Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/Archive 19

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Double check on my action

Since apparently I'm a dangerous and reckless reviewer, I would like to submit my action on User:Mmhuang/Taga IBA Ka Kung for review. I decided that rather than rack up another decline in under 48 hours, it would be better to delete the AFC submission template and give the user an opportunity to read the previous decline reasons and correct them. @Dodger67, FoCuSandLeArN, and Aggie80: Your advice would be appreciated as you are the previous declines on this "submission". Hasteur (talk) 16:18, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

I think it is a good idea. The content appears to be a cut and paste of the organization's charter document. It may be notable, given there are over supposedly over 3,000 members, but it is hard to tell from what is provided. There have been significant improvements over time, since the first time I saw it, the only thing on the page was a Facebook link. So they are teachable!The Ukulele Dude - Aggie80 (talk) 17:31, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
Good move. We should not be forced to deal repeatedly with obvious incompetence. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:02, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

New CSD

  • I find the above action appropriate, and if you don't mind Hasteur, I'd like to see if there is consensus within the project to propose a new CSD criterion "Multiple bad-faith submission attempts" or something of that nature.
This criterion would be defined something of the nature of "AFC drafts with at least three repeat submissions that show no intent to improve on a draft which stands no chance as is of surviving in article space."
Don't take my wording too literately, I'm admittedly bad at choosing an appropriate wording for something like this.
The spirit of the CSD would be that submissions that are created by people that are NOTHERE to build an encyclopedia, that would be deleted as any of the A criterion if they were in article space, and are repeatedly submitted with no attempt to improve the draft should be deleted.
I look forward to replies and comments. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 17:03, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
I wouldn't be so hard on Hasteur. It does go against AfC principles to delete a submission's template like that in my opinion, but I can't really blame him for doing it. In lieu of that, I support Technical's suggestion, however with strict criteria for implementation, otherwise it would be liable to abuse. Regards, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 17:20, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
I support deletion of bad faith repeated submissions per WP:NOTHERE. AGF is not a mandate for an infinite supply of cupcakes and fairy dust. There is no effective difference between bad faith AfC submitters and mainspace trolls and vandals. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 19:05, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict)It really comes down to the do we conundrum of repeatedly declining something with no hope (to the point of instituting full page protection if necessary) or short circuiting the process and putting it in the CSD bucket early. As much as I'd like to take these problems out behind the woodshed like "Old Yeller" I look back to the CSD criteria list. How does a administrator (or editor) determine if the submission is being made in bad faith? How do we determine if progress is being made? I'm hesitant to endorse this as there's 2 somewhat recent discussions about things like this at the CSD talk page that really didn't have enough support for consensus. My feeling is that it is better to slow down these eager editors so that the repeated declines don't become a permanant brand of "NO" on the submission. Hasteur (talk) 19:08, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
How, with a 3-4 week AfC backlog, does an article come up for rereview in less than 48 hours? Shouldn't we be reviewing from the back of the queue? ~KvnG 20:52, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
  • I can only assume it is a BackLog Drive re-review. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 21:02, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
  • There is no deadline. As such, any given article might be reviewed several times during a short period of time if the submitter resubmits, as long as there are reviewers (like myself and many others) who don't mind a time order. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 21:11, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
Sometimes I am moving just-submitted pages out of sandboxes and into the review area and giving them appropriate titles, and I see right away that they have no references at all, or are blank, or are obvious copyvios, some other easily noticed problem, so while I have them on my screen I review them right away. It saves time. Also, if an editor posts on my talk page about an article, I will usually look at it then, rather than writing "wait your turn". —Anne Delong (talk) 22:28, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
I'm not sure any of these scenarios apply to Hasteur's review. It seems like a good way to limit the disruption from bad-faith resubmissions is to make them wait in the queue until their turn. ~KvnG 13:32, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
Premature to call for a CSD. How about for the next few weeks, if we spot any of these situations we send them to WP:MfD. Then if the number of such pages going to MfD is high AND they all close as "delete" we can create a CSD to save the WP:BURO of MfD. MfD has the advantage that re-creations of pages deleted after a discussion are already speedy-able. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 03:13, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Dates of birth and death

When publishing a biography, with a year of birth/ death, but not the exact date(s), please could the AfC script apply one (or two) of:

Thanks. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:03, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Andy, the AFCH already adds the {{Persondata}} template to all BLP articles (even if there is no data at all), shouldn't that template be adding the articles to those categories if those parameters are empty? I'll support it if there is an RfC someplace about it... — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 19:07, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
It doesn't, and I don't think it would be good for a hidden template to be adding such categories. If someone adds the date, but doesn't update persondata (as often happens) they wouldn't be able to remove the category. (As an aside, I discuss this and other problems with persondata in User:Pigsonthewing/Persondata.) Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:31, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
Fine, then shouldn't the infoboxes be adding the articles to those categories if those parameters are empty? I'll support it if there is an RfC someplace about it... — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 19:52, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
Technical 13 Auto-magically adding the categories based off of the lack of data in the templates is a bad idea. For example: If there is an article about a historical person that we don't know their exact birth date, but do know the birth year (or the death side), the template missing the values will leave a perpetual inclusion of the category causing the page to always show up when editors have reviewed and cannot find the information to be more specific. If an editor does determine that there's no reliable information for filling in the parameters of the category, then they can remove the category as the good faith effort to source the information has been made. Hasteur (talk) 20:08, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
Let's test on that using code:{{#switch:{{lc:{{{birthdate|¬}}}}}|¬|=[[:Category:Date of birth missing]]|none=|#default={{{birthdate}}}}}
Empty set (undefined): {{User:Technical 13/SandBox/Dates of birth and death}} → Category:Date of birth missing
Empty set (defined): {{User:Technical 13/SandBox/Dates of birth and death|birthdate=}} → Category:Date of birth missing
No date: {{User:Technical 13/SandBox/Dates of birth and death|birthdate=none}} →
Year only: {{User:Technical 13/SandBox/Dates of birth and death|birthdate=2014}} → 2014
Full date: {{User:Technical 13/SandBox/Dates of birth and death|birthdate=March 12, 2014}} → March 12, 2014
Using this example, it's not too hard to have the template only add those with missing or entirely empty parameters to the category, filter out those with "none", and allow whatever else to be passed through as it normally would without adding the category. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 20:33, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

If a template adds Category:Date of birth missing then a user cannot change that to Category:Date of birth unknown, as they should be able to. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:44, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Sure it can... Simple adjustment to using code:{{#switch:{{lc:{{{birthdate|¬}}}}}|¬|=[[:Category:Date of birth missing]]|unknown=[[:Category:Date of birth unknown]]|none=|#default={{{birthdate}}}}}
{{User:Technical 13/SandBox/Dates of birth and death|birthdate=unknown}} → Category:Date of birth unknown
That work? — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 21:39, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
Why does everything have to be a template with you? Sometimes the best solution is a simple hammer. POTW didn't ask for a magical implementation in templateFu, they asked for When publishing a biography, with a year of birth/ death, but not the exact date(s), please could the AfC script apply.... Pigsonthewing I'll implement the changes into the AFCH tool tomorrow (as I've passed the 20th hour of being awake at this point). It won't be available in the production version of the tool for a while, but the Dev tracker version should be updated shortly after I make the commit to the source. Hasteur (talk) 04:13, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
Thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:50, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
@Hasteur: Note also Category:Place of birth missing; Category:Place of death missing. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:55, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
In that case I oppose the script adding these categories and there will need to be a consensus to implement this change. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 04:27, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
In what case? Oppose on what grounds? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:50, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Since this can easily be done on a much wider scope on-wiki using templates that many editors can change and update and fix, I oppose adding it to the script which can only be edited by a dozen or so editors. If you don't want these categories automagically added by templates as I've demonstrated can easily be done, I suggest that you write or get a bot written for you to go through all BLP articles adding these categories where appropriate. I bet on of @Theopolisme and Hasteur: would even be willing to help you with that if you ask nicely. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 13:35, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
Using the script to add the categories doesn't stop any editor from changing or removing them subsequently. As Hasteur has indicated, we don't need templates for this. A bot would be equally unsuitable, as unlike the human AfC reviewer, it would not be making manual check for a date in prose. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:47, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
2 to 1 consensus. And don't claim that it requires consensus to add things to the script as there's been things that have been objected to before that still made it in as an individual developer's idea. Hasteur (talk) 13:29, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
2:2 actually, unless your saying that Fram's comment below isn't worth anything. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 13:35, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
I'm saying that your sham objection is BS and that Fram's comment is modified based on POTW's response and my response. In fact the quote they present endorses the idea of adding the category than opposes it, so 3:1 consensus. Hasteur (talk) 13:43, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
You're really going to try and spin I don't think having a script adding cats that will often be incorrect is useful. into "Yes, this script should add these categories to all BLPs where these dates are missing"? That is rich. Anyway. If you think this is such a good idea, just write a bot to search through article space and tag ALL articles missing this information instead of arguing that only new articles coming out of the AfC draft project should be tagged with these categories for missing information. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 13:49, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
Other than though operator error, (GIGO), the script will never add incorrect categories (though were it to do so, your templates also would). Feel free to demonstrate otherwise. Nor is it proposed that "this script should add these categories to all BLPs where these dates are missing". So stop with the FUD, please. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:01, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
  • And your attempt to spin creating a great many jobs for the null edit bots/update engine to re-evaluate the massively transcluded template of persondata is equally a bad idea. Go back to the request that originated this thread. There's no request for a bot to do it. There's no request for templateFu. When publishing a biography, with a year of birth/ death, but not the exact date(s), please could the AfC script apply.... I don't understand why you thought Templates would be the right tool for resolving this when it was clearly indicated what the requestor wanted and the context of the request was understood. I can only assume that you are willfully misunderstanding because you like mucking around in the arcane language of templates. Yes BLPs at large probably have this issue, but the amount of BLPs that exist in mainspace already is effectively farting at a fan, but we can draw a line in the sand and say that promotions that were assisted by AFCH can shoot for the higher standard of checking the additional information to help flag down editors. Hasteur (talk) 14:02, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Note that the "cat:date of birth missing" states "For people whose period of activity occurred before the second half of the nineteenth century and whose year of birth is likely to be the only specific indicator known to history, use Category:Date of birth unknown." I don't think having a script adding cats that will often be incorrect is useful. Fram (talk) 10:57, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

The condition you quote can easily be dealt with by the script; it's better to have the less-precise of these categories, than none of them. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:54, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
And can the script also deal with "When the year of birth for a living individual has been researched, but the month and day remain missing, please do not add "Category:Date of birth missing (living people)" to an article before ascertaining said individual's full public prominence. The privacy of marginally-notable "non-public figures" must be respected; see WP:NPF and WP:BLPPRIVACY. Such people, even if their entire date of birth is available in a public record, should have only their year of birth indicated."? (emphasis mine) This is from the Date of Birth missing (living people) cat... Fram (talk) 14:01, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes; though I note that that "instruction" is routinely ignored; or rather doesn't reflect actual practice. Note also that teh category is "Date of birth missing...", not "...must be added". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:14, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
All 5 of the categories listed in this request are noted as Administrative categories, and therefore would only show up for editors who are (logged in and have the "show hidden categories" pref enabled or edit the page and notice the categories listed at the bottom. It's been my understanding that just like redirects, stubs, cleanup templates, and a great many other things "Maintenance category tagging is cheap". Making sure that the newly promoted article attempts to flag down a editor at large to try and source the biographical information is something that I think we can agree is better than leaving the biographical information blank. Hasteur (talk) 13:37, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
Leaving biographical information of such marginal value as the date and month of birth blank is no problem, and one of the reasons why so few articles have these tags (compared to the number of articles that actually are missing this info). Looking at the first 10 random articles that have year of birth or death, but not the accompanying month or date, I find:
The situation seems to be the same for the place of birth and death categories. People don't care about these, it's nice if this info is added if and when applicable but it isn't worth the bother of having a script add these, with the risk that they are added incorrectly or inappropriately. Fram (talk) 14:01, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
Fram I think you're confused (or have been misled). The initial request is for AFC submissions that are being promoted out of AFC to mainspace to have these categories added for a mainspace editor to review. Obviously a larger discussion needs to take place (Probably at WT:BLP) to determine if we want to have a bot that takes a very narrow scan of the persondata/infobox person parameters for the dates and do a monthly scan to add members to the category. Obviously the bot would need to log which biographies it's already taken a look at so as to prevent it from adding the maintenance category again after a volunteer has resolved it. Hasteur (talk) 14:10, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes, and the vast, vast majority of mainspace editors don't care at all about these date (not the year) categories, and with good reason. I don't thnk using a script one by one, or a bot to do it in group, or some complicated template technology, is a good idea for this, considering the restrictions on these categories (i.e. when to apply them and when not to apply them). We have many more-or-less important maintenance categories, and this is really way down at the bottom of that list. Fram (talk) 14:19, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
Nominate them for deletion, then. If you succeed, we'll have the community's answer. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:41, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
Obviously, there is no middle ground between "delete them" and "add them automatically". Really? Fram (talk) 14:50, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
Fram Each editor has their own personal itch to scratch. That the category exists and is populated with some articles suggests there's at least some editors interested in this kind of detective work. I started a RFC at WT:BLP to determine if there is a consensus to have a bot do this. Note: This is not a "How do we implent this?" but a "Should we implement this?" RFC question. Hasteur (talk) 14:45, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
I'm not stopping any editor from personally, manually adding these cats. I object to a script doing this, both because I think it is pointless and because I think it can't really make the decisions needed to correctly add them in too many cases. If it was a really important maintenance cat, then I wouldn't mind the occasional miscat so much, but here the problem-benefit ratio is too, uhm, problematic (I started rather impressive there, but failed a bit at the end :-) ). Fram (talk) 14:50, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Reopening Comment:T13, you seem to be missing the point so I'll lead you like a toddler. This discussion is about the script adding the categories if the categories might be appropriate. Just like adding the orphan template, or the various categories that get slapped on when a AFC submission is promoted to article space. The RFC is to address articles that are already in main space. Two separate discussions that look at the same symptom from different angles so that we remove defects from both sides. Do not re-collapse as this issue is still pertinant. Hasteur (talk) 17:44, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Blank lines

The script could usefully clear any blank lines from the top of articles as it publishes them, after removing any templates and performing similar cleanup, please. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:53, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

This is actually already on the todo list for general cleanup, so it will be implemented at some point. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 18:03, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
Where is that list? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:46, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
  • The list is on the WPAFC page on GitHub. You can find the links to GitHub on WP:AFCH. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 21:57, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
Done in rewrite a few weeks ago fwiw. Theopolisme (talk) 20:26, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
Thank you. When will that be deployed? What other changes are due? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:42, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Talk:Psychological and sociological issues affecting space travel/Archive 1

This page was submitted a long time ago, but it's not really an article submission, and it has been moved to talk space where it properly belongs. How can the categories be removed so that this won't keep being nominated for deletion under G13? —Anne Delong (talk) 18:39, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Yanking the AFC Submission banner would solve that problem. The bot is explicitly locked out from touching anything outside (Wikipedia Talk, Wikipedia, Draft, Draft Talk) namespaces. Hasteur (talk) 18:45, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks; that's done. —Anne Delong (talk) 03:32, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Drafts resubmitted, unchanged

Would it be useful to have a new criteria for rejection, "no significant changes since last decline"? (A recent example is Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Current African Head of States, which was rejected for "This submission is not adequately supported by reliable sources" and resubmitted after these changes.) It could be used to deliver some boilerplate to the submitter, requesting that they pay attention to advice already given, before making another suggestion. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:37, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

See #Double check on my action and the #New CSD section above. There has been discussion about just tagging these as bad faith attempts and getting them deleted. Of course, if the editor wised up, there would have to be some kind of REFUND caveat attached to the deletions. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 18:06, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
That seems to be a discussion of speedy deletion for multiple, "bad faith" submissions; I'm suggesting a time-saving way of replying to good-faith attempts by naive users who, with guidance, can become welcome contributors, of benefit to the project. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:50, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
I do this now by selecting the same reason for decline as the previous reviewer and adding a comment indicating I'm relying on the previous reviewer's judgement because there have not been any significant changes. Having a separate criteria might be confusing to authors because if the new criteria refers to the previous review, the author has to figure out which review was previous. ~KvnG 19:01, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
Could the script not quote the previous decline? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:09, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
That sounds like a nice feature. Theopolisme (talk) 11:04, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Heads up

The infobox requested template is up for deletion. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 03:51, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for posting about that here! —Anne Delong (talk) 11:56, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

The discussion was closed today as keep. DGG ( talk ) 01:44, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

RFC closed

Hi all, A few days ago, I closed the Latest RfC. I left the following comments:

A number of points can be drawn from the discussion. There appears to be (rough) consensus for Anne Delong's 6 point whitelist-only approach, however there is some concern that the word "banned" in point 3 is a bitbitey, and imprecise as we aren't talking about WP:BAN, and rough consensus to change that to something softer. No particular consensus on the exact softer wording, but that could be worked out later. Consensus to have a separate blacklist was not reached, as de-whitelisting is effective as a blacklist with less social stigma.


All users involved seem to recognize there's no technical way to enforce this in any real sense at this time, but the AfC helper script could be modified to not function unless they are on the whitelist. No current technical means will stop users from installing a "hacked" AfC helper or just manually moving pages. There is no consensus to use editfilter for technical enforcement at this time.


A point was raised that a negative userright such as "denymove" could be used for technical enforcement, but even the proposer suggested that was something that would require a new community-wide discussion and would likely be controversial, so as such, should be considered out-of-scope for this RfC, however a secure means of enforcement is wanted.

. --Mdann52talk to me! 14:29, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Mdann52, for taking the time to summarize the posts. Aside from not using the word "ban" (perhaps we can just say "requested not to review", or "by consensus should not review at this time" or some such thing), it seems that the proposal was generally accepted.
It seems to me that the first step here would be to create some prominent wording above the list of reviewers, asking those whose experience doesn't meet the criteria not to sign up. —Anne Delong (talk) 17:03, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
Glad to see this is happening. Anne Delong, if you can keep me in the loop about developments with this (i.e. when a list has been assembled), I'll work on implementing whitelist support in the helper script. Theopolisme (talk) 22:45, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
The existing list is at - WP:WikiProject Articles for creation/Participants, that page should be adapted to suit the criteria and script requirements. -- Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 23:37, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Okay, how about this for a prominent notice to be added to the top of the reviewer list page:

Notice to prospective Articles for Creation reviewers

Editors wishing to take part in the Afc process as reviewers, and who meet the criteria listed below, should add their usernames to the list of reviewers below.

Criteria:

AfC reviewers must have:

  • a Wikipedia account at least 90 days old.
  • a minimum of 500 undeleted edits.
  • thoroughly read and understood the reviewing instructions.
  • a good understanding of the policies mentioned in the reviewing instructions, including the various special notability categories.

PLEASE NOTE: Usernames of editors who do not meet the first two criteria may be removed from the list by any editor. Usernames of editors who do meet the criteria may nevertheless be removed after a removal discussion. Editors whose usernames are not on the list are strongly cautioned not to review Afc submissions.

If you are interesting in becoming an Afc reviewer, but do not yet meet the criteria, please do not sign up now, but do come back later when you qualify. In the meantime, you are welcome to familiarize yourself with the process by browsing through the submissions and help pages and observing the work of the reviewers. The reviewers will gladly answer any questions you may have, both before and after you sign up.

—Anne Delong (talk) 10:03, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

As a side note, the "participants" page is full protected to act as a AFCH whitelist. We should place a notice on it ASAP. My suggestion (with working button!) is the following --Mdann52talk to me! 13:51, 21 March 2014 (UTC):

Notice to prospective Articles for Creation reviewers

Editors wishing to take part in the AfC process as reviewers, and who meet the criteria listed below, should add their names to the list below.

Criteria:

AfC reviewers must have:

  • a Wikipedia account at least 90 days old.
  • a minimum of 500 undeleted edits to articles.
  • thoroughly read and understood the reviewing instructions.
  • a good understanding of the policies mentioned in the reviewing instructions, including the various special notability categories.

PLEASE NOTE: Usernames of editors who do not meet the first two criteria may be removed from the list by any editor. Editors whose usernames are not on the list are strongly cautioned not to review AfC submissions.

Only users listed on this page will be able to use the AfC helper script.

If you are interested in becoming an AfC reviewer, but do not yet meet the criteria, please do not sign up now, but do come back later when you qualify. In the meantime, you are welcome to familiarize yourself with the process by browsing through the submissions and help pages and observing the work of the reviewers. The reviewers will gladly answer any questions you may have, both before and after you sign up.

          Ask us a question!          
nice one - just one tiny query for clarification - is that 500 edits in any namespace including talk or article space only, or is it articlespace and AfD. --nonsense ferret 20:39, 21 March 2014
500 total in mainspace what the RfC seemed to support. --Mdann52talk to me! 20:45, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
Suggest a slight tweak to the wording. Change: "Anyone listed on this page will be able to use the AFC helper script." to a more explicitly restrictive statement: "Only editors listed on this page will be able to use the AFC helper script." Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 21:20, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
I agree with this. The other doesn't say what it really means. —Anne Delong (talk) 05:28, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
  • I would like to point out that the RFC proposal, which was well supported (except for the use of the term "ban", which it was felt was too strong), did not call for the list to be protected, and in fact suggests that users will sign themselves up after reading the criteria, and that the Afc script installation process include checking the list. The proposal allowed regular reviewers to remove names from the list if the users didn't meet the two criteria - how can they do that if it's protected? In the proposal, admins would only be involved if there was a problem. Is the process now going to be that each person is vetted by an admin? I can't see any other reason for an up to 24 hour wait. If you don't want the person to add their own name to the list, can't the helper script installation procedure check the 90 days and 500 edits and then both install itself an add the username to the list? What's the point of having proposals and developing consensus if people just go off and do something totally different?? I would like to remind everyone that the proposal had 13 supports and one oppose. —Anne Delong (talk) 05:28, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
Agree with Anne, the list should not be protected and no admin intervention should be required unless there is a problem. The idea that this would become another "hat" to collect was very strongly rejected everywhere the idea was discussed. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:03, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
If you wish to get the actions reversed, feel free. I may have been a bit quick on that.... --Mdann52talk to me! 07:12, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
User:Mdann52 "Feel free" to what? You protected the page, you created the "click here to apply" button, so you are the one who knows exactly how to undo it, so please do so. There was never any intention to involve administrative processes, except to deal with non-compliant or willfully bad faith reviewers. Thanks Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 17:43, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
@Dodger67: I'm not an admin.. ..

Can an admin action the above request please? (page in question is WP:WPAFC/P. --Mdann52talk to me! 08:37, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

  • I have removed protection from the page. However, I shall contact the admin who placed the protection, in case he knows of some reason why the protection is needed. Really, it would have been better to have contacted him rather than asking here. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 09:40, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Redeclined but not Resubmitted?

Hi, I made an AfC a little over a month ago, and it was turned down a few weeks later. I've made a few small changes since then, but not enough for me to resubmit it, and I come in today and find that it's been declined again. How's the Resubmit button work if they get reviewed again anyway? (It was initially turned down by User:Makro FWIW, who seems to be a current topic of conversation here.) Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 01:22, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Mdann52 submitted it in this edit. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:39, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
Ah, okay. Thanks. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 03:20, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Replay Edits tool

You may be interested in a new tool being developed to quickly see the development of an article. It's called"Replay Edits", and you can try it here: http://cosmiclattes.github.io/wikireplay/player.html

It's quite interesting to see the edits go by visually in an active page (try "Banjo", for example - you can watch all the vandalism being reverted), and it also provides a little timeline so that you can see how frequently a page is edited, and whether the edits are additions or removals. —Anne Delong (talk) 13:09, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

I think I may have made an error reviewing

Regarding my review of Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/List of Aam Aadmi Party candidates in the Indian general election, 2014, the submitter made a good point on my talk page about equivalent articles existing. Can someone else have a look at this please. --LukeSurl t c 13:50, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

  • Well... I'd like to point out that other stuff existing is no justification to add more wrongs to the wiki. I concur with your original assessment. I also see that the drafter is trying to over justify some stuff that is just not that important with cite bloat and that would need to be cleaned up before acceptance as well. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 14:32, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
I've declined a similar one about the 2014 election in the state of Goa, with the criteria that there's an article about the Indian elections already. I don't think there are articles on the general elections for all 28 states, nor should there be, when they're national elections. I dunno, perhaps we should wait for the WikiProject India folk's input, as I already notified them about the aforementioned article.FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 18:23, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
Having reviewed that twice, I am cool with someone accepting it and immediately nominating it for deletion, if they continue to badger us to have it accepted. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 23:16, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Where is the "accept" button?

I enabled the script (Preferences → Gadgets → Yet Another AFC Helper Script: easily review Articles for creation submissions and redirect requests.) And I still don't see an accept button. There's a "Move" which looks like a standard move (which I'm afraid to to for fear of messing up the AFC system) and "review" seems to be to just leave a comment. Don's see any "accept" button which the instructions say to use. Where is the "accept" button. Thanks. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 01:35, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Select "review" and more options will appear. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 01:48, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
The "accept" and "decline" buttons only appear if there is an active submission template (yellow box or possibly blue if you've placed it under review. If you only see the comment and clean options when you select "review", the draft hasn't been submitted. —Anne Delong (talk) 01:54, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. After that first attempt to help me (before your post) I went fishing around. The only choice that it could possibly be under was "submit" and so I tried that, which was a mistake, it make me the submitter. I did a simple revert of my edit on that page. I hope that nothing else got messed up (article is "tepad"). Thanks again. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 01:59, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
It is annoying if you want to accept an article declined or not submitted as the script stubbornly refuses to give you an accept. I then do a shoddy job with the move button. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:14, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
If it isn't submitted for review why do you want to review it? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 19:28, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Could someone comment here?

Resolved

I'm having a bit of a burnout today. User_talk:FoCuSandLeArN#Decline_of_the_article_about_ShopYourWay. Appreciated, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 14:28, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

  • Multiple editors have opined at the AFC submission and on F&L's talk page. Hasteur (talk) 15:07, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Thank you all. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 17:24, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Behaviour

Hello again! Just stumbled upon this IP and was wondering what the deal was. Is this IP being used to submit several AfC submissions, or is one IP user for some reason submitting all of those entries, most of which are quickly declined for various reasons? FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 19:06, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I haven't done much investigation, but it's probably an IP who doesn't want to register. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 19:26, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Ktr101 I'd disagree... Based on Special:Contributions/82.43.182.178 I'm seeing an IP editor who has a specific agenda of submittins drafts that are most definitely not ready. Also based on the own mantained "IP Hopper" table and spot check of those IPs I'm seeing the same behavior. I'm inclined to broad base disable the submission templates from this "user", block all the IPs to force them to register, and treat them as a disruptive sockpuppeteer. Hasteur (talk) 19:46, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Again, I never said that I did an in-depth look, but it could also be that they happen to be on an IP that changes every so often. In terms of their reviews, we probably should have a talk with them, as I see no reason why that couldn't happen. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:12, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
It certainly could be, although I find it highly unlikely that all the people who got that particular IP submitted poor AfC drafts. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 01:42, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

[Mark as patrolled] with script by default?

Per the discussion between Hasteur and myself on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation/Helper_script/Rewrite#Make_the_script_patrol where a request was made by Josve05a and myself for the AFCH to automatically patrol pages as they are being reviewed, we seem to have agreed that there should be a poll as to what the default behavior of the script should be. There has also been discussions about this concept on GitHub, which you can read https://github.com/WPAFC/afch/issues/176 https://github.com/WPAFC/afch/commit/1d4e95874be245b3abeda0719e49ec0ac0e9fbf5 https://github.com/WPAFC/afch/issues/215 — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 23:04, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Proposal: AFCH script should automatically mark pages as patrolled.

  • Oppose As I understand it, AFC review and page patrol review have different goals. AFC Reviewers shouldn't have to copy edit things or tag them for cleaning up, they are merely confirming that the page would not likely be deleted. Reviewers also make mistakes. --nonsense ferret 23:19, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
  • What exactly do you think those different goals are nonsenseferret? Why do you think that editors that are trusted to create articles that do not require patrolling do have their acceptance of a draft patrolled by someone else? Why do you think that new page reviewers (that is what we are doing at AfC, reviewing new pages), should have to have to have their worked checked by another new page reviewer? — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 23:39, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose, but not quite about what nonsenseferret said. I like to be able to have others check any of my edits to wikipedia, and I'd assume that others do too, considering the openness for rereviews during the drives. So, I think marking it as default would be a bad idea, unless I didn't quite understand this, but I'd like to hear others opinions.  —Mysterytrey 00:12, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose, as indicated in the interior discussion. The script should not surreptitiously be making this change. To quote a recent discussion "just because the behavior was not noticed when it was introduced does not give it carte blanche for it's approval". The rubric for AFC reviewing is vastly different than the NPP rubric from vast personal experience. Because any edit conducted by tool is supposed to be done with the user's authorization I strongly oppose
    the script automatically marking pages patrolled
    the script by default marking pages patrolled
    the script evaluating a mark page patrolled by evaluating the user's other rights (autopatrolled, admin, buerecrat, etc.)
I do however endorse making a checkbox on the "Page Accept" only to give the user an option to patrol it when the user accepts it out of AFC space (but would strongly discourage users from using it). I do endorse providing a configuration option so that the user may choose to have the "Page Accept patrol" be activated by default (with the same strong discouragement from using it). Hasteur (talk) 00:25, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Afc reviewers are busy enough trying to keep the backlog down; in order for a page to be properly "patrolled", NPP editors spend a considerable time becoming familiar with the various improvement tags and selecting specific ones that are appropriate when a page is patrolled. Not all Afc reviewers know how or care to be involved in this. If Afc accepts are to be marked automatically as patrolled, we wouldn't be able to pass out any until they didn't need any tags, which is not in accordance with Afc's reviewing instructions or the consensus among Afc participants. After a page is accepted, an Afc reviewer can always use the Page Curation Tool if he or she wants to do some patrolling, but a second set of eyes is usually better. —Anne Delong (talk) 10:07, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata

I have just reviewed and published Donald Mackenzie (advocate). Having entered the biographical details for its persondata, projects, categories and so on, it occurs to me that I had supplied enough data to start a Wikidata entry (or, at least, to pre-populate one for further editing before saving). I don't have the coding skills, but if someone who does is interested, I'd be happy to work through the necessary steps and do testing. This might also be something for the forthcoming hackathon.

Alternatively, perhaps we need a more generic "make Wikidata from Wikipedia" tool, that reads infoboxes, persondata, categories and projects, then offers a pre-populated creation template for editing? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:50, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I think there's already been discussions on importing the persondata templates into Wikidata. I don't remember where though. Gigs (talk) 17:18, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
I've seen a few other requests for a way to gather information from infoboxes or persondata which got me thinking about a userscript that would allow a user a convenient, easy to use interface to edit those items. When I create such a script, I could possible add the ability to read from and edit Wikidata entries as well. I'm wondering if there are any existing scripts that do any of the parts of this that I can look over and adapt, and if anyone knows of any such scripts, please do note them here, on my talk page, or in an email.. Thanks — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 17:07, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

More general issues

While I have no objection to Wikidata gleaning any and all information it is interested in from infoboxes or persondata or any other template or source within this project (seems to me that's one of the *points* of Wikidata), I would encourage the Wikidata community to think about how they will deal with changes to information from enwiki (e.g., if a field is added/removed/data changed on an infobox), and how frequently they would "recheck" the information. How will it deal with referenced material? Perhaps more importantly, what will it do when there is conflicting information from two different projects? As I say, this is a Wikidata issue, not a Wikipedia one: the information in this project is freely available for data mining by Wikidata or any other organization. From the technical perspective (about which I have absolutely no knowledge), I think the only reassurance that the Wikipedia community needs is that there will be no effect on Wikipedia's performance if bots extract information; my guess is there's no impact on this project. Risker (talk) 18:32, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

You raise a good point, but your concerns will exist with or without the tool I propose, and are not relevant to it. That said, the ultimate intention is that the data will (usually) reside in Wikidata, and be transcluded into this project (and others). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:35, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
I have my doubts as to whether that mission can ever be fulfilled, or even whether it's a good idea. Gigs (talk) 18:40, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Please comment about General References vs Inline Citations

Dear editors: Over the past month or two I have had several discussion with editors at Afc about the subject of general references and citations. Afc's purpose is to help new editors get their articles into good enough condition that when moved to mainspace they will not be deleted under CSD or through an Afd discussion. We are definitely not supposed to keep articles here past that point, because they will be read and improved by more editors once they are in the encyclopedia and added to categories and Wikiproject lists.

One of the things that we need to know in order to do this job properly is what the minimum expectations are for both citations and general references once the submissions are let out into the wild. Here is my understanding, based on WP:MINREF and WP:GENREF:

  • General References (that is, ones that are typed into the reference section, usually as bullet points, are acceptable and useful in developing articles. They help to show the notability of a subject, and can be used to expand the article and/or turned into citations at a later time. They can also be used to verify non-controversial facts in the article. A short article could be supported totally by general references as long is it doesn't contain certain material mentioned in WP:MINREF and listed below.
  • Inline Citations (that is, ones that are placed in ref tags after specific information) are needed in developing articles only in the following situations: (1) direct quotations, (2) personal information in biographies of living people, and (3) to support controversial information that has been or is likely to be challenged (for example, an editor writes that a soccer player is the best defender in Europe, or that cold fusion is a practical source of energy).

If a submission has sufficient quality references of either type to demonstrate the notability of the subject, and has inline citations for the special cases, then it won't be deleted at Afd for referencing problems, and so it should be accepted (unless, of course, it has other problems not related to the references). WP:Notability and WP:DEL#REASON only require the existence of reliable sources, and even Help:Referencing for beginners agrees that general references are acceptable.

Please comment about this, because if my understanding is wrong, I need to change my reviewing behaviour, and in any case a discussion will help us maintain reviewing consistency.—Anne Delong (talk) 21:05, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Comments

  • Comment In the nearly year and a half I have participated in AfD, I've never seen an article on a notable topic deleted solely because it lacked inline citations. While quotes and controversial facts require inline citations, if they don't get them, that may be removed, but the article itself is not deleted. BLP may be another story; I don't know. So practically, general refs that show notability and are actual sources for the article, seem to be good enough. That said, we should probably encourage inline citations without it being a showstopper. --Mark viking (talk) 21:25, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment Agree that I'd rather not see editors and contributors turned away that they added some amount of referencing (even if bare URL in a block) and told that's not sufficient. The only immediate inline cites that should be needed are on direct quotes, and there even a bare URL works fine for later cleanup. --MASEM (t) 21:30, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment The only problem with general references is they don't do enough to adequately address the material. (An article about an unknown subject, references list all the books in the El Paso County library.) 99% of the time this won't come into play at AfC or AfD. Your understanding of the guidelines matches mine. If you have specific examples, I'd be happy to see them. Chris Troutman (talk) 21:46, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
  • I have been checking over the db-g13 eligible submissions, and although I didn't keep them separate, so I can't find them immediately, I have over the past months many, many submissions that were declined for lack of inline citations when they had a number of general references. The reviewers who declined them likely thought that the editors would change the references to citations and resubmit. Some do, of course, but many otherwise excellent editors have trouble dealing with wikicode, and the result is a big pile of abandoned submissions which would likely have had their references fixed up by more experienced editors by now if they had been passed into the encyclopedia. The reviewers are so busy with the backlog that most don't have the time to go back to check on the progress of the articles they decline. —Anne Delong (talk) 22:20, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
Well, that's a shame. Certainly the reviewing guidance specifies that new articles can't be refused simply because of reference style. I would question the reviewers about why they would do such a thing. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:11, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment: Inline citations are much better, yes, but at least general refs are something. Usually it's easy enough to go to the sources and add in inline ones even if you don't know anything about the subject (assuming the refs are cite web, which in my experience are the most common ones by far), so it's just a minor annoyance more than anything. Stub-class articles aren't usually very long, so the creator might not think inline ones are even needed. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 23:06, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Anne Delong, I think you're exactly on target. It is unfortunately true that almost WP:Nobody reads the directions, but you clearly have not only read them, but spent a long time thinking about them and sorting out how to apply them. I wish we had a thousand more editors who have done what you have. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:35, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment: I do not require inline citations unless it is a BLP. Your understanding, as noted above, is well thought-out. If there are sources, in any shape, that clearly demonstrate the subject is notable, then I think the article should pass. 78.26 (I'm no IP, talk to me!) 03:10, 18 March 2014 (UTC) (p.s. listening to a 1957 Osborne Brothers 45rpm in your honor, Anne.)
  • Comment As others have already pointed out above, inline citations are better than general references, but definitely not a necessity, when it comes to an article being accepted or declined at AFC. I personally would like to see the inline citation decline itself being removed altogether so the long wait followed by the bad reviews do not turn more of our newcomers away. If the article does not have references, there is another appropriate response for it. As long as the newer editors have included the reference somewhere in the article, it seems logical for reviewers to look at them than force the newcomers to jump through all the unnecessary hoops. Soni (talk) (Previously TheOriginalSoni) 08:08, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
  • I fully agree with Anne's position. Has a BLP ever been deleted only because it did not have inline cites? I really don't know if the lack of inline cites in BLPs really are the "non-negotiable deal breaker" that the Reviewing guidelines suggests it is. I will now post a notice about this topic at WT:Inline citation so that editors who watch that page can also participate here. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:47, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
If it happened at AfD, unless there was a dispute about where facts were in an offline publication, the in-line citation argument was likely part of a WP:IDONTLIKEIT argument. Meanwhile, I have growing concerns that editors who claim to be AfC reviewers are just rubber-stamping "decline" to make the backlog go away. But as everyone here is indicating, general vs in-line is a topic for GA criteria, not for simple existence in wiki. I am a big fan of inline and my user page says so. Chris Troutman (talk) 10:24, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
@Chris troutman, according to WP:MINREF BLP articles must have inline citations - I don't understand what you mean by "the in-line citation argument was likely part of a WP:IDONTLIKEIT argument" - it seems to me you might be confusing inline and online - there has never been a requirement for references to be from online sources but that relates to WP:V and is irrelevant to the matter we are discussing here. AfC's reviewing workflow includes a requirement to decline BLP articles that do not have inline citations, based on the understanding that WP:MINREF is a mandatory precondition for accepting a draft. Some reviewers feel it is too onerous to expect newbie article writers to comply with it before their drafts can be accepted and that WP:MINREF is a problem that can be fixed after accepting the article into mainspace. (BTW The review checking process we use during Backlog Drives actually shows that "rubberstamp reviews" is not a common occurrence at all. We have developed criteria for "qualifying" reviewers in an attempt to reduce bad faith or incompetent reviewers, the implementation of the standard seems to be bundled in with a whole list of procedural and structural changes that need to be developed for moving the entire AfC process to the new Draft namespace. Please let us not discuss it further here in this thread, keep this one focused on-topic.) Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:40, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
@Dodger67: I misspoke; I should have specified unless inline citations were required. The argument Hasteur makes about a "great big ball of references at the end" is the problem I was envisioning. I agree with MINREF but from what I've read from Anne, it sounded like this was more of a style issue than a MINREF problem. I'm certainly not confusing in-line and online. I participated in the CORE contest in a failing effort to provide in-line (though not online) references to Eastern Front (World War I). I wouldn't have rejected the article at AfC because it didn't have in-line citations, as difficult as that makes verification. Chris Troutman (talk) 15:28, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment Ok, I guess I have to present the contrarian viewpoint in this groupthink. If there's not one cited fact in the submission, how do we know that the submission isn't made up? Having general (or end) references only shows that there's something related. If the reference really backed up a claim on the page, it should be inline cited. Passing sub-standard articles out from AFC only teaches new users that they can put a great big ball of references at the end and someone else will come through and clean up their problem. I was under the understanding that our purpose here is to both review and teach new users how to submit content so that it won't fall afoul of the submission guidelines. In addition, by passing out submissions that have a mass of general references but no inline citations, we only create work for other established volunteers in cleaning up the mess that we didn't work at fixing. My view is that the submission should have 1~2 inline citations per paragraph of content and the general references should be generic information and strongly discouraged. Hasteur (talk) 13:32, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
Hasteur, your standards are not only higher than in the Afc reviewing guidelines, they are higher than in the general Wikipedia policy pages. I agree that if general references are so general that they don't support any of the information on the page, that's bad. However, that's rarely the case, and when it is, a decline is appropriate. When there's no backlog of submissions, and the submission is reviewed the same day as it's submitted, there may be a net benefit to requesting improved formatting, provided that you leave an encouraging note about resubmitting, and then check back after a few days to see what the problem is if nothing happens. I doubt that you'd have time for that. However, when the giant backlog means that a submission isn't reviewed for weeks, often the submitter has lost patience and gone away, and there is no one to teach, just another declined submission on the pile, which may be well written and on a perfectly notable topic. Maybe you could achieve your teaching goal more effectively by not declining the article, but instead explaining on the submitter's talk page about the inline citations, while leaving the submission in the queue. That way if they aren't listening, or aren't up to dealing with the formatting, or just won't do what you want, the submission will not be lost to the encyclopedia but instead improved later by someone else.—Anne Delong (talk) 14:00, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment Remember, our acceptance criteria is 50% chance of surviving AfD. In my AfD experience, articles do occasionally get deleted for being a mess. The rate is quite low and many AfD reviewers appreciate that deleting these articles is to be avoided if possible (better to improve than to delete). Completely unreferenced articles on notable subjects also routinely survive AfD as AfD reviewers are required to search for evidence of notability before supporting deletion. References are often added to the article in this process. If we take the 50% AfD criteria seriously, all of us are declining far too many submissions. I've personally had only one article I accepted even nominated for AfD. None have been deleted. If I were truly working to the 50% criteria, statistics say that dozens should have been deleted. ~KvnG 16:18, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
Well, I have to admit (and this is in agreement with something Hasteur said in a previous discussion) that I wouldn't want to have my username associated with dozens of articles which were dragged to Afd, so I am rather conservative in what I accept - sometimes I feel guilty at passing the buck by reading so many submissions and then leaving them neither accepted nor declined. On the other hand, there are many articles in mainspace which really should go to Afd but that no one has noticed or had time to deal with, so more Afc graduates could be nominated in the future. —Anne Delong (talk) 16:50, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
I guess I got a bit off topic there at the end. If reviewers want to go with some number greater than 50% I think they should be allowed to. My review history so far indicates that I personally do.
I feel strongly that reviewers should not be rejecting submissions based on how references are presented. Even if no references are included, but it is straightforward to demonstrate notability, there's a very good chance the submission would survive AfD. Unreferenced articles like this can arguably be accepted as-is if 50% AfD is our primary acceptance criteria. ~KvnG 18:36, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
@KvnG you appear to be flatly rejecting WP:MINREF. If so then you are rejecting part of the WP:BLP policy, and policies are not optional. Maybe we should be looking at MINREF itself (and the part of BLP that requires it) rather than just debating how MINREF should be applied here at AfC? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:21, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
I interpret the 50% AfD criteria as saying that an article only needs to be half viable to get out of AfC. That means that necessary but less crucial improvements can be made once a submission is in article space. The inexperienced editors and backlogged AfC reviewers are not the best people to be doing these improvements. I look for BPL issues and other controversial statements and promotional material but we're not going to catch all of that here at AfC. As a reviewer, I do not take sole or primary responsibility for the content of submissions. ~KvnG 12:21, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment Ordinary inline references are fine. Manual conversions from an "additional reference" or "external link" are rather annoying, but still better than no reference at all. So far I failed to grok the convoluted syntax for foot notes in different groups, especially if the same name is used for different references, but not destroying an article where this works is possible. –Be..anyone (talk) 16:43, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
Be..anyone, I'm not clear on what you find annoying. Is it the format of references which have been manually converted which is bothersome in some way, or is it the time involved in doing the conversion that you don't like? —Anne Delong (talk) 16:56, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
The time for {{Sofixit}}, getting all details right in {{cite web}} can be tricky, doing it for other contributors is boring, and at the end of the day somebody not understanding that YYYY-MM is a perfectly valid variant of YYYY-MM-DD specified in international standards including RFCs will claim that it's a CS1 error. –Be..anyone (talk) 17:10, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment: If notability is not immediately obvious from reading non-contentious parts of the submission and not obvious from looking at the first screen-full of online general references, then I'm going to assume it's not obvious to most readers and there is a good chance it will at least be nominated for AFD. If I can easily remedy the problem, then it's my job to do so. If I can't, then it's my job to either reject the article, comment on it without rejecting or accepting it, or if I accept it without making the notability obvious, add a note to the article talk page that I'm accepting this "on the assumption" that notability exists despite lack of obvious evidence that it does. As part of this talk-page comment, I will explicitly state that the normal, unspoken/implicit understanding that articles that have survived AFC have been reviewed for notability does not apply to this article, so as to encourage others to improve the article and not discourage people from PROD'ing or AFD'ing the page or tagging it with {{notability}}. The bottom line: It's the author's job to demonstrate notability. The less accessible the sources are or the less obvious it is the sources demonstrate the subject's notability, the more likely it is that someone will challenge the article on notability grounds and the more likely it will, justly or not, fail at AFD. Because of that, we at AFC have a duty to give the creator a chance to beef up the article before accepting it, or at least alert the community that we are accepting it without the usual implicit "stamp of approval" that comes with the AFC review process. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 21:08, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment: You need to use your best judgement when reviewing AfC submissions and not rely on blanket criteria. An article on a 19th century landmark that has a "further reading" section listing six books with detailed information on each can pass. An article on a 21st century pop musician full of puffery with six local fanzine references, with the same level of formatting as the previous example, probably won't. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:46, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

"Contentious" or not?

Breaking this out because it's a largely separate sub-issue that hasn't been addressed above. Anne's understanding, based on WP:MINREF, is that "personal information in biographies of living people" require an inline citation. Thus, Bob was born in 1989, Bob was born in Wolverhampton, Bob was born in England, Bob is right-handed, Bob married in 2009, Bob attended Wotnot High School, and Bob graduated from Oxford University would all require an inline citation. Unless someone has killed Bob in the meantime, or he's died some other way. Right?

Well, WP:MINREF does not actually say that. It says "Contentious material, whether negative, positive, or neutral, about living persons" requires an inline citation (my emphasis). None of the above statements are contentious, therefore do not need an inline citation, according to that information page about citing styles.

If one writes about Bob having had romantic and/or sexual relationships with a number of people prior to his marriage, that meets the requirement of being contentious (albeit possibly neutral) and thus, in a BLP, requires an inline citation; even though it may (or may not) fall short of being "likely to be challenged".

Following this interpretation, i.e. not ignoring the word "contentious", there are actually very very few cases where an article should be declined under WP:MINREF due to being a BLP, where it wouldn't already fall foul of the "likely to be challenged" criterion. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:20, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Demiurge1000. I should have worded that more carefully. It seems to me that the reason for the citations in BLPs is to prevent doing damage to people's reputations through publishing incorrect information. It's hard to know, from case to case, what piece of information will be a problem for which person. An incorrect birthplace for most would be just something to fix, but, for example, it could be a problem for someone whose job requires them to be a citizen of a certain country if an employer takes it seriously. An athlete may compete in specific competition classes and older people apply for pensions dependent on their birthdates. So it seems that we need to be as accurate as possible, and try to think out which parts of a biography might be controversial and need extra verification in specific articles, rather than saying that certain types of data are always non-contentious. But for the most part I agree with you that every item of routine information shouldn't need a citation. —Anne Delong (talk) 06:03, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
AIUI, at the bare minimum, a person's claim to notability is ipso facto contentious and thus needs an inline cite. If a "claim to fame" was not contentious the whole WP:Notability policy would be unnecessary. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:27, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
Bob currently holds the Wumpzy Chair of Mathematics at Manchester University. Makes him notable per WP:PROF I think. Imagine a lengthy bio with that and all the above-mentioned more trivial facts, where the only source provided is a non-inline citation to his University of Manchester staff page. Are you going to decline it per WP:MINREF? You shouldn't; holding that academic position is not a contentious claim. Or per something else?
If his claim to notability is merely "Bob is one of the world's leading mathematicians" then yes I'd expect an inline citation, and to an independent source. But that's different. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 08:23, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

One of the major complaints that Academia has with Wikipedia is there's no quality check on if the subject actually exists. With that complaint in mind I think MINREF is grossly underserving the end consumers of this content, the readers. It's my understanding that we are supposed to take quality very seriously and by passing articles that don't have any inline citations we require the reader (and reviewers) to go to the end of the page and sift through multiple "general" sources to determine if the subject of the page actually is represented elsewhere. Having an inline citation makes it supremely easy to go instantly to that reference and see if it actually says what the ref claims it does. Hasteur (talk) 12:33, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Articles can and should be improved to meet this reasonable quality goal. I don't believe they should be required to meet such standards from the outset. ~KvnG 12:42, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
Hasteur has a good point, but I don't think it's one that can be solved in Afc. New articles are marked "unassessed" until they are tagged for their weaknesses, and that helps. It's impossible to guarantee that any Wikipedia article doesn't contain misinformation, because even if it's completely correct at one moment, someone could change it the next. It can't be used as an academic reference for the same reason - the content of articles changes. However, anyone who considers him/herself part of "Academia" and believes an article they read on the Internet without checking to see if it's properly supported by reliable sources had better give back his/her diploma. Wikipedia articles are only suitable as a source of general information for curious people. For serious scholars, its only uses are as a survey of the general consensus of people around the world about a topic, and as a handy collection of references to reliable sources in which to do their own original research. Since Afc is just a small part of Wikipedia, proposals or discussions about tightening up the citation standards are more likely to be effective if hosted at one of the general discussion boards such as WP:VPP, and I would be interested in taking part if the subject should come up. —Anne Delong (talk) 15:22, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
If the particular point you're willing to leave for later improvement is actually a minimum standard required at the outset, and as a consequence of deciding that it can be fixed later in mainspace, the article is speedied ten minutes after acceptance into mainspace, then it is a black mark against the reviewer who has failed to properly assist the newbie who's initiation into Wikipedia editing consisted of seeing all their work getting chopped even though a reviewer said the article was acceptable. The wording of MINREF, and even its name, strongly suggests that it is such a non-negotiable minimum requirement. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:26, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
You have something to stand on for the specific cases outlined in WP:MINREF (we have discussed that in more detail further above). Reviewers should definitely not be declining articles that do not meet "Academic" standards. According to the AfC acceptance criteria, reviewers do not need to be more than 50% worried about accepted submissions being subsequently deleted. ~KvnG 15:30, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Take a look at this example. A clearly notable building complex (UNESCO-recognised, no less!) wrongly rejected by what seems an inexperienced reviewer. I notified the relevant WikiProject, and they resorted to creating a stub instead. All that information's lying there to end up being deleted in a few months' time, when it should've been accepted in the first place. Wikipedia's ended up poorer thanks to somebody who shouldn't have been reviewing in the first place. It's outrageous. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 14:56, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Absolutely appalling! FoCuSandLeArN, I'll leave you a message on your talk page as to how we can fix this. Voceditenore (talk) 16:01, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
Can't one of us just resubmit this on behalf of the authors? ~KvnG 16:34, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
Easier and quicker to merge and thank the author I believe. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 16:42, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
Rather misses the point of it being a worrying example, don't you think? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:05, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
I have boldly reverted the invalid decline, accepted and moved the draft to Papaverhof complex and then tagged both it and Papaverhof to be WP:Merged. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:52, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
If an Admin with the know-how is reading this, please do a history merge of Papaverhof and Papaverhof complex as soon as possible, make this problem go away. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:25, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
  • There is always going to be some disagreement about which submissions should be accepted, but in cases where a reviewer has obviously not followed the reviewing directions in declining, I think that another reviewer should feel free to resubmit and accept a submission, and the first reviewer should be prepared to have this happen. The problem is, in most cases once an article is declined, if the original submitter doesn't resubmit, nobody notices, and the article goes stale and is eventually deleted under db-g13. Several editors, including myself, have been combing through the six-months-stale submissions and saving some, but there are really too many for a few people to fix up. I would wish for some way for reviewers to add some kind of category or searchable template or something that would put particularly promising submissions on a list to be checked after a shorter period of time, maybe a week or two, to see if the submitters are making requested improvements. —Anne Delong (talk) 23:01, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Would it be easier to just accept every submission declined under WP:MINREF, and move them all to mainspace, and see whether we thus move closer to the objective mentioned above, of 50% of all accepted articles being deleted at AfD? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:04, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
That would be going too far. They should at least be checked first and not just automatically accepted. Some articles really do contain quotations and contentious material and were properly declined. Also, some articles that were declined for lack of citations may have been declined by inexperienced reviewers who may have failed to mention other problems further up the chain, such as copyvios, NPOV, or lack of any references of any kind. There are nearly 2000 articles in Afc right now that have been declined for this reason:(Category:AfC submissions declined as needing footnotes) in case anyone wants to browse through and see the range of acceptability. —Anne Delong (talk) 02:29, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
Reading this whole topic it seems we are reaching a point where the validity of MINREF as a decline criterion per se is questionable, that enforcing it should happen in mainspace, not at AfC. I think we need a formal RFC about a "Proposal to remove WP:MINREF as a decline criterion, and subsequently to delete it from the AFCH, the Reviewing instructions and the Reviewing workflow chart". In general anything that streamlines the review process by reducing the number of steps in the workflow is an improvement - but not at the cost of reducing the quality of reviews.
On the other hand, reviews are supposed to fail half the time! However, I'm not prepared to prostitute my personal integrity by intentionally screwing up half my reviews just so that 50% of the articles I pass can be deleted. I find the idea that I am required to deliberately lie to half of the draft submitters when I pass their work into mainspace, offensive and a grave disservice to the newbie editors we are supposed to be helping. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:14, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
I agree about that; also, we get 200 or so submissions a day. If we passed out an extra 30 or 40 each day that needed Afd discussions, we'd clear our own backlog, but just transfer the work to Afd. Right now at Afd the editors make a serious effort to improve articles' referencing before calling for deletion; if they were swamped the process would deteriorate. I look on the 50% as a lower limit, rather than an average. Notice, though, how we are echoing some of Hasteur's arguements, just to a lesser degree. It's so hard to find the perfect balance. —Anne Delong (talk) 08:13, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
The trouble is "contentious" is so subjective and based on opinion. For example, I always treat a date of birth as contentious, and while I won't normally remove it from a new submission, I will always tag it as "citation needed" without a source. Celebrities have lied about their age for decades, if not centuries - see the big "DATE OF BIRTH" box on Talk:Elisabeth Sladen for a good example. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:55, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

50 (per) cent rulez

Now that y'all mentioned it, I'm curious - where was that 50 number coming from, I seem to remember thinking it was 'likely to survive at AFD', which seems a lot more sensible. It isn't easy to explain to a contributor why the article that someone approved is now up for deletion, does anyone have any tips about that? --nonsense ferret 20:15, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
Answering my own question sort of but now I've found this seems to be the first edit that refers to it on the guidance page diff - I can't immediately lay my hands on the discussion that led to this change - @Bellerophon: do you remember perchancey? --nonsense ferret 20:33, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
I'm not sure where it comes from but it is one of the AfC-haters' favourite sticks they use to beat us. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:34, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
I haven't noticed any reviewers actually accepting a lot of articles on non-notable topics. I have had one deleted out of hundreds. If every reviewer is in fact passing only those which have a much higher that 50% chance of surviving an Afd, is this tantamount to a consensus that the 50% estimate needs to be changed to a higher number, say at least 80%? —Anne Delong (talk) 04:56, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
I don't think a number needs to be stated at all. Every reviewer does their best, expecting anything less is an insult to our personal integrity. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 06:31, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
I believe 50% is a synonym for likely - have a look at WP:LIKELY. I am not opposed copyediting guidance to use likely instead of a percentage. ~KvnG 16:24, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
to my mind 50 percent is more a synonym for 'maybe' or 'possibly, could go either way' - I've been bold and changed it since as a rule of thumb it is causing more confusion than it helps to resolve. 'Likely' makes more sense to me. Of course if there was a consensus for the 50 percent figure, please revert forthwith. --nonsense ferret 21:25, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
People have before gone into great length discussing what likely means.[1][2][3]  —Mysterytrey 21:49, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
Myself, I'd prefer "reasonable" to "likely", to indicate that it's a matter of judgment. (I terms of percentages, it might depend on the type of article--some are always accepted if they meet certain basic criteria, and people working with such can be expected to accurately predict. Some are very variable, and any one reviewer should not really impose their judgment, but let it be taken to the community. AfD may sometimes be almost random, but it's nonetheless the best decision process we have. (My own standard depends also on whether I'm just approving it to go into mainspace (where it might correspond to 66%) or whether I've also worked on it to fix or improve it. I have a higher standard for anything I actually work on. more like 90%. But in practice almost no AfC I've ever approved has been deleted at AfD. DGG ( talk ) 01:07, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

RFC on the application of WP:MINREF to Articles for creation

Proposal to remove WP:MINREF as a decline criterion, and subsequently to delete it from the AFCH, the Reviewing instructions and the Reviewing workflow chart. Rationale - The above discussion has reached the point where a consensus seems to be emerging that enforcing the WP:MINREF rule during AfC reviews is a impediment to the intended purpose of the project - assisting new editors to create acceptable articles. This RFC is to determine whether the enforcement of MINREF should continue to be done here at AfC or it should happen after an article has been accepted into mainspace. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:19, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

  • I agree with deprecating Minref, but only to the extent that a higher standard be created to replace it. Otherwise we'll only be relying more heavily on the "Not adequately sourced by reliable sources" which I have been nagged about several times (validly or invalidly) as not really the appropriate method to indicate that more references are needed. Hasteur (talk) 13:35, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Have it be done here at AfC, because it is quite important for mainspace articles with challenged statements to be verifiable. AfC shouldn't be accepting an article and giving it the AfC nod of acceptance with WP:V or WP:BLP policies issues.  —Mysterytrey 15:24, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose removal of MINREF here at AfC for the reason that things that fail to meet the criteria are more likely than not to fail an AfD which would violate the "at least a 50% chance of surviving an AfD nomination should be accepted and published to mainspace" threshold. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 15:44, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
Technical 13, I assume you mean "fail an AfD". WP:MINREF is not normally a valid reason to delete an article so I don't think this is a good reason for opposing. ~KvnG 16:20, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Yes, and I've corrected my typo. It doesn't need to be a valid reason to delete an article of its own, it just needs to lower the threshold to below 50%. Most of the times when I use it, it is because the sources that are used are extremely weak and I believe that the likelihood of the draft surviving an AfD is below 50%; however, if the same sources were used in-line and I knew what they meant and where referring to, it would increase my assessment of the draft from <50% to 60%. This means, that if not for the failure to meet minref, the draft would not have been <50% chance (which of course is an arbitrary number being discussed elsewhere). — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 16:44, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
If MINREF is by itself not a valid reason to AFD an article then AFC should not be compelled to enforce it. The commonest criticism of AFC is that we hold on to drafts too long by declining them for trivial or unimportant problems. Our critics want us to approve articles more easily, even with less serious problems. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 17:25, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
  • By the reason of by itself not a valid reason to AFD an article then AFC should not be compelled to enforce it then we have no reason to decline at all (Or possibly only G11 and G12 stuffs if you want to include CSD reasons in with AFD reasons). As articles only need to have sources available in some form, A claim that the person is using an offline source such as a book (whether or not anyone else can find a copy or not) would require we accept any draft because I've seen AFDs fail (or be lost in no consensus land) because of a claim that an off-line source exists. The fact the it can be a contributing factor is enough to enforce it. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 18:14, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Support WP:MINREF is not clearly part of the decline criteria. It is discussed in General standards and invalid reasons for declining a submission. I don't think these mentions (added in 2011) were intended to alter policy. ~KvnG 16:20, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose - as I understand it, to remove this decline option would be effectively to encourage BLP drafts to be accepted which have contentious material about living persons which is not properly referenced inline. The wisdom of this does not seem obvious to me --nonsense ferret 21:31, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Support I;d like to keep it in if there were any chance id would consistently be used correctly. But too many people have been using it where it does not apply, thus causing confusing. What we need an exact citation before approving is anything obviously contentious or that amounts to negative BLP, Otherwise, inadequate references can be fixed later, just like with all articles; and, like all articles, if not fixed can be discussed at AfD. I prefer a community decision in such cases than that of a single reviewer. DGG ( talk ) 01:12, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
  • So then you would oppose its removal if it was allowed to be used as one of multiple reasons? Adding the ability to have multiple decline reasons has been asked for many times and is quite frankly a great idea which I support. I do believe that it shouldn't be too hard to add as part of the re-write for the script (and I know that the template can be adjusted to allow it {which I should go back to spending some time working on again...}). — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 16:04, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Question - If articles are added directly to the encyclopedia which have unsourced contentious information about living people, what is done with them? Are they:
(1) deleted? In which case, we really need to keep the MINREF decline.
(2) tagged? In which case, we could tag them ourselves and pass them out.
(3) trimmed to remove the contentious material? In which case the situation is a little more complex; we could trim an article ourselves and pass out an article otherwise okay, but in practice the user would likely just add the material back later, so a MINREF decline might be better, giving the editor a chance to cite the contentious stuff rather than having it deleted. —Anne Delong (talk) 01:41, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
See WP:BLPREMOVE which I think rules out (2). --nonsense ferret 00:54, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
  • The only two parts of MINREF that really apply here are direct quotations and contentious BLP info. We shouldn't be accepting articles missing citations on either of those, and we should be deleting the contentious unsourced BLP information on sight, not just declining the submission. If they add it back, that merits a warning or further action. Gigs (talk) 18:47, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose MINREF isn't a high bar and any article that can't pass it doesn't belong in the main namespace. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:12, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose As Chris says - MINREF isn't asking too much of editors and in fact is helping to train new editors to create articles meeting what I think we should expect (as a minimum). Dougweller (talk) 10:23, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose  As per a core content policy's nutshell, "We want readers to be able to [WP:V] verify that Wikipedia articles are not just made up."  This is the measuring stick for WP:MINREF, which is well written.  As far as minimal sourcing goes, AfC needs to have a standard that supports enWiki's policies, rather than the "we encourage unsourced articles" standard of the WMF.  I wonder if some of the issues in Category:AfC submissions declined as needing footnotes can be resolved with Template:Citation needed tags.  Unscintillating (talk) 14:38, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Modest proposal for the next week

So, there is officially a week left in the drive. I know that we have knocked down the total to something managable, but would people be interested in lowering the pages in the category down to something under a hundred? My fear is that it will quickly back right up if we continue at this level, and lowering the total would give us some breathing room in the future. Thoughts? Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:18, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

What category do you mean lowering under a hundred? Category:Pending AfC submissions? Or some other category, because that would be a lot of progress.  —Mysterytrey 01:30, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
this always makes interesting viewing progress --nonsense ferret 01:34, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, that one. Per the image, it looks like we may have reached a point of apathy, as the initial drive was a success, but now we have leveled off since then. Although it's not necessary to completely clear the backlog, it would help make us speedier and more efficient in the long run. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:44, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
It would be wonderful to see the backlog down around 100. However, sometimes during these drives reviewers, in their eagerness to get through the backlog and add to their tallies, review too quickly and don't take time to leave comments explaining secondary decline reasons. This leads to drafts being resubmitted while still containing problems, which has a rebound effect on the size of the backlog as well as being frustrating for the new editors. Slow and steady wins the race... (I just made that up...) —Anne Delong (talk) 11:08, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
There does seem to be something sticky. When we get down to 1000, it seems hard to get further. Going forward We need to do some combination of the following: ~KvnG 17:35, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Change our backlog goal - a longer backlog, reviewed in FCFS order, should naturally discourage resubmissions (and perhaps initial submissions too)
  • Change procedures so reviews can be done more quickly
  • Change procedures so as to discourage excessive resubmits
  • Recruit more reviewers
As much as I'm for declaring success, we've not really cleared the backlog... Category:AfC pending submissions by age still shows submissions in the "Pending for more than 4 weeks" category. We still have over 25% of our submissions in the coalesed categories that are pending over 20 days. @Ktr101 and Anne Delong: Even without me participating in this Backlog jihad we still haven't reached the stated goal of this drive (To have a clean backlog). @Nonsenseferret: And that chart shows quite clearly what the problem is (We don't have enough maintenance level reviews being conducted on average to stay even without backlog jihads (April, July, October, December-January, March). I say again Before any more backlog drives are conducted we need to figure out why we can't maintain a reasonable length of backlog without a backlog elimination drive. Hasteur (talk) 12:11, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
Hasteur is right that backlog drives aren't a total solution, although I believe that they do help. Backlog drives increase the number of reviewers taking part in straightforward reviews, but don't attract knowledge specialists to help with the reviews of sophisticated topics. Some reviewers have been leaving messages at Wikiprojects to attract the attention of these editors, but this is time consuming. Hasteur, I know that you have been taking an interest in the new Draft space, and one of the differences is that the drafts have talk pages. Has anyone been adding Wikiproject banners on the talk pages? If so, has that had any beneficial effect? Placing banners might be a more efficient way of attracting specialist reviewers, and more than one banner could be added if appropriate. —Anne Delong (talk) 13:27, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
It seems to me that reviewing would be a more attractive proposition if we categorized drafts in some way, either by triaging or by building something into the wizard that selects a sub category of draft. One problem that cant be easily resolved is that from the perspective of a wiki project, almost all of the drafts would probably be assessed as low importance, so the time of their members would logically be better spent on high priority subjects. That is unless they think that by helping here they will recruit new members. It isn't clear to me whether our goal is churning through a lot of drafts for the sake of processing them and reaching a number target, or of trying to work out who the potential editors are that are worth coaching and encouraging. It might be that one goal is very much to the detriment of another.--nonsense ferret 13:44, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
This ideas has been brought up a number of times, but so far nothing has been done about it. We have two new processes on the go - the Draft space (which allows talk pages for submissions) and the new AfC Helper script being developed (which could have new features if technically feasible), so this may be an opportune time to have something like this implemented. —Anne Delong (talk) 16:40, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Currently I'm using a snippet of code from User:Hasteur/common.js (The MoveToDraft function) to pre-populate the Move page template so that I can get these moved over in a clean manner. Originally I tried to calculate the page name, but this works better and handles Userspace submissions. If there is consensus, what I can do is use the AutoWikiBrowser in automatic mode to apply a maintenance category to every AfC submission in the Draft namespace to flag for verification that the associated talk page has all the appropriate project banners on it to help recruit interest/expertiese for the draft. Is there a consensus to do such a task? Hasteur (talk) 13:50, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
Hasteur, can you explain what you see as happening here? Is it (1) all Draft article talk pages are flagged, and (2) someone reads and checks a submission for appropriate banners, and (3) then the editor removes the flag? Or, as often happens, am I misunderstanding what you have in mind? Another possible way to deal with adding Wikiproject banners would be to tap into the Afc Helper Script code that already does that when accepting submissions, and if the submission is in the Draft mainspace, present the same option on its reviewing menu. If people like Hasteur's flagging idea, the script could have an option to remove the flag. However, one thing that comes to mind is that these banners affect other editors who don't normally work on Afc submissions or drafts; has there been any discussion in a wider venue about whether adding them to drafts is a good idea? (I think it is, obviously.) —Anne Delong (talk) 16:35, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
@Anne Delong: I think you have this confused. I'll step through so it's clear
  1. I search for every page that has the {{AFC submission}} template on it that is in the Draft namespace
  2. From that list I open each page to see if there's a Category:AFC submissions in Draft space needing project banners category on it. If so skip the page and move to the next page. If not...
  3. If the category is missing see if there's a talk page. If no talk page exists, create it (with the WPAFC banner), apply the above mentioned category to the Draft page, and move on to the next search result. If yes...
  4. If the talk page has at least one wikiproject banner outside the WPAFC banner move on to the next search result from step 1. If not edit the Draft page to add the above mentioned category.
Once the categorization is complete, those editors who are looking for something to do can patrol the category, adding the appropriate project banners to the talk page, and removing the category from the Draft page. By adding the project banners (as long as they're there) we won't be re-categorizing the page. It wouldn't be a banner template, but a hidden category (that the AFCH tool would have to be programmed to ignore when disabling categories)Hasteur (talk) 17:54, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes, Hasteur your second explanation is much clearer. My thoughts:
  • To have the category be as up-to-date as possible it might be good to have your routine triggered as part of the same process that adds the submit template, as well as any periodic "grazing" you were planning.
  • It would be nice, as I mentioned above, to have an easy way to place the banners built into the Helper script, which would then also remove the hidden category. However, there will likely be people who add banners manually and aren't regular Afc helper script users. Will they be able or know enough to remove the hidden category, or would it just be incorrect until the submission was checked again?
  • And by the way I support this idea. I can't see any downside, and the presence of the category could allow useful features to be added to the script in the future. Adding the banners is also a good way for people who don't want the responsibility of accepting or declining drafts to contribute to Afc, so even if the script developers don't pick up and use the category, willing editors could look through a list of only the submissions needing categorization and place the banners manually. —Anne Delong (talk) 00:31, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
  • I mostly support this proposal, I am just wondering what you have planned for drafts that are about a topic that doesn't fit neatly in any of the existing WikiProjects. Are they removed from the category? If removed, will they be re-added on the next pass? Should they be tagged with a category or hidden comment to let AWB know that they have been checked? — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 18:41, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
    Are you saying that the Philosophy link is no longer valid? If an editor who is working the list can't come up with at least one project to tag for the draft, it's my opinion that they should leave the "Needs a Banner" category and another volunteer should get a crack at it. Sometimes you have to be creative with how you would tag into categories. Hasteur (talk) 20:24, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
    Don't people in most WikiProjects not like tags being placed on AfC submissions? I thought that was sort of the reason AfC articles use colons in the beginning in tags like [[:Category:7th-century philosophers]].  —Mysterytrey 21:16, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
    @Mysterytrey: I think you're confused. This is not a maintenance template, this is a category to indicate to AFC members that we need to take maintenance action. Much like Category:AfC postponed G13. The only thing we'd have to do is suppress the AFCH tool from commenting the category out. Hasteur (talk) 12:58, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
    I'm not talking about the Category:AFC submissions in Draft space needing project banners itself, but, as I understand it, the whole purpose of that category is so that an editor can add some mainspace category or project banner onto it. Is that supposed to be done when the article submission were to be accepted, or is the submission supposed to stay in AfC space for however long with a regular project banner on it?  —Mysterytrey 15:25, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

So, it seems clear that people want to fix things. One idea brought up above would be to make the process simpler. Within that regard, would anyone be against coding a bot that would auto-review anything that is either blank or without references, which would cull a portion of the reviews for us. I always wonder if we have an apathy level where we just hit a number and since there isn't a major issue with reviews (becoming the new "normal"), we stop reviewing. Right now, the count is down to 980, which is the lowest I have seen in awhile, but from the looks of it, there are people dedicated to keeping it from reaching the next 100 level, so that is why we haven't jumped up that much lately. So, that being said, if we did a final push and knocked off 150+ reviews from where we started the day before, we might be able to clean it up in no time. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 20:06, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

IIRC, we've looked at bot reviewing before and the problem was that there was so much potential false positives (and declines for trivial reasons) that it was shot down. In addition we the volunteers commit as part of the AFC review to give every submission a once over. That once over might be 5 seconds in the case of "My dog, Mr Wiggles, chases his tail around" to 1~2 minutes in the case of a seemingly blank submission (runaway HTML tag, unterminated comment, etc.) to 20~30 minutes to carefully review the "Just on the border of being accepted" drafts. Sometimes it's easy to determine how much time you should invest into reviewing, but you run the risk of being disapointed at what you discover is a COI/Advert job. Hasteur (talk) 20:41, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

When there are serious BLP problems in drafts?

This is somewhat related to the MINREF RFC above. WP:BLP pretty much applies to all of Wikipedia not just article space, and I'm wondering what to do when encountering a draft which is very problematic from that point of view (not ones that simply make unreferenced claims to fame) yet are not such clear attack pages that they can be speedily deleted. In one current draft, I removed a claim about a third party and have sufficient concerns about the remainder of the draft's contents and two of the linked "references" that I've brought the issue to the Biographies of living persons Noticeboard. Although AfC drafts aren't indexed by Google, they are picked up by mirrors. See [4]. Voceditenore (talk) 16:42, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

If it's just a small part of a draft that's inappropriate, it can be removed, but if the whole article is full of BLP problems, can't we use WP:MFD? I'm afraid it's often too late to avoid the mirrors - sometimes they pick up drafts within minutes. The move to the new Draft space will help, because at least then the mirror pages won't start with the word "Wikipedia". —Anne Delong (talk) 17:12, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
On the advice at BLPN, I've just gone through it and removed a whole swathe of material [5] per WP:BLP. Even though this is probably an autobiography, unreferenced or poorly referenced assertions re the subject's DoB, parents' names, his sexuality, criminal charges brought against him, alleged malfeasance by the named mayor of his hometown, accusations against him on internet forums, etc. etc. and the two problematic "references" all went. Hopefully, there will be no attempts to restore it. Voceditenore (talk) 18:04, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
An administrator has now nominated the remainder of the draft for speedy deletion per WP:G11, which would probably be the best outcome. Voceditenore (talk) 18:22, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
That's pretty much the right thing to do, delete the info, send it to BLPN. I would not send it to MfD, that's just increasing the exposure and the damage that BLP is meant to mitigate. While the CSD is narrowly construed on attack pages, largely negative BLPs that are poorly sourced can be deleted by any admin, even if it falls outside the CSD technically. Just remember, the focus must be on mitigating the potential damage the article is causing, so any process that increases the exposure of the material is not the way to go. Gigs (talk) 18:55, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
I agree re MfD, not only because it merely increases the exposure, but also because it seems crazy to go through what is basically an AfD before the draft is even an article. It's just make-work for everyone, especially in light of the lengthy and tendentious comments from the draft's creator who claims to be the subject's friend and most recently an IP claiming to be the subject himself at the AfC Help Desk here and here. Note that in this case, it wasn't largely a negative BLP, only about half of it. Even after I removed all the BLP violations there was still considerable text—multiple completely unreferenced "positive" claims about the subject's career and fame. Hence the use of G11 as the rationale. Voceditenore (talk) 19:33, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
@Gigs: There's a reason that {{db|reason=insert good reason here, invoking the policy known as WP:IAR if appropriate}} is a valid speedy-deletion reason. However, like any time anyone - especially someone with a mop - invokes "Ignore all rules," the editor must not only be right but they must be obviously right should anyone challenge them on it or he may find himself called on the carpet or even sanctioned for it. I haven't been following this particular case but from the looks of things, the right thing was done and if anyone asks why, "IAR" may be the best policy to cite. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 19:43, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Backlog drive - Unusual rereview count.

While generating the March AFC Drive statistics I've noticed something unusual i feel i should raise for other reviewers to consider. Over the past few days I've noticed a huge increase in the amount of rereviews done by Makro. I have not checked the quality of these reviews and therefor i am not casting any judgment as to their quality but i would note that ~700 rereviews in a single day causes a fair amount of suspicion as to their quality from my side.

Some points to consider in this matter:

  • On the 26th of March on 18:31 Makro posted a re-review of about 200 reviews done by FoCuSandLeArN. At that same day on 18:59 (28 minutes later) another 254 reviews were done. If the reviews were done in this timeframe that would account to 9 reviews a minute, or less then 6 seconds for each re-review.
  • Practically every review accepts the review done using the exact same comment with no personal note or sidenote attached in any of them.
  • Two of my three re reviews match a page Makro reviewed (See here]). In both cases i felt the reviews were clearly in error thus i declined them with a comment - Yet the rereviews by Makro only contained the stock "Agree with review " accept.

I would also note that I've seen the same issues yesterday when i noticed the same fast review rate (9 reviews done in 4 minutes). Despite noticing the consistent "Agree with review" style reviewing i decided to assume good faith for the moment. However, the steep increase today raises a very clear red flag for me that needs looking into. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 19:10, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Coupled with the above section on them blanking the questions on their talk page, I think we should start a serious discussion about whether Makro knows what they are doing, as there is no reason to do so many reviews in one day. I have maybe one review for every 100 reviews I have done, and there really is nothing gained by doing it like this. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 19:31, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
I just noticed this hit the Wiki as well. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 19:50, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
The way i review pages is done in accordance with wiki rules.Makro (talk) 20:25, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
I would also like to added another reviewer user:aggie80, signs all there revews with concur and nothing more. And user:belshay also uses the same "agree with review" as me in their reviews. User.78.26 doesnt even include a reason.Makro (talk) 20:36, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
I think if you do look at my reviews you will see that I don't use "Concur" on all of them, it is my standard, but I often make additional comments on them. And a few seconds a review and that they were second reviews of existing ones indicates that the time to take a look at what previous reviewers had looked at and that the articles were not even opened to see and review.
Again, that means nothing if you are doing hundreds of reviews in a short period of time. I am experienced, and even then I could never do that many reviews even though I have a good grasp on everything. Don't drag down others in an attempt to justify something if you aren't addressing one of the main issues that was brought up above. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 21:18, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
@Makro: Re-reviews were added to the backlog drive to ensure various reviewers weren't doing a sloppy job - either because they were unaware of a certain rule or because the competitive nature of the backlog drive caused them to review fast rather then accurate. Eventually the scoring mechanism changed to reward users who took the time to recheck others edits as well, to ensure these editor received acknowledgment for their work. Having said all that: A rereview is intended to be a full review of another editors review with the intent to spot errors or assist other editors with commentary as to why one believes a review is incorrect.
To be specific on what concerns me:
  • Statistically speaking 5-10% or so of the re-reviews would be a decline, yet all yours are accepts.
  • Using the exact same commentary everywhere suggest mechanical work over manual work. Using the same comment 500 times without deviating is odd - again statistically speaking so many reviews should have resulted in at least one or two reviews one wants to elaborate on.
  • If my calculation is correct you would have 6 seconds to review each page which is barely enough time to load a page, let alone read and re-review it. Normally a re-review will take at least half a minute, and the average will be higher. Even if i count half a minute for a re-review (By assuming you added them to a text file and placed them in batch later on) those 700 reviews would still represent 6 hours of work without a break at the very least.
Re-reviews without specific commentary are fine, though I would note that the majority of 78.26's reviews seem to have a custom comment accompanying them (I cannot shake a NOTTHEM vibe from that comment though). To make absolutely sure my concern and thoughts are clear i am going to strip it of every layer of sugarcoating and state it as blunt as i possibly can: I believe your reviews are done with speed over quality in mind, and your speed is of such a magnitude that i doubt each article was actually loaded and read (Let alone subjected to a decent rereview). Furthermore i suspect this is done to artificially raise your backlog drive "score" in order to end higher on the ranking - something that these drives were NOT intended for in any form or shape. There you go - i put all my cards on the table and this should explain precisely what i am thinking at the moment. I DO apologize if these conclusions are incorrect and i would note that the bluntness is only to make sure you known what i am thinking in order to allow you to counter these concerns if you so intend. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 21:32, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Accept means that i accept the review to be correct. All the rereviews i have doen are correctly reviewed so i do accept to say that. You use decline when you disagree with a reviewer.Makro (talk) 21:44, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
I guess we are just amazed that you can bang through these so fast without sacrificing quality and amazed that, statistically, you are a bit away from "the norm" in pass/fail. I can think of one plausible explanation: You only bothered to re-review those reviews which were so obviously correct (i.e. not only did you agree with the outcome, but it was immediately obvious to you that there were no serious flaw in the reasoning that led to the outcome) that they could be re-reviewed in a very short period of time. This is called "cherry picking" and, while it might be considered "gaming the system for" by some, it doesn't impact the quality of the individual re-reviews. However, it does hurt the overall quality of the re-reviews by making things look better than they are. They also do not provide much in the way of useful results to the reviewers if all they get is "good news," while the lower-quality reviews the person doing the cherry-picking skipped go un-re-reviewed. So, either you are much more efficient than most of us and are able to give quality reviews much faster than everyone and, perhaps by sheer chance, you happen to be agreeing with the outcomes of everyone you re-review, OR you are cherry-picking, OR you are not doing a proper job of re-reviewing and a reviewer seeing dozens of "pass" re-reviews and 0 "fail" re-reviews should not assume that all of those reviews actually deserved a "pass." While I hope the answer is "the first one" I hope you can see why some of us think this is not the most plausible explanation, at least at first glance. The second explanation is plausible but if it is true, I would ask you to consider doing some more challenging re-reviews. If it's the third explanation I would ask you to consider finding reviews that have previously either failed or which have been passed with some form of criticism and ask yourself "why did the re-reviewer fail or criticize the review, and do I agree with the re-reviewer" rather than contuining to re-review un-re-reviewed reviews. Studying other's feedback will make you a better re-reviewer and a better reviewer. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 22:27, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
I'm sorry for being blunt, but it is obvious. The user just did this to got to the #1 place in the leaderboard, to got the awards. (t) Josve05a (c) 22:36, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
As an example, the acceptance of Ron Baratono and the contribution at the deletion discussion Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ron Baratono makes me think that this user does not have enough knowledge of what is notable and what isn't to be doing reviews, never mind re-reviewing other people's reviews in any meaningful or helpful way. --nonsense ferret 22:41, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
I'm thinking that we should invalidate any of the reviews that have the same language on them. The fact that he did so many reviews in such a short period of time is frankly an insult to anyone who has put many hours into reviewing articles and providing useful feedback to users, even if it is a pain in the butt to do and they won't listen to you. Per the above observations, there is no way that you can do a re-review in six seconds (even a normal review takes far longer), as that means that you are just opening it up and closing the page immediately, without regard for input. What I think happened here is that Makro spent that time formatting the list, and nonsenseferret's comment above shows that that is probably the case. For a user who doesn't have a clear grasp on the English language, as evidenced by the numerous spelling errors that they have left, I doubt that they truly know what they are doing. As we mentioned a week or so ago, Makro just seems to be doing the reviews and ignoring anyone who asks questions about said reviews. I hate to make this observation, but this page pretty much sums up how I think Makro views this drive. I hope I am proven wrong here, but Makro has previously had issues conforming to the rules and norms on this project, and this issue is just another example of this Kevin Rutherford (talk) 22:55, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Unless there is some rebuttal that clearly alleviates these concerns i concur (And i sadly believe there won't be any). I would suggest a few actions though if the other reviewers concur:
  • Makro is removed from this drive as a reviewer and cannot rejoin this drive or a future drive without demonstrating that they can make decent (re)reviews outside a backlog drive .
  • All rereviews done by Makro are to be removed from the drive pages.
I doubt we need a precedent for the removal from the drive but i would note a removal was already sanctioned once during a previous drive. As for the categoric removal of the reviews: Even if some are decent we cannot be sure which ones were well done and which ones were just a formatted list pasted on a page. Leaving these re-reviews around would effectively clog our entire re-review process - It is nigh impossible to see which reviews were already passed by a reviewer and which ones still need to be checked (or re-checked if a single reviewer fails them) due to the clutter these reviews cause. I understand that time has been spend on these reviews and that some might have been decent. I also acknowledge that this might have been a case of misguided enthusiasm rather than intended malice. Even so this particular situation and the earlier concerns over non-communication towards new editors results in a net negative influence if all is summed up.
Aside from this matter i suppose we should encourage regular reviewers to spend a little time reviewing small chunks of reviews and doing double checks on rereviews on a semi regular basis in order to catch these problems early on (By checking 5 reviews and 5 rereviews a particular user made before moving to the next editor). Perhaps it may be an idea to extend the proposal stating "The script won't load for users with less than 500 edits and 90 days of activity" to include a fully protected blacklist for users who cannot use the script altogether (Akin to Huggle's, which will not load if a specific user CSS file is fully protected). That way everyone can sign up without wait while still supplying a method to deal with problematic cases. I suppose we need to aim some puppy eyes at Theopolisme for that though. Seems like i keep drawing people here by mentioning them - shall we just pitch a party tent and have drinks while we are all here anyway? Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 23:39, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
*pitches tent* I've implemented whitelist support in the rewrite script. Err.... we could also probably do some sort of blacklist as well....it follows the same principles code-wise)...although personally I'd like to avoid it... If users continue adding themselves after they've been removed or whatever then it seems like we've got a WP:CLUE issue, not just a need for more bureaucracy and covering up of the real issue...WP:CIR. Just my 2¢ though, I'm happy as always to work with everyone to figure out the best solution. :) Theopolisme (talk) 23:56, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
@Josve05a: And this is why I hate scored backlog drives. People learn the scoring system and try to come up with creative ways to game the system so that they can win any awards. IMO, I my ideal outcome would be to see Makro stripped of all their points for this drive, stripped of their AFC barnstars, disfellowshipped from AFC, and for them to spend ~2 months under the tutalage of one of the luminaries of AFC (Anne Delong, DDG, Excirial, myself, etc.) so that they learn the right way how to review and how to conduct themselves in a review drive. I know this is a burn to the ground viewpoint, but we have too many critics from outside the project pointing at the slipshod reviews we pass out already. We don't need further detractors like Makro. Hasteur (talk) 23:16, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Hasteur, although this goes beyond what I advocated, I am going to have to agree with you here, as Makro has only 69 reviews, and 1390 reviews. This number is not only a mirror image of most experienced Wikipedians, but it also is concerning because someone with so few of those reviews should not even be attempting that large number of re-reviews, mainly because you need a lot of experience in reviewing before you should even be attempting re-reviews. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 23:52, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I dont care about the points i do it to help the backlog. And so what if i cherry pick the quicker an article can be passed failed the better wiki can improve and expand.Makro (talk) 23:30, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

If that was true, then you wouldn't spend your time on re-reviewing other's work. As pointed out above, 90-95% of the reviews are correct in their actions, so performing almost 1,400 re-reviews means that you should in theory be 70-140 disagreeing with the initial reviewer. Not only did you not do that, but you spent valuable time confirming what we already knew instead of tackling the greater problem of over eight hundred waiting reviews. I'm sorry, but I do not see you being a benefit to this project at this time, as you should be focusing more on doing new reviews, instead of essentially confirming what we already knew. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 23:57, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Now isn't the time for half measures. I want to see Makro dragged in front of ARBCOM and booted from the project. Many of us raised concerns at the outset about Makro but a lot of hand-wringing on this page accomplished nothing. Now the chickens have come home to roost. While I know many users are willing to tolerate gross misconduct, otherwise "victimless" editing like this hurts this WikiProject and tarnishes the image of Wikipedia for new users worse than it already had been. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:23, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't think this is a matter for ARBCOM, as we really don't need to be bothering them with our internal affairs, especially when we can easily deal with this by locking them out of the reviewing process. That being said, the less people know about our drama, the better, as bringing this to ARBCOM is a bit heavy-handed, and would only serve to feed not only the detractors, but create unnecessary burdens to many people on the project. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 00:34, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
@Chris troutman:I don't even think AN/I needs to be involved. Just defellowship, AfC barnstar stripping, and points removed will probably be effective enough, as Hasteur suggested.  —Mysterytrey 00:45, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
@Chris troutman:I partly agree with Mysterytrey: This is too trivial a matter for ARBCOM and assuming Makro sees the handwriting on the wall and admits, at least to himself, that he's doing the project harm by his seemingly-robotic "pass" re-reviews and that he accepts whatever training/education we can give him and accepts whatever short-term sanctions we deem appropriate, there's not even any reason to get administrators involved. I disagree with mysterytrey in regard to some of the sanctions he mentions. Disfellowshipping (kicking him out of the project) will only be necessary if he continues to act as if that he's not willing to listen to and learn from the AFC community. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 03:26, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
  • I guess we should go over all of the user's reviews. As a side note, I've noticed several "Participants" who don't fulfil current requirements, I don't think they're very active, but keep an eye out. Cheers, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 00:47, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
Like i have said. I dont care about the points or awards i do it to make sure wikipedia has the best information possible being accepted.Makro (talk) 01:14, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Section break

So, now that it seems that people can agree that Makro should be removed from the project, who wants to remove his re-reviews? In terms of the actual reviews, there is probably no rush on that (or the re-reviews for that matter), but it might not be a bad idea to start implementing the white list in order to prevent misguided actions like this from happening in the future. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:28, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Slow down - if Wikipedia's concept of "consensus" were "universal consent, or abstension" (which it is not) I would be prepared to "block consensus" on any call to boot Makro out of the project altogether. That said, there may be a Wiki-Consensus within the AFC reviewer community to do so, but I will speak up and make sure it's not "unanimous consent."
Having said that, I do think Makro needs to step back and realize that his standards of what makes an acceptable review are significantly more relaxed than the rest of the team's are (that's the most WP:AFG/charitable reason I can think of for him to give a nearly-100% "pass" rate) means that his en masse re-reviews are not only not helpful, but they have become a distraction that some would have, in their own way, called disruptive. The fact that we are having this discussion is in itself a disruption of normal AFC activities.
I hereby call on Makro to
  • publicly step away from doing re-reviews for this backlog drive and limit his re-reviews in the next backlog drive to no more than 1 for every review he completes and no more than 10 per day.
  • announce that he will not object if his re-review information is removed from this backlog's pages and the points removed from his scorecard.
  • announce that, for at least the next 10 submissions he reviews, that he get a 2nd opinion before accepting or declining any article that isn't speedy-deletable (i.e. an obvious copyvio, attack page, etc.), and that he will continue to ask for a 2nd opinion until he has 10 consecutive reviews where the 2nd opinion indicates that, had this been a "re-review" situation instead of a "2nd opinion" situation, it would have been a "passing" re-review.
I hereby ask the AFC editor community to train Makro into becoming a quality reviewer by, among other things,
  • Actively helping him when he asks for help or a 2nd opinion
  • Actively encourage him to make use of the {{afc comment}} section and participate at the AFC Help Desk, and to politely correct any misconceptions about AFC or Wikipedia that may be revealed by his use of AFC comments or by his participation at the AFC Help Desk.
  • Encouraging him when he shows signs that his competency in AFC matters is growing
  • Remove all restrictions when it is obvious that his competency is at the level needed to fully participate in this WikiProject. This does NOT mean he has to be perfect, only that he has to be sufficiently competent that the cost to the project from his mistakes doesn't outweigh the benefit of his full participation in this project (i.e. we aren't perfect and we shouldn't expect him to be either).
davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 03:17, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
This is a good idea, but what do you propose doing with the almost 1,400 re-reviews that most likely weren't actually completed and goes against those who have actually done reviews? Kevin Rutherford (talk) 03:40, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
Oops, I just re-read that, and realized my mistake, so I am completely for everything you outlined above. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 03:44, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
  • I felt a little unsure of my concerns I posted here previously about encouraging game-like behavior, but here you have it, it is an actual problem. Regarding the re-reviews, I wouldn't overturn them. They are only re-reviews, and if the sole intention is to "take away his points", isn't that engaging in exactly the same sort of behavior that encouraged him to do this in the first place? The more we treat it like a game, the more we'll have these sort of problems. Gigs (talk) 18:18, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
I cannot accept that all of the ~100 of my reviews that Makro re-reviewed are passes - I'm simply not that good! Six seconds (or even 15) is not enough to check for copyvio so unless Makro is clairvoyant and managed to only selected my "declined as blank/hoax/nonsense" reviews to check, I would expect at least a few fails. So, how do we remove these invalid re-reviews? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 19:44, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
Gigs, if he had been doing all of those reviews over the period of a month, then I would have no problem with having them there. My problem is that he claims to have done seven hundred re-reviews in a day, which is insane even for my reviewing standards. It is one thing to do a review and deal with the people who question why you have done it, as that in itself is work. It is another to make a mockery of the people who have done it and have such a lopsided total that you are somehow granted the reviewer award over those who have done the hard work instead of gaming the system. In terms of what Roger said, it is also unlikely that we are that perfect, as even the best of us mess up every now and then. Regarding the taking out his accomplishments, if {{User link|Excirial}] agrees with this idea, I am more than happy to remove the recent reviews, as Makro didn't help anyone when he confirmed what they had just done. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 19:59, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

While we're here, we should also discuss Belshay's contributions, as they just agreed with 484 of Makro's supposed re-reviews in this edit, where they just stated that they agreed with the re-reviews. That edit aside, there are multiple versions of them either just cherry-picking the reviews, or not even bothering to do them (here, here, and here for example), as the only time that I have seen them put declines on was when they reviewed my page. I have no problem with the declines on my page, but the 484 agreements with Makro is concerning, as well as the fact that in my brief investigation, those are the only declines that I saw. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 20:51, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

At the risk of hammering the point home, the 484 reviews were supposedly done in 32 minutes, much in the same style as Makro. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:59, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Redux - What to do now?

I suppose we still have two situations on our hands:

  1. What, if anything, should be done regarding the re-reviews suspected of being fake?
  2. What, if anything, should be done about the rereview scoring mechanic as a whole, seeing as it might be exploitable?

If i summarize the above thread i think we're leaning towards an "Remove the reviews" stance and a generic "We need to do something about the mechanic as well" stance. Correct me on that if i am misreading things though. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 15:38, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

(I changed the * to #, I hope you don't mind)
On question #1, the suspected re-reviews should be removed.
Regarding what we should do with the system, I think we can discuss further, until the next drive is. (t) Josve05a (c) 15:50, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
I agree with Joseve05a on both counts. On #1, we all know what's going on, that golden wiki will be awfully bitter-tasting when he finally gets it. I know I be embarrassed to display that on my user talk page or /Awards sub-page if I got it under such circumstances. On #2, we do need to discuss it before the next drive. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 21:47, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
  • I'm not convinced these users did anything "wrong" per my comment in the #Still running wild section below. What I suggest, is that the users that misunderstood what "re-review" means go through and remove all of there re-reviews that aren't actually that, but instead a quick glance to see if the original review was reasonable. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 22:12, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
  • I'm going to have to echo Technical's observation on that, as I don't think Belshay was doing anything implicitly wrong. Makro was just testing the boundaries of the system, but when you apply the assumption of good faith onto this, no one was explicitly causing harm. That being said, the fact that both of them have a combined two and a half thousand reviews and did many of them in short periods of time is concerning, and should be cause for removal. This is mainly because there is no way to re-review 484 articles in half an hour without having multiple screens (the typing aspect alone should just take that long). In terms of what we should do with re-reviews, maybe we could set up a system where your re-reviews cannot go more than a certain percentage above your actual reviews, or put a cap on them. Of course rules are against many of the things we do here, but it might help motivate people to do more initial reviews in the long run. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 06:17, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Let's be straight here, even if we assume all the good faith in the world, it is empirically obvious that Makro has not been the the most useful person in this drive (which is what the little picture of a trophy is for, right). Indeed this discussion, has likely expended reviewers' time to the tune of a few hundred reviews - and the re-reviews clearly have evidetly nothing towards their intended purpose of giving confidence to the AfC process. I would say WP:IAR to any technical implementation of the drive's scoring system that awards these suspicious re-reviewers the trophies. Let us award these prizes to the people who have actually done the most work to clear the backlog. Otherwise this is massively unfair to those deserving people. --LukeSurl t c 11:05, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
  • I have removed Makro from the Participants list - thus removing thier ability to use the script. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 15:53, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Why have Makro's stats not been removed yet? Who is the clerk of the March drive? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 21:56, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
    • @Dodger67: They haven't been removed, and I am wondering if Northamerica1000 would be able to explain their actions, as it is clear from the above posts that most people are not going to recognize the legitimacy of what he did, including the hundreds of edits within half an hour. As far as I am aware, Fremantle99 is supposed to be handing out the awards, so would someone be able to explain why this wasn't done (if there was an offline agreement, I would be happy to know, as I have nothing against Northamerica's edits, although they are a bit strange, admittedly). Kevin Rutherford (talk) 14:37, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
I was not aware of this discussion until I received the notification via ping from the comment above. I sent out the awards based upon the leaderboard and statistics at March 2014 Backlog Elimination Drive that are generated by User:Excirial/AFCBuddy. People at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/March 2014 Backlog Elimination Drive were concerned about when they would be sent out, so I sent them. I have watchlisted the talk pages concerning this matter, in hopes that a prompt resolution can be devised regarding any problems. NorthAmerica1000 14:45, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
N.b. I sent out the awards last time for the December 2013 - January 2014 Backlog Elimination Drive in late February 2014, 26 days after the drive had ended (see this link), because nobody else got around to it. NorthAmerica1000 17:32, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

!Vote requested to clarify matters about awards sent

The award recipients being discussed are listed below. Requesting an !vote to obtain a clearer consensus regarding this matter. Some of the comments above don't state whether or not to rescind awards that were sent. NorthAmerica1000 00:04, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Content review medal, Gold award and and Teamwork barnstar (for re-reviews) sent to User talk:Makro

Per the consensus that has formed here, the AfC awards awarded to User:Makro have been rescinded. (NorthAmerica1000 00:39, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

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

Support
Oppose and rescind
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Comments
  • I have messaged User:Makro at their talk page (diff page), providing an opportunity for the individual to self-rescind the awards, per the consensus forming above. NorthAmerica1000 04:37, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
  •  —Mysterytrey 16:34, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Here's the diff page to document the removal of the awards. NorthAmerica1000 01:09, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Bronze award and Teamwork barnstar (for re-reviews) sent to: User talk:Belshay

Although the consensus is not as strong as above, it is for the awards awarded to User:Belshay to be rescinded. NorthAmerica1000 01:26, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

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

Support
Oppose and rescind
  • As much as I would like to assume good faith here, I am not convinced that Belshay performed any of these reviews per the reason outlined below. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 08:59, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
  • No comment about intent, but certainly seems to have been competing with makro following their bad example, and it would be silly to reward behavior that undermines the project --nonsense ferret 08:22, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Less clear cut than Makro's case since there is no clear indication that the reviews were done in an (unreasonably) short timeframe. However, if we assume Makro didn't rereview properly we can be certain that his rereviews will contain multiple problems that a second reviewer should have caught. In Belshays case these 480 reviews specifically stated that they agreed with the previous rereview done by Makro (On all 480 instances reviewed) which is statistically speaking extremely unlikely. Also, while there is no clear-cut rule about it I cannot fathom someone would use the same summary 480 times without a custom note anywhere. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 10:18, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
  • FoCuSandLeArN
  • As nonsenseferret said, they both seem to be having a competition purely about points and not the rereviews being done accurately.  —Mysterytrey 16:37, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Comments
  • Although his editing appears to have been gaming the system, I don't think his reviews were bad faith and not necessarily flawed. If Makro is stripped of his awards, Kevin Rutherford would be the next in first place which would result in Belshay getting the silver medal, not bronze. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:56, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
  • No strong feeling either way on this one. The Ukulele Dude - Aggie80 (talk) 01:25, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Just so you guys are aware, Belshay performed 484 re-reviews in a short period of time, so I also think that these might have been in bad faith as well. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 07:58, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Here's the diff page to document the removal of the awards. NorthAmerica1000 01:27, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Comments about this entire subsection

I'm not voting in either proposition since I did not participate in the drive. I've given my viewpoint above about how I feel regarding editors like these. All I would say is that the rules as currently written is why we have creative editors like these gaming the rules to get to the top of the list for "End of Drive" awards. We still haven't resolved the problem of how to keep a steady level of pending reviews. Hasteur (talk) 12:39, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

A similar view, making a big deal out of awards makes awards a big deal. In a tangential sense, it's like giving a lot of media attention to mass murders, it just encourages more of it. Gigs (talk) 20:52, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Using deliberation in the review and re-review process

I initially wrote this to be part of the section above, but it's worth it's own section.

Except in very obvious cases, a quality review should take at least a few minutes, and some take a lot longer.

Except where the review was obviously spot-on - that is, it was an obvious accept or, if it was a decline, it obviously found all of the problems and only the problems - a quality re-review should take at least half a minute.

In my past experience with re-reviews, maybe 10-30% of the reviews I'm re-reviewing had "minor issues" such that that even if I wound up agreeing with the review on the whole, it took me a few minutes to decide if I would pass the review with or without comments, fail the review (with comments of course), or abstain from the re-review process for that particular review. In the case of an abstention, I had to decide if I wanted to take other action, such as adding an afc comment to the submission (or edit the article or its talk page, if it was accepted) or drop a note on the reviewer's or primary editor's talk page. All of this takes time. The other 70-90% were close enough to obvious "pass" or obvious "fail" situations that it didn't take a lot of "thinking time."

The bottom line:

  • To be useful to submitters, reviewing a submission should not be done in "let's get this done as fast as possible" fashion unless the person is in a "clear out the easy parts of the backlog" mode, cherry-picking only the obvious cases and skipping those that would give him the slightest reason to have to think (hint: If the submission is more than 1-2 days old, someone has probably looked at it and left it alone, so assume it is NOT an obvious case).
  • To be useful to reviewers, re-reviews must always be done in a thoughtful manner, not a rapid-fire manner. But for the need to prevent duplicated work and for scoring (both of which are valid concerns), there's not really any reason to mark a review as "passed, no additional comments." It doesn't help the reviewer find where he needs to improve.
  • It's actually better for the project to skip over reviewers who you know you will just blindly "pass" without comment. If you are re-reviewing a particular reviewer's submissions and it's obvious after you do 10-20 that they are all "spot on," it's time to say "okay, this guy knows what he's doing, let me find another reviewer's work to re-review."
  • When doing re-reviews (which I haven't done this go-around), I usually select reviewers who
  • have few reviews and need them all re-reviewed,
  • have many reviews and have less than 5-10% (or less than a total of 10-20) re-reviewed already, or
  • those with a relatively high number of "fails" (sometimes I will re-review ALL reviews that have already been "failed" by one other editor and not re-reviewed by a second editor, so it can be scored as a "fail/pass" or "fail/fail" for point adjustments).

davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 20:57, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I've been doing this informally for about a year now. My method is to see if I can spot what appears to be a significant error, and investigate further, the same way I look at submissions of someone who has written a very unsatisfactory article. I recognize that for purposes of the competition this is unfairly negative, which is why I usually comment outside of it. DGG ( talk ) 04:45, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
I'm not entirely sure that "passed, no additional comments" is not useful. I spend nearly as much time going over a re-review as I do on a review. Sure, it doesn't help as much as a fail, but since I've spent the time, why not let the original reviewer know they did a good job? I know that when an editor I respect (and that's most of the AfC regulars) gives me a "pass", I go back and check so I know what it was that I did right. The rest of davidwr's comments I agree with. 78.26 (I'm no IP, talk to me!) 20:12, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
I don't think that's what they mean. What they mean is that 700 rereviews -in such a swift manner- shows an obvious lack of due dilligence. Of course a Pass is just as valuable as a Fail, at least it is for me (and assuming the rereviewer is competent). Cheers, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 20:48, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
I go at it in a similar manner. I may try to do all of a user's if it is less than 20 or so, but tend to go for about ten for a single person, sort of spreading the reviews. I don't want anyone to feel like I am picking on them. I like keeping the numbers even. I am a very fast reader and a fast typist (80+ words a minute). I take advantage of every shortcut and tool I can to do things. My biggest bottleneck is the time it takes a page to load. And then you have to scroll to see the real article, as the change comparison shows up at the top. Fifteen seconds a page would be lightening fast. I would guess that my time takes about a minute a page, and that is after getting them loaded. Many reviews are pretty straight forward and given that most of the people doing the initial review are seasoned and extremely competent, there should be few failures. And there is absolutely no reason someone should re-review and article unless it is a Fail.The Ukulele Dude - Aggie80 (talk) 01:01, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Addition to the standard "non-notable" decline reason

I have seen several cases where an editor writes a draft about some non-notable topic, and it gets repeatedly declined for that reason. The decliner's suggestion is always, "add more references to reliable sources to get this accepted." Unfortunately, not every topic will have reliable coverage, and when this happens, many editors will start adding unreliable sources such as press releases and company websites, and repeatedly resubmit based on those sources. The reality is: there is nothing you can do on Wikipedia to overcome a notability issue, and if a topic does not have any reliable coverage, it probably isn't suitable for Wikipedia at this time. Therefore, I propose we add the following text at the end of the usual "nn" decline reason (minus the emphasis):

This submission's references do not adequately evidence the subject's notability—see the general guideline on notability and the golden rule. Please improve the submission's referencing, so that the information is verifiable, and there is clear evidence of why the subject is notable and worthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia. If no reliable sources can be found for the subject, then it may not be suitable for Wikipedia at this time.
What you can do: Add citations (see Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners) to secondary reliable sources that are entirely independent of the subject.

--Mz7 (talk) 00:14, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

perhaps we can use sometimes an even stronger wording for such cases as an alternative decline reason. saying simply:
"It is very unlikely that we will consider this sufficiently notable for an encyclopedia. Please do not submit again unless you can find substantial reliable published sources independent of the subject. I have been saying this manually both at AFC and NPP for several years, and most people understand very well, and do not persisst further in futile endeavors. I sometimes add. "if you cannot, please consider withdrawing the afc by placing {{db-self}} at the top." DGG ( talk ) 04:27, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
Current wording of canned decline messages mostly encourages authors to continue. That's not always the best course. I think it is a good idea to mention the possibility of failure in all the notability-related decline messages. Proposed wording looks good though I'm not sure a link to WP:TOOSOON is the right link to use. Adding a separate reviewer assessment of notability potential when it looks like the gap may be too large to span is also a good suggestion. I will start doing that. ~KvnG 04:50, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
Don't use the personal and subjective "unlikely that we will consider" - rather use impersonal wording such as "the subject of this draft seems unlikely to be notable" - remember that notability is a characteristic of the subject, not of the draft/article. The draft either demonstrates the subject's notability or it doesn't. All the decline templates contain an invitation to try to fix the problem, some should clearly say "this is never going to happen" and "please try writing about something else". The sometimes misleading encouraging text is in the pink "frame" of the template, so it seems to be a part of the "fixed" content of all decline templates rather than part of the "variable" content in the grey box (just my guess I'm no code writer!). Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:08, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
We should avoid predicting the future. The subject who "seems unlikely to be notable" may well become so. An unsigned garage band may top the chart, next year. The humble local councillor may one day be Prime Minister. "...seems unlikely to be notable at present" would be more reasonable; "...seems unlikely to meet Wikipedia's notability criteria at present" is less pejorative. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:26, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes, I've been checking through the old db-g13 eligible drafts, and I have come across quite a few that were declined as non=-notable in 2011 or 2012, but since then have played for international sports teams, won Juno awards, been elected to office, been given a prestigious appointment at a university, etc. The articles were just submitted a little prematurely, before these things happened. —Anne Delong (talk) 13:46, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
WP:TOOSOON may be appropriate advice for some situations. Some subjects are never going to be notable and, without attempting to predict the future, I think that possibility should be recognised in our advice to authors. ~KvnG 15:15, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
I couldn't agree more. This is extremely common and although we don't want to sound bitey, it needs to come across firmly. Perhaps as you mentioned, a recommendation to work on something else would be appropriate. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 21:57, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
Mz7's text at the top of this section is a good improvement. While I would prefer the option of stronger language, there is enough controversy with DGG's suggested text to defer it for now. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 01:36, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
Recommendation: We go with Mz7's text for now and we ask the script developers to add a "custom additional text" field to all decline reasons, so that what would be a custom-decline reason or an additional AFC comment will appear in the pink box after the "canned" decline reason. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 01:36, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
The proposal is for notability delines not all declines. I don't think we need to kick the can down the road as far as the text goes. I think we're close. How about:

This submission's references do not adequately evidence the subject's notability—see the general guideline on notability and the golden rule. Please improve the submission's referencing so that the information is verifiable, and there is clear evidence of why the subject is notable and worthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia. If adequate reliable sources cannot be found for the subject, then it may not be suitable for Wikipedia or may not be suitable for Wikipedia at this time.

~KvnG 14:28, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
This is okay, it's neither better or worse than Mz7's text from where I stand, either one would work. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 20:38, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
I've felt for a while we needed more of a "not now, probably not ever" decline, so I support these efforts. Gigs (talk) 17:14, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
I agree with davidwr, it's neither better nor worse, but I don't really think it's necessary to say "may not be suitable for Wikipedia" twice. Mz7 (talk) 00:54, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Button broken

Resolved

erwin85's user account has expired on the toolserver. ~KvnG 20:25, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Toolserver is expired. Any idea what the script did? Hasteur (talk) 23:34, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
Asking me? It takes you to a submission that needs to be reviewed. ~KvnG 00:02, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks Technical 13. Works a lot faster now too. ~KvnG 15:36, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
Technical 13: Do you think you can fix Template:Random page in category?  —Mysterytrey 15:57, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
  •  Done — Mysterytrey, it has lost a little functionality, but the template has been fixed and does the most basic part of it. I've also updated the documentation as such. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 20:55, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Still running wild

Can anyone explain why users such as Makro are still on a reviewing rampage after all we've discussed and decided? FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 18:40, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I just noticed his (and Belshay's) sudden placement at the top spots of the drive's leaderboard is just the Buddy reflecting all his (their) fake rereviews. Shouldn't he (they) be taken off the chart and Participants page (until he's rehabilitated; although a block looks imminent if he turns out to be a sockpuppet)? FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 19:32, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
  • I'm not convinced Belshay isn't actually doing the re-reviews (see my AFCBuddy results page for example where they have failed a couple of my reviews and given detailed reasons). Also, I'm not convinced Makro did anything wrong other than misinterpret what "re-review" actually means. If I'm to AGF, I'd be led to believe that this user may have simply misinterpreted that to mean see if the declined reason used is reasonable and either agree with it or disagree with it without actually reviewing the article completely (which would have led to more "I would have declined it as X instead of Y, but Z is okay too I guess" type replies). Looking at drafts and the existing decline reason and saying yes or no that is reasonable can be done extremely quickly (especially with the use of multiple tabs) and someone doing it that way would only edit the check page once with the results. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 20:54, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

IEG for a more lightweight approach to mentorship

Hi AFC reviewers. I just wanted to inform you that there is an Individual Engagement Grant proposal related to creating a new approach mentorship. We intend to review current programs and create a pilot to test a more lightweight approach to mentorship. Feedback is helpful for the grant committee in guiding their decisions, and so if you are interested, we look forward to hearing your feedback on our proposal. I, JethroBT drop me a line 21:50, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

@JethroBT: do you mean meta:Grants:IEG/Reimagining Wikipedia Mentorship? davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 21:57, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
Hah, somehow the G got lost in Grants. Thanks. I've fixed the link over to meta. I, JethroBT drop me a line 04:53, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

WHERE is the "accept" button??

To accept an article, I am told to click on the "accept" button. Where is that button? I find no evidence that it exists. Michael Hardy (talk) 04:36, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

@Michael Hardy: I had a look at your Monobook.js and Vector.js but i cannot see any instance of the Article for Creation Helper Script loaded in these. AFC reviews are pretty much only done using that script as there are just to many templates, tags and pages to update every single review to do so manually. A single accept needs a pagemove, a cleanup of the AFCH page to remove AFC templates, several tags on the article's talk page, a note to the editor who posted it their article was reviewed, an addition to the recently reviewed articles list and so on and on and on.
If you add the script to either your vector.js or mono.js you should be able to select "review" when looking at an AFC page. From there on you can press the accept button and the script will take care of all the technicalities for you. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 12:15, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
At Wikipedia:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation/Helper_script, it says:
"To install the script, navigate to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets, click on the check box next to "Yet Another AfC Helper Script", and hit "Save". Then you must clear your browser's cache. After that, you should be ready to go!"
I did all that and I still don't see an "accept" button. Michael Hardy (talk) 13:50, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
Just need to point out that as the author of a draft you cannot review and accept your own submission. I'm not sure why an editor with your experience submitted a draft to AFC at all. -- Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:03, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
@Roger (Dodger67) : I have never submitted any draft to AfC. Michael Hardy (talk) 14:27, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
Hi Michael Put me down under the "Confused" list ;) Meanwhile I have figured out why the AFCH script isn't working for you - you must be listed on the Participants page it is the whitelist to activate the script for qualified reviewers. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 15:46, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
Michael, do you see the drop-down menu on the left of the search bar? When you point to it (or click it) when viewing an article for review, it has the choice review.

Danielh32 (talk) 21:45, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

SURVEY: AFC use by people with conflicts of interest

For years I've recommended that editors with WP:COI use AFC as a way to start articles in which they had conflicts of interests. I didn't come up with this idea myself, it was already in use at AFC when I picked up on it.

In User talk:Chris troutman#COI and AFC, Chris pointed out correctly that there is "no exception in WP:COI for AfC" in the COI behavioral guideline.

Before I start an RFC on this in Wikipedia Talk:COI and cross-advertise it to here and Wikipedia talk:Drafts, I wanted to make sure I wasn't completely out in left field.

So here is a poll for all seasoned AFC reviewers:

  • Have you seen evidence that it's been okay to allow AFC to be used by COI-impacted editors to get otherwise-acceptable (or otherwise-acceptable after cleaning up as part of the AFC process) new articles into the encyclopedia? Have you reviewed such articles with the understanding that AFC was the right place for COI-editors to submit draft artices?
  • Have you seen evidence to the contrary, that is, have you seen COI editors get the message that "this submission is okay (or "this submission has potential"), but since you have a conflict of interest, you are not allowed to use AFC to submit drafts?" Have you told COI editors as much on the understanding that what you were doing was the right thing to do?
  • Or, have you just not seen much evidence one way or the other?

davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 16:00, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

There's no exception in the WP:G11 rules for advertising, but yet AFC has endorsed a consensus that marginal cases that would be speedied in mainspace are given the benefit of the doubt when they're under the auspices of AFC. IMO I treat COI submitters the same way that I treat advertising... If when I read the submission I get the distinct impression that the submission is being written by an author with a conflict of interest to the subject but is attempting to follow our rules/procedures/guidelines I'll give them a little more leeway over a editor who pastes boilerplate overly promotional content. If the editor attempts to force the issue I go from soft opposition to diamond opposition. If it's clear that the user is attempting to use WP in a manner inconsistent with NPOV then I take the very hardline and terse response path (including starting deletion proceedings for the submission). Hasteur (talk) 16:17, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
I agree that COI editors should be directed to Afc, but at the same time cautioned that they should not add promotional material to their drafts. All of us have non-neutral opinions about one subject or another, and it's proper to have a second or third set of eyes make sure that none of that gets into mainspace. About half the time when I discuss NPOV with these editors, they seem to get it and the adapt their submissions to the policies. Some of these people go on to become good editors. Others, though, are dedicated promoters and have no interest in doing anything else. This becomes obvious after a while and the six months-without-improvement of db-g13 is IMO too lenient for these articles. Having COI editors go through Afc has several benefits (1) A large number of totally promotional articles don't get into mainspace, (2) Editors who are willing to follow the policies have them explained in detail, and (3) Articles which are accepted and then have the promotion, copyvio, etc., added back afterwards are on the watchlists of some of the Afc reviewers, and so the problems may be noticed sooner. I had the experience of declining an article about a software product, only to have the editor complain that he was just replacing an older version of the article, which was a direct promotional copy from the company website and had been there for years unnoticed. —Anne Delong (talk) 17:36, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
Question 1: WP:COI tells editors with COI to take major/controversial changes to the talk page. To a certain extent, I consider AfC to be the talk page for creating a new article. Therefore I have always thought AfC is the correct place for an editor with a potential COI to take their article they want created. Question 2: I won't say I haven't seen it, but as noted above, I have not applied it in that manner. Question 3: not applicable. 78.26 (I'm no IP, talk to me!) 19:22, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
They really should disclose their COI prominently. Maybe we could add something to the templates or wizard they use? Gigs (talk) 20:46, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
I'm not particularly active over here, but the AFC-for-COI idea is definitely good, for the reasons that 78.26 gives. It's especially useful for the good-faith user who wants to create an article about a topic with which he's closely connected. For example, I've run into enough solid independent publications about my church (e.g. community histories, architectural studies of the area) that I expect that it would pass WP:N, and I've written enough stuff in general that I believe I could produce a neutral article comparable to what any of you would write if you had the sources. However, if I ever get around to doing that, I'll send it through AFC just to ensure that it's neutral and that it lacks signs of having been written by a member. Nyttend (talk) 03:53, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Only users listed on this page will be able to use the AFC helper script

Hi. I have to confess that I declined Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/August Capital before I looked at the "participants" tab. I now realise I should not have used the script. However, if it's true that "Only users listed on this page will be able to use the AFC helper script" there must be a problem somewhere. I'm not listed but I was able (technically if not intellectually) to use the script. Please accept my apolgies for leaping in.--Northernhenge (talk) 22:18, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

  • No worries, Northernhenge. That is a feature that is currently only in the re-write script which won't be live for another month or two most likely. You did nothing wrong, and there is no existing restriction from using the script, yet. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 23:02, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Templates

Over at WP:AN, there's a proposal to ban an editor from creating pages in mainspace and templatespace, but the proposal specifically permits the editor to create those pages through AFC. Are templates ever created through AFC? Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Template:Generictemplatenamehere? I'm just not sure whether this kind of thing would work. Nyttend (talk) 03:59, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

We do have Wikipedia:Article wizard/Template and templates are created in the Draft namespace, e.g., Draft:Template:Infobox nebula --Mark viking (talk) 04:11, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
Thanks! I've seen categories for creation at WP:AFC/R, but never noticed anything about other namespaces. Nyttend (talk) 04:29, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
If the editor is technically or socially restricted from creating pages in specific namespaces, AFC is a great way to have a outside set of eyes review it. I know I've sorted through navbox templates and other proposed templates before to decide if it does make sense for the creation. Hasteur (talk) 12:49, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
  • We only have a couple template AfC reviewers, but yes it is done and not a bad idea. I'm going to look into this more today and see if there is a way to make these TfCs and MfCs more distinguishable and easier to find by adding some categorization to the AfC submission template... I'll work it up in the sandbox of course and we can discuss it before implementation. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 13:33, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
  • See Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Template:Unix internals. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 15:13, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

AfC templates in user space

There is a question at WP:VPT#Bad_links_in_.7B.7BAfc_decline.7D.7D about using {{Afc decline}}. It looks like the problem part is handled by {{AFC submission/location}}, but there is also a |full= that may need to be used in userspace cases. I'll leave it to you AfC experts to sort out. Cheers! —PC-XT+ 07:56, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

  • It's been on the known issues list for quite some time. It will be fixed as part of the move to the Draft namespace. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 11:18, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  • But in the meantime, would reviewers please check the messages they place on users' talk pages, & correct the location if it's wrong. --David Biddulph (talk) 18:12, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

blank sandboxes?

I know because I searched that this question has arisen before, but the discussions were among experienced reviewers and I couldn't figure out the answer.  :) Do I decline blank and/or clearly experimental sandboxes, or do I leave them alone? valereee (talk) 11:29, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

I would decline them, but not before checking to see if they have hidden the text by accident (it used to be more frequent, so I don't know if users do it as much now). When reviewing, I have found that they will resubmit these blank submissions, so it may be just that they don't know they've submitted them, and telling them this helps them out. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 14:46, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
Thank you! valereee (talk) 14:54, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Make it easier to move userspace AfC submissions where they go

As you all know, a large number of AfC submissions are created at pages with the format "User:<username>/sandbox". This makes the automatic move links that appear not work right, since a sandbox already exists in AfC space. I've created a modification to deal with this problem. It requires a software change which won't be live here until the 17th, but it can be tried out at [6]. On pages where the subpage name already exists in either AfC or draft space, the links are replaced with input boxes requesting a new subpage name. This is less error-prone since the prefix is autofilled, so this should mean less newbies accidentally move their page to mainspace or somewhere else it's not supposed to be while trying to move it to AfC space. Thoughts? Jackmcbarn (talk) 02:58, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, the old template did a pretty good job with submissions that already had a title, so you are right that mainly what's needed is a better way to move sandboxes. Your template says "Sandbox" in the input field, but since that's never correct, could it say "Your title here" or something like that? Then the actual titles "Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Your title here" and similar draft title could be salted so that the move wouldn't happen if the editor didn't type a title. Also, saying "Afc space" may not be accurate, because Afc submissions can now be found in both Wikipedia talk and Draft, but likely the new users won't understand the distinction, so it may be okay. I was unable to actually try the process; it tells me I don't have an account. Wouldn't the new users and IP submitters have the same problem? —Anne Delong (talk) 03:25, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
The logic actually triggers the new input boxes whenever the page already exists in AfC or draft space, regardless of its title, so in some cases the title may be almost correct. Should I special-case the "sandbox" title? (By the way, if the title doesn't exist in AfC or draft space, it uses the old form still). I'm not opposed to renaming "AfC space", but what should I call it? "Wikipedia talk space" seems like it would only add to confusion. Also, since new and unregistered users can't move pages at all anyway, it doesn't really matter they can't use the input boxes (if they tried the old link, the same thing would happen). Jackmcbarn (talk) 14:00, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Back in square one

As we all can appreciate, we've started to let the backlog spiral out of control again. We can't be in a permanent drive, so how are we going to tackle this? PS: Has Wikipedia changed its font all of a sudden? FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 19:57, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Regarding font, see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2014-03-26/Op-ed 78.26 (I'm no IP, talk to me!) 20:02, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
It makes me dizzy! FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 20:13, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
If anything, the drive worked for the first two weeks when we halved everything, and then just kind of stalled and slowly diminished from there as people either got sick of reviewing or were suddenly faced with an influx of questions from people. In term of the future of this project, I honestly don't know what to say. We could shut it down, but that would be counterproductive. In terms of dealing with people who ask really questions based on the fact that we have some vague decline templates, maybe we should focus on rewording them and doing a better job discouraging people from writing articles. I say that last part because if we apply a very strict mindset to the project, it would help lessen some of the "Haha, I am awesome." crap that we get each day, as well as many of the unnotable persons and organizations that appear here. These are just some ideas, but I really think we should change something so that we aren't having to run a backlog drive each month in order to deal with a month and a half long backlog. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 20:34, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
Not even 3 days in and the backlog is trending upwards again. It's very simple, we need to have people doing enough quality reviews so that # reviews out is greater than # review requests in. If that means we need to actively and pervasively canabalize other projects (or NPP) to do it, then that's what we need to do. If it's to lower the standards of AFC so that anything but the most patent fails gets immediately rubber stamped into mainspace so that someone else can deal with the problems which I strenously oppose then we do that.. If it means giving less leeway on submissions that are repeatedly submitted with no appreciable improvement and pushed over to MFD/CSD then that's what we do. Hasteur (talk) 20:57, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
I agree, we need permanent quality reviewers. How do you suggest we cannibalise them? FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 21:02, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
Massive PR outreach? It sounds silly, but I wonder if we could target some mailing lists and let people know that we are fun or something. In terms of MFD/CSD, pages like this can easily dissuade reviewers, as there are people who will viciously attack others who try to delete their domain, so it would be good if we could recruit more hardliners so that people would stick by their decisions (nothing against the reviewers, but we need people to say "no, there is no way your submission will ever be approved, as they are not notable.") and do the dirty work without fear of retribution. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 21:31, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
A well written piece in the Signpost could serve a number of purposes... first, to address the problematic misconceptions about AfC, and second, to explain what goes on here and how people can get involved (and why it's a good thing for Wikipedia to do so). --Demiurge1000 (talk) 03:30, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
Demiurge1000 Would you be interested in co-writing this, or at least providing input if I do something to this effect? Kevin Rutherford (talk) 04:23, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
Interested in co-authoring it, but extremely busy at present, so you may have to be very patient. (That said, we've had this problem for years, so a few weeks may do no harm.) New sub-section forthcoming below... --Demiurge1000 (talk) 17:48, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
What about a system of asking submitters to categorise their article when they create it or submit it for review, with the lists available for the relevant WikiProjects to have on their pages? For example, someone writes an article about a video game, and when they're going through the article wizard or after they click submit they're asked to choose a category that best describes the article subject; in this case "Video game". An automatic list or category could then be generated for "Video game articles for creation", which can be linked or transcluded to the WikiProject Video games page/subpage. Sam Walton (talk) 17:36, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
Are you talking about categories like what we have for AFD? It might be a good idea if we could keep the options small, but that also means we would have a lot of biography articles which may make things more interesting for those projects. It's a good idea though, so I would encourage you to continue pursuing it. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 04:41, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

How the Signpost might be able to help - feedback wanted

Above there was some interest in putting forward something for the WP:SIGNPOST, with the following aims:

  1. Address misconceptions and criticisms of AfC.
  2. Recruit additional AfC reviewers/helpers.
  3. Provide accessible "where to start" guidance for such additional reviewers/helpers.

I've been thinking about the best format for this. The Signpost has a regular feature where multiple members of a WikiProject are "interviewed", with what I believe are mostly standard questions. This has the advantage of being easy to administer and collate, and of being a standard format. Having read quite a number of them, though, I think they may not have the impact we are seeking. It's absolutely routine, for example, for questions like "what problems does the project have?" to receive answers like "not enough participants", and I'm really not sure that giving such answers really helps to recruit more participants. (I also think presenting AfC as a WikiProject in its own right is not always the best approach - really it's just a mechanism that aims to help other WikiProjects by taking care of the sub-basic tasks required in introducing new material which they presumably welcome for their own subject area.)

I'm therefore thinking that a more effective approach would be to have an "Op Ed" in the Signpost instead, explaining the perfect storm that Wikipedia is facing; a endlessly growing flood of WP:COI article creators, a lack of sufficient volunteers at both AfC and WP:NPP, and huge numbers of potential new (non-COI) contributors being driven away (or at least, given totally the wrong welcome) as a result, while still not doing anything to halt the COI problem. This could lead into explaining why AfC handles COI submissions the way it does, why AfC is not happily hand-in-hand with COI editors encouraging them (as some view it), and also - the absolute other side of the coin - why AfC's reasons for declining articles are not as capricious and deletionist as some see them.

I'm thinking of writing this (which will take me several weeks at least), but I'd like any feedback on whether this format is the best way, whether other approaches would be better, and so on. In addition, I will also need plenty of feedback as I write it (and perhaps there will be some disagreements at certain later points), just to iron out a consensus on whether my rather twisted view of AfC is actually what we want to be presenting. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:35, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm willing to help, as I would be more than happy to write up some of these issues. Also, I am friends with Ed in real life, so I can easily discuss maybe modifying the interview questions if you wanted to. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 22:24, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
Demiurge1000 I like your approach. I've previously commented that our rejection templates encourage non-notable companies to re-submit with evidence of their notability, when in most cases no evidence exists. I've talked to companies where the PR rep was being forced by their boss to re-submit to AfC 10-20 times, since they never got a flat "no". It's a waste of both the PR rep's and the volunteer's time. I've submitted articles to AfC with a COI and I find the process to be hyper efficient, the WikiProject active and the queue well-manned compared to other areas of Wikipedia. We definitely need fewer submissions rather than more editors. CorporateM (Talk) 00:42, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
One of things that happens on a drive is that more articles get reviewed in a short period of time. And the ratio of Declined to Accepted is heavily on the Declined side. In most cases, the first thing many people do is attempt to fix it and they send it right back to the queue again. Some of these people will re-submit several times during the drive, often without even reading the referenced rules and help pages, just taking a wild stab in the dark at what is wanted either hoping that another person will pass it or that they fixed it. So it is probable that a third of the declines will be re-submitted within a day or so of the initial decline. I don't have any viable suggestions, but it is one of the challenges of the drives, we end up re-reviewing many of the submissions multiple times. Perhaps dividing the submissions from initial, second, third or more categories would be helpful. The Ukulele Dude - Aggie80 (talk) 01:19, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
Per the above, I strengthened the wording in the template to discourage more than three submissions, but I don't want to go so far as to write "your X is probably not notable" as there is no need to discourage people. In terms of what Aggie said, I am also willing to add that people re-submitting should take 48 hours and read the reasons, otherwise we might decline it again if no genuine attempt was made to improve the article. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:25, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
This edit adds on to what I said before, so feel free to tweak it if needed. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:52, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  • At this rate we'll reach 2000 by next week. Why don't the drive participants keep reviewing off-drive? FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 00:01, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

@Demiurge1000, have you started drafting the proposed Signpost article yet? If so, would you like other AFC regulars to help edit it directly? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:16, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

No, but when I do, it will be at User:Demiurge1000/Signpost AFC draft, and all input is very welcome. I've also noticed that AfC has been in the signpost under a Q&A/interview style presentation before (as noted near the top of this page), which is another reason for not repeating the same format. In addition, it's worth looking at that interview in detail to see what has changed, what hasn't, what was suggested and either worked or didn't. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:59, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Sorting Articles for Creation into categories for use by WikiProjects

I mentioned this in a section above but thought I'd make a dedicated section for discussing it. What do you think to asking article submitters to categorise their article such that they are automatically placed into a category which can be accessed by WikiProjects in order to generate a list of articles that members of that project will have the knowledge and interest in reviewing? My example above was someone writing an article about a video game is asked in the article wizard to choose from a drop down list 'What describes your article subject best?' for which there would be an option of 'Video game'. This would then add the category "Video game articles for creation" to the page, listable on the video game wikiproject page in the same way that AfDs or requested articles are. I could see this increasing the number of reviewers by making AfCs as integral to WikiProjects as AfDs for example. The other benefit would be allowing reviewers to find AfCs that interest them, rather than clicking random or sorting via date. Sam Walton (talk) 11:44, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

  • As part of the move to draft space, I have no problem with assisting new page creators to add appropriate WikiProject banners to the talk page, but this has been heavily discussed before and adding it to WT:AfC/ project space was consensually determined to be a bad idea. This seems to be one of this projects perennial proposals. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 11:49, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
Ah, any chance you have a link to previous discussions on this? Sam Walton (talk) 11:58, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
I understand that there is a new search engine under development that will search within templates. When that comes into general use, Wikiproject members will be able to add a custom search to their pages that will find all submitted drafts that contain, for example, the word "Physics" or "Football". Right now they can search by namespace, but can't select active submissions from declined ones (unless this is something that has recently become available? I hope?). That would be a simpler solution for those projects that want to keep an eye on the queue. (Someone please add a link to info about the new search engine - I am not finding it right away.) —Anne Delong (talk) 12:37, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
@Anne Delong: Cirrus search? --Mdann52talk to me! 12:48, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
Hmmm... Mdann52. after looking at that page I am still uninformed. Is there a better explanation somewhere else? —Anne Delong (talk) 14:36, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
@Anne Delong:: try this mw:Extension:CirrusSearch.  —Mysterytrey 15:29, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
@Samwalton9:Question: So you want the newest editors who are using the training wheels of AFC to know the convoluted structure of our Category Hierarchy? I'm sorry but even as an adept Wikipedian, I still have difficulty figuring out which projects a article belongs to. In addition Mainspace categories are not supposed to be used on "drafts" so as to keep the category listings clean. In addition if we were to create a "Draft articles for Wikiproject X" category for each project we would have a balooning of categories that were used rarely leaving the tools that handle AFC submissions to cramble and create great lists of categories to ignore. Therefore the best solution is the WikiProject banner tagging on the talk pages and to allow tagging the talk page with the banner at any time. I did make a proposal that would help us categorize ones that were missed Hasteur (talk) 13:24, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
I don't see it being that difficult - a simple drop down list which has "Science, Biography, Organisation, Video game, Musician..." etc. is all that would be necessary, the category being added could be an automatic thing. The editor themselves wouldn't even need to know it was happening. Sam Walton (talk) 13:35, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
I don't see any real problem with adding Wikiproject banners; the members of the project can always just remove the banner if they feel it's inappropriate. Categories are another thing - endlessly complicated the subject of many discussions over time. The other problem, already mentioned above, is that readers of the encyclopedia, if they click on a category, would then be directed to pages which haven't been accepted into the encyclopedia and could have serious problems whith NPOV, accuracy, etc. —Anne Delong (talk) 18:14, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
If the "class=Draft" parameter would be properly implemented for all WikiProjects, instead of being optional and thus ignored by all except a handful of projects, we wouldn't even be discussing this issue. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 21:37, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
My issue is that there are so many WikiProjects and so many articles within said projects, I doubt anyone would even notice (the fact that there are articles out there without projects on them is a good hint at this). I suppose it's not a bad idea to look into, but a good reviewer should be able to add them to the correct projects, so I am a bit conflicted about allowing others to do something we already should be doing anyways. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 02:14, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
Maybe give a shout-out in the Signpost article discussed above saying "Hey, we need your help, come to AfC and tag some articles that fall under your WikiProject!" Not only would this help bring down the backlog by getting some article reviewers back into it through their WikiProject, it'd also be a lot better quality coming through. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 02:40, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
New users shouldn't be forced into categorising the article themselves. The categorisation could be linked to one of the buttons in the article wizard. Even if the categorisation was quite broad, it would be better than the current system. Hack (talk) 00:45, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

overly aggressive wording

From one of the current templates: ". If it is rejected three times for the same reason, please do not submit the draft again, as it will constitute disruptive editing. Finally, leveling any accusations against the editor(s) who declined the submission may result in a block."

The first sentence is not policy, and should not be policy. Disruption isa deliberate attempt to harm the encyclopedia. What these people are doing is a nuisance, and in an indirect way harmful by wasting our efforts, but it is not intentionally disruptive. They are uninformed, or lack understanding, or lack competence, but that is not the same as disruption. An accusation of disruptive editing is the strongest thing we can say , and is unwarranted. We need to find a way of handling the problem, but this is not it.

Nor is accusing the reviewer necessarily disruptive or block-worthy. It is if it rises to the level of a legal threat, or a serious threat otherwise, or continues after warnings, but only then. (Just like anywhere else in WP), A contributor may quite reasonably accuse an reviewer of many things: ignorance, willfulness, lack of understanding of WP, not following guidelines, not being help, being rude, leaving unconstructive comments -- and so on, In my experience, about half of the comments of these natures given by the contributors probably have some justice to them. We do not enforce NPA anywhere else in WP except in the most extreme circumstances, and to threaten it here is inappropriate.

The entire direction of leaving these sort of wordings on the first decline of an article is wrong. AfC/draft was created because submitted article need improvement; a friendly approach is the best way of getting them approved, not a threatening one. Look at the hierarchy of warnings at its 4 levels. A statement about possible blocking is not appropriate at the beginning,. When someone makes threats, then they can be warned what will happen if they continue. Anyone too sensitive to deal with some degree of antagonism from people whose articles are rejected should not be reviewing articles. DGG ( talk ) 04:06, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

@DGG: I think Ktr101's purpose was to head off a great many of the nonsense "Why did you decline my submission?" postings that we get where it is clear that the advocate hasn't taken the time to try to understand the decline. I also see it as a opportunity to head off the "Accept my article or I will cause trouble for you" messages we get as well. Would this change be less agressive enough for you, but at the same time communicate that repeated submissions without improvement is not appropriate? Hasteur (talk) 12:55, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  • I don't think the wording is strong enough. I think it should be 3 resubmissions without any improvement or change will be deleted and the editor may be blocked for disruptive editing. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 15:04, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Very strongly agree with DGG I made similar comments on the template Talk page, before noticing this. The general principle of limiting the number of re-submissions available I think is a good one. It will motivate editors to make better-quality submissions knowing they have a limited number of tries and avoid entirely the situation of doing 20+ re-submissions. It should be easy to over-ride if there is evidence the editor is actually trying, but acts as a general rule-of-thumb to prevent excessive, repeat COI submissions made primarily under the hopes that a different reviewer will accept it or out of general futility. After the tries are expired, the submission can become ineligible for repeat submissions for a set amount of time (say 3 months) without threatening the user with a block. CorporateM (Talk) 15:34, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict)@Technical 13: The problem is that if we start making fiat policy like this, we're going to have outsiders come in and start dismantling all of AFC for the walled garden rules we've come up with. If you look at all the other warnings/cautions (short of the 4IM ones) they say "may" and not will. It gives the administrator the latitude to determine if the disruption rises to the level of deliberately hostile actions. As evidenced by DGG's remarks and CorporateM's remarks this change is bold, and now there's requests for reverting. I thought our purpose was to have a soft area where editors who aren't as familiar with WP policy get an opportunity to learn, not be outright threatened on their very first decline. Hasteur (talk) 15:36, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  • "very first decline" isn't what it says, what it says is if you submit a draft, and it is declined, and you don't change or improve it and just resubmit it, and it is declined for the same reason, and you don't change or improve it and just resubmit it, and it is declined for the same reason, then this is disruptive and it may be deleted. I don't think that is all that outlandish and if it is declined with zero attempt to fix it three times and it is submitted again (we would be at a level four warning by now if it was elsewhere) then the wording should be strong. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 15:42, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  • I agree with CorporateM in this regard, and would also like DGG to know that what Hasteur and Technical said was spot on. During the last drive, I had over one hundred sections added to my talk page from users who had multiple questions, including what they could do to improve their submission, asking me to re-review their work, and even one user who went so far as to accuse me of being racist and misogynistic because I wasn't an expert in the field of pornography. Granted, I know that I invited those questions on my page by not being descriptive enough in some of my declines, but the no personal attacks thing was added because I was sick of having one user constantly go after me for telling them the truth about their submission. If anything, I would even be supportive of having a counter on the template that lets people know that the article in question has had multiple deletions on the target page, and is probably not going to get approved, especially if AFD was involved multiple times. I admit that the wording was not perfect, but the idea was to strengthen the rather vague wording that encouraged people to resubmit multiple times either in an attempt to game the system (which I admit worked because sometimes we would actually spot notability in obviously notable topics) or would have no clue what they needed to do and would submit because they had genuinely no idea what to do. In terms of Technical's argument about the three strikes policy, I avoided putting wording like that in there because we don't have a dedicated CSD policy for these sorts of things, and I would like to have one before we mention things like that there. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 15:53, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict)But the problem is that as soon as the first decline is executed, that language pops up. Making the subsequent declines more forceful in it's "Don't re-submit it" message would be nice, but if we're coding for an average case, we have to build for the "first decline case" untill we can detect how many declines have occured. Hasteur (talk) 15:59, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
I disagree with specifically limiting the number of reviews, although I agree that some submitters need to be warned not to waste others' time. Often we reviewers don't do a perfect job of explaining how a submission needs to be fixed. Perhaps another way of dealing with this problem would be to have an extra small but brightly coloured template which could be added by a reviewer via checkbox on repeated submissions with no improvement. That way, the warning wouldn't be in the regular decline templates, and wouldn't scare away first time submitters, but at the same time would save reviewers the effort of writing custom comments. —Anne Delong (talk) 16:01, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
The exact wording should be hammered out at Template:AFC submission/declined/sandbox. The other decline templates may also need some improvement to make them more understandable to new users, if we are expecting submitters to read and understand them. CorporateM (Talk) 16:06, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
I'm as aware of the difficulties as anyone--I've been doing little else than dealing with editors of unsatisfactory articles or AfCs for many years now. CorporateM (talk · contribs), et al., it's not a matter of tweaking the wording. I do not think you will find any wording that fits all the circumstances,; the most we will be able to do is establish a basic framework for people to supplement, and the key thing about the template is that it must be easy to do do before placing. It's not just the number of repeated attempts, it's whether there is progress and the willingness to learn, with consideration given to the bad advice that may previously been given. I'm told (and I see for myself) that some paid editors simply resubmit the exact same thing many times in short order--the only rational explanation is they hope that the variation in reviewers' standards is so enormous their advertising will eventually get accepted. (My preferred way of dealing with this is not another decline, but G11, and I've once or twice had to also use protection.) This is very different from some good faith beginner trying to understand our many and quite confusing rules for RSs, where different reviewers may well interpret them differently. And this again is different from someone coming back in response to a G13 notice,and willing to make another try at it.
As said above, we should avoid hobbling ourself with rigid rules,or preemptory wording. We need reviewers to use judgement, and the central problem is to ensure that the reviewers are able to tdo that. No complicated series of templates or timelines can replace that. DGG ( talk ) 01:43, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
I definitely agree with the rigid rules point, but I think people are more supportive here because not everyone is an administrator, and not every administrator is going to accept what we'd CSD. Until then, we will be stuck just swatting people away, because not all of us have the power to stop people from submitting something ten times (which also brings up the idea of allowing for us to delete within the draft space, but that's another discussion for another day). Kevin Rutherford (talk) 05:22, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
  • I had another editor revert those changes (because I'm not a template editor or admin), because, for starters, since when was "rejected 3 times = blocked"? There's nothing in the blocking policy or the disruptive editing policy that says that.--Jasper Deng (talk) 07:15, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Actually, just to clarify: vandalism is a deliberate attempt to harm Wikipedia. Disruptive editing, on the other hand, is a pattern of editing over time that disrupts progress towards improving an article or building the encyclopedia. Disruptive editing need not be intentional for it to constitute disruptive editing, and good faith edits can still be disruptive. (For example, two edit warring users both want what they feel is best for the encyclopedia, but they are being disruptive by constantly reverting each other.) A submitter who submits something many times without even attempting to act upon the reviewer's concerns would be, in my opinion, disruptive editing. (Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Blinded Eyes is an example of this.) However, the current wording implies that if any submission is declined three times, there's no point in continuing work whatsoever. Imbaba Bridge is an example of an AFC submission that was declined thrice for the same reason, but eventually accepted (by User:DGG) because the issue of inadequate reliable sources was fixed. It is definitely possible for a submission to be accepted beyond three or even four declines, and the wording shouldn't be so foreboding. Sometimes, it is endlessly helpful to write a custom comment in addition to the default one. Doing so will actually save time in the future, if the comment is helpful enough. It also puts the tone of the decline at the discretion of the reviewer. (If you as a reviewer truly believe that there's no point in continuing work on a submission, then just say so in the custom comment. It takes minimal time to type.) Respectfully, Mz7 (talk) 02:51, 9 April 2014 (UTC), revised 03:00, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Proposal: A "Submission Timeout" process

Preamble: We want to give new editors as many opportunities to improve their submission as possible. To that end, eager editors who make trivial changes to improve the submission they are working on and rapidly re-submit the draft burn through the good faith of reviewers and a great many of the volunteers at AFC in addition to line jumping to get their pet project accepted. As such many volunteers have suggested that after a certain threshold of submitting that we have some way of taking hostile action with respect to the submission.

Proposed: We create a process where if a AFC submission has recieved N declined reviews in M time that has another AFC pending submission on it, that the pending submission template be taken off (and the requestor noted) the submission until X time has passed to give the user some more time to reconsider their submission. At the end of X time the AFC pending submission template will be re-added with the requestor noted at the time of removal.

Example: N being 3, M time being 14 days, X time being 30 days. If a review racked up 3 declined reviews in 14 days, the process would be authorized to remove the AFC pending submission template for up to 30 days. At the 30th day, the process would be authorized to add back the AFC pending submission template with the user who was on record as having submitted the template.

Discussion

Trying to compromise between all the groups here to make a decent way to reduce the wasted bandwidth that eager submitters with low chances of being accepted have. I propose this process first with the eye of implementing it as a bot process, but let's make sure we have the scope for the process right first. Hasteur (talk) 16:50, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I think it may be more in line with not a bureaucracy and no firm rules if it wasn't a firm, prescriptive automated process, but something that is up to the good judgement of editors. In other words, offer reviewers the option of a semi-permanent 3-month decline and some guidelines on when to use it. It should be used when it seems repeat submissions are unlikely to be productive. As a general guideline, this is after three failed submissions that show no signs of improvement. OTOH, I reviewed an article on Drives Warehouse, where I would have used a semi-permanent decline on the very first review. They were never going to get anywhere close to notability and it's a waste of everybody's time to drag them through even 3 submissions. Editors can weigh each case individually. CorporateM (Talk) 17:13, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Support I think this option is definitely a good idea, and I look forward to seeing what it can do, as the last backlog definitely had its quirks, and I would like to have these fixed before we run the next one (which will probably inevitably occur next month at the rate we're going). Kevin Rutherford (talk) 18:11, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
    • Per the comments below, I am changing my vote on this. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 19:28, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose I don't think a rate limit will work better than it has at WP:3RR. I'd rather have a timeout for each individual AfC, after which it will be deleted. If a user's AfC submissions are becoming disruptive, then it can be discussed at AN(I) and the user possibly blocked, but that should be on a case-by-case basis.--Jasper Deng (talk) 07:15, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
  • pointless what is to stop user creating a new user name and resubmitting slightly altered content - how do we sensibly handle that? --nonsense ferret 08:17, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Jasper Deng's argument above. (t) Josve05a (c) 08:25, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Jasper Deng. Case-by-case is the best approach. Mz7 (talk) 22:13, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Proposal: B Semi-permanent declines

Preamble: AfC gets a lot excessive re-submissions on articles that will never be ready for article-space, either because the editor is not improving, the subject is hopelessly non-notable, or some other reason. Our templates are geared towards encouraging editors to re-submit, which is a nice thought, but often it is best for both the reviewer and the submitter to advise that it's not going anywhere and encourage them to stop re-submitting. When the submission has reached this point depends on a great many factors, such as if the re-submissions are improving, whether the submitter is putting forth a good-faith effort, and whether the article-subject is notable. We should politely encourage these editors to contribute somewhere else, on a subject that is notable or where they do not have a COI, where they are more likely to be productive.

Proposed: Reviewer A comes across an AfC submission on Joe Smith's mechanics shop. He adds a template that says something like "Please note articles are only allowed on businesses that meet the requirements at WP:CORP. Specifically, there must be at least two, in-depth profile stories in credible, independent sources. For example, a profile in The New York Times and another in a trade publication would pass. The sources should not be blurbs, press releases, press release reposts, brief mentions, quotes, executive appointments, etc. and the organization should be the subject of the articles. If you choose to re-submit, please show evidence that the business meets these requirements." Say the submitter is persistent and submits two more times, even though it's obvious they don't meet the requirements for an article. On the third try, a reviewer may use a semi-permanent decline template. "This submission does not meet Wikipedia's requirements and has been re-submitted several times without any sign of improvement. It has been locked for re-submissions for 3 months." There are no specific rules about when to use which template after X number of attempts, though some general guidelines may be developed.

Discussion

  • Oppose: This is no better than the above proposal. The only way to implement this is to full-protect the submission to keep it from being re-submitted which then causes the advocate for the submission to go to another "title" and start resubmitting it there (ex: Joe Smith is locked but Joesph Smith, Joe P. Smith, Joesph P. Smith, Joe Smith (industrial magnate), Joe P. Smith (industrial magnate) and so on are created to continue pushing the submission). We had to present a really good case for why high visibility templates needed a level of protection between Full and Semi and so Template-Editor protection was established. Creating yet another intermediate level of protection is going to be nigh impossible based on how much effort it took for the last request. I do support having some sort of "It is the viewpoint of this reviewer that without a substantial rewrite and improvement this submission will not be accepted. Please do not submit it any more" to indicate the firmer "No" than our current decline methods. If the submission gets put up again after that then it's disruptive editing and we can bring other sanctioning tools to bear. Hasteur (talk) 12:45, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
At that point they would be disruptive and administrative actions like a block would be more appropriate. I don't think the submission needs a formal administrative protection - just a message that says "please don't resubmit" If they continue submitting persistently after being instructed not to by multiple editors, an admin may be needed. CorporateM (Talk) 15:36, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Hasteur, and the fact that I think we should consider more forceful wording over protections right now, just to see how it will do. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 15:03, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Support While Hasteur makes a legitimate argument, we need to abandon half-measures in favor of decisive action and this suggestion is the best being offered. I'd like to see a "three strikes and submission blanked followed by user block" policy so we can chase off the PR companies and POV partisans. Chris Troutman (talk) 10:32, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

General comment

As long as people can still create articles directly in main space, I don't see any particularly compelling reason we can't place limitations on frivolous AfC submissions. By the time they've gotten around to several submissions, they are autoconfirmed, if logged in, right? Just wanted to address the specific concern that if we limit AfC then "outsiders" will want to tear it down. Gigs (talk) 21:03, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Double undelete

I have now noticed for the first time a case of requesting a g13 undelete twice with Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Henry Behrens. Our author User talk:Bekittrell did absolutely nothing after the first undelete request to the contribution. I have not undeleted, but instead asking for a convincing reason for it to come back. So do people think a g13 undelete request should be honoured after a previous one with no improvements? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:21, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

I see no obvious harm in assuming good faith and doing so. A third time and I'd be less inclined to say yes, but for now I don't think it's a huge issue. Sam Walton (talk) 21:42, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
  • I'd say no go without a convincing reason (like offering what they have for new material to improve it with). — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 21:51, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
There is no real harm to it, but there is no real point to it either. Just look at the timeline:
  • 9 August 2011: The page is created as a userpage.
  • 13 March 2012: The page pretty much reached its current form.
  • 18 January 2013: The page is moved to AFC space (According to the log by editor request)
  • 5 September 2013 (05:07): Page is tagged for removal. A few hours later it is removed. A few hours later a request is filed and it is restored.
  • 7 April 2014 (04:01): Same scenario. Page is tagged for removal. A few hours later it is removed. A few hours later a request is filed and it is restored.
Between the removals the page was not edited at all, and the editor himself did hardly edit at all either during those months. Actually, aside from a few minor differences the page is identical to User:Bekittrell/sandbox. Long story short (Sorry for the length, the page history seemed relevant enough to share) i would say the page could just be restored to the users sandbox and remain there. I doubt there will be to much activity on the page though, but if its outside of AFC space it won't be tagged or removed. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 22:16, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
I tend to think that the user is going to make the effort. The user had the 30 day warning from my bot that it was in danger of being deleted, got the notice that the page had been deleted, made the trivial effort to request G13 refund, let it go 6 months without editing again, got the 30 day warning from the bot again, got the notice that the page had been deleted again, and now makes the trivial effort to get the page back again. I wish that Admins would exercise a little more skepticism when responding to G13-Refund requests. If the user can't be bothered to make effort to fix a page after it was on notice for 30 days as being eligible for G13, why should we expect them to make the effort to improve after a refund. Hasteur (talk) 23:34, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
Some do improvements however. I will have many of these on my watch list so if there is interest I will give examples. In this case I will await a response from the author, since I have also asked on their talk page, they should be alerted. Actually they have now responded at User_talk:Bekittrell#Undeletion for those that want to read the reason. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:27, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
Counting my G13 undeletes since 28 Dec 2013: 69 with no improvement, 14 have been edited. So about 13% are getting some attention. 87% of people just want to store the page without improvement. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:34, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
So help me, if that submission shows up on the G13 eligible list again I'm going got force the question to make Bekittrell put their money where their mouth is in terms of wanting to improve the article by nominating it for MFD to force the community to decide if we need to keep this. I'm tired of petitioners for G13-Refund getting to kick the issue of deletion down the road 6 months while keeping their submission of questionable acceptance on WP's servers. Hasteur (talk) 13:09, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Here is another double undelete request: Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Jim Lawrence that was requested a couple of days beforehand. Admin (freerangefrog) also declined a second refund. Wikipedia:Requests_for_undeletion/Archive_125 Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:18, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

This is all the more reason to check through the G13 eligible drafts and nominate those which can be deleted for other reasons. For example, if a submission was "unambiguous advertising" and hasn't been improved toward NPOV for six months, can't we then nominate it as G11 and have it stay gone? —Anne Delong (talk) 04:17, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
Here's another thought: What if there were "diminishing returns" - 6 months the first time, then 2, then 1, then no go? —Anne Delong (talk) 04:17, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
I have seen others suggest such ideas here before. Hasteur's point that the contributor actually gets an extra two warnings with a month's notice from the bot means its more like 6 + 1 + 6 + 1 months already. But if there is a consensus then I will follow the 6 2 1 pattern, but it may be too much for some undeleters! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:44, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
In my suggestion I wasn't counting the bot warnings, so I guess I should have said 7, 3, 2 or 6+1+2+1+1+ 1, but I was referring to the length of time since the last edit before the page is tagged for G13. Right now the bot waits six months or so, but I'm sure that it could be modified to pick a smaller amount of time if the last edit was a G13 refund. That way the requester would at least have to make some minimum effort to keep it off the list. —Anne Delong (talk) 12:39, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict)FYI (Graeme Bartlett—Anne Delong): You don't have to wait for the bot's operation at the 6 months + 30 days mark to do something about the pages that are eligible for G13. The 6 month mark is "This page is eligible for G13 and can be speedy deleted right now" The 30 days mark is the good faith offering so that we don't get accused of being heartless that was designed primarily as a throughput limiter back when we had ~30k pages that qualified under G13. You could go through the G13 eligible category right now and nominate every single one of the pages, but I see the G13 eligible category as the danger zone for those who want to pull out troublesome ones. The bot shouldn't pull out any of the other CSD criteria and do nominations on them because practically all other CSD have some component of judgement call on them. G13 is a perfectly objective criteria: Either the last edit was over 6 months ago and it bears the {{AFC submission}} banner or it doesn't. I think the "diminishing returns" function should be expressed as a function of Admin hard sell when the refund request comes in. Admins who work Refund should be given advice that if a submission shows up more than once for G13-Refund, they should question the refund requestor how they intend to fix the problem. Unforthcoming/unsatisfactory answers belong to the decline pile and good answers be restored with the understanding that if the page shows up on G13 again, there's going to be less good faith for a new G13-Refund being fufilled. Hasteur (talk) 12:49, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
@Anne Delong: The problem with reducing the threshold if the page had been previously G13ed is that we would have to secure a consensus that repeat G13s get a shorter period for eligibility, having to change the AFC submission template to calculate if the page had been G13ed in the past to determine if the page is already G13 eligible, and a new BOTREQ for a significant change to the functionality of the nominating/notifying bot. That's a lot of work to change in favor of the Admin "hard sell" on the refund page. Hasteur (talk) 12:55, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
Hasteur, all true; I was trying to put forth an alternate solution that wouldn't put more work on our already busy admins, but I don't have a strong opinion as to how the refunds are dealt with. It seems to me that there are two kinds of submissions that would frequently be showing up as re-refund requests (1) promotional material that would be deleted in mainspace. IMO, six months should be enough time to de-spam these; maybe they should be deleted as advertising rather than G13, and then refund wouldn't be an issue. (2) non-notable topics that the editors are hoping will become notable in the future, and sometimes they do, and at least the drafts are not a detriment to the encyclopedia in the meantime. However, some submitters are too optimistic about this. —Anne Delong (talk) 15:02, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

User:Sri Lanka Ellaya

Resolved
 – MFD started

I'm going nuts over this one! User:Sri Lanka Ellaya has been declined 4 times and they still do not provide any references. The scope of the article seems pretty solid, but I don't find any supporting evidence. It appears to be similar to baseball. Perhaps it is just a joke, but given the work put into the article, I sort of doubt it. So how do I get through to this person that there needs to be some sort of referencing to go with the article? The Ukulele Dude - Aggie80 (talk) 20:26, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

I did finally find a blog through a link. [SriLankaElle Blog]The Ukulele Dude - Aggie80 (talk) 20:45, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
@Aggie80: Yeah... They submitted it again, so I followed through on your warning. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Sri Lanka Ellaya is now a thing. Please feel free to contribute to the MFD discussion. Hasteur (talk) 21:01, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

So, where do we go from here?

With the potential of another backlog drive being opened next month, we might as well begin discussing what we have learned from Makro and Belshay's contributions. Clearly, we have unintentionally encouraged a system where editors are allowed to game the system to their own advantage, which Makro keeps on reminding us, so I was wondering if anyone would like to set out some rules to help prevent these situations from happening in the future. Based on what was posted above, people do not seem adverse to setting up a proportion limit, but I am interested to see what others say so that we don't have this kind of lengthy drama in the future. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 04:05, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm not really entirely comfortable with the competitive nature of drives - it detracts from the real reason AFC exists, we're here to help newbies, not for the brownie points. If giving away free cookies and medals is the only way we can attract sufficient reviewers them we need to rethink the entire basis of how we operate here. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:29, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
No No No No No No! Don't put the enevitable "Well we've got to have another backlog drive" thought into people's heads. I observe that we still have to answer the question: How do we maintain a reasonable backlog size without having to resort to bribery practically every month? We still haven't dealt with the fallout from the previous drive caused so another drive at this point is pointless and only serves to waste more time. Remember Einstein's quote Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. That's what we're doing with these bi-monthly backlog drives. That and burning the enthusiasm that any volunteer reviewers have left. Hasteur (talk) 12:46, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
I have to fully agree with both of the above responses - the system obviously isn't working as well as it could/should if awards are the only way we get people to review articles. If nothing else if drives and awards continue to happen every month or other month then they become the norm and we're going to be back at square one. I really don't know what the solution is but I can't help but feel that it isn't endless backlog drives. I'd like to have a think and come back to this thread with ideas though. Sam Walton (talk) 13:15, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
This is the second time that there have been two editors trying to win the top prize and letting the quality of reviews slide because of the competition. Maybe the drive should just have barnstars for specific targets only up to a reasonable number that can be done well, say 500, and no competitive prizes. Also (and I am partly responsible for this problem, since I suggested points for re-reviews), maybe it should require 2 re-reviews to make up a point or maybe the points for re-review should be limited to the number of reviews or something similar, so as to encourage more primary reviews. —Anne Delong (talk) 02:56, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
Then we should probably remove the link from the top bar that allows for the creation of a new drive, lest someone actually decide to create one. I would support the barnstar approach or some other thing, as it seems silly to be turning this all into a game. Some of us just had more time to review than others, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we should get something bigger. In terms of the re-review idea, that's not a bad one, as it would certainly remove the incentive to re-review hundreds of articles in a few minutes. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 17:02, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
Agreed. From a practical point of view, drives seem to be the only thing helping us reduce the backlog, however it seems silly to continue having drives when they're not a definite solution. A unique barnstar sounds great. Once over a certain threshold I think all of the regular contributors' help is equal in several respects, while trophies promote competition and dirty antics from new and inexperienced participants. Once the scoring system is reformed, there should be no problem with rereviews. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 20:56, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
I agree that steps need to be taken to prevent any random Wikipedian from starting another drive. We shouldn't seek to prevent gamification being a motivator, however. Gamification simply needs to be controlled. If the ability to review submissions is limited to the reviewer's list, you won't have unknown editors like Makro jumping into the fray. The known members of this WikiProject deserve any awards they can earn during these drives. Chris Troutman (talk) 02:11, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
Appoint three veteran AfC reviewers to a small "management committee" with ultimate authority over a drive. This basically means that any editor who finds a numerical loophole to a top spot can have their awards rescinded if common sense says it ain't right. --LukeSurl t c 18:56, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
Your joking, right?  —Mysterytrey 19:42, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
I feel like that would start to go against WP:CREEP, but that's just my opinion. APerson (talk!) 23:15, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
@Kevin Rutherford: (replying to Kevin's thread-starting post):
Proposed trial for the next drive: Limit points to 75 per day.
  • To encourage people to become part of the AFC community,
  • To discourage "blitz reviews" and "blitz re-reviews," and
  • To discourage the burnout that can come with hours-long reviewing sessions,
  • Give full points for the first 50 points earned in a calendar day and half-credit for the next 50, with no points after that for the rest of the day.
Why 50 + 25? 50 points gets you the "Invisible Barnstar" and 75 gets you the "The Working Wikipedian's Barnstar." If you want an award level higher than that this, you have to work at least two different days. With a 75-point maximum, I would expect anyone wanting one of the "top 3" awards to have to put in a lot of time on 10-20 different calendar days. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 19:16, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Strong support. This is a very good proposal which makes a lot of sense. APerson (talk!) 23:15, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Support You actually pinged my alternative account, but I would be supportive of upping this to 100 a day, but only because sometimes I have reached it (although, rarely), so it wouldn't be a bad idea to do. Either way, I think we could easily boost the barnstar numbers, as everyone is clearly reaching the top ones with no problem. Then again, who needs barnstars, and maybe we could just give people a pat on the back for good work at the end of the day. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 04:53, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Support - Yes, sounds good! Anupmehra -Let's talk! 06:15, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment - If this comes into fruition, it will be important for User:Excirial/AFCBuddy to be updated accordingly to new parameters. It would take considerable time to quantify results manually per these proposed changes. Pinging User:Excirial to this discussion. NorthAmerica1000 00:39, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

  • I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.

    — Blaise Pascal
If there is clear consensus to implement this change i will naturally see what i can do to accomplish this, but for the record i would Strongly oppose this change on multiple grounds.
First off i would note that some editors might have more time during specific days (For example during the weekend) while not having any time to review during weekdays. I would therefore deem this change unfair to people who spend a considerable chunk of their weekend reducing the backlog. In a similar train of thought I would note that this change may actually increase the chance for blitz reviews since this change adds a 24 hour deadline for achieving 75 points (100 reviews). As of such people may actually opt to do a batch of quick rereviews or sloppy reviews every day in order to reach the score limit.
My second concern is a more technological one. Currently we are creating an incredibly complicated scoring system that, as mentioned, is nigh impossible to maintain or check manually. We add score for reviews, Add or detract store for re-reviews and award extra points for detected copyright violations. How would this additional score layer even factor into this? Would the 75 point limit be solemnly for reviews, and would any other score adjustment be factored in afterwards? (Thus allowing more than 75 points a day which has its own gaming-the-system caveats). Or would the number of points be capped at 75 points a day? If so, how would we even count re-reviews and other score adjustments? What day would those belong to? The day they were added to the re-reviewers page? The day the original review was done?
Finally I would point out that AFCBuddy's initial goal was increasing reviewer performance by allowing people to focus on reviewing without having to deal with tedious and unnecessarily work such as tracking edits and score. Later we added more features to allow for quality control (Rereviews, extra points for detecting copyvio's) to increase review quality. However, I believe we're currently spending too much time defining a score system while the core goal of the drive should be reducing the backlog, not defining a score system for the barnstars we award for it.
That said, the above is mostly personal opinion. And as said before: If there is consensus to implement this change I will do so without complaint, but in that case we will need to establish exact specifications as to how the scoring system should actually work (As mentioned under the technological issue section). Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 09:55, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
oppose as written - I support the idea in principle, but I feel a daily cap is not the best plan. Common sense should prevail - If people seem to be gaming the system, a discussion generally better than bringing the sledgehammer out straight away. For example, I often do short periods of reviewing, followed by periods of helping out in other areas. While I am not the most active (and may not ever hit the cap), I feel this is likely to discourage some. However, it may be more effective to apply a cap to newer reviewers, so they are not going too quickly just to "get recognition" (like I did at first, both here and with anti-vandalism..) --Mdann52talk to me! 12:38, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
While that might be a reasonable policy regarding most processes here on Wikipedia, I don't think it is when we are talking about something as trivial a "game points". This "game" is only useful to the point that it encourages people to do what we need to get done. Spending time on discussions about incidents related to "game points" detracts from getting useful things done. Gigs (talk) 19:06, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

AFC submission

  1. "This submission's references do not adequately evidence the subject's notability" -> "We need to see references that show notability"
  2. Editprotected notice "100,000" to "about 40,000".

All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 22:21, 17 April 2014 (UTC).

#2 you can do yourself, as it's on the doc page. #1 is on Template:AFC submission/comments, not Template:AFC submission, but I think it would need to see some consensus before happening. Jackmcbarn (talk) 01:05, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
Jackmcbarn it is actually here which I cannot currently edit. I already made a similar edit to a doc page. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:49, 22 April 2014 (UTC).
Not done for now: I agree with Jack that this would need some discussion and consensus. Also, I have to wonder why you think it should be shortened and made ambiguous. Please keep in mind that this is an encyclopedia and as such "personalization" is not really appropriate here. We are not trying to "connect" with new article creators, we are only here to make sure that good clean encyclopedic articles make it into mainspace. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 01:28, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
We absolutely are trying to connect with new editors. That is the whole point of AFC, to treat new editors like people, instead of just CSD/PROD/AFD {{Unreferenced}}, {{Citation needed}} and templating their talk pages with opprobrious, if well meaning, boxes. Shorter, clearer, text will mean that more of it is read, understood and remembered. If we want to encourage more older folk, women, ESL, etc. etc. (or even more of out current peak demographics), our three watchwords, should be friendly, clear and polite. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:41, 22 April 2014 (UTC).

AFC multi-decline reason

Hello everybody, I'm Anupmehra and I've been reviewing AFC submissions since a while. I'm not sure, if the idea, I'm about to present, has been discussed earlier. Recently, while reviewing submissions, I came-up with an idea of "multi decline reason". I've found myself stuck with instances, where submissions could be declined on multiple grounds. However, AFC reviewer flowchart is helpful, in this case.

Since, I've joined WP:AFC, I never witnessed AFC project, not having a backlog! Are we really getting tons of new submissions daily and running low on editors willing to do review these? I guess, no! Most of the submissions are submissions earlier declined for some cause. I've noticed submissions, which are blatantly advertisement, having insufficient sources to establish notability, copy-right issues, zero inline citations in BLP, etc. at the same time and have been aware of, if I decline it for WP:N/COPYVIO cause, I or someone else have to next time for WP:MINREF or WP:ADVERT cause.

It not only brings on load on AFC but also alienate new editors willing to contribute and expand horizons of Wikipedia. It is obvious that, anybody not aware of WP:PG, could be frustrate, getting his works declined, every time for a different reason. I know, there's a "Comment" thing and "Custom" decline reason option already available, but new editors, I'm not sure, if do take "comments" more seriously than the "pink-decline-box". Custom decline reason, is good but not sufficient as I do not find many reviewers using this for multi-decline reason (lazyiness?, yes, in my case because it is quite boring, typing and explaining the same two or three policies at a interval of 5mins.).

I'd love to listen other people here, already involved with the project, opinions on this. Should we have multi-decline-reason thing and AFC script a little amended? Anupmehra -Let's talk! 06:11, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes! It's extremely discouraging to be told "and now we won't accept your submission for reason X". And I think we also need to be a little more like main-space. If you pass NOTABILITY, and the article is verifiable, that should be pretty much it. We should not insist on loads of refs - nothing wrong with asking for them, and putting the page live. We should be able to edit out puffery, and pea-cockery, and do clean-up and wikifying on the fly. If not, we can explain these short-comings, tag the article and make it live. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:54, 22 April 2014 (UTC).
While I agree with your sentiments, I'm not sure it really matters. I've been hanging out at the AfC help desk because we attract a class of editor that just refuses to read the templates and comments from reviewers. Let's remember English Wikipedia is one of the few projects running an AfC WikiProject rather than allow anyone to create a page. While there are sometimes well-meaning editors that need some help getting started I think most of AfC is jammed up with fancruft POV warriors who just don't read. I don't care how much we discourage them. We've got ne'er-do-well editors making dozens of socks and the new editors can't muster a little resilience? I wish they'd lurk moar and read our policies and guidelines before they attempt a new article. Chris Troutman (talk) 10:23, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
@Anupmehra: The functionality you describe is somewhat available already. You can decline for the primary reason, and then in the comment box put "Also declining for POLICY LISTINGS". The problem is that with our never ending backlog we have to move onward as quick as possible so putting additional info into a decline is a detriment to working the backlog. Having to hunt down multiple decline reasons from the drop down/checkbox/input tool will only make responding to the review take longer. Also we would have to convert the AFC decline template into a full on LUA module in order to handle the complicated logic of figuring out which decline reasons to display. Also if we hit multiple decline reasons, how do we minimize the vertical screen utilization (so there isn't a wall of red text that is 3x the size of the stub article)? Hasteur (talk) 12:22, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
Just throwing out something radical, but I would almost say maybe the opposite direction would be best - rather than making the decline templates even more complicated, it might actually be better to blow them up entirely to a single decline template that requires the reviewer to write a custom explanation, which might include multiple reasons. This way there can be an actual conversation with a human being instead of a beuracracy. If we could cut submissions in half by discouraging COI submissions, we could devote more time to treating new volunteers like real human beings. CorporateM (Talk) 23:52, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
That use case already exists in the custom decline reason. Several volunteers explicitly wanted to remove it or hide the option so far down the option chain (instead of being the default as it used to be) due to the fact that a trite pre-approved warning that doesn't serve any purpose was easier to get through in addition to forcing us to be more buerecratic with the decline reasons rather than "I this feels too promotional." Hasteur (talk) 12:23, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Proposal: Require all AfC article contributors to take a quiz on basic Wikipedia policy

We have all probably noticed how many submissions to AfC demonstrate a lack of understanding of some very basic Wikipedia policies. I think it would be very beneficial to have article contributors take a quiz on the Wikipedia policies that are involved in the AfC process. Perhaps being able to identify a few easy articles in terms of whether or not they would be accepted or denied would be a sufficient test, but I'm just brainstorming. This is just an idea, but I'm curious to hear your opinions on it.


Thanks,

TheCascadian 06:21, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Comments

Agree Would limit the amount of declined articles and reduce the backlog, sounds good to me. Acalycine(talk/contribs) 06:34, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
@TheCascadian: So was it User:Sajidpackersmovers/sandbox that got you down, or was it User:Testapp1/sandbox? Wikipedia is supposedly the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. That's demonstrably a bad idea. Rather than create a test, how about we mandate completion of the Wikipedia Adventure? We already have a tutorial that could also serve that purpose. We could also demand positive input from Snuggle before allowing a user to create a submission for AfC. Chris Troutman (talk) 06:47, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
@Chris troutman: Not just those two, there were dozens upon dozens. I wholeheartedly support your Adventure completion requirement though. TheCascadian 06:49, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Agree Support using the Wikipedia Adventure. Acalycine(talk/contribs) 07:02, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
I did the Adventure a couple a months ago, and I can say that I was able to "fake" almost the whole thing by just pressing 'next'. I think we should "shorten" the adventure, and make it "harder" to "fake". (t) Josve05a (c) 07:26, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
@Josve05a: How would we make it harder to fake? Suggestions? Maybe we could make something separate to the Wikipedia Adventure, but similar. Acalycine(talk/contribs) 07:28, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
I assume it's a coding issue in TWA that would need to be solved. I would much prefer improving an existing process over re-inventing the wheel. I think the larger problem would be not only restricting new users who haven't yet completed the training, but also effectively locking out all IPs from article creation. I support this sort of change but I doubt the larger left-libertarian community would go for it.
What if instead we upped the requirement to submit to AfC to be registered users with 100 mainspace edits (perhaps by increasing the requirements for autoconfirmed or creating autoconfirmed level 2)? That stops IPs altogether from article creation and the community could weed out problem editors before they met the threshold. After that, our AfC process could still stymie the remaining public relations people and POV-warriors. Chris Troutman (talk) 08:53, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
This kite will never fly. Completely blocking IPs from article creation would "break the wiki" (violate one of the fundamental principles). BTW your comment about "left-libertarian" is uncalled for, people with all varieties of political attitudes are free to edit as long as they do not violate NPOV (we are not Conservapedia, thank FSM!). Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:38, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
@Dodger67: I meant no offense. Chris Troutman (talk) 09:46, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
no Disagree due to conflict with idea that "anyone" - including people who don't know what they are doing (but not including those who have earned a block/ban) - can edit. However, if I were making the rules rather than playing in a playground where the rules were created by past community consensus, then I would be strongly in favor of some kind of mandatory user-education before any new article page could be created. My very strong educated guess is that the current consensus about "who should be able to create an article" is pretty much in line with the past consensus, so any attempt to do an WP:RFD to change this consensus would likely go nowhere. When it comes to Wikipedia, I'm a pretty big proponent of respecting the community's views on decisions when they are clear and there aren't very strong reasons (e.g. legal, technical, or the rare/possibly-noexistant "it's just plain obvious that the existing consensus will do major harm to the project") not to.

Technically, we're supposed to be the first responders to new submissions by untrained editors/IPs. I see 3 problems

  1. Fishing for a sympathetic ear - Those advocates for a subject who continually re-submit (and hide their previous declines) shopping for a volunteer to move their submission up
  2. Lack of support for hard "No and don't bother re-submitting again"
  3. Soft hands attitudes in terms of cushioning those submissions that would have been insta-speedied had they been created in mainspace.

It really comes down to us, as AFC volunteers, taking a harder stance on patent failures of submissions and not let them rustle around like dead leaves through the hallway. Hasteur (talk) 16:52, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

@Hasteur: Unfortunately, there are several goals that are in tension with each other when a "new" editor makes a submission that can't be quick-failed but is probably or almost certainly non-notable:
  • Discouraging repeated re-submissions of such content by advocates,
  • Discouraging any form of "starting over" under a new name and slightly-different page-name by advocates,
  • Discouraging bypassing AFC entirely (which will result in either PROD/SPEEDY/AFD or un-detected junk in the encyclopedia) by advocates,
  • Not biting well-meaning newcomers who should be encouraged to work on something else, just not this particular topic, and
We should also acknowledge the effect of our own ignorance of places to find sources for a seemingly-non-notable topic which is in fact notable but so specialized that most AFC reviewers not only wouldn't know where to look but wouldn't think it's worth asking for help from others to find sources (I'm thinking obscure-until-you-find-the-sources academic, geographic, and historical items mostly, e.g. famous-in-his-century-but-long-forgotten historical figures, long-gone provinces of possibly-long-gone nation-states, famous-in-his-field-for-a-few-decades-but-now-forgotten pre-Internet-era academics).
We do need to develop gentle ways of saying "no, not now, probably not ever for this topic, consider writing about a more notable topic instead or finding a different web site to host the material you are writing about" that would be un-bitey to non-advocate newcomers while still sending strong message to advocates to "give it up, 'cause it just ain't happening." davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 17:13, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Last year I made a proposal (User:Anne Delong/AfcBox) which was approved (User talk:Anne Delong/AfcBox) and programmed by Writ Keeper to work on a test page (click the "click here" at User:Anne Delong/sandbox) which would at least direct new editors to some information pages. No one showed any interest in testing it at the time. —Anne Delong (talk) 17:10, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
  • I have tried to set up something somewhat similar in the past myself though it never went beyond the basic concept you see on these pages. While i don't believe that a quiz of the users policy knowledge will work out for the best, i (strongly) believe that such a tutorial or checklist system as proposed will be in both our best interest and the new editors best interest.
The advantage for the AFC project itself is that we should receive less pages that are clearly questionable, alongside the added bonus that new editors are brought into contact with page guidelines and rules right of the bat. New editors on the other hand will have the advantage that they receive immediate feedback regarding their submission. After all, A submission without references will always be declined - there is no sense having anyone wait a couple of weeks to tell them that basic fact. Of course an editor can simply lie and submit regardless, but since there is still a backlog they are effectively waiting for an answer they already received.
There is one recommendation i would make in regards to such a system though - it needs to use short and to-the-point questions and explanations. No one will read the wall of text that is the the notability guideline on their first contribution. A page such as WP:42 on the other hand provides a clear and easy to use summary that is a lot more appealing to the average editor. Same applies to the length of the introduction and the amount of choices; If we have 20 screens with 10 possible options each no-one will even bother to use it. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 06:58, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

This is the problem that we have on Wikipedia, as there is a perception that many people here are not into making tough decisions. I know this because I have talked to many editors in person over the past few months at various events, and their reaction is always, "And that's why I don't work in AFC anymore." If there are established editors saying this to me when I talk about how much I enjoy the process and then mention its faults, then we might have a problem. Hasteur alluded to this above when he stated that we have a tough time telling people "no," which I discovered firsthand when people objected to my changes to the decline template as being too strict. Yes, it may have been strict, but we have a backlog that is 2,500+ articles and something should be done to nip a lot of these obvious failures so that we don't have burnout and an extreme backlog because everyone is tired of reviewing submissions due to the inane questions asked in the previous backlog. Last time I checked, we just had a backlog drive one month ago, and it has ballooned up since then.

That being said, I have been pondering this for a few weeks and I was wondering if people would be interested in electing a few people to coordinate the project and make the tough decisions. Maybe we could even seek the input of outsiders as well, but something needs to be done if we are turning off editors to the whole process, editors who have the vast knowledge and experience to make decisions. davidwr also alluded to this above in that we need to have people making decisions on this, but until we get people who are willing to jump and take the risk, we are just going to continue circling around and not really make the tough decisions.

If anyone gets the impression that I dislike this project from the first paragraph, that couldn't be further from the truth. I love this project, but I get frustrated that backlogs of reviews of over six weeks has become the norm as well as not making definite decisions on people who have obviously gamed the system. Heck, there is still no consensus on what to do about one of the biggest issues that came up during the last drive. In the end, I think we can persevere and this project isn't headed towards a flaming heap of failure, but until then, we risk driving others away because people aren't willing to make the tough decisions. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 04:13, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

I really don't think creating a bureaucracy would somehow make the project more attractive to new reviewers. Gigs (talk) 19:33, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

January to March discussions?

I wanted to look at some old discussions, but this page only has April discussions. The January to March archive is a redlink. Have they been stored somewhere else? —Anne Delong (talk) 09:22, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

@Anne Delong: ClueBot III is archiving them at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/2014 6. Chris Troutman (talk) 09:42, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. What I wanted wasn't there, but I extrapolated and found it at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/2014 5. —Anne Delong (talk) 10:25, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Archiving fixed. - Happysailor (Talk) 10:38, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Congratulations to Anne Delong, one of Wikipedia's newest janitors

Anne Delong (talk · message · contribs · global contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · user creation · block user · block log · count · total · logs · summary · email | lu · rfas · rfb · arb · rfc · lta · checkuser · spi · socks | rfar · rfc · rfcu · ssp | current rights · rights log (local) · rights log (global/meta) | rights · renames · blocks · protects · deletions · rollback · admin · logs | UHx · AfD · UtHx · UtE)

Congrats are in order for our very own Anne Delong who received unanimous support (116/0/0) in her request for adminship. Her outstanding work at AFC and with G13-rescues were mentioned by more than one supporter. Thanks to the nominator Mr. Stradivarius and co-nominator The Interior for setting this in motion. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 18:14, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

So can we get rocket deletions? *wink* just kidding... Hasteur (talk) 19:38, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
Didn't know anything about this, but congratulations Anne - a good choice of admin, I think. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 20:37, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
@Hasteur: You mean these? Of course, but only if they go through an established deletion process . davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 22:24, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
Sure, I'll be glad to delete any rockets that fail at WP:RfD. This just happened, so I actually don't know how to do anything yet anyway. I have to go to WP:New admin school. Ritchie333, I didn't tell anyone, because apparently it's considered bad form to advertise. Say, does this mean I have to set a good example and start using punctuation in my edit summaries? —Anne Delong (talk) 22:56, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
You missed the point, I was being silly and asking for a Rocket-Speed Deletion, but the joke was overlooked. Hasteur (talk) 02:27, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
I guess my earlier reply to you was too subtle. I was hoping the graphic language would've been the dead give-away. Most rockets that need to be removed go through speedy deletion. Rockets for Discussion takes far too long and closures are difficult due to the frequent lack of consensus. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 03:15, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Proposed change: Make the Article Wizard place new submissions in the prefix "Draft:" (i.e. stop new submissions from landing at "WT:Articles for creation/")

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
I find there is clear consensus for this proposal, not only in the number of editors supporting but in the strength and variety of their reasons as well. There is only one editor who opposes: Technical 13 is concerned that all other issues related to the transition are resolved first. I'm sure he is correct that further improvements can be made, but that shouldn't prevent this widely supported proposal moving ahead at this stage. (I also note that the actual change under discussion was made 9 days ago, has not been reverted, and seems to be working fine.) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:38, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

As multiple editors are concerned about having a never ending stream of new articles being created at WT:AFC when we make the move to the Draft namespace, I propose that we change Wikipedia:Article wizard/Ready for submission line 12 (the line describing the prefix) to point to "Draft:" instead of "WT:Articles for creation/".

Support

  1. As proposer, because it's damm simple but is causing concerns about the exodus proposal above. Hasteur (talk) 19:41, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
  2. It's a no-brainer - not doing so negates the reason why Draft-space was ever created. In case anyone doesn't know or has forgotten the initiative to create Draft-space came entirely from AFC. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 19:53, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
    • The reason Draft-space was created was to fix the problem of AfC space not being like Article-space in the aspect of drafts and comments on the draft were all going into WT:. The point of creating the space was so the drafts would go in Draft and the comments would go in Draft_talk:. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 15:41, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
  3. Yes. We should finally say good-bye to our funky and confusing "talk-page" draft system. Gigs (talk) 20:10, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
    • Talk page comments don't belong in draft any more than drafts didn't belong on talk pages. Switching the problem from one side to the other fixes nothing. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 15:41, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support, because content taken in by mirror sites will no longer be labelled with the word "Wikipedia". Also, new users can be introduced to the idea of article talk pages sooner (although we'll have to deal with the resultant confusion). —Anne Delong (talk) 12:59, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
    • Also, new users can be introduced to the idea of article talk pages sooner Not with the current proposal which would have all of the new users littering the actual article space with talk page comments because that is where comments currently are proposed to go in draft... — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 15:41, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
  5. Please yes, ASAP. --j⚛e deckertalk 20:42, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
  6. Yes. Unless of course someone can find a good reason not to. I don't think such a reason exists. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 21:45, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
    • I've given many good reasons not to, like the fact that this goes against the original consensus, the fact that it will teach new editors that comments go in article space instead of talk space, and all the other reasons listed below. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 15:41, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
  7. Yes. There is no possible reason to delay this. DGG ( talk ) 22:33, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
  8. Oh yes, please do this, this project's use of Wikipedia talk: is an eyesore. The usage of the Draft namespace is perfect for this project. Elassint Hi 23:04, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
  9. Support: a much cleaner layout compared to the present system with submission occurring in Wikipedia talk namespace. Regarding the comments in oppose below, I think it would be more functional to keep the system as-is, with decline templates, AfC comments, etc. appearing on the main Draft page, rather than the talk page. Many, many contributors providing AfC submissions are new, inexperienced users, and they may not know to check for comments on the talk page. This will lead to more confusion: "why was my submission declined?", and could adversely affect editor retention rates due to this potential ambiguity. NorthAmerica1000 06:31, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
    • Keeping the system as-is means not using the Draft: namespace at all, which was incidentally created to give new users more of a feel of what it is like to actually create articles in article space and contribute like everyone else with all comments, questions, suggestions, and feedback on talk pages and only content on the main page. As far as them not knowing, well they have to learn sometime, and there would be a guided tour as part of the article creation wizard to more appropriately teach them, not to mention reminders in the edit notices etc. There will be no confusion as to why their draft was declined, because it will very clearly show on the page in the edit notice (for both the draft and the talk page). — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 08:42, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
  10. Yes - we need to get drafts going on this. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:14, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
    • I agree, we need to get going on this, but having new users placing comments in mainspace that belong in talk space is very bad and will cause all kinds of headaches to fix later. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 15:41, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
  11. As soon as possible, if not sooner. Drafts namespace was basically built for AFC and if it is ready we should be proactive about pushing people to use the draft space over WP:Talk or User pages. Protonk (talk) 18:18, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
  12. I'm surprised that this hasn't been done yet. Steel1943 (talk) 19:25, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
  13. It seems that there are many technical issues that will have to be discussed during implementation, but I support the idea. Petr Matas 23:02, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
    • So, this support is once all the technical issues are addressed? That how it seems to me, which means this is an oppose as is written. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 15:41, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
  14. I can't see any reason to not take the obvious first step towards a better AfC. Though it seems (below) that there are things that will need doing afterwards, I see no reason not to move across now. Sam Walton (talk) 10:51, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
    • This is the obvious last step, not first. If you go to a lake, and there is a big No swimming sign, do you jump in and go swimming before you find out why the sign is there? No, for all you know, there could be volcanic activity under it and it is contaminated with sulfuric acid. Consider my opposition here the big No swimming sign... — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 15:41, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
  15. If only because I can, when necessary, carry on an extended discussion about the submission on the "Draft Talk" page, instead of cluttering with comments at the top. 78.26 (I'm no IP, talk to me!) 13:17, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
  16. This is just a proposal to make the Article Wizard place new submissions in the prefix "Draft:", not on how we are going to use Draft later. The point of having to make the draftspace perfect before we start using, is to late, since it is already in use. This is only to make 'more' sumbission be in Draftspace, as we have had discussion and won consensus for. As of wring there are now 15/1. Allowing a process to continue to its conclusion may allow for a more reasoned discourse, ensures that all arguments are fully examined, and maintains a sense of fairness. However, process for its own sake is not part of Wikipedia policy. (WP:SNOW) I HIGHLY doubt there will come more people to !vote and "rock the boat", even if we drag out this discussion to its fullest. (t) Josve05a (c) 13:18, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
    • The consensus was to use Draft namespace to fix the problems with AfC, not create new ones. Telling new editors that comments go on articles instead of in talk space is creating a very bad new problem. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 15:41, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
  17. Support using Draft: to simulate real articles with real talk pages. Oppose any concept of moving such that articles are created in Draft talk: No need to migrate the WT:AfC stuff to Draft: It will dry up on its own. That is just busywork. Fiddle Faddle 22:04, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
    • Which means that you support it when the system place all talk comments in Draft talk instead of in draft so that we are not teaching new editors to comment in article space instead of talk, correct? — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 15:41, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
  18. Sooner or later, the process will need to move over to use Draft. The benefit is that Draft talk: pages can be created with the appropriate wikiproject banners, alerting them of their existence. That will build support and good will, and it could help attract more reviewers. Imzadi 1979 → 22:19, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
    • I agree, and the sooner that is technically reasonable the better. Until the technical issues are fixed so comments go in Draft talk instead of Draft teaching new editors proper use of main vs talk space, this isn't ready yet. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 15:41, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
  19. Per Hasteur Chris Troutman (talk) 06:16, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
  20. Support per the above commentary. A logical use of the namespace. --LT910001 (talk) 06:33, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
  21. Support, as this is the purpose of the Draft namespace. --AmaryllisGardener talk 00:08, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
    • The purpose is to be able to teach new editors to break apart articles and talk. The current system throws everything in a talk space, which is okay because it teaches to use edit requests and proper use of talk space. This proposal throws everything in mainspace, which is bad because it will result in lots of talkspace comments thrown into mainspace articles. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 15:41, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
  22. Helpful and keeps things organized. ///EuroCarGT 00:57, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
  23. Support, let's get on and see this through. The lack of a talk page to these gestating articles is a handicap: (1) there needs to be a space for comments and discussion while under development; (2) you're supposed to put templates such as Wikiproject banners, translated-from, and so on on the talk page: Noyster (talk), 16:06, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
    • This proposal doesn't use the draft talk page at all and throws everything into mainspace, which means it teaches new users to place comments, discussion, and wikiproject banners on articles themselves instead of in talk space. I prefer the current system until the new system can separate the article space stuff from the talk space stuff... — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 15:41, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. The Draft: namespace isn't ready yet. There are all kinds of things to still figure out before this happens like where will decline messages and awaiting review messages go, where will comments go, how should we set up the editnotices to be as useful as possible to new editors... etc... — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 00:26, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
    How can this be a thing? We continue to do AFC just as we've alway done it, Templates go on the same page, We'll have to adjust the wording, but this has been months in coming with the last one being that the template editors were going to wire in support. Are you saying we'll delay annother 6~8 months and hit the 1 year anniversary of Draft Space with no viable target for getting moved to DraftSpace? Hasteur (talk) 00:49, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
    • Comments should go on talk pages, not in the article drafts. Submission templates (including declines) should go on a separate sub-page or the edit notice, and not on the article drafts. Nothing should be on the same page as the article draft than the draft itself as it would appear in article space. Doing anything else is just a waste of the namespace that everyone was in such a rush to get instead of preparing the complete system and package to use it properly (which I might mention Steven (WMF) was trying to explain and put off creating a namespace without the rest of the package that is needed to make it actually function in a useful manner). — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 00:57, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
    • Links to the consensus discussion about moving the comments and Afc templates, please. Are you referring to Steven's questions above, which I believe were clearly answered, or to another explanation somewhere else? in which case, please link that too. Thanks. —Anne Delong (talk) 12:57, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
    • Technical 13, moving our current workflows as-is to draft isn't an endorsement of them, it's just what we currently have consensus for. Your vision of what AfC should look like in Draft space is a good one, and I'm sure we can get consensus for much of what you are saying, after we take care of the technical matter of moving AfC over there. Don't let perfect be the enemy of improvement. Gigs (talk) 16:12, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
      • The problem is, the consensus to create the draft namespace was on the grounds that it be a place where IP editors can create articles with the feel of creating in article space without promotional and copy-written materials being disruptive and indexed for search engines that respect the robots noindexing. Moving the current process over as-is means that new pages would be created in draft_talk: and there would be zero net gain. Until all the pieces are in place, nothing should be in this draft namespace except for editing tests of the namespace, as when those other pieces are created it will be all that much more difficult to implement them if draft is full of crap. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 21:58, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
    Indeed. Moving ancillary stuff away from the draft itself is a great idea, and I'll all for starting a separate discussion right now to show consensus for that. I have a few concerns about how it will work (largely around usability and new editors), but I think you'll find me more than willing to try it, see where there's problems, and make adjustments if necessary at that point. There are tangible benefits to getting WT: out of this process ASAP. --j⚛e deckertalk 14:50, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
    Moving it as is means that we are moving everything fro WT:AfC to DT: and I do not see any net gain and it is in fact disruptive and confusing to new editors. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 21:58, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
    The present discussion is about the topic of "Make the Article Wizard place new submissions in the prefix "Draft", and does not in and of itself involve moving existing articles if I read the header of the discussion correctly, so I don't see how that is confusing or disruptive, can you explain further? --j⚛e deckertalk 23:16, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
    • But it is not, read all the comments carefully. The support is to move everything as-is, which means that even though some people are saying Draft:, as-is says Draft_talk: and they are requesting that all existing drafts be moved per the BAG request for a bot that is suppose to do that. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 14:36, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
    • You are conflating two things, but I think I understand why--because of the comments. The title, and the text of the question of the RfC, are very clearly about the narrower question. Now some people, perhaps including myself, believe that moving existing articles would also be wise as well, but it is certainly possible to support the question actually proposed here without believing that existing articles should be moved. In fact, I think there's a great argument for switching *new* articles over (which is all I believe we're asking in this section) well before any attempt to switch existing articles over--it'll involve a lot less moving of existing articles and any attendent confusion. I'm pretty sure we'll have to face some of that, but if a few weeks delay reduces the number of articles that have to be moved while being worked on by a factor of three or four, well, I can certainly see a lot of potential upside there. If it helps, while I happen to support a broader move now, I'm more than happy to limit my support as expressed within this section to the narrow question regarding what namespace articles newly created through the ACW here is, and save any broader discussion for a separate question. --j⚛e deckertalk 15:52, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
    • The submissions that have been moved so far are in "Draft", not "Draft talk". This appears to have been working well and I haven't seen any complaints that they aren't in Draft talk space. The proposal is to move them to Draft, not Draft talk. The proposal doesn't say anything about changing or not changing processes; this is a separate issue. Moving just the new articles over will give us a clear indication of how the process is going without having to take into account confusion caused to editors whose articles are currently in Wikipedia talk:. If something goes wrong there will be fewer to deal with than if we moved the bulk of the backlog at the same time. Also, it will direct reviewers' efforts for the next little while to the ones left behind as needing review. If a reviewer comes across one that would benefit from a talk page, s/he can always move it individually and explain to the editor why. —Anne Delong (talk) 16:33, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Comments

So, Technical 13 can we agree that consensus is firmly (13 to 1 over a 24 hour period) in the camp of change? May I close this as patently SNOW? Hasteur (talk) 23:54, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

  • No, 24 hours is not enough time to decide to close a 30-day RfC per WP:BOBSLED and the concerns have not been resolved. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 10:31, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
    • You're going to quote the sub-essay about SNOW?!? You're going to be deliberately disruptive by forcing us through a 30 day RFC window for what is a trivial issue? You're going to force us to wait longer while you spend even more time architecting a perfect "AFC in draft space" process? You're going to continue obstructing the will of AFC in it's adoption of the Drafts namespace as it's preferred and primary operating space? Considering that Wikipedia talk:Article wizard and its subpages indicate that this is under the auspices of AFC that the place for us to have the discussion about AFC implementation details is here is it canvassing to throw a proposal that is already widely unified in a consensus against your position out to the Proposals RFC group?Friends (Dodger67—Gigs—Anne Delong—Joe Decker—davidwr—DGG—Elassint—NorthAmerica1000—Ritchie333—Protonk) and colleagues (Steel1943—Petr Matas—Sam Walton), this proposal has been snow closed twice (Once at 8 to 1 after 4 hours of discussion, once at 13 to 1 after 26 hours of discussion). I think the consensus is plainly on the wall and we should treat the minority viewpoint of Technical 13 as point making designed to force us to spend months and years of debate to finally get AFC into the Draft space which we arrived at consensus back in November, to which no challange to that consensus yet mounted. Hasteur (talk) 12:51, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
      • Why did you ping me, Hasteur? Protonk (talk) 18:02, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
        • @Protonk: You were pinged as one of those who were in the support section that is being delayed. Hasteur (talk) 20:06, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
          • Ok, I was a little confused by {{Pinggroup}}, as I didn't see my name in text anywhere. Protonk (talk) 20:23, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Draft namespace is already being used for AfC submissions, with AfC templates, comments, etc. appearing on the main draft page. For example, see:
and the many, many more that exist. This is already in process, and is good-to-go. NorthAmerica1000 12:59, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
Northamerica1000 Interesting fact: I implemented the change after the 4 hour consensus close, yet the oppose camp that keeps jamming this proposal back open never thought to check if the initial consensus had been implemented already. The reason that Category:AfC pending submissions by age/0 days ago has a lot of draft pages is because the AFC output pipe from the article wizard points at the Draft prefix. Hasteur (talk) 13:26, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
Hold on. You started an RFC (a process intended to last a month), and within hours decided to implement the very change you were proposing? Hasteur, that's... well, it's stunningly inappropriate. This is an issue that affects the broader community, especially if the Wikiproject wants more participants. As the community (no, not just the few people on this page...maybe this kind of behaviour is why there are so few people on this page?) discusses the option, there is ample time for everyone to discuss the points that Technical 13 has raised. Please do not implement your proposal any further, Hasteur - you can take that as a warning, actually. For the record, my only contribution to this wikiproject is as an admin who clears out CSD requests; I have no position on how to use draft namespace. Risker (talk) 15:38, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
@Risker: This RfC had been closed as WP:SNOW and had been closed for comments, with a consensus to implement the changes, which Hasteur did a while after the dicussion and !vote had been closed. (t) Josve05a (c) 16:14, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
Hey Risker before you lob random accusations which are bad faith, you might want to have the facts correct. This was not proposed as a RFC initially. This was the state of the proposal at the conclusion of the first close. Take note how many people endorse the "Why hasn't this been done already" viewpoint. At this point a singular editor raised an objection (that I was willing to let go in the face of overwhelming consensus) and we played along for more time so that opposition could magically materialize. I asked the lone wolf opposer if we could just let this close as it's clear that consensus is for the change. Notice further the increase of the "Why hasn't this been done already" viewpoint. Notice that it is a different user Jackmcbarn that closed it a second time under snow still as a regular proposal and not as a month long RFC. I obeyed the forms of WP:BRD, Technical 13 did not. At this point T13 decided to violate BRD by re-reverting the closure and stuck a RFC tag on this discussion. It is patently clear that the ArticleWizard is under the auspices of AFC and it is patently clear that the best place to have a discussion of Where should we direct the output of the Article Wizard's "Sent to AFC" action?. Please don't embarras yourself like this furhter... Hasteur (talk) 16:32, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
Hasteur, you closed your own discussion the first time (never a good idea). You've shown active upset at the idea that anyone outside of regular contributors to this page should even have the opportunity to comment, based on your response to SWalling's post to WP:VPR. You're implying that an entire namespace is in the (exclusive) jurisdiction of a dozen or so people who regularly edit this page. No, I think you're missing the point. Given the constant complaining about others not "helping" with AFC, doing the same thing the same way in a different namespace is just importing the existing problems to a new venue. Technical 13, if you're expecting comments from outside of the regulars here, you should ensure this is posted on Template:CENT. Risker (talk) 16:43, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Risker, I kind of expected Legobot to post this on random user talk pages that have signed up for RfC notifications, but on the other hand you have a good point. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 22:11, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
Wooh, wooh, wooh there Technical 13! You wrote in the template: A request for comments about moving all [WT:Article for Creation drafts] as-is to [Draft talk:]. That is NOT what the discussion/RfC is about. This is about making NEW submissions to be placed in [Draft:] (and not moving all [WT:Article for Creation drafts] as-is to [Draft talk:]), not about moving any of the current once, or at least that is from what I can decipher. (t) Josve05a (c) 22:30, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
Hrm... that fundamental misunderstanding of the issue at hand shows that either you're incompetent or you're willfully attempting to misrepresent this discussion. Technical 13 please correct this within 12 hours of this timestamp or I will correct it for you... Hasteur (talk) 02:52, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
  • There is no misunderstanding, or lack of competence, or misrepresentation. If you read all of the comments carefully, everyone is saying move as-is which means that it is moving everything from "WT:AfC/" to "DT:" or it isn't as-is. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 14:45, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

There has already been determined that there is consensus to use the draftspace, now it just to make 'the ball roll' and start, there really isn't any need for this discussion, there should be a diffrent discussion on how we are going to use the draftspace. (t) Josve05a (c) 16:49, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

@Risker: Take a look at the VPR post closely. SWalling's post makes the suggestion that we want to move the entire AFC space right now to the Draft namespace. Notice the supports that come in after that post (Supports 11 through 16 so far) which give the impression they arrived based on the assumption that we want to move AFC overall instead of changing the destination of the Article Wizard output. Since SWalling either neglected or did not pay attention to it, I needed to clarify what was being said as I assumed that since SWalling has not made posts at this page in a long while that it was Technical 13's ping that drew SWalling here with the conflation between the "Move everything to Draft namespace right now" and the "Redirect the output of the Article Wizard to our new preferred location that we agreed to back in November" issues. Hasteur (talk) 16:57, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
Hasteur, as far as I can see, both discussions are still open; SWalling's wording is neutral and does not link directly to either one of them. I do not see him conflating the two issues. I see you having made a decision that one isn't practical immediately, starting a new discussion without informing the community as a whole, and then implementing your own proposal a few yours later, even before SWalling's post to WP:VPR. You're not neutral, and changes that affect the community as a whole should not be made by non-admins closing discussions. Risker (talk) 17:19, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
Ok, to extend the logic... I can start putting big blinking text on AN/ANI/Arbitration and pretty much any other project administration page because they're pages of the community and not the remit of Admins or ArbCom? Opening that door is a very bad idea. Hasteur (talk) 17:23, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Just to clarify, the idea that RfC "should" last 30 days is a myth. That was never decided upon anywhere. It only came about because the RfC bot would remove RfCs after 30 days, assuming that they were inactive by that point. It could have just as easily been 60 days or whatever, it was a number chosen to keep the number of listed RfCs on the RfC listing pages trimmed down, without any consideration on how long an RfC should remain open. An RfC only needs to run as long as is necessary to gauge consensus, or until activity dies down. RfCs about major changes should probably last at least 7 days, which is a time limit that actually does have a little more consensus behind it (to give weekend or once-a-week editors a chance to see it, such as AfD), but even that has not really been decided anywhere or documented. Gigs (talk) 17:27, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

  • There is already an existing consensus that Afc will eventually be moved to Draft: space. Also, there are quite a few AfC submissions there already. Whether there are a smaller number of submissions located there (as is now the case), or a larger number, if the new ones are all sent there, should affect only AfC reviewers and those waiting for a review, since the AfC pages are all clearly marked. For this reason, the timing and implementation of the move should be mainly of interest to the reviewers and reviewees. —Anne Delong (talk) 17:37, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
    • Right, these mini-RfCs are mostly just a quick sanity check on the technical implementation of something that already has a wider consensus from a long-running RfC in a central location. Gigs (talk) 18:15, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
  • I agree with the change Hasteur made. I don't think he misread consensus. here is consensus established months ago for moving the whole general procedure. There is consensus for directing the new contributions to Draft. This does not prejudge the question of what we ultimately want to do with the procedure--it's a first housekeeping step. (My own preference is to remove the entire existing procedure except for the articles already in the stream, and handle all new article submissions from everyone in one stream, with a combined and greatly simplified NPP/afc procedure, providing the same sort of two-step review that applies to NPP speedies--in other words, that one of the option at NPP is "send to draft space" , making the appropriate comments, and the individual would move it back when they felt ready, asking for whatever advice they wanted (basically, the way we did things with user subpages) . If it kept being moved back without improvement, it would convert to a deletion procedure that would take the place of or supplement G13/MfD. I think we'd need perhaps 2 or 3 templates to replace the whole existing structure. DGG ( talk ) 18:34, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

So Technical 13, do you feel proud of yourself, we've gone annother 24 hours and the consensus is stacking up even further against the oppose viewpoint. Since other editors can ask the same question over and over on this talk page to fish for a answer they like and not get sanctioned for it, I'll continue asking you until you concede the point. Hasteur (talk) 11:53, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

  • So, Hasteur, are you enjoying making an ass of yourself? It's not about who is right or who is wrong or what should happen, it's about allowing adequate time for everyone to have the chance to offer their comments and understanding and not self-closing and RfC after 4 hours because you are impatient and just want to do things your own way and you don't care about what anyone else thinks or if there is actually any net gain to the encyclopedia. As this is finals week (and I have a couple extensions which will have me working into next week as well), feel free to keep attempting your strong arm tactic to make everyone do your bidding, I, good sir, will not back down as this isn't about me, or you, or anyone else. It is about allowing this RfC to do what RfCs are suppose to do and give everyone interested a chance to read through and offer their insight. For the record, I've not seen comment from Steven (WMF) here in this RfC yet either, so I know there are more people interested in this topic who haven't contributed yet. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 14:42, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
    • When you threw the first stone by re-opening the proposal the second time (I'm conceeding the first as a patently too soon) and forcing us to go through a longer form process when clearly the consensus is against your minority viewpoint I'll don the ass hat if you don it too. Steven WMF has already had 2 days to respond since your first ping and the fact that he posted it at VPR indicates that he is clearly aware of this proposal but has elected not to respond. This was a simple sanity check that didn't even need a proposal, but this proposal was a way to make the uncomfort about moving the existing pending submissions into Draft space less troublesome. I'm frankly apalled that you continue to dig your heels in. It would take an unprecedented swing of commentary for the consensus to change, one that even the Jamaican bobsled team could not accomplish. This proposal has a snowball's chance in hell of being close as anything but "Proposal Endorsed". Hasteur (talk) 16:09, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I spy with my little eye a...freaking STEAMROLLER! (t) Josve05a (c) 00:34, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

More like WP:CLUSTERFUCK. Now we have people are commenting on and opposing the non-proposal of using draft-talk as the primary page. No one ever proposed that and this petty arguing and these straw man red herrings invented by Technical 13 are just confusing matters and holding back progress. Hasteur, Technical 13 you both need to set aside what has clearly become a personal grudge so that we can move forward here. Gigs (talk) 17:51, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
I'm just thinking outside the "crap"-box...how about a WP:Topic ban? (t) Josve05a (c) 18:05, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
Both are valuable contributors and I don't think anyone wants to lose either of their contributions. Gigs (talk) 18:22, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
Gigs and Josve05a (Gigs—Josve05a) I petitioned at ANRFC to have this closed under [[very obvious consensus argument and Technical 13 presented yet annother wide ranging list of FUD complaints. I am trying to assume good faith, but there's only so many times that the same refuted points can be accepted as anything but disrupting the will of the community. If there is a admin or other editor who hasn't yet voiced a opinion in this RFC, please evaluate if we need to spend any more buerecratic time wasting on this discussion. Hasteur (talk) 20:12, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Technical 13 since you oppose my request at ANRFC, I'm going to dismantle your entire argument there

  • The technical concerns I have raised have not been answered, the RfC is barely a few days old and no where near the 30-day RfC standard Read the top of the ANRFC notice The default length of a formal request for closure is 30 days ...; if consensus becomes clear before that and discussion has slowed, then it may be closed early. However, editors usually wait at least a week after an RfC opens, unless the outcome is very obvious, so that there is enough time for a full discussion. I think it's clear that the discussion has slowed immensely about this, that consensus is very obvious at this point bordering on blizzard like WP:SNOW conditions.
  • NODEADLINE implies there is no rush to get this done before the other technical requirements to make it work properly and not cause more of a backlog and confusion than the current proposal would result in and those things need fixing first. What technical requirements are left? I have been personally moving AFC pages to the Draft space since before the April backlog drive when we last had this discussion about relocating and the AFCH/AFCH-Rewrite gadgets were patched to include support for the Draft namespace. None of the pages that were moved there have had any technical problems with them. How many more months are we expected to wait for you to design the perfect AFC process?
  • Putting all drafts, past, present, or future into Draft namespace before all of the technical aspects of the namespace are fixed will cause all kinds of doom and gloom and crash the internet, send satellites plummeting to Earth, shut down power grids globally, ... , or something like that... Again, you elect to go with hyperbole and willfully misrepresent the question. Should we redirect the output of Article Wizard "Create to AFC" pipe from "Wikipedia Talk:Articles for creation/" to "Drafts:". That's the only question on the table in this proposal. Not "How should we place the banners on the right pages when we get to the Draft namespace?", not "How should AFC work in the draft namespace?", not "What processes will need to be changed when we move the final vestiges from our current AFC business area to the new one?".

Therefore I ask, why do you oppose this proposal when there have already been examples of the system working just fine for over a month and a half prior to this proposal. Hasteur (talk) 20:29, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

  • I don't like to repeat myself but here goes. Unless you get a consensus to change the original consensus that was the basis for the creation of the namespace, then this can not be done until all of the AfC specific templates and comments can not go into the drafts themselves and must be on the talk page. Until the helper script can do this, there are technical implications that need to be thought out and handled. Let's break down Should we redirect the output of Article Wizard "Create to AFC" pipe from "Wikipedia Talk:Articles for creation/" to "Drafts:". That's the only question on the table in this proposal. Not "How should we place the banners on the right pages when we get to the Draft namespace?", not "How should AFC work in the draft namespace?", not "What processes will need to be changed when we move the final vestiges from our current AFC business area to the new one?". a little so you can understand... Should we redirect the output of Article Wizard "Create to AFC" pipe from "Wikipedia Talk:Articles for creation/" to "Drafts:" can't be done until "How should we place the banners on the right pages when we get to the Draft namespace?" has been answered. Should we redirect the output of Article Wizard "Create to AFC" pipe from "Wikipedia Talk:Articles for creation/" to "Drafts:" can't be done until "How should AFC work in the draft namespace?" has been answered. Should we redirect the output of Article Wizard "Create to AFC" pipe from "Wikipedia Talk:Articles for creation/" to "Drafts:" can't be done until "What processes will need to be changed when we move the final vestiges from our current AFC business area to the new one?" has been answered. Reading through Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 107#Proposed new Draft namespace you will find that enough of the support was conditional on the fact that these other questions need answering before we just move the entire project there. It was support as long as it fixes all the technical issues with the AfC process... So, until those things are fixed, or there is a much broader consensus (equivalent or greater than the original consensus to create the namespace in the first place), then there is not enough consensus to implement this. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 14:31, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Fair notice warning I intend to invoke WP:IAR to close this discussion early (Per Wikipedia:RFC#Ending_RfCs) no later than 24 hours from how. The consensus is obvious to all participants, new viewpoints have not materialized in nearly two days. We are past the minimum 1 week duration suggestion at WP:ANRFC. Keeping this discussion open any longer is only a exercise in bureaucracy for bureaucracy's sake. Therefore, if a rule prevents you from improving Wikipedia, ignore it. We are prevented from closing down this discussion and moving on to the next ones (Changing the templates, moving existing pending submissions, etc.) by the "We must wait 30 days for the RFC to conclude" rule. Hasteur (talk) 13:45, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

  • Doing so may land you back at ArbCom unless you want to close it as withdrawn. I've explained that until there is an equal or greater than consensus to the original proposal to create the namespace, then this proposal lacks consensus. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 14:31, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
    • Vague hand waving at a Archive which said quite clearly After weighing the arguments, it seems clear that there is support for the principle at the heart of the proposal: a new namespace for Drafts. The participants in this discussion expressed a variety of views on the effectiveness of the Articles for Creation project, but no challenge was made to the proviso that AfC would continue as it currently does. This community discussion does not change the AfC process—any such decisions should be ones that the AfC WikiProject should make through further consensus-based discussion if they deem it to be necessary. Nowhere in the summary does it say that we must hold off on using the new namespace until every last problem is fixed. Multiple editors have agreed with my assessment of consensus on this question on multiple occasions. I concede the 4 hour closure was premature, but we're now at the rump end of consensus and I can only surmise that your attempt to make this a referendum on every technical aspect necessary to get us 100% to the Draft space in addition to repeatedly using the same refuted arguments that you are trying to obstruct the consensus of the community for AFC to be relocated to the draft namespace. Since we can't swallow the entire "Move all of AFC to Draft space now" horse pill, we're cutting the issue into smaller chunks that are perfect test balloons that show how things are working already. Hasteur (talk) 14:48, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Perhaps you should actually read the supports of which a good majority explicitly say (although perhaps not verbatim), "as long as some issues are fixed". Moving the problem from one space to another doesn't fix the underlying problems. Those need to be addressed and this move (which I support) needs to be done the right way with the fixes in place instead of hastily which will result in us having to go back and fix the fixes... I'm all for cutting it into smaller pieces, but moving stuff needs to be the last piece, not the first. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 15:22, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Mien got Technical 13! Step back and look at what the question is, not what you've precieved it to be this entire (Redacted) time... Where do we put new AFC submissions that come out of the Article Wizard? That's the only (Redacted) question on the table right now. AFC submissions have been working just fine in the Draft namespace since early March. No editors have appeared to be unduly confused and reviewers understand what they need to do. The only problem is with templates, something that you have your foot on. Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation#Draft:_namespace_and_the_review_tool is an example where the decline is causing problems with the template. As I can tell, we can review in draftspace, we can decline in draftspace, we can accept from draftspace, we can do REFLINKS in draftspace, it's only a few oddities on the outside that are preventing us from being to declare that we 100% operate in draftspace. One of those is that the Article Wizard puts new submissions that are "Create as AFC" in the "WT:AFC/" prefix (which is what we're trying to change here). Please don't let perfection get in the way of iterative improvement to the process. Hasteur (talk) 15:47, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Supporters (Dodger67—Gigs—Anne Delong—davidwr—Northamerica1000—Ritchie333—Petr Matas—Samwalton9—Josve05a) & More supporters (Imzadi1979—AmaryllisGardener—Noyster) You have been responded to by Technical 13. I suspect some of the responses are an attempt to change the intention of your words. Please review the response and if it is not what you intended please clarify what you intended. Thank you. Hasteur (talk) 16:10, 14 May 2014 (UTC)


  • Comment As of this post, I see 23 editors who believe that we should place new submissions from the Article Wizard in Draft space and review them there, and one editor who believes that we should not. Long discussions have failed to change a single opinion. The last !vote was five days ago. What now? —Anne Delong (talk) 13:50, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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