple. --j⚛e decker^talk 23:39, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Invitations to participants

I want to pick up on Technical 13's proposal to send out invitations. We have close to 500 editors listed as participants of this project. Anne Delong requested that there be some sort of opt out mechanism for these invitations. I propose the following user talk page message:

Hello {User}, we've missed you over at AFC and our backlog has grown to {NUMBEROFSUBMISSIONS}, as you don't seem to have any reviews in the last {NUMBEROFDAYS}. If you might have a few minutes to review {RANDOMPAGEFROMOLDESTSUBMISSIONCATEGORY}, that would be a great help! If you are no longer participating in the AfC project, you may wish to visit our project roster and update your participation status. {SIGNATURE}

I think this is the low-hanging fruit for increasing the number of active AfC reviewers. Having more reviewers is the best way to address our backlog. ~KvnG 15:42, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

This is a good idea, but the message needs tweaking. As written, it appears to be blaming the receiver of the message for the backlog - never a good way to get participation. Also, it shows the editor one possible page to review, but has no link to the list of other pages if that one' not suitable. How about:

Hello {User}, we've missed you over at AFC, as you don't seem to have completed any reviews in the last {NUMBEROFDAYS}. Our backlog right now is at {NUMBEROFSUBMISSIONS}. If you might have a few minutes to review {RANDOMPAGEFROMOLDESTSUBMISSIONCATEGORY}, or one of the other pages at (OLDESTSUBMISSIONSCATEGORY), that would be a great help! If you are too busy right now, that's okay, too. If you are no longer participating in the AfC project, and don't wish to receive these reminders, please visit our project roster and update your participation status. Best wishes, (or something similar) {SIGNATURE}

—Anne Delong (talk) 16:22, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

@Anne Delong: I like your improvements. ~KvnG 23:38, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

@Fuhghettaboutit: could we get your help using MassMessage to send this out? ~KvnG 23:38, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

• I can help with the MMS. Is that the exact wording to use? Some of those "variables" (such as {NUMBEROFDAYS}) will be hard to populate if it is even possible. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 23:43, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Would it be easier if a vaguer wording was used, such as "more than two months", or whatever time period Kvng had in mind, and then only send the message to those who (1) haven't reviewed for that long, and (2) haven't received such a message since their last review? You'd still need a way to determine how long since each member had reviewed, so maybe this idea isn't any better. —Anne Delong (talk) 00:27, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

• Correct, wouldn't be any easier. We'd first have to determine who fits the criteria, and then we would have to make a special mailing list for the occasion. The best bet is to eliminate that part of the wording and change gears to something like:

Hello {BASEPAGENAME}, we've missed you over at AFC! Our backlog right now is at {PAGESINCAT:Pending AfC submissions}. If you might have a few minutes to review one of our very old submissions, that would be a great help! If you are too busy right now, that's okay too. If you no longer wish to participate in the AfC project, please visit our project roster and update your participation status or alternatively to opt-out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Opted-out of message delivery to your user talk page. Best wishes from KvnG , Anne Delong, Technical 13 and the rest of WikiProject Articles for Creation team!

That could be the basic message, or if we are sending it out now, it might be appropriate to replace the "Best wishes" with "Happy holidays", maybe. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 00:49, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

I propose we send notices only to participants who have not edited in Draft: namespace in the past 60 days. If there's an automated means of creating such a list, great. Otherwise, I can create the list manually if necessary.

Are there any other problematic variables? ~KvnG 00:36, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

• Kvng, please see the section directly above. I think the best way to go about it is to mail that to all the listed participants once every 4-6 weeks. That will either get more editors contributing more frequently (and once every month/month and a half really isn't too much to ask) or will get those that are truly not interested in contributing to remove themselves from the mailing list. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 16:57, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable to me. I would not mind receiving messages from AfC every 6 weeks, at least until the backlog is more under control. I suggest we tweak the message a bit to acknowledge that it is also being sent to active reviewers. ~KvnG 17:22, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello {BASEPAGENAME}, as a participant at Articles for Creation we'd like to thank you for any reviews you've been able to do recently. If you have not reviewed any submissions recently, we've missed you! Our backlog right now is at {PAGESINCAT:Pending AfC submissions}. If you might have a few minutes to review one of our very old submissions, that would be a great help! If you are too busy right now, that's okay too. If you no longer wish to participate in the AfC project, please visit our project roster and update your participation status. To opt-out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Opted-out of message delivery to your user talk page. Best wishes from Kvng, Anne Delong, Technical 13 and the rest of WikiProject Articles for Creation team!

Hello {BASEPAGENAME}! As a participant at Articles for Creation, we'd like to thank you for your recent reviews or if you've been unable to review any recently, let you know that we've missed you! Our backlog is now at {PAGESINCAT:Pending AfC submissions} and we need you, if you have a few minutes, to review one of our very old submissions! We'll understand if you are too busy right now, but we'd hope that you can make a few moments later for this important task. If you no longer wish to participate in the AfC project, please visit our project roster and update your participation status. To opt-out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Opted-out of message delivery to your user talk page. Best wishes from KvnG , Anne Delong, Technical 13 and the rest of WikiProject Articles for Creation team!

• Kvng, what do you think of that? A little more friendly and grammatically clean. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 18:14, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

The more general text is fine, but I would not be in favour of sending out a message to all participants, even those who are reviewing every day. I particularly wouldn't want my name to be on such a message. There must be a way to tell who has been reviewing lately - for example, Template:AFC statistics has a list of who has accepted and declined a submission in the past 36 hours. EarwigBot finds the information and puts it on that page. Also, AFCBuddy appears to be able to tell who has been reviewing many days after the event. Can't we get the data from the same source? —Anne Delong (talk) 01:24, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

• Like I said, someone (or something) would have to go through the contributions of all of the reviewers on the list and see if any reviews have been preformed on any drafts (regardless of namespace, since WT:AfC and userspace drafts are still permitted). I think that time would be better spent elsewhere. If you don't want your name on the message, that is fine, I just included you as a key contributor to this discussion. I think only sending it to users that haven't reviewed in a while is very much like giving a man a fish and that the project would better be served by sending out reminders once every 4-6 weeks. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 01:43, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Technical 13 I don't see your edits as an overall improvement. I tried to revise it to make it better but found I was just heading back to the previous version. If you think that version needs improvement, I can take a crack at improving it starting from there. I think we're reaching diminishing returns with further edits. ~KvnG 15:17, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Re: determining inactivity - a simple way to cull the list would be to remove anyone who has edited Wikipedia:Articles_for_creation/recent in the last 60 (or whatever days). While it might not remove every single active participant, it would catch anyone who accepted even one article using the tool, which would be the vast majority of active people. Surely that would be better than just sending the notice to everyone. --ThaddeusB (talk) 19:43, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

• I'd honestly rather see it sent to everyone, at least for now. An idea for the future though, after this first mailing, that I would support is adding functionality to AFCHRW to log actions to a special page in their user space that can only be edited by themselves and administrators (only requires it be suffixed with .js or .css). By doing that, I could update our topicons and userboxes to sub-cat users by last activity of that page. This idea of course should have some community support before implementing, but I don't see why it wouldn't get such support. Also, this log page would make it easier for AFCBuddy to score backlog drives and it would make it easier for users to go back and find that draft that they declined last week for lacking sources that they just found a source for. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 20:30, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Would you be opposed to sending it out to all participants who haven't edited Wikipedia:Articles_for_creation/recent in the last 60 days? I can put that list together. ~KvnG 16:20, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

• That list doesn't include editors unless they create a draft. It's likely there are editors who only review one a week, and it is more than reasonable to expect that they may go a couple months with nothing but declines (not hard to decline ten in a row, especially if you only work from the low-hanging fruit pile). We really should send it to everyone. It will be a thank you and a little extra recognition for those who are active doing a generally thankless task and will be a reminder to those who haven't reviewed any in a while. It's a win win to send it to all if you ask me. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 17:53, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm OK with either distribution list. If you prefer to send to all, we need to leave Anne Delong out if it. I prefer the last revision of the message I proposed but I'm not going to let perfection obstruct good here so I'm OK with your most recent version too. ~KvnG 23:17, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Proposal for another backlog elimination drive

Idea: - As the backlogs are simply growing out of control, I propose another backlog elimination drive to lower the ridiculous number of pending submissions. What do you think? George Edward C – Talk – Contributions 19:54, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi. I see you're very new here. Every time this WikiProject (recently) has a backlog drive there are problems. There used to be a button where anyone could start a backlog drive and it had to be eliminated. Yes, there's a backlog. It would be nice if this WikiProject had an elected coordinator that could properly organize activities like that because otherwise it's a goat rope. Chris Troutman (talk) 21:58, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

• The reason that this will not fly is because there are a cliche group of editors at this point that have taken over OWNership of the project (and I'm not the only one that thinks so) which is why the backlog will never be reduced or go away. This group of editors has driven away quite a few regular reviewers which has compounded the issue. I honestly expect the backlog will hit 10K before a new system can be developed that will be productive and encourage reviewers to come back and beat the backlog down. Until then, I wish you all the best and hope that someone can prove me wrong. Happy reviewing! — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 00:01, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

My take is that there is a consensus among AfC reviewers not to start a backlog drive until we can figure out how to run this project in a more sustainable manner. ~KvnG 00:24, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

We could do with some focussed drives, possibly bot aided: The simplest will to to identify those that have been declined previously at least twice, and to make a quick decision whether they show any signs of improvement, or any possibilities for a decent article. Those that do not should be listed for MfD, or we will be dealing with them indefinitely. DGG ( talk ) 05:48, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

How about a new take on a backlog drive. How about an on-going toplist/high score of somesort of each month, which could be implemented in to WPAFCH... just a thought. No prizes, just a "toplist". (t) Josve05a (c) 07:20, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

• If that type of system is established through consensus, there would have to be a consistent way to track it (perhaps have the reviewing script do some logging for it which would dual-purpose as a way to get more reviewers using the "approved" script instead of deprecated versions or doing it manually (if anyone still does those things)). Also, if implementing that type of a system, a "most active reviewer of the month" scenario could be set up for prizes and it could be broken down into "by topic". There would also still need to be some kind of encouragement to test for copyvios (I'll work on improving my script in a couple weeks to show the high mark percent per Earwig's copyvios' api once finals are over). — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 07:42, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
• I know this will shock multiple, but at almost 3k pending submissions I am in favor of a very narrowly defined backlog drive specifically one that focuses only on the oldest submissions (any submission that has been pending for no less than 20 days) for 30 days. If we tackle Category:AfC pending submissions by age/Very old‎ (666 Pages), Category:AfC pending submissions by age/3 weeks ago‎ (300 Pages) and Category:AfC pending submissions by age/4 weeks ago‎ (278 Pages) that'll take nearly half of our backlog out of contention. Hasteur (talk) 17:02, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

We should really gain a consensus of how we can better organise this project. The above suggestions seem quite reasonable, including Josve's. Reading the comments, I understand an elimination drive probably isn't the best way to tackle this backlog problem. Thank you everyone for your input! George Edward C – Talk – Contributions 19:37, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

• I haven't done AfC work for a while just to have a break on doing something else. Where I have been here, I've tried as best as possible to pass submissions, even if it means doing research and copyediting myself. I've been participating in the GA Cup recently, and I'm wondering if the organisers (particularly Christine (Figureskatingfan)) can bring some ideas of how to tackle the backlog here. The basic idea is that points are awarded against the time an article has been queued, the amount of effort undertaken in the review, the size of the article and the appropriateness of feedback received. So, for example, a high scorer would be somebody who takes lots of articles in the "very old submissions" pile, improves them to our inclusion policies, passes them, and none go to AfD. That's probably what we want to aim for. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:55, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
• My quick answer is no, I really don't want to be involved in yet another project. Too much stuff goin' on, doncha know, IRL and here in the project. That being said, the aforementioned GA Cup has been somewhat successful in decreasing the queue at GAN, which is also outrageously long, and it's our first year. I think it (and WikiCup) tends to tap into the competitive nature of humans. Perhaps the solution here is to create a competition, too? Again, not something I'm willing to run, since I, unlike Ritchie, have never done any AfC work. But good luck to you guys, anyway. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 21:50, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

I certainly wasn't proposing you ran an "AfC Cup", heaven forbid, rather that you might have some ideas of how to structure it based on your experience at the GA Cup and a cursory look at AfC. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:25, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I get you, haha. We've learned a lot from the GA Cup, which was modeled after the WikiCup. I agree that if you were to conduct a competition, you should award points on different aspects of AfC. I'm not familiar with the finer points of what happens here, and what your goals are, so I can't recommend anything specific. I'm assuming that some AfCs are in the backlog longer than others; perhaps you could award more points for removing them from the queue. The GA Cup also awards points based on length of article and complexity of review (i.e., length of review). We're learning as we go, especially this first year, so we've had to give ourselves the freedom to tweak and improve things as we go. We expect to revamp the points system for next time. My most important suggestion is to get at least three judges (four would be even better), so that you can cover for each other when things get busy IRL and in case a judge has to drop out (both of which has occurred to us). Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 00:46, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

• A competition is a good idea, but as everyone seems to agree it needs to be better structured than just "all reviews = 1 point". Perhaps I will see if I can come up with some criteria to assign a reasonable weight to various factors I think should be considered (i.e. things like Ritchie333 onlines). To those saying we first need consensus on how to better run the project in general, can you be more specific as to what you think needs addressed? --ThaddeusB (talk) 19:53, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

I notice that the last tab states, at the top, "WikiProject Articles for Creation conducts periodic Backlog Elimination Drives." Based on the conversation above, am I right in thinking this is no longer the case? If so, could the wording here be updated? AndrewRT(Talk) 21:11, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Question about G13 tagging

Hey all, I started trying to clean out the huge amount of articles eligible for CSD g13 but I stopped because I started to realize it might not be a good idea. What articles should I tag and what articles should I skip? I see a lot of articles that have been postponed, so I was wondering... that the drive-by CSD tagging of all those articles might not be a good idea... Thanks! — kikichugirl ^inquire 07:39, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure Hasteur's bot places tags on eligible articles. There has been a fair bit of discussion about how often that should happen. I don't believe user intervention is required in tagging the articles. We could probably do with some more admins willing to review the nominations though. Bellerophon _{talk to me} 08:48, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Kikichugirl, there's a reason for the delay between the time that drafts become eligible for db-g13 and the time when they are automatically nominated for deletion. It's to give editors time to look over these drafts and pick out ones that show promise and could become articles. Sometimes a draft is almost ready to be accepted, but its creator gets busy or discouraged or confused and doesn't finish it. Sometimes inexperienced (or just obstinately non-consensus-following) reviewers decline perfectly acceptable drafts for inappropriate reasons such as the format of the references, lack of inline citations for routine facts, or bad spelling, etc. If you nominate all of the drafts indiscriminately as soon as they are eligible, the interested editors don't get the chance to see them, postpone their deletion, and fix them up. I leave most of them for the bot to tag, but I do tag ones that don't have any encyclopedic content at all ("my cat is so pretty.."), and I also tag copyvios with G12 instead of G13 so that they won't be "refunded". —Anne Delong (talk) 12:01, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Bellerophon is correct in the assertion. At some point shortly after a AFC submission becomes eligible for G13, my bot comes by to give the article creator a nudge to try and encourage them to take interest in the submission again. When the bot nudges the user it starts a 30 day timeout on that article. If at the end of that 30 day period the article still is untouched, the bot will procedurally execute the same steps that a editor would with respect to CSD:G13. There are a few exceptions (such as non-ascii character titles that have to be purged from the database from time to time) that could block the CSD:G13 nominating process from executing because we only select 50 at a time from an internal tracking DB. I'll look when I get back home later today. Hasteur (talk) 13:51, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Here are some wikilinks for those curious about these submissions: Category:G13 eligible AfC submissions, Category:AfC postponed G13. ~KvnG 15:24, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

In addition to what Anne Delong specified, I look for ones that are sufficiently promotional to be deleted as G11, and give this as a reason or additional reason. Adding G11 or G12 has the advantage of discouraging hopeless requests for restoring the deleted AfC. DGG ( talk ) 23:24, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Asking requirement on WikiProject Articles for creation/Participants under criteria

Hi. I have view WikiProject Articles for creation/Participants under criteria parts. it said that [a minimum of 500 undeleted edits to articles] is required to become an article reviewer. Is [draft edit] can be used as the requirement?

I'm still insufficient to become an article reviewer since I edit a total of 413: 409 on en.wikipedia, 1 on ko.wikipedia and 3 on wikidata.org

— Kingsho (talk) 04:16, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

@Kingsho: It is. You have to have 500 edits all in the main namespace. We need to see you have experience editing articles. Edits to this talk page don't count. Furthermore, even if you had the needed 500 edits your decisions on drafts might not meet our expectations and we'd complain about your actions. This isn't an easy job and it's really not for newcomers. Try joining the Guild of Copy Editors or the Counter-vandalism Academy and build your experience. Chris Troutman (talk) 16:45, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

$0

Is one of the scripts borked? WP:AFC/R shows several headers being replaced wholesale by "$0" after the redirect/category is accepted/declined (ie. after it is processed, regardless of acceptance or rejection) -- 67.70.35.44 (talk) 05:48, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

• Theopolisme — APerson — Josve05a — Hasteur: can one of you please look into this? Thanks. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 06:34, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
  • @Technical 13: I did not get pinged... (t) Josve05a (c) 22:31, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Technical 13 So you didn't feel the need to do any legwork but are more than happy to have others do the legwork of chasing down a error? *grumbles*
    Avono Are you using AFCH-Beta? [6] and the related edits seem to suggest so. Hasteur (talk) 13:17, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes I am, what else should I use then? I find using the other script tedious. Avono (talk) 13:41, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Editing guide for First Time Reviewer

I have tried to search instructions on reviewing articles. There is lot of information on what is acceptable and what is not acceptable as an article. However I am lost on what to do after review. ie is there any FAQ or a HowTo where a first time reviewer can read and do the editing of the article based on the review done. (Yndesai (talk) 09:06, 9 December 2014 (UTC))

Hi, the reviewing guide is up at the top under reviewing instructions. As to what to do when editing, we expect all reviewers to have gained experience as editors. While you appear to be a long-time contributor, you have fewer than 500 edits under your account's name. We have a general rule-of-thumb that says that you should have contributed at least 500 edits to articles before you become a reviewer. :Rankersbo (talk) 14:11, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

error

i want to add my department information here.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zeeshan Iqbal ch (talk • contribs) 08:42, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

@Zeeshan Iqbal ch: This page is for users working on the administration for the AfC project. Did you mean to write a draft instead. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:22, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Ritchie333, I believe by "here", Zeeshan Iqbal ch meant "on Wikipedia". He was referring to Department of Commerce, Bahauddin Zakariya University-Multan (speedily deleted yesterday for copyvio and blatant advertising). Voceditenore (talk) 08:23, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Cheque activity tool has to be replaced Suggestion

The Cheque activity tool - placed above the names list - is obsolete and has to be replaced. I'd guess this one will do: https://tools.wmflabs.org/xtools/ec/ but I miss the correct embedding. Please help out. -- Just N. 18:56, 22 December 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Justus Nussbaum (talk • contribs)

Semi-protected edit request on 31 December 2014

I request that my name be added to recipients of : Chevalier Dans L'Ordre des Palmes Academiques. I was knighted in December 2000 . My name is: Dr. Melissa Morgan Patrylo . The bio line can say- innovative educator and specialist of French history and culture. . Thank you. This addition may be confirmed by the French Consulate in Miami, Florida.

91.177.48.45 (talk) 17:00, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

 Not done Firstly, you are in totally the wrong place to make such a request.
Secondly, we do not have an article on Chevalier Dans L'Ordre des Palmes Academiques
The only people in our list Ordre national du Mérite are highly notable people, who have their own article on the English Wikipedia, which you do not have.
We do have Category:Chevalier of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques, but this is a category, which only categorizes existing articles. - Arjayay (talk) 17:22, 31 December 2014 (UTC)