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The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss proposed policies and guidelines and changes to existing policies and guidelines.
If you want to propose something new that is not a policy or guideline, use Village pump (proposals).
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This is not the place to resolve disputes over how a policy should be implemented. Please see Wikipedia:Dispute resolution for how to proceed in such cases.

Please see this FAQ page for a list of frequently rejected or ignored proposals.

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RfC: Locality categorization by historical subdivisions

This section is pinned and will not be automatically archived.

Question: What should the general rule/principle/guideline be for categorizing current localities by historical administrative subdivision in Central and Eastern Europe? There are quite a few articles of cities and towns that have been categorized not only in which administrative subdivision they currently are in, but also by the former subdivisions.

Typical example: Eišiškės, a small town in Lithuania, is in these categories: Category:Cities in Lithuania, Category:Cities in Vilnius County, Category:Šalčininkai District Municipality, Category:Vilnius Voivodeship, Category:Lidsky Uyezd, Category:Nowogródek Voivodeship (1919–1939). The first 3 categories reflect the current administrative subdivision. Vilnius Voivodeship was a subdivision in 1413–1795. Lidsky Uyezd was a 2nd-level subdivision sometime between 1795–1915. Nowogródek Voivodeship (1919–1939) was an inter-war subdivision.

General options:

A: categorization should be limited - by what? Whether it is referenced in the article? How long the subdivision lasted? How large the subdivision was? To the 1st-level former subdivision? To how recent subdivision was? Etc?
B: categorization should not be allowed (i.e. current localities should be removed from the former subdivision categories; historical information could be preserved in a different venue like a separate list or an addition to the locality article or something similar to the "historical affiliation" box as in Görlitz#History)
C: status quo; no general rules; specific issues with individual categories should be addressed at WP:CfD

22:24, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Major concerns with such categories:

WP:OR/WP:V: many of the locality articles do not even mention or reference former subdivisions. In Eišiškės example above, only Nowogródek Voivodeship is mentioned in the article body (added by me 12 years ago without a reference). What is the basis to claim it was in the Lidsky Uyezd? An editor looking at a map? Finding out former subdivisions is not always straightforward, particularly for smaller towns or for older subdivisions – some medieval regions did not have well defined borders, while in more recent years administrative border adjustments are frequent.
WP:NONDEF: if many of the articles don't even mention the historical subdivision, it cannot be the defining characteristic (which is the central goals of the categorization system).
Confusion for readers: in the example of Eišiškės above, could you tell which of the 6 categories is for the current and which is for the former subdivision? (this could be somewhat alleviated by better category names)
Clutter/maintainability: Görlitz lists 23 different countries/states (not to mention subdivisions) that it was a part of. Should all of these be represented in a category? If not all, then which ones?

Examples of categories: just some samples from different countries. Category:Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia (did not have well-defined borders), Category:Republic of Central Lithuania (has other valid historical articles mixed in with current localities), Category:Telshevsky Uyezd and Category:Minsky Uyezd (2nd-level subdivision), Category:Lithuania Governorate (subdivision that lasted 5 years), Category:Ținutul Nistru (existed for 2 years), Category:Belastok Region (short-lived WWII subdivision), Category:Province of Catania (subdivision renamed in 2015), Category:Localities in Western Moldavia (without digging, can't tell whether current or historical subdivision), Category:Province of Westphalia.

Why this RfC? There were some CfD discussions over the years (ones that I am aware Aug 2015 (delete), Sept 2015 (delete), Oct 2015 (no consensus), Apr 2017 (no consensus)) but they did attract much attention (unlike AfD, CfD rarely attracts outsider attention), yielded inconsistent results, and did not hash out what should be done with these categories in general. And these categories keep proliferating. Therefore, looking for a broader principle-based discussion here, rather than individual consideration of specific categories at CfD.

Side note: some locality articles have "historical affiliation" boxes (example: Görlitz#History), though in some others it was removed as "nightmares" or "LISTCRUFT". And a user got blocked for adding them (and refusing to communicate).

Opinion poll: Locality categorization by historical subdivisions

Please place your !vote here.

A: definitely should be limited to may be current immediate subdivision and may be the historical in which a populated place was established. For the "historical affiliation" box mentioned above for Gorlitz, it should be avoided as a spam as it simply fails the Manual of Style for flags WP:MOSFLAG and infringes on original research WP:OR due to political speculations. Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 22:59, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Aleksandr Grigoryev: I thought about it, and I don't think it's a workable solution. Many places don't have a specific founding date and they are just mentioned in written sources in year x, or even more broadly in century y. Plus what makes the first subdivision so special? Further, I don't think it's maintainable. If you think about it, it still means that there will have to be categories for all historical subdivisions of that region as localities were founded/mentioned in different times. So, for example, there will have to be a category for Vilnius Voivodeship that contains localities founded/first mentioned in 1413-1795 and for Lidsky Uyezd that contains localities founded/first mentioned in 1795-1915. But then, it's likely that someone will decide that the category on Lidsky Uyezd is not comprehensive and start adding articles purely by geographic location. Renata (talk) 03:15, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A (Current Subdivision and Historical One at Founding) I'm with Aleksandr above, the current geographical subdivision and the original seems reasonable. So Marseille would be both in the current French subdivision and be noted as a former Greek colony. (I don't want this approach to throw out all historical/former city categories beyond subdivisions though: Category:Former national capitals and Category:Populated places along the Silk Road both seem defining.) RevelationDirect (talk) 00:31, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

C. This is far too broad a question and these things badly need to be determined on a case by case basis. Some of the above shouldn't have locality categorisation in this way. Some of them should. The idea that we can answer them on a global basis with reference to a handful of subdivisions in eastern Europe is the sort of discussion that leads to all kinds of ridiculous situations when applied to local situations in places nobody was giving thought to. The Drover's Wife (talk) 00:54, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Drover's Wife: not really looking to write any policy here, but just to get a rough idea/consensus from the wider community on what categories should or should not be present in locality articles. It would be very helpful if you could expand on your comment "Some of the above shouldn't have locality categorisation in this way. Some of them should." -- which should (not) and based on what criteria? Even if just considering the examples listed above. Renata (talk) 01:46, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I am woefully under-educated about the history of this specific region and I'd hate to give pronouncements on things I don't understand well enough to have a sensible opinion. I'm just extremely cautious of a discussion like this creating a rule that then gets applied to completely different circumstances in other places. The Drover's Wife (talk) 03:23, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

B (A if we have to): Limited to current subdivisions only, as has been the long established practice; bio articles relevant to the polity itself are also currently placed in the category named for that polity -- it is Category:People of medieval Wallachia, but not Category:People from Saac County (i. e. a defunct county in said Wallachia). This avoids a massive overcrowding. I don't see when populated places would be placed even in articles pertaining to those polities, let alone their subdivisons; only nostalgia and irredentism can be the driving factors here, and neither is encyclopedic. Current subdivision also establishes a neutral standard: populated places that were once in Romania are categorized by their current subdivision in Ukraine, but the same standards would apply to localities in Romania that were once in Hungary. Dahn (talk) 05:46, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A or B, one could say "A, because we should allow this if a historical subdivision is a defining characteristic of a locality", but in practice it never is a defining characteristic, so A and B are very similar. Marcocapelle (talk) 08:47, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A. Current and historical are enough. Historical division/subdivision should at least be mentioned in prose before including it. In addition, as already noted by other editor, the "Historical affiliations", including the mentioned problems, should be removed, because it is unsourced, trivial, and just takes up unnecessary space of the page. – Sabbatino (talk) 11:13, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sabbatino: Can you clarify which "historical" is enough? All of the examples above are "historical" so you are not actually limiting to anything. Renata (talk) 15:56, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Country and first level division (governorate, state, province, etc). – Sabbatino (talk) 13:05, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

C I'm with The Drover's Wife on this. It's unwise to make policy decision on such a broad front. Examples can be listed of multiple short-lived political entities to which a city may have been attached over many centuries; it would probably be excessive to make the city a child of all of them. Cities changed hands multiple times in the Holy Roman Empire. On the other hand some administrative sub-divisions, while practically defunct, nevertheless remain on the statute books. For example Thurles (civil parish) is in the ancient barony of Eliogarty. While Eliogarty no longer has a practical administrative function, it has never been legally abolished. I would not like to see Thurles being removed from Category:Eliogarty. In summary, such thingsare best decided on a case-by-case, CFD basis. Laurel Lodged (talk) 11:36, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Laurel Lodged: As per your own comment, the barony in question still exists, in some definition, and the first verb in Eliogarty is "is". This is therefore an irrelevant example to this particular discussion, equivalent at best to including cities and towns in their traditional or cultural region. Dahn (talk) 10:03, 23 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

C Per The Drover's Wife above. I believe handling this on a case-by-case basis and category-specific CFDs is the way to go.--Darwinek (talk) 16:01, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I have narrowed down the geographic focus of the RfC just to Central and Eastern Europe (because that's really where the issues are). Ping to editors who already commented, in case that changes their thoughts: Aleksandr Grigoryev, RevelationDirect, The Drover's Wife, Dahn, Marcocapelle, Sabbatino, Laurel Lodged, Darwinek. Renata (talk) 16:09, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No Change in View Based on the limitation of scope to the discussion. RevelationDirect (talk) 19:24, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - CFD Piecemeal Approach A CFD discussion is just as likely to suggest a global approach as this discussion might suggest a case-by-case approach. The area I have concern with is the subcategories of Category:Districts of East Germany, where we categorize literally every populated place that used to be part of the GDR by former region, which doesn't seem remotely defining to me. If I nominated that tree for deletion, it's likely to come up why I'm not nominating the Lithuania examples Renata provided. Does anyone see a difference between those two examples? RevelationDirect (talk) 19:24, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm not sure why it would come up. It doesn't follow that that what might be appropriate in one situation must be appropriate to another in a completely different geographical, political and historical context because they're both abolished institutions. If you think the German and Lithuanian ones you've both mentioned are equivalent and that they suck, nominating them both is a much better outcome than attempting to make global policy affecting thousands of situations you haven't considered. If you're preferring the few-heads global policy attempt because you think you're going to lose a CfD on the two (I don't know, this is emphatically not my area of knowledge in the world), that should tell you something. The Drover's Wife (talk) 20:23, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - I'm not sure anyone can name a situation when categorizing by past subnational entity would benefit anyone. Mind you, we're not talking about examples such as "Ancient Greek colonies" or "Former capitals of...", none of which actually refer to a subdivision. We are talking about subdivisions for all purposes defunct, and the type of info one would be able to recover from the article and/or a map. Nobody would benefit from having Places in modern-day Turkey grouped under their former Ottoman vilayets, though the article on both the place and the vilayet should include references to one another, at least once theyre both developed. Dahn (talk) 09:59, 23 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    - ...unless someone was trying to find out what happened to the cities that were once within a particular Ottoman vilayets. I'd expect that to be unusual, but I can imagine it happening (at least for larger cities). (That sounds like a great school assignment: "Pick one of the Ottoman vilayets we've been talking about this week, figure out what it's biggest city was, and find out what's happened to that city since then.") WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:59, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      - @WhatamIdoing:: Except we are not a teaching aide (leaving aside that "go on wikipedia and click two links" isn't really a proper assignment at all). Dahn (talk) 14:02, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        Whether it's "proper" is going to depend on the context (e.g., age of the students and whether this is meant to be an important assignment or just a few minutes' homework). I do not say that we have to accommodate that reader. I only say that when billions of people have access to Wikipedia, the odds are high that at least one reader would sincerely appreciate whatever seems unimportant to any given editor. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:02, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        @WhatamIdoing:: The main point is that we're not here to offer that kind of assistance. Dahn (talk) 05:33, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        We should be here to provide every type of encyclopedic information. Some of our tools for doing this are pretty awful at the moment (consider, e.g., the necessity of Category:18th-century British women writers, when it'd be better to have a way to record the simple facts of "18th-century", "British", "women", and "writers" and let the software combine them). The same general type of system could be used for geography: Here is the location, and now give me a list of every relevant Wikipedia article. It'd be clunky to do this with just categories, but I hope that in the future, people will be able to look up any the patch of dirt and see all of its history, from well before being absorbed into the Ottoman empire, through the creation of the province/vilayet system, to the end of the Ottoman empire, and what's happened since then. I think that helping people understand history is consistent with our goals. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:10, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        @WhatamIdoing: One can understand the point of having women who lived in the 18th century and practiced a certain trade, and were of a certain nationality, in a standalone category, however: the encyclopedic relevance of having articles placed in defunct administrative divisions is entirely unproven, and unargued -- beyond "it would help hypothetical students perform a hypothetical inane assignment with even more ease". What we do have from the above is your hope that we should all embark on this "patch of dirt" pet project (which, btw, is an immense task you unload on anyone writing articles on such topics, without offering them the option to refuse -- since once this is a standard, everyone will be expected to follow it). Instead of simply dreaming of how interesting it would be to have that goal materialized, you could consider that it has no objective use, while demanding a lot of work from "someone else". Dahn (talk) 06:38, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        I don't think so. We already put {{coord}} in articles about geographical areas, and Special:Nearby already lets you find articles within a certain distance of your location. Wikivoyage (and other projects) is using Wikidata, Commons, and/or OpenStreetMap to mark territories (e.g., Alpine County#Communities – the region, not just a single point within it). It doesn't seem impossible to take that existing data and using something similar to Special:Nearby to find all the articles that are within that arbitrary shape, rather than all the articles that are within a certain radius of a single point. None of this would require any extra work from editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:30, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'd go with B, with the usual allowance for exceptions in exceptional cases. This is a classic list role. All the problems that afflict using a category for this information would disappear if using a list. A list is also much easier to maintain and add any necessary qualifiers to (as might be needed for example if administrative boundaries shifted during the relevant historical period). As a bonus, a list is also much more likely to attract the attention of contributors with relevant historical expertise. I can see no reason why the approach would be different from one geographical area to the next; the arguments with respect to Central and Eastern Eurperiodically I ope would seem to apply equally well in any other geographical context. -- Visviva (talk) 04:33, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
C. I'm not sure why this is such a contentious issue. If the town existed in the past as part of a former subdivision, why would it be inappropriate to note that? It actually sounds fairly useful; if I were trying to find out what was the extent of and former municipalities in, such-and-such of a now-defunct province, the categorization of places into such categories seems like a natural way to do that. --Jayron32 18:53, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- @Jayron32: Because it adds a million categories that could be simply replaced by lists in/alongside articles, and because it serves no purpose other than to satisfy dreams of lost glory? Dahn (talk) 14:04, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm leaning C (no particular rules). I'm not sure that every little village that was once part of the Roman empire should be categorized that way, but Vienna was the capital of multiple empires/nations, and it seems odd to limit its categorization to only the most recent. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:00, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
C. Should be treated case-by case basis, and the text must support categorization, with valid refs. In fact it is often important to know who belong where at a particular time, and periodically I am thinking about adding a kind of timeline template to articles about locations. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:07, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
C (A if we have to): Definitely not B. When talking specifically about Central and Eastern Europe, some places actually have more connection to their former subdivision in terms of historical importance than their current one, so it would be strange not to categorize them by their former subdivision. Ejgreen77 (talk) 11:43, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Ejgreen77: can you give an example of "some places actually have more connection to their former subdivision"? Renata (talk) 18:21, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
A/C Some of these categorisations (and not only for former east European areas, it goes for the whole of the world) are utterly confusing (at least in my opinion). There are objects that are categorised by current areas where the organisation never existed in that current area (organisations (in the most broad sense of the word) that have been discontinued well before the current area where they would have been if the organisation still existed existed (intentionally confusing sentence)). I had to look, but 1962 Northern Rhodesian general election was once categorised in Category:1962 in Zambia where Northern Rhodesia was renamed in 1964 to Zambia (this one has since been fixed: Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_June_18#1935_establishments_in_Zambia; however, there is still Category:Elections in Zambia on the article ...). Within the volatility of the 'countries' in Europe in the past, there are many cases where things happen to an organisation while they are in A, then country changes to B and something else happens, country changes again, to C, and they stop existing, and if they would now still have existed they would now be in D ... Categorisation in these cases should be limited (A) and well thought through (which is basically what should happen now: C). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:24, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
C I'm with User:Staszek Lem on this one: if referenced text in the article supports the historic categorization (and thus it's presumably appropriate text that does not violate WP:UNDUE), then the cat should stay. But if no referenced article text supports the category, then the categorization is the result of original research and should be removed. UnitedStatesian (talk) 19:16, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Unarchived to request closure at WP:ANRFC. Cunard (talk) 00:58, 5 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Rethinking draft space

So, after a recent RfA, I began thinking about whether rethinking the use of draft space at all is something that we should consider. I've personally come to the conclusion that draft space is a failure, and for the most part is something that is used as a holding ground for G13 since the majority of the content is unsalvageable.

While I'm not proposing anything formally yet, I'd be curious at getting the community's thoughts on ways forward, whether it be disabling draft space completely or some other reforms. The current system isn't working, and thinking about ways to change it so we don't have to waste volunteer time maintaining a broken concept would be ideal. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:03, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's doing exactly what it should be doing being a graveyard for crap that would otherwise get into mainspace. And also acts as a place for WP:AFC to do its role when people aren't submitting crap. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:13, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If you submit non-crap, the odds of it being found in AfC to be published in time for you to want to continue contributing approximate zero. The ideal here is that people should be able to create content that is notable and others improve it. Draft space hinders that goal, and does not help it. AfC could easily go back to the user subpage model for anyone who really wants to use it. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:22, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If your solution is to resume putting new submissions into mainspace, then you're basically accepting all the G13 nonsense that is there to die the slow death it deserves. If you want to make sure the good stuff gets in, then the solution here is to improve the AFC process. One thing that could be done is to tag the talk pages of drafts, so they get put in the various WP:AALERTS notice of Wikiprojects. It works pretty well at WP:JOURNALS and WP:WPWIR and other involved projects. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:56, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see what benefit the current use of draft space brings to the encyclopedia. The whole point of a wiki is that content should be developed collaboratively, but in draft space nobody finds the content that needs improving. Rather than move things to draft just for them to be deleted six months later under WP:G13 people should use the existing deletion procedures where articles should be deleted, and let articles that should not be deleted be developed in main space where they belong. The use for draft space that I would support is very different from the way that it is currently used. Because Wikinews has been a failure it would be a good place for things that are in the news, so are covered by primary sources, but have not yet been covered by proper secondary sources, but it seems that enough people come out in support of having Wikipedia articles about anything covered by newspapers to preclude this. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:53, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I remember being excited about draftspace early on, because it offered a place to find and collaborate on drafts that weren't quite ready for mainspace. There were two problems, though: 1) We don't have great tools for finding drafts, or even for notifying people creating articles that there's already an extant draft (an easily missed line before you start editing a page with exactly the same title as a draft is as close as we get). So nobody really uses it for collaboration/discovery. 2) After a series of RfCs and other discussions, the function of draftspace is the same as userspace but with a countdown to deletion for newbies who don't know any better. I don't know, maybe it's useful to have a bin for pages that don't need to be deleted yet, but don't make sense for any one particular user's userspace. I'd be interested to see some statistics about its usage. Admittedly, I have a specific perspective in this. I'm disappointed that draftspace is useless for experienced editors, and of the many, many new users I engage with, the vast majority of them are through off-wiki programs (courses, edit-a-thons, etc.) -- and perhaps draftspace is really just for those newbies that come to Wikipedia with no help. If that's the purpose, we should be clear about that, though. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 20:38, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
TonyBallioni, the problem is that Draft space has been used as a holding ground for articles that should be in Category:Articles needing additional references, but that already has 387,516 articles in it, and it's pretty obvious that if a new page patroller adds that category in stead of draftifying it, nothing will happen. So they get dumped in Draft space where they await a slow death. Somehow we should find a way to get more eyes on those articles, rather than less. Vexations (talk) 20:55, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I think that realistically, there is always going to be more input than manpower available to maintain it. The Weibull distribution probably doesn't strictly apply here but I suspect that the vast majority of drafts are not going to be edited collaboratively. So if you let all these things go into articlespace you get a flood of poor articles. If you put them in draftspace, a lot will be picked out by G13. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 21:01, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I am personally of the opinion an article in draft space is one that is open for people to collaborate on; whereas in userspace its more for personal development without interference (and I would expect to be able to cut/paste at article to mainspace if necessary). And I do use it that way myself with 20 drafts on my watchlist currently, fettling the drafts every 4 months or so(10 new; 10 ex-Afd; expect 5 to be in mainspace this year). But I agree an article to effective in draft space it needs to be in one or more peoples stewardship(watchlist) (not necessarily the creator) or its almost certainly a G13 goner. Its likely pointless putting a long established article with an inactive author to draftspace unless someone shows interest it. For new newspace entries a point to "help - my articles been draftified what do a do about it". I'd like to see a two week pre-G13 banner notice that could trigger people's watchlist interest if necessary to try to minimize G13/Refunds. We need to minimize admin manual work and have good process pathways. HEADBOMB's article alert suggestions may have some value. Its my bedtime so I'm probably talking dribble.Djm-leighpark (talk) 01:20, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Draft space is a repeat of ideas that failed before, including the Incubator and Nupedia. Wikipedia succeeded where the perfectionist Nupedia failed because of its Wiki approach which is inherently quick and dirty. Even after 20 years, 99% of Wikipedia's content is less than good and every page has a disclaimer to warn readers that the content is not reliable. Our processes are built around this fundamental understanding and acceptance that our content is flawed and always will be. New content should be put alongside old content so that they can be read and processed together by everyone, not just an inadequate handful of inspectors. Draft space should be disabled and marked as yet another failed experiment. Andrew🐉(talk) 01:22, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don't try and interpret what the original ideas or thoughts belonged to the people behind the creation of the draftspace. I will however comment on its current function. There is no denying that there are more articles created then editors watching and fixing them. I work mainly in TV and film areas and check almost daily the articles alerts for these pages. There are a lot of pages that come from either non-English speaking countries or countries such as India where an article is created about some TV or web series that has a few lines, zero sources and is usually also badly written and ignores each and every MoS section it can. I personally do not have time to go over each one and fix them. I also do not have any intention of going to AfD for everyone as I find places like AfD and MfD to be bureaucracy filled places where the most horrible garbage can usually find supports to keep it. In most cases I've seen, these articles creators also never return. So what we are left with is horrible articles, with questionable notability and even more questionable unsupported statements. There is absolutely nothing to gain in keeping Wikipedia "mediocre" as one nom above me is arguing, and having these articles in article space does exactly that. To comment on the argument that drafts don't get worked on by others, I'd argue that the same articles won't get worked on even if they were in article space except from simple gnoming which doesn't make the article any better. On the other hand, articles which would have been worked together in article space, do get worked on together in draft space. There are many examples of MCU, Arrowverse, Star Wars and other notable TV series (and their seasons) that are actively worked on while being drafts. tl/dr - with the current overall system in place on Wikipedia, draftspace works and does what it needs to. --Gonnym (talk) 09:32, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Don't go looking for problems where there aren't any. Getting rid of Draftspace would be a disaster which I would oppose in the strongest possible way. Just leave it alone – it's working: some articles that merit attention do get that, and those that don't generally die the deaths they deserve. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 13:39, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The core issue here is that we have no meaningful way to sort and find content in draft space. But I'm not sure that burning down the house to catch the mouse is necessarily the correct way to respond to that. GMG ^talk 14:01, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
All removing the draft space would do is massively increase the number of CSD and PROD and AFD tags being added to inappropriate new articles. If the draft space is serving no other purpose than acting as a holding area for stuff to keep it out of the article space, it's doing enough. Please don't get rid of it. --Jayron 32 15:27, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Here's what usually happens with draft articles:
1. A new user creates an article in mainspace / creates a draft and submits it to WP:AFC.
2. A reviewer thinks it's undersourced and moves it to draft space / declines the draft.
3. By now, the new user has probably left Wikipedia (either they left when they created their page or they left because their work was rejected).
4. Nobody else notices the page and so 6 months later, an admin deletes the draft per WP:G13.
It's not the new user's fault that they don't know how to meet the toughest reviewer's sourcing requirements. Reviewers don't bother looking for sources to improve articles, they just draftify/decline and move on to the next "problem", and neither do admins who see a valid G13 (and thus press the delete button as it only takes 1 click). Getting rid of draftspace isn't the solution as it stop new users from creating articles altogether. Making it easier to find drafts won't fix the problem either if nobody wants to work on them. The only solutions I see are to stop draftifying articles without a proper discussion and to get rid of G13. Why is there even a deadline for draft space? Iffy★Chat -- 18:45, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Iffy, Reviewers don't bother looking for sources. They do if they're doing page patrol correctly. Look at the NPP flowchart. There is no way you a reviewer could reasonably arrive at draftify without meeting at least WP:BEFORE. I get your point about new users disappearing though. That is a problem, and it has to do with the size of the backlog. It takes too long to get feedback on an article. Vexations (talk) 22:55, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I've seen reviewers decline articles on the grounds that the citations were listed in the article but weren't formatted in the WP:REFB style. I've seen an article declined because the sources were WP:NONENG, even though that's allowed. We shouldn't design processes that only produce acceptable results if each reviewer knows dozens and dozens of rules and follows them all perfectly every time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:32, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
WhatamIdoing, NPP folks or AfC? I've seen the behaviour you describe at AfC, and worse, but not by draftifying NPPers. The expectations of New Page Patrollers are that such mistakes should never happen, or very rarely. I don't think there's a problem with having a process that requires that the people doing the processing have extensive policy knowledge. Vexations (talk) 23:43, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

WhatamIdoing, I think you are referring to AfC reviewers, NPP reviewers would pretty quickly get crucified for this behaviour and is against the process (see the aforementioned NPP flowchart). If you do have such examples, please pass them to me so that I can hand out admonishments. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 03:08, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Even though I think the Draft namespace, and the whole system for dealing with new content, is nowadays functioning a bit better than say about two years ago, I still believe it is fundamentally not fit for purpose. A lot of junk is created that can't get immediately cleared out and a fair amount of easily improvable content on notable topics is relegated to silent deletion because it doesn't fit some reviewer's idea of what an exemplary article should be like. I'm beginning to think that the system of the pre-WP:ACTRIAL days was better: any registered user could create an article immediately available in mainspace, the loads of garbage could be quickly whisked away, the content with potential made immediately available for others to further improve, and the borderline cases decided on by the deliberative process. – Uanfala (talk) 23:44, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with others above that the Draft namespace is not working well, and obstructs the proper functioning of the wiki. The original case for draftspace was persuasive and exciting, but it doesn't seem to have worked out very well in practice. It's ended up being less like an incubator and more like Limbo. I keep coming across decent starter articles on encyclopedic topics that were draftified/declined (and often subsequently deleted as "abandoned") because someone found them wanting on seemingly arbitrary grounds. One example that currently sticks in my craw is an article about a prominent African-American newspaper that a novice contributor submitted to AfC; one reviewer correctly identified it as "ready to go" but the article subsequently sat in limbo for four months before someone else decided it wasn't good enough and declined the submission. (I discovered and un-draftified it because I was in the process of creating such an article myself, and it would have been ridiculous and anti-wiki to pass up the opportunity to build on the original contributor's work.) While it may be true that Drafts help to filter out bad articles as well, the absence of one good article does more long-term harm to the project than the presence of a hundred bad ones. When we are treating our most dedicated new contributors this way, it's a wonder we have any contributors at all. I'll humbly submit, however, that at least half of the problem here is that we are currently tricking novice users into submitting through the optional AfC bureaucracy rather than inviting them to participate directly in the wiki as we should. Biting the newcomers is bad, but fencing them out as we currently do is much worse. -- Visviva (talk) 06:46, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Looking into the history, I was a bit surprised to realize that draftspace didn't become a thing until 2013. That forces me to reconsider some of my assumptions about the feature's negative impacts, since Wikipedia's ongoing slump was already well under way by 2013. But the recency of that date also makes it a bit difficult to take any of the above prognostications of doom seriously. It's hard to think of any standard by which the Wikipedia of 2013 was an "unmitigated disaster" but the Wikipedia of 2020 is not. Thus it seems highly unlikely that returning to the draftspace-free status quo ante would have any particularly disastrous effects. -- Visviva (talk) 07:12, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Idea: make draft space only for articles with a plausible COI concern. It's pretty clear that we're not doing new editors any favors by fencing them off from AfD, but we need a way to keep bad faith editors from soaking up our time and effort. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 07:15, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Rosguill, So much of the content submitted these days has a plausible COI that this wouldn't really help much unfortunately. and would make false flags even worse; who wants to work at AfC if ALL the articles are COIs? — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 03:11, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I sadly have to agree, even drafts that have a shot at making it into mainspace often end up subject to G13. However, I think that they could be fixed, possibly using Headbomb's suggestion of making drafts in particular subjects get a tag so that people that may be interested in them actually see them.
However, I also think there should be a way to get junk cleared out faster, because at the end of the day the majority of drafts that fall to G13 are junk. I patrol recent changes, primarily userspace and draft space, and I believe this to be true based on what i've seen: lots of unrecoverable junk, an occasional good draft that's COI, and very little else. —moonythedwarf (Braden N.) 17:18, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Do we have any metrics for measuring the impact that 7 years of draftspace has had on the wiki? Are there less deletions from mainspace now than before? Fewer AfDs? Less promo? More articles? Better articles? Levivich (lulz) 02:35, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
My position to keep aligns closely with IJBall, Rosguill, and Vexations. WhatamIdoing, the actions by the NPPers you described are what needs review rather than the process, although I do understand the process is not perfect. Perhaps the WMF can conduct the necessary research and provide answers to the questions asked by Levivich? Kudpung has been one of the most active in getting NPP the tools needed to do the job, and he may have some insight as to resolving some of the issues we're facing now. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 13:30, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Research was done when the draftspace was fairly new, and the conclusion was that the draftspace is where articles go to die. See m:Research:Wikipedia article creation and m:Research:AfC processes and productivity. It's not primarily about the speed of the initial response. I think it might be more about the parable that User:Iridescent told me a couple of years ago. The incentives are set up so that nobody wants to be the "bad" reviewer that lets an unwanted article into the mainspace, with the result that both bad articles and borderline articles get suppressed, rather than just the bad ones. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:59, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - WhatamIdoing, that research appears to have been rather one sided and mainly the work and opinion of one WMF staff member. Unless I am seriously missing something, it failed to bring into the statistics the numbers of totally justified rejections of articles that are in no way fit or appropriate for an encyclopedia. Please correct me if I am wrong. This reinforces the notion that the the Foundation was interested in one thing only: the total number of creations, irrespective of their quality, and still is. Such research is probably best outsourced to a neutral consulting body, even if it costs some money. I firmly believe that such matters should be devolved to the community itself, leaving the WMF soley as the instiution that manages legal and financial matters on the Community's behalf, under the Community's instructions.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:11, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    - Oh, I'm willing to believe that one of the research projects might have some bias involved. After all, the WMF staffer who originally proposed the creation of the Draft: space is listed as one of the contributors. I suppose the fact that the draftspace was created by the WMF and that this research involved its main proponent sort of undercuts your opinion that the research project was probably biased against the draftspace. If we had devolved everything to the community, then we wouldn't be having this discussion, because the draftspace wouldn't exist.
      I also don't see the research claiming that any decision is objectively wrong. It shows that draftspace standards are significantly higher than mainspace standards. It does not judge whether the problem is draftspace being "too high" or mainspace being "too low", or a combination of the two. That judgment, after all, is about people's values, and different people have different values. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:05, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I can understand TonyBallioni's motivation for starting this discussion, and I'm only here because I was pinged and I think DGG as a major contributor to these elements should be invited to comment.

A lot of things on Wikipedia are a 'broken concept', including AfC, NPP, AfD, and also the way users are encouraged, their behaviour is processed, or their qualities recognised, indeed, the Founder once said that RfA is a horrible and broken process.

The problem is that no one could have known when it was created that Wikipedia would become such a hugely successful and important collection of knowledge despite (or because of) its crowdsourced content. Many editors in that crowd may well be topic specific experts, professionals, or academics, but many are not, especially when it comes to creating new content, but those who patrol the new contributions are not necessarily schooled in real life either for the tasks that lay before them as Wikipedia backroom people. The main issues are that there is 1) a vast disparity in the way NPP and AfC reviewers go about their work and apply Wikipedia rules, regulations, guidelines, and policies, and 2) simply not enough active reviewers available for both systems (and in the absence of metrics, there is the possibility that some of the ~650 NPPers might be (or were) hat collectors, and 3) but perhaps less important, the cultural dichotomies among the different English speaking users who work in maintenance areas.

But this topic is not strictly about NPP/AfC, it's about the draft namespace which is nevertheless a major part of the mechanism fo maintaining the integrity of of the public part of the encyclopedia corpus. I welcomed the advent of the draft and the deprecation of the incubator, and I fought long and hard to bring about ACTRIAL and its permanent adoption and to create what I hoped would be a competent component to review new articles. I still believe that while 'the encyclopedia anyone can edit' is still an important founding principle, it does not exclude the possibility of introducing required controls as the project continues to grow organically - as demonstrated by the very reason why AfC was created in the first place, and the resounding consensus for ACPERM. Personally, I do not believe that ACPERM went far enough (but it was as much as we dared ask the community for at the time), and recent developments, such as the increase in paid editing and possible abuse of the Autopatrolled and NPP flags give me pause.

What we should probably be looking at is not to immediately deprecate the draft namespace, but to take a very long and serious look at the entire system of management of new content and that would begin with a proper system that informs potential new article creators just what they can and cannot create, and I firmly maintain that that is something that should be at least funded by the WMF even if they claim they do not have the developer capacity to do it. Tony's issue(s) therefore only scratches the surface, what is needed now after 18 years is a holistic approach, and less talk from the WMF about their big ideas lined up for the movement in 30 years hence (for one thing, I and possibly a lot of the users won't be around then unless we live to be a 100, and those of us who have been influential in the past may be seeking to reduce their activity as I have done over the past 2 years on NPP but we wouldn't want to think our efforts have been wasted). A good place to start perhaps, is at Wikipedia:The future of NPP and AfC, and extract some stats and metrics and until that is done, per Headbomb, WhatamIdoing/Iridescent, Atsme, Jayron32, IJBall, Jo-Jo Eumerus, not be too hasty to condemn the draft namespace. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:56, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I find myself agreeing with Kudpung. Allowing the GFOO stream to go directly to mainspace would create an unimaginably huge mess, there simply must be a "holding pen" of some sort to enable at least basic triage.

Now hold onto your hats as I'm going to make a radical (and maybe crazy) suggestion... As I see it the problem is not the existence of draftspace, it's the way drafts are created. There are simply not enough competent reviewers to handle the stream of incoming GFOO, which consists overwelmingly of crap with a light sprinkling of legitimate draft articles. The status of new article creation needs to be drastically downgraded, it should be one of the least significant things a Wikipedian does. In fact the vast majority of draft/article creators are not "true Wikipedians" as all they do is drop one article and leave, many have an obvious COI too. They are the least desirable type of contributor (except for vandals of course). If we really want to reduce the draft overload we should find a way to force users to do substantial "gnome edits" before being allowed to create even a draft - autoconfirmed is a ridiculously trivial barrier. If a newbie had to do several hundred edits to existing mainspace articles before being allowed to create any new pages outside of their own userspace we would basically eliminate spammers and SPAs, as only people interested in working on WP for the sake of WP would be willing to do it. Anyone can edit, but only committed Wikipedians should be allowed to create articles. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:36, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Roger (Dodger67): completely agree with you. At 6M articles, if a newcomer wants to immediately create a new article, that's because it's some kind of their pet project (ranging from innocent article on one's primary school to COI spam). Many prolific users I know (myself included) started off with some type of "gnome edit" -- quick fix a typo or a mistake and then somehow you get hooked. These are the type of editors that we need to recruit -- the one's that care about information, not about their pet project. Renata (talk) 19:35, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

While some good comes out of draftspace, I believe it is draftspace is net negative to the project due to the way it burns wide eyed newcomers. A better approach would be to discourage newcomers from writing new pages until after they have found their editing legs by improving existing content. Other standard criticism is: in draftspace, drafters have virtually no contact with the mainspace editing community; & when they do submit, they receive patronising, top-of-draft templated comments, dissimilar to how mainspace works with talk on talk pages. The most valid reasons for draftspace is forcing AfC and draftspace processes on COI editors, and proponents of AfD-deleted pages who thing they can improve them, however, for both cases userspace could be used. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:47, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Well, Draftspace is a problem because it does what it sets out to do very badly (help new editors). It delays good faith editors with months of waiting before inevitably getting a 'not ready' negative review (they are after all, new editors that don't know how to write articles). It is also used as a holding pen for COI editors' creations, but even for that it doesn't work well! Because those COI editors can just re-create the same article in mainspace again, and the New Page Patroller then has to pursue other means anyway (AfD, PROD, CSD). I think the draft space being a failure is simply a result of the fundamental problem with all the new page processes on wikipedia. We don't have enough reviewers, and we never will. The result of this short-handedness is that we do triage instead of holistic care. This is a necessity, but it results in fundamentally broken processes if you don't accept the fact of it on its face. New Page Patrol KNOWS that it is triage, and it bills itself as such. It doesn't pretend to be a welcoming place, it doesn't pretend to be a bunch of people that are there to help the newbies to write new articles. No, we sort the wheat from the chaff and we move on. AfC and the draftspace are fundamentally broken because they WANT to be something that they CANT be, because they simply don't have the manpower; and they never will. The result is something that ends up as a wild west; with some reviewers trying to help, and others just trying to keep AfC's head above water by pressing yes/no as quickly as possible (and even then the wait times are INSANE). The result is that as someone that submits to AfC, you are guaranteed to have a bad time; first you will wait for months, then, you'll get a decline and some semi-helpful tips (if you are lucky). The reviewers don't have time to help you write your articles, but that's what would be required in a lot of cases simply because not all new editors are capable of the competence required to write new articles on Wikipedia. Should Draft space be gotten rid of? YES. It is a drain on already strained reviewing manpower, and we simply won't ever have the manpower to make it work as intended. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 03:36, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Insertcleverphrasehere I agree entirely with every you said here - except the last two sentences. What do you do if you got rid of it? AfC as a project would disappear into the horizon on a hot day, leaving simply thousands of NPP permatagged articles that people are not going to pick up and improve. As you most correctly and emphatically spelled out, NPR is triage, the New Page Patrollers aren't going to do more than they do and they're not expected to - the backlog is already ridiculously long again. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:58, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - I don't think that everyone agrees with you that having "thousands of NPP permatagged articles that people are not going to pick up and improve" is a big problem. Editors have quite a diversity of views on this subject, and the folks at NPP and AFC do not seem to be representative of the whole community's views. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:15, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  Kudpung, What WhatamIdoing said. I don't find this a significant issue. If the topic is notable, but it's content is problematic, then it can be stubified with a couple sources and tagged for improvement. I think this is highly preferable to the current "move it to draft so that nobody sees how horrible it looks" (or keep it in draft). This is often even done when all that is needed are formatting fixes, and then the drafts end up deleted G13. If draft space didn't exist then stubifying articlles that need notability guidelines but fail content guidelines would become the new gold standard. Paid and COI editing would still be a problem, but as I said above, the draft space isn't really a solution to that anyway. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 18:04, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
One thing I have noticed in draft space is that users will spend considerable amounts of time creating very long articles that they think are masterpieces, but which will likely never be published for any number of reasons. It strikes me that limiting the size of drafts for new users might go some ways towards reducing disappointment, and letting us catch poor efforts before they go on for too long. Conversely, any page reviewer can tell when a short draft that is well sourced is notable enough, and can promote it to main space. I'm not sure how it would work, but something like "You can create a draft up to 5K in size using the best sourcing you can find" might be helpful. This is a clunky idea as I have described it, but the gist of it is to avoid huge long spam articles.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 16:40, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Removing draft space would flood mainspace with the worst articles particularly attack pages, copyvios and spam which would stay for longer due to the NPP backlog which would be signifiantly increased by this proposal. There are a number of editors who do improve and publish drafts including abandoned drafts and the AFC process can work to significantly improve articles for mainspace that if posted there would be quickly deleted in their original condition, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 19:51, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It's no secret that I think the current deployment of draft space – with overwhelmed & overpicky Articles for Creation reviewers, one-click draftify to "incubate" (the most ironic automated edit summary in the 'pedia) and semi-automated G13 deletion – is one of the most negative changes ever made to Wikipedia. I tend to advise good-faith newbies to accumulate enough edits to create articles directly in mainspace because they get far more attention there -- sometimes a swift death, but not the inexorable slide to deletion of G13. There is a place for drafting articles collaboratively, it's called mainspace. Espresso Addict (talk) 06:17, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It is well known (m:Research:Wikipedia article creation) that restrictions to article creation reduce the quality of the articles being created, probably because bad faith users invest disproportionate efforts to get their edits through, while good faith users just give up. Wikipedia works thanks to cooperation and that happens mostly in mainspace. The entire namespace should be deleted and people directed to create their articles in main namespace. In the interim, past drafts can be moved by a bot to a subpage of the creator's userpage. To improve the average quality of articles created in main namespace, the requirements to create an article should then be restored to be the same as for any other edit. Nemo 06:23, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

An example

Yesterday I came across the newly created article Bob Chapek, with a very strong indication of importance and a reliable but not independent source. Nine minutes after creation it was moved to Draft:Bob Chapek by a new-page patroller following the instructions. From the histories and talk pages of those two pages you can see what a mess this has produced, with people misunderstanding speedy deletion templates and developing them in parallel. If the original article had simply been left alone to be developed in mainspace the normal wiki process would have been followed and people wouldn't have to waste their time trying to deal with the situation. Phil Bridger (talk) 12:35, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The backlog at NPP is unacceptable. Not the monumental 22,00o it was 3 years ago, but constantly hovering around five to eight thousand makes it still totally unacceptable. If every active New Page Reviewer stopped to do a full service to every page in the queue that backlog would be immense. This therefore does not, IMO, exemplify any typical issues with the draft namespace system. I don't think Willbb234 did anything unusual in moving the IP's creation to draft - it was pretty much what any current active New Page Reviewer , including me, would probably do with such a page particularly as it was a BLP. In fact there followed a flurry of activity which resulted in a mainspace ready article very quickly, one way or another, so under the current processes available no one really wasted their time dealing with it. AFAICS, the draftification process did its job. Arjunpat, an autoconfirmed user (with albeit a low edit count ) created an appropriate article in good faith, was not really doing anything wrong but was almost certainly not aware that they may have been doing something that was nevertheless not quite right., i.e. creating a page in mainspace that was not ready for it; they were most likely not aware of other options such as creating it offline first, or in their user space, or as recommended, in draft space.

If every user who registers an account was informed immediately of what they can and can't do on Wikipedia, then a 'mess' would not be produced, articles would not be produced that would cause a mess, and time and energy would be saved all round - ball back in the WMF court. Nobody is being criticised here, but perhaps as a pure exercise in interest, after reading the main thread here, the contributing editors and BigRed606, Spshu, might like to chime in here with their thoughts. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:57, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Probably time for a backlog drive. And also tag them with WikiProject banners so they show up in WP:AALERTS. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:17, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Headbomb, Yeah, When we lost Onel a month or so back, things have started spiraling downhill. We are still treading water, but only just. I'm working on a methodology for inviting new people to join NPP, but running a drive might also be due. Really busy at work at the moment personally, so mostly just been dropping an average of a few reviews a day myself, as I don't really have the time for more. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 03:43, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If you look at the history and the talk page of the mainspace redirect that was left behind by this move, and was later moved to Draft:Move Bob Chapek (admins only by now), you will see that this move to draft did cause considerable confusion and meant that experienced editors who understood what was happening had to spend time putting things right. We had editors adding content to the redirect, claiming that they had "fixed" things, and contesting speedy deletion. I purposely didn't name the editor who performed this move to draft because, as you say, most new page patrollers would have done the same. Phil Bridger (talk) 09:38, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps the main problem is that different editors have different ideas about what constitutes "a mainspace ready article", especially as measured nine minutes after creation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:49, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Here's one: AQUILA HOTELS & RESORTS. I found it at main space. The creator has a COI, but is probably good faith (but biased in a way that limits thier ability to write an article. The topic looks notable, but as written it is just jammed with promotionalism and way too many refs. It looks notable, but it's a company and its going to take an hour to strip out all the garbage refs from this article down to what is salvageable and fix all the formatting errors. No one wants to waste the time, so it ends up in draft space. Where it will likely die unless somebody takes pity on it. I posted on coin but I doubt anything would happen. Would it get CSDed if we didn't have draft space? I don't think so (it isn't exclusively promotional). Would it get AfDed? No, AfD isn't cleanup, and the topic does look notable. Our only option would be to stubify it and nuke most of the bad content. This would be preferable to it just getting shunted to draft space. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 04:02, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Aaaaaaand, its gone. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 18:07, 27 February 2020 (UTC

Another example

Today I got a notice that a draft I created, Draft:Sandra Pinel was up for G13 deletion, and indeed was both notified on my talk and deleted while I was in the middle of leaving a lengthy message elsewhere. I don't believe I would have spontaneously had an idea to create this article, so I must have responded to a noticeboard thread or something to create it in draft, but I'm blowed if I can remember what. I've restored it (as policy states any user can get a G13 refunded on request I don't consider myself WP:INVOLVED to just do it myself), but most people won't even think of doing this, and if I don't get any ideas or assistance, it'll get deleted again, a year after creation. Update: I've worked out it's because I was patrolling CAT:CSD on 12 July 2019 and saw Sandra Pinel tagged for A7, searched for sources as a triage and moved it to draft with the idea of blowing it up and starting over. Obviously I didn't get very far! In the meantime the article was re-created in mainspace by the original creator, tagged for G11, AfDed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sandra Pinel and deleted, and the creator indefinitely blocked. GAME OVER.

A long time ago, I wrote on Wikipedia:WikiSpeak that Articles for Creation was "A place where articles don't get created, but sit languishing in purgatory". There is good stuff in draftspace to pull out, but it's like looking for a needle in a haystack. Essentially, we have the following conflicting requirements:

Creating articles is hard. Reviewing them properly is harder
As a corollary to the above, we don't have enough reviewers to cope with incoming work, and never will
Because experienced and knowledgeable reviewers are more likely to pause and pass on difficult or contentious new pages, new pages (both in mainspace and draft) are more likely to be dealt by less conscientious reviewers who will not do this
As a corollary to the above, all things being equal, a new page is more likely to dealt with by a "cookie cutter" message rather than anything with thought and knowledge, putting off genuine newcomers
Spammers looking to create COI topics should not be allowed to start articles AT ALL

Is it even possible to come up with a solution that handles the above? I'm not sure. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 18:20, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ritchie333, I think there are some ways to handle at least most of the above, but it means making Wikipedia less useful to readers. For example, a rule that says "No new articles about living people, businesses, or products (including pop culture products such as books, films, websites, etc.) less than 50 years old" would knock out a lot of COI and spam pages. But the cost, measured in terms of harm to the reason we're here, would be significant. I don't think the community would agree to that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:13, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yet another example

The article Narayanrao Uttamrao Deshmukh had a cast-iron source that confirmed that it passed WP:POLITICIAN, but was moved to draft and then rejected twice at AfC. We seem to be giving new page patrollers and AfC reviewers, who have not been given deletion powers via WP:RFA, the power to remove things from main space. This is very clearly a use of draft space as a backdoor route to deletion, as it is not supposed to be. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:23, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This is not the best example: IMHO the AFC reviewers both acted properly. During the first review, the page was totally unsourced. During the 2nd review, the source was a dead link. Neither reviewer would have any evidence that the claims in the article were true unless they took the time to research the subject themselves. Their only choices were to not review, to decline and give the submitter useful feedback, or to halt their AFC reviews and start editing the page as if they were an editor rather than a reviewer. Another editor moved the page to the main encyclopedia. I found a suitable replacement source and removed the top-of-page sources-needed template. There is still some unsourced material but it's no longer a major BLP issue. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 22:30, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The AfC people might've done the right thing, but these unilateral and process-free moves to draft space to circumvent deletion processes need to be reined the hell in already. The Drover's Wife (talk) 22:44, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(after edit conflict) Sorry, but that's far from an acceptable answer. Sources do not have to be online, but, in this case, I can certainly read the original source online without the archive link. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:47, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

https://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-maharashtra-assembly-election-results-1967-full-list-of-winners-2798429 (the original source) works for me, too. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:33, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A counter-example

I have over 1,400 draft pages underway for U.S. state supreme court justices. Every few days, I pick one out and finish it. Sometimes I find a source covering several and make improvements across the covered group. Every few weeks, someone else comes along and finishes a draft or two, usually in connection with a specific state. In this way, over 600 articles have been created and moved to mainspace from this list (which initially had over 2,000 entries). This, I think, is an example of draftspace working as it should - with drafts for specific topics connected to specific projects, from which appropriate attention can be drawn. Perhaps what is needed is a better way to connect drafts with the projects that should be concerned about them. BD2412 T 03:37, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The same tools that help improve articles could be used to help improve drafts. Would something similar to Random article but for drafts help? El Millo (talk) 03:59, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think order would present a better tool than randomness, in this space. BD2412 T 04:15, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@BD2412: Order? Do you mean order from less to more complete? El Millo (talk) 04:47, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I mean as in tying drafts to projects and to potentially interested editors. Every draft has some family of articles or topics that are the closest things to it, and a good step would be to bring the attention of contributors to those related topics to those drafts. One way might be to find some way to notify editors (or projects) when a link is made from a draft to a particular mainspace article. BD2412 T 05:00, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

~~Why not do both? PJvanMill (talk) 21:44, 29 February 2020 (UTC)~~[reply]

I just discovered, by reading more discussion below, that this already exists: Special:Random/Draft. PJvanMill (talk) 21:59, 29 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It might be possible to get Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by article count run for the current contents of the draftspace. (I don't think it could tell you which pages began in the draftspace.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:46, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It could also be useful to have them automatically transcluded at the top of relevant wikiproject talkpages (similar to tracking pages like Wikipedia:WikiProject_Genetics/Article alerts). Over at WP:Molbio we typically rely on people from AfC and NPP manually dropping my to let us know there's a relevant draft in need of attention. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 09:23, 31 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This is one of the neatest uses for draft space I've seen. // Lollipoplollipoplollipop :: talk 16:03, 20 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary break after the examples

Having higher standards to move something out of draftspace than to delete it at AfD has been the case for so long that it seems normal to us, but to everyone else it's crazy. I'd love to know what percentage of Declined drafts end up being deleted (Whatamidoing (WMF), do you know if this data exists?) as opposed to being improved to the point of acceptance. If we do keep draftspace, search capabilities should be improved so that people from the Wikiprojects can search for keywords among drafts that have reached at least the "Submitted" stage, and assess articles themselves. Wikiproject participants would likely still have higher standards to "accept" than to "not delete" - I believe that's unfotunately human nature - but at least the reviewing would be done by people who are interested in the topic area.

With ad-hoc and infrequent perusing of draft space, I've found and rescued some wonderful articles that were declined, including Marine heatwave. The way we use draftspace might be the biggest biter of newbies we've ever created. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 19:03, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it's a big biter of newbies, not least because we tell people that it's best to create articles in draft space but they then take months to get reviewed and then, when they do, the reviewer quite often has less of an idea about what belongs in an encyclopedia than the article creator. Also if usage of moving to draft space by new page patrollers remains as it is then we should abandon the pretence that moving to draft is not a backdoor route to deletion. It is very clearly used in that way. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:26, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Clayoquot, I don't know the percentage of deletions. The last research I saw on this was shortly after the creation of WP:G13, which really changed the numbers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:40, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The problems of Draft space are inseparable form COI spam problems. Until we find a way to fix COI, Draft will remain broken. Renata (talk) 19:38, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- That reminds me of another question I have for Whatamidoing (WMF) ;) : What percentage of articles in Draft space are about people, organizations, or products, vs. everything else (this presumably can't be detected programmatically but maybe someone could do it by sampling)? Articles such as Webbed foot and Psychology of climate change denial seem to me to be obviously unrelated to our COI spam problem. Both of these were created at AfC by newbies who probably thought it was the only way to create an article, and Declined at AfC. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 19:55, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - mw:ORES/Draft topic could answer your question, but I don't think it's actually been implemented. In lieu of real answers, I clicked Special:Random/Draft ten times. I found three drafts about living people, one had no article (the title was mathematics-related), one was a (worse) article on a subject that's had an article for years and years, one is a geographical place (the contents were only an infobox), two were for pop culture (more or less comic books), one was a building, and one was about computer science. One of the goals for ORES is to be able to tell us (i.e., WP:MED) when medicine-related articles are in the draftspace. Right now, editors leave notes at WT:MED when they find something to look at. (Forgive me for not bothering to clock in to reply to your interesting questions. Right now, I'm sitting outside and looking at blue skies and wispy clouds, and thinking that all I really need is a bowl of good strawberries and a power cord.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:40, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - Clayoquot: I did a quick sample of 50 drafts (selected via Special:Random/Draft so only 2 of them are not pending a review). Obviously, did not dig into notability and judged it at first glance. Details here.

13 pure garbage CSD

1 draft working on improving mainspace article (Draft:Michigan–Penn State Football Rivalry)

4 drafts from the project about US judges by BD2412

4 clearly notable topics (but will probably die in Draft)

5 clearly not notable topics

23 (effectively 50% of sample) in the notability grey zone -- which is the labor-intensive & frustrating zone of promo, COI, etc., of these:

2 are pending review

6 are rejected drafts

8 have neither references nor proper format

3 imho ready for mainspace

2 imho are borderline

2 imho are not ready for mainspace Renata (talk) 00:34, 28 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I'll only !vote for the deletion of draftspace if one of the following are done:

An alternative is created to decrease the chances of a new user having to experience an article deletion. Also, disclosing any conflicts of interest are made easier.
Research is done that indicates that blocking for undisclosed paid editing/using an account only to advertise or article deletion wasn't diminished after ACPERM.

If the only thing draftspace is doing is keeping junk out of mainspace, it's doing enough good that it needs to be kept around so we can discuss how it can do better. Frankly, I'd be less enthused to NPP again without a draftspace. It's not out of the purview of new editors to become upset when the article they created is nominated for deletion; I've even received a lawsuit threat or two. They aren't quite as upset when I decline their draft. Whenever I get a message about a decline, even if there is an underlying upset, there is also curiosity on how to do better. You don't get that with a deletion nomination. Therefore, having a draftspace is less bite-y than not having one. I dream of horses ^{(talk) (contribs)} _{Remember to {{ping}} me after replying off my talk page} 21:49, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The options aren't "draftspace or nothing". For example, we used to move pages to userspace. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:40, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

WhatamIdoing, which posed the issue that G13 was created to fix; userspace drafts would sometimes languish in userspace, untouched for years, completely and totally forgotten. Nowadays we'd probably G13 old userspace drafts, but userfying articles would still cause a lot of the problems draftspace has, but without the little formality draftspace has. I dream of horses ^{(talk) (contribs)} _{Remember to {{ping}} me after replying off my talk page} 19:45, 28 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that there is no system that forces any WP:VOLUNTEER to finish articles that someone else started. The #Is it acceptable to blank userspace sandboxes of long-term/established, but inactive editors? discussion above suggests to me that not everyone thinks that it's actually a problem to have drafts "languish[ing] in userspace, untouched for years, completely and totally forgotten". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:47, 28 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to register my objection to moving either my WP:USCJ drafts or my WP:DABCONCEPT drafts to userspace. They do get worked on in draftspace by various editors from time to time, and it is my experience that having them in userspace would discourage those kinds of improvements. Also, @Renata3: what was the condition of the judge drafts that you saw in your review? BD2412 T 22:11, 28 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

BD2412, If one of those Drafts was about to be deleted under G13, would you appreciate having the option to userfy it? Blueboar (talk) 23:50, 28 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

WhatamIdoing, nowadays people can, if an editor is inactive (as in "hasn't edited for years") and has userfied drafts that have languished for years without being touched, have those drafts moved to draftspace. Also, BD2412 has an interesting objection; I have seen draftspace drafts gnomed quite frequently, but I doubt userspace drafts get that.

Since userfying articles is what we did before draftspace, and you've yet to offer any other option despite having a lot of time, I'm unconvinced that it's not "draftspace or nothing". Going back to the way things were before draftspace is "nothing", in my mind. If draftspace is unacceptable, we need to come up with an alternative to both that and userfying articles.

Blueboar, not speaking for BD2412, but there is a template one can use for drafts that are technically G13able but "have potential". I think that's the sort of draft he is working on. I dream of horses ^{(talk) (contribs)} _{Remember to {{ping}} me after replying off my talk page} 13:59, 29 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, a draft in Userspace CAN be moved to Draftspace... However, nothing requires drafts in Userspace to be moved. It is OK to leave material in Userspace, indefinitely. Also, I see no reason why we shouldn’t be able to go in the other direction as well, and move a draft from Draftspace over to Userspace.

The two spaces have different purposes, and so have different rules that govern them, but BOTH can be used to work on potential articles. The primary difference is that one (Draftspace) is for communal work, while the other (Userspace) is more for solo work. The point is... we have options. Blueboar (talk) 14:58, 29 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously this is not an option of everyone, but if one of my drafts gets deleted pursuant to G13, I undelete it. BD2412 T 15:29, 29 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There are the different namespaces as we're using them today (mainspace, draftspace, userspace), but we could be using other approaches entirely. We might be able to hide them with Wikipedia:Pending changes. We might be able to put them in projectspace as subpages for a relevant (and active) WikiProject (if any). We could put them in draftspace, but make them easier for everyone to find (e.g., searching draftspace by default).

We could also change the incentives. Pages in draftspace are supposed to be proto-articles that would not survive WP:AFD. The NPPers have made a big deal here about saying that they follow AFD's WP:BEFORE process before moving a page to the draftspace, and then they turned around and defended their move of a minutes-old stub about the new CEO of Disney to draftspace, even though there is approximately a snowball's chance in Hell of that article ever being deleted at AFD. So maybe a random sample of AFC-declined/NPP-draftified articles should be sent to AFD, and if we find that any individual editor is using draftspace to store pages that have a high likelihood of surviving AFD (as evidenced by them actually surviving AFD), then maybe that editor is told to mend his ways or get banned from that process.

I am not particularly recommending any of these options. My point is only that there are a lot of options, once you start thinking about what we need to do instead of focusing on which namespace the page should be in. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:39, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree there are lots of options. One thing that could change the incentives would be to require admin rights to move a page from mainspace to draft space or to userspace, so it would be subject to scrutiny and like other admin actions. We could use a noticeboard or category to process cases in which, say, the creator of an article published it accidentally and wants to keep working on it privately. In most cases, draftifying an article is functionally equivalent to deleting it, but with a lot less accountability. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 22:05, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Getting rid of the draftspace means that we would lose out on useful incubtion for articles before they make it into the mainspace. I don't see how dleting this step willl reduce the amount of 'bad' articles. >>BEANS X2^t 14:41, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from a Reviewer

I will respond to the comments of User:TonyBallioni about draft space being a failure. I am one of the more active AFC reviewers of drafts, and I think that I am qualified to comment on drafts in general. I mostly agree that draft space has not resulted in the benefits that some editors thought would come from it. If it is judged based on some of the optimistic thoughts that it would result in new collaboration, or in improvements in the quality of new articles, I agree that it has not succeeded. I think that any such expectations were unrealistic. The real question however should be whether it should be abandoned as a failure, replaced with something else, or retained for lack of a viable alternative. If draft space is abandoned as a failure, then the question must further be asked what is to be done with the documents that currently go into draft space. So what currently goes into draft space?

The documents in draft space are primarily: (1) proposed articles created by very new users, not yet autoconfirmed, who are not allowed to create new articles; (2) proposed articles created by other users who choose to use draft space, rather than using user space or putting the articles directly into article space; (3) proposed articles originally in user space that have been submitted for review, and are moved by AFC reviewers into draft space; (4) articles that are undersourced or have notability issues that have been draftified by New Page reviewers. If draft space is to be abandoned as a failure, we should consider what to do with those four current uses of draft space. The first use of draft space is by very new users. Are we proposing to reverse the requirement of auto-confirmation for new articles? I hope not. So are we proposing that they be submitted for review in their user space? Does that have any material benefit? The second use of draft space is by some content creators who go through the review process. It is true that they could skip the review process, or rely on WikiProjects for review. Dissolving draft space would be neither harmful nor useful for them. The third use of draft space is for AFC reviewers to move drafts into draft space from user space. Presumably reviewers would simply no longer do that, and would instead review drafts in user space. Nothing would really be gained by dissolving draft space. The fourth use of draft space is for moving articles into, as a side-door quasi-deletion. Eliminating draft space would presumably mean that these articles would instead be proposed for deletion or nominated for deletion. I would not mind seeing more questionable articles nominated for deletion, but I think that most editors would prefer not to increase the number of deletion debates. So, based on listing the uses of draft space, I fail to see any benefit to eliminating draft space.

As a reviewer, I think that drafts fall into four quality classes: (1) good; (2) possible; (3) not ready; (4) no good. The first should normally be accepted, although there may be an issue to be resolved or a question to be answered first. The second require a careful review by a reviewer who is patient and willing to spend the time on the review. The third are declined, and the reviewer does not need to worry much about whether it may be resubmitted later. The choices of the reviewer for the fourth class of drafts are to decline the draft (not worrying much about whether it may be resubmitted), to reject the draft, or to tag the draft for speedy deletion, sometimes as G11, G3, or G10. If draft space were to be dissolved, it is the second and third classes that would need to go somewhere other than draft space. The first will go into article space, and it doesn't matter what bit bucket to put the fourth in.

My conclusion is that draft space has indeed been a failure if we expected it to result in improved collaboration. Collaboration is done in article space. However, I haven't seen an alternative that would be any better than draft space. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:11, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Robert McClenon, add me as someone who does not want more deletion nominations. It causes quite a bit of upset when that happens, particularly with newer editors. With a draft rejection, there's often still upset, but I think there's also often more understanding of why it happened.

And yeah, I agree with your last sentence. If we get rid of draftspace, we need to replace it with something else. To add to that point, at least we know what to expect from draftspace now. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know. I dream of horses ^{(talk) (contribs)} _{Remember to {{ping}} me after replying off my talk page} 02:46, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I came back to indent my comment, which I forgot to do the first time, and to also ping TonyBallioni for Robert. I dream of horses ^{(talk) (contribs)} _{Remember to {{ping}} me after replying off my talk page} 02:48, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Robert McClenon: I would slightly disagree with certain phrasing above. I create articles in draft space with no intention of going through the review process, but merely to have a place to assemble them that is not user space, so that other editors feel comfortable working on them. In many cases, these drafts are made in groups and start out as a collection of scraps and notes that are in no way suitable for introduction to article space, but which show promise for future development into an article. BD2412 T 00:57, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

User:BD2412 - Okay. That is still within my second category of draft space, but the explanation of why is different. You are creating the draft in draft space for possible collaboration prior to moving it into article space. If draft space were dissolved, you would presumably use user space. I don't think that changes the conclusion. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:47, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@BD2412: That kind of collaboration could potentially be done in the project space of a relevant wikiproject. Espresso Addict (talk) 04:40, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It could, yes. I suppose issues would arise as to which project space to use for subjects falling under multiple topic headings, but that is a minor concern. Draft space offers the utility of making it clear that the content being worked on there is nothing else but a draft. Unless and until we have a specific "Wikiproject:" namespace, all of these pages would be in project space, along with message boards and policy pages and the like. BD2412 T 04:54, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

BD2412, I think you are the first experienced editor I've met to use draftspace in the way it was originally sold to the community – ie for collaborative editing with other experienced editors – rather than an alternative to userspace for personal article development (rather less useful with the G13 clock ticking) or a place to hand-hold new editors through their early articles. I'd be interested in whether this is actually more common than I'd thought. Espresso Addict (talk) 05:17, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I can't say that I know of any other experienced editors who use it this way - certainly not to the same scale. BD2412 T 05:24, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe this is the wrong place for this comment. But I don't know where else to put it.

I think it would be sad to lose draft space. Draft space is where I do most to cooperate with other editors. Usually this happens when a new editor is trying to create an article about a topic I believe is notable, but needs the help of a more experienced editor. Sometimes they've created the article in draft space, sometimes it's in their userspace and I persuade them to move it to draft space. Then we can cooperate, with them providing knowledge of the subject and sources, and me doing the formatting and explaining WP policies. Disabling this opportunity for cooperation would be a loss. Maproom (talk) 11:02, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Maproom, if you're going to editors and persuading them to WP:MOVE the page to draftspace so you can help, why can't you just ask "Mind if I help with the article in your sandbox?", and skip the whole step about moving the page? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:44, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Some reasons:

If it's in draft space, it can get some attention from other helpful editors.
My memory is not perfect. I don't want to have to maintain a list of which private sandboxes I've been granted access to.
I think it's useful to maintain a distinction between private sandboxes, where the owner can do pretty much what they like without interference, and public drafts, where everyone is cooperating in moving towards an acceptable article. I want new editors to understand this distinction.

I think it would be a pity to lose the distinction. Many of the arguments against sandboxes on this page are, essentially, "lots of drafts are full of crap, let's just get rid of them all". Editors here are confusing container and content. Maproom (talk) 07:14, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ten random declined drafts

I clicked Special:Random/Draft until I found ten drafts that had been Declined (I clicked through about as many drafts that had not been submitted). I'm posting them here so we can have some data to collectively analyze questions such as "To what extent are the drafts that we decline at AfC acceptable to the community by the standards of AfD?", "How often are articles improved after they are declined?" and perhaps other questions too.

Draft:Cherokee Files (series of classified correspondences between various representatives of the United States Government and the Republic of Korea)
Draft:Vision Bus (company)
Draft:Florida Crime and Intelligence Analyst Association (organization)
Draft:DMCA Sans Serif (free font)
Draft:Sartaj Singh Pannu (filmmaker)
Draft:Gallery A (art gallery)
Draft:Veidehi Gite (entrepreneur and "influencer")
Draft:Stevie Tennet (musician)
Draft:Subjectivity (journal) (academic journal)
Draft:Sickle Cell Disease in the Caribbean (medical issue)

Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 17:21, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Here's my analysis: 1) Cherokee files should have been accepted. AfC is not for stylistic concerns, it should only be concerned with "Would this survive the AFD". There's no reason to think this article would have been deleted from the main space. There's some MOS issues, and a few very minor tone issues, but that's a decent start to an article that normal editing should fix. 2) Vision Bus: Borderline notability, probably a good decline. 3) Florida Crime and Intelligence Analyst Association: Not clearly notable, no independent sources. Good decline. 4) Good decline, maybe suited for a redirect. No independent sourcing. 5) Sartaj Singh Pannu: Borderline; I would have probably leaned accept given the sourcing already in the article, but its a close one, and I won't begrudge a decline here. He's clearly a director of notable films, and as such there is likely to be good information out there on his bio, even if it isn't already cited. 6) Gallery A: Should have been accepted. Article directly cites one source, but the "Further reading" section indicates there's PLENTY of information available. There's clearly enough there to have avoided AFD if the article had gone that route. 7) Veidehi Gite: Probably a good decline, but there's not nothing there. I think I agree with the reviewer, but I also would not have tried to delete it if I ran across it in the wild. Hard call for me. 8) Stevie Tennet looks like it could have been accepted. The sourcing looks to pass WP:GNG to me. 9) Subjectivity (journal) is a good decline. Borderline A7 even. 10) Sickle Cell Disease in the Caribbean: Probably a good decline, though the information is good this is essentially a fork from other articles on Sickle Cell disease, and most of the novel information could be added to existing articles at Wikipedia without overwhelming them. My final count: 3 bad declines, 5 good declines, 2 borderline cases. --Jayron 32 17:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm working on Draft:Gallery A, so it has changed significantly since being mentioned above.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 20:03, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Draft:Cherokee Files is entirely referenced by primary documents on a random person's website (which I'm not clicking through to--but all evidence suggests they're primary). The draft looks like one person is really interested in this bit of classified history and is summarizing the content of primary sources themselves. I see some brief mentions of this topic within Google Books ("Cherokee, Cyrus Vance") but nothing to hang an article on. There could be historians that discuss this enough to justify an article, but the Draft writer didn't show that. Outriggr (talk) 08:16, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The real problem is biographies and lack of classification

If those could be sidelined into a different 'processing' workflow, it would free up pretty much everything else which have a much better chance of being worthwhile. Biographies created through AFC/Draftspace are by far and large WP:COI/WP:AUTOBIO stuff. If for instance, the drafter was asked in the WP:WIZARD what topics, broadly speaking, the article was about, it would also allowed WikiProjects to be notified of new drafts in their scope. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:25, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've proposed this before. It would be ideal if submitters could be persuaded to do some of the sorting work via a suitable wizard, and it could also be used to give them tailored advice and links to specific notability guidelines. Espresso Addict (talk) 05:35, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The main issue is that someone needs to code this into wizard and update the relevant scripts. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 06:34, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I love all of the above ideas. The articles I most hate to lose are the ones that take a lot of time and subject matter expertise to write. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 16:13, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've added an "Improving your odds of a speedy review" section to {{AFC submission}}, which should hopefully help. See discussion. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 08:44, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

User:EpochFail, is there any chance of mw:ORES/Draft topic being able to do this soon-ish? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:48, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes! The topic model is ready and can be applied to any article or draft on Wikipedia. What we're missing is some useful integrations between the models that make the predictions and tools for Wikipedia editors. Let me give an example. Let's look at the first version of the article for Alan Turing -- this roughly represents a draft. rev_id:234785. We can ask ORES what the general topics are using a query: https://ores.wikimedia.org/v3/scores/enwiki/234785/drafttopic ORES tells us that this draft article is probably relevant to: "Culture.Biography.Biography*", "STEM.Computing", "STEM.Mathematics", "STEM.STEM*". These can be used to route reviews of article drafts by subject expertise/interest/notability guidelines. Right now, we're working on some integrations by they aren't targeting new page review or AFC. E.g. you can use the search box to explore intersections of these topics. E.g. if you type: "articletopic:women articletopic:stem" into the search box [1], you'll get a list of topics that are probably relevant to WikiProject Women Scientists. This doesn't currently work for drafts, but it could. See Phab:T218132 for a task I filed regarding integration with NewPagesFeed. Topic routing was deemed to be of lower importance. I'd like to see this integrated with Special:Recentchanges too. In the meantime, a bot is a good option for producing lists of articles for WikiProjects and other groups of subject experts to review. In the past, I reached out to User:SQL about putting something together but I'm not sure if that got anywhere. --EpochFail (talk • contribs) 17:18, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@EpochFail: Note that this is already being done - User:SD0001/AfC sorting -- a listing of submitted AfC drafts sorted by ORES-predicted topics. That's only a prototype report, but I'm still working on converting that to a periodically updated report -- this is being discussed at WT:WPAFC#Pending_AfC_drafts_sorted_by_subject -- the initial comments were highly favourable.

As far as sorting of declined submissions are concerned, I am thinking it would be better to use categories - because of the large number of declined submissions. This would need to be discussed first. SD0001 (talk) 15:14, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@SD0001: After reading this discussion when it first started, and recently finding about about WP:AfC sorting, I actually was about to ask about expanding the AfC sorting tool on your talk page. (but then I went back to this discussion, and realized it has already been mentioned)

I think if the AfC sorting tool could be made in a similar way for all of draftspace, then draftspace could easily become a collaborative space (like it seemed to be originally imagined as). As long as editors were directed to using the tool in an easy-to-find space, it could be a great way to get involved in editing drafts, especially for new users. It could then be a way for newer users to potentially collaborate with those who have more editing knowledge, too. And it could be a great tool for Wikiprojects to use as well, especially during edit-a-thons. I'm not sure of the feasability of creating something similar to AfC Sorting for all of draftspace, though. - Whisperjanes (talk) 18:46, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It is feasible. However, considering that there are over 22,000 declined AfC drafts and 12,000 unsubmitted ones, it would not make sense to make lists like WP:AFCS. It would be better to categorise them instead. That's what the category system is built for. But I'm not sure about doing this for the ones which don't have any AfC templates. Some folks like BD2412 maintain big sets of drafts on particular topics which are best left alone. SD0001 (talk) 16:27, 11 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@SD0001: Yes, I meant to propose lists for categorization, but I'm not sure if I explained it well. Are you saying that those types of lists are best used for AfC submissions, specifically? (I can imagine, since I assume including all drafts might be too many for editors to comfortably look through or for a page to handle, even if they were categorized). I think a list for all AfC drafts would be good, but I also thought it would be nice to be able to do something similar for non-AfC drafts, since draftspace is open for other editors to collaborate in. I don't think it should theoretically get in the way of lists that other editors maintain themselves (unless I'm missing something). Also, looking at some of the discussion above, it seems like other editors collaborate on BD2412's drafts, so I'm not sure how categorization would bother their own efforts, unless they use a specific process that would be disrupted by a new list. - Whisperjanes (talk) 15:45, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have no objection at all to a scheme of categorization of the drafts I have created. BD2412 T 15:58, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Whoops, I seemed to also misunderstand something. In the comment I was replying to, I think SD0001 meant to say it would not make sense to make lists like WP:AFCS. I thought the term "list" and "categorize" were being used interchangeably (like how the WP:AFCS list has "categories" in the non-Wiki sense). My bad -- You can largely ignore my comment above.

I was proposing a list, originally, although I can see now why that probably wouldn't work. I do think separate lists for each type of draft topic could possibly work, though, or at least some of the other suggestions above are worth looking into (like being able get draft suggestions by topic). The reason I am a bit hesitant to use categories as the main way for specific drafts to be found is that I personally do not find categorizes to be an easy navigational tool, and I'm not sure about it being used as a tool to drive collaboration (mostly because I don't think its very accessible for new users). A list, to me, is a lot more frontward facing and accessible to all users, so could be more easily understood and used in article creation initiatives (like edit-a-thons). - Whisperjanes (talk) 16:31, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Whisperjanes: I'm sorry, it was my fault, I omitted a "not" in that comment (now fixed), because of which it must have been very confusing. I agree that categories aren't a very good navigational tool. But the reason I think lists are not worth it in this case is that since these are lists of declined or unsubmitted drafts, it's unlikely that they'd be of much interest to others. Categories are a more natural organisational tool which comes with lesser overhead. Categories can be easily converted to lists if needed for some purpose, and they can also be used in search (the "incategory" keyword, and combined with other search filters), and in PetScan. All this isn't possible with simple lists. While I agree that lists are better for browsing, that doesn't seem like an important consideration as I don't think many users are going to browse through lists of declined/unsubmitted stuff. SD0001 (talk) 13:30, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to chime in with how great draft space is for developing articles collaboratively within a WikiProject. But then I remembered how inactive most WikiProjects are. This is a dual problem. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:03, 24 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly useful data point is reviewing my own contribs noted at User:Bri/Created#January 2019, a total of nineteen articles. Two were first drafts for at least two months: Draft:BMW R1250GS, tagged for collab at WP:WikiProject Motorcycling; and Draft:Pritchard Park. Neither attracted input from other editors. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:55, 24 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: Categorize all AfC drafts with ORES topics using a bot

FYI

– Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

I have proposed at WT:WPAFC#Proposal:_Categorize_all_AfC_drafts_with_ORES_topics_using_a_bot that a bot be used for sorting all AfC drafts by ORES-predicted topics. (@Headbomb, Espresso Addict, Clayoquot, WhatamIdoing, EpochFail, Whisperjanes, and Bri: ). SD0001 (talk) 11:00, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

More collaborative editing in draftspace

A few months ago I learned how to use AWB to check across draftspace as well as mainapsce, since then I have fixed a lot of typos in draftspace and had lots of thanks, mostly from newbies ( my last 500 draftspace edits go back to Oct 2019, but I'm hoping in that time some got moved to mainspace). It is fiddly and not the default, and timewasting even if you skip past a bunch of articles that would be obvious A1, A3 or A7 in mainspace. But if we changed AWB and some other tools to default to including draftspace within article space we could easily increase collaborative editing in draftspace. Similarly with categories. Currently you are not supposed to add mainspace categories to drafts, but what if we changed the software so that the category system ignored categories in draftspace unless an editor had opted in to seeing them? That way categories could be added, and editors who look for new things categorised in "their" area would likely do more collaborative editing in draftspace. Ϣere SpielChequers 15:46, 29 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep it simple

I read all my experienced playmates sharing experiences about using draft space- culling the crud, and devising ever more complicated ways of bringing life back into the corpse. Whatever the system is tomorrow- make it one that you can explain to a non-user. We need more editors, and they are out there- brimming over with good faith but a soon as we describe what you have to do to create a new article- they thank you for the coffee and we never see them again. The R value of editing Wikipedia is well below 1, when I started it was 3 or 4 (making up the number- WP:OR, {(cn)}} and probably POV and BLP as well). So keep Draft:Space for the experienced and make it read only for the newbies. WP is already too complicated to explain in an afternoon training session to the potentially committed.ClemRutter (talk) 12:11, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A? deletion of week old drafts

One reason why draft space doesn't work is that it protects for 6 months a bunch of articles that in mainspace would be deleted A1, A3 or A7. So one simple reform would be to allow all types of speedy deletion to apply to relevant drafts that were a week old. If a week is thought too harsh, a month would still enable us to sieve out a lot of crud. It should be fairly easy to create a "week old draft pages feed" to enable such sifting. Ϣere SpielChequers 15:46, 29 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Support either a week or a month. 6 months is too long to wait for G13 deletion. This would get rid of a lot of crap. b uidhe 09:43, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A week is way too short. A month of inactivity would be the bare minimum. We do want people to be able to return to their drafts and improve them to standards. With obvious provision that a submitted draft that doesn't get reviewed is exempt. Maybe we should consider WP:CSD#D criteria which apply after a month of inactivity. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:37, 31 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Six months seems fine. Anything shorter will introduce a perverse incentive: an editor who knows his draft is not ready, but has a heavy work period, new baby, etc. coming up, will protect it by submitting it for review, increasing the load on the already overworked reviewers. Maproom (talk) 17:51, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Headbomb, this is for A1, A3 or A7 candidates. This isn't a suggestion that drafts be deleted if they aren't ready for mainspace, more if they have no prospect of ever reaching mainspace. "Hoped to take part in the next Olympics" not "took part in the last Olympics. Ϣere SpielChequers 15:43, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

- Six months is appropriate, as it can take 3 months or more for an article to be reviewed. Even if those are exempt Ive come across some good drafts that should be published that have been abandoned for unknown reasons and reducing the time limit will make it easier for those drafts to be missed. With the current backlog there are 270 articles in the 3 month que and some do not need further editing so less than 6 months would be biting the newbies, imv Atlantic306 (talk)
  - There is a difference between screening out stuff such as this - an obvious A7 candidate if it was in mainspace, and reviewing drafts that have content worth reviewing. Ϣere SpielChequers 18:32, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have no problems with the six month grace period, but I would propose applying CSD-U5 and CSD-G11 to the draft space to weed out the worst misuse of draft space. Kleuske (talk) 09:09, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

G11 already applies in draftspace as it does in all namespaces. Not sure about U5, I don't recall seeing many pages in draftspace that would merit U5 deletion if they were in userspace. Ϣere SpielChequers 15:43, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

30/500 for new page creation

I've been an AFC reviewer for a while and I have a somewhat radical proposal: Restrict new page creation to those who achieved the extended-confirmed status. That would largely eliminate the need for draft space since the more experienced editors would hopefully create articles that more or less belongs in mainspace. This move would also discourage SPAs, sock/paid editing rings, and PROMO violations. --K.e.coffman (talk) 20:56, 29 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@K.e.coffman: I'd think that if you made it harder for people to create a page in (main), it would increase the use of Draft:, not decrease it - where else would these people (~38.5 million registered editors) propose their new pages? — xaosflux ^Talk 22:24, 29 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I support this proposal for the same reasons, but it would certainly increase draft, not reduce it; also, there would be more need for AfC reviewers. b uidhe 09:42, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

One would first need to start extracting some stats Xaosflux. As I mentioned somewhere above, ACPERM was a very strong consensus, as ACTRIAL always was throughout the many years of battle with the WMF for the Community to prove them (once again) wrong. We got what we wanted and it was as much as we dared to ask for - perhaps we should have proposed more, such as what K.e.coffman is suggesting now. AFAIK, neither during the trial nor since, has it been demonstrated that the new rule has increased the number of drafts. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:57, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Kudpung: agree, more stats would be useful, I was only referring to that concept that additional article restrictions are unlikely to reduce the number of drafts being created or alleviate the need for the namespace, likely the opposite. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:37, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
In that case, why not also restrict the creation of pages in draftspace (and userspace) to autoconfirmed as well? Or might as well have a "page creator" user right. FMecha (to talk|to see log) 05:41, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose If you tell people that they have to make 500 edits before they can create an article then either they will give up altogether or they will run around making 500 pro-forma edits. And this would further complicate the many editathons where we specifically recruit new editors and encourage them to create new articles. Perfectionists who don't like Wikipedia's open door policy should go work on a more elitist project such as Scholarpedia. That published just 6 articles in 2019 and none yet in 2020. Is that slow enough for you? Andrew🐉(talk) 10:07, 31 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- I would like us to move the editathon model away from creating new articles and more towards improving existing ones. Ϣere SpielChequers 10:31, 31 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Meh I would be surprised if the WMF accepted this, it would be an overly simplistic approach that would be hugely offputting to the 25% of newbies who want to start by creating an article that we are missing. But perhaps we could do something re probable spam articles? Perhaps a page creation process that includes the phrase "I understand that if my article looks like an advertisement it will be deleted on sight" with a tick box that people have to tick to confirm they have read that. Ϣere SpielChequers 10:33, 31 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose no evidence that autoconfirmed creation in mainspace needs to be curbstomped in this manner. NPP is sufficient there. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:39, 31 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
OP's comments: @Xaosflux: the idea was to indeed present a message that would advise users to please wait until they have achieved ECP status to write their article. @Headbomb: the initial issue discussed on the thread was the perceived failure of draft space in enabling article creation. Waiting for your draft to be reviewed for a month or two -- and most likely declined / rejected anyway -- is not conducive to editor retention; it's better, IMO, to encourage new editors to join in editing existing articles. That way, they can gain the necessary experience, while reducing the load on NPP and AFC. @Andrew Davidson: editathons are conducted by experienced editors, who can move the articles directly to mainspace, sort of providing the AFC function on the spot. --K.e.coffman (talk) 22:51, 2 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@K.e.coffman: going off of who registers at WP:PERM - many edit-a-thons are coordinated (at least locally) by "warm bodies", often that have never created a single article. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:12, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Intrigued, but weak oppose I can see the appeal of this approach, and especially the argument that at six million, creating new articles is no longer the best way to contribute to wikipedia. Out of curiosity, I decided to look up the articles I created during my first 500 edits, to see what I would not have been able to do under this policy. They are, in order (with notes on why I created them):

Daughters of the Samurai (personal interest), Marion du Faouët (Women In Red wikiproject), Marguerite Hicks (personal interest), Owl Fisher (WIR), Judith Bakirya (WIR), Avis Little Eagle (WIR), Dayna Ash (WIR), Raya Bidshahri (WIR), Gertrude Helena Bone (defunct Project Gutenberg wikiproject), Elegiac Sonnets (personal interest), Safi al-Din al-Hilli (personal interest), May Arida (WIR), Waed Bouhassoun (WIR), Kafa Al-Zou'bi (WIR), Myrna T. Semaan (WIR), and Randa Bessiso (WIR).

I feel lukewarm about this body of work. Naturally I think all of these are appropriate and improve the encyclopedia (or I wouldn't have made them), but I also think the four "personal interest" articles are generally more notable, and that going out of my way to find new articles to create didn't often produce my proudest work. While I was writing those articles, I was also gradually improving Ōyama Sutematsu's page from this to its current state, which I think was a better use of my time. Nonetheless, I think I benefitted, as a new editor, from the ability to make articles, even if the ideal outcome might have been for me to have created four rather than sixteen. Article creation helped me learn what a wikipedia article is really supposed to be. As a new editor I actually had a very good experience with AfC -- wrote my first article in draftspace, was accepted through AfC in a mere sixteen hours, and felt a great sense of comfort knowing that people were keeping an eye out to make sure I didn't "mess up". I continue to use draftspace for any article I don't finish in one sitting, to indicate that I'm open to others' contributions, and keep those separate from "private" userspace drafts.

Overall, I think any problems with draftspace are really just displaced symptoms of problems with article creation. But in the end, I don't think a technological barrier at 500 edits is the right approach. Instead, I'd encourage a very strong focus on channeling newcomers toward destubbing and sourcing articles, especially in editathons. ~ oulfis 🌸(talk) 09:35, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Spitballing: article proposals?

First off, disclaimer that I'm not involved in AfC or NPP. I do spend a lot of time in Huggle, however, so I do come across drafts fairly frequently. That being said, there's a fairly good chance that people more familiar with this stuff will think this is a bad idea, and I defer to them.

That being said: it seems to me that a large problem with the current Draft/AfC system is that new contributors spend a lot of time on articles that quite frankly have no chance of notability. However, there's no reason we actually need an article present to make a notability judgement. Therefore, I propose something like this:

Prevent non-autoconfirmed users from creating pages in Draft: space.
Instead, create a WP:Article Proposals page where those users can fill out something like the following:
- Title of proposed article:
- Describe the topic in a sentence or two:
- In a sentence or two, why is this topic important?
- What, if anything, is your relationship to the subject?
- List at least two sources on which you would base your article. Make sure these sources are reliable and independent of the subject.
The first and last questions are the most important here, but the others also seem worth including.
Submissions to that page would be handled in one of three ways: a) immediately decline it, if it would almost certainly get speedied or fail AfD; b) if it's clearly notable, create the draftspace article and let the new editor know they can get to work; or c) if it's borderline, still create the draftspace article, but warn the editor that there's a good chance their effort would be wasted.
Commit to keeping the Article Proposals backlog under a week or so.
Is this practical? I have no idea. I kinda imagine that something like this would be quicker to review than a full on AfC, but I quite frankly have no idea.
Once the article's been written, send it through a (possibly streamlined) AfC process, which hopefully would have a much shorter queue.

If this works as intended, I think it qualifies as an improvement on all sides:

New contributors benefit by quickly getting told that their article idea won't fly, before they've put a bunch of work into it; hopefully, this is less discouraging than our current AfC rejections, and they can go on to make a better proposal or contribute in other ways. Once they write their articles, they benefit from a significantly shorter AfC queue (and therefore wait time).
Reviewers can more quickly deal with obvious cases.
Draft space has much less cruft that will never be accepted, and maybe even becomes a useful place to find future articles to help with.

Again, this is not my area of expertise, and there's a decent chance it's a completely stupid idea. Thoughts? Gaelan 💬✏️ 08:25, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I also don't work in this area at all (I admit that at this point, I rarely stray out of WP-space), but I do like this idea. It shouldn't be too difficult to implement, and it certainly seems like a friendlier environment for new editors. Despite my AWWDMBJ membership and general deletionist tendencies, I believe we may be reaching the point where borderline articles should be more acceptable, and this system would encourage the creation of those with a focus on proving the subject falls on the right side of that borderline. —⁠烏⁠Γ ^(kaw) │ 08:37, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This has all the existing problems of draftspace while tiptoing away from the problem. De Wikipedia has a feature that prompts newbies to cite their source. Rather than reinvent the wheel we should nick that idea, and maybe put some screen in to reject certain commonly used unreliable source. Ϣere SpielChequers 11:19, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose We already have a process for requesting articles, which has existed since 2001. Per WP:CREEP, we need to stop the proliferation of processes as we already have too much complexity and confusion. We should instead rationalise and simplify our processes by eliminating the ones that don't work; such as draft space and AfC. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:35, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Andrew Davidson, my proposal serves an entirely different purpose. Requested Articles is for people who want someone else to write an article about something. I'm proposing a sort of "pre-AfC" for people who want to write an article themselves, where we make sure it's notable before they spend a bunch of time writing. As for the CREEP argument, I agree that, all other things being equal, simpler processes are better; but all other things are not equal, and sometimes the more complex process works better overall. In addition, if this process results in higher quality drafts, it might mean we could significantly streamline the AfC process, it might actually result in simplification. Gaelan 💬✏️ 19:52, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A really radical proposal

Why not follow the procedure outlined above, but instead of the initial proposed article being in a special place have it as a couple of sentences in main space. Then editors who know what they are doing (rather than anyone with a few hundred inconsequential edits under their belt) could review it and triage it by proposing it for speedy deletion, either improving it themselves or telling the author what needs to be improved or doing nothing and cheering the fact that something good has been created. People would then be able to find this thing (for which I have just made up the name "stub") and add content and sources to it. I propose calling this process a "wiki". Has nobody ever thought of this before? Phil Bridger (talk) 19:33, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Let's say it's a controversial topic or a biography. Then if it doesn't start out good, the writer will only have a week to improve it or it will be deleted. The point of the draftspace is to give sufficient time to write a good article.—Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 22:32, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Phil Bridger: If I'm reading this correctly, you're just (with a heavy dose of sarcasm) proposing we open up mainspace to anonymous editors. If so, that's already been discussed to death above, has it not? Gaelan 💬✏️ 01:23, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that the proposal is to open it up to logged-out/IP editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:39, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

G5 - an alternative approach?

Recently I've been made aware of the distaste with which many editors view G5 speedy deletion despite recognising its necessity. G5 is necessary to WP:DENY sockpuppets. Without it there is no way of enforcing blocks or enforcing the wiki's policies. It's not been my experience that there is much good content lost. Most sock-created articles are spam or UPE repeatedly created by sock-farms who plough on like moths at a light bulb. But there's clearly a regret at the loss of good content and an alternative for that situation is desired.

Deryck Chan reminded me of a G5 last year where RHaworth deleted the article, then restored just those revisions which were not contributed by the sock. It struck me at the time as a neat way of squaring the circle. This approach to G5, where the contents are worth perserving, looks to satisfy all the requirements, that sockpuppets are denied and yet the content is preserved. Thoughts? Cabayi (talk) 15:05, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with this approach. Where other editors have edited a page after it was created by a banned editor, we should endeavour to enforce G5 by revdel / deleting and restoring only edits not made by the banned person, as long as there are no attribution concerns. Deryck C. 15:16, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I should probably add some context: this issue mainly concerns redirects. In the G5 discussion last year that Cabayi talked about, he opined that a redirect, by its nature, whether created directly or as the consequence of a page move, wouldn't contain "substantial edits by others" to exempt it from G5. I personally disagree with this interpretation because this leaves us with no way for another editor to "claim responsibility" for a redirect. If at some point in future, the creator were found to be a sockpuppet of a banned editor, the redirect must be deleted. The solution proposed here is a good compromise: if a redirect was found to be created in contravention of a ban but another non-bot editor has subsequently tagged a redirect or changed its target, we should revdel / delete+recreate the redirect as if the next editor had created the redirect. This both satisfies WP:DENY and preserves the editorial intentions of editors who worked on a page / redirect that was originally created by someone who should've been punished per G5.

We can amend WP:G5 thus: Where the creation is a redirect that was subsequently edited by another user, consider using revision deletion to remove only the revisions made by the blocked or banned editor. --Deryck C. 15:45, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Deryck Chan, Strong oppose. We have lots of wiki-gnomes who, in good faith, try to improve poor articles. So, the work flow will become, 1) create spammy article, 2) wait for a well-meaning gnome to improve it, 3) the original revisions get revdel'd but the title remains, 4) collect your commission.

The only way to break the cycle is to delete the title, because that's what determines whether the spammer gets paid or not. See also WP:BOGOF. -- RoySmith (talk) 23:13, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I think that the approach is both reasonable and not mandatory. The important thing to remember about all of these tools is that these are things that are available to the community to fix problems as they happen, but we should not be tied to these tools insofar as no admin should feel forced to enact any solution they don't feel is necessary or useful. One may do these things. One should never must do them. --Jayron 32 15:22, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I support this, but mind that removing contributions in this way may violate attribution. If any of the sock's material is kept in the article, we have to keep the history. I've done this only once, for a page that was edited by multiple accounts of the same banned hoaxer, and only otherwise edited by editors reverting them, for a period of several years. There were zero constructive contributions in that time; I checked every diff. The history was absolute garbage. I did that as a G6, though, not G5, and in response to a specific request on the article's talk page. I'm not going to say which article it was (WP:DENY; the deleted history was moved somewhere else anyway) but if you've been around SPI much in the last couple years you probably already know which case it is. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:55, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I was originally confused by this, but if it's pertaining to redirects, that seems fine. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:11, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It's been over a week and we seem to agree on the approach proposed here. I have added the sentence I proposed above to WP:G5. If anyone feels we should work the attribution requirements into the policy page they should go ahead and do that too. Deryck C. 12:46, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree somewhat. Quietly reverting all of a banned (or blocked or whatever) editor's edits since the ban/block is enough of a denial, and hiding the banned edits from general view, even when they are not actually harmful to the project, may create attribution problems (as mentioned). Glades12 (talk) 05:30, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Does an article that is made by a sockpuppet of a blocked editor and was removed per G5 have copyright? If it was recreated should it be attributed to the blocked editor when it is recreated with the same content? because if we should attribute then there is no reason to delete it. If we need to enforce the block on blocked editor we should not give them any copyright of any content they create. If a blocked editor made an article through a sockpuppet, then that article content can be recreated with the same content and without attribution.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 19:55, 24 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a question of whether we can give them copyright. By entering the material here--by publishing it on the web in any manner--they own the copyright. What you are arguing is that we should not respect their copyright. I can see the practical advantages of doing this, but I think it goes against one of the fundamental principles of the encyclopedia . DGG ( talk ) 20:14, 25 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If I were a trolling sock, I'd be absolutely delighted that I can make experienced and esteemed wikipedians bend over backwards in order to expunge any trace of my name. G5 is there to help deal with non-constructive creations by editors we've given up assuming good faith in. It's not a weapon of mass descruction against the socking enemies. If a sock's creation is bad – G5 is there to spare us the trouble of going to the deletion venues. If it's good keep it and move on. We can't keep the content but erase the attribution, because copyright law, and if the whole issue is just to do with redirects (which should not be subject to copyright), then why bother? Redirects are too insignificant for anyone to care about. Revdeling the creation of a redirect could potentially act as a deterrent for the small minority of socks who are socking out of narcissism, but it won't do anything for the rest, and it will make the redirect's history confusing – in perpetuity – for every good faith editor who will look upon it. – Uanfala (talk) 22:28, 31 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Uanfala: I don't understand why you felt the need to revert my edit to WP:G5 - none of the new comments relate to redirects? Deryck C. 12:49, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The new comments were expressing general disagreement, though you're right that they did not specifically say anything about redirects. But any addition to the policies will need some sort of explicit consensus, and I'm not seeing that here. And my own opinion – which I've expressed above – is squarely against that addition: the action recommended there is at best an instance of pointless busywork that will do nothing to deter most socks, and under a less generous view it's positively harmful in obfuscating histories. – Uanfala (talk) 13:01, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Uanfala:: I'm afraid you've completely misunderstood the intention of that addition. Without that new line, G5 regulars like Cabayi have interpreted G5 as "redirect creations by banned persons must be deleted even if other editors had subsequently edited the same redirect, because there is no scope for a 'substantial edit' on a redirect". That specific provision for redirects gives editors an option to denying recognition for the banned person without deleting' the whole redirect. We could alternatively specify that G5 does not apply to redirects created by a banned person that had subsequently been edited by another editor. Deryck C. 16:11, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't aware that the central issue was about what counts as a substantial edit. I would expect that to be a matter of common sense: an edit is substantial or not partly relative to what is being edited: a one-word change in an article will probably not be a substantial edit, a one-word change to the text of a redirect means retargeting, which is as major an edit as it can get in this context. If there's a general way to clarify the meaning of "substantial", then that would be good, but we shouldn't enumerate specific cases, because the logic applies more broadly (to templates or to dab pages, among other things).
However, my original point still stands. Apologies for restating it yet again, and still more apologies for apparently not having expressed it clearly enough earlier. The proposed addition to the text of G5 was the following: Where the creation is a redirect that was subsequently edited by another editor, consider using revision deletion to remove only the revisions made by the blocked or banned person. [2] Recommending this sort of action is a terrible idea – we don't go around breaking the encyclopedia just so we can spite the socks. First, because it will not deter any socks except the exceptionally tiny minority (of whom I haven't ever encountered an example) who sock for the glory of seing their name in the history of redirects. Second, deleting relevant information – like who created a page and what it looked like upon creation – is not helpful. This obfuscates the page history and it gets in the way of all kinds of maintenance tasks (Imagine the sock is later discovered to have created a number of seemingly plausible but actually misleading redirects. How would you then clean up after them if you can't track down their contributions?). – Uanfala (talk) 17:01, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Deryck Chan, Uanfala, the proposal, as I thought it was proceeding (and what RHaworth did in the example which prompted this) was (my words)...

If a sock creates an article which is converted to a REDIR without substantial contributions by others, it may be deleted and just the final revision (the REDIR) restored.

The point was spurred by having a G5 request declined on the basis that the conversion to a REDIR was a substantial contribution. If anything, this approach is a guideline for handling G5s within the current policy, while avoiding the all-or-nothing extremes of expunging everything or keeping everything. Cabayi (talk) 17:23, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Uanfala:: Your rationale would support a blanket prohibition against G5-ing redirects created by banned persons but which were subsequently tagged by an editor in good standing. The case examples that started the redirect part of this debate were about a number of redirects of plant names; a sock created them and a number of other editors tagged them and started linking to them from other articles because they're common names of subspecies. A few months later, someone discovered that the creator was a sock, and Cabayi and others tagged all of them for deletion, justifying their case at DRV by saying "subsequently edited" is not possible for a redirect. You two evidently disagree on the common sense on what counts as a "substantial edit", so we ought to write down a clear guideline. Deryck C. 17:55, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Your rationale would support a blanket prohibition against G5-ing redirects created by banned persons but which were subsequently tagged by an editor in good standing. – Yep! By this stage it appears that the actual issue at the bottom of it all is not about what counts as a substantial edit, but about whether deleting sock contributions is obligatory or merely optional. Leaving aside WP:DENY (it's an essay that's very helpful for dealing with certain kinds of socks, but it's only an essay and it's only helpful for dealing with certain kinds of socks), we've got pretty solid guidelines in the blocking policy at WP:BLOCKEVASION: This does not mean that edits must be reverted just because they were made by a blocked editor (obviously helpful changes, such as fixing typos or undoing vandalism, can be allowed to stand), but the presumption in ambiguous cases should be to revert.. If a contribution has been endorsed by a good-faith editor, or otherwise vouched for, taken responsibility for, or simply undone (as in the case of an article being turned into a redirect), then there's absolutely no need to do anything. – Uanfala (talk) 19:42, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If you wanted to "deny recognition", then renaming the sock might work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:42, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
G5 as applied to redirects is a bit of a quandary. Suppose a sock creates a redirect that obviously should exist, and there is no other suitable target or way for any other editor to modify the redirect in a constructive way. Usually, when a banned user creates an article on an obviously notable topic, the solution is to delete the article and rewrite it from scratch. But here a redirect created from scratch would be identical to the one created by the sock. So which one do we prefer: 1) allow the redirect to stand, allowing a sock contribution to show up that they shouldn't have been allowed to make; 2) delete the redirect and recreate it immediately, which erases traces of the sock but also wastes editors' time which could arguably be giving the sock more recognition than they deserve; 3) delete the redirect and don't allow recreation, which is cutting off our nose to spite our face? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:29, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Calls for political action in geonotices/watchlist notices

If you came here because someone asked you to, or you read a message on another website, please note that this is not a majority vote, but instead a discussion among Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia has policies and guidelines regarding the encyclopedia's content, and consensus (agreement) is gauged based on the merits of the arguments, not by counting votes.

However, you are invited to participate and your opinion is welcome. Remember to assume good faith on the part of others and to sign your posts on this page by adding ~~~~ at the end.

Note: Comments may be tagged as follows: suspected single-purpose accounts: {{subst:spa|username}}; suspected canvassed users: {{subst:canvassed|username}}; accounts blocked for sockpuppetry: {{subst:csm|username}} or {{subst:csp|username}}.

Are geonotices such as this one (requested by EllenCT, added by Deryck Chan, full request here) appropriate? It requests users to "Please send email asking the US government to require open access to federally supported research." My opinion is that no, it is not okay to use Wikipedia for political activism, regardless of how noble the cause. I've asked for removal, but I doubt the geonotice request page gets much traffic, so in the mean time, I think this is probably worth bringing up here to get some wider input. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 13:49, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure "making stuff free" is really a political position. I mean, if the government of Montenegro announced that it was considering releasing all it's official works into the public domain, I think that would normally be a pretty uncontroversial thing we could probably get behind. GMG ^talk 13:54, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Asking users to urge their government to implement any kind of policy is exactly political. This is something that reasonable people might disagree with. And it's an extremely slippery slope that you're saying it's okay to start down. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 14:00, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'm not a particular fan of slippery slope arguments, and I've not exactly made it a secret that I personally and publicly disagree. GMG ^talk 14:05, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't about what you think the WMF should or shouldn't do. This is about specifically urging editors, on their watchlists, to carry out political action – action that some of those editors probably disagree with. That you happen to agree with it doesn't make it okay to do. I'm pretty firmly against the death penalty, but I'd be appalled at a watchlist notice that urged me to email my senator about an upcoming vote to abolish it. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 14:12, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and we're not a project working to abolish the death penalty. We are a project working to make knowledge more free and more easily available to the public. GMG ^talk 14:22, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I’ve removed it. Political notices (and anything writing to the government is political) have historically been controversial and should not be added without clear consensus in a widely visited discussion forum. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:18, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. Thanks Deacon Vorbis for opening the discussion and Tony for unloading the geonotice. I do think the combination of the prior discussions (WLN discussion, CENT discussion, GN discussion) have established consensus (at the time) that a geonotice about this OA for US publicly funded research issue was an appropriate course for action. However, I appreciate Deacon and Tony's objection. I believe we ought to address two issues in this discussion: (Ping other users who participated in the previous discussions about this geonotice: @Visviva, Xaosflux, Redrose64, Ymblanter, Trialpears, SnowFire, L235, and SD0001: Deryck C. 14:57, 11 March 2020 (UTC))[reply]
1. Should watchlist notices imploring editors to take part in off-wiki advocacy be forbidden in general? (Let's avoid the terms "political" and "government", too vague and overloaded)
2. If the answer to (1) is that some advocacy messages may be allowed, should we post a geonotice about the message in question (a US-targeted geonotice advocating editors to campaign for an Open Access policy for US state-funded research)? Deryck C. 14:40, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  On (1): I don't think such notices should be permissible unless we're talking about serious threats to the project's continued functioning. --Yair rand (talk) 17:56, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have noted Yair's objections[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] and consider them to be utterly without merit. EllenCT (talk) 11:02, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

My response to 1 is simple: yes, off-wiki advocacy should be forbidden. Blueboar (talk) 14:47, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
As far as WLN's go - I'd say we would need a very strong consensus to do something like that, less then say a sitenotice, but more then cursory support. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:17, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Our editors from e.g. Elsevier can just as easily dissent. This is something the movement has been trying to achieve since the 1980s, so I've asked Jimmy Wales for his leadership on this. EllenCT (talk) 16:03, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- If it is something that the movement (read: the WMF) want, they have the means to use their meta headers to do that themselves, which they've done in the past. Its just that for the en.wiki community and related to the geonotices, my impress is that the collective group of editors is not considered part of that movement. Unless it is something that is fundamentally going to alter how we would interact with en.wiki (the SOPA/PIPA blackouts, and even then that was a bit of teeth-pulling to get the community to go through), the community is generally far too broad to use that for political directives. --Masem (t) 16:14, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - "The movement" can't mean the WMF, or anything Wikipedia-related, because Wikipedia (and even the world wide web) didn't exist in the 1980s. I am at a total loss to understand what movement this is that I am supposed to have signed up to. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:20, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - Yeah, I was referring to the union of the community and the Foundation, not the Foundation, which seems like a wet noodle politically these days. EllenCT (talk) 16:27, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    - But "the community", if you mean by that the community of Wikipedia editors, also did not exist in the 1980s. What are you talking about? Phil Bridger (talk) 16:36, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      - There was a large movement of people dedicated to the ideals of free knowledge before Wikipedia ever existed, you know. I'm not sure having a coherent rallying point has helped them advance principles (even as practice is orders of magnitude beyond what anyone had hoped) as this discussion shows. EllenCT (talk) 16:43, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        You are making a category error here. This is an encyclopedia, not a rallying point. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:47, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        And the Bastille was just a building? The point I am trying to make is that so many of the idealists have been caught up by the success of Wikipedia and in focusing on it, which is spectacular, they in many cases have lost sight of and the ability to act on broader movement goals, which is shameful, disappointing, and cause for pessimism. EllenCT (talk) 17:46, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm not here to be part of a grand movement on free knowledge. I'm just here to build an encyclopedia. ^creffpublic _{a creffett franchise} (talk to the boss) 20:37, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        Why not both? EllenCT (talk) 20:50, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        There is certainly a subset of editors at en.wiki that would consider themselves part of the free/open source movement, no question, but it is certainly no true that all editors of en.wiki consider themselves part of this, and that's why we as the body of en.wiki editors have to be careful about politicizing on the open source movement. The WMF as a body is in that position - promoting the open source stance is 100% within their mission, and so if they feel this is appropriate to push to all wikiproject, they can do that. There are ways to make sure that interested editors on WP see this potential to comment and petition for open access to federally funded research papers, such as through the Signpost and the Village pumps, and you should certainly post there. But, I do know from several past watchlist notices that editors on en.wiki absolutely do not like it when politized issues are forced on them via this mechanism within en.wiki. --Masem (t) 01:13, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        There are currently four days remaining in the response deadline, Masem. Which venue do you consider most appropriate? EllenCT (talk) 11:04, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        Any venue off Wikipedia. Try Twitter. Blueboar (talk) 14:39, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        
        With time short, WP:VPM is likely the most appropriate for making people aware to take action. Signpost would be too slow. --Masem (t) 14:02, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the removal of the notice. Promoting political advocacy on Wikipedia (with "political" meaning the normal definition of "relating to government policy, legislation, or electoral activities") should be avoided except when dealing with very serious direct threats. --Yair rand (talk) 17:56, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have any problem with geonotices being used for political action calls (it's certainly a better fit than using WP:CENT, since no discussion is really being asked for, nor would Wikipedia internal dicsussion matter anyway). And I entirely agree with GreenMeansGo that more government-funded work should be unequivocally and unilaterally be placed in the public domain with no qualifications and no need to research on a case-by-case basis. My main worry for this specific proposal is what I brought up at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)#Request_for_Information: Public_Access_to_Peer-Reviewed_Scholarly_Publications - I'm not sure this call to action will be effective, and if it is effective, its impact may not be what proponents expect. I would much prefer it if there was some way to make clear that the Wikipedia community's position is to support making more data publicly available in a positive and "we'll help out" manner, but not to be a negative bludgeon to be used as an excuse to defund or refuse to fund projects. (Since the exact nature of "make your data public" is inherently squishy and will vary project to project, it is exceptionally easy for a biased administrator to simply declare that a project isn't open enough if it's in a field the approver finds distasteful, or they don't like the proposer, or anything.) Of course, per my linked comments, even if only erudite emails supporting the "good" use case were sent, it will be easy enough to use such emails as an excuse for the commission to do whatever it wants, and Wikipedia is an inadvertent accessory to it. Or to ignore them completely. BUT: even if it's decided to hold off on this geonotice, I hope this won't be taken as "precedent" to never do this, as there are lots of open-access to information causes that a geonotice would be a good & valid case for. SnowFire (talk) 20:29, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: because the OSTP solicitation does not limit comments to US citizens, nationals, or residents, I have opened meta:Requests for comment/Ask the US government to require open access to federally sponsored research. EllenCT (talk) 21:41, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The idea that Wikipedia is, should be, or even could be wholly apolitical doesn't parse for me, so I don't understand the broader objections here. I do find SnowFire's reservations fairly persuasive, however; this a bit different from a notice-and-comment rulemaking situation where there is a specific policy proposal on the table, and it's not clear that contributor time would be very well spent on this. But beyond the specific matter at hand, I hope this might serve as a catalyst for thinking about how the project and its people might best engage with these kinds of policy issues generally (to the extent people find it worthwhile to do so). In particular, it would be nice to be able to leverage the wiki process to draft extensive, collaborative comments that individual editors could then sign on to (or fork) if they see fit. Perhaps some kind of quasi-Wikiproject would provide a suitable workspace, or perhaps Meta would be preferable. In any event, there is probably some nontrivial thinking that needs to be done about what form this sort of thing should (and shouldn't) take. -- Visviva (talk) 06:40, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
My opinion is that advocacy (see direct calls to action) notices visible to readers need to address topics that directly threaten the Wikimedia movement and open knowledge in general, like the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market Article 13. Watchlist notices, visible to logged in editors, have a lower threshold, and but should generally be informational (e.g. The US Government is soliciting comments concerning about Public Access to Peer-Reviewed Scholarly Publications, Data and Code Resulting From Federally Funded Research. The commenting period will close on March 16.) rather than beg editors to take specific actions (Please email them taking position X). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:29, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
RFCing as any results from this discussion would have sitewide impact. Kirbanzo ^{(userpage - talk - contribs)} 18:37, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Political lobbying is inappropriate There are some that confuse their personal political aims with whatever they think is good for this website. They don't speak for me and have no business using the aggregate here as leverage to change gov't policy. The spaces we use to coordinate our encyclopedic efforts are not bulletin-boards for the open source movement. If you want to advocate here, write an op-ed for The Signpost. Chris Troutman (talk) 20:25, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Off-wiki advocacy should be forbidden. Cavalryman (talk) 23:07, 12 March 2020 (UTC).[reply]
Off-wiki advocacy is dangerous to the reputation of Wikipedia. It crosses WP:NOTADVOCACY. Where is advertised in a targeted way, eg geopolitical targeting on user-secret watchlists, not transparent to the casual user, that is especially dangerous. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:23, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@SmokeyJoe: I struggle to understand this viewpoint. Compare if World Book or National Geographic put out a notice that they were considering releasing all of their content under CCBYSA 4.0. Is that political? Does it make it political that it's a government agency rather than a private company or a non-profit? Do we care? Is there some way where more knowledge more free for more people can somehow not align with our mission? GMG ^talk 00:20, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

User:GreenMeansGo. World Book or National Geographic releasing all of their content under CCBYSA 4.0 is a matter for them, and that would be a perfectly normal notice. That is not remotely on par with enticing your volunteers, through a secret notice to them, to write to politicians. Wikipedia or WMF getting involved with knowledge-related public matters via public notices, with official authorization, would always be OK. A watchlist notice, not officially signed off, enticing to volunteers to advocate externally, not OK. {{User:GreenMeansGo/wmf-pd-userbox}} is good, it is a user statement, it is publicly posted. A hidden, co-ordinated, timed, campaign to recruit editors to write to politicians is not remotely the same thing. The Wikimedia Foundation should actively lobby regional and national governments to release their official works into the public domain, sure, but openly, not by using hidden Wikipedia features to fake a grassroots campaign. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:12, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@SmokeyJoe: Wikipedia is a grassroots campaign, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy are not politicians, they are career public service bureaucrats and scientists. GMG ^talk 01:50, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No. Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia. A grassroots campaign is when unaffiliated individuals individually become motivated, before the coalesce. A fake grassroots campaign is like this was, hidden messages to an audience rallying them into a secretly co-ordinated, but ostensibly spontaneous action. Astroturfing. Co-ordinated targeting of a message to government's bureaucrats is undeclared lobbying. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:13, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Totally inappropriate, and Tony was completely right to remove it. I'm genuinely baffled that at least some normally sensible people could possibly have thought this would ever have been appropriate. ‑ Iridescent 02:11, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse removal Off-wiki advocacy for geonotices is unacceptable unless it's a direct threat like arguably SOPA was. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 02:52, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Remove to be on the safe side. May not be a problem now in its current form, but could cause problems later if we allow it. (Sorry!) >>BEANS X3^t 13:33, 13 March 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by BEANS X3 (talk • contribs) [reply]
"Political" doesn't mean anything, or equally, everything is political. We're on a mission to make a great deal of knowledge free and openly accessible to everyone on the planet—an expressly political goal which some governments oppose (Censorship of Wikipedia) and others are maybe more supportive of. To that end, things which aid our goal can be acceptable (Wikipedia blackout anyone?), but of course this doesn't mean that anything political is acceptable. I'm worried about the framing of this issue, not with the particular notice's removal, which I endorse. The opening statement's sentence it is not okay to use Wikipedia for political activism, regardless of how noble the cause is simply false because Wikipedia is political activism. — Bilorv (talk) 21:05, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Bilorv: Supposing that we use the word "political" with the normal definition of "relating to government policy, legislation, or electoral activities" (because, you know, that's what it means)... Surely you would agree that it is at least not the sole purpose of Wikipedia to deliberately influence such things one way or another? I don't quite understand how to interpret "Wikipedia is political activism", regardless of one's position on this. In practice, we have in the past conducted political advocacy in response to serious direct threats to Wikipedia, but not in any other situations. Would you agree that Wikipedia's primary purpose is not to sway an election or influence government policy or legislation? --Yair rand (talk) 18:39, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Your definition of political excludes many political ideas e.g. libertarianism or anarchism (where there may not be a government at all). As for "not sway[ing] an election", well, it's simply not a concern of Wikipedia. If we point out the science on climate change then we may be swaying electoral opinion on a climate denying politician. I'd agree that our primary purpose isn't to directly swing elections, but I don't believe I ever said that it was; rather, I said above that I don't support the banner that was added in this particular case. — Bilorv (talk) 20:23, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse removal. Seems silly to have to !vote on this imo. Using Wikipedia for political activism is inappropriate, plain and simple. -FASTILY 04:44, 14 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Off-wiki advocacy should be forbidden Wikipedia should stay away from political dispute unless they're a direct threat. --RaiderAspect (talk) 10:41, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Not dire enough to be permitted - I have backed advocacy efforts (including being on the losing side), such as joining it-wiki on blacking out over the EU's most recent copyright (et al) law changes. I, however, am in line with RaiderAspect above - we have a limited amount of impact, and we do better if we reserve it for avoiding major negatives rather than gaining smaller positives. Nosebagbear (talk) 19:52, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse removal. It's "just" a watchlist notice, not a sitewide banner, but it's still at least a watchlist notice. The page is fully protected to prevent misuse, and this was misuse for a political cause. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:28, 18 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. To me, the general idea is simple: we must not get involved in "political party politics"; we must get involved in spreading knowledge and that is "politics in general". There is a wide gray area in between, great care should be take. Stuff as "write to you Congressman abou X" are generally not be done. Because it is most like "party" politics, and because this is not the USA's encyclopedia - Nabla (talk) 09:52, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Remark. The rationale for this call expired on March 16. EllenCT (talk) 04:21, 22 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support advocacy. At its highest aspirations, Wikimedia is a global movement whose mission is to bring free educational content to the world. Wikipedia is inherently part of this project, and to say that it is not the community's place to participate in politics because it's "just" an encyclopedia is blatantly forgoing our mission.

Regarding the need to appear unbiased, if users think we're biased in favor of open access, so be it. We are. We should not let trying to create an impossible appearance of impartiality get in the way of our core mission. Wikipedia is among the most-read texts in English; as a collective, we have considerable power — we might as well use it to further our cause. Not using it, upholding the status quo, is as much of a political statement as using it.

Consider the extreme. If a bill to delete Wikipedia was under consideration, I'm sure the reader would have no qualms in Wikipedia taking political action. Beyond legislature explicitly saying it is intended to delete Wikipedia, whose to say if political doings will have a positive or negative effect on the project? Whose to say if the potential effect is significant enough to warrant action? It ought to be the community. There is precedent for this in the protests against SOPA and PIPA. As Wikipedia has taken major action for major political causes, it should also take minor action for minor political causes. The determination of whether or not political advocacy is important enough to the project that Wikipedia should take action ought to lay in the hands of the community. userdude 08:39, 25 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Support advocacy. Wikipedia exists in the real world and is not unaffected by politics, and its existence is in many ways inherently political. A blanket ban on advocacy would be illogical. Regarding the scope of such advocacy, I would support some amount of advocacy for causes that benefit Wikipedia as a whole (for example, it could be arguable that broader internet access is clearly in Wikipedia's interests), although going as far as supporting specific election campaigns and such would obviously be unprecedented and likely untenable barring extroadinary circumstances. That said, it would probably be difficult to create and legitimize a process for such advocacy (given that there have only been a few instances of it in the past), and the consensus here seems to be in the opposite direction anyway. Jc86035 (talk) 17:10, 25 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Off-wiki advocacy should be forbidden. Notwithstanding the objections on the basis of neutrality, I completely disagree with the position being advocated here. This is a terrible idea. It will jeopardize the interests of research institutions as well as research that's not considered in the political interests of whichever government is in power.--WaltCip (talk) 11:45, 26 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Off-wiki advocacy should be forbidden; this was wholly inappropriate, and Tony was quite right to remove it. Setting aside the slippery slope argument (which is, in fact, valid in this case and in many cases), WP:SOAP controls: "This [policy] applies to usernames, articles, draftspace, categories, files, talk page discussions, templates, and user pages." I would advise all editors to write "geonotices" into this, too. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 21:06, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Off-wiki advocacy should be forbidden. As above. Use the notices when appropriate to inform select readers of the encyclopedia, but not to push political agendas. — MrDolomite • Talk 15:04, 31 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Off-wiki advocacy should be forbidden - I have never been a fan of Wikipedia and the WMF promoting political viewpoints on-site (particularly during the European copyright thing a few years back), and while I understand that some here feel strongly for doing so, personally I feel that it goes against Wikipedia's purpose and mission of being a free, open, and neutral knowledge resource for all. Promoting any form of advocacy here just doesn't seem neutral enough for me and in an article sense would violate NPOV. If the WMF wants to push for its causes, then they have alternative outlets to do so including their own blog. I just don't think Wikipedia itself should be used for such purposes. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 23:40, 31 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Off-wiki advocacy should be forbidden. I'm shocked that anyone would even suggest such a banner, let alone add it without strong consensus. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, not a free content advocacy organisation. Regardless of how worthy a particular cause is, Wikipedia should not be used for any purpose except building an encyclopaedia. Mobilising users for off-wiki activism is wildly inappropriate. Modest Genius ^talk 12:46, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse removal. I agree with the OP (User:Deacon_Vorbis), "it is NOT okay to use Wikipedia for political activism, regardless of how noble the cause." And I would add that the moment we make one exception, *we open the floodgates* to all kinds of advocacy/political activities that will dilute if not overtake the true original purpose of Wikipedia, that of being an encyclopedia, period. The last thing we want is Wikipedia losing its independence to "special interests" from lobbysts, thinktanks, foundations, corporations, political parties, political movements, popular twitter-hashtag campaigns, or even governments. I also support User:John M Wolfson emergency-exception rule: to allow activism only for saving Wikipedia from certain and imminent doom. History DMZ ^{(talk)+(ping)} 11:26, 6 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth, we've already set the precedent w/r/t SOPA/PIPA that some off-wiki political activism is OK. In addition, Wikimedia is fundamentally a free content advocacy organization. That's why Wikipedia was licensed under GFDL and continues to be licensed under the CC-BY-SA. Copyleft is a political movement to counter copyright and it's foolish for us to stick our heads in the sand and pretend that Wikipedia isn't political. If we wanted to be apolitical we'd license under CC-BY or even CC0. I'm saying this because many editors who are opposing this proposal are doing it under the premonition that Wikipedia has been neutral or is neutral with respect to political activism relating to copyright. This is just not true. The purpose of Wikipedia has always been the promotion and advocacy of free content by creating an encyclopedia of human knowledge founded on copyleft principles. Most of our contributions to Wikipedia are political for this reason, because unless you're willing to release your contributions under a non-copyleft license you're actively participating in the creation & promotion of free content. Plus there's the numerous edit-a-thons for underrepresented women, the WP:GGTF, etc etc. All of these involve on-wiki political advocacy that we allow.

I do believe that there are lines that should be drawn. The content of our articles themselves need to be free of political advocacy despite their distribution being a political act. We should continue to remain neutral everywhere in the article space. We should be focusing on our core mission of promoting and spreading copyleft content. The watchlist notice that was proposed may or may not fall into that. That's a matter for community consensus to decide and I believe there's a lot of discussion we can have in that regard. But many of the !votes I'm seeing here are under the impression that Wikipedia is intended to be non-political or that the overall Wikimedia project is neutral with regards to "free knowledge". That couldn't be farther from the truth. We've always been political and it's foolish to refuse to acknowledge that. Chess (talk) Ping when replying 06:30, 11 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Support informational notices, like Headbomb's example. But only for core issues like open access (noting those views above that Wikipedia's very existence is tied to principles like free information, free participation, and techniques like copyleft licensing). Oppose specific instructions like "write to your congress(wo)man", partly because it's offputting to community members who hold different views, and partly because it leaves us open to criticism for Astroturfing as SmokeyJoe argued. Sorry, EllenCT, I do believe that this is a worthy cause, and truly appreciate your efforts. Pelagic (talk) 00:09, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, not a pressure group. Attempts to leverage Wikipedia's name and credibility for non-encyclopaedic purposes really need to be out of bounds. Stick to the task we're WP:HERE to do.—S Marshall T/C 13:20, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support per Headbomb. There are some actions political leaders across the world take (or consider taking) that may impact the core mission of Wikipedia where direct advocacy may be necessary. I also agree that there are times where informational notices may be more appropriate. I am not sure which body should vet (and reach consensus on either calls to action or informational notices) - but that is another subject. --Enos733 (talk) 15:21, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm leaning towards no except for matters which are likely to directly impact Wikipedia's functioning and viability. E.g. SOPA/PIPA, Article 13 - yes, net neutrality - no. If there's a lot of support for things that we happen to be a part of like open access and FLOSS movement I would support that too, but the problem is that I'd support it because these happen to be my interests (as well as WP's). That's a slippery slope towards supporting more and more tangential matters that we the editors mostly tend to agree on, which is basically what WP:NOTADVOCACY should guard us from. Daß Wölf 22:47, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse this specific removal, as it is merely something that would be nice to have. However, I am in favor of political advocacy when it concerns proposed legislation which could pose an existential threat to Wikipedia's operations, such as laws forcing content providers to remove information when someone complains or give up private user data to the government. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:36, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Famous people editing Wikipedia?

Back in November 2019, a YouTuber by the name of JackSucksAtLife made a video where he edited Wikipedia. The edits were not constructive and were reverted, but a horde of fans rushed to keep the edit on the page, semi-protecting the article and other pages involved. (following video, also note his talk page which have also been slightly touched by fans)

Should there be a policy on famous people editing Wikipedia (outside of the usual editing policy)? Please note that most famous people that come to edit Wikipedia (does not include Wikipedians that have articles on themselves, as most of them are established editors) have no clue about the policies or guidelines when editing.

Thoughts appreciated! dibbydib ^(💬) 07:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What would you propose should be different about policy for famous editors (leaving aside the question of whether JackSucksAtLife is famous) from that that applies to other editors? Phil Bridger (talk) 07:25, 2 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In this case, Jack doxed himself by accidentally revealing his IP address in the first video (the edit is still online, I found it earlier which prompted me to propose this). I suggest an oversight of the edits made public by the famous person (in their uploaded media), regardless of exposed IP or not (waves of fans). Pages shown in media uploaded by the famous person should also be semi-protected for 1 month due to the waves of fans. This should probably not interfere with the vandalism and blocking policy.

The main focus of this policy should not be about the famous person themselves, rather their fans. The way Wikipedia handled the situation on Jack was generally very good, and this should most likely be the standard for situations like these. dibbydib ^(💬)_{no idea what i'm doing} 07:43, 2 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how this has anything to do with being famous, or even the individual. What the issue was, is that someone edited wikipedia publically, and thus gave away who it was who made the edit (which would have also been true if logged in). We shouldn't treat any editor differently, regardless of who they are. If Jay-Z was to edit wikipedia, should we do anything differently? No. If he was to put it in a music video, and his username was found in the song - would this be a problem? Probably. This is a reactive issue, and not something a policy would be able to fix. What's more, we shouldn't be assuming any IP of an editor is likely to be any worse, simply because someone with fans edited a page. If there's vandalism, we fix and protect. This cart should rarely come before the horse (our articles on coronavirus notwithstanding). Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 08:07, 2 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I was trying to make a point that most famous people bring, whether intentionally or unintentionally, a wave of fans onto the site, and this should be met with some set response. This should probably be treated with the same caution and response as raids on Wikipedia. dibbydib ^(💬)_{no idea what i'm doing} 22:05, 2 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think in many cases they probably are treated the same as board invasions. The blocking and protection policies have enough latitude to deal with things like this. As for rev-deletion, in some extreme cases vandalism has been removed en masse, but like fixed term protection lengths, I don't think a policy mandating such things is necessary. Admin discretion is usually better. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 22:35, 2 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Dibbydib, we have a policy on this and it's WP:MEAT. Sometimes we can localize the site where editors are colluding to cause disruption, and sometimes we simply infer that there is some collusion because the editing patterns match but the CheckUsers show they are unrelated.

I remember other instances, such as Stephen Colbert's call to his fans, or malamanteau on the xkcd comic. We're totally used to this stuff. Elizium23 (talk) 04:26, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

John Oliver has had a few articles that he suggested needed attention :-) I like to think that any and all of us who edit the 'pedia are famous - each in our own way of course ;-) MarnetteD|Talk 21:00, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Notability of elections

In my capacity of a new page patroller, I am more and more often come across articles XXXX election in xxxx. An example today is 2018 Garden Grove, California mayoral election. It is about elections of a mayor of a city with 170K population. The elected mayor is arguably not notable (and we do not have an article about him anyway). Is there a limit at which we should stop? Not pinging the article author, because it is not necessarily about this article (if it were, I could have just AfD it), but about the general principle. All these articles, from the top level (general country elections, not necessarily in the US) are typically sourced either to some media reporting the results, or even to databases. With a very few exceptions, no attempts have been made to go beyond the table of the results and a couple of sentences in the intro. Pinging @Number 57: who I know is an expert in election articles.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:36, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There's no definition of what levels of election are deemed notable, only precedents from AfD. However, I'm not entirely sure whether there is any consensus for US local elections. For the UK, mayoral elections of smaller places tend not to have their own article, but results tables are listed in the article on the mayor (e.g. Mayor of Mansfield#Election results). I'd suggest in cases like Garden Grove, California, it might be worth doing something similar, or if the list is too large to fit on the page about the mayor, have a separate List of mayoral elections in Garden Grove, California. Cheers, Number 5 7 08:23, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. This is not my first priority, but I will have a look.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:07, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

While this is not necessarily helpful, I do not think there should be a hard and fast rule. On one level, in our discussions about WP:NPOL, there is an assumption that the electoral contest is (or may be) notable, even if the candidates are not. Thus, the standard about the race is meeting WP:GNG. On the other hand, if the only content is a table of results and no context of why the race has (I would suggest at least state or region wide) significance, then it would be better to have a broader page about all election contests for that jurisdiction. (Note - I am a firm believer that all elections for a national legislature are significant). --Enos733 (talk) 20:34, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Whoa, Enos...what about editors who like hard and fast...rules. Seriously, ambiguity is not always our friend. More editors than not need clarity. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 19:27, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

My own, uninformed opinion is that elections for mayor (or equivalent) of major cities is notable. (What constitutes a "major city" I'll leave for another discussion.) As for local elections, they are notable if more than one notable person is in the election; if it's only one such person, we should merge it into that person's article. If it is more -- or we have a series of local elections with notable people, we should merge them into one article. (That way we are also showing historic trends, which IMHO is notable in itself.) -- llywrch (talk) 22:03, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The question is whether we have sufficient references to write an article (not directory entry) about the election. That would mean more than just run-of-the-mill coverage about tallies and the candidates; the references would need to discuss the significance of the election and examine it in reasonable depth. I am sure that some mayoral elections meet that standard, and I'm also sure quite a lot don't. It would, as always, be a case-by-case determination; there is no case where "All X are notable". Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:59, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
In many cases, I think that the main question is how much text (not counting lists of names or tables with election results) can be written. If the answer is less than about 10 complete sentences, then it's probably better to have a list-like article on Mayoral elections in Hometown (subdivided by century or decade, as the volume dictates) than to have WP:PERMASTUBs that say little more than "Alice and Bob were candidates. Alice won again." Looking at the example, it has five sentences. The page about the 2016 election has six (remarkably similar) sentences. The page about the upcoming 2020 election has four familiar-looking sentences. In fact, the whole thing feels less like a thoughtfully written article and more like spreadsheet-based mass page creation, in which some database has been plugged in to create sentences that name the candidates and puts machine-friendly details into an infobox, but doesn't include important facts like the candidates' positions or what the major campaign issues were or why the election matters. Overall, this rather robotic content feels like it belongs on Ballotpedia instead of here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:10, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that there should not be a hard and fast rule. For instance, I've started spinning off various NYC election articles from New York City mayoral elections, and Chicago has articles on all of its mayoral elections, even if some of them are a bit stubby. Those are major cities, however, so perhaps something like Garden Grove, California, could have a list as suggested above, as could somewhere like Peoria, Illinois, whose mayoral and city council election articles were merged into municipal election articles in 2019. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 23:31, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The general notability of elections *and* politicians needs to be considered hand in hand. That is, if we're making the presumption that a politician at a certain government level is notable, then the election for that position should be presumed notable too, and vice versa. This, I believe, would only extend to national and sub-national elected positions by default. Anything lower, notability would have to be demonstrated by the notability of the position (of which the mayor of New York/Chicago/LA would often qualify). But where the position or election is just not normally notable, like, say, the election of a mayor of a 5000 person town, we should not be covering that on WP at all. --Masem (t) 01:12, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Notability is not inherited, from politician to election or vice versa. There could well be cases where a politician is notable but the election not (especially if it was uncontested or a clear runaway from the beginning), and can easily be briefly covered in a list or in the article about the notable politician. And similarly, an election could be notable perhaps due to some highly publicized attempt at fraud, but the candidates in it not much so. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:11, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
What I trying to say is that if we're going to define some presumed notability for elections and/or elected officials, that presumption should end at the same level, with my gut telling me it would be for sub-national (state, province) elections. A lower-level election, or a lower-level elected official official may certainly be notable on its/their own without the other being notable, and absolutely correct that this is where inherited notability does not apply; just because an elected mayor is notable does not make their election notable. But in terms of presumed notability, clearly national elections (and those elected in national elections) can be readily shown notable, and the bulk of sub-national and those elected in that are easy to presume notability (which can be challenged later) are well documented. At any other level of gov't, this one-to-one notability equivalency does not exist, so I don't think we can presume notability of any election results nor elected officials at any other level across the board. --Masem (t)
WP:N establishes a standard for inclusion. If the subject's only claim to N is being a child of x, then no. Having said that, it is probably worthy of inclusion (more as passing mention than anything more) in the article about x, possibly in the infobox rather than in body text or as a stand-alone article. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 19:27, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to thank everybody for the replies (I have given up at some point and stopped checking this thread, and was pleasantly surprised today by the level of the discussion). I agree that we can not have policies for everything. There are some cases which are clearly notable (like national eletion, or I would be suprrised if there is a single NYC mayor election which is not notable), and a lot of things in a grey zone, with notability to be established according to WP:N. My question is more like can we have a bright line showing that some elections are, as a rule, not notable and should be merged in the upper level articles? Of course if by any chance a 2021 mayoral election in Grand Junction, Colorado would become a subject of several Pulitzer Prize pieces, it would become notable anyway - bur short of this, may I merge all articles on such elections into one, or should I start a merge request in every single case, or should I forget about it and start doing smth nore productive?--Ymblanter (talk) 14:40, 20 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- @Ymblanter: Per my comments below, I would WP:BEBOLD and attempt a merger. Number 5 7 12:19, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say national elections and referendums will always be notable. Elections in states (or equivalent) in federal countries are probably almost always notable as they elect people to legislate. Below that, it's very hard to draw a line. In some countries subdivisions are generally at least roughly same size, so you can draw a line there, but in others there seems to be huge variations. As there is no notability standard at present, we're in a bit of a case law situation, where previous AfDs are usually used as a judgement of what is and isn't notable.

One thing I would stress is that in some places we have too many unnecessary articles. A key example is US states where there are simultaneous elections for multiple positions (governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, State House, State Senate, comptroller etc) and people have created separate articles for all of them, most of which are simply a three line introduction and a results table. They could all easily be covered in a single article, which would also improve the notability of the overall subject. We should only have separate articles when the main article becomes large enough to split (for most countries that have simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elections, we usually manage with a single 'general election' article). Number 5 7 15:30, 20 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No objections to a bold merge in the local council instance being discussed, and I agree on the first part of Number 57's comment directly above. I disagree with the second part though. Usually statewide American races (all the ones listed) are notable in their own right with plenty that can be said about them, especially if they're competitive, and having the articles to encourage more than results-level content is a good thing. As for the state legislatures - dividing election articles that contain results by house of parliament is not an uncommon thing in elections for bicameral legislatures because otherwise they articles absolutely sprawl. This is particularly strongly the case for American elections due to the primary process which makes these list double as long as for Westminster system elections. The Drover's Wife (talk) 13:08, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have no problems with articles being split when they are large enough. I just don't think its useful having multiple stubs that could be covered in a single article until someone has added detail. I'd also say large lists of results are usually better being split of into specific "Results of" list articles rather than cluttering articles that could be more prose-based. Number 5 7 15:07, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

To answer Ymblanter's question, I for one would have no problem with BOLD mergrs and redirects, as long as they are confined to the same year's elections within the same jurisdiction (e.g., in some federal systems, municipal elections would be most appropriately merged to the state/provincial level but not higher, while in non-federal systems the national level might be the appropriate target). This can't be one size fits all, of course: some local elections undoubtedly are individually notable. Newimpartial (talk) 15:52, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I was actually more thinking of merging 2018 Garden Grove, California mayoral election into Garden Grove, California mayoral election. U am afraid 2018 California mayoral election might be an overkill.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:49, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how that would work, since one of the ways people navigate these articles (I suspect one of the main ways) is through categories like "2018 California local elections". Also, places that fail notability for one local election (or might be argued to do so; see above) might fail notability in all, whereas California's 2018 elections are undoubtedly notable even though only the larger jurisdictions might necessarily be independently notable. Maybe a slight rethink? Newimpartial (talk) 21:44, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Also, since I didn't recognize the change of venue, I will now repeat what I said here: in my opinion *all* elections of public officials *anywhere*, that are reported by reliable sources, ought to be documented in WP. This is a case where NOTPRINTENC is the decisive factor: the idea that some electoral results are "notable" or "encyclopaedic" and some are not strikes me as ethnocentric (since those making this argument at deletion almost never consider non-English language coverage when they discuss notability) and a complete misunderstanding of what an online encyclopedia is, or can be. I would add to this the observation that, in this case, the widespread creation of articles based on year of election and political geography, usually at the national or state level, is useful practice since it allows navigation by temporal and geographical categories which longitudinal articles would not. Newimpartial (talk) 21:54, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Somewhere on the WMF we should document that, but whether that is on en.wiki is unclear. I don't know if that is WikiSource, a different WMF sister site or something yet explored, but we should have a site that is for raw, documentable data (election data is prime, but stuff like COVID infection numbers from WHO/CDC, etc) would be exactly how do to this. That still leaves the question of when en.wiki would have an article on that election, but the data of all elections of government officials can be thus documented. --Masem (t) 22:06, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I am late to this debate but I just want to underline support for what Number 57 has said about UK elections. We have agreed, as a project, a workable compromise with local elections, and the wider project seems to tick along quite nicely because of it. One example to look at is 2017 Lancashire County Council election. Each and every single election result probably would not be notable and the article would be unwieldy. By using a summary format, the results are published without "drilling down" to individual candidates' names', all of whom would probably fail GNG. As N57 says, Mayoral elections (outside London) tend to feature in the authority pages rather than stand alone, where the thread of deletion would be greater. It's not perfect, and I doubt any system is, but I think the UK project has found a good enough compromise between "encyclopedic" and "adhering to policy." doktorb _words^deeds 05:24, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'll also add that we generally don't have articles on elections in U.S. counties, either individually or in bulk (there are exceptions, of course, but we don't have, for example, 2018 Oklahoma county elections). That's probably because such elections would be both too arcane to have individual articles (again, in general) as well as too unwieldy to condense into one statewide page. This seems to suggest that presentation considerations are also in play with election pages. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 09:06, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Refs in templates

While looking at Template:COVID-19 testing it occurred to me that all those refs show up in the References section of the transcluding article, and may duplicate or, in <ref name=... cases may conflict with other refs there. This is not presently a problem in the case of this particular template, which is transcluded by only one article. I've seen this elsewhere, however, and I've put refs into at least one template myself, and it is a potential problem. It occurs to me that a policy seeking to avoid this might be a good idea. One possible approach which comes to mind would be to require that refs generated by templates appear in a reference group with a name related to the template name. An example from the template I was looking at might be:

<ref name="italy-dpc" group="COVID-19 testing refs">{{cite web |url=https://github.com/pcm-dpc/COVID-19/blob/master/schede-riepilogative/regioni/dpc-covid19-ita-scheda-regioni-20200406.pdf |format=PDF |title=Aggiornamento 06/04/2020 ore 17.00 |date=6 April 2020 |publisher=Dipartimento della Protezione Civile |via=GitHub}}</ref>

Articles transcluding templates which produce references would then need to make provision for reference groups produced by templates which they transclude. In the case of the template I've exampled, that might be a dedicated ref group below the table.

Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 11:54, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You probably don't need a separate group, just name the reference with the name of the template as in COVID-19 test template italy or w/e. But my general position is that you shouldn't be transcluding references just about ever. You have probably done something not quite right if you are (and I know of the accepted exception or two). --Izno (talk) 14:47, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Izno, creating a unique ref name with the word "template" is a much simpler solution, and will be just as effective. I have gone through thousands of pages trying to fix the backlog of reference errors, and there is a 0% chance you would run into duplicates using Izno's suggestion. Also, Izno, could you expand on your last point? I don't know anything about policies or conventions regarding transcluding references, but I encounter them a lot in the errors I mentioned above. --Secundus Zephyrus (talk) 16:10, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) (inserted)

The template I exampled has 127 references, so naming a (single) reference with the name of the template won't work in that case or in the general case where multiple references from a template are possible.
WP:V says in part: "All material in Wikipedia mainspace, including [...] and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material." It seems to me that we're in a sort-of catch-22 situation here with templates making assertions which need inline cites and a clumsy situation re transcluding refs providing said cites.
I agree that transcluding references (putting references in a template which can be transcluded, rather) is not a good idea. Can you suggest a better idea for honoring V re assertions contained in templates?

I didn't realize that problems with transcluded refs were so common -- I imagined that this was a rare problem, not a common one. This is VPP. Should a policy suggestion which suggests a solution to what seems to be a problem which is apparently not infrequently seen be considered? Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 20:34, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(end insertion)

It is common for templates to created named references. See Category:Templates that generate named references. There are no policies about references in templates or how to handle references in sections of articles that are transcluded into other articles. They do cause reference errors when the templates or transcluded sections change, making errors that are very hard to track down and fix. That's why I created the above category. A partial solution is to give template references unique names, and only if they need to be named. Then not reuse tham in the articles, accepting that there will be duplicated references occasionally. In the meantime when I work on broken reference names my edit summary often includes the phrase "hate transclusions". StarryiGrandma (talk) 20:06, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Expanding my suggestion a bit, if my suggestion were followed (and made policy to give it teeth and to justify fixes to incorporate it into noncompliant templates), it could be fleshed out to put that reference section with the default group name directly following the transcluded template and also to allow an optional parameter (perhaps named something like ref_group) which, if provided, would pass a group name into the template from the transcluding article and would override that default -- allowing a reference section with that passed-in group name to be located as desired in the transcluding article. This is all top-of-the-head from me -- I'm happy to defer to better ideas. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 20:49, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm... There is no WP policy on templates. Perhaps I should shift this suggestion to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Templates. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 21:24, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(added) Discussion of this has continued at Wikipedia talk:Templates#Refs in templates. More eyes on that and participation in discussion there would be useful. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 07:39, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Mention terms that redirection to an article

For example Quartern redirects to Gill (unit), but it's not indicated anywhere in the article unless one searches for the term Quartern itself. I propose adding in articles all their redirections --Backinstadiums (talk) 12:05, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

~~WP:SOFIXIT~~ –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 13:01, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There's no need for readers to see what redirects there are to a given article: there can be quite a lot of them, including redirects for minor modifications, misspellings or typos. Editors can see the list of redirects to a given article by clicking What links here and then following the link from there. If a redirect targets an article, then the article should be set up so that it's obvious to readers who've followed the redirect (WP:SURPRISE): the redirect term should be mentioned prominently in the article (or be an obvious modification of a term that is mentioned). And if the redirect is ambiguous, then the article should have a hatnote linking to the other uses of the term. Turning now to the specific article in question, Gill (unit) doesn't make a mention of quarterns, maybe it could: I'll leave that to others. However, the redirect isn't optimal as quartern may refer to a quarter of any number of other units of measurement. It could be turned into a disambiguation page, but that might be too far into WP:NOTDICT territory, so instead I'll boldly redirect it to the Wiktionary entry. – Uanfala (talk) 13:26, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, if you meant a page should list every term that redirects to it, then as just mentioned, that's already available via "What links here"; nothing more is needed. If you're just complaining about a redirect not being mentioned at the target, then WP:SOFIXIT. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 14:19, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No, I think you had it right the first time. It is not unusual for someone to think that if a term redirects to a page, that the term needs to be mentioned in the page, e.g., every possible brand name, in every language, country, and year, for all generic drugs. If you've looked in at WP:RFD recently, you'll see that people routinely nominate redirects for deletion because the (current, and usually incomplete) version doesn't mention the redirects they found by name. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:15, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

RfC on fair-use vector graphics

Here is an RfC on converting fair-use raster images to vector graphics: Wikipedia talk:Non-free content#RfC on converting fair-use raster graphics to vector graphics as it relates to criterion 3b. Thanks! – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 07:24, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect every term given as a synonym in an entry

For example, the article of million starts: 1,000,000 (one million), or one thousand thousand,... However, neither (one) thousand thousand redirects to the article. Therefore, I propose, for the sake of coherence, to redirect all the terms given as synonyms in entries themselves. --Backinstadiums (talk) 19:09, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In a large part of the world one thousand thousand is 10 lakh, not a million. And I'm sure there are similar concerns with many of the synonyms given. This is really something that should be considered in each specific case, rather than a general "one size fits all" policy being created. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:22, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

WP:JUSTDOIT. --Izno (talk) 19:25, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Names of infected persons?

I reverted this edit which introduced to the article the name of the first person infected by COVID 19 in the Netherlands. I think I remember that we have a policy somewhere that such information about non-public persons should not be in the articles. I was reverted back (notably, by a user who has a total of 5 contributions) with the reasoning that since this info is public it can be in the article. Could somebody point me out to an appropriate policy? Thanks.

I undid the edit again with a link to Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Presumption in favor of privacy. WP:NOTTABLOID would likely also apply since the name of an individual infected outside the country under discussion isn't useful encyclopedic information. — Wug·a·po·des 19:33, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, precisely what I needed.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:04, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

First user to be blocked

Out of curiosity, who is the first ever user to be blocked on Wikipedia? SpinnerLaserz (talk) 03:17, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The old logs, which mostly go back to 24 NOvember 2003, are at Wikipedia:Block log. However, the first few entries at Wikipedia:Block log/Archive1 are a bit garbled. It wasn't possible for admins to block user accounts until September 2003; before then, blocks were carried out by developers. Graham87 13:08, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The really ancient history is at Wikipedia talk:Bans and blocks. It appears that the first users banned from Wikipedia (back then "no action" or "total ban" were the only options) were DW and Lir, although it's not entirely clear; as Graham says, logs weren't kept in pre-MediaWiki days. ‑ Iridescent 13:29, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'd forgotten about that page! The old list of banned users takes us back a little further, to TMC (November 2002)and apparently 24.150.61.63 (or 24 for short) in June 2002. Graham87 13:42, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Are they, I wonder, officially still blocked? TMC, for example, has a massive sign on their user page announcing that they have been banned per ruling of administrators, Jimbo Wales and/or the Arbitration Committee—and for good measure, presumably both Popes—but strictly, of course their bock log is empty. ——SN 54129 13:51, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Probably re the user. I don't know for certain though, because the database block list only goes back to February 2004. Graham87 14:09, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Yes. Block logs didn't carry over from UseModWiki to MediaWiki, but the bans remain in place until they're appealed, the same as topic bans imposed before the introduction of partial blocks remain in force even though there's no technical limitation. I suppose there's a theoretical debate over whether because very early bans had "appeal to Jimbo" as the only way they could be lifted, whether the community could lift them, but we'll cross that bridge if we ever come to it. ‑ Iridescent 14:11, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify: MediaWiki (or Phase III software) has been in use since July 2002. It's predecessor was Phase II software, which came after UseModWiki. Graham87 14:31, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just because it took me a ridiculously long time to figure this out: the ban of 24 was in April 2002 per this revision (1018919012, the Unix time associated with the IP address, is 01:03:32, 16 April 2002 (UTC). Also see this mailing list thread and the very last entry in Wikipedia:Historical archive/Rules to consider, which was started by Jimbo, almost definitely in response to 24. Graham87 16:47, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe the timestamps aren't all that precise ... oh well, April 2002 is good enough for me. Graham87 17:15, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And as for actual accounts, the ban on H.J. (September 2002) was before that of TMC, per User:H.J./ban (admin access only). Graham87 17:35, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks everyone! (Apologes, I'd forgotten I'd asked this question, but very interestng the ole archaeology is too!) ——SN 54129 17:43, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm surprised to learn that UseModWiki even had blocking ability, given its relatively primitive abilities with respect to stuff such as deletion, etc. I presume based on the conversation above that any block logs from the UseMod days, if they ever existed, are gone for good barring any sort of Starling-style discovery (although a deletion dating to January 2001 survives in the Starling logs, albeit without the associated users).
To answer OP's question: the earliest block I could find (via this diff) was a block of an undisclosed IP by Larry Sanger by at latest 25 February 2002; using relative timestamps of the latest block on that diff, I presume that that block occurred around 20 January 2002, which would date it before Phase II software, if that's unreasonable then perhaps later in January; the earliest explicit IP was 204.210.25.127 by Tim Shell approximately 30 days later (again, per relative timestamping). The earliest contributions of that IP date to March 2002, so the offending diffs are sadly lost to history.

If not too BEANSy, I wonder what's the oldest block still in force. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 07:01, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Found an older one; this Nostalgia Wikipedia page of blocked IPs dates back to 18 October 2001, where 64.192.12.xxx is mentioned as a blocked IP. On another page he is described as a "fart boy ... persistent and irritating". – Teratix ₵ 07:15, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@John M Wolfson and Teratix: I'm using unixtimeconverter.io to convert the Unix timestamps, and it appears that each revision of that "blocked IP's" page shows blocks made *after* the date of the revision. Something is really weird with the timestamps on the page; this is mentioned at Wikipedia talk:Blocked IPs. The earliest date of a block on that page is 26 February (UTC) and the second-earliest is 28 March (UTC) (which lines up with the contribs of the 204.210.25.127 IP. In the 21 March 2002 database dump, the blocked IPs page has only one entry, the Larry Sanger block on the unspecified IP ... I've just imported that revision into the enwiki history; it's listed as the second edit, but I can't do very much about that. See nost:Wiki Administrators for info about admin access in UseModWiki; I'd forgotten that it also had the ability to do blocks. Also, the blocked IPs page on the Nostalgia Wikipedia is on this site at Wikipedia:Historical archive/Blocked IPs. I'll add a link to it from Wikipedia:Block log. Graham87 07:52, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Ah yes, back when editors of a fortnight were equipped with a lasso, three bottles of whisky, and a stetson, and told to go admin! Nosebagbear (talk) 09:33, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Articles which include extensive non-English translations

Template:Psalms
List of translations of the Paschal greeting (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Paschal Troparion

Hello, I am curious about the policies surrounding non-English text hosted on the English Wikipedia. As you can see from the above examples, some items have been the focus of extensive and indiscriminate inclusion of foreign-language translations of a phrase or a passage or a whole book. This is often unaccompanied by a reliable secondary source. What is the Wikipedia policy on including foreign-language texts, how extensive can they be, and is it not important for them to cite a reliable source so that anonymous IPs coming later cannot tweak them until they say "Your mother was a hamster"? Elizium23 (talk) 03:34, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, I wonder if such a list is even encyclopedic, or whether it might be better suited for a project like Wikisource or Wiktionary. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:20, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

They would have to be notable as a cohesive grouping, methinks. Perhaps an article might be appropriate for stuff such as the Lord's Prayer, but even that ought to be reliably sourced. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 07:06, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In the case of the List of translations of the Paschal greeting, d:Q2359665 might be the right place for them. For the Psalms, I clicked around on half a dozen of the articles in that navbox, and about half of those had the original Hebrew text plus an English translation, and the other half didn't. This doesn't sound either extensive or indiscriminate to me. I think these songs should be treated the same as other songs whose lyrics are in the public domain and weren't originally written in English, e.g., Wiegenlied (Brahms)#Lyrics and Cielito Lindo#Lyrics. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:26, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: proposed creation of new usergroup

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This is a proposal to create a new usergroup, main page editor, as documented at Wikipedia:Main page editor. In brief, members of the new usergroup will be given the editprotected and protect user rights, which allows editors to edit pages transcluded onto the main page through full and cascading protection. This will allow editors with this permission to update content on the main page, and to fix errors on it. Details of the proposed mechanisms to grant and remove the right, and restrictions on its use, are at Wikipedia:Main page editor. If this request is successful, a phabricator request will be initiated, and once completed, Wikipedia:Main page editor will be changed from a proposal to a policy page and appropriately updated.

Note: if phab:T71607 is ever actioned, the protect userright would be replaced with editcascadeprotected.

Vanamonde (Talk) 20:26, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Rationale

Wikipedia frequently has a shortage of administrators willing and able to perform tasks related to main page content. This results in updates to the main page being delayed, or in errors on the main page persisting for long periods of time.
A number of non-admin editors have long track records working on content related to the main page. These editors often are experts in project policy, are trusted contributors, and are fully capable of performing administrative tasks related to the main page, but are unable to do so, because editing the main page (and the subpages transcluded onto it) requires administrator permissions. Many of these users are uninterested in running for adminship because they would not use other tools. Many others do not have the wide experience necessary to pass an RFA.
Therefore, allowing trusted, experienced, willing non-admins to hold the rights associated with the new "main page editor" user group would increase the number of editors committed to main page projects who are able to perform these tasks, and also decrease the workload of admins. Updates to the main page can be made in a more timely fashion and errors corrected more quickly.

Technical background

The main page is currently full-protected with cascade protection. This is unlikely to change anytime soon. The various sections of it are transcluded onto the main page, and are therefore also cascade protected. The ability to edit cascade-protected pages requires "protect" permissions due to the current software design. Editing these sub-pages therefore requires the edit-protected and protect permissions, which are currently only locally available to admins. While it is technically possible to split the edit-cascade-protect and protect flags, efforts to do so have been pending developers since 2017.

Addressing potential concerns

Risk to other protected pages. Although users in this group will have the technical ability to protect and unprotect pages, this proposed policy explicitly states that they may not do so, and that using their rights to modify protection levels would be grounds for removal from the group.
Risk to the main page. This right will only be open to editors with a proven track record at the main page, who have proven their commitment to the project and their understanding of policy there. Even if someone should go off the rails or have an account compromised, the main page has over 114,000 watchers, over 4000 of whom have visited recent edits, and the proposal allows for requested revocation by any user in good standing and emergency revocation by any admin. Editors who disrupt the main page are likely to be brought to administrator attention very quickly. Additional risk to the main page is therefore minimal.
Potential difficulty of revocation. Under this proposal, any user in good standing can request revocation of membership in this usergroup from any other user, and administrators may revoke it without prior notice in case of active disruption to the main page. Furthermore, the process for removal intentionally does not require a numerical threshold, but a consensus that the editor in question will not abuse the right; therefore, in the presence of substantive concerns, the removal of membership should be straightforward.

Vanamonde (Talk) 20:26, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

Support, as one of the drafters. Calls for assistance with the main page are frequent, and there are rarely enough admins on hand to address them. Vanamonde (Talk) 20:26, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Pinging those users either involved with drafting this, or whose opinions were solicited during workshopping as experienced editors working with the various main page sections, or who came to the page to opine from other venues. I will also post notifications to the discussion pages for the various main page section.@Valereee, Xaosflux, Maile66, Dank, David Levy, Mike Christie, DannyS712, Xeno, Wugapodes, Winged Blades of Godric, MGChecker, Jo-Jo Eumerus, Coffeeandcrumbs, Cwmhiraeth, Mandarax, Tryptofish, BlueMoonset, Yoninah, Amakuru, Gatoclass, Casliber, Sca, Masem, MSGJ, Stephen, Killiondude, Jayron32, and Hut 8.5:; @Bagumba, Kees08, Art LaPella, Floquenbeam, Howcheng, Khajidha, Gerda Arendt, Ravenpuff, Serial Number 54129, Alanscottwalker, Ritchie333, Davey2116, 331dot, Zanhe, LaserLegs, Banedon, Nixinova, Martinevans123, Ad Orientem, SoWhy, Shubinator, Modest Genius, Pawnkingthree, Pawnkingthree, Kusma, WaltCip, and Gog the Mild: Vanamonde (Talk) 20:26, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Vanamonde93, assuming the referenced phab ticket isn’t actioned, would this allow people to edit full protected pages in mainspace from a purely technical point of view? TonyBallioni (talk) 20:36, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - @TonyBallioni: Technically, yes. Policy-wise, using that right for anything other than what it's meant for would be grounds for revocation. Vanamonde (Talk) 20:46, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Groups that have far greater technical permissions than social permissions are a bad idea. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:50, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose sorry to do this, but this would defeat the entire point of full protection existing. The reason this proposal always fails is that the unbundling of full protection is a bad idea because it enables people who care a lot about content and are extremely unlikely to be blocked for edit warring to edit through full protection. Unbundled permissions are extremely difficult to remove, probably harder than desysoping, and if there is abuse I don’t have confidence it will be removed and not restored, especially because of how small the number of people who work in this area are. If someone is trusted enough to edit through full protection on the main page, they should be trusted enough to pass RfA. We’ve had people in the last year pass with this as a rationale, so I see that as a valid avenue that would be preferred. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:11, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@TonyBallioni: You don't really have to apologize; as I see it this is the best way to deal with the chronic delays at ERRORS, ITN, DYK, etc; if the community doesn't want it, I'm satisfied in the knowledge that I've done my best to fix the problem. But FWWI: I agree that editors who could be trusted with this permission generally ought to be admins. The trouble is they don't want to.. You're more than welcome to try to persuade them, but I doubt very much that you'd be successful. Vanamonde (Talk) 21:23, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Weakly oppose. Per my comments below I can see the justification for this proposal, but I think it will create more problems than it solves. The difficulty in getting changes made to the main page is a feature, not a bug. Most editors don't particularly care about the main page, so the sort of people who are likely to want to apply for this are going to be either self-taught grammar pedants demanding that Wikipedia apply some rule they're misremembering from school, the more disruptive elements from DYK upset that those pesky admins slow things down by fact-checking their errors before we let the queues go live, and nationalists on a crusade to "correct the bias" at ITN. These are exactly the people we don't want having the ability to edit through protection. As per Izno and TonyBallioni, the ability to edit a page that averages 10 million readers per day isn't a relatively trivial feature like rollback but one of the most sensitive tasks on the entire project, and while I do support the principle of unbundling this is one of the jobs which should be left to admins. (I would actually be much more likely to support the unbundling of protect and editprotected if we excluded the main page from it.) ‑ Iridescent 21:37, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support It fills a very clear need and will help reduce serious backlogs. The main bottleneck at WP:DYK is moving preps (unprotected) to queues (full and cascade protected). At WP:ITN this permission would increase the number of regulars who can action discussions. The downside is we have to trust the granted editors not to do prohibited things. This should not be a big barrier because we do this all the time with user groups. We already have to trust that extendedmovers will not use suppressredirect contrary to deletion policy; we already trust that templateeditors will not be reckless in editing high-risk templates; we already trust that editors will act in good faith and not vandalize. Like many other parts of this encyclopedia, this proposal relies on meatball:SoftSecurity, and so we should evaluate whether the criteria can meatball:LimitDamage effectively. I believe it will. The criteria for granting are appropriately strict, requiring a request and consensus (and importantly not at admin discretion). The criteria for revoking are appropriately lax, requiring a single unauthorized act or community consensus. The prohibitions on use are bright lines, making ambiguous cases resulting in an untrustworthy person retaining the right unlikely.
The checks and balances of the proposal are well constructed to make this a clear net positive on its own merits, but if it goes well, it creates the possibility for further improvements in other areas of policy. For example, template protection was created as an alternative to full protection for high risk templates. It is in the projects interest to have technically capable editors able to edit high-risk templates, but the proliferation of protection levels has been a consistent problem. If this proposal is enacted and goes well, it presents the opportunity to consider consolidating our protection schema by extending editprotected to template editors and thus eliminating the need for template protection. Another example is that it may help recruiters identify more strong RFA candidates and resolve the low number of admin recruits while simultaneously reducing the demand for admins in certain areas. It tackles the problem from both sides. The proposal would be a big change, and big changes are scary, but they also create opportunities for us to reconsider long-held assumptions and catalyse improvements elsewhere. On its own merits, it is a solid proposal, and it brings with it the possibility for future improvements in other areas. For me, that is the hallmark of a good idea, and so I support the proposal as a net positive. — Wug·a·po·des 21:45, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose any regular at ITN who wants to be an admin can simply apply, and except for the occasional RD that dies on the vine that section doesn't have a backlog to contend with. No comment on DYK I have no idea how that section works. --LaserLegs (talk) 22:25, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose as I'd rather see this get fixed with phab:T71607 - and then we can have a group that is allowed to edit protected pages. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:36, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
To expand on this, I'm not opposed to creating a group that has the ability to edit protected pages, without being able to actually manage the protection; but with cascading protection this isn't currently possible. I'm not very worried about someone with such a new group being able to "protect" something be nature of transcluding it on a page with cascade - and this would be more of a positive than a risk I would think -- as inappropriate use could swiftly lead to access removal. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:13, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Support: Full protection is "sysop protection". This is counter-intuitive. The only solution I see to the counter-intuitiveness is to create a new protection level designated for main page and this purpose. {{replyto}} Can I Log In's (talk) page 00:17, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I generally don't think we need more usergroups, and in particular, if we want to "unbundle" protection from sysop, I don't think this is the right way to do it. (And I don't think we should do it at all.) ST47 (talk) 00:59, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per WP:CREEP as this would be additional complexity. As the issue is particular to the main page, it would be more sensible to try adjusting the protection level for that page, such as reducing the protection level to ECP with pending changes. Those are existing features and so no development would be required. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:27, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - I am extremely uncomfortable with any change which includes phrasing to the effect of "this will let you do (X) but we're telling you not to do it" - as Pppery mentioned above, that's a social control on a technical capability. creffett (talk) 12:34, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support as one of the drafters. There are multiple workers at main page who don't want to be admins, they just want to help. —valereee (talk) 13:41, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. It's not supposed to be easy to edit through full protection. Also, people will regularly cite WP:IAR to violate the policy. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 13:53, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose primarily for two reasons: unbundling should be based on the technical right itself, ad-hoc rights will be very prone to misuse given that even technical permissions are abused for which a need was already established. By granting ad-hoc rights with "please don't do this attached" is almost a sure-shot way or shooting ourselves in the foot — especially because Main Page is the most important and public-facing page that we have. Compromised accounts frequently tend to have some kind of fascination with the Main Page and opening up more accounts to edit through full protection (who are only supposed to edit the Main Page) is an inherent security risk. --qedk (t 愛 c) 17:11, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – this is a problem specific to DYK and ERRORS. As for ERRORS, clearly proposed and non-contentious changes tend to get acted on quickly. I have seen some suggestions get ignored if the change is not clearly necessary and if the proposer has a reputation for being argumentative and unwilling to compromise (this is not meant to say that you fit in this group if you have ever had this happen). Iridescent summarizes this concern better than I did. DYK does have a problem where there is not enough admin time available to meet the admin demand. I think there are better solutions than throwing more people at the issue, such as reducing the number of approved hooks in some way (disallowing GA entries, increasing minimum size, increasing minimum expansion, a 'selection pool' with more hooks in the pool than will be selected so the least interesting get dropped off after X period of time), reducing what we expect of admins when moving to queue (if another check is still desired, a second approver can be added to the prep process; better tools; better instructions), and improving the workflow (dynamic preps/queues so we can get further than 6 days ahead). While many of those possible solutions will have opposition to them, I firmly believe that the DYK process needs a large overhaul and not a bandaid solution. I understand not wanting to do an RfA, but if you cannot handle the stresses/criticism of an RfA, I am not sure you would be able to handle the stresses/criticism that come with main page work. At least in my experience, the latter is much more stressful. I would consider this proposal if other solutions to solve the issues at DYK are attempted. Kees08 (Talk) 17:16, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

I can see the merits of this, but I'm highly sceptical of requirement 1g (Working to fix mistakes on the main page at WP:ERRORS) as one of the grounds for this being granted. While there are a lot of fine people there, WP:ERRORS has traditionally been one of the parts of Wikipedia most infested with POV-pushers, cranks and people obsessed with pushing some prescriptive form of grammar or other. (For decency's sake I won't name names, but anyone who's had the page watchlisted for any time will be aware of the issue.) I have a suspicion this is going to set up potential for a lot of bad feeling, as we either give out this new right to people who we know are likely to abuse it, or have a lot of awkward "thank you for your service but everyone thinks you're untrustworthy" conversations which in turn leads to resignations (or even grant-strip wheel-warring which will understandably upset the editor involved even more). Has any consideration been given to a more thorough process than "post at Wikipedia talk:Main page editor—a page which currently has only 22 watchers—and try to time it such that in 24 hours one of your friends will be watching and waiting to flip the bit?" We already have a perfectly good Wikipedia:Requests for permissions page which gets the eyes of considerably more neutral parties. ‑ Iridescent 20:43, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Iridescent: I agree with your first concern, but that is among the reasons there's a more elaborate process being proposed for granting and removal than a request at WP:PERM. And that's also a reason not to leave it to the discretion of a single admin who would have to make an awkward decision; concerns can be raised by anyone. Yes, WT:MPE has 22 watchers, but the process requires cross-notifications at noticeboards that between them probably have in excess of two thousand watchers. Vanamonde (Talk) 20:50, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
So, I understand your argument about people being reluctant to undergo RfA, but how is this much different? You’re advertising something for community comment and the people with enemies will have them show up just like at RfA. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:26, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@TonyBallioni: Two reasons; first, RFA has a bad reputation, deserved or otherwise, that's somewhat unique; second, the skillset is much narrower, and main-page specialists don't have to worry about being questioned on their knowledge of deletion or blocking policies. Vanamonde (Talk) 21:37, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Can we move everything to the template space and have template editors who would be able to edit it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ymblanter (talk • contribs)
@Ymblanter: Technically, I believe so. I don't know that that proposal has any greater chances of success than this one, because it would be assigning two very different functions to that usergroup and require downgrading protection on the main page. I would probably support such a proposal, but I am not willing to propose it myself. Vanamonde (Talk) 20:56, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I tend toward "if we trust them enough to update the main page, we trust them enough to have the tools", especially if we're giving them protect/editprotected. --Izno (talk) 20:52, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Izno: we may trust (many of) them; but there's a lot of reluctance to enter the snake pit that is RFA. Vanamonde (Talk) 20:56, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
One of the issues with lack of admins is actually down to timezones. The majority of our admins are in North America, so when it is the early hours of the morning there, obviously fewer admins are available. It also doesn't help that these hours correspond to late morning/early afternoon in Europe (where we also have a number of admins), when a lot of people are at college or work (not so much at the moment, obviously). I suspect this would also be the case with the majority of anyone we recruited as MP editors, as well. Black Kite (talk) 21:37, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I was made an admin in 2006, stating that I planned to use it only for typos and such on the Main Page. I don't think such a person would pass RFA these days, so I don't assume that a good Main Page editor could pass RFA. Art LaPella (talk) 03:38, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Vanamonde93:, was consideration into a narrower set of authorised responsibilities considered - while they are fall into the same zone (so there's an immediate inclination to add all), there's two potential differences: some might be more (potentially) controversial, such as ERRORS, and others might be more unnecessary to expand the workforce (those not so dependent on 1 or 2 admins). My concerns on potential security issues (both wilful misuse and attack surface are separate) but I wanted to consider unnecessary risks of issues first. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:22, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure entirely what you're asking, Nosebagbear. Are you asking if the set of appropriate uses was intentionally narrow? Yes, it was. The point of this thing isn't to end-run around unbundling the protect tool. Vanamonde (Talk) 15:58, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If going through the relentless gauntlet of RFA is a precursor to doing substantive volunteer work of this sort on the project, then maybe I'm just not cut out to be a volunteer.--WaltCip (talk) 14:40, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

RFC on finding aids

There is an RFC on inclusion of finding aids in external links at Wikipedia talk:External links#Request for comment on finding aids. Finding aids are often inserted by SPAs in a spam-like manner, but some editors support their inclusion. An explicit ruling in guidelines is needed. SpinningSpark 08:43, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 658: / Line 658: @@
 * '''Oppose'''.  It's not supposed to be easy to edit through full protection.  Also, people will regularly cite [[WP:IAR]] to violate the policy. [[User:NinjaRobotPirate|NinjaRobotPirate]] ([[User talk:NinjaRobotPirate|talk]]) 13:53, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
 * '''Oppose''' primarily for two reasons: unbundling should be based on the technical right itself, ad-hoc rights will be very prone to misuse given that even technical permissions are abused for which a need was already established. By granting ad-hoc rights with "please don't do this attached" is almost a sure-shot way or shooting ourselves in the foot — especially because Main Page is the most important and public-facing page that we have. Compromised accounts frequently tend to have some kind of fascination with the Main Page and opening up more accounts to edit through full protection (who are only supposed to edit the Main Page) is an inherent security risk. --<span style="font-family:'Trebuchet MS',Geneva,sans-serif">[[User:QEDK|<span style="color:#000">qedk</span>]] ([[User talk:QEDK|<span style="color:#000">t</span>]] <span style="color:#fac">愛</span> [[Special:Contributions/QEDK|<span style="color:#000">c</span>]])</span> 17:11, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
+*'''Oppose''' – this is a problem specific to DYK and ERRORS. As for ERRORS, clearly proposed and non-contentious changes tend to get acted on quickly. I have seen some suggestions get ignored if the change is not clearly necessary and if the proposer has a reputation for being argumentative and unwilling to compromise (this is not meant to say that you fit in this group if you have ever had this happen). {{u|Iridescent}} summarizes this concern better than I did. DYK does have a problem where there is not enough admin time available to meet the admin demand. I think there are better solutions than throwing more people at the issue, such as reducing the number of approved hooks in some way (disallowing GA entries, increasing minimum size, increasing minimum expansion, a 'selection pool' with more hooks in the pool than will be selected so the least interesting get dropped off after X period of time), reducing what we expect of admins when moving to queue (if another check is still desired, a second approver can be added to the prep process; better tools; better instructions), and improving the workflow (dynamic preps/queues so we can get further than 6 days ahead). While many of those possible solutions will have opposition to them, I firmly believe that the DYK process needs a large overhaul and not a bandaid solution. I understand not wanting to do an RfA, but if you cannot handle the stresses/criticism of an RfA, I am not sure you would be able to handle the stresses/criticism that come with main page work. At least in my experience, the latter is much more stressful. I would consider this proposal if other solutions to solve the issues at DYK are attempted. '''<span style="background:#B1810B; padding:2px; border-style:solid; border-width:1px">[[User:Kees08|<span style=color:#FFFFFF;">Kees08</span>]][[User talk:Kees08|<span style=color:#FFFFFF;"> (Talk)</span>]]</span>''' 17:16, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
 ===Discussion===