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Previously deleted — page curation

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T354154

Twice now, I've had PageCuration alert me that the page I'm looking at has been previously deleted, but when I look at the logs, nothing appears. Example: Lutfulla Sadullayev. Is this a bug, or is there something funny with the logs, or something else? Maybe the answer's obvious, but I don't see it. Thanks, 🎄Cremastra 🎄 (talk) 15:33, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Oh, I can totally relate. This has happened to me countless times. It turns out there's a glitch with old logs. – DreamRimmer (talk) 15:39, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting. Ticket filed. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:09, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Reviewed status for articles that aren't viable

Uhhh... If I CSD an article, should I mark it as reviewed? I have been under the impression that I should be doing so, just to remove it from the queue. Is this proper? (I also am watchlisting to ensure the process is carried out) Acebulf ^{(talk | contribs)} 04:53, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi Acebulf. No, please do not mark pages as reviewed when you nominate them for SD. This is mentioned at WP:NPPBIG3. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 05:07, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Crap, let me go back through my CSD to see if I can undo any problems. Thanks for the help. Acebulf ^{(talk | contribs)} 05:11, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

@Firefangledfeathers: I want to double check too, I should be marking articles that I nominated for AfD or a merge request as reviewed before the AfD/merge consensus is settled? I'm finding a handful of these articles I go in detail looking at and find someone else marked it as reviewed during or after I make the proposal. Darcyisverycute (talk) 15:06, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Hello Darcyisverycute. AFD: definitely mark as reviewed. For merge, I'm not sure, and I'm not aware of any written guideline. I would default to not marking the page reviewed. The problem is that merge discussions don't have any defined length, and some are never closed. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:22, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

I think we can mark as reviewed for merge. After a merge, it will become a redirect. If it gets flipped from redirect to article, that will automatically put it back in the queue, so I don't think it can be gamed. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:21, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae: if the NPPer merges and redirects on their own, sure they can review the redirect. I thought Darcy was asking about proposed merges. They can get gummed up for so long, with 14 articles in Category:Articles to be merged from April 2023. I'm worried marking those as reviewed will lead to many timing out of our queue with no real review. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:28, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

The article queue becomes indexed after 90 days but is otherwise infinite (will still be in the queue until reviewed). The redirect queue autopatrols redirects after 6 months. –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:04, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Also, I appreciate that you want to avoid duplicating work for other reviewers, but Special:NewPagesFeed already detects whether an article has been tagged for speedy deletion and marks the entry as such. Basically, don't worry too much about bad articles remaining in the queue, they'll probably get taken care of by an administrator soon enough. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 06:20, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Just to explain the reasoning behind this: we don't mark CSD or PROD as reviewed because the author could remove the tag, then they have basically gamed NPP and skipped the queue. Or it's also possible that an admin declines the CSD, and then more action is needed such as an AFD. We do mark AFD as reviewed because there is no way to game it (an admin will close the AFD and action the community's consensus no matter what). Hope this helps! –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:34, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Am I doing this right?

So I've just started as a New Page Patroller, and I'm mostly following the handy flowchart available at Wikipedia:New pages patrol. This indicates that in most cases, I should eventually be marking a page as reviewed. However, I'm coming across a lot of pages where someone else has already 'patrolled' the page, possibly added some tags, and/or sent a message to the page creator, but the page isn't marked as reviewed. Am I being too generous with marking pages as reviewed, or should others be more generous (for want of a better term)? Cheers, Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 18:37, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Can you provide examples? I didn't notice any cases of what you describe from your recent patrols, which look fine by the way. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:41, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Not offhand, but I'll keep an eye out over the next couple of days if I notice more. Thanks. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 19:56, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I have, and seen others, left pages unreviewed after adding things like sources needed or notability tags if the page otherwise would be draftifed or prod/afd'd, but seems likely to be able to be improved, to give a chance to the creator (or anyone else) to fix it. I, at least, am more likely to do that if it's a fairly recent creation as opposed to working from the back of the review backlog. In general if that is your intention, it may make sense to check back on the article in some number of days time and see if any improvements have been made. I see it kind of as part of if you don't know what you do with an article, you can always leave it to another reviewer while is trying to help move the process along. Skynxnex (talk) 22:54, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

It is common for folks to only do some of the flowchart, not mark as reviewed, and leave a complete review for someone else. This is a natural part of crowdsourcing and volunteering: folks will often do what is easy or what they are motivated to do or what they are knowledgeable about, and skip the harder parts. This is fine, since every little bit helps, and they are not pressing the review button. But yeah, if you press the "mark as reviewed" button, please make sure all the essential things have been done (copyvio check, CSD check, notability check including evaluating all sources in and out of the article for WP:GNG if appropriate, etc.) Thank you for asking your question here, feel free to ask more. Quality is more important than quantity for NPP reviewing. When in doubt, leave it in the queue. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:08, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

• I think (my opinion) reviewers often reseach a page and come to no conclusions, so they add tags letting others know their concerns, and leave the page unreviewed for other editors to consider.  // Timothy :: talk  01:33, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback, folks, much appreciated. I'm not going to list examples, for fear of being seen to "call people out", and the explanations all make sense. I guess my interpretation was/is "there are issues, sure, and now they're tagged, but the article is fine to remain and so I'll mark this as reviewed", whereas others are more cautious, and both approaches are fine. Cheers, Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 13:12, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Just wanted to say thank you for asking about this, as I'm also a new new page patroller and had been noticing & wondering about the same thing! Cheers, Chocmilk03 (talk) 23:37, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Requesting help/info

Tracked in github.com
Issue #1922

Hello, I nominated Ranch House Estates, California [1] and for a reason I don't understand it messed up. It was listed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2024 January 5, but it transcribed an old AfD Indian Lakes Estates, California that Ranch House Estates, California was group nom'd with. Since I'm not sure how to fix this without possibly making it worse I have posted here.

I'm glad to cleanup after myself, I'm just not sure if a series of undos will fix it and don't want to make a bigger problem. Just as important I'm not sure how this was messed up and what I should have done differently. Thanks for any help. Greetings from Los Angeles,  // Timothy :: talk  01:27, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Could you share why you're nominating this? I'll be happy to create an AfD for you. – DreamRimmer (talk) 01:37, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

@TimothyBlue: I've undone the transclusion of the old discussion on the AfD log page. Could you try to nominate the article again to see if the issue persists? If it does, you might want to check in with the Twinkle team to resolve whatever's causing the bug. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 01:42, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with the Twinkle. Ranch House Estates, California has an AfD page (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ranch House Estates, California), but it redirects to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Indian Lakes Estates, California because it was nominated alongside some other articles, and the discussion took place at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Indian Lakes Estates, California. This is why Twinkle got confused. Now we have to create a new nomination at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ranch House Estates, California (2nd nomination). – DreamRimmer (talk) 01:55, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Ah, that would do it. At this point, it might just be easier to do the whole nomination manually, as I don't think you can tell Twinkle to create the AfD page at a specific title. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 02:41, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

• Thank you both for your help.

DreamRimmer, here is my rationale,

Fails GNG per NGEO. Unneeded CFORK of Pine Grove, Amador County, California. BEFORE found nothing that meets WP:IS WP:RS with WP:SIGCOV addressing the subject directly and indepth. I don't think the title is a good redirect, but if there is a consensus I have no objection.

I'll watch your steps and see how you properly cleanup and avoid the problem.  // Timothy :: talk  04:03, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

@TimothyBlue, I've fixed the nomination page. Now, could you please replace my signature with yours in the AfD discussion? A bot will soon transclude the new AfD page into the logs. – DreamRimmer (talk) 04:21, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Looks like a Twinkle bug. Bug report filed. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:48, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Tips in the new pages feed header

I've been doing a touch of spring cleaning of the header of Special:NewPagesFeed and was thinking about the 'tips' that are presented as being particularly important. These are currently:

• Quality and depth of patrolling is more important than speed
• Not over-tagging - many maintenance queues continuously grow, and many tags won't necessarily bring additional attention to the article
• Making use of the message and WikiLove features - communicating specific feedback with new articles creators creates a more welcoming and constructive environment

This isn't bad advice by any means, but I don't think it really reflects the most important concerns of NPP in 2024 (tagging used to be a core part of the workflow, for example, but now is just one of several optional follow-up tasks). I'm sure we can do better. If you had to pick three things that should be at the forefront of someone's mind when reviewing new pages, what would they be? – Joe (talk) 15:36, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

New header

Hi @Joe Roe! I am an AfC reviewer and just came to the NPP Talk page to see what was going on. A massive new header has appeared on the Feed - it is so large it pushes the feed off my screen and means my screen is... just header for the entire size of the window.

I will note that this header is utterly irrelevant to AfC reviewers, who use the AfC part of the feed. Clicking the Articles for Creation does not remove the irrelevant NPP header.

Can you revert this to how it was previously, if it was you who changed the UI? It is totally disruptive and irrelevant to AfC reviewers who share this tool.

Thanks! Qcne (talk) 17:01, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree the huge header is a bit much :( Sohom (talk) 17:30, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

@Sohom Datta Thanks to @TheresNoTime, adding

#mwe-pt-list-warnings { display: none !important; }

to your common.css file in User Prefs hides it entirely. I now no longer have to scroll down an entire page to see the feed. :) Qcne (talk) 17:35, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I've added that code snippet to my common.css, which hides everything. It would be nice to have that massive header on the top atleast be hidden by default. Sohom (talk) 18:07, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I've reverted the changes for now. No need to go hiding the banner with CSS. Let's instead workshop a banner that we all like, or leave the status quo ante one. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:23, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

@Qcne: I'm not surprised at the revert and am happy to workshop further. However, please note that a) my changes only increased the height of the header to approximately that of the old Special:NewPages; b) were collapsible; and c) the old (now restored) header also exclusively concerns NPP, not AfC.

Otherwise I'd be grateful if we could keep discussion to the topic at hand and perhaps discuss other changes on the relevant talk page. – Joe (talk) 20:07, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

@Joe Roe

a) no it didn't.

b) no they weren't.

c) fair point.

Please do point me to the relevant Talk page as it would be nice to be notified next time NPPatrolers thrust another UI change on us. Qcne (talk) 20:44, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

@Joe Roe I think having the whole top header collapsed by default (note, not collapsible) would be a good start. Additionally, the tips section seems mostly fine. I personally would not remove the red "quality and depth" wording from the first line, and I would like a link to a general overview of notability somewhere in the mix. Sohom (talk) 13:02, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Joe Roe January 8th edits

Having it collapsed by default does not make sense to me. That's going to significantly decrease the amount of editors who see it. Having it collapsible (but open on default) ensures new patrollers will see it while still allowing anyone to hide it if they prefer. ––FormalDude (talk) 08:37, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

@Joe Roe has made WP:BOLD edits through full protection again, after being reverted. Here's the edits. Thoughts on these edits? Are they worth reverting again? I don't have an opinion on the edits yet but I think it is insensitive and unorthodox to not sandbox these and ask for permission first. Full protected pages, like template protected pages, are not the place for WP:BOLD edits, especially when they've been objected to. –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:39, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree, it's not hard to propose your change and reach a consensus, like this. ––FormalDude (talk) 08:45, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

See WP:EDITCON. – Joe (talk) 08:51, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

EDITCON, which I'm well aware of, says in the second sentence that an edit has presumed consensus until it is disputed or reverted. You were reverted, yet you partially restored it anyway. It also says the encyclopedia is best improved through collaboration and consensus, and I'm not really seeing an effort from you to try to achieve either of those. It would be nice if you would collaborate first instead of making a change unilaterally and waiting for someone to explicitly object. ––FormalDude (talk) 09:00, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Especially for highly visible system messages and templates, EDITCON generally should not be the guideline to follow. The much stricter and conservative TPECON should be applied, especially since multiple reversion/content changes means that the software needs to rerendered these messages for almost every user every time a edit is made, which might cause a significant amount of additional strain to the server. Sohom (talk) 09:18, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree and note that WP:TPECON only applies to templated-protected pages, which this is not. Undue reluctance to edit templates, editnotices, and UI text is why we have so many crappily-worded templates, editnotices and UI text. I'm sure the WMF will contact me if I've burned one of their servers. – Joe (talk) 09:22, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

As I explained below, I restored only those parts of the edit that were not objected to, being careful not to increase the height, which was the main concern. If you have a problemn with making a change unilaterally and waiting for someone to explicitly object, then I'm afraid you might be on the wrong project... – Joe (talk) 09:18, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

@Joe Roe I don't have a issue with bold-revert-discuss in most cases, however, it honestly wouldn't hurt to post a version here ask for feedback and then making the change, instead of doing it the other way around :) Sohom (talk) 09:23, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

That is exactly what I'm asking for. Not necessarily required, but nevertheless a common courtesy that your peers would greatly appreciate, Joe. ––FormalDude (talk) 09:26, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

I will certainly do so in future, now that I know that there are such strong feelings about the contents of that message. I didn't expect that to be the case, considering that no prior edits to it had been discussed to any significant extent. At the beginning of the this section, as it happens, is a proactive request for feedback, which I'd still very much like to discuss. – Joe (talk) 09:31, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

There is nothing "unorthodox" about it, Novem. Qcne above objected to the increased height and NPP-focused content, so I of course left that reverted. I merely restored the textual edits that didn't increase the height, which nobody objected to. That's called collaboration and I see nothing "insensitive" about it. The entire previous text of the page was written through bold edits. It is protected for procedural reasons (because it's part of the interface) not because the content is particularly sensitive.

Collapsed-by-default was suggested by Sohom above. I thought it was a good idea, but if others disagree I'll happily self-revert. – Joe (talk) 08:49, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

So my issue now is, is that I like to be able to quickly glance down the AfC feed and having a header pushes things down the page so I have to scroll. The Hide button works once, but on every subsequent refresh the header re-appears and pushes stuff down the page. That is annoying. Using the custom .css code to hide the header entirely is actually a nicer and cleaner UI and makes reviewing much faster. Qcne (talk) 08:59, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Personally I find scrolling half an inch to be less annoying than editors speed patrolling, tag bombing, and failing to communicate, so I'm willing to put up with the three simple messages designed to combat that. ––FormalDude (talk) 09:03, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Except that, again, it only applies to NPPers not AfCers. AfCers are a much smaller bunch of people and hopefully don't speed review, tag bomb, or fail to communicate. Qcne (talk) 09:08, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

As an AfCer myself, the only one of those that isn't also applicable to AfC is tagging, so I'm still of the position that the benefits of having it visible significantly outweigh the benefits of hiding it. ––FormalDude (talk) 09:12, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

That's fair enough, but not everybody who visits Special:NewPagesFeed is an experienced NPP/AfC reviewer. Some will come across it and think "hey, what the hell is this?". Some will be newbie patrollers who need some help, or returning patrollers who need a refresher. We have to strike a balance between the different needs. – Joe (talk) 09:15, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Okay, I can understand that and I take your point My suggestion would be to make the wording applicable to both NPP/AfC, so (emphasis mine) perhaps:

• Quality and depth of patrolling and reviewing is more important than speed
• Making use of the message and WikiLove features - communicating specific feedback with new article creators creates a more welcoming and constructive environment

I think my only annoyance then is that the Hide button doesn't stick. I have no knowledge of coding so not sure if that is something that can be set via cookies or not. Qcne (talk) 10:05, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea. We could just say "reviewing", because that's usually the verb we use for NPP too (admittedly the terminology is a mess). But based on the response above I don't want to make any further changes myself. – Joe (talk) 10:22, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Discussion to mention the backlog drive in the new pages feed header

There is a discussion about adding a brief mention of the backlog drive to the new pages feed header. ––FormalDude (talk) 00:59, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Neverending NPP backlog

When the January NPP drive began, there were over 13,000 unreviewed articles in the queue. As of 9 January, around 11,000 articles are still in the queue. We've tried almost every method to invite potential reviewers, and many have joined us, doing an excellent job. According to the leaderboard, we've reviewed 5,167 articles in these 9 days, including approximately 2,000 from the old queue and over 3,000 new ones. That's great, but from my experience as a reviewer, when I plan to review some articles and mark 5-6 of them, I often encounter many borderline articles in the queue. I ultimately refrain from reviewing them because I don't want to deal with the bold reviewing or deletion process. I've observed some cases where reviewers who marked borderline articles or nominated many for deletion received cautions. I believe other reviewers avoid these for the same reason.

I think we need to discuss additional processes to identify these borderline pages and remove them from the queue. In my opinion, about 80-85% of the articles fall into this borderline category. We need to prioritize quality over quantity, but we should also brainstorm more ideas. At this rate, in the remaining 20 days, we might only review approximately 5,000 articles. If the creation ratio continues, we'll face an endless backlog, necessitating monthly drives for articles and redirects. We could also consider requesting Onel5969 to rejoin us; personally, I don't think it's a bad idea. Furthermore, within the NPP, we have many experienced reviewers and administrators who need to guide us moving forward. – DreamRimmer (talk) 13:10, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

If my above comment is upsetting, I apologize, but I feel it's necessary for someone to step forward and start discussing this because the backlog is still under our control, and with a little more effort, we can reduce it. However, if it continues, we might face a backlog that never ends. We need to be prepared for this because continuously organizing drives might discourage a significant number of reviewers from joining. – DreamRimmer (talk) 13:25, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

• Entirely off the top of my head, a major factor is the erosion of inherent notability as a means of deciding. It's still straightforward to whizz through articles (for example) covered by NPOL or listed national monuments, but a minefield once away from that sort of clear criteria. Not that NPP will have much if any influence on the relevant discussions. Otherwise what you seem to be suggesting is a sort of second Draftspace - surely not, given how the first one has turned out? Ingratis (talk) 13:32, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
• The problem is that pretty much all of these articles are borderline. Wikipedia has been around for 20+ years. Everything that is super notable already has an article. You basically have to do a full WP:BEFORE on all of these new articles but who wants to do that for thousands of articles. And even if you do find some GNG sources, it's still probably borderline. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 13:51, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

  I have to agree with this latter point, that much of what is highly notable in the world of knowledge is already the subject of a Wikipedia article. We're in many respects victims of Wikipedia's success, in that its ubiquity and popularity has created a rather large demand by every person, their bother, sister, father, mother and all their various nieces, nephews and other relations for their own article (or one for their company or favourite place or project). This has driven an ever-growing demand being addressed by undisclosed paid editing. I'm in favour of exploring any and all potential solutions to addressing what has now become a constantly growing perennial issue. I try my best to help in my small way as an occasional NPP reviewer, but the prospects for the future are indeed daunting. Geoff | ^{Who, me?} 14:07, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

  Oh come on now, people! If we're close to done, we probably maybe are on topics that are most obvious to the predominant editor base of the current Wikipedia. But in the world of knowledge? We've barely begun. Usedtobecool ☎️ 14:51, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

  +1 (t · c) buidhe 22:56, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you, yes, we really need to nip this "Wikipedia is finished" meme in the bud. I invite anyone who thinks that to peruse Category:Wikipedia red link lists. – Joe (talk) 08:24, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

• Concern about the backlog is literally as old as NPP itself. It has ebbed and flowed (when I started, we had a perennial backlog of 20,000+ articles; for much of last year, it was less than 2000), but its continuous presence for nearly twenty years proves that it isn't a matter of this or that reviewing practice, this or that policy change, or the (in)activity of a particular reviewer. It's just in the nature of Wikipedia that creating articles is more intrinsically motivating to more people than reviewing them, so the reviewers are always on the back foot. I don't think we will ever get rid of the backlog. What I hope we can do is stop it being so cyclical, because every time the backlog peaks (which, incidentally, is almost always caused by a highly-active reviewer leaving, and almost always persists until a new one steps up to replace them) it causes a panic, which causes demoralisation, which excerbates the underlying problem of lack of motivation to review. – Joe (talk) 14:50, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
• First of all, I have to second Joe. NPP is supposed to have a perennial backlog, because we're supposed to be actively building the encyclopedia, and because ideally we should have more content creation than more administration. That said, back when I was actively thinking about this stuff, we did discuss a lot, propose a few things, try even fewer things. I took a break when notability guidelines began to get overhauled hoping to come back once things settled down, which I haven't done. Anyway, I remember a few things, which may be a lot for that time period since we only ever try very few things, but it was a narrow period starting in 2019.
  1. We were discussing streamlining the flowchart back then to reduce the workload. I am sure the history will show who actually did the work. Anyway, idea was reviewers should forgo checking for orphan, talk page tags, categories and other non-essentials that non-NPP reviewers mostly handle anyway. What do most reviewers do nowadays?
  2. Another thing that kinda was gaining consensus was that reviewers should take a little less stress about the outcome. When you nominate at AFD or for merge or when you redirect, do your work, and leave it up to the community to take it from there. Watch the AFDs to make sure it gets a proper close, otherwise leave it be wherever it heads. I even created a template at Template:NPPaction for reviewers to identify their NPP nominations so that people know you're doing it as part of the process, and not to satisfy a personal vendetta against the creator, WikiProject or inclusionist philosophy. I used it for a while, but it did not catch on.
  3. I remembering proposing that we establish a separate page, a noticeboard of sorts for editors to bring concerns about a particular case or discuss borderline issues. If we had it and used it, we could, for example, decide what to do with the Irani Cup series of articles that recently showed up. Irani Cup is notable but we've now got articles for individual seasons and each season is one match, so it's not a season at all, and regardless the articles were barebone, and we needed to talk to the creators about writing better articles, ideally with the backing of NPP admins. The proposal didn't go anywhere mainly because this very page is that page. But this page is also for meta discussions like the one we're having, and I bet we'd really quickly lose control if every reviewer started making 2-3 posts a day on this page. So, I still think we need that page, something that looks like the Teahouse.
  4. Another proposal that was rejected included having an innotation system where reviewers could leave notes about what they saw and why they are leaving the article without taking an action. I don't think it would go anywhere even now. So rule that out.
• I do not think there's much more to be done. We can't do much because a reviewer has very little power to actually address all the issues that come up during a review. But, I'd be interested to see what proposals we can come up with now. Best, Usedtobecool ☎️ 16:08, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

  NPP is supposed to have a perennial backlog. I'd like to push back against this idea of a perennial backlog being OK or being the ideal state of things. AFC has cleared their backlog during backlog drives twice in the last three years. That is what we should be shooting for. The backlog is like a slider, with zero backlog being on one side (hitting zero backlog is an amazing feeling by the way, very motivating), and an unclearable backlog that can never be fixed (like WP:CCI) on the other.

  The NPP coordination team is conscious of where this metaphorical slider is, and as it gets too high, we increase our recruitment efforts, frequency of backlog drives, etc. If the backlog ever gets 20,000 or higher again, we will likely discuss and get consensus for even more drastic steps, such as simplifying the flowchart more or letting articles fall off the back of the queue.

  We were discussing streamlining the flowchart back then to reduce the workload. This was executed. The gnoming steps of the flowchart have been marked as optional in the InsertCleverPhraseHere flowchart for about a year and an half I think. Things like maintenance tags, categories, WikiProject tags, etc. are optional for NPP reviewers. We should instead focus on the essential steps of copyright check, CSD, correct title, and notability.

  I remembering proposing that we establish a separate page, a noticeboard of sorts for editors to bring concerns about a particular case or discuss borderline issues. I think it'd be great to discuss notability more often on this talk page. Folks can also discuss notability and get second opinions on the NPP Discord. –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:29, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

  If we can have a second venue offwiki, we can certainly have one on-. I don't like it when I see people cite offwiki consensus or communication as a basis for their onwiki action, outside of CUOS stuff. Usedtobecool ☎️ 02:40, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

• I think it is important to think of a backlog only as "things that are getting indexed because we were unable to review them in time". Everything else, for me, is just the queue and it's fine to have a large queue (though smaller is better). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:18, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
• Too many articles that need to go to AfD sit in the queue for far too long. I think that if circumstances were different I would probably put twice as many articles from NPP into AfD than I currently do. Reasons for not doing so - the time it takes to do a full BEFORE; the difficulty of accessing sources in Malayalam or Marathi, and my lack of knowledge about what constitutes RS in that language; and not wishing to put up too many borderline cases on my own judgment. Personally I feel we could be more effective working as a team than as a swarm of individuals. If each article had an NPP checklist I could check for e.g. copyvio and Turkish sources and rate the article. If I came to an article that had been part-reviewed by three other NPPers who’d completed 80% of the checklist and rated it low I’d feel happier doing a final review myself and taking it to AfD if appropriate. At the moment 12 or 15 of us might look over the same article and all individually decide we don’t really think it’s good enough but not really feel confident enough to AfD it. If three or four of us could see each others thinking I feel we’d get through more faster. And/or I’d be happy to work in a squad that does collective reviews working from the back of the queue. Mccapra (talk) 16:33, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

  I guess #3 and #4 from my comment could make that happen. And Rosguill was working on making a database of all sources NPP encounter in all major languages. I don't think anyone lent a big hand there either. So, again, the problem is, as we say, we are a swarm of individuals. We don't come together and decide and do things. Usedtobecool ☎️ 16:41, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

  WP:NPPSG is Rosguill's source list I think. They get the "ratings" on that list from WP:RSN discussions, I think. And I have incorporated the sources and ratings into the colors used in User:Novem Linguae/Scripts/CiteHighlighter. –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:32, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

  Just a thought, for some of these articles, say a Nepalese singer/model/business etc (nothing against Nepalese people just an example), with all the sources in their own language and no hits on an English language google search, could we not set the bar that we don't accept these unless there were at least a stub on their own Wikipedia? Josey Wales ^Parley 18:22, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

  Coincidentally, being a Nepali, I can tell you the answer is no. Nepali Wikipedia is run by like five people and most of them do it for their careers rather than the mission. One admin was a NPP here and was caught advertising Wikipedia services. Another admin I for sure know has done COI editing here, and showed up once to proxy for a banned COI editor. English media in Nepal has barely started. Online media in Nepal has barely started. Online English papers, even reputable ones, you can tell, especially in popular culture, that they've published something not because someone serious has looked at a topic but because someone who had a decent grasp of English was interested in writing about it. It will be more likely that whatever topic you can find in English and online will be the one being pushed by SEO businesses.

  I know your point was not specific to Nepal. But anyway, for Nepali articles' GNG investigation, you can use the list at User:Usedtobecool/PSN and google translate. For the general case, again, that thing that Rosguill was working on. Let's agree to build it and use it together, I say. I will try to find it. Usedtobecool ☎️ 03:01, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

  Found it: Wikipedia:New page patrol source guide. I also found Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Reviewers with language specialties. There's a similar list for AFC at Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/List of reviewers by subject. Usedtobecool ☎️ 03:07, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

  I like that we're thinking of ideas to make NPP/AFC/notability workflows more efficient. Doing something about foreign sources (which are hard for folks to evaluate), such as set the bar that we don't accept these unless there were at least a stub on their own Wikipedia?, would certainly help. Or getting rid of WP:BEFORE and requiring article authors to include enough notability-relevant sources in articles. Or making notability guidelines more numerical, such as specifying an exact # of GNG passing sources or an exact # of WP:NACTOR movies/TV shows or an exact WP:NPROF#C1 h-index instead of leaving it ambiguous.

  Sadly though I think these kinds of proposals are often declined by the wider community. I once proposed that WP:GNG's significant coverage examples be made more specific than its current guidance of "somewhere in length between one sentence and a book", and that was firmly shot down on the talk page. –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:44, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

  I agree that there are massive efficiency gains to be made in how NPP handles notability, but in my view these suggestions are backwards. Maintenance processes like new pages patrol exist to support the creation of encyclopaedic articles, not the other way around. If reviewers find they're spending too much time assessing notability, then my recommendation is simply to stop doing it, rather than expecting article creators or AfD participants to work around them. There has never been a requirement that NPPers should come to a definitive conclusion about notability in every case, nor is it realistic to expect them to. – Joe (talk) 10:48, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

• Greetings, Let me start by saying that I occasionally visit NPP but have not signed up to be a reviewer. Majority of my wikipedia time I'm working on the Orphan article backlog here. So thankful for that Query tool to produce a plain-text list of de-orphan candidate articles. By "hammering away" untagging old orphan articles, "the backlog" total Orphan count is being reduced, even with the daily tagging of new orphan articles. I'm certain if I stop helping, the backlog will increase again. Sometimes I feel like an army-of-one.
  Now, to the point of Unreviewed article backlog, imo what is needed is a tool (another) that can send a new Talk section Notice to the article's Wikiproject(s) along with a Class-B checklist type of request, asking for the article to be reviewed. When I add a Wikiproject Talk page help request, there is almost always a prompt and helpful response. Here is an example from my archive.

Article assessment checklist

1. Referencing and citation:  ToDo
2. Coverage and accuracy:  ToDo
3. Structure:  ToDo
4. Grammar and style:  ToDo
5. Supporting materials: ToDo
6. Accessibility:  ToDo

Status:  ToDo  •  Yes •  No

The above example could be changed from "assessment" to "review" checklist, with two additional lines "Proposing an article for deletion" and "Afd:Nominated for deletion". All this is subject to discussion by others with more expertise than mine. I agree there has to be a better way to expedite NPP unreviewed articles. Regards, JoeNMLC (talk) 20:32, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

• I have to 'fess I haven't been too active lately - many commitments etc. However, the growing queue is evident! I recall suggesting last time we hit about 15,000 that we change the new article searchable flag to indefinite rather than 3 months, not sure if that got done (it seemed to have support at the time), but that would take away the imperative to act in a shorter timescale to review articles. I agree the gnarly ones are the 'borderline notables', you think they could possible survive AfD but also feel they could well go to AfD. And flooding AfD is all too easy (and getting zero input on an AfD resulting in 'No Consensus' closes is infinitely frustrating, especially after three relists) and yet unproductive. Relaxing the 'send to Draft' rules would be very helpful (Onel5969 made extensive use of 'send to draft' and got hammered for it, resulting in that there retirement from NPP) but seems to have consistently met strong resistance. One idea might be a tag/flag where a reviewer could tag the article with 'This looks like an AfD candidate' and if another two agree, it goes to AfD with the three delete votes automacically appended. The article could therefore be salvaged with strong opposition but Deleted by default based on the NPP feedback. I can only imagine this is one technically complicated scheme to implement and would require a robust RfC to even contemplate. But it would spread the load of those borderline decisions, which I think many of us feel unable to take alone. I could, of course, be tilting at windmills here... Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 12:07, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

  Hey everyone, I really appreciate all your thoughtful opinions! I believe the previous NPP (pre-20) and the current NPP aren't the same. Personally, I think LLM has played a significant role in the increasing creation ratio. NPP conducted two drives in 2018, two in 2021, and two in 2022, all of which were successful. However, during the October 2023 NPP drive (although which included a combo of redirects and articles), we couldn't reduce the backlog. Now, in 2024, even after our January drive, we might still have at least 6000 unreviewed articles in the queue. Considering the current creation ratio (3000 articles in 10 days), we're likely to encounter an article backlog again in April.

  It's disheartening to see that despite organizing two drives back-to-back, we've been unable to reduce the backlog. It seems that without these drives, we can't make a dent in it, potentially leading to the necessity of organizing drives every two months. This repetitive cycle might discourage many reviewers from participating in these drives.

  AI has the capability to generate well-formatted articles, and with the launch of the freemium version of ChatGPT, it's become easily accessible to everyone, facilitating article generation. For instance, you can see articles in this category that were generated by AI. From my personal experience, I was surprised by this type of article created via AI. I'm not suggesting these articles are entirely generated by AI, but I can certainly say that AI can create borderline content. – DreamRimmer (talk) 15:53, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

  No comment yet on the rest of your comment, but that category is just wrong. Whoever is doing that needs to stop. Paola Borović is a person, not an article. OpenAI is a company, not an author. So, I must be completely out of the loop if there's anything sensible in all that that I'm missing. Usedtobecool ☎️ 16:12, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

  And the article was autopatrolled, hmm... Usedtobecool ☎️ 16:19, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Usedtobecool, I wanted to refer to ChatGPT but mistakenly mentioned its parent company, fixed now. – DreamRimmer (talk) 16:27, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

  How is Paola Borović AI written? Looks like it was created by an experienced editor. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 17:30, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

  I'm not sure; perhaps you should ask its creator since they're the ones who added the page to the category during its creation. – DreamRimmer (talk) 17:38, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

  Also, I'm pinging @RodRabelo7, the creator of this category, to ask about its purpose. Is it meant for maintenance? It doesn't seem to make sense as a content category. – DreamRimmer (talk) 17:43, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

  I already did. Their answer is on their talk page[2]. Usedtobecool ☎️ 17:53, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

  I agree that LLM/AI makes our job harder, but I do not think it is the explanation for the increasing backlog. Luckily LLM/AI is still spottable by folks that are experienced with its tells and can see the patterns (it likes to restate the question, it sounds polished and formal, it is often very general without offering specifics, etc.) I think the category you meant to link is Category:Articles containing suspected AI-generated texts, which is the category placed by the {{AI-generated}} template. –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:55, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

There's really only one main answer.....we need to make it less painful and difficult to do NPP. And making review of the no-brainer ones automated or whatever is NOT a help. Those are the articles that take only 1 minute to do NPP right, and there are articles which would take 100 minutes each to do NPP "right". North8000 (talk) 16:32, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Just as well no-one has suggested it, then. Ingratis (talk) 22:44, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Useful tools gone

There used to be two really useful tools we could use to help get articles into shape while reviewing them. One here turned bare urls into properly formatted cite book refs and the other here turned them into proper cite web refs. Both have died at some point which is a great shame. Is anyone using other tools or is anyone tempted to do what I lack the ability to do and create new replacements? Thanks Mccapra (talk) 21:45, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I have only ever used refill. Usedtobecool ☎️ 03:25, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks very much I will try that one. Mccapra (talk) 06:09, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Do you know those two tool's names, maintainer usernames, and/or links to source code? That would be some good information to start the process of getting those tools back up. Odd that they are hosted on third party websites instead of Toolforge. –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:06, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

I’m afraid I don’t know those details. Mccapra (talk) 14:17, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

You can use the User:DreamRimmer/fixbarerefs.js script, which adds a "fix bare references" option to the general menu. This script allows you to address bare references on any specific page using the Refill tool. – DreamRimmer (talk) 09:52, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

thank you. Mccapra (talk) 14:17, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

There is also Citer. 94rain ^Talk 10:03, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

thanks I’m trying that one now. Mccapra (talk) 14:17, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Qautro G5s

There are currently 29 articles in the queue created by Qautro that are probably eligible for WP:CSD#G5. If anyone fancies checking the histories and tagging them, it's an easy chunk to take out of the backlog. – Joe (talk) 15:14, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Ok, Doing. Thanks! – DreamRimmer (talk) 15:26, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

I've also done some of them. -Kj cheetham (talk) 15:31, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) § Workshop: draftifying

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) § Workshop: draftifying. 🌺 Cremastra (talk) 15:39, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Still getting newsletter

Hi - I removed myself from the mailing list for the newsletter a while ago but I am still getting it. Please remove me from the mailing list. Thanks Nightfury 10:09, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Hey there @Nightfury, I looked into the NPP subscribers list, and it seems like your user talk isn't on there. The last newsletter you received was the Administrators' newsletter. Was that the one you meant? If so, I've already taken care of it and removed you from the list. – DreamRimmer (talk) 10:24, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

@DreamRimmer: It wasnt; but I've since found the issue. It appears the two I have on my talkpage have slipped under the doormat and couldnt be archived. I will remove them now. Nightfury 20:50, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

As far as I can see you last got an NPP related message in September, and removed your name from the newsletter list in November. So everything is working as expected. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 10:26, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

WP:WikiProject Unreferenced articles

I am from that WikiProject and I want to participate in NPP because both have the same aim of checking and citing unreferenced articles. I know that you guys are incredibly busy dealing with your own backlog, so I just want to ask how did NPP organized backlog drives and what do you think are the most important factor towards an effective drive. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 12:47, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your willingness to help! I noticed that you've been granted NPP rights for a month. Wishing you a fantastic time reviewing! – DreamRimmer (talk) 13:16, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

@CactiStaccingCrane, feel free to join the ongoing NPP drive! You can sign up at Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Backlog drives/January 2024/Participants. Your participation would be much appreciated! – DreamRimmer (talk) 13:18, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for being so friendly! I will focus on citing sources and learn how to make an effective backlog drive. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 13:24, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

One month backlog drives 2–3 times a year seem to be a pretty good formula. Make sure to advertise it heavily, for example via WP:MMS to project members and possibly via a watchlist notice. Reaching zero backlog is an incredible morale booster and should always be the goal. A point system and a bot that updates a leaderboard frequently (daily) seems to be an important aspect so that folks can get mildly competitive about it. Make sure to award bling (barnstars) after the drive. –Novem Linguae (talk) 14:08, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your tips! I am planning to make a backlog drive from July-December 2023, which consists of 3000 articles, in a span of one month. This page Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced articles/Test backlog drive is not an actual backlog drive but a fake one which I'm making in order to smooth out operations during the actual backlog drive. What do you think about it? How should it be improved? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 14:18, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

The real drive Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced articles/Backlog drives/February 2024 is now online! CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 14:40, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

suggestion

• hi, just a quick suggestion for this year instead of giving two awards, like 2023(redirect and article review)bottom of page it might be a good idea to give the total (or one award) per total column as its a combination of both efforts...IMO, thanks--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:39, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

PSA: Old interface is going away

This week, on Thursday (18th Jan 2024), the old NewPagesFeed UI which was available by appending ?pagetriage_ui=old to the URL will be going away. If there any specific bugs on the newer interface that need to be resolved, let us/me know on this thread :) Sohom (talk) 15:13, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Looks like we're aware of 4 bugs at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/view/541/ in the "Vue migration bugs" column. Will create tickets for and add to that column any additional ones mentioned here. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:54, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Pages "reviewed" but editor not autopatrolled and nothing in review log?

I noticed that the creations of User:Moondragon21, who used to be autopatrolled but had the right removed in 2022, seem to be automatically marked as "reviewed" anyway (green checkmark on Special:NewPagesFeed). There is nothing in the review log, they have not been nominated for deletion, ... I have no issue with the pages as such, and this is not a complaint about the editor who has no influence over this AFAIK: it is just a question about how this is possible or what I am missing. Example pages are Aurélie Trouvé, Wallington Demesne, and Mayor of the East Midlands. Fram (talk) 11:42, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Everything seems fine to me. I haven't noticed any recent (post-2022) autopatrolled articles for this user in the NewPagesFeed. The three pages you mentioned seem to be reviewed, not autopatrolled. Maybe there was an error. – DreamRimmer (talk) 12:04, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

How are you checking the logs? Here's what I see:

• Aurélie Trouvé - 23:47, 15 January 2024 JTtheOG talk contribs block marked revision 1195973964 of page Aurélie Trouvé patrolled
• Wallington Demesne - 03:47, 16 January 2024 JTtheOG talk contribs block marked revision 1196033968 of page Wallington Demesne patrolled
• Mayor of the East Midlands - 00:25, 16 January 2024 JTtheOG talk contribs block marked revision 1195979401 of page Mayor of the East Midlands patrolled

Looks normal to me, but maybe I'm being dense? Girth Summit _(blether) 12:09, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I think JT used the patrol button and Fram looked at the review logs. Fram, on the curation toolbar, click the "page info" button to see how a page got the checkmark that it got, or didn't. Best, Usedtobecool ☎️ 12:17, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I think, when you ask for all logs or curation log of an article, the patrols don't show because patrols happen to a particular revision of a page, any page. It's just technically set up so that when a revision gets patrolled for an unreviewed article, the system marks the page reviewed, without generating a curation log. Usedtobecool ☎️ 12:21, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I'll confess, I'm a bit woolly on what the difference between 'reviewed' and 'patrolled' is, or which buttons cause which flag to be applied. I probably knew once upon a time... Girth Summit _(blether) 12:22, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I think curation came about from later work to steamline quality control. Patrolling might have been the system it replaced. Vague recollections of something I read somewhere.

Main difference is that "mark as reviewed" thing is for articles and only articles to indicate which articles are ready for indexing. You can patrol other pages to tell everyone, hey, I looked at this new page, and it's fine. Back when I first joined, I used to see many editors going about just marking, for example, newly created userpages, as patrolled. People who've been working new page patrol a long time probably still do this: browse all kinds of pages that get created and mark them patrolled or nominate for deletion. And some probably favour their old workflow without the new pages feed and the curation toolbar. Usedtobecool ☎️ 12:36, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Go to Draft:Sunni Bahishti Zewar and scroll to the bottom (right, right above the category box) to find the patrol button. Then go to an unreviewed article and close the curation toolbar, the same thing will pop up, same place. Usedtobecool ☎️ 12:41, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you all, I checked the review log (and the general page log), not the patrol log, didn't know that had an influence on the reviewed status. Fram (talk) 12:46, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Having two logs to check is not ideal. We hope to fix this someday. Folks can visit WP:NPP#Patrol_versus_review and phab:T346215 for more info. –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:52, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Does anyone find the stats in the Special:NewPagesFeed footer useful?

I'm thinking about deleting them. Feel free to comment here or on Phabricator. Here's my reasoning: phab:T349886#9469062. –Novem Linguae (talk) 14:12, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

The backlog number of articles and redirects is something that I regularly keep a watch on. I can't get those numbers without explicitly going to one of the sub-pages within WP:New Pages Patrol. The number of articles and reviews weekly, isn't particularly interesting to me, but might be for the AFC folk in that tab. I think the "oldest" number would be useful if it was accurate. I'd be fine with removing it until we are able to make it accurate somehow. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 07:45, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I extensively do, yeah. I find use out of the "5005 days old in queue" feature during both redirect patrolling and article patrolling, especially due to the BLAR-catcher bit. When looking at redirects, there may be one from 10 years ago that pops up, which would come about from a page that either got BLAR'd, or a redirect that got turned into a new page and immediately BLAR'd again. In all situations, this BLAR needs to get marked as reviewed, so these are some of the first things I do when patrolling redirects (is taking care of the pages that got BLAR'd and show up at the backend of the queue, which is where I typically start from.) As for looking at "10 year old unpatrolled articles" that were created from redirects, this is also good to look at, because there's a good chance its the source of an edit war, or of a page that just got created from a previously established title (meaning there's very little chance of deletion, just revision). But that's just about the 5005 days thing from phab, idk much about the second line but I'd use it if it wasn't bugged. I didn't realize it was broken, but if it gets working, it does seem helpful because it's good to see how quickly the queue is moving along and if straits are dire for any reason. @Novem Linguae: Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 02:31, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Is CLASS = disambiguation still valid?

Hi all, for WikiProject Disambiguation and the guidance at Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Disambiguation checklist, is CLASS = disambiguation still valid? On the page preview it returns:

Preview warning: Page using Template:WikiProject Disambiguation with unexpected parameter "CLASS"

Guidance appreciated. Thanks, microbiologyMarcus ^{(petri dish·growths)} 03:56, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I think the intent is that you include WikiProject Disambiguation in the banner shell with no extra parameters. Then you also add any other relevant wikiprojects, adding class=disambiguation for each. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:01, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Adding on to that, in the spirit of WP:PIQA, try to keep the |class= parameter only in the banner shell; all of the WikiProject banners inside it (with the exception of WikiProject Military history, of course) will inherit the class through Lua magic. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 05:52, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

For Disambiguation pages in particular, I don't believe there's a need to manually specify it at all (though no harm in doing so), due to further magic. -Kj cheetham (talk) 10:46, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Unreferenced articles February 2024 backlog drive

WikiProject Unreferenced articles | February 2024 Backlog Drive
There is a substantial backlog of unsourced articles on Wikipedia, and we need your help! The purpose of this drive is to add sources to these unsourced articles and make a meaningful impact. Barnstars will be awarded based on the number of articles cited. Remember to tag your edit summary with [[WP:FEB24]], both to advertise the event and tally the points later using Edit Summary Search. Interested in taking part? Sign up here.
You're receiving this message because you have subscribed to the mailing list. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.

NPP folks are skilled at finding and checking reliable sources, so they might be interested in joining this drive. – DreamRimmer (talk) 15:59, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

This drive is excellent for those that want to get in some action after the January 2024 drive has ended :) Besides, there's a fair amount of articles in new-ish categories of Category:Articles without sources that haven't been patrolled, so there's that. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 15:23, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Chinese Characters

While reviewing there seems to be a large number of chinese characters appearing in the list. Example [3] , [4] and [5] all placed by one user and are all redirects. Do these belong on English wikipedia? I can't find any policy for deletion, can anyone advise? Regards. Hughesdarren (talk) 04:17, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

I just asked the same question on the NPP Discord and would appreciate some discussion on this, as I was also unable to find any written guidelines for the situation. Also, Hughesdarren, I'm guessing you meant to say that they're disambiguation pages, not redirects? —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 05:32, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Sorry TechnoSquirrel69, yes they are disambiguation pages. My main concern is that pages without an english title don't belong on english wikipedia but WP:Notenglish only talks about recommending pages for translation which isn't really possible in this case. Regards. Hughesdarren (talk) 05:38, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Interpreting Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Titles_of_works#Translations, it should be ok to have a redirect from a non-english title to the actual article. I would think that the same applies to disambiguation pages too. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 05:44, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

That makes sense. Redirects in non-Latin scripts are nothing new, but I doubt the encyclopedic utility of disambiguation pages at those titles. I guess let's start moving those pages over to transliterated titles. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 06:26, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Maybe try a pilot AfD. You'd get some opinions from non-NPPers too then. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 06:37, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm not really trying to get them deleted, as most of them look like legitimate disambiguation pages. Maybe an RM? —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 06:42, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

BTW, AfD is Articles for discussion, not deletion. But, yeah WP:RM#CM seems to be the better place given that you are recommending a move. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 06:46, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

@MPGuy2824: You're thinking of RfD and FfD; AfD is still very much Articles for deletion. :P —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 06:59, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Aargh. Brain fart. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 07:02, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

These are generally fine, see Wikipedia:Redirects in languages other than English. If a redirect is valid, then a disambiguation page at that title is ipso facto valid, because a disambiguation page is what happens when there are multiple redirect targets for a title. – Joe (talk) 07:55, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Idea to reduce redirect backlog

I've been meaning to suggest this for a while now, but I'd like to propose that redirects left behind from page moves by page movers should be automatically marked as reviewed. Page mover is granted to individuals that have demonstrated familiarity with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines regarding page moving and naming, and I don't think it's generally necessary for us to be checking the work of page movers. It may not represent a significant impact on the backlog, but I think everything that we can do to reduce the backlog and the work of reviewers is a step in the right direction and helps to make the workload more manageable.

If there is consensus for this suggestion then we would obviously need to ask @DannyS712 to make adjustments to their bot, or ask for someone else to write something up, but I don't think there's a huge technical burden or hurdle to implementing something like this. Additionally, if there is a way to do so, we could also hopefully apply the same code, in which redirects from a particular user group would be marked as reviewed, to admins. This way we can remove admins from the slow to load and cumbersome redirect autopatrol list to make managing the list easier. Hey man im josh (talk) 15:45, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support as a page mover who is already on WP:RAL. Page movers are (supposed to be) competent with moving pages, and with the backlog, moves by page movers need not be checked. ^Queenof_Hearts 15:57, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support; this seems like a no-brainer. As for the implementation, searching for one-revision redirects tagged {{R from move}} where the page creator is a member of the page mover group should be enough for a bot to mark it as reviewed. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 16:17, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

  By the way, can we run a query or something on how many of these redirects are still in the queue so we can get an idea of what kind of effect this proposal might have? —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 16:25, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

• I'm happy to try and figure out the bot implementation if there is consensus for this - I think its probably easiest if I have my bot do this rather than adding a second patrolling bot. Please ping me if you have any questions or if this is closed with consensus in favor and I'll work up a BRFA --DannyS712 (talk) 16:53, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

  I'd absolutely prefer you to be the one to implement this if you're up for it @DannyS712. There was also a discussion at one point last May about patrolling based on user group. The difference between this and that suggestion is that this suggestion is strictly redirects left behind from a move whereas the admin suggestion is one that applies to all redirects. Hey man im josh (talk) 22:58, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Hey man im josh I saw the discussion last May and I'm still willing to implement that too if there is official consensus in favor of that proposal (maybe restart the discussion here instead of on the autopatrol list talk, which is less visible?) --DannyS712 (talk) 23:10, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

  @DannyS712: We already implemented autopatrolling admin redirects by adding all admins to the RAL. The suggestion from May is meant to make the RAL more manageable, as it takes a long time to load now and can be a bit of a glitchy pain to manage. I bring it up because I figure if the task will be focused on patrolling based on a user group, then it makes sense to apply it to admins as well to reduce the size of the RAL. Hey man im josh (talk) 23:23, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

  I saw, and I'm happy to have the bot take that over if there is consensus. As for this discussion my understanding is that we don't want "all" redirects created by page movers, just those that result from moving a page --DannyS712 (talk) 23:26, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

  Yup! That's exactly the suggestion and it feels like the next logical step for us to take :) Hey man im josh (talk) 23:29, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support This seems like a common sense way to reduce the backlog. – Lord Bolingbroke (talk) 17:40, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
• (edit conflict)  Note: Notified Wikipedia talk:Page mover of this discussion. Best, ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 17:49, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

  I'm not sure this really affects that group, as it's really only something that members of the NPP team should be concerned about, but I don't see the harm in a notification. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:10, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support. Like Queen of Hearts above, I'm a page mover who was manually nominated for and added to WP:RAL a while back. Page movers are vetted for their track record of understanding PAGs related to page titling, and many of the redirects they create will be straightforward {{R from move}} situations that I wouldn't predict would need much human oversight, so this seems to me like a sensible way to reduce the backlog. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 18:35, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support Great idea and anything that can reduce backlogs would be welcomed Josey Wales ^Parley 18:37, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support Seems sensible. -Kj cheetham (talk) 19:20, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support Yup, seems like an excellent proposal. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 00:00, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
• support good idea--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 01:10, 23 January 2024 (UTC)01:09, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose this implementation, although I would support in theory. The page mover and autoreviewer permissions are completely different ballparks. For the same reason that administrators are no longer Autopatrolled by default, I don't think page movers automatically should have their moves vanished from the New Page queue. I'm in support of further developing the WP:RWHITELIST and putting page movers on it (which would cover their moves and also general redirects too), but having page-moves be autopatrolled was never part of the Page Mover toolkit, and is an additional step-up in trust that we're putting into page movers that was never considered for the other 400 current page movers that were previously added to the user group. Future considerations will need to be made that "by granting this permission, NOBODY will see these moves in the new-page-queue, when they used to be visible before", and this fact will be forcefully grandfathered onto every existing page mover. It's a new level entirely, and the redirect autopatrol-list was created as a new avenue to gather the creators of numerous redirects, and evaluate them for a parallel permission, not grandfathering the entire user group.

I was also talking with Josh earlier about having admins automatically be redirect-autopatrolled; I'm not sure if that's the current implementation, but (to my understanding) admins wouldn't even be part of the Page Mover user group (because they'd be able to suppress redirects with the administrator toolkit already). To me it seems that admin-redirect-autopatrolled would be more priority than Page-Mover-redirect-autopatrolled... but once again I'm not completely aware about who gets autopatrolled besides the people already on the redirect autopatrol-list. In any case I would much rather contain the ability for auto-reviewing to be contained with something "NPP related", and the Page Mover perm isn't necessarily that. At the moment I feel the backlog is in a pretty healthy state that is; sure it goes up and down but I wouldn't call the situation dire enough to enact massive new-redirect-patrol bypasses for an entire existing user group. Taking a look at the redirects that get affected, it's really not going to change the total number by too much, and an extra set of NPP eyes I feel would be only beneficial, just in case. I don't know who's account is getting hacked tomorrow, so as long as the new redirects show up in the queue then it looks like it'll be easy patrolling if there's truly no problems. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 23:50, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

I disagree on the point that autopatrolling page move redirects would be a step up in the trust we place in the page mover group. Page movers are already expected to have a working understanding of the policies and guidelines surrounding titles, and so are almost always presumed to be making logical, informed moves. It's the same amount of trust I think we're putting in them by giving them the suppressredirect flag, for example, if not even less. You also say "For the same reason that administrators are no longer Autopatrolled by default, I don't think page movers automatically should have their moves vanished from the New Page queue." If I'm not mistaken, the reasons behind those two are completely different, so I'm unsure why that's being brought up here. Exempting every administrator's articles from scrutiny by patrollers is not the same as exempting a specific fraction of a page mover's redirects. And just for the record, all administrators are on the redirect-autopatrolled list by default, which naturally includes page moves. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 01:58, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support. Page movers should be competent enough for this IMO. I personally treat this differently to my views on article autopatrol. Article autopatrol rights deal solely with the creation of new articles and I beieve that other user groups (e.g., NPR) shouldn't get autopatrolled bundled or automatically allocated. However, this idea only grants redirect autopatrol rights only in a specific and narrow way. Besides, page moving is not an easy perm to get. Its minimum requirements (6 months and 3000+ edits) are higher than rollback/PCR/NPR. The other criteria for page movers (beyond the minimum requirements) is intrepreted more strictly by PERM admins compared to, say, PCR or rollback. Moreover, many PERM admins usually only grant a three-month trial, which allows for scrutiny. As such, I think this is a sensible proposal that would not represent a major step up in trust. VickKiang (talk) 07:55, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Implementation

Okay, so I made a query for all unpatrolled redirects with exactly 1 revision, where the redirect was created by a page mover, and there is a move log at the same timestamp as the edit creating the page:

Query to run

SELECT page_id AS 'pageid', page_title AS 'title', ptrpt_value AS 'target', actor_name AS 'creator' FROM page JOIN pagetriage_page ON page_id = ptrp_page_id JOIN pagetriage_page_tags ON ptrp_page_id = ptrpt_page_id JOIN revision rv ON page_latest = rev_id JOIN actor ON rev_actor = actor_id JOIN user_groups ON actor_user = ug_user WHERE ptrp_reviewed = 0 AND ptrpt_tag_id = 9 # Snippet AND page_namespace = 0 AND page_is_redirect = 1 AND EXISTS ( # Only 1 revision based on rev_count page triage tag SELECT 1 FROM pagetriage_page_tags tags2 WHERE tags2.ptrpt_page_id = page_id AND tags2.ptrpt_tag_id = 7 AND tags2.ptrpt_value = 1 ) AND EXISTS ( # Move log from the same time by the same person SELECT 1 FROM logging_logindex lgl2 WHERE log_namespace = page_namespace AND log_title = page_title AND log_timestamp = rev_timestamp AND log_actor = rev_actor AND log_type = 'move' AND log_action = 'move' ) AND ug_group = 'extendedmover' LIMIT 100;

and if there is consensus in this discussion then I'll file a BRFA asking to be able to patrol these automatically. --DannyS712 (talk) 23:54, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

@DannyS712: while you are working on this, would it be possible to finish Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Redirect autopatrol list#Protected edit request on 23 April 2022? HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 20:03, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

@HouseBlaster thanks for the reminder - I should be able to do that at the same time DannyS712 (talk) 17:41, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Addition to curation tool

Hi folks. There are really useful tags in the curation tool for marking an article as uncategorised or that categories need improvement. I would like to propose adding a 'needs infobox' checkbox, and more importantly, checkboxes for 'This article is not included in any Wikiprojects' and/or 'Needs inclusion in additional Wikiprojects', similar to the 'Categories' ones - I find this is one of the most common recommendations I make. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 16:41, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Do these maintenance tag templates exist yet? If so, please share the wikilinks. If not, you'd probably want to get consensus to create them at a place such as Wikipedia talk:Template index/Cleanup. Also, the idea of maintenance tag templates for talk pages might not be popular, since maintenance tag templates are normally only for articles. Also, it is well accepted that every article should have a category, but it is not well accepted that every infobox-able article should have an infobox. My gut instinct is that the addition of an infobox is editor discretion and correlates to the size of the article and if there are indisputable facts available that could be placed in the infobox. Hope this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:52, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the feeback. No, they don't exist as yet, as far as I'm aware. I'll investigate further. Cheers, Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 00:02, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

If you use WP:RATER, then quite a few of the wikiproject templates allow you to add a needs-infobox OR inobox-needed tag. Should help. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 03:47, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Whether or not to include an infobox in an article is—surprisingly or not surprisingly, depending on your view of this website—highly controversial and has been the subject of a record three ArbCom cases. I think it'd be wise if NPPers didn't concern themselves with it. – Joe (talk) 08:07, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

… unless they have a death wish. I just had a flashback to the Infobox wars. Mccapra (talk) 08:14, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

We already have tracking categories for articles without WikiProjects, so I don't see any benefit of tagging them manually. I'm not even going to comment on infoboxes. :) -Kj cheetham (talk) 13:42, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

What criteria for this?

I just saw the page 清宮 in the new pages feed. Obviously this violates WP:ENGLISHTITLE, what should it be tagged with? 🌿MtBotany (talk) 20:01, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

It's fine, it's a disambiguation page, not an article. See #Chinese Characters and Category:Disambiguation pages with Chinese character titles. – Joe (talk) 21:23, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Glad I asked rather than jumping into it. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 22:01, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Drafts in Special:NewPages

Is there a way to hide all the drafts from Special:NewPages? Any setting I can toggle? JTtheOG (talk) 04:17, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

It's easy! Just set the namespace to 'article,' and it'll display only articles for you. – DreamRimmer (talk) 04:21, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

You can also set the namespace to 'draft' and then check the "Invert selection" box. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:25, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you both. JTtheOG (talk) 04:36, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Notability of political parties

Hi Folks!! I was wondering what makes a political notable. Regarding Lithuania - For Everyone. Would that notable with 12k people voting for them. Would that be considered notable. I notice there is a lot of small political parties over the last week. They are no trouble unlike the reams of wrestling articles but it would nice to know what the criteria is here. Any help is appreciated. scope_creep^Talk 16:24, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Political parties need to meet the WP:GNG or WP:NCORP for inclusion. – DreamRimmer (talk) 16:27, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Pretty sure you already know all the written rules.So, assuming you are asking for unwritten rules or heuristics, I would suggest "won a seat to state parliament" or better. Usedtobecool ☎️ 16:47, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

I would say that WP:NORG applies here. I don't think that their number of votes attained should create a special exception- the party only won <1% of the vote and zero seats, so I would argue that applying NORG would be fine. VickKiang (talk) 03:14, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

If the political party is a one-man vehicle, it is often better to merge into the candidate's article. It should only have a separate article if WP:NORG is met. (t · c) buidhe 03:16, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Agree with Usedtobecool that in practice, parties which have won at least one seat to a state or national legislature tend to be notable. Elli (talk | contribs) 06:53, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Help patrolling a page

Hiya! was wondering if anyone could assist me in the manual patrolling of this page: James Marriott (musician) as I would like it to surpass the 90 day wait. Thank you! George (talk) 02:45, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

@Georgeykiwi: It appears James Marriott (musician) was patrolled by Chris troutman and is now indexable by search engines. Is that what you were asking? —Sirdog (talk) 03:44, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Leading me to believe that Georgeykiwi is an undeclared paid editor who has to get the "client's Wikipedia article" in search engine results. I have found that condemnable fans are content with the article existing. Only paid editors care about SEO. The subject passes MUSICBIO so that's the end of it. Chris Troutman (talk) 03:59, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes it was! Thank you Sirdog :) Also Chris_troutman, I would like to say that i am not a paid editor / employed by him in any way, to put that assumption to sleep haha. Also Hey_man_im_josh, noted, thanks for your help :) George (talk) 11:48, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Moving forward, please wait patiently and do not post to ask to have your page patrolled. We have a lot of pages in the backlog and reviewers are always doing their best to get through it. Hey man im josh (talk) 04:05, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

NPP Drive

Morning folks!! Is there any plan to continue the drive for at least another couple of weeks, or even a month. I don't mind putting another couple of weeks into it, even though I've got a ton of work to get through this year. I do plan to do more on a continual basis. scope_creep^Talk 08:56, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

The January drive is now complete, but I'm sure there'll be another one later in the year. You're very welcome to keep patrolling the meantime though. :-) Thanks. -Kj cheetham (talk) 10:10, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

The drive ended three days ago and already the backlog is growing again. The drive before that was in October, so if we extend this one by another month we'll have a six month period were there was as many drive months as non-drive months. I really think we need to focus on building a sustainable rate of regular reviewing; this yo-yo pattern clearly isn't working. – Joe (talk) 12:46, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

There's no doubt that you're right, but how do you think that might be achieved? since it hasn't been so far. More barnstars for regular sustained patrolling? (but are barnstars enough?) Or agree easier-to-implement assessment criteria? or just let the "residue class" of tough articles slide? Ingratis (talk) 13:34, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

There's no magic bullet. Both of those suggestions would help. Awards for regular reviewing is a perennial suggestion that I think is just waiting for someone to pick it up and do it.

I think the written guidance is about right in terms of balancing thoroughness vs. efficiency. The problem is that many newer reviewers—I have no idea why—believe that they have to do a lot more than has ever been stated there. In particular I think the misconception that NPP is responsible for policing notability is in large part responsible for that 'residue class' and needs to be worked on.

In addition to that, steady recruitment of new patrollers is obviously key – as is having admins processing their requests at WP:PERM/NPP, which we have been struggling with lately. Autopatrolled is another important lever we can use to control the rate of articles entering the queue. At the moment people are uneasy about it because of the risk presented by permanent grants, so if someone could resolve that policy knot and allow us to use autopatrolled more confidently, that could be a huge help. Finally, I think we're long overdue an proper evidence-based assessment of draftification and whether it actually helps to maintain encyclopaedic integrity or merely multiplies the workload of reviewers. – Joe (talk) 08:07, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Well unless I’m completely misreading the NPP tutorial we are the notability police, but I don’t think that significantly increases the time it takes to review an article. The work you do to determine whether an article is a hoax, an attack page etc. gives you your answer about notability as a by-product in most cases. I don’t have any brilliant ideas for how to keep the backlog permanently lower though. A sudden mass extinction of footballers would certainly help, and maybe admins should be a bit less picky in granting autopatrolled. Mccapra (talk) 08:30, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

for some reason the 'redirect' backlog in particular, seems to be getting larger (not sure why)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:27, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Maybe I'm preaching to the choir here, but it's worth noting that the drive that just ended was focused only on reviewing articles. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 20:03, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

I think extending backlog drives beyond a month would probably burn folks out. Part of what makes a backlog drive work is that we get a bunch of people to focus on something, together, for a short time.

I really think we need to focus on building a sustainable rate of regular reviewing. Yes, but how? Obvious problem, non-obvious solution. Recruitment efforts are ongoing.

this yo-yo pattern clearly isn't working. These backlog drives are doing their job. They're not getting to zero backlog, but they are keeping us stable at 8,000 unreviewed articles over a six month period. See graph above for supporting data. I think it's safe to say there's no way we would be at 8,000 articles right now without these two backlog drives. So in my opinion backlog drives are very successful, and I plan to keep doing them, perhaps 3 or 4 a year.

More barnstars for regular sustained patrolling? We have a program to reward regular reviewing. @Dr vulpes is the current NPP awards coordinator. Sure, maybe this can be expanded, ideas are encouraged :) Please also see Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Awards and Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Coordination#Recognition for consistent reviewing.

we are the notability police, but I don’t think that significantly increases the time it takes to review an article. Agreed that modern NPP does have to check notability. I do think this adds a significant amount of time to each review. Opening and evaluating sources for GNG is not fast. However I would not be in favor of eliminating this because it is a fringe position to say that NPP shouldn't check notability. Most folks want us to do this.

or just let the "residue class" of tough articles slide? This is the nuclear option. If the backlog gets ridiculously high (like >25,000), I will look into software changes to let articles fall off the back of the queue. Not there yet though.

as is having admins processing their requests at WP:PERM/NPP, which we have been struggling with lately. This area has backlogs around two weeks sometimes. Not ideal, but it seems to self-fix. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:11, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

[It] is a fringe position to say that NPP shouldn't check notability – it's absolutely not a 'fringe position' to say that NPP does not have to perform detailed checks of notability, which is all that anyone is saying: reread the tutorial (current and past versions), reread the earliest guidelines we had, reread Insertcleverphrasehere's original flowchart, reread past discussions on this talk page, listen to the concerns expressed elsewhere by users with decades of policy experience about (some) NPPer's current bloated expectations. Notability has always been a peripheral concern of NPP, far down the list of priorities and generally limited to checking for obvious lack of significance (CSD-level or near) and using {{notability}} tags to triage more complex cases. Because our purpose is and always has been triage: quickly dealing with threats to the encyclopaedia, then marking less serious and more time-consuming issues for attention by other processes. Who are these 'folks' that have asked us to depart from this longstanding consensus, and do they realise how big our workload already is? – Joe (talk) 10:17, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

In my opinion, ICPH's flowchart prescribes detailed notability checking via the box Does the article have 2 or more references to independent, reliable sources that discuss the topic with significant coverage? (GNG). WP:NPP may not be a great page to link since you recently rewrote it and pushed it more towards your views on notability, draftification, copyright, etc. I can't speak for others, but as for myself I did not have the energy to fully review the very large number of changes made to the WP:NPP page, so it may still need additional editing to reflect current practices. I am aware that WAID, a great editor, shares similar views to you on this, and you two may be the main editors with this particular position. I am hesitant to trust years-old diffs for indicating what the current practices are. –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:16, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

(Thank you for the compliment.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:39, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

@Joe Roe@Novem Linguae, I kind of agree with both of you. Before ACTrial, notability was a concern, but not the primary concern. Afterwards, it became the major concern because most of the flow of garbage we had been previously inundated with had slowed markedly.

Honestly the only workflow change likely to improve the slog at NPP in the long run is to require sources be in the article, or else be deleted. It is a huge burden on patrollers to have to search the entirety of the internet for notability checks every time someone submits a one paragraph article with no references or links. When the effort form new page patrol exceeds the actual effort put into creating the article... there is a problem (especially when new articles are generated by ChatGPT and similar AI tools).

However, this is not something that WE can change. It's baked into Wikipedia policy, and these disucssions have been brought up before. There are a lot of editors opposed to deleting unreferenced new articles (some who are, and many who are not new page patrollers). This mostly comes down to philosophy, as many view Wikipedia as a work in progress where even poor starts to potentially notable topics are valuable. Many of us at NPP take a more practical approach: we simply can't keep up with the workload of dealing with these 'poor starts'.

What has resulted? Massive burnout, and also a lot of shortcuts designed to try to funnel these articles out of the system; draftification has been used, sometimes against policy, to funnel many of these notable but terrible articles to draft space, where they mostly die.

What is the solution? We aren't going to convince people to tighten the new article standards to require sources, there's too much momentum behind the old system of "collect and improve junk". We can continue to expand draftification of unreferenced articles (tough I believe that the current rule is that we can't draftify a second time if re-created in main space, which ties our hands).

Another solution, for which I believe the technical capability now exists, would be for someone to train an AI to understand Wikipedia's notability processes, and run automated checks on all new articles. After all, if people are using AI to write new articles, we should be using AI to fight back. — Insertcleverphrasehere^{(or here)_{(or here)(or here)}} 17:48, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

When Novem Linguae says "Most folks want us to do this", I think it might be more precise to say that most folks want Somebody else to do this. NPP looks handy for getting stuck with this (C'mon, guys, you're already looking at all the new articles anyway, so can't you just stretch your mission just a teeny tiny bit to include this adjacent thing?), but it's not the purpose of NPP.

We need someone to do CSD work. That's why we support groups of editors in looking at all the brand-new articles. Attack pages need to be killed within minutes, not when that one guy who specializes in Argentinian people sits down to see whether any interesting articles have been created recently. Attack pages hurt people right now. Copyvio pages cause legal liability right now. NPP is the "someones" that banded together to find and kill these urgent problems.

By contrast, we only want someone to do notability work. If we have an article about Non-Notable, Inc. for a while – even if Google chooses to index it, even if it deserves an {{advert}} tag (but not if it's actually blatant advertising), even if it's 100% WP:Glossary#uncited – it's not the end of the world. Anyone can check that; it doesn't have to be NPP, and NPP doesn't have to do it. We do have some editors who want this done systematically. They also overlap with the group of people who want it done by anybody except themselves (also, for the reviewer to have their own level of understanding of the subject matter and their exact same views about what subjects qualify for a separate, stand-alone article).

To give you a little potted history of NPP, it might be helpful to look at the versions in place when some of the editors in this discussion first joined Wikipedia:

• When Joe created his account (March 2005), here's what WP:NPP said. They had just given up on the original NPP goal, which tried to make sure that each article was reviewed at least once, by having editors sign up for hour-by-hour slots every day. You were supposed to check all the new pages from, say, 11:00 to 11:59 on March 18th, and then put your name in the log to let everyone know that they could skip those. About a third of the instructions is related to speedy deletion criteria (CSD wasn't a policy back then).
• When I created my account (August 2006), NPP didn't exist. The original had been merged to RC Patrol. This is the first version after @Chaser split it back off. Note that NPP was discouraged from sending articles to AFD (called VFD back then). Conclusion: NPP was not the notability police.
• When Novem created his account (January 2009), here's the state. Slightly more than half the text on the page is about speedy deletion. NPPers are encouraged to improve articles, including to "try to find some [sources] yourself", but my recollection of that time is that mostly, they tagged them instead of improving them.
• When Ozzie created their account (October 2012), we have this version. The Wikipedia:New pages patrol/School has just been added. The "school" was largely the invention of a single editor who had a very expansive idea of what NPP should do (e.g., checking for spelling errors) and thought that it was essential for NPPers to check dozens of criteria for each page. The page opens with attack pages, hoax articles, and copyvios. It has introduced the concept of "Patroller checklists" and has long lists of things to consider. The article checklist on that date included 10 separate points, the first of which was CSD, and the second of which was "Does the article belong on Wikipedia?" This represents the introduction of the idea that NPP is a comprehensive peer review of everything about a new article, rather than primarily a CSD-focused shop.
• When Ingratis created his account (January 2019), we have this version. The main change is that (since October 2016) we now limit the people who can take a page out of the review queues. The page is four times as long as it was ten years ago. It boasts about being one of the most important and vital tasks done by editors with "near-admin knowledge" who "review correctly and seriously" (emphasis in the original). It declares its purpose to be "policing the quality of the project" to prevent "poorly written" and "bad pages" from being indexed by search engines. But when you cut through all the puffery, what's left is: the #1 job is to find and kill attack pages, hoaxes, copyvios, and CSD-worthy spam. Everything else (and there is a lot of it) is secondary.
• Today: The page has been shortened a little, and the flowery, self-congratulatory (inspiring?) language has been removed. A simplified flowchart is offered. The list of tasks is pretty burdensome, but no longer asks NPPers to check grammar and spelling.

So that's a little history, and now let me add: That effort to make NPPers do it all? It didn't work. A couple of editors advocated very strongly for their view, complained at editors who didn't follow their advice, ran off folks who disagreed, and generally did everything humanly possible to develop NPP into their ideal, but what actually happened was: Editors interested in NPP quickly checked brand-new articles against the CSD criteria. If the articles didn't qualify for CSD, they moved on to another article – silently, in many cases (which leads to those backlogs), but they kept looking for CSD-worth problems.

I recommend looking at the page views for new articles some time. It is not unusual to have a BLP get 20 page views in the first hour and 50 page views in the first day – and to still be in "the backlog" a week later, because most people doing the core NPP work don't really want to do all of these "extras", so they do the parts that they care about and declare the rest to be Somebody else's problem. We're doing that work inefficiently (so many editors re-re-re-checking for attack pages without any of them knowing that someone else already did that), but they're dong the essential work of NPP, which is to get CSD-worthy pages off to CSD as rapidly as possible. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:37, 6 February 2024 (UTC)