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Messaging the creator from the Curation tool

Are we absolutely sure we got what we wanted? In any case it's not working as I anticipated. It now needs two separate operations to leave a message for the creator instead of one when patrolling an article as OK. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:19, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Kudpung, I think WMF has agreed to re-look at this. By two separate operations you mean one to leave the message and one to patrol or do you mean something else? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:54, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Barkeep49, yes. There should really be three options:

1. Patroll and leave a message (or leave the message field blank) in one operation;

2. Tag without patrolling and leave a message

3. Just leave a message (e.g. if someone has already patrolled but did not tell the creator about any tags.

A further feature that I have mentioned in the past was to automatically leave a message when a new article is straight patrolled, something like: Thank you for creating XXXX. I have approved it for inclusion and indexing. Keep up the good work."

My vision is eventually to have a drop down of canned messages. Perhaps if that could be achieved, we could draft the short messages and add the ourselves to the dropdown. Maybe I'm just being too hopefull. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:27, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

• Hi guys, just coming back to NPP after a month of absence and finding that the message functionality now just plops a big fat error message on the recipient's page - as is visible here (bottom of page). This happens when any message is included, but not when a commentless review is committed. Is this a known (phab-tracked) behaviour, or a fresh delight? --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 00:02, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

  Elmidae,welcome back! I am away from my computer at the moment but will dive in when I get home. Hopefully it's something we can fix with a template. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:07, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

  @Elmidae: I think I have fixed the issue - it was asking for a template that also left a message but this template doesn't exist at the moment. Can you clarify which steps you did to produce this broken message and confirm that that my fix works? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:50, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Nope, still borked. I used the Mark as Reviewed button and included a message; the result was that the article was not marked as reviewed, and the author got this. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 02:47, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Elmidae, Hmm. That's a different template and set of actions than the first one. A bit troubling because I used code from that template to fix the other one. Again can you tell me what steps you did to get this error? I'm having a bit of trouble reproducing at this point. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:54, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

It should be fixed now. The = in Elmidae's signature is what caused the problem. Explicitly using |1= for {{quote}} makes that not matter. — JJMC89 (T·C) 03:06, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Oh, that's a bit out of left field! Thanks for tracking it down. (Not testing right now because I really need to get to bed, but will check tomorrow.) --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 03:17, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

• Rather than start a new thread, I'll post here that I've just reviewed Aranimemis giganteus, leaving a note (or so I thought) that the page was incorrectly named and needed moving to Aranimermis giganteus, plus a couple of other advisory comments to the page creator. (Not having been very active, I'd not appreciated we now have a 'message creator' option. So, I marked the page as reviewed, assuming my comment had gone to the author. I went to check their other creations for errors, only to see that my comment was neither on the page creator's talk page, nor on the article talk page, so was lost entirely. To me, this seems the wrong default position. I would have expected all review comments to go automatically to the Creator on acceptance, with an option to leave comments on the article talk page and/or the creator (prior to acceptance), if required. Simply accepting my review and throwing away the feedback comment entirely seems a bit perverse. Am I missing something obvious here? Nick Moyes (talk) 09:31, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Scientists for Future

I've added Scientists for Future back to the NPP feed, because although I reviewed that was for the version in which I'd removed the list of facts. Since my actions were reverted I've put it back in the queue for someone else to take a look. Cheers Polyamorph (talk) 03:40, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

P.S. the list is copied word for word from https://www.scientists4future.org/stellungnahme/facts-2019-03/ Polyamorph (talk) 04:04, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

@Polyamorph: It should have still been in the queue, and you just unreviewed it; see also phab:T234587 DannyS712 (talk) 04:01, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi DannyS712 that's what I thought, but my tool didn't appear on the right hand side until I clicked "add to the NP feed" on the left hand side.Polyamorph (talk) 04:04, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Update

This has turned now into a total shitstorm with one user arguing that I was wrong to remove the copied (and in my opinion promotional) and now revdel'd content and another arguing with admins over our non negotiable copyright rules. Most of the time NPP is fun, but sometimes it causes a lot of unnecessary hassle.Polyamorph (talk) 15:33, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

CoI editors who refuse to answer questions on paid editing

How can I find out who reviewed a newly created article? The article in question is Volodymyr Zubyk which was created yesterday in one edit and has had only one further edit, by @Discospinster:, who may have marked it as patrolled, but it does not appear in his patrol log? The reason I ask is because the creator has failed to answer my questions on paid editing and has resumed editing after a gap and a final warning. And then there is Myroslav Prodan, created by the same user a month ago. I wonder who marked this largely unreferenced BLP as patrolled? Is someone bypassing the system? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:25, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Cwmhiraeth, the page logs will show who marked them as reviewed. [1] [2] – bradv🍁 05:38, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Just noting that it looks like a direct translation of the Ukranian article: https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Зубик_Володимир_Володимирович. Which would explain creation from one edit. So it should be checked for language and tagged as machine translation if necessary. If you are looking for an innocent explanation then language barriers could then explain the lack of response to warnings. Polyamorph (talk) 06:16, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

(I've removed the unsourced eulogy part form Volodymyr Zubyk, put a sources (BLP) tag on and marked as reviewed. It's pretty bare-bones and neutral in its current state, and notability as a politician seems okay. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 01:51, 5 October 2019 (UTC))

Paid editing

Okay, one of my weaknesses (of which I am sure there are a plethora of), is in recognizing paid editing. Are there resources on WP that can help me understand what I should be looking for? My question is borne out of a newly created article, Proviz Sports, I removed a promotional section dealing with non-notable awards, but this was created by a spanking brand new editor, and seems quite well constructed and formatted for a newbie. Thanks. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 15:17, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

The guideline is at Wikipedia:New_pages_patrol#Conflict_of_Interest_(COI),_paid_editing. I wrote it so if it's not clear let me know. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:20, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

onel5969, the main and most obvious hallmarks are if a page looks too good to be true: Was posted by a relatively new user often in one edit, is cleanly formatted, and has a plethora of sources all perfectly formatted but on closer examination prove to be Internet barrel-scraping, and usually (but not always) on topics from South Asia. Less obvious are BLPs masquerading as corporate spam and BLPs made in the run up to an election. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:05, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

• The guideline Wikipedia:New_pages_patrol#Conflict_of_Interest_(COI),_paid_editing is written very well, in my opinion. I think it is written as strongly as possible given the WMF's and community's failure to state or agree on any actionable response. There is an active discussion at Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy#Paid editing disclosures and deletion. If Undisclosed Paid Editing (WP:UPE) is not a reason for deletion, then the ToU statement is toothless. If it is a reason for deletion, then methods for judging are a major challenge. Kudpung offers some good points, but I continue to think that only inexperienced UPEditors will be caught, and that by using their throwaway account they learn, and that there is a very large amount of UPEditing by experienced editors that is rarely detected. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:20, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you. I agree the NPP process is well-written, and it is what I have been going by. Yet I still have a difficult time discerning paid editing. I go back to the example of the article which prompted this above, Proviz Sports. Well written, structured and formatted, slightly promotional tone, and a very new user. Is this something either one of you would slap a Paid Editing tag on? In the past, I've had such tags removed with some pretty acerbic comments from some pretty experienced admins. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 13:10, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

One of the common patterns your see it may be written by spa who uses paid for articles on places like Forbes as references, which is a common pattern. Another one, like is that you have a SPA who does a couple of hundred edits in a attempt to disguise themselves and then drop a paid articles, which I think fits that. This first ref should be to establish bona fides. It should be rock solid secondary source that established the notability absolutely. If it doesn't and the three or four refs after that are similarly and sometimes on Forbes, or Inc, or Medium, or investment sites if it a startup, then paid. If it event pages or name drop or those four or five, then it may be paid. scope_creep^Talk 13:21, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Examining it: The first ref is forbes, is a small paragraph among several other named companies. That is known in advertising as how to get it on peoples lips. An advertising technique that is more 35 years old. So the first is not secondary ref, nor of high quality. It is paid content, a name drop. They've paid to put a small paragraph on a page. Look at at next reference, on Bailiwick Express. This could be genuine, but it worth examining their site to determine if they have editorial board which is a sign of quality. They do state of the video Video: A promotional film for Proviz., which indicated the content is probably paid for. The third one, look at the bottom of the article. It has company url plus a statement by founder. A classic. Taking some words from the the statement We are immensely proud to be celebrating our 10th anniversary turns up several other sites, where they have paid for content. That indicate a press release as the source, which fail WP:CORPDEPTH and WP:ORGIND. The fourth, same, the press release again. So the first four references are a fail. They don't even match WP:THREE which is becoming the standard to establish notability. scope_creep^Talk 13:36, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Excessive focus on charitable contributions, supported by passing mentions in seemingly reliable sources like the BBC's one-word mention of Proviz. Non-notable business awards are typical, like the Amazon Growing Business Awards. Reliance on product reviews as sources. Reviews are not independent reporting. Another tell-tale sign is the use of sources that are rehashed press releases, typically in trade magazines. A publicist will try to create press for a company and try to make it look like independent reporting, which it isn't. Look for the the use of nearly identical phrases in different sources. Vexations (talk) 13:45, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

That's a good one. I forgot about that. In similar vein, sometime they'll setup fake sites to show they are philanthropic or charitable then abandon them when the article has been established. I saw that recently for an energy company. The gall of it. scope_creep^Talk 14:23, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Looie496/Watchlist pinging

While strolling around Wikipedia:New_pages_patrol/Coordination, I came across a see also link to this very interesting essay. This indeed sounds like a good way to allow patrollers to follow up on an article after some days. What's interesting is that this can be implemented as a user script (almost exactly the way it's described in the essay), following the same general architecture as another script I recently wrote – User:SD0001/T-Watch which lets you watch pages for a specific duration (check it out!).

So, are folks interested in this? I guess it would take me about 2 hours of work, which I can devote if there are at least 2 interested editors. SD0001 (talk) 19:04, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

SD0001, I would definitely be interested in this. You should be aware that the foundation is looking into time-limited watchlist entries but this would be useful in a very different way. I hope someone else joins me in expressing interest. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:18, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

SD0001, I'm not a patroller (I just watch the page) but I would find that functionality very useful. Right now, I either rely on the watchlist to track articles I should follow up on, or I add a "to do" link to my user page. Schazjmd (talk) 00:13, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

I also would be interested. With over 7200 pages on my watchlist, most only need to be watched for a week or so. The Wikimedia project Barkeep49 mentions can be found HERE. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 00:16, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware. But then, this is the WMF. Who knows how many months or years it's going to take them before it's a reality? BTW, even IFried (WMF) checked out the T-Watch script. SD0001 (talk) 23:58, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes please, would be very useful. I've also been hoping that time-delimited watchlist entries would become available soon; until that finally rolls off the line, I'll have to check out your other script... --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 01:11, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

This idea would be great if implemented. I would suggest highlighting the 'ping' in a different colour so it doesn't appear like any other item on the watchlist. Cheers, Willbb234^Talk (please {{ping}} me in replies) 09:19, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

 Done see User:SD0001/W-Ping. Any feedback is welcome. Please report any bugs/issues if you find any. SD0001 (talk) 23:58, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

SD0001, talk about turn around time. I have just installed it and look forward to using it. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:29, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

SD0001, any chance 1 day could get added to the quick do? I'm finding myself using it as a reminder to reply to something that I didn't have time/energy/or just wanted to contemplate to do when I first read it. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:39, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

done. I should perhaps also make those buttons user-configurable. SD0001 (talk) 09:36, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Page numbers

Okay, I know there's a template to tag an article which has references, and footnotes, but doesn't use page numbers. But I can't find it. Anyone know it? Also, it would be nice if that one was added to the curation tool, not sure who to ask about that. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 11:19, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Template:Page_numbers_needed--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:56, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Template:Citation and verifiability article maintenance templates lists {{Page numbers improve}} and {{Page numbers needed}}. Hope that helps, Cabayi (talk) 12:00, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, thank you both.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 13:54, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Old Deletions

I recently reviewed an article that said "previously deleted" in the Page Curation tool. I wanted to find out why but could not find an old AfD nomination for the topic, so I assume the previous deletion was Speedy or PROD, but I do not know how to search for those. Is there a way to search for old Speedy Deletions and PROD's? Thanks. ---DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 20:12, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Doomsdayer520, what's the article? Sometimes previously deleted can be triggered by revdels. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:13, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Funky Dee, for which I did a full AfD today. ---DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 20:14, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Doomsdayer520, it was a A7 speedy. You can tell that by looking at the log, a link to which is on the top of the history page for the article. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 20:16, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, that log is what I was searching for in my original question. ---DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 20:19, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Doomsdayer520, I use User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/deletionFinder.js for easy access to previous AfDs and other kinds of deletions. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:19, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

NPP Source Guide progress report and next steps

For those of you who don't know, I and a few other editors have been compiling a source guide, primarily for NPP, which is over at WP:NPPSG. The purpose is to help combat systemic bias in NPP by providing baseline, consensus-backed reliability information about sources for all topics and geographic regions. The main differences between it and WP:RSP are that NPPSG is sorted by topic, and that it has a much lower bar for inclusion on the list.

I started out this project by first transcribing all of the RSP entries to the list, and then further expanding it by keeping tabs on RSN discussions as they are archived. However, this reliance on just monitoring RSN means that while there's still some useful information at NPPSG (and more importantly, useful information that would not belong at RSP), we're not closing our systemic-bias blindspots at anything faster than a glacial pace. Barkeep49 and I were tossing around some ideas for how to proceed here, but the crux of that discussion is that we should move to start having regular discussions about regions that are underrepresented on RSP, possibly using RfC format, and inviting editors from NPP, relevant WikiProjects and other language Wikis, and the broader Wikipedia community to participate. Given that the close for the recent RfC about moratoriums at RSN included language about not having RfCs about sources that have never been discussed before, we may have some bureaucracy to push against in order to get community buy-in from this proposal. Thus, I'm raising this discussion here to get feedback from new page reviewers, with the intent of workshopping a proposed process for evaluating sources from underrepresented regions, and then either going straight to RSN or to the Village pump (either to Ideas or Proposals). It is my opinion that a lot of the pushback against reliability RfCs was from editors who were alarmed that these were being used to aggressively deprecate sources; I think that by identifying the purpose of this project as fundamentally being about addressing systemic bias and as being disinterested in producing consensuses for deprecation, we can possibly gain the support of editors who have been vocally opposed to reliability RfCs in the past.

Here is a draft of what a regional source discussion RfC could look like. Barkeep wisely pointed out that some editors could object to the amount of background summary provided; I would be amenable to cutting down the introduction to a list of links to relevant RS and Wikipedia articles, and to leave only completely uncontroversial statements in the sections for individual sources (any further relevant information I, or whoever else sets up a discussion, can always just add in a signed comment in the discussion section).

So, what are people's thoughts? _signed, Rosguill ^talk 23:16, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Courtesy ping to Newslinger, who has also been involved with work on NPPSG. I'm also mulling over if it's appropriate to reach out to WikiProject Reliability and WikiProject Countering Systemic Bias at this time. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 23:19, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

• Let me add-on a few thoughts. First I think Rosguill has done amazing work already and what's present now is a great resource for all NPP - I know I've already been using it. The limitation is making this truly global so as to be useful in a wider variety of contexts. So it would be useful for people to weigh-in on these three things:

1. If you're as excited as I am about this as a tool (and if not that's fine - all the more recent to make your voice heard)
2. To say whether they think the method that Rosguill and I are suggesting is the right way to complete this guide (and if not - what could be?)
3. If this is the right way forward, does the format presented seem right?

If this recieves support, after what I hope to be a bit of further brainstorming here and among other projects Rosguill mentioned I think the next step would be to go to VPP for wider buy-in before a first actual RfC. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:59, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

I think it is a great resource to reviewers, as for the RfC process, are you going to do it by country (like the Turkey example) for each and every country in these under-represented regions? That's a lot of work, but might be worth it in the end.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 12:13, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Short answer yes. Long answer is that we would do one of these at a time and wait at least a week and maybe more after the close of the previous one (depending on how long it stays open). We need to not burn out those who would be inclined to participate, though Rosguill's idea of reaching out might draw in editors who only participate in one of interest rather than do so in an ongoing manner. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:01, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

One thing I'd add to this answer is that we're also considering including topic-oriented discussions as well (e.g. anime, a topic whose sources I personally often feel lost evaluating).

Another is that while I admittedly used a lot of systemic-bias language above, as things stand there's a decent amount of regions that we wouldn't consider as canonically subject to systemic bias for which we nevertheless have very little in the way of source guides (e.g. France, Germany). Maybe these are less of an issue based on the current skillset of our NPP team (I for one am familiar enough with French and German sources such that I wouldn't really need such a guide...but I'd still appreciate help for say, Northern Europe or Iberia). _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:45, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

• A1) I am very excited about this resource. I haven't used it before - you've probably pointed me at it in the past BK, I must have overlooked it. It looks like it will be of great benefit already, and its worth developing further. Huge thanks to Rosguill for all that work. A2) I think your proposed method seems fine, so long as these RfCs get advertised in the right places - the WikiProjects suggested above look sensible, plus presumably the project for whichever part of the world we're looking at for any particular RfC. I know what Onel means about it taking a long time to go through each country individually; then again, if we break some places up into large chunks (e.g. do West Africa as a single RfC), does that risk introducing an element of systematic bias into our attempt to rid ourselves of systematic bias? A3) The RfC template looks straightforward and easy to use - I think it's a goer. GirthSummit _(blether) 14:07, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

  Regarding the suggestion to break up regions in chunks, I think it depends on the region, and ideally we'd have an editor (more) familiar with that region take point on setting the bounds for that discussion. For instance, I think that a West Africa RfC would likely not be productive, as there are many highly populated countries and a fair amount of language diversity in the region. However, it could be appropriate to bundle say, South Africa with Eswatini and Lesotho, or to do the Gulf States (or at least some of them) together. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:50, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

• One question; the way the sample RFC for Turkey is structured, (and this may be an artifact of using WP:RSP as a starting point) the impression is that we're only interested in establishing reliability for news sources. However, with the amount of predatory publishing out there, especially prevalent in some regions,  we should probably also be looking at academic journals. Also, there are problems with some historical sources, such as those produced by the British Raj in India and various other colonial powers. If our object is to address systemic bias by collating reliable sources for underrepresented regions and topics, we may want to ask specifically what academic journals and historical sources exist for a given region that are generally regarded as reliable, as well as what news sources exist and are reliable. On the other hand, if our purpose is merely to have a guide for new page patrollers to use in determining if they should AFD an article because the poor quality sources used fail to demonstrate notability, then news probably constitutes the bulk of sources we'll be evaluating. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 16:59, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

  I think that the top priority here is getting consensus evaluations for sources that new page reviewers are going to come across, and I think you already identified why on your other hand. This is not a campaign to rid Wikipedia of unreliable sources once and for all, it's an attempt to level the playing field in the article creation process and to make sure that new articles are properly assessed for notability. Now, if two or three years from now we've finished evaluating news sources for almost the entire world we could consider what sorts of sources are worth tackling.... _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:20, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

  I agree with Ros and will just add that judging something for notability can be different than judging something as a best source for information. So inclusion of a book in Spark notes is a good quick way to say that a book is probably notable. But we shouldn't really be using spark notes for cites in well done articles. Some of the sources ON points out might be good indicators of notability even if they're not our ideal sources for information. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:10, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

I am not sure I have time and patience to write a part of such guide about Russia but I volunteer to answer questions about Russian sources (and, to some extent, on sources coming from former USSR countries). May be it could be mentioned in the guide.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:49, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

This regional sources RfC format is a wonderful idea. Regional sources are indeed underrepresented on the perennial sources list. Less popular sources are typically given the benefit of the doubt if they have an editorial team, and haven't been the subject of a reliability dispute. However, in many cases, the lack of guidance around regional sources causes new page patrollers to skip articles that are based on these sources, especially if the sources are in a foreign language. As a result, articles based on these regional sources receive less attention, and aren't vetted as rigorously as articles that are primarily based on international or English-language sources.

Supporters of the proposed moratorium on general reliability RfCs mentioned two things that I'm going to address in the context of this discussion:

• Some editors pointed out that the term generally reliable could be misinterpreted as an endorsement of a source for topics outside of its areas of expertise. To address this, I've renamed generally reliable to generally reliable in its areas of expertise in WP:RSPLEGEND. In a regional sources RfC, it would be appropriate to ask editors to specify which areas a source is generally reliable in, if they elect to use that term.
• Some editors opposed the concept of deprecation, which allows for the possibility of implementing technical measures (e.g. edit filters and auto-reverts) to discourage editors from citing deprecated sources. A regional sources RfC can bypass this objection by simply not listing deprecation as an option. If an editor thinks a source should be deprecated, they can submit another RfC to gauge consensus on the reliable sources noticeboard.

The results of these regional sources RfCs would allow new page patrollers to become less hesitant with reviewing articles based on regional and foreign-language sources. I like how the main goal of these RfCs is to identify reliable sources from media landscapes that were previously undocumented in Wikipedia discussions. This discussion does appear to be in the scopes of WikiProject Countering systemic bias and WikiProject Reliability. A notice on the reliable sources noticeboard would also be helpful. ​— Newslinger talk 03:15, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

• Since conversation seems to have died down and people here are generally in favor of the prospective proposal, it seems like taking this to VPP is the natural next step. I'm considerably busier this week than the last two weeks, so I'm probably not going to be able to start the conversation myself (although I'll be able to participate some). If other editors feel inclined to take the lead on moving this along, by all means go ahead. Otherwise, I'll hopefully have the bandwidth to take care of this in a week or two. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:26, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

New Pages Feed today

I don't actually do much patrolling these days but I do scan the New Pages Feed almost daily to see if anything unusual catches my eye. What caught my eye today was that we have finally reached the point where a majority of new pages now appears to be about South Asian topics, themes, and culture. This creates a problem for those of us of the traditional Anglosphere background who don't know much about Indian politics, people, religions, Bollywood, etc, although we're nevertheless pretty good at recognising spam when we see it.

What is needed are a lot more reviewers from that region. 'Nuff said. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:02, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Whichever of the WikiProjects India, Pakistan, Bangladesh exist, could be alerted, requested, posted to, maybe? Usedtobecool ^TALK ✨ 17:54, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree Used. I know Kudpung has done this with India. It doesn't look like Pakistan or Bangladesh are active but I have posted to both regardless and also Malaysia and Indonesia. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:53, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

I left a notice on the Vietnam WikiProject as well. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 07:51, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree. I run into many troubles with the South Asian articles as I have little knowledge of that area. Wikiproject India is one of the best wikiprojects, but I struggle to see many committed editors who would be willing to review who are from that area. Although I see some experienced south Asian editors, there aren't that many and its certainly disproportionate to their population. Willbb234^Talk (please {{ping}} me in replies) 12:32, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Sidebar links

The sidebar link 'curate this page' appears to have been removed. Also the recently added 'add this page to New Pages Feed' has gone again. Does anyone know what's going on? @Barkeep49 and Insertcleverphrasehere:. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:52, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

No idea. IFried (WMF) any ideas? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:04, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Barkeep49 and Kudpung: It seems to be working for me. However, it only loads on specific pages such as your user page. ___CAPTAIN MEDUSAtalk 15:32, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Good point. It does seem to be pretty page dependent in terms of placing it on the queue and curating this page. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:04, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Per this discussion, "Curate this page" was simply renamed to "Open Page Curation". This happened about a year ago. They do exactly the same thing (open the toolbar). If it's confusing, we can change back to the old wording. No need to go through a developer either, just edit MediaWiki:Pagetriage-toolbar-linktext as desired.

The "Add to New Pages Feed" link should match the behaviour described at phab:T207485. It is shown for pages that aren't already in the feed. Clicking this link adds the page to the feed, which then makes the toolbar accessible. Can you give an example of when "Add to New Pages Feed" isn't being shown, when you think it should? — MusikAnimal ^talk 21:37, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

MusikAnimal, Example: HCGS. "Add to New Pages Feed" is showing. It's "Curate this page/Open Page Curation" that's not working. This is particularly important because opening Curation on a page is also the quickest way of looking up meta info for the page, such as who created it, who tagged it, who patrolled it, etc. without having to load histories and/or waiting for X-tools. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:39, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Wishlist

Just a gentle reminder to everyone who is following up on Phab (a minefield to me), and new required features, that the WMF poll for wishes for Santa has begun. Note that the rules have changed. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:54, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Kudpung,actually they have announced that they will only be taking non-Wikipedia requests for 2020 so they can finish the 2019 wishlist and give improvements to sister projects. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:04, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware of that - sadly. But at least the Community Tech team has changed. We did rather monopolise last year's poll, but depending on what we still need and what still needs to be addressed and completed, I think their new exclusionary format is rather OTT. IMO if that's the route they want to go, they should have created two polls. There is no excuse for not investing in a larger Community Tech team. Be interesting to know who was behind the decision for the changes. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:09, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Kudpung, it only increases, for me, the urgency, in trying to get a 2020 item passed that sets us down the path of modernizing NPP. I worry about how long the wishlist will even be an available process. I'm generally a lot more favorable to the WMF than you but one way to make me shake my head is how few resources are devoted to community desires. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:12, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

I think you understand why over the years I have become cynical, skeptical, and critical of the WMF, but we have certainly got a lot of good work out of them this year, and I bet they were furious about it. Like you, I am also not sure how long the Wishlist will continue to exist, I wouldn't be surprised it it gets binned for 2021 - that's what the WMF does when the volunteer community starts to get what the WMF believes to be too much of a good thing, although a mega constitutional crisis this year should have been a kneejerk for them. I suppose IFried (WMF) has taken over from the Horn of Plenty who we managed to tame somewhat, but I guess he has been promoted and is somehow still in overall charge (Hi DannyH (WMF)! )Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:28, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

With the top 10 wishes from last year's list showing just 1 done, 3 "In progress" and 6 still "Pending investigation" it's sad to say that the practical effect of excluding Wikipedia from this year's campaign may well be zero (or close to it). Cabayi (talk) 14:25, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

All I Want for Christmas Is A New Page Patrol Feature. CAPTAIN MEDUSA^talk 19:28, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

CAPTAIN MEDUSA, Well, they are still working on the features we asked for last year, so we will continue to get them :D — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 20:32, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

To be fair,Cabayi, this is the page you should be looking at. Nevertheless, with all its surplus of funds and the ED and her support department costing well over $½ mio. a year in salaries and travel, constraints of budget and personel - the arguments they frequently use - are no reason for not increasing development resources. Perhaps Toby Negrin, DannyH (WMF) and IFried (WMF) have an answer to that. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:26, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Or perhaps we as a community should be more pro-active at the next Board community elections.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:35, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

And I'm still praying that they make Special:NewPagesFeed a feature on all projects. Vermont (talk) 23:52, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Specific Acts of Vandalism

Sorry if this has been discussed before. I saw today that certain types of vandalism to long-standing articles causes them to appear "new" and then show up on our list awaiting review. See the recent histories of Porcelain and Figurine. ---DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 14:29, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Doomsdayer520, yep that happens. No real avoiding it - we want articles that are created from redirects to show in the feed. When it does happen it's always a quick thing to mark as reviewed. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:39, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Yup, I don't think there's a day that goes by that it doesn't happen. When I'm patrolling the back end of the queue and there's an old date on an article, the first thing I do is check the history. That way I can quickly ascertain if it's been corrected vandalism, and can check the reviewed box and move on.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 15:24, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Page Curation AfD Nominations

The fix to allow second (and third and beyond) nominations at AfD from the page curation toolbar is live. Can someone verify that it's working as expected? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:58, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

@Barkeep49: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Francis E. Dec (3rd nomination) DannyS712 (talk) 02:37, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Hooray! That fix was a long time in coming... --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 15:29, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Ratelimited

Hi. As a followup to Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Archive 32#Ratelimit, I have recently been coming across the ratelimit more as I try to do some more patrolling of redirects (while looking for potential tasks for DannyS712 bot III). Would other reviewers object if I asked for account creator rights in order to avoid the rate limit? I agree to continue patrolling responsibly. Thoughts? Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 18:28, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

I would have no issue with that.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 23:26, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

I keep on coming cross the ratelimit more frequently.CAPTAIN MEDUSA^talk 12:20, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

I have no objections to this. I actually find your bot very handy Alucard 16_{❯❯❯ chat?} 03:42, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

But if I understand this correctly it's not for the bot it's for Danny. If that's right well I admit a bit more trepidation as even for redirects the ratelimit seems high enough to be a good limit on making sure thought is being given to what's patrolled. But I'm obviously in a minority here. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:44, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

@Barkeep49: well, I sometimes come across a bunch by the same editor, etc. - the feed shows the redirect target in the snippet, and so I open those that are okay and then patrol them as a group. The ratelimit is 1 page (or redirect) every three seconds, and so it limits such batch patrolling. DannyS712 (talk) 03:59, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

New Page Review newsletter November 2019

Hello New pages patrol,

This newsletter comes a little earlier than usual because the backlog is rising again and the holidays are coming very soon.

Getting the queue to 0

There are now 809 holders of the New Page Reviewer flag! Most of you requested the user right to be able to do something about the huge backlog but it's still roughly less than 10% doing 90% of the work. Now it's time for action.
Exactly one year ago there were 'only' 3,650 unreviewed articles, now we will soon be approaching 7,000 despite the growing number of requests for the NPR user right. If each reviewer soon does only 2 reviews a day over five days, the backlog will be down to zero and the daily input can then be processed by every reviewer doing only 1 review every 2 days - that's only a few minutes work on the bus on the way to the office or to class! Let's get this over and done with in time to relax for the holidays.
Want to join? Consider adding the NPP Pledge userbox.
Our next newsletter will announce the winners of some really cool awards.

Coordinator

Admin Barkeep49 has been officially invested as NPP/NPR coordinator by a unanimous consensus of the community. This is a complex role and he will need all the help he can get from other experienced reviewers.

This month's refresher course

Paid editing is still causing headaches for even our most experienced reviewers: This official Wikipedia article will be an eye-opener to anyone who joined Wikipedia or obtained the NPR right since 2015. See The Hallmarks to know exactly what to look for and take time to examine all the sources.

Tools

• It is now possible to select new pages by date range. This was requested by reviewers who want to patrol from the middle of the list.
• It is now also possible for accredited reviewers to put any article back into the New Pages Feed for re-review. The link is under 'Tools' in the side bar.

Reviewer Feedback

Would you like feedback on your reviews? Are you an experienced reviewer who can give feedback to other reviewers? If so there are two new feedback pilot programs. New Reviewer mentorship will match newer reviewers with an experienced reviewer with a new reviewer. The other program will be an occasional peer review cohort for moderate or experienced reviewers to give feedback to each other. The first cohort will launch November 13.

Second set of eyes

• Not only are New Page Reviewers the guardians of quality of new articles, they are also in a position to ensure that pages are being correctly tagged for deletion and maintenance and that new authors are not being bitten. This is an important feature of your work, especially while some routine tagging for deletion can still be carried out by non NPR holders and inexperienced users. Read about it at the Monitoring the system section in the tutorial. If you come across such editors doing good work, don't hesitate to encourage them to apply for NPR.
• Do be sure to have our talk page on your watchlist. There are often items that require reviewers' special attention, such as to watch out for pages by known socks or disruptive editors, technical issues and new developments, and of course to provide advice for other reviewers.

Arbitration Committee

The annual ArbCom election will be coming up soon. All eligible users will be invited to vote. While not directly concerned with NPR, Arbcom cases often lead back to notability and deletion issues and/or actions by holders of advanced user rights.

Community Wish list

There is to be no wish list for WMF encyclopedias this year. We thank Community Tech for their hard work addressing our long list of requirements which somewhat overwhelmed them last year, and we look forward to a successful completion.

---

To opt-out of future mailings, you can remove yourself here

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:33, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Reviewer of the Year

It's that time of year again. It is time to award the New Page Reviewer of the Year trophy. Several newer editors have done a lot of work with Rosguill, CAPTAIN MEDUSA, and DannyS712 (who has also written bots which have patrolled thousands of redirects) all being new reviewers since this time last year. Onel5969, Boleyn and JTtheOG were in the top 5 the last two years, so congrats and thanks very much for your continued service. And thanks to all the others who reviewed so many articles (The top 100 reviewers of the year can be found here).

Top 10 Reviewers over the last 365 days

Rank	Username	Num reviews	Log
1	Onel5969 (talk)	45,542	Patrol Page Curation
2	Rosguill (talk)	38,856	Patrol Page Curation
3	JTtheOG (talk)	11,858	Patrol Page Curation
4	Arthistorian1977 (talk)	5,638	Patrol Page Curation
5	Boleyn (talk)	4,499	Patrol Page Curation
6	DannyS712 (talk)	4,081	Patrol Page Curation
7	Cwmhiraeth (talk)	4,013	Patrol Page Curation
8	Ymblanter (talk)	3,719	Patrol Page Curation
9	CAPTAIN MEDUSA (talk)	3,676	Patrol Page Curation
10	Wgolf (talk)	3,373	Patrol Page Curation

The top of this year's list is even more extraordinary at the top than in the past. I would like to nominate Rosguill as our reviewer of the year. Having gotten the reviewer PERM in November 2018, they have managed to nearly keep pace with the always invaluable Onel (last year's Reviewer of the Year), been an active participant in the NPP community, and has been the driving force for the emerging NPP Source Guide that will help reviewers better evaluate sourcing and notability in many countries for which it has historically been difficult. Barkeep49 (talk) 21:37, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Endorsements

• As nom. Barkeep49 (talk) 21:37, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
• support--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:59, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
• Seems like a very good editor maybe needs the mop. CAPTAIN MEDUSA^talk 22:06, 4 November 2019 (UTC)