Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/Archive 26

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Jeffrey Andile Ntsengwana

Jeffrey Andile Ntsengwana was born in Cape Town, South Africa in 21 October 1979.His was the last born of four children on Dora Ntombizodwa Ntsengwana.He had two brothers who passed away,older brother Joseph Phumelelo Ntsengwana,Ernest Thembinkosi Ntsengwana and one sister Mandisa Ntsengwana.

Jeffrey came to the United States of America 31 October 2010 were he met his Melody (Simmons)Ntsengwana they got married on 20 May 2011.Jeffrey moved from West Palm Beach, Florida where he lived to Mattoon,Illinois were his beautiful wife Melody was born and rised.

If you'd like to create a new article, try the article wizard. APerson (talk!) 19:04, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

More publicity for AfC

This WikiProject is on the schedule to be interviewed by Rcsprinter123 for The Signpost so some of you should be hearing from them shortly. I've started an op-ed. Obviously this is my own opinion but I'm open to suggestions from my fellow reviewers. It won't be going forward until early January but I'd appreciate comment sooner than later. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:36, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Chris troutman I would expand the "we explain why a submission has been declined" to also enumerate CopyVio/OverlyPromotional/and WP:V as reasons why we typically decline a draft. I would also put in some sort of reminder/explanation/whatnot about how some of the discretionary rules (such as CSD/XFD/Individual statement challanging) are not enforced as strictly in the AfC project because we want to give developing candidates more opportunieis to succeed before being exposed to the harsh light of Mainspace ruberics. Explicitly stress the "incubator" state of AfC drafts as it was a little over a year ago that we had an Admin rampaging through AfC space like a Bull in a China shop because they were tired of looking at the numerous submissions. Hasteur (talk) 02:06, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, I've made some changes based on your input. Chris Troutman (talk) 22:02, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
Please do not claim, without citation, that most submissions come from self interested parties. This is contrary to WP:AGF.
Also I don't believe our biggest problem here at AfC is lack of leadership. Lack of leadership would cause us to work against each other or otherwise do bad work. I don't think this is a big problem here. Many WikiProjects and the whole of Wikipedia gets along just just fine without central leadership. Our biggest problem here is lack of manpower. Lack of manpower results in us not being able to keep up with the work. ~KvnG 15:34, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. I've changed some of the wording based on your input. This is ultimately my opinion so I'm sticking with the coordinator point even though there's some disagreement. As a misanthrope I assume everyone is acting in their own rational self-interest; an op-ed (to my knowledge) doesn't have to comply with AGF dependent only on the editor-in-chief. Chris Troutman (talk) 22:02, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
There's no mention of the major change that was made (as I understand it) a few months back to link the wizard (and therefore afc) as an option from every redlinked article creation page, and no mention of the apparently significant increase in submissions from that point. I don't think lack of leadership is the problem at all, quite the opposite, far too many willing to say what must be done, and far too few willing to do the actual hard work. --nonsense ferret 15:07, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
@Nonsenseferret: I'm not sure I understand. This is related to Wikipedia:Article wizard or MediaWiki:Newarticletext? I don't recall any discussion here about a change to linking or an increase in submissions. Chris Troutman (talk) 22:02, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
There wasn't much of a discussion hereabouts, because generally facts are quite irrelevant/inconvenient when people just want to form a good opinion. It has been noted that new submissions moved from around 40 a day to around 150 a day in the space of a year, and it may have been at least in part due to the edit diff] as discussed at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_117#How_well_is_Draftspace_working with some very helpful tables - maybe i've got it all wrong, but if it is as I understand it, I'm surprised it wasn't more widely discussed here. (table included below) --nonsense ferret 02:01, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
on reading the follow up comments, I now see that the year old comparison data may be unreliable, and there may not be a significant increase, but I'm not sure if anyone does have this data in a form we can use to see the impact of the change and whether or not there has been an increase. How we can draw any reliable conclusions at all about how the project is doing without such data, I don't have a clue. --nonsense ferret 02:13, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
now that I look at the underlying data, I'm even more confused. Some drafts that have been reviewed and accepted are definitely counted in the jan 2014 data, so why this value of 40 a day is so low isn't clear to me, since it can't be every review that removes the categories as was suggested. Presuambly deleted articles are not included, but if there hasn't been a significant increase, that might suggest there is a very high percentage of deletion. Does anyone have figures that show what percentage of submissions end up accepted/deleted? Does anyone know how many submissions there were on a given month going back over the last year? Not knowing these makes it hard to draw any sensible conclusions. --nonsense ferret 02:32, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
Well, thanks for your input in any case. It's an unanswered question but I think we can conclude that further study is needed. Chris Troutman (talk) 02:38, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
It is my understanding that the data in the table below only counts pages that have not been deleted. That's why the further back you go the fewer items there are. Also, the date categories don't seem to be consistent. Declined drafts have the dates when the draft was submitted, although some appear to be missing since I saw a couple which had three pink boxes but only two dates. On accepted articles, the date (which appears at the bottom of the talk page) only shows the date of acceptance, and the older dates are not there. From looking at the recent ones, though, I can say that the numbers are about the same as they were last year - I was doing some extensive work with the same display at about that time. If you take the past couple of months as an example, and then look a year previous, you can have an idea what will happen to the recent ones during the upcoming year: Many deleted, some accepted, and a few still hanging around, either postponed or still being worked on. The mainspace numbers are all somewhat low, because sometimes users copy-paste the text (but not the administrative categories) into mainspace, and it is policy not to do a history merge of these if it's the original author who does the copying - so then the draft is deleted and the mainspace article isn't marked as an AfC graduate. Also, when you look at how many make it into mainspace, it's not as small a percentage as it appears, because the daily numbers have a lot of resubmissions (especially during those backlog drives). —Anne Delong (talk) 07:16, 6 January 2015 (UTC)


Statistical data: Current AfC pending drafts = 2,443

The following data sets show the comparison of the last three months and a year ago for the number of submissions per day*:

Date123456789101112131415
Submissions 217 348 215 181 238 175 170 275 268 204 245 258 161 189 263
Date161718192021222324252627282930
Submissions 207 236 259 211 162 179 243 174 281 259 263 123 0 0 0
AfC submissions in April 2024
Date123456789101112131415
Submissions 165 140 213 227 229 219 193 201 132 176 264 245 264 196 218
Date16171819202122232425262728293031
Submissions 158 190 237 250 221 248 194 160 244 220 233 183 266 166 358 205
AfC submissions in March 2024
Date123456789101112131415
Submissions 162 137 129 144 175 211 202 265 219 110 137 216 153 143 164
Date1617181920212223242526272829
Submissions 160 182 132 224 165 245 224 156 195 156 218 189 214 224
AfC submissions in February 2024
Date123456789101112131415
Submissions 175 190 192 191 219 142 191 208 232 169 169 192 141 348 184
Date16171819202122232425262728293031
Submissions 196 176 190 210 588 156 208 218 275 184 154 135 139 192 194 186
AfC submissions in January 2024
  • approximate only as does not include deletions or multiple re-submissions on the same day

Blast from the Past

Thinking, as I always do, about ways to improve the project, it dawned on me that we haven't done a sweep of the WT:AFC namespace to hunt down pages that are in the prefix that are missing an AFC banner on them. I strung together a few queries to get a list of all pages in the location prefix "Wikipedia Talk:Articles for creation/" to populate the list of pages to consider for potentially missing a AFC submission banner (as we want to eventually get completely out of the old prefix and getting eyes on these is a good thing). The bot task is Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/HasteurBot 5 and applies Category:AfC submissions with missing AfC template which allows us to investigate to determine if the page needs a AFC "draft" banner, an AFC submission, an AFC banner restored, or if we need to speedy the article under our internal policies. This is not an emergency or priority in any stretch of the imagination, but because these articles are being edited to add the category (and will be edited again to take the category off or add a banner to it, these can be safely moved to the Draft namespace. Hasteur (talk) 03:25, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for working on this, Hasteur. I have a lot of these WP:AfC pages on my watchlist and lately I have been coming across quite a few where the AfC banner has been removed. I remember when I was going through a batch of these last year I found quite a few where the removal was accidental and the users didn't then know how to submit. There were also quite a few that were copy-paste remnants (some in need of history merges), and some copyvios as well, so it's definitely worth looking them over.—Anne Delong (talk) 05:43, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Apparently it needs saying, but because these pages were recently tagged into the category by the bot, they are 100% ineligible for CSD:G13 (Stale AfC drafts) because they've been recently edited. Hasteur (talk) 00:55, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Sorry folks, but some users have decided that the category was good for hunting for G13 nominations. As I see this as a direct harm to the project, to the drafts, to the advocates of these potential drafts, and to the community at large, I am undoing my tagging of these articles. Hasteur (talk) 04:37, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

broken link in project page

Resolved

Hi, I noticed a broken link in your project page. I just thought it will be good if I bring it to your attention.

The link is under : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation/Participants#Active_reviewers . The link there provided for checking the activity appears to be broken. It says that no redirect is found.

Thanks. --RAT -.- Poke it 13:01, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

  • I've fixed this for now. I intend to do away with use of that tool in the future for a new tool that is MMs compatible. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 16:38, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Interview for The Signpost

The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Articles for creation for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions, so be sure to sign your answers. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Thanks, Rcsprinter123 (spout) @ 20:25, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Mobile users are not seing decline rationales

See e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:ILAI_Fund as an example. The: This submission does not appear to be written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia article. Entries should be written from a neutral point of view, and should refer to a range of independent, reliable, published sources. Please rewrite your submission in a more encyclopedic format. Please make sure to avoid peacock terms, that are designed to promote or show-off the subject. is not shown while in mobile mode.

Apperently we need to remove the `.metadata` class from the template since it is interfering with communicating with mobile editors. Thought? (t) Josve05a (c) 17:29, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Is there any harm in making the change? If not, why not be BOLD and make it. --ThaddeusB (talk) 21:15, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
@ThaddeusB: For starters I'm not techie and have no idea how to do it, and I would guess the template might be template protected. (t) Josve05a (c) 08:00, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

COI submitters are people too....mostly

Dear reviewers: First, let me say that I have been impressed with the promptness of the replies at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Help desk lately. I thought I would take a turn helping out, but I type so slowly that most of the time someone else has already replied before I can hit the SAVE button!

I'd like to put on my WP:Wikiproject Editor Retention hat for a moment to talk about COI editors. Although one purpose accounts and POV pushers are a problem on Wikipedia, AfC usually gives them a little leeway, at first. We assume good faith that the new users (or ones who have been directed here because they tried to add an article to mainspace without success) just need more knowledge of the policies, after which they will adjust their edits to be more acceptable.

Let's face it, the majority of first time article creators are going to be here because a topic they care about doesn't have an article. I include myself; my first article was declined here by Bonkers the Clown as advertising.

There are (at least) two reasons to be polite, helpful and in some cases even encouraging to these editors:

  1. Because we meet so many new users, we are the "reception desk" of the Wikipedia community. Rude, dismissive or disdainful replies at the help desk or on the users' talk pages translate into negative feelings in real life about Wikipedia - and remember that some of these COI editors are capable PR people who are skilful at managing public opinion.
  2. A large proportion these COI editors are people who like to write and are good at it, and many of them can be converted into good Wikipedia editors with a little encouragement. For example, some time ago I was helping a person who had written a promotional draft about a race track. When I explained to him that his draft needed independent sources and editing to be neutral, he pointed out a couple of other race track articles that didn't have these things. I suggested that he improve these as well as his own draft, and he said "sure, it'll be fun".

Sorry to be so long winded (again). —Anne Delong (talk) 13:57, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Anne, I have a great respect for your opinion and I don't necessarily disagree with what you've said. My point of departure is our response to editors who are clearly not here to write an encyclopedia. I've dealt with this same sort at edit-a-thons and they see Wikipedia as a publishing platform. The minute I point out to them what Wikipedia is and is not they pack up their laptop and leave. This has been especially disheartening when it's an event I spent time planning. I've said before that AfCHD is a bug zapper that catches the POV pushers not smart enough to edit directly into the main namespace. I agree that I especially should tone down my responses. I just don't want to see Wikipedians wasting their AGF reserves on corporate entities and wannabes. Chris Troutman (talk) 15:35, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

I haven't spent as much time as I used to on the help desk. I cannot agree that most users there are blatant COI or POV pushers. Many certainly give that impression, but you have to accept that Wikipedia's definition of COI and NPOV are not natural definitions that correlate with what people know in the real world. There's an advert for Digital Eagles (there's an article for someone to create) on television a lot at the moment, showing retired people using Skype. A similar occasion is parodied in the new Penguins of Madagascar film. Those are the sort of people are who I picture turning up to AFC/HD. Are they "a bug zapper that catches the POV pushers not smart enough to edit directly into the main namespace"? Of course not. They are people in the real world for whom the concept of {{cite book}} (the nuclear weapon against deletion in my experience) is meaningless gobbledegook, and who need real help from a human being. I created Template:AFCHD/u specifically because I did not believe posters to the help desk knew where the question was (and fortunately the ping system is a good replacement). For these places, it is utterly essential you ramp the AGF-meter up several notches. As David Ogilvy put it, the help desk poster is not a moron, they're your wife. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:27, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Chris troutman and Ritchie333, you have both made good points. AfC attracts a wide variety of people who have one thing in common - they want to create an article for Wikipedia. Sorting out the ones whose editing skills are worth nurturing from those who will stubbornly maintain their POV pushing isn't easy. However, even most of the latter type are nice people in the real world, even though they may resist being good Wikipedia editors. They'll likely leave; maybe in some cases we're glad that they do, and Chris has hit the nail on the head by saying that we don't want to spend too much time on them when we have a big backlog of better prospects. But maybe we can WP:AGF just a teensy bit to the point where they go away disappointed rather than angry. "Sorry, why not try Facebook" doesn't take much longer to write than "Get lost". —Anne Delong (talk) 04:25, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
I think things get a lot simpler here at AfC if we worry much less about POV in authors and submissions. POV is not a strong reason to delete an article and so it should not be a strong reason for rejecting an AfC submission. POV problems can only get fixed if the article is moved to mainspace. A POV author (especially an inexperienced one) is not going to fix this.
We have no way of knowing which editors have potential and which do not. We should not try to make that assessment or otherwise judge. We should WP:AGF and not WP:BITE. Things will either work out or they won't. Editors with a strong POV are not particularly disruptive since they are focused on a single topic so any damage they do is localized. ~KvnG 05:08, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
  • I agree with the general sentiment above - AGF and basic kindness are absolutely essential. There is simply no reason to be rude to a potential contributor. Even a SPA POV-pusher has the potential to turn into a productive editor if they are shown kindness and have questions answered in plain terms. If one has no tolerance for such editors, I would suggest AfC is not the right venue of Wikipedia to do work in. --ThaddeusB (talk) 21:24, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
Hi. Reading through this thread, I'm a bit confused. Are we not supposed to decline for POV issues? I have a case in point: Draft:SyndicateRoom, which I declined because it reads like a promo brochure. The author objected, and cited two other articles as examples. And he's correct, both of those articles also read like sales brochures: CrowdCube and Seedrs. The first has been flagged as adv since 2012, without much change in the article (there was one brief edit regarding the adv issue). Anyway, if I could get some direction I'd appreciate it. Thanks. Onel5969 (talk) 21:45, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
This discussion is mostly about how one responds to people who ask questions, not decline/accept decision... But, to answer your question: It's a judgement call. Blatant POV shouldn't go through, but we don't demand perfection either. Looking at the specific draft in question, I would not decline on advertising ground (I did not check sourcing, so not saying I'd accept for sure). It is 100% perfectly neutral, no, but it is reasonable. Promotional articles normally contain bold claims and/or use a lot of empty adjectives. (Blatant advertising goes beyond that and explains how to/makes a case to buy a product.) That isn't the case here. In short, don't decline something because it needs minor tweaks; decline it if it needs a complete rewrite. You are always welcome to fix small problems yourself, or just allow a non-perfect article in mainspace - that is perfectly fine as Wikipedia is a work in progress. --ThaddeusB (talk) 21:58, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Lecturing to the choir regarding G13 and Category:AfC submissions with missing AfC template

There was a discussion on a user's talk page about nominating for CSD:G13 from Category:AfC submissions with missing AfC template. It has been my understanding that we as the AFC project are supposed to give at least one pass at every draft so that it is considered. When my bot came through and tagged many pages that were in the old prefix (Wikipedia talk:Articles for Creation) as missing the template, EoRdE6 took it upon themselves to go ahead and start nominating under G13 even though the pages had recently been edited. Recalling the great effort that was put into getting G13 established as a rule (and how we promised that we would obey the no logged edits in the last 6 months) I am bringing it to the community here to see if there has been a change in the consensus (even though I doubt there is). Hasteur (talk) 01:19, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Let me clarify my reason once again. These articles are short abandoned articles mostly about non-notable subjects that have no chance of making it through AfC. More importantly, all the articles I have tagged (and been deleted by other admins who agree with me) it has been 6 months to years since the last edit, other than by Hasteur's bot adding a category which doesn't suddenly make the articles any less abandoned. Bots don't make an article unabandoned and that is agreed with other admins who happily delete these articles. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 01:25, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
This from the guy that welcomed himself to this WikiProject. Do us a favor and leave well enough alone. The sky won't fall for having these drafts sit a little longer. You're acting against consensus. Chris Troutman (talk) 01:36, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
That was to save someone time so they could be busy working at AfC More importantly (instead of mudslinging and trying to make me look bad) what consensus? Several admins delete pages that have only been edited by bots in the last 6 months because they are abandoned, simple as that. See? (That link won't point to the right place for very long) EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 01:48, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Reccomend Speedy Closure of this topic and keeping it where it started. Look at the diffs My post here at AN (23:12 January 7), my post at village pump (01:10 January 8), then Hastuer's post (01:19 January 8). EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 04:17, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
See also forum shopping of E0RdE6 at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Category:AfC_submissions_with_missing_AfC_template and Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Minor_Change_to_CSD:G13 Hasteur (talk) 03:53, 8 January 2015 (UTC) Please move your discussion to the newly created conversation at WT:CSD as requested by an admin. Thanks! EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 05:07, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Topic concerning Articles for Creation is being discussed

There is an ongoing conversation at WT:CSD about a policy that concerns AfC. Any comments are welcome there. Thanks! EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 05:14, 8 January 2015 (UTC) Please don't comment here, but post at the above link. Thanks! EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 05:14, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Draft namespace and pages disappearing from the AFC queue.

Had a thought last night at o'dark thirty. Previously we had pages that for one reason or another would vanish from the AFC tracking process (either because the user flubbed and got the editing incorrect and clobbered the AFC submission banner by accident or because the user was trying to hide the page from being deleted). When we used the "Wikipedia talk:Articles for Creation/" prefix there was an established mandate as to how these should be dealt with. In the Draft namespace, we don't have that same mandate as other pages use the same page. I think I could code a bot task that would continuously scan the Draft namespace for removals of the AFC banner without a positive action (being nominated for CSD or being promoted to mainspace) so that we can flag down a set of human eyes to review the page and determine what should be done with the page so that it doesn't get abandoned into the hordes of Draft pages that aren't even being looked at. I'm only asking here if there's a interest/consensus (locally) to do this. It's an early level consensus measurement I'm wanting so that I can determine if I should invest my development time into the project. If there is positive reception here, I'll ask at the larger page of WT:Drafts if there is consensus so that it's a building of the consensus. Hasteur (talk) 20:47, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

It's not a bad idea. A fair number of users seem to want to remove AfC templates not realizing they have purpose. Chris Troutman (talk) 21:15, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
What was the established mandate when we used the "Wikipedia talk:Articles for Creation/" prefix? ~KvnG 22:47, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
The concept appears to have been established in December of 2011 (Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation/2011#Category:_.C2.A0AfC_submissions_with_missing_AfC_template) [1]. I think the justification was that because the pages existed in our project space we had a duty to make sure there were no pages that were attempting to "hide". Hasteur (talk) 00:09, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
Thanks. Now that I understand the proposal and possible complications, I don't consider it to be of great importance. I believe we have to accept that new editors will flail around as they climb the leaning curve here at Wikipedia. It's a nice idea to put up some guardrails for them but it is not a disaster if they fall. ~KvnG 17:46, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Oh dear, yet another 'bolt-on'. AfC is beginning to look like a space station that doesn't need gravity to hold it together. I don't have time to express my thoughts less humourously for the moment but I will have something of more consequence to say soon. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:50, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
    • Kudpung Items that interest the volunteers get attention focused on them, those that don't don't. Put your own proposal for what needs to be done to complete the task up on the page, file tickets against the AFCH-Rewrite project to get the features you want implemented. Grousing here about the unworthyness of annother item does not help improve the encyclopedia. Hasteur (talk) 13:39, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Even if the template is gone, shouldn't the "AfC submissions by date" category still appear on the page? —Anne Delong (talk) 06:00, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Well, it seems to me that there are two kinds of submissions which once had AfC templates and now don't:
  1. those whose editors really want to removed themselves from the AfC process and just work on their drafts in Draft space. In my opinion, we should let these go. AfC shouldn't have these submissions on a leash; their creators should be able to convert them into ordinary drafts. However, the drafts then lose the leniency on promotional content, etc., that AfC provides, and can be deleted under whatever criteria are used for other Draft space pages. If the Draft space deletion processes aren't adequate for getting rid of unwanted drafts, that's a matter for the wider community to discuss.
  2. those who intended to ask for another review, but just removed the templates accidentally or because they didn't realize that they should leave then in place between reviews. These are the ones that we should be concerned about, because the new editors may need help to resubmit after they make improvements. The trick is to tell one from the other. Maybe we don't have to. Perhaps a simpler thing to do would be to add a small boilerplate template to the top of every draft page that doesn't have an AfC template - such as "This is a draft article. Please help to improve it. For a review from WikiProject Articles for Creation, click here. To request that your draft be moved into the main encyclopedia, click here (Warning: your article may be deleted if it doesn't follow Wikipedia's policies and meet the criteria for inclusion.)" However, something like that would have to have a wider consensus, since it affects all drafts. It would still be handy to have some kind of way to tell which pages had been submitted before, so that if the editor came back for another review we could restore the old decline templates if desired. How about something on the talk page? I notice that there's a category and a banner on the talk page of accepted submissions. —Anne Delong (talk) 14:52, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

NPOV requirement

The guiding principle for acceptance of AfC submissions is that an accepted submission should not be WP:LIKELY to be deleted as per WP:AFD procedures and criteria. Therefore it would seem that AfC acceptance criteria should mirror valid AfD deletion reasons. There does seem to be a discrepancy here. AfC reviewing instructions suggest articles should be rejected for NPOV issues. NPOV is, however, not a valid reason for deletion. Based on my experience at AfD, articles with NPOV issues are generally retained unless the consensus is that a rewrite is required to address the NPOV issue. I propose we remove the NPOV criteria from AfC reviewer instructions. ~KvnG 22:44, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

We do have a CSD criteria for blatant advertising, however, and NOV is a core policy of Wikipedia... Based on the above discussion, I think it is likely people are judging POV issues too critically. The goal shouldn't be to remove every possible non-neutral statement (which may not be possible for a new editor), but instead to stop promotion. I suggest a rewording the criteria instead of removal. Currently we have: "To be suitable, the article must be about a notable subject and be written in an encyclopedic style from a neutral point of view." I suggest instead: "To be suitable, the article must be about a notable subject, be free of obvious bias and promotional language, and be written in an encyclopedic style." --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:51, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
You seem to be saying that acceptance criteria needs to be higher than deletion criteria but not as much higher as it currently is. I really would like to simplify and objectify our acceptance criteria. We have objective copyright violation and notability criteria and a few others. Requiring NPOV or that submissions be "free of obvious bias and promotional language, and be written in an encyclopedic style" are subjective criteria that allow any submission to be declined. ~KvnG 16:53, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
Yes, the acceptance criteria should be "higher" than the deletion criteria. The community way not be willing delete articles for POV (although there are certainly exceptions at AfD), but it is certainly very much against poor articles. If AfC is just an alternate version of NPP, it serves no purpose. The goal of AfC is to help new users, not just filter bad stuff and approve notable stuff... Keep in mind that we are primarily talking about self-promotion when it comes to POV articles in AfC. We most certainly are not doing the person any favors by passing an article that at best will be stubbified and possibly will be deleted by an admin that is willing to delete any promotion as "blatant advertising" or in an AfD by !voters who don't see beyond the promotionalism. --ThaddeusB (talk) 22:55, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
I don't think we presently have the manpower here to fulfil the goal of helping new users in the way you seem to envision. We're going to have a huge backlog (not much help to a new user if he must wait 30 days for interaction with a helper) or have terse reviews or both. I prefer to look AfC as a launching pad for new users and articles - we make sure you're pointed in the right direction when you start but we're not here to police your journey. ~KvnG 16:04, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
NPOV is a fairly broad and nuanced policy, for that reason I agree that the reviewing instructions need some clarification in this regard. Not complying with NPOV can mean an article that is written in an excessively promotional tone, and we do delete such articles at AfD; typically where they would require a fundamental rewrite. ThaddeusB's suggested wording seems like a reasonable solution to me. What are you really trying to accomplish with this thread? A correction to a small inconsistency in the reviewing instructions or a fundamental rethink of our acceptance criteria? If it's the latter, I think you have valid point. We are facing perpetual backlogs that are unlikely to ever ease unless we fundamentally rethink how AFC functions. I would think a system that is more focused on filtering out drafts that could be speedily deleted, rather than trying to get drafts to pseudo-GA status would be much more sustainable. Bellerophon talk to me 23:53, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
I want to simplify the criteria to the core principle here, approve articles that are unlikely to be deleted. My experience at AfD is that adequately referenced articles on notable topics are unlikely to be deleted. I acknowledge that articles with POV issues are sometimes deleted but that is not the normal (likely) outcome (they're more likely to be kept or stubified). I would like to see NPOV and some of the other quality-related reject reasons removed. I think some here would see this as a fundamental change in reviewer instructions. ~KvnG 00:32, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Submissions that are marginal and will likely but not certainly survive at AfD

We have a problem here at AfC in that too many submissions are being declined. There are a number of reasons for this, but one major one is that reviewers really don't want to accept submissions that are later deleted at AfD. Some may find it embarrassing, or don't want to spend time at AfD defending their acceptance, or they may be planning on requesting adminship in the future and don't want their stats to look bad.

Here's a way to get some marginal submissions out of AfC without a reviewer approving them: If a reviewer decides that a submission doesn't contain any of the most severe problems (blank, copyvio, article exists, totally unreferenced, spam, etc.), but declines it for reasons which could be open to interpretation, such as not enough inline citations, or marginal notability, minor essay-like writing style, etc., then the reviewer would have the option of including an extra notice on the draft creator's talk page which would say something like "Please read the notice on your draft to see why it was declined. You can continue to make improvements and resubmit (recommended), or you can move your submission into the encyclopedia at any time by (explanation of move or requested move process here). Be aware that if your new article does not meet Wikipedia's policies and standards for inclusion, it may be deleted, so you may want to keep a copy of your text." Some of these draft creators would decide to take a chance and move their drafts to mainspace, and others would stay with us for more advice and help. Since we would be choosing which ones to so notify, we could still protect mainspace from obviously inappropriate material. And notice, we are still recommending that they stay for another review. I believe that this would cut down the number of resubmissions somewhat and reduce the backlog. It would also make these marginal drafts more visible to the wider community for collaborative improvement.

This isn't really new, because right now a reviewer could always decide to discuss this sort of thing on a user's talk page (and some do); it would just be a way of making it quick to do, and no one would have to use it if they didn't like it. Comments? —Anne Delong (talk) 16:06, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I have been spending time with Category:AfC submissions with the same name as existing articles and see that this is already happening quite a bit without encouragement. I'd prefer we find a way to allow reviewers to accept more submissions. Are stats or embarrassment really the reason reviewers are conservative about accepting imperfect submissions? Why are reviewers afraid to be WP:BOLD? ~KvnG 16:43, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
I'm happy to defend any submission I pass through AfC at AfD (as those who looked at Direct Ferries will know!) and I'm a grown up who knows that AfDs are nothing personal. However, it's a slap in the face to the editor who created the article ("They passed it! Now they want to delete it! Why can't the right hand tell the left hand what's going on!") and that's the real reason I avoid them. I do try and improve articles up to an acceptable standard if I think they're worth it, and even when I think I'd have a hard time defending it at AfD (eg: Kathleen Andrews), at least I can argue for a redirect. And I am quite happy to pass an article whose problems can be fixed by regular editing (such as a bit of puffery, dodgy formatting, or insufficient inline citations), since as we all know, AfD is not cleanup.
For duplicate submissions, I silently merge / redirect the submission unless it's a blatant attempt to rewrite a long-standing article. I'm confident the submitter won't notice they've switched to working in mainspace.
If I'm stuck on a submission, or haven't got the time to improve an article, I will try and leave as good an explanation as possible with the submission, possibly explaining why it might be a better idea for it to be on another website instead, and never use just the canned reasons ever. Even then, I'm not sure the typical decline message gets presented in a way the submitter understands. I'd recommend any regular Wikipedian sits down with a non-expert and watches them try and write an article from scratch - it's an eye opener.
Finally, one of the reasons I haven't done much AfC reviews is partly because I've been concentrating on clearing the GA backlog, but also because my typical submission takes longer - sometimes up to half an hour - although it gets a better end result. I think I'm just a bit frazzled from the never-ending backlog too. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:49, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
It's also a slap in the face to the author to have their submission declined repeatedly (and often for different reasons) despite making the requested improvements. There's plenty of "Why can't the right hand tell the left hand what's going on!" right here in AfC. I don't think authors appreciate the "protection" you're providing by declining their marginal submissions. ~KvnG 17:01, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
Sometimes the baby Jaybirds need to fall out of the nest and on to their head in order to realize how nice the nest is in terms of it's protection. For Copyright issues my thresholds are <30% - No Comment, 30% ~ 50% - Decline citing problems with copyvio but not blank, 50% ~ 80% - Decline citing problems with copyvio and blank, >80% CSD:Copyvio. I like to be more conservative with my promotions to mainspace simply because I've been called to task multiple times for promoting pages that are patently unacceptable. Hasteur (talk) 18:28, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
Any amount of actual copyright violation is too much - I would never let it go uncommented. (If you are just talking about the tool %s, those don't indicate amount of copied text.) --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:07, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
  • I agree with the gist of the comment - some reviewers are too willing to decline. I often accept things that have been declined multiple times, and honestly aren't much different than the version last rejected. The goal isn't perfect articles, but articles that are "good enough". As I said above, a good rule of thumb is if the article would need a complete rewrite, decline it; if it has minor problems, accept it. If a reviewer is uncomfortable accepting a flawed, but plausible article they are always always welcome to 1) fix problems themselves, 2) comment without declining, 3) leave it for someone else to decide. Declining it just because you started reviewing it and now "have" to make some sort of decision shouldn't happen.
All that said, I'm unsure about the proposal. I'm not sure declining and saying "but you can move it if you want" is better than any of the above choices. (I do wish the helper script would copy over comments to people's talk. I often leave encouraging comments on obviously bad articles where the subject is notable. Seeing those up front instead of having to click through might be helpful.) --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:06, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
  • I have been working quite a bit with the six-months-or-more old submissions, and I have encountered very large numbers of declined submissions about perfectly notable topics, with no speedy deletion problems except dg-g13, which have been declined for reasons not in accordance with the reviewing instructions, and then the editors abandoned them in frustration. If all of the 4000 or so pages that are eligible for db-g13 right now were suddenly all thrown into mainspace, the percentage that would be deleted would be far less than the number that will be deleted during the next month under the db-g13 criteria. Yes, they are looked at by an admin before deletion - but the admin only has the responsibility to make sure that the page is really eligible, not to make any value judgement about the quality of the draft. And since all 4000 are abandoned, it's safe to say that any "protection" was not effective. These editors are not children (wait! maybe some of them are...) - giving them the facts and letting them decide to be bold or not is IMO a way of treating them with respect. However, if there is no consensus on that, please remember that you can see a list of recently declined drafts at [2]. If you see one whose decline reason seems inappropriate, I encourage you to do what the G13 rescuers are doing with the abandoned ones - make some improvements until it likely will pass an AfD, resubmit it your self and accept it. This will make the queue shorter because the draft will never then be resubmitted.—Anne Delong (talk) 06:05, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
I agree with you , Anne, and have simultaneously come to the same conclusion. I have been increasingly accepting anything that would likely pass AfD and has no really gross problems. If it does not need improvements to pass, I am just accepting it as is. If it needs improvements, but I do not immediately have the time to make them, I make some significant improvement, and it can worked on further later. I have been doing this with the G13s, but it would be appropriate for any submission.
The practice of being conservative in accepting submission is wrong--the purpose of AfC is to get acceptable material into WP, not to get perfect material into WP. Articles submitted by afc will be improved subsequently the same way as all other WP articles. Our standard should be higher than passing speedy, but it should not be higher than passing AfD. AfD is the method appropriate to use for WP, where everything should be done by consensus, not individual opinions: the community is a better judge than I am, because my own knowledge is limited and because any one of us does have some degree of individual prejudices eccentricities. . (It's hard to specific a % likelihood of acceptance, as it depends on the field, and AfD is somewhat unpredictable in many subjects; a better standard would be, if the community as a whole should see it, as they do at AfD--not everything that could be rescued does get rescued there, but many articles do. )
Everything submitted does need a check for copyvio, and for organizations and people I check their websites, not just Google. I agree with ThaddeusB that we should not knowingly move copyvio into mainspace, but the solution for small amounts of copyvio material is just what the deletion policy says to do if possible: remove it if the article can stand without it, or if straightforward enough just rewrite it, or stubbify the submission. It's not the % copyvio that matters, it's the role in the article and the ease of fixing it. The view that copyvio should be rejected rather than fixed is not in my opinion supported by policy. DGG ( talk ) 00:23, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
I forgot to say there is a complementary side of this: hopeless material should not just be declined, but removed. Clear advertisements should be nominated for G11, not just declined. Obvious test pages should be listed for deletion as G2 test pages. Material resubmitted more than once without improvement and that would not possibly pass afd should be sent to MfD. It isn jot considerate to encourage people to work on what will never be acceptable. DGG ( talk ) 00:30, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
Of course it is even better to remove copyvio yourself if you have the time. I was just commenting on the comment that said if an article less than 30% was a copyright violation, Hasteur wouldn't comment on it. That is especially dangerous if the violation is subtle - other reviewers might not even notice it. I have on several occasions found copyvio that survived years in mainspace, which is simply unacceptable. --ThaddeusB (talk) 04:10, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
I could't agree more. And 30% sounds like a frighteningly high percentage to just ignore! As an absolute minimum, if you even suspect copyvio , even though not being able to prove it, it should be noted. DGG ( talk ) 04:43, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
If the percentages we're talking about here are from Earwig's tool, those numbers are inflated by the fact that the tool considers any repeated three-word sequence to be a potential copyright violation. If, for instance, the title of the submission is three words or more, you'll see a lot of false positives. You really need to manually examine the matches to determine whether there is a violation? ~KvnG 16:47, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Discussion about drafts needs your input

Please comment at WP:VPI#"Save to Draft" button? Oiyarbepsy (talk) 07:14, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

I corrected the link above as the topic has been unarchived. This idea will inevitably affect AFC so we really need to be involved in the discussion. @User:Anne Delong - this ties in with the issues about newbie struggles with sandboxes that you have raised at VP before. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 10:31, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, Roger, for bringing this to my attention. I've left a comment. —Anne Delong (talk) 13:57, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Drafts that need merging

Draft articles that are declined as needing merging very rarely actually do get merged while in draft space--I have yet to encounter one instance. This is much more likely to happen when the article is visible to the community, not just the contributor and the very few people if any who check such things. If there is any substantial content, it would make much more sense to accept the article and put a merge tag on it,. I am therefore planning to review all such articles and do just that for the ones that are worth thee trouble. For the ones that are not substantial, it would make much more sense to decline as duplicates.

I therefore propose this decline reason be eliminated altogether. Kudpung, do you have an opinion on this. DGG ( talk ) 23:59, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

I did exactly that when I accepted Spanish Price Revolution even though there were already two articles about the topic in mainspace (which were already tagged for merging). I notified what I thought is the most relevant Wikiproject about the need for a three-way merge - WT:WikiProject Economics#Three-way article merge needed for important economic history topic - but almost a month later they've not actually done anything about it. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:02, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
The "should be merged" decline does serve a purpose: First, it suggests to the submitter that they should take their text and references and add them to an existing article. This does happen, but the new editors usually just then abandon their drafts and go on about their business, so the AfC reviewers wouldn't know they'd done that until the old draft becomes g13-eligible. I have come across quite a few of these while checking out the G13 queue, and deleted them as G6, since the content was in the encyclopedia already. If the article is moved to mainspace and made into a redirect, the new users may not be able to manage the merge, and the attribution is much more complicated if done by someone else. However, DGG has a point that often the merge isn't done by the draft creator, and then moving and redirecting is better than leaving it in Draft. I can't think of a way besides the G13 queue to give the editors a chance to move the text themselves, so that the draft can then be G6'd. —Anne Delong (talk) 07:51, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
I think it is better that new editors improve existing articles than create new ones. The 'merge decline is useful for this. If the merge never actually happens, as you claim, then it's not so useful and I would support removing it. When I decline with merge or exists I will usually leave a message on the mainspace article's talk page alerting editors there about material available for the existing article. ~KvnG 16:41, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Indian villages

It seems to me like today is another "Indian National Day for writing incoherent blurbs in very poor English about random clusters of mud huts and temples on Wikipedia day" LOL. Is there any specific guidance about the minimum notability standards for such settlements. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 18:44, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

@Dodger67: Per WP:GEOLAND, "Legally recognized, populated places are presumed to be notable" (although we would want a reliable source per WP:AFCR). If it's not legally recognized then WP:GNG applies (with heavy emphasis on WP:INDY). --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 19:38, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
I'm quite familiar with the general standard/guideline, the problem I have is that in the context of Indian law/public administration policy it is not at all clear what constitutes the minimum requirement for a place to actually be a "legally recognized" village/settlement. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:52, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
I fully empathise with your predicament Roger, I've encounter the same myself in the past. Perhaps an experienced editor who specialises in India related articles could lend some context. Sitush maybe? Bellerophon talk to me 23:29, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
I try to find a reference to the place in a census document to see if it's legally recognized. These list all of the villages, towns, districts, and other subdivisions that I don't really know what are. I try to add links to the actual census, but these are often only available on "snippet" view in Google Books, which isn't always helpful. However, some areas have online census databases, which aren't as reliable, but more accessible. However, the article needs more than proof of existence, it needs at least a few facts even to make a stub, so I try to find at least a couple of news or book references. —Anne Delong (talk) 23:52, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
Don't use the snippet-viewed stuff on GBooks. They are almost without exception censuses and gazetteers of the British Raj era and they are hopelessly unreliable for, well, just about everything. They did not even have a working definition of a village, and see User:Sitush/sandbox3 for a slow-developing draft of the more general problems.
The modern-day census is in fact available online but the website is a little slow and tricky to use (see the archive menu option for full 2001 info; the 2011 info is provisional data but its list of villages etc is valid). If a populated place is not in the modern census and the article doesn't call it a deserted village etc (eg: the town of Indraprastha, the mythic region of Brahmavarta), the thing is highly unlikely to be notable. Other useful web-based sources, however, are those of the relevant state-level water and power-generation authorities - both are under immense pressure to improve and regularly compile lists in relation to development plans and so on. I've just had an operation and am in hospital. I won't be likely to visit this thread again before it closes. Drop me a line on my talk if more info is needed, and I'll respond when I can. - Sitush (talk) 04:10, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
I have just by chance discovered this draft guideline by User:MatthewVanitas which seems quite relevant. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 21:55, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Ah, glad to see that my draft has some interest; I kinda petered out on it at the moment, but India villages are a consistent enough trend that it may be worth polishing this up so we can refer submitters to it. Might need to be a bit more concise though, or at least a very explicit summary "bottom-line up front". Also have a member of WP:INDIA take a squint and ensure there aren't passages which are unclear to second-language speakers of Indian English.

As a side-note, can we avoid the "random clusters of mud huts" sort of talk? Even if unintended, it sounds quite demeaning. India is a massively huge place with thousands upon thousands of legitimate documented populated places, the fact that we get a lot of drafts from non-native-speaker novice editors does not diminish the inherent validity of covering these population centres. And I for one would be fine with allowing folks to create one-sentence stubs for any community which verifiably exists and has a lat/long to map it, even if we have no other data at the moment. Every documentable population center merits an article so even a stub is a step in the right direction and shouldn't be disregarded. MatthewVanitas (talk) 18:46, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Biographies of filmmakers

Hello! Thanks for all the work that you've done in adding film articles to {{WikiProject Film}}. Just a couple reminders, the film project does not cover people, so please don't add the film banner to articles about actors, filmmakers, screenwriters, etc. Those people are covered by adding the parameter |filmbio-work-group=yes to the {{WikiProject Biography}} banner instead. Also, the film project does not use the importance scale, so please do not add the |importance= parameter to the film banner, it will just take up unnecessary space. Thanks again, and keep up the good work! Fortdj33 (talk) 03:48, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:56, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Removing references

Can anything be done to remove references on non-(category/redirect) requests that have been (accept/declin)ed?

I'm not really sure what you're asking... Please point us to a specific problem. Bellerophon talk to me 10:31, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Notice of WP:AN discussion

There is a discussion at WP:AN#Request for Interaction ban with Technical13 regarding myself and Technical 13 that revolves around bot usage. As AFC is one of the primary places that is served by my bots, volunteers here may be interested. Hasteur (talk) 15:38, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

promotional

I have just been going through the category of articles declined as being advertisements, and about half of them are such pure and unmitigated advertisements that they should have been deleted immediately at G11. (I'm listing the worst of those I find that won;t be deleted soon anyway with G13). I'm especially concerned with the ones that have been resubmitted by the same presumably promotional editor multiple times, without significant impairment. The workload here at AfC would be reduced substantially if these were removed as soon as found. When I find them in new submissions, I haven't even been nothing to decline them and list them for deletion--I just list them for deletion; there's no point sending wordy and ambiguous notices when the speedy will be much more effective in communicating them message. (I do not normally delete them or any G11single-handed as an admin, becauseI know I canmake errors in interpretation & I like someone checking me.)

I could say the same thing about articles declined as "test pages" About half of them are the type schoolchild nonsense that belongs on Facebook at the best, or is clearly something immediately abandoned. There's no reason for them to stay here 6 months. G2 is meant for the situation. (and a good many of the declined as NOT fall in the same group). We have enough problems dealing with getting poor article drafts improved enough to pass, without repeatedly dealing with the utterly hopeless. (Yes, I know screening AfCs has made me a little cynical :) DGG ( talk ) 04:16, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Makes me wonder if we should not be increasing the reviewer experience threshold. Mind you, it was difficult enough to get the 500/90 one. At least once a week I remove one fron the reviwer list who can't read instructions to save their lives, and see at least another who has been hovering with his mouse over his edit counter waiting to reach that magical 500. Makes one wonder who the schoolchildren are: the creators or the reviwers. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:07, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
In the past my threshold for requesting speedy deletion was to only tag drafts that contained contact details, prices of products etc. Even then, I had one such nomination declined where the reviewing admin basically said 'I'm pretty sure we give a lot more leeway at AfC', which left me somewhat reluctant to apply G11 tags to AfCs. Not that it stopped me altogether. Bellerophon talk to me 01:09, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
If we work the backlog from oldest first, these promotional submissions will not be rejected for 30 days and by that time the school children will have lost interest. Then what's the problem waiting 6 months for G13? Do these somehow get back into our backlog if they're not immediately deleted? In my experience, things that happen fast on WP often don't go so well. Also, don't sweat the bad reviews. We're all human here and presumably acting in good faith. ~KvnG 03:16, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
Some points that occur to me:
  • Although these pages are not indexed by Google, they are picked up by mirror sites, which are indexed. At least now the titles say "Draft" instead of "Wikipedia", so they may not be given as much weight by the readers. This appears to happen very quickly, so deleting them after a few days may not make a difference.
  • I think that drafts that are blank or very short submissions, which often are resubmitted with better content, shouldn't be deleted after the first review, and if these languish a while no harm is done.
  • I don't think the G11-like ones should be deleted right after the first review either, because editors are sent here specifically to learn to edit neutrally, and should be given a chance to improve the drafts. However, if a draft is resubmitted several times and isn't progressing to NPOV, or if the editor hasn't improved and resubmitted at all, it would be nice to have an agreed-upon process for getting rid of it earlier than six months. I can't remember which of you made the point that some users are just dropping off drafts with no intention of improving them, and then linking to them from their facebook pages or other social media, and so using Wikipedia for a web host for six months.
  • If you look at the list of submissions declined for being promotional, and hover your mouse pointer over them, the pop-up box will say how many weeks since the page was last edited, so it's possible to find these if we do want delete them after a shorter time period than six months. This apparently won't catch the ones whose editors have removed the AfC template.
  • In the past someone (again I can't remember who) did check these promotional pages and found a large number of missed copyvios, so a second set of eyes isn't a bad idea. —Anne Delong (talk) 04:25, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I've only started AfC editing recently, having been discouraged by the AfD work and thinking that maybe working at the front end of the process would be better. I've only marked one article as advertisement, and it was truly obvious ad copy. The whole "promotional" category is quite confusing. I just took a gander at some of the items on the "declined as ad" list and quite honestly they look like about 92% of what I've seen in AfC and AfD. (Admittedly, I tend to work on BLPs and corporation pages, eschewing music, film and sports, which I know zero about.) Most of these I would have probably passed into main space if they had appropriate references. The standards for notability can be interpreted to allow in a wide range of content, but there are clearly different camps. Here's an article from the list of declined submissions: Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Giovanna_Huyke. To me this looks like a typical page for a main space BLP author. Obviously, a WP page does promote the author, although it needs some cleaning up and formatting. The promotional aspect, whether deserved or not, is true for pretty much all BLPs. If there ARE significant references, where does one draw the line? (I realize there is not really a line, but I'm curious to hear thoughts and opinions.) LaMona (talk) 18:44, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

I think the discussion above indicates the difficult in applying reasonable standards to AfCs. I have nominated perhaps 100 AfCs as G11 or G2; only one or two has been rejected. And I do use a more arrow interpretation than I do in mainspace. My experience is different from Anne's, in that I almost never see a promotional article substantially improved, at AfC, unless I or Anne or some other experienced editor improves it. we shouldn't be declining blank articles in the way we do--they're usually simply a technical error, in someone not knowing when to put on the submission template. The messages we send are too dismissive in this case. Actually, the standardized messages are too dismissive in most cases of good faith editing, and much too gentle for those which are clearly not. All of this is very subject to individual interpretation, as the discussion makes evident.
Nor do I think increasing then numerical threshold will make much difference. The necessary quality is acquisition of judgment and competence, none of which closely correlate with number of edits or length of time here.
Fortunately there is a solution: remove the AfC process entirely, and let everything go to NPP. We have well tested standards for speedy , prod and afd, we know how to apply them, we do apply them fairly consistently, and they are visible to the community. DGG ( talk ) 04:54, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
While it's true that almost any article promotes the subject just by its existence, there's a difference between, for example, writing "Smith is the author of eighty two novels, sixteen of which have won international awards" and "Smith has taken the fictional world by storm, having penned an amazing eighty two delightful works of genius, sixteen of which earned the highest world wide acclaim". A number of editors here look regularly through the declined submissions for potential articles; if I find one that's not too bad, I check for copyvio and make sure there's no existing article, make a few improvements in the area suggested in the decline comments, and resubmit it. —Anne Delong (talk) 06:36, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
Anna, I agree. In the article that I linked, there are the common problems of long lists of publications and accomplishments, and those should be removed, but the text itself is mostly factual in nature. So I'm wondering what makes this promotional rather than: "remove the lists; just summarize". A quick edit would take care of that. With those gone, this looks like many thousands of other WP pages. If that edited article came up at AfD, given the number of quality references (WashPost, Baltimore Sun, Miami Herald), I think this would survive. Does anyone disagree? LaMona (talk) 18:07, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
@LaMona: That article is not overly promotional and I would be willing to accept it as is if that was the only issue. Unfortunately, (as is often the case with promotional sounding articles), it is also mostly a copyvio. See [3]. I'm going to leave it up for now since this is an ongoing discussion, but generally I would just speedy something with that level of copyvio that is also abandoned. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:03, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
DGG, in my limited experience at both, I think that editors learn more through the AfC process than AfD since AfD is expressly NOT intended to improve the article. Having a place where new editors can work with more experienced editors (maybe we should call ourselves "tutors") is very valuable. I would suspect that most WP editors do not know that they can ask for help, and if they do I'm not sure that they get it. Bringing up the next generation of editors should be a goal; teaching people how to edit ditto. If not AfC, I'd be happy to approach this in another way. But AfD was frustrating for me because it usually did not result in improvement of the article. LaMona (talk) 14:48, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
It is true that the way I screen, I will tend to see the ones who who given up (who are mostly good-faith beginners) , or those who have made it clear they are not going to learn (who are mostly promotional editors). But NPP also has a way of giving personal advice to people how to improve barely-acceptable articles, not just using the tags. No form of tagging or pre-built messages can possibly offer proper help to beginners. ~I do not know, however, how often this is used. DGG ( talk )
Sadly, NPP still has the odd patroller who CSDs first and asks questions later ... by which time the creator has been bitten. (random example) Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 18:34, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
I agree with DGG that it is rare for a promotional article to become sufficiently less promotional in AfC. My proposal, discussed above, is that we remove the NPOV requirement from AfC. NPOV is rarely a valid reason for deletion and AfC authors are often too green or too close to their subjects to do a good job with NPOV. I disagree that NPP is a good alternative to AfC. Deleting work is not a good way to develop editors. Removing the NPOV requirement from AfC does bring AfC standards more in line with standards used at NPP and AfD and so perhaps that would be considered welcome progress. ~KvnG 20:34, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
are you agreeing with me we should just use G11, or are you suggesting that rather than attempt to deal with promotional editing we simply ignore it, or let this particular pernicious type of material pass into mainspace while spending time with other simpler but less important problems? DGG ( talk ) 05:28, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
It looks like I may have misread AfD as AfC in some of what you wrote above. If G11 applies to a submission, the submission should be rejected. WP:POV is, however, not synonymous with WP:PROMOTIONAL. I support accepting submissions with POV problems. These problems can be fixed in mainspace. New editors working on these submissions in AfC are unlikely to have the skill required to do good NPOV. AfC reviewers should be allowed to spend their time reviewing, not improving. ~KvnG 00:46, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 18 January 2015

Replace the string https://tools.wmflabs.org/fengtools/reflinks/ with {{fullurl:toollabs:fengtools/reflinks/result.php|page={{FULLPAGENAMEE}}&defaults=y}}. Make it easier to go directly to the replacement rather than the base page followed up by Copy/Pasting the page title followed by clicking on the button. Hasteur (talk) 03:26, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Pinging Technical 13 as the great protector of Templates to see if there's an objection and Mr. Stradivarius as the user who put the new reflinks in. Hasteur (talk) 03:26, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Done — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 05:38, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Both "not submitted" and "submitted"

I'm new to this, and I've run into some articles that are both "not submitted for review" (gray box) and "review waiting" (yellow-ish box). e.g. [5]. Should I go ahead and review these? Should I pay attention to the gray box? Thanks, LaMona (talk) 21:13, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

If there's a yellow submit box anywhere on the page, that one takes priority. The script has a "clean" feature hiding at the right which will get rid of the grey box and do various other tidy-up things; feel free to use it so that the page will look less confusing. I'm not sure why this isn't done automatically, but it's a long-standing nuisance, so I'm sure there's some technical reason. —Anne Delong (talk) 13:04, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
This problem should be fixed for good on February 11th. Jackmcbarn (talk) 19:23, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 19 January 2015

There is currently a discussion at Template talk:AFC submission/declined#Template-protected edit request on 19 January 2015. Thought I should post about it here in case anyone watches this page and not that one (since the parent template’s Talk redirects here). —174.141.182.82 (talk) 10:44, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

AFC submission template calculation error?

What part of the {{AFC submission}} does the 6-month calculation? There seems to be an error in the calculation. For example, see Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Jacques Berthier. It says, "This draft has not been edited in over six months..." but then right under that, it says, "Last edited by Auric 5 months ago." --Geniac (talk) 17:18, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Geniac The page is definitely eligible as Today - 6 months is July 20th (and the page was edited on July 12th). I think it's an inconsistency between {{#time: U | {{REVISIONTIMESTAMP}} +6 months }} < {{#time: U}} and {{time ago|{{REVISIONTIMESTAMP}}}} (which is located in {{AFC submission/declined}} and partially in {{AFC submission/draft}} subtemplates). Perhaps one with greater TemplateFu than I can figure out what needs to be rectified to make the date calculations agree with each other. Hasteur (talk) 13:44, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Actually, it is not because of the floor function (which is probably desirable), but rather the fact it defines 1 month=31 days (2678400 seconds)
{ denom = 5356800, amn = 2678400 }
Maybe 30.5 days would be a better definition of a month. --ThaddeusB (talk) 22:55, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Lua shouldn't be doing it with seconds at all. Templates don't do it that way and Lua is suppose to be more advanced then regular templates. Maybe we should just dump the lua and do it with raw parser functions? — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 23:05, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Interestingly, someone mentioned the months things before: Template_talk:Time_ago#Number_of_days_in_a_month... Do with actually have access to anything other than the timestamp in seconds? I'm not really sure else how you'd do it besides "current timestamp in second - old timestamp in second" -> convert to appropriate unit. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:46, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

WP:AFC/R Juan Doe and Juanita Doe

174.29.75.144 (talk · contribs) keeps rejecting the comments that address the concerns presented in the original rejection without filing a reply on why the additional information is unacceptable. Is the additional material provided sufficient ? 174.29.75.144 doesn't seem to be able provide additional reasoning on what he's doing. -- 65.94.40.137 (talk) 08:35, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Reply on User_talk:65.94.40.137#Juan_Doe_e.a., I fear we are off topic here. –Be..anyone (talk) 12:04, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
@174.29.75.144: also has deleted all supplementary material meant to address the concerns originally leading to the rejection [6] Which is not just hiding it under the closure, it is outright blanking. -- 65.94.40.137 (talk) 11:02, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Eligibility Clarification

Hi, request a clarification about the eligibility to become AFC project team member 500 edits means- live edits or unique edits ? As per the count so far done total 570 edits - out of which 35 were prod making it 535 live edits- taking this under consideration added my name to the list which got reverted. -ThanksOne life to live (talk) 10:14, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

@Samuell1616: As of now, you are eligible, so you can re-add yourself. I'm not sure if you were eligible when you were removed. Jackmcbarn (talk) 19:22, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Love the revised AfC Helper script

I'm back to reviewing after a long break. I find it is so much easier and faster with the latest version of the helper script. It's simpler to select a reason and comment at the same time. I mostly use "custom" to decline. The comments end up on the user's page as well as the Draft page. In accepting it saves so many steps to be able to enter the categories and the wikiprojects while accepting, rather than having to make another two edits afterwards. Thanks for all the good work! StarryGrandma (talk) 03:14, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I do have to question the cleanup function... Why does the AfC article wizard make the article with different hidden text and template info which the helper changes when using the cleanup... For example this dif. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 03:35, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
Those changes are cosmetic, so it shouldn't be that big of a deal anyway, but the reason the template parameters get shuffled around is that internally (as far as I know) the script reads all the information from the template(s) it can find, deletes the existing template(s), and creates new template(s) with the information it read. It must be using a template (in the sense of a form, not a template-namespace template) that differs from the one the wizard uses.
Similarly, it has a set of comments it removes every time it cleans a submission, and after it's done with everything, it then checks if a "Do not remove!" comment is needed. APerson (talk!) 21:21, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Moving user sub pages to Draft namespace

Could someone please bring me up to speed and very quickly and point me to where it is clearly recommended that all nascent drafted articles in user space are to be systematically moved to the Draft namspeace and without informing the users. Thanks very much, becauase I may be on the verge of making a very big mistake. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:10, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Kudpung, is your question about subpages that have been submitted for review, or all subpages that have the beginnings of articles?—Anne Delong (talk) 05:38, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
Anne, my question is about user sub pages that appear to be a draft in the making, thus not submitted to AfC. Is there a guideline or precedent that all such pages should be systematically moved by AfC project members to the draft namespace? --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:44, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
Well, there's a fairly strong statement about this topic in the closing of the RfC to create Draft space, at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 107.—Anne Delong (talk) 06:08, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
WP:Draft says "Editors may also create draft pages in their userspace instead if they so prefer." On the other hand, it also says "Registered editors may also move a userspace draft in to the Draft namespace if they choose.", and it isn't clear from the context if this means moving pages from anyone's userspace or the editor's own userspace.—Anne Delong (talk) 06:20, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict):::::Thank you enormously, Anne, for your quick response. The relevant part of the closer's statement is:

A key part of this discussion is the very strong support for the principle that users should be able to store drafts in their userspace. This :principle must be adhered to in the implementation of this RfC: the Drafts namespace may be strongly encouraged for new editor, but if a registered editor wishes to keep drafts in their userspace, they must be allowed to do so.
from which I understand that if no RfC has taken place since to countermand it, that there is no requirement or instruction for AfC members to be searching for userspace drafts and moving them to AfC submissions in the Draft namespace. Which of course would make sense because, I myself, for example, have partially drafted articles in my user sub pages that I do not under any circumstances want sending to AfC!
The reason for me asking is that we have yet another new reviewer who has been hovering over their edit count to reach the magical 500 edits, and has started by mass moving user drafts to the Draft namespace. I have already removed that user from the reviewer list on the premise that not only 500 edits but also competency is required, and I will revert all the moves to AfC Draft namespace that they have made. Please confirm that I have your support before I go ahead. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:38, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
This is the last discussion thread I recall that touched on this subject; everyone agreed that drafts that had not been submitted to the Articles for Creation process are perfectly fine in user space. isaacl (talk) 13:53, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
(sorry, sleeping...) You have mentioned moving to Draft space and moving into AfC. These are two separate issues and need to be considered separately:
  • If the new reviewer is moving userspace subpages with an AfC template to Draft, I see nothing wrong with that, since they were created through the WP:AfC process and are intended to be reviewed and improved by experienced users. I've done this myself and written in favour of it.
  • If the reviewer is adding AfC templates to these pages when they have never had one, in either User or Draft space, this is also not normally acceptable, although I have seen it done as an alternative to speedy deletion (for example, when a userpage was highly promotional or contained close paraphrasing of a published work). Most often, though, this happens after an WP:MfD discussion.
  • If the reviewer is just finding ordinary user pages that have nothing to do with AfC, (ie, do not have and never have had an AfC template on them) and moving them to draft, it's clear from the RfC closure you quoted above that this doesn't have community consensus, and for what it's worth you have my support to revert these moves. In the future there may be agreement to do this with subpages of users who have not edited for years and have clearly abandoned well developed articles-to-be in their userspace, but unless I missed it this hasn't been proposed so far (although obviously the users wouldn't complain).
I guess that sums up my position. Sorry to be so long winded. I hope you will WP:AGF with the new reviewer, who likely is just trying to be helpful. I seem to remember that when I first joined Wikipedia and started participating through AfC, I thought I was being so helpful by copy-pasting acceptable submissions into mainspace instead of moving them (sigh).—Anne Delong (talk) 14:16, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
IMO, once the user has submitted the page for AfC review we can move it to Draft namespace. This also includes previously declined submissions. If the user hasn't submitted it yet, then we shouldn't be yanking it out of their userspace (this includes Having the AFC Draft submission template). Hasteur (talk) 19:58, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Thank you everyone for your input. Just to recap: This was a case of a user simply yanking nascent articles out of user space, moving them to Draft space and expecting the creator to know about it without even being notified. The reviewer has understood their error and the atter is now closed. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:52, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Pages in the WT:AFC space without any AFC submission template on them

Keeping in mind that that the remit of AfC is to help editors get their drafts into mainspace by providing feedback there is a collection of pages that are in our old home space that do not have any AFC submission banner on them. I think that we should give each page at least one on the books review of each of these pages, therefore I propose

A bot task be written to
  1. identify all pages that are in WT:AFC space
  2. those pages that are in the list that do not have an {{AFC submission}} template be subjected to scrutiny
  3. Search the history of those pages that match the previous step to see if there was ever an AFC submission template, and if so restore the template as it existed
  4. If the page has never had a AFC submission template, to submit the page for review as of the date that the bot has found the page on behalf of the page creator (i.e. {{AFC submission|u=ExampleUser}})
  5. Cut off execution after 50 pages have either had their AFC submission banner restored or have been submitted for AFC review (i.e. 23 banners restored & 27 submitted for review).

Thoughts? Bypassing the Category:AfC submissions with missing AfC template step because we can make an educated guess at where these pages belong in the spectrum of being reviewed. Hasteur (talk) 12:53, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Agree Somewhat: but I thought that was the purpose of that category... Yes these articles need help, and experienced editors need to go through them. That being said, a quick look at the backlog proves this is probably unfeasible given the 1,000+ that do not have the banner before your erm emptied the cat. However, I found a lot of these pages didn't have much hope, many authors removed the template thinking that deleted the page, or even blanked them for deletion no understand the speedy del process. So yes something needs to be done, but AfC is already overflowing with articles waiting and nowhere near enough active reviewers (another thing we should try to improve). EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 21:50, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
I would prefer that these pages go through once they're eligible (I assume most of them are) and evaluated for possible rescue. Since these are abandoned submissions it is not appropriate to use the normal review process - they're likely to be rejected, no one will be there to make improvements and they'll go to G13 6 months later. Let's skip even more steps and just queue them for G13 review. Also, I don't understand how step 5 works. When does the bot do the next 50? ~KvnG 22:13, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
no Disagree I've been reviewing a lot of these articles that were previously in Category:AfC submissions with missing AfC template before it was emptied and in my opinion from what I have seen none of the articles are going to pass, a lot of them are blanked by the author for a start. I think they all should be tagged as G13 and reviewed as such, especially as the majority of these submissions are over one year old and are long forgotten. I will keep reviewing them in the meantime. Thanks, JMHamo (talk) 10:21, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
no Disagree I agree in general with Hasteur's assessment of what should be done with these pages, but I don't think a bot is needed. Now that new pages are being created in Draft, the number of pages in Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation is going down rapidly, from 7500 to about 6000 in the past month, and at most 1800 of these don't have templates. Dealing with these pages can be done manually once and then there will be very little for the bot to do. Also, a lot of them are abandoned, and submitting themin the general queue wastes reviewers' time giving advice when no one is listening. This isn't as precise as I'm sure Hasteur's software logic would be, but our project members can find most of the templateless pages by typing "-afc" into the search box below, and then improve, submit, accept, restore old templates, tag for history merge or deletion, etc.—Anne Delong (talk) 13:09, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 Question: Would it be possible for Hasteur's bot to add the AfC submissions without the submission template back to the Category:AfC submissions with missing AfC template category as it was before? That way, at least we'll have them all in a central location for review over time... JMHamo (talk) 13:40, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
I refuse to have the bot re-add the category if it's going to be misused to nominate directly from the tagging of category into CSD:G13. Several editors think these drafts have been abandoned (and some editors demonstrable actions have shown a willful misuse of the category and G13), yet without having a review on them it is inappropriate to outright delete these. I refuse to give editors of questionable competence the tools necessary to harm the newbies who created these pages and the encyclopedia. Hasteur (talk) 14:02, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
It's easy to retreive your reverted Category:AfC submissions with missing AfC template edits with the reason (HasteurBot Task 3: Removing maint category that does not apply). They are the submissions I have been manually reviewing and Admins deleting. I am just saying that having them all grouped together back in that category, like it was, would be very useful. JMHamo (talk) 14:12, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
(edit conflict) And here we go again. Hasteur, AfC isn't a place to get experienced editors to write and article for you. If they abandoned the draft, so be it. AfC has more than enough workload without trying to write and review an extra 1,800 terrible non-notable articles. I say (once again) human reviews should go through the category, add the template to the ones which have a chance and G13 those that just don't. A bot can't do that. Which is why I'm going through your bots edit history and reviewing them myself. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 14:17, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
Me too! JMHamo (talk) 14:24, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
This is an example of the quality of the AfC submissions with a missing submission template - Example AfC with missing submission template... there are many more like this. JMHamo (talk) 14:22, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
Well, the first ones I came to were Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Odaine Demar and Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Eugene Paykel, and I have reported one to WP:FOOTY and am improving the other, so they aren't all junk. It's true that AfC isn't a place to get experience editors to write an article for you (although some do...) - that's what draft space is for - so if the topic is notable but the text or sources are currently unacceptable, why not just move them there, and then that argument goes away?—Anne Delong (talk) 14:49, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree that they aren't all junk, but there is a high percentage that are, also the Odaine Demar article can be rejected as it fails WP:NFOOTBALL and WP:GNG. Thanks! JMHamo (talk) 14:57, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

@Anne Delong: Here's a scenario that I would like answered - If I find a submission that I think is notable and add the AfC submission banner and move it to the Draft space; won't it just sit there for six months as the original creator has probably long forgotten about it being over a year since they created it, so in the end it will probably get G13 deleted if no one takes an active interest in it? Thanks, JMHamo (talk) 15:04, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
(1) I don't know anything about football, so I always ask the football guys first. I figure it doesn't hurt to have the page around a little longer to make sure. If you say its not notable, I will take your word for it.
(2)Yes, that could happen. I'm not suggesting moving them all to draft, just ones that have a fair amount of content that could be improved without a total rewrite. Drafts aren't picked up by search engines, and if mirror sites poach the content, the title at least doesn't say "Wikipedia" at the beginning, so there's no real downside to giving them six months even if nothing happens. But there really are editors out there who are working on these abandoned drafts. HERE are some (likely only about a quarter of the total) we've worked on from the G13 queue. Of course I can't guarantee that every one you pick out will find an interested editor, but it doesn't take any longer really to drop an AfC template than a speedy deletion template. Also, don't assume that these drafts are abandoned; some just have editors who have given up trying to figure out how to submit with no template. I have had quite a few original editors thank me and start editing again after I improved their drafts.—Anne Delong (talk) 15:58, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
That's sound advice. I will take it on board. Thanks JMHamo (talk) 16:14, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Is anything in draft space eligible for U10 deletion?

I'd like another set of eyes on this please: Draft:Dontavious "Tay" Smith. It appears to be some sort of over the top resume or one guys overblown fantasy about himself. Do not see a real article coming out of it. Rejected it, but I think it is NOTHERE enough to warrant deletion. John from Idegon (talk) 06:19, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

John from Idegon What is CSD:U10? I don't show that as one of the authorized CSD rationales. Despite that the Code suggests that it's applicable to the User namespace, which does not cover the Draft namespace. I saw that the AFC banners were removed, I have restored them. At this point I see that there is potential in this draft (Youngest mayor, RICO case, etc.). Furthermore I dropped a quick {{uw-autobiography}} on the author's talk page because the page title is the same as the user's name, along with a suggestion about Conflict of interest. Let's see if the user decides to improve the article before slamming the Deletion policies down on them. Hasteur (talk) 14:16, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
I had put an autobio tag on his page too. As I implied above, I think this is a hoax. He isn't nor never has been the mayor of anything. RICO is criminal, not civil law, so no-one but the Federal government is ever gonna be the plantiff. But what ever. And U10 is "using Wikipedia as a webhost". John from Idegon (talk) 15:46, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
Checking the WP:Speedy deletions page, I think web host is db-u5. Draft space isn't user space, so that criteria wouldn't apply. However, pages in Draft space that are not in the AfC process also are not protected against db-g11, (spam), and of course they are supposed to be articles under development, so any content that is inappropriate for an an article can be removed (or the page deleted if there's nothing much left) or userfied if it appears to serve some other purpose. Even those in AfC are sometimes deleted as spam if they are extreme and the user shows no signs of removing the promotional content. —Anne Delong (talk) 16:16, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Should blanked draft pages be deleted or redirect?

Following are some draft pages that were blanked (their contents were copied over to the article space). Should these be redirected (in order to preserve the history) or deleted? I am not familiar with the AfC process, so maybe there is an established process for pages like this, but I thought I would ask and point them out nonetheless.

Thanks, ---Another Believer (Talk) 19:17, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Take this history for example. The creator has blanked it intentionally "Blanked draft for deletion", so CSD G7 would be applicable here in my opinion. JMHamo (talk) 19:20, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
@JMHamo: No, he copy and paste moved. Look here Roscoe R. Koch. If not actually blanked for deletion and please don't delete. a histmerge is needed. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 19:24, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
If they were copied to mainspace, ideally they'd be histmerged. Jackmcbarn (talk) 19:22, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
(edit conflict)@Another Believer: Oh dear that's a very big issue actually. Read over at WP:SPLICE for a bit more info. Normally procedure would be
  • Place a {{histmerge|NAME OF PAGE THE ARTICLE WAS CUT FROM}} template at the new location of the article which has been moved through cut and pasting, i.e. on the article where the pasting was done.
However not all these articles may be mainspace ready or notable, so they may need repairing then moving back to Draft anyway. I'll link this discussion over at the Copy and Paste repair pen or whatever noticeboard. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 19:24, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
I would think the drafts were blanked and the contents added to the article space once they passed some sort of AfC review, but I am not certain. All of the above links are blanked, but there are other draft articles still being worked on by this user (I did not include those links above). One reason I wanted to ask about this was because the author clearly uses AfC a lot (which is great) and maybe moving forward could move the draft to the article space instead of blanking? ---Another Believer (Talk) 19:29, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
No I'm not trying to be harsh, but copy and paste should never be used on Wikipedia. There is a move function designed just for that, and copy and paste moves require lengthy fixes by the nice people over at Wikipedia:Cut-and-paste-move repair holding pen. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 19:32, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment: Just an FYI, I notified the editor here. I am so not trying to call out this wonderful contributor (I appreciate his work!), I am mostly just asking out of curiosity. I invited him to participate in this discussion if he wishes. ---Another Believer (Talk) 19:26, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
I'm the editor in question. I had no idea that this wasn't allowed, and it didn't come from a place of trying to hide the edit history. I was thinking that the article should be notable and fleshed out before being posted, but it makes sense that there should be a record of the edit history. I'll make sure that I am moving instead of blanking and then copying and pasting the (finished) article over. --Kbabej (talk) 19:42, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
  • I do a lot of history merges, and so I have looked into the process in detail and received a lot of advice about when to do it, which I hereby pass along: If drafts (blanked or not) have been pasted to mainspace or elsewhere, the history of the two pages may need to be pasted back together. The reason is that otherwise it looks as though the paster has written the article, and this messes up copyright attribution.
  • If one person has written all of the text in the article (Afc stuff that will be deleted anyway doesn't count), and if that person copies the page into mainspace themselves, usually the old fragment is just G6'd, since it doesn't really matter for copyright purposes if the user made one edit or fifty.
  • If several people have worked on the draft before it's copied, or if it's copied by a someone else who isn't the author, then a history merge is needed, and one of those templates mentioned above should be added to the draft.
  • A problem is created if people keep editing the old draft, not knowing that it had been copied. That's called "parallel histories", and for technical reasons the merge may be complicated or impractical. You can still put the histmerge tag on, and let the experts who monitor the Wikipedia:Cut-and-paste-move repair holding pen decide what to do. If a history merge can't be done, one alternative is moving the page to an alternate title in mainspace and redirecting it, then pasting over any content that was added after the split and adding appropriate edit summaries and "merge-to" and "merge-from" templates to the two talk pages to provide attribution. All of this is time consuming, so catching copy-pastes right away is a real time-saver (another reason to get the backlog down).—Anne Delong (talk) 22:10, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
    • If the draft page is X, and the final page is Y: Check at X and Y for pre-existing deleted edits. Delete X. Undelete all edits of X that were made before the cut-and-paste. History-merge X to Y as usual. Then perhaps undelete the edits left at X. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 08:45, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
  • The only ones I've done that to are drafts that I solely have worked on without input from anyone else. Otherwise, that wouldn't be fair to the other editors. So if I am the only one working on the draft, then I copy and paste it to a new article, it's ok? --Kbabej (talk) 22:54, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
  • @Kbabej: I think what he is trying to say is that those might not need cleanup, but in the future just use move. Its quicker and easier too! EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 00:23, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
  • There's another reason for keeping the whole history of a page, even if you are the only editor. Here's a possible scenario: Editor A creates a lovely draft article about a type of aquarium fish over a period of three months, beginning in February. Almost right away, a mirror site picks up and posts the draft, which is then indexed by Google. In March, a pet shop owner sees the helpful text on the mirror site, and posts it on his store's facebook page, since he sells that kind of fish. In April, the editor copies his draft to mainspace, creating a new document, and tags the draft for deletion. Shortly thereafter, a New Page Patroller assesses the article, notices that the pet store had the text first, and tags the page as a copyright violation. I have actually come across this happening more than once (although not with fish).—Anne Delong (talk) 03:40, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
One-editor drafts which have been copy-pasted by the same editor are not needed for attribution purposes, and can be deleted under db-g6, especially if the whole process only took a few days and so doesn't significantly effect the copyright date. Personally, I am in favour of histmerging them anyway to keep the record of the article's development intact, but please be aware that I was criticized at my RfA for holding this opinion, and as a result have been avoiding doing this myself. As an aside, I would like to ask Kbabej, when creating a draft, as closely as possible to give it the title it will have in mainspace. Draft space is supposed to be collaborative, with other editors stepping in to help improve the drafts, which is unlikely if a page about "Pizza pickles" is called "Draft:PPxxs or something. Also, you may find that another user creates a mainspace article about Pizza pickles while you are working on your draft because they would have no way of knowing that a draft was in progress.—Anne Delong (talk) 12:26, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
  • I found where someone made a draft page about an election in India, then moved it to mainspace, OK so far, and then used the draft page as a scratch page for working out people's infoboxes that were nothing to do with the election. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 15:30, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

More about blank drafts

I realized that everyone was focused on the copy-pastes, but there are other situations. So, to continue Another Believer's question about blank drafts:

If a draft has not been copied anywhere, what to do then if it's blanked? (Sorry, just skip all of this if you already know, or add if you think of something I've missed)

  • Case 1: The draft has never had any content (other than the AfC template), but was submitted to AfC - there's a decline choice in AfC for that; then we wait to see if the editor will add some content. We wait six months if necessary. Then it's G13'd.
  • Case 2: One author makes a draft, with no contributions from anyone, and then decides to blank it. There's a speedy deletion tag for that, which may be applied (see WP:G7). However, when a user pushes the save button, they are licensing their text "irrevocably" to Wikipedia, so if the editor who notices the blank page thinks that it previously contained good encyclopedic content, reverting the blanking, improving and moving to mainspace is a perfectly acceptable and even preferred practice.
  • Case 3: Two of more editors work on a page, and then one blanks it without giving a good reason in the edit summary, the blanking should be reversed, with an edit summary such as "reverting unexplained page blanking", and a note left on the talk page asking for an explanation.
  • Case 4: The draft is not part of AfC and has never had any content, or since the wiki software won't save truly blank pages, just a few characters or something - that's a "test page". WP:G2 Howeer, if the page was just made a few minutes ago, I'd wait a while and see if the editor just saved prematurely and is in the process of adding content. —Anne Delong (talk) 23:14, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
Ditto to what Anne said. On case 4, I'd wait a few months and see what happened, though depending on where the page is we may not have the authority to push it along and so if you feel it needs to go try one of the CSD:G series or nominate it for MFD to see if the community agrees with you. The MFD route is good as it establishes similar cases that could be the basis for a new CSD. Hasteur (talk) 16:13, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

How to publish - Create protection titles

Hi, Plz help me understand what needs to be done by the editor and reviewer when the AFC-draft is ready to move to the main-space but the “title" is create protected ?One life to live (talk) 12:12, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

You'll need help from an administrator. Either use {{editprotected}} on the talk page of the article to be created, or perhaps {{admin help}} on this page. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:27, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Reviewer help archive

Can someone help figure out how to put an {{Archive box}} on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/Reviewer help. I've tried but the archive page naming convention used there is not standard. ~KvnG 16:16, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

 Done - only 2 archives existed so it was simple enough to manually list them. --ThaddeusB (talk) 16:41, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Copyvio detector in reviewer tools for Template:AFC submission/pending

Is there any reason why the copyvio checker isn't in the Reviewer Toolbox for {{AFC submission/pending}}? If there isn't, can we add it? — kikichugirl speak up! 04:14, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Request seconded. Also can we have a Wikipedia search link (to help look for similar existing articles and potential merge targets)? ~KvnG 22:04, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
Kvng, although it could be moved to a more prominent location or expanded, Wikipedia search is already in the template (under "Search:", it's the 3rd link ("WP")). APerson (talk!) 02:32, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing that out. ~KvnG 17:29, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
Yes, thanks; I did not realize that either. DGG ( talk ) 20:05, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
I've gone ahead and expanded the abbreviation, since it seems evident that the link wasn't noticed by at least a few users. APerson (talk!) 15:50, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

0 pending submissions in Category:AfC pending submissions by age/Very old

Good work everyone. That hadn't happened in 6+ months. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:04, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

@ThaddeusB: Honestly thought it was a glitch as I've never seen it before! EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 02:18, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
Excellent! Still plenty of crusty stuff needing love at Category:AfC_postponed_G13 for anyone interested. ~KvnG 16:28, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
Thank you everyone! --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 21:02, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

RfC - Helper Script access

An RfC has been opened at RfC to physically restrict access to the Helper Script. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:55, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Question

Resolved

I am experienced editor and would like to create an article on A. T. Moorthy but I note that a new user has submitted an Afc on the same subject - Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/A. T. Moorthy - which has been rejected twice. My contribution will be significantly different to the Afc submission. Do I move the Afc to mainspace to keep the edit history or do I just ignore the Afc and create a new article? Sorry if I've posted this on the wrong place.--obi2canibetalk contr 14:49, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

@Obi2canibe: If you are planning on reusing any of the current articles content then I would suggest editing the current one. If it will be entirely new, I would suggest making a new draft at Draft:A. T. Moorthy. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 15:19, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
Alternatively, since the main problem with the draft is a POVand lack of inline references, you could simply fix it up. Drafts are not the property of the original editor, any more than anything else here is. Anyone who wants to improve a declined draft and submit it is helping WP. DGG ( talk ) 10:03, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
Done as you've suggested.--obi2canibetalk contr 19:50, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
I've gone ahead and reviewed it for you. Much improved, very good! EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 20:09, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

IP randomly submitting articles

Can people keep an eye out for 62.31.119.102 (talk · contribs)? They seem to be stalking articles in draft space and randomly adding {{subst:submit}} to them for no reason. Their talk page is full of declined notices, presumably from the not-ready drafts they picked up. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:55, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Malice or misguided helpfulness? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 12:08, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
I'll AGF the latter, but at least one, Draft:Know Your IX was only moved to draft this morning because NE Ent didn't think it was ready for mainspace. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:10, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Proposal to use an abuse filter to enforce rule about reviewing drafts

An editor recently created a hacked version of the review script that allowed use by unauthorized users, which they then used to go on a spree of improper reviews. See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Lynctekrua/afch-rewrite.js/submissions.js for details. In light of this, and to prevent such an occurrence from ever happening again, I propose that we now set up an abuse filter rule to enforce who can review drafts, rather than relying on the script to do it. Thoughts? Jackmcbarn (talk) 01:27, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

100% agree, have no idea how abuse filters work. They have ones on Commons that prevent/tag license reviews by non-reviewers so its possible. I've come across people trying to review without the script with limited success... Lots of spliced edit historys and AFC banners messed up. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 01:31, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
I was the one who exposed and acted upon the unusual editing patterns of User:Lynctekrua. There is a simple solution without the need for filters and/or yet more bolt-on scripts. I've been advocating for it ever since I initiated the criteria of experience for reviewers. Simply use exactly the same technical access system and permission request s as for Huggle (through the 'Rollbacker' permission) or AWB through its list page, and have the permission accorded at WP:PERM by an admin. That would also be an extremely good stepping stone for introducing a technically controlled user permission for NPP too.
If that proves too difficult (or too uninteresting for AfC's 'resident' programmers) then simply make sure that the helper script code is invisible, fully protect the page at Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Participants and make additions subject to edit requests that will be authorised or denied by admins. (time for users unfamiliar with the pages at WP:PERM to take a look and see what I am talking about).
A quick look at this will convince anyone that something has to be done now. true to my words months ago, totally inexperienced users are hoering ove their edit count to pounce on that list as soon as they have 500 edits to mainspace and very little else. We need to insist upon the discretionary powers of those overseeing this list to enact the other part of the experience required in addition to 500 mainspace editds, namely: 'thoroughly read and understood the reviewing instructions' and 'a good understanding of the policies mentioned in the reviewing instructions, including the various special notability categories.' --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:43, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
While that is true, AfC always needs more reviewers, otherwise we will always be backlogged. Let's try not to make it too difficult to become one otherwise the backlog will never be solved. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 02:45, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
@Kudpung: How would switching to Huggle or AWB's system help? Users could still create their own version of the script that didn't have the permission check. Also, it's 100% completely impossible to "make sure that the helper script code is invisible". Jackmcbarn (talk) 02:46, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
See if I didn't take a whole lot of time loooking through revision histories I would have brought this up as suspicious. User:McIntireEvan/afch-rewrite.js/submissions.js? Has a grand 80 edits but added as a student apparently. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 03:02, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)::::@EoRdE6: please follow the links in my message before commenting. AfC is totaly overburdened because a) it tries to take on too much, e.g. be a second WP:ARS, b) the requests for help with reviewing cleary demonstartae that reviewers don't know what to do, and c) although I set the criteria of 500e/90d myself, it has proven to be hopelessly inadequate because users hover with their mouse over their edit count until they have reched 500 without even bothering to fulfill the other requifrements. We certainly do not need more inexperienced users - they create more work than ever. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:04, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

@Kudpung: Looking at contribs the reviews leave much to be desired, actually (I just reluctantly G11'd one; it was unsalvageable). I'd say the average good AfC reviewer accepts 1 on 30-50 drafts. This is a lot of acceptances. In fact, today I was in a heated discussion with an editor who I and User:Primefac agreed that these reviews shouldn't have been accepted. I only notified them, but Primefac reverted all of them and now there are newbies caught in the crossfire. :( A change is definitely necessary (or at least have reviewers/admins patrol new reviewers, maybe like a Pending Changes thing). — kikichugirl speak up! unsigned when written, re-signing at 04:12, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

@Jackmcbarn:, if it works for stuff like Huggle and/or AWB then it is absolutely possible for it to work for AfC. The problem is in finding programmers who do not act as if they own AfC and use the AfC project as a battleground for #1 place for their scripts. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:09, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

@Kudpung: It doesn't really "work" for Huggle either. It's just that nobody's bothered to try to bypass Huggle's rules yet. Jackmcbarn (talk) 03:12, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

@Jackmcbarn: - yes and up to now we only had one user who tried not only to create his own script for AfC but also to create one for blocking users in order to bypass becoming an admin. Admittedly we occasionally have cranks like that but it is rare. The suggestions I made above for tightening up the access to the script 'and' reviewing the editors who have very little experience beyond the 500 edits they racked up just to be able to join AfC, are perfectly viable and feasible. Just take a look at the history - don't you think I'm getting fed up of being practically the only user to patrol this page and do something about it every time? The amount of talk here and little action makes me understandably jaded. I'm getting more convinced that it's time to enact last April's consensus and close down AfC altogether and replace it with either a clone of the NPP suite of software, or simply combine it with NPP. At least we would also get some quality patrolling finally done at NPP which is a ten-fold more important process than AfC. Although he's busy now in a new, very time consuming job, I think we should call on DGG for his input here. If I'm wrong with anything, he will tell us, and I highly respect his experience, opinions, and above all, wisdom. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:27, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

@EoRdE6:It's all very well now taking a stab at Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Participants in good faith because I mentioned it, , but you are still not getting it right and as a consequence making more work for me checking what you are doing. You also apparently never brought the User:McIntireEvan/afch-rewrite.js/submissions.js issue to the notice of anyone who could do something about it. Such a user needs to be severely warned and their special .js page deleted like we did with the other clown, and then closely watched for any other edits they may do with a view to blocking them if necessary. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:45, 1 February 2015 (UTC) I see now that User:McIntireEvan, according to Theopolisme, might possibly somewaht of a special case, but that doesn't excuse either mac or Theo from keeping us informed. I'm nevertheless still highly skeptical of anyone who creates a Wikipedia account for such a very singular purpose, and if it's an additional account of an existing user, they should tell us. At least it would keep Hasteur amused. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:51, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

McIntireEvan is legitimately a script developer. That copy isn't a problem at all and shouldn't be removed. Jackmcbarn (talk) 03:53, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
That doesn't excuse the fact that we were not informed about it. It would have avoicded all the discussion here concerning McIntireEvan.
Wikipedia:STiki is another script or piece of software that requires a clearly defined set of qualifications - much higher than those for AfC - for its use and a request for permission to use it, and that for only chasing vandals. I don't know how one can make these AfC issues more clear - it seems as if those who are most active on AfC (not those who limit themselves to actual reviewing) are putting their hands over their eyes and ears. Note that Anne Delong and Hasteur and Technical 13 don't chime in here (perhaps it's their time zones). --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:32, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
Well an edit filter would be a place to start at least. Even if it doesn't solve everything. Also T13 and Hasteur have an interaction ban with each other and me and Hasteur aren't on very good terms with one another so don't expect much there. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 05:24, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
I saw the discussion, but since you only pinged DGG I was sulking (okay, just kidding, I was actually battling the Hasteurbot, which nominated for deletion a batch of abandoned pages that got by me...). I'm not sure in particular what you wanted me to comment on, so here's a smattering of opinions (as you know I always have plenty).
  • I agree with Kudpung that it's not likely that many editors are going to go to the trouble to modify software just so they can stick templates on AfC pages. Experienced users know that they can just move pages out of AfC any time they want to, and take the consequences. I wasn't aware of this until afterwards, but it's not likely a problem worth spending a lot of time on on which it's worth spending a lot of time.
  • Thanks, Kudpung, for keeping an eye on the Participants page. I have seen others dealing with inexperienced reviewers. I'm sorry I haven't been helping out with this. About all talk and no action - please specify exactly what action you wish would be done.
  • The problem of users who meet the official criteria but aren't good at reviewing is not unique to AfC, since everything on Wikipedia seems to be a learning curve with a moving endpoint. As mentioned above, we want new reviewers; I can't think of a way of efficiently monitoring their reviews so as to bring them up to speed - maybe a welcome template with suggestion to use the Reviewer Help page, etc., would have some effect, and perhaps some of the more experienced reviewers could spend some time looking at Template:AFC statistics, which can be sorted by reviewer, to find problem reviewers.
  • About closing down Afc - I like AfC, and won't help close it, since I feel that the same amount of work would just pop up somewhere else, but if it closes down I'm sure I'll participate in whatever replaces it, even if'ss thousand and thousands of AfDs.—Anne Delong (talk) 05:54, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
there are two problems: One is what the procedure should be for approving new submission. Here, the only rational step is to remove the entire AfC process. If we have one incoming stream of articles, at NPP, we can deal with it better. Draft space can be a holding space to deal with articles moved there after AfD or after review at NPP. We can then deal with how to improve it by adjusting the requirements for patrollers there. (I've done a prelim check on submissions--almost all could be dealt with equally well at NP, by either accepting or listing for deletion--numbers and examples forthcoming if I ever have the time --Anne Delong, you are right it would be the same work, but it's more easily controlled in a single stream. )
But then, and now, we need to control who does the approval. I agree totally with Kudpung that right away we do have to increase the requirements to include active permission-granting of this right. The STiki procedure would work,or anything similar). (Huggle , btw, no longer has an approval mechanism. It's a gadget; anyone can use it. We have not had many problems with it, because it adds no particular powers, just prevents technical errors in applying normal tagging.) The requirements should not be only numeric. They should require the significant and correct addition of material to articles, significant participation in one or another quality improvement process, and a probationary period. (There's no real way of providing specific training, except NPP, and I wouldn't want to do that, for the requirements for approving articles there should be every bit as high--it's the same process essentially. The requirement there is presently autoconfirmed, & much lower -- 4 days and 10 edits -- it's just intended to weed out the worst of the SPAs.) I would also perhaps add the one visible process of article review here , AfD -- it needs participants and is safe, can be easily watched, because errors are corrected by the other participants and the admins, and, ultimately, by Deletion Review. It's how I learned, so naturally I think it's a good method. If the standard does not get raised, no progress will be made, because we'll continue to be too busy dealing with errors. It takes much more time to detect and correct errors than to do things correctly.
There are so many other things that would help. Requiring handwritten comments as well as the prebuilt reasons, and requiring review and editing of the prebuilt comments before pasting them, so people could include only what is relevant. The long awaited ability to combine reason (this is lacking at NPP, by the way, despite its otherwise superior feature. Kudpung, it's time this were fixed.) The ability to sort by subject. The clarifying or removal of such vague reasons as "essay", "lacking context" "not in a formal style" , "not suitable for WP" -- at least half the pages marked with these are marked inappropriate. An easier way of auditing. And I could have have gone on to list a few dozen other needed fixes, none of them impossible, all of them asked for long ago. The burden of fixing them should be on those who want to keep this process. DGG ( talk ) 06:04, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

I would like to thank DGG for his input here - and certainly not for simply concuring with me, I was not 100% sure that he would even be in agreement. Anne Delong, I did ping you, but thank you for boldly putting into words something that I very cafrefully circumvented: the perennial battle between those editors now i-banned for vying for the #1 position of programmer and who are essentially here to demonstrate their programming skills rather than be concerned with the philosphy and policies surrounding the creation of new articles.

When AfC finally gets closed down in accordance with the April 2014 consensus and has its own proper feed and suite of software or is merged to an existing project, those people will be out of a job. One thing however on which I must put you right is that NPP in spite of having a ten times more new pages to contend with every day, does not create dozens of AfD. Far from it. As DGG points out NPP is a sorting process, just like AfC should be, and not a field hospital. Anyone who has any military training will understand the most unenviable task that front line medics are confronted with at CasEvac where triage is a sad, unpleasant but necessary task. That's what we do at NPP and what should be done at AfC.

The most urgent and immediate solution is to place the page at Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Participants under full protection, forcing edit requests and the additions being made at admin discretion. That's very basically what we do at WP:PERM although there are a few minor technicalities involved. Admins will then vet not only the edit count but also the overall suitability and motivation just as they do their due diligence when according or declining requests for Reviewer or Rollbacker. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:42, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

For those without a long history here, Kudpung is referring to my opposition to his earlier proposal to restrict the creation of new pages. I continue to think it important that people can write articles immediately on coming here,because of my experience in seeing it a strong motivating factor with new users in editathons.
the suggestion for full protection does sound like a simple immediate measure, even though it does not deal with anything fundamental. But considering it's not quite a routine use of full protection, I think Id like to see some degree of consensus--and to let an admin without previous involvement her place the protection. DGG ( talk ) 09:35, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

I certainly agree with the editathon thing, DGG, but let us not forget that the people who go to editathons are already highly motivated Wikipedians-to-be. The crap gets created online by the trolls, spammers, and CCOI/POV misfits. I must admit however that I'm seeing a marked decline in the number of vandalism, hoax, and attack pages, but perhaps I'm just ptrolling at the wrong time of day for tnhier time zones. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:24, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

This blew up rather stupendously overnight... Kudpung you might want to outright make an apology for your "I see that our resident techs haven't chimed in yet" statement as we're volunteers as well. I take significant umbrage at that. Now it seems to me that part of the "Shut down AFC" RFC that we had was to have something to replace it first rather than denying unregistered/newbie editors the ability to submit a new article. The predicate hasn't been fufilled (as there is no tool to deal with these submissions) therefore the the response hasn't been fufilled. I also question if your supposition that shutting down AFC is what was agreed to. I don't recall that being agreed to. Finally it's always going to be an arms race between those people who attempt to get around the requirements for using the AFC tools and those of us trying to uphold the requirements. Just because it's an arms race doesn't mean that we should relent. And with that I exit stage right from this discussion as it appears we've already got an angry mob. Hasteur (talk) 13:05, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

you might ask why the "mob" is so angry. They're upset at being involved in a losing arms race with insufficient weapons that take years to incorporate improvements, in forced company with many soldiers who don't understand what they're doing and are shooting at random people. We first have to understand that the battle is not going to ever be finished. WP is always growing, and we will always be getting new submissions, many of which will be useful. But we're losing because the flood of promotional submissions has increased, and we need better ways to deal with them. The key method is to shoot down the incoming invaders as they appear, not send them back to try another time. AfC is based on the assumption that most submissions will be acceptable eventually, and the submitters will help improve them, which is patently false. At least half will never be acceptable, and the main problem is how to efficiently & definitively get rid of them. Of the others, the ones that are fundamentally acceptable and need improvement will be improved much better in main space. DGG ( talk ) 10:10, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
  • I will start by apologizing for not doing more to help the AFC WikiProject endure its workload – I'm a very inactive member right now. FWIW, my interest in being regularly active began to wane proportionately with my realization that the vast majority of participants who use AFC trying to get an article published reek with a terribly hard to breath stench called "super-duper COI". It almost follows that there are basically two kinds of people whose first Wikipedia endeavor is to have an article published – those with a COI, and those with a super-duper COI. The situation had a negative effect on me and I progressively did less and less. Maybe there are some things worth fixing around that notion too. I think there are; although thinking's not my best suit – I should disclaim. Cheers.--John Cline (talk) 14:15, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Hello, an outsider's comment here. I only recently became aware of AfC: I think I was commenting to Lopifalko on his suggestion of creating a new article, realized that he planned to title it "Draft:[Title]", and wondered why on earth why this should be so. (L: "You mean one can just ... create an article?" Me: "Well of course.") As it happens I am, for the first time ever, working on a "Draft" myself right now (long story); but as I look at "Drafts" in general I'm dismayed: so many seem promotional, or are so bad as to require about as much work to "fix" as it would take to start afresh, or some combination of the two. ¶ I think the main problem is the feeling of an obligation to encourage people to jump in and "be bold", when only a tiny percentage of newcomers are capable of this. No wonder a significant number of them take up the invitation, are clobbered for this or that species of incompetence, are dismayed and go away (or worse, stay and sulk). My brain feeling (no mere gut feeling, this!) is that newcomers should on the contrary be encouraged to dip their toes in WP editing, then the ankle, then -- well, you know the rest of the metaphor. Once they know what they're doing, they can create articles. After all, why not wait? Probably because they have a burning urge to write about just this or that subject. Chances are high that there's a CoI; and even if there isn't, then there's very likely to be some sort of emotional attachment (or loathing). AfC seems to me a wonderful notion given certain premisses -- which unfortunately are for the most part fictional. -- Hoary (talk) 10:42, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

What needs to be done in in situation like this

Hi , This is the first time I encountered this while AFC review https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WildSci/sandbox can’t see any article / content which can be moved to draft space . Please help me learn what needs to be done in such cases. Thanks One life to live (talk) 12:28, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Samuell1616. There is nothing that needs to be done right now with this blank submission, since an empty page isn't really a draft, and we wouldn't know what title to give it. The user will likely add some content and resubmit the page, at which time a move to Draft space may be appropriate. If the page remains blank it will eventually be considered abandoned and be deleted under db-g13. —Anne Delong (talk) 12:56, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
@Anne Delong: Hi there, Thank you. I learned something new today and the credit goes to you ... appreciate your quick response. Thanks again.. Cheers !!! One life to live (talk) 13:05, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Process for a reorganized article?

An editor did a massive reorganization of the content of List of viruses, a massive list in alphabetic order. They reorganized it in Draft:List of viruses, putting them into expanding lists organized by the Baltimore classification. WikiProject viruses likes it and another editor wants to do a replacement. What are the steps to do this and preserve the edit history of both? StarryGrandma (talk) 18:33, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

  • I personally would tell the editor who created the draft to copy and paste his content to the current article and leave a note on the TP for attribution. But don't take my word, I'll ping the expert of history merges @Anthony Appleyard: for his opinion. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 18:42, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
  • @User:StarryGrandma: History-merging is for where there was a single clean complete cut-and-paste from page A to page B. If it was a copy-and-paste, or a text-merge of two pages, or a page split into two pages, or many small movings of text, history-merge cannot be done; best thing is to put at the start of its talk page a ==History section== saying where the text in the page came from. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 23:22, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
If the original editor is still active and move the information to the mainspace article him/herself, the draft is then unneeded and can be deleted db-g6 (routine maintenance). If someone else moves it, the process is at WP:MERGETEXT with additional details for moving of all content at WP:FMERGE. However, both of the pages should be in mainspace, so the draft needs to be moved to some alternate title in mainspace as a redirect. This page: Wikipedia:Merge and delete#What can 'merge and delete' look like? has advice on where in mainspace to store the redirected page if no one can think of a useful alternate title.—Anne Delong (talk) 14:13, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
The original editor Bervin61 was active earlier today. So simply ask them to paste the new text into the mainspace article. Anne is right: there is no need to preserve history if one person wrote the text then pastes it in. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 15:05, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

A Template for Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/Participants

A couple issues I wanted to address. Firstly I have made a template for users to request on the talk page, located at Template:AFC Request. It might not be the best coding but it does the job. Second, Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Participants is in serious need of updating. A big link should be added at the top pointing to the talk page and the text telling people to add their names to the list needs removing. WE need an admin to come do that. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 22:49, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't quite see the use for the tpl you created. Are you sure it is not instruction creep? Users who have asked for their names to be added to the list under the new system have understood and done what they should. It all boils down again to the fact that anyone who cannot read instructions or who has to be spoon fed with them, should probably not be reviewing at AfC. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:13, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
That is true but I prefer things like that to be neat and organized. With the template a edit count button is automatically added to the request and everything is kept uniform, easier for the admins. Speaking of which is it necessary to add admin instruction or can they figure it out? EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 01:29, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

What the template applies: note the edit count button. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 01:30, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I like things to be neat and organized too. IMO the template is overkill - I think you'll find that admins are able to figure out what to do, that's why they are admins. That said, just as at WP:PERM, the edit count is not the sole criterion. Admins need to do further checks for general cluefulness and maturity, and ability to conduct discussions with all users in a formal manner. We don't have to be ramrod stiff at Wikipedia, and even I'm not at my old age, but we do need to give the impression that Wikipedia is a serious project and is run by serious people. That's one of the reasons we've introduced this measure. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:54, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Clarification about Notability, Independent reliable references and Promotion guideline

Moved question to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation/Help_desk#15:17:55, 15 February 2015 help regarding world records

That's a reviewer question so maybe Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/Reviewer help is a more appropriate location. ~KvnG 15:52, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
The person has just become a reviewer, but the question seems to be mostly inspired by his own AfC submission. Let's first figure out if his submission can be saved, then we can address his concerns about sources being ignored by reviewers. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 15:14, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
@Hroðulf: Thanks, So now the question should be moved back here where it originally started or as suggest by KvnG at reviewer help ?One life to live (talk) 12:04, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Redirects

Some assistance at Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Redirects would be most welcome. To speed things up the beta version of AFC helper script works on that page, for both redirects and categories. Bellerophon talk to me 22:50, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

I have "Yet another Articles for creation helper script", but cannot get automated assistance working on Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Redirects. How can one activate this? Please ping me on reply, thanks. --LukeSurl t c 17:07, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
@LukeSurl: Its only available in the beta, which I can't figure out how to get. @Bellerophon: how do I install the beta version? Thanks EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 18:53, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
See User:Bellerophon/common.js. The first line contains the import code for AFC beta, which ironically is an earlier version to the present one. You will need to disable the current AFC helper script and then copy the first line of my common.js page to your common.js page. The only real downside to Beta is that when reviewing articles it does not automatically add the decline reason the submitters talk page, but you can always copy and paste it in yourself. Bellerophon talk to me 20:07, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
There are several requests for R from alternative languages. I'm not confident accepting these (esp. the non-Roman ones), as I can't verify that the non-English title is correct, or even that it is not horrendously offensive. Aside from learning Japanese, any ideas here? --LukeSurl t c 13:57, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
@LukeSurl: I usually check the target article to see if the foreign language title is shown there and if there is a reliable source for it. If it's not, I use Google translate and set it to auto-detect the language. Google translate is pretty good for literal translations, so languages that rely heavily on loan-words, such as Japanese, are quite easy to handle. It also copes well with most European languages. If you can't get it to translate a phrase, try each word individually and use best judgement. Chinese can get a bit tricky, but I have some basic ability in that language, so if you get really stuck just ping me. Bellerophon talk to me 23:27, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Mads Peitersen

Could someone create a wiki page on this amazing artist

Yes, you could! The Article Wizard will help you. Bellerophon talk to me 23:31, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
Frankly I doubt it, and I think it is cruel to tell a new editor otherwise. A Google search shows that Mads Peitersen is very good at self-publicity; but I find no mention of him in reliable independent sources, such as Wikipedia requires for an article. Maproom (talk) 23:42, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
FWIW, there are plenty of reliable source mentions (do a news search) and notability looks borderline - there is definitely a chance a viable article could be written. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:48, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

IFU Backlog

FYI, Wikipedia:Files for upload has a backlog with unresponded requests dating back to 31 October 2014, (no queries on some requests starting at that time) that's around 4 months now, so a 1-season backlog -- 70.51.200.101 (talk) 09:49, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Some of these should be easily declinable, being empty requests, or requests missing image links. Others should be easily queriable, as they seem to be missing information -- 70.51.200.101 (talk) 09:55, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Check process

Hi, two questions ; First - is there a check or appraisal method to know how am doing as AFC reviewer and over all as a wiki contributor? Second- is it possible to keep a separate log of individual AFC reviews  ? Thanks ...One life to live (talk) 12:20, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

What did I mess up?

I noticed an editor copying his autobiography from his sandbox User:Markandrewz/sandbox to article space. Clearly it's not ready for article space so I moved it to draft space and added a AFC header. [7] No doubt I messed up something or broke the some process. Any comments (or brickbats)? --NeilN talk to me 23:10, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm confused... What did you mess up other than a blatent copy paste move cleanup that I can be bothered to tag... EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 01:37, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
@NeilN: To clarify, moving bad pages that are still being created (particularlly by new users) is a good idea, and a better alternative to CSD. However because the user copy and pasted the article it should have been history merged per WP:CUTPASTE. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 01:42, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
EoRdE6, there's no need for a history merge - see WP:NOATT. The AFC template is usually added by the AFC script. I wanted to know my manual addition didn't mess anything up. --NeilN talk to me 01:50, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
Look a few above this section to Should blanked draft pages be deleted or redirect?. You'll see another reason other than attribution. Wikipedia has many mirror sites that show the same content in different formats. Should someone check for copyvios and find it was on a different site before the supposed creation date here it is considered a copyvio and speedily delted. Once again look above(or click link) for full convo. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 01:54, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
I see you strongly holding one opinion with others having differing opinions. Your mirror site example does not really make sense. All mirror sites must attribute their work to the original source (i.e., Wikipedia). Again, WP:NOATT is a Wikipedia guideline and there's no reason to ignore it. Heck, the one article I've created followed the same develop-in-sandbox, paste to new article process. --NeilN talk to me 02:08, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
I quote an admin above "A problem is created if people keep editing the old draft, not knowing that it had been copied." There's another issue. There is no purpose in copy-paste moving instead of actually moving. It takes longer, and leaves a mess behind. Why not just move like the rest of the Wikipedia community started doing in 2002. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 02:36, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
Well, given that I'm the one copying (and then blanking) it, there's no chance of editing the old draft. There's no "mess" left behind and obviously this particular practice is still used. Also, lots of editors work on new sections of existing articles in their sandbox and then copy-paste the new content into the article. --NeilN talk to me 02:50, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
Oh new sections are fine, just with whole pages it makes no sense. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 02:51, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 23 February 2015

Please edit the template as shown in the diff here (this was done on the sandbox page).

The tool is now located at http://tools.wmflabs.org/citations/doibot.php —CraigyDavi (T∙C∙@) 19:06, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Could whoever adds this also add <noinclude>{{pp-template|small=yes}}</noinclude> to the top of the page? Thanks! EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 19:10, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
Done — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 13:01, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

auto archiving?

So I've just archived the page (that hasn't really been touched in my absence!), and was wondering if there was a consensus to enable auto-archiving on here again? Thanks, Mdann52 (talk) 17:53, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Is there a reason why it isn't...? — kikichugirl speak up! 18:41, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

WP:AFC/R

I am surprised to see that Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Redirects is named so even though it includes requests for both redirects and categories. Can anyone explain why? I think it should be moved to Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Redirects and categories. Also, the page's talk page redirects here. Why? — Preceding unsigned comment added by SD0001 (talk • contribs)

Probably because categories were added as an afterthought. Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Categories redirects there; many talk pages in the scope of Wikiproject Articles for Creation redirect here to allow more centralised discussion. The page should not be moved without further input from the script devs as doing so would almost certainly break the only version of the script that currently works at WP:AFC/R. Bellerophon talk to me 17:40, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
Categories should be split to a separate request page, since they seem to wait around for some time to be processed, unlike redirects. -- 70.51.200.101 (talk) 06:17, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
If you are serious about it, you can make a request at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals), or initiate an RfC here. SD0001 (talk) 07:50, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Great work everyone

Category:Pending AfC submissions contains 967 items. Is that cause for celebration or what? — kikichugirl speak up! 01:58, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

493 now..Cheers!! Ṫ Ḧ the joy of the LORDmy strength 14:43, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
While this is terrific, let's make sure we aren't just rushing through and rejecting drafts that could pass AfD or accepting sub par articles. And its always a good idea to run Reflinks through an article with bare refs before accepting, it only takes a minute. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 14:58, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
Crikey, I haven't seen AfC this un-backlogged in a long time, even the list template now works. I may do a few spotchecks on declined submissions, as I think that's the larger problem than stuff going through to AfD, which I already keep an eye on. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:00, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 28 February 2015

If I'm not mistaken, the "Draft:" namespace is much prefered over the "Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/" namespace. On this template there is already a capability to move pages to the "Draft:" namespace so I don't see why there should also be a function to move it to the old, deprecated namespace.

Please edit the template as shown in the diff here (done on the sandbox page), thanks. —CraigyDavi (T∙C∙@) 14:03, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit template-protected}} template. This has been requested before, and there is still no consensus for it. Please make further requests on the proper Template_talk: page. Thank you. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 14:45, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
Should be done. There is solid consensus to use the Draft space instead, and this is a mere technical fix to ensure that articles should not be added in the wrong way. DGG ( talk ) 06:12, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
Yes, if there is still an option to save drafts in "Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation", it should be removed; we're trying to empty that area of drafts, not suggest that more be created there, and the consensus about this has been in place for many months. —Anne Delong (talk) 07:25, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
Agree This should be changed, the Draft namspace allows for easier finding and collaboration. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 13:49, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
There is a very well established consensus that use of "Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/" is deprecated in favour of Draft-space. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:22, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
 Done – Paine EllsworthCLIMAX! 15:39, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Proposal for WP:Drafts for deletion

A proposal for splitting up WP:Miscellany for deletion is currently underway at WP:Village pump (proposals)#Splitting up the MfD. This includes the possibility of the creation of a new WP:Drafts for deletion page, which might of interest to this WikiProject. Your comments on the proposal would be appreciated. Thanks, SD0001 (talk) 21:01, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

It's been a while

Hello all! I took an extended leave from Wikipedia almost a year ago. How are things these days? Still experiencing an eternal backlog? How are all the editors doing? Anyways, just saying hi again and I hope to see you around. Cheers, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 17:12, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

The backlog is down, review quality is hopefully (touch wood) on the up, and there is still the possibility of doing something else with the workflow entirely. Anyway, good to see you back - I'm not doing much on AfC myself these days but I still pop in to review the odd article. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:21, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the update! Doing something else? Anything specific? FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 21:41, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
Article writing mostly, with a flair for article rescue. Still working on taking a CSD nominated article to GA - haven't managed that yet. Done one AfD - GA, and another one's at GAN now. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 21:43, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
Jolly good! I'll see if I can hop on that wagon. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 00:21, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Better copyvio message at Template:AFC submission/comments

 – Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 19:14, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

I wanted to get some feedback on the message we put on pages with copyright violations. Currently that text reads:

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

The issue is that a large fraction of the people that come to WP:AFCHD are asking some variation of "Why was my article deleted, the text was copied from the company's website?" or "This is my company's text, it isn't a copyright violation". The two things that don't seem to be coming across is (a) that all text on the web, unless specified otherwise, is assumed to be under copyright and (b) the procedures (and pitfalls) of donating copyrighted text to Wikipedia.

I am proposing the following wording, but I'd like any help or input in making this work better:

Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously. You should assume that most content on the internet and in printed sources is copyrighted, and is therefore unsuitableunacceptable for publishing on Wikipedia unless it has been specificallyexplicitly released under a compatible free license. Note that copyright protection is granted to all works automatically, whether it is asserted or not. If the copyrighted text was created by you or your company you can donate it, however promotional text found on other websites is not appropriate for Wikipedia and should be rewritten from a neutral point of view. Copyrighted content can be cited as a reliable source if it meets Wikipedia's guidelines as long as your submission is written in your own words, and in continuous prose.

Comments? --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:47, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

It's a good idea to revise this, since so many draft articles run into this problem. I'd like to see it worded in simpler English and emphasize that it is illegal on Wikipedia's part to do this. Leave out the talk of donating in this message. The tone of the material is almost never right for an encyclopedia. I suggest something like:
It is illegal (copyright violation) for Wikipedia to have anything in it copied from already published sources, even if you wrote that source yourself. (There are some exceptions for older material). Use reliable sources as references, but rewrite in your own words. Good published material often exists to promote the subject, as it should. So rewrite using a neutral point of view.
StarryGrandma (talk) 17:47, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
I like your proposal. I suggest replacing "unsuitable" by "unacceptable", and "specifically" by "explicitly". Maproom (talk) 20:25, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
@Ahecht: I think the wording is accurate, but it's too long. New editors aren't going to read it and the help desk will still be inundated with questions people could already have the answers to, if the did a little more reading. @StarryGrandma: It's a good start, but I'm concerned about the use of the word illegal. It's only illegal if Wikipedia reproduces something that explicitly violates copyright law. It is a matter of policy for Wikipedia to aggressively remove material that meets the threshold for originality and has been copied from elsewhere, if no compatible licensing terms apply; because it would be all to easy to fall foul of copyright law if we didn't. I also don't think we should be making suppositions about whether 'good sources promote the subject'. I would suggest something short and written in simple English, but is still businesslike. Such as:

Wikipedia cannot accept material copied from elsewhere, unless it explicitly exists under a compatible licence and is written in an acceptable tone—this includes material that you own the copyright to. You should attribute the content of a draft to outside sources, using citations, but copying and pasting or closely paraphrasing sources is not acceptable. The entire draft should be written using your own words and structure.

Leave out all the info about donating copyright as to self-interested people here promote stuff, that translates as: "if you jump through some hoops we'll happily post your corporate bio on Wikipedia". Bellerophon talk to me 14:58, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
I like that, it shifts the focus away from the legal intricacies of what is/isn't under copyright and instead focuses on what the editor can/cannot do. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 16:10, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
Agreed, this is smart wording. --LukeSurl t c 16:17, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
Yes please. --j⚛e deckertalk 21:00, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
 Done I gave this discussion an extra week to marinate, and submitted an edit request at Template talk:AFC submission#Template-protected edit request on 1 March 2015. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 16:54, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
The problem, as I've just realized, is that most editors never see the message from Template:AFC submission/comments because the draft is speedy deleted and the message isn't transcluded onto their talk pages like the other decline messages are. I've proposed a change at Template talk:Afc decline#Add_decline_reason_from_.7B.7BAFC_submission.2Fcomments.7Ccv.7D.7D_for_copyvios.3F that should fix this. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 13:07, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Bug with open ref tags

There seems to be a bug when submitting a draft that contains open ref tags, and I can't find this discussed in the archives.

As an example we have Draft:Cody Lachey submitted 17:22, 5 November 2014‎. Nothing happened, still the grey AFC submission "Draft article not currently submitted for review" box, so the user tried again a minute later. Newyorkadam in all good faith comes around 02:56, 23 February 2015 and closes ref tags, which turns him into submitter.

For what it is worth he and I did some tests on Draft:Testing - ignore this - will G7 later and Draft:Testing - ignore this - will G7 later 2 to fathom what was going on, and talked about it at User talk:Newyorkadam#AFC submission template. -- Sam Sailor Talk! 12:36, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

I see that @Sam Sailor: reverted @Newyorkadam:'s edit, and that there have been two subsequent attempts to resubmit, again unsuccessful because of the unterminated ref tags. I have taken the liberty of reverting to Newyorkadam's version, but just correcting the submitter's name & date in the template to reflect the original submission attempt. David Biddulph (talk) 11:24, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, David, the way to work around the problem became clear when we tested it. But there's obviously a bug presumably in {{AFC submission}} that needs to be dealt with. -- Sam Sailor Talk! 11:31, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
No, there's not a bug in {{AFC submission}}. That template was never called, because the string {{subst:submit}} was never parsed. The reason for that was simply that with an unterminated ref the rest of the page is regarded as being part of the ref. An error message was automatically inserted to highlight the unterminated ref. - David Biddulph (talk) 11:36, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
Yes, {{AFC submission}} is called from its /draft state. Look at the testing already done and feel free to play around with it. -- Sam Sailor Talk! 12:02, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
Sorry, yes, my wording was not quite correct. As you rightly say, it had its AFC submission in its draft state, and the draft was therefore correctly listed in the appropriate categories for an unsubmitted AFC draft. As I said, however, the {{subst:submit}} was never parsed (because of the unterminated comment), and that is what would have moved it from the draft to submitted state. --David Biddulph (talk) 12:17, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

That's a correct observation and description of what happens. -- Sam Sailor Talk! 13:11, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

The real bug is the often reported phab:T4700, here meaning that {{subst:}} does not work in ref tags. If it worked then the submission box would just have become part of a reference. A reviewer could have cleaned that up. A Draft space search of "subst:submit" finds many failed attempts to submit and there are also some in other namespaces. An AfC reviewer should maybe make that search periodically. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:14, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, PrimeHunter. -- Sam Sailor Talk! 13:30, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Recreation of a deleted article

The F1 financial crisis article was deleted from Wikipedia last month over concerns about original research. However it was today accepted at AFC by Graeme Bartlett, despite the fact it is a copy of a deleted article, that was still a page formed by forming a conclusion from the synthesis of different subjects from multiple sources. Are recreations of deleted content not checked by reviewers? Articles like this should be speedied under G4. QueenCake (talk) 00:03, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

If you feel the article has not improved enough since deletion, then yes it is eligible under WP:G4. not much seems to have changed. Can I also just point out this creation was pretty sneaky, by using different capitalisation it avoids the AfC helper script's deletion log checks which would have prevented acceptance. So yes G4, unless you thing it deserves another AfD. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 00:23, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
Striked some of that as the reviewer changed the name apparently. Graeme Bartlett (talk · contribs) mind explaining why this was recreated even when you knew about the past AfD and it's rationale? [8] EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 00:28, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
The proposed article addressed the concerns, ie original research and GNG. When I searched on line I found reliable sources using and writing about the term. I did not look at the deleted version, so I do not know if the original AFD was valid or not. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:41, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
It's still heavily synthesised and contains original research. Some of the essay-like qualities have been tidied up, but it's still something that should be deleted under G4. The original AfD was valid. Prisonermonkeys (talk) 07:05, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
It's a tricky one. I follow F1 a little, and a fair few commentators are using the term "crisis" to describe the current situation - at least tentatively: (e.g. BBC News - Why is Formula 1 in crisis?, Autosport - Is Formula 1 in crisis?). The AfD did close "Without prejudice to recreation should this develop further.", which is debatable. A G4 CSD is too heavy a tool for this situation. I suggest we bump it back down to draft, and invite WikiProject_Formula_One to the draft talk page. Hopefully they to work on the manuscript and promote it to an article if/when there is consensus to do so. --LukeSurl t c 10:45, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
You'll find plenty of sources referring to financial problems related to this or that thing in F1. What you cannot currently find are sources referring to a definite "F1 financial crisis". There is no reliable source giving a timescale, causes, issues covered, or how these problems are interconnected into one widely recognised "crisis". Compare to Greek government-debt crisis, which is a widely recognised subject that can be defined by numerous sources. If G4 is not the correct procedure at the moment, we should indeed be bumping it down to a draft until the subject can be supported (if at all). QueenCake (talk) 16:51, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
Looking at this from the article creator's perspective, he was told there was a possibility of recreation when the AfD closed. He/she worked on amending a draft (rather than a malicious mainspace recreation), which is a perfectly reasonable course of action. He then submitted it for peer review, which was, rightly or wrongly, approved. Being speedily deleted would seem cruel, as the recreation of the deleted material was not done directly in mainspace, and there's plenty of reason to assume good faith here on behalf of the author.
A well-written commentary on the financial situation in the sport since 2014 would be a useful contribution to the encyclopedia. It may be that we need a more coolly worded title, or this commentary can be done as sections in other articles. Regardless, there's no good reason to delete when we have the option of bumping down to a draft. --LukeSurl t c 17:03, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Graeme Bartlett to avoid the appearance of an Admin-supervote would you please restore the status-quo-ante of begin the community endorsed process of overriding the AfD by a Deletion Review? Hasteur (talk) 17:52, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

If there is no "F1 financial crisis" perhaps the artcile should be renamed "F1 finances in 2014/1015"? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:17, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I will move the article back to a draft in the mean time. And in response to some initial statements, I was not aware of any AFD until notified in this discussion. No admin powers have been used until now when they will be needed to put the draft back. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:42, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
Moved to Draft:F1 financial crisis. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:55, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
I've alerted the author. I'm hoping this can be a case whereby a Wikiproject effectively works as an incubator for a draft article and applies expert knowledge to it. --LukeSurl t c 10:52, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Allowing recreation (even if GB was aware of the AfD) is not "an admin supervote", but rather something any user can do at any time. All AfDs do not preclude the recreation of an article if concerns raised at the AfD can be addressed, even if they do not specifically say so. Let's avoid the hyperbole please. --ThaddeusB (talk) 15:23, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
  • If in doubt, another AfD is always the best course. G4, like all speedy criteria, is for uncontroversial cases only. If a WPedian in good faith decides not to use speedy, it is debatable enough that it needs a discussion. AfD is the place to consider whether the article has merit, not here. The only time an admin need be involved is if re-creation is blocked by protecting the article. (I know protection can be evaded by changing the title, but if that is done in good faith, it's still reason to use AfD. DGG ( talk ) 19:26, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
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