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We need more New Page Patrollers

requiring autoconfirmation to create articles

As one can see from a thread near the top of WP:VPT, there seem to be a very few people doing the vast majority of NPP right now. Kamkek and I did over 7000 pages from February 1-26 alone), and the same is happening at New Article Review. I can only speak for myself, but I've been attacking around 200+ pages a day to try and keep Special:NewPages from flooding again; the other day, I patrolled about 350 pages. I can handle going at that rate, but Kamkek and I aren't online all the time. It's obvious when neither of us are doing NPP because it backs up very quickly during that time. We badly need one or both of two things. First, we need more people to help us; that way, we might have the time to actually reference that BLP instead of having to cut our losses to keep up with the new pages by BLPPRODding it right away, which is the situation now. Second, there was a proposal some months ago about making editors become autoconfirmed before writing an article. I want to raise this as another possibility; I think this would greatly reduce the number of completely useless pages that turn up every day on Special:NewPages, and simultaneously prevent newbies from feeling bitten because they tried to create a new article that wasn't suitable for Wikipedia, because creating an article now requires a fairly high level of skill (I just created my first article in January, and it took me about an hour to get it together; mind you, the article in question is basically start-class, nothing fancy). This has its drawbacks, the most obvious one being that it removes the instant gratification of being able to create an article right away, but there are solutions to this as well (i.e. promote using AfC). This doesn't seem to neatly fit any of the other Village pumps, so I put it here; if people think this belongs elsewhere, then please say as much. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:12, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have been thinking of raising a similar proposal, although for a different reason. Some little tests I did show that around 80% of the pages created by new users is deleted. Freaking 80%! I would argue deletion of a page is inherently wp:BITEY, no matter how you bring the message. Even if you userfy the page the newbie is still gonna feel rejected. Combine those two and I can only reach the conclusion we should stop new users from creating pages until they reach autoconfirmed, sending them through some pre-review system like wp:AFC instead. (Note this will not drastically affect the amount of patrolling power needed, it will just move most of the pressure somewhere else). Yoenit (talk) 04:51, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's a start; that'll at least ensure things get looked at. But that's only one half of the problem, then; how are we supposed to encourage more people to get involved? The problem with NPP is (as I've said at my newly opened editor review) outside editors only see the plane that crashes. Unlike just about every other part of Wikipedia, there are extremely rigid CSD rules (just look at some of the discussion on WT:CSD if you don't believe me; you'd think IAR said, "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, unless it has to do with CSD, ignore it.") and no matter what you do a lot of people end up not liking you. Vandal fighting can bring, if not adminship, glorification in many corners; NPP gets you just about nothing. We're way overworked right now; that doesn't mean we don't enjoy what we're doing, but we're still way overworked, and we need ways to spread it more evenly. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 06:26, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's too much. Maybe we need to find a way of throttling back new page creation? Perhaps a form of "Pending changes" for new pages, to leave new articles created by new accounts in a hopper until they can be vetted?   Will Beback  talk  08:54, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And there they'll sit gathering dust, the sublime alongside the ridiculous, yet another growing backlog to eliminate. The autoconfirmed proposal seems well worth exploring, though (perhaps in conjunction with a tightening of the requirements for that status). Rivertorch (talk) 09:05, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Rivertorch is correct — we don't need yet another backlog. In fact, we already have a perfectly good "pending pages" system: Articles for creation. I am in favor of requiring autoconfirmation to create articles; Yoenit's statistics confirmed what we've all known intuitively, but it's still surprising to know that 4/5 of the pages created by new accounts end up deleted. By requiring autoconfirmation, we would not only cut down on the creation of junk pages, but spare the newcomers who might otherwise have their good-faith contributions deleted. The latter factor should not be underestimated: if a new editor receives constructive criticism on AfC that allows them to create a respectable and worthy article, we are far closer to acquiring a new and valuable member of the community than if their page had been unceremoniously purged. Feezo (Talk) 10:59, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If we're going to go the autoconfirmed route, then I would suggest a total moratorium on non-autoconfirmed editors creating articles, like Feezo. New editors can learn from improving existing articles; that'll be better for everyone, really, on a lot of levels. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:30, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So where do we go from here? It's been a couple days now since anyone's said anything. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:03, 12 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is a very interesting RFC here on the opposite idea Wikipedia:Wiki Guides/Allow IP editors to create articles. I would say there is enough support to start a {{cent}} listed RFC to see what the larger community thinks about it. Yoenit (talk) 22:43, 12 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have listed this discussion at {{cent}}. Cunard (talk) 06:21, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support "requiring autoconfirmation to create articles". The years have moved on since creating a stand alone article, over editing existing pages, was a more realistic option for even the most specialised or peculiar newly arriving volunteer. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:09, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yoenit below at 08:20, 18 March 2011 (UTC) speaks of evidence that sounds quite compelling. New arrivals creating new articles that have to be deleted is not good for us or for the new arrival.
New users should remain able to create new userspace pages.
New users who wish to move their draft to mainspace immediately should be encouraged to request help via {{helpme}} or some other very easy very fast method than involves another human. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:20, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I like "one possible compromise is to allow immediate creation for users who go through the Article Wizard (ensuring a minimum of education and direction to support)" posted by User:Rd232 far below, 11:44, 24 March 2011 (UTC) --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:06, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I support the restriction on new page creation (that is not my point though). My point is why don't the New Page Patrollers give any props to the PASSING new pages? The whole thing seems like all stick, no carrot. Look someone has made a new article. If it passes, and the NPP is the first or only one in a while, to look at it, why not make some talk page comment on it. A quick attaboy, even with comments on upgrades (some kinda feedback) would just be good. I'm dead serious. Rethink the whole purpose of NPP! Oh...and I would just lurve it if someone said "dayum" your new page had a source and cats and a bolded first sentence and all...you go gurl! TCO (talk) 07:07, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If a stumble upon a proper article by a new user I always welcome the new user and give the article a fixup (wikify, categories, typos) if required. To be honest they are quite rare though. Yoenit (talk) 16:07, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. That just doesn't happen very often; instead, the great majority of pages are deleted, and those that aren't are almost always require a tremendous amount of work to bring up to even a start-class. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:56, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, so than it wouldn't be much work to give an attaboy to the ones that pass. I've never gotten any positive comments on my stubs that did pass and gotten one (improper) PROD for an article that was a spinout of a section that got too long. I'm not saying to stop being negative to all the failing articles. It's just a mindset change to think about a comment on the passing ones. Or is there something about the psyche of NPPs where they don't care about the new good content coming out?TCO (talk) 06:18, 14 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It has to do with the fact that, by the nature of NPP, we tend to only get involved in low-quality articles. A decent, well-referenced, wikified article doesn't need any more than the few seconds it takes for us to hit "mark as patrolled", so you do tend to notice the bad ones more because those are the ones needing attention. That said, if I find a decent article from a newbie I will give them a welcome. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 16:45, 14 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's a mindset change, but why not make a comment on the good ones from established users as well? You have completely defined yourselves as defenders against vandals, and I'm suggesting to be more holistic. I HEART you for blowing away the crud. honest. NUKE IT. But when I see no interest in the creation...that worries me...TCO (talk) 21:13, 14 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Why should I be congratulate people every time they create a new article? Should I also congratulate them if they fix 20 typos, add references to 5 BLPs or seriously expand an existing article? We are all here to build an encyclopedia and adding content is part of the job. If we kept congratulating each other for every improvement we would spend most of the time knocking each other senseless and get hardly any work done. I do hand out a barnstar from time to time, but I do so sparingly on purpose. Yoenit (talk) 22:13, 14 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Find some way to meaningfully engage usin?g your basis of experience in off wiki writing and deep life experience, and on wiki writing. It's only a FEW pages, remember. You should be INTERESTED. TCO (talk) 22:19, 14 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's not like I never stop to work on something; I turned Chihiro Iwasaki from Engrish to English, for instance, after coming across it on NPP. In my case, that's because the subjects I tend to be interested in (Ainu and Burmese history) aren't things that come up too much on NPP; my article work and NPP work tend not to mix all that often. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:30, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Long overdue common-sense solution. Less throwaway SPAs making an article about a schoolkid they hate and then disappearing? Less newbies feeling bitten? Less terrible articles? Less spam? Less backlogs? Sounds great! Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 00:29, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question: Are any of the other projects doing this? It might be interesting to know what their experience is. For myself, I reluctantly support autoconfirmation. Five years ago, it would have been a Bad Idea. Now, as a relatively mature project with a steep learning curve, it's perhaps not unreasonable.
    If we decide someday to have a "trial", could I please beg for it to be a prospective trial, with the specific things to be measured declared and discussed far in advance, with specific people publicly agreeing to collect the data by named deadlines, and predicting and publishing in advance the level of activity that would be expected under current rules? So much of the PC trial has relied on subjective opinions. (Randomizing per account would be lovely, but a multi-step cross-over design [autoconfirmation is required every other month for a total of four or six months] might be more manageable and also interesting.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:45, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I wonder how much NPP has been done by the people behind RFCs like Allow IP editors to create articles and Minimize talk page templates. I occasionally click "Recent changes" and spend a bit of time cleaning up, and my limited experience leaves me with no doubt that 80% of new pages need to be deleted. The solution is not to userfy all bad pages (a suggestion I saw somewhere recently), but to prevent people with no experience from creating a page except through AfC which will provide the necessary guidance. Johnuniq (talk) 10:38, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    You may have seen the 'userify drafts' proposal at meta:IRC office hours/Office hours 2011-02-24 and meta:IRC office hours/Office hours 2011-03-18. The idea is to put all new pages created by newbies in a pile somewhere (userspace, a new draft namespace) and create special processes around them to a) avoid biting the newbies, but also b) purge the junk semi-automatically. The idea is essentially software-enforced WP:AFC for newbies, however we wish to define newbies. John Vandenberg (chat) 05:24, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Oh. That sounds a lot better than the unconvincing text at Allow IP editors to create articles. I had another quick look at the links in the first para at that page and did not notice anything like what you outlined (a new "Draft:" namespace please, not userspace; a Draft namespace needs to automatically set NOINDEX and have "This is a draft" or some such at the top so if an outsider is given a link to "this great article at Wikipedia!" they would have a chance of working out that it is not actually an article). I'll take your word for it that the long IRC logs include those suggestions, but no, I had not seen them. I am a bit grumpy about the Wiki Guides RFCs because they look exactly like what I would expect from a PR outfit paid large amounts to produce mission statements for management, but your quick outline presents a much better idea. Johnuniq (talk) 06:39, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Nothing against user:Tomstar81 who drafted them, but those RFCs are just some naive ideas which should never have left the wikiguides talkpage. There is nothing official about them and nobody got paid. 89.146.39.186 (talk) 12:04, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - nobody is irritated by newbie glop more than I am, but this would be a complete undoing of the basic idea of wikipeda, the whole "plunge in, and get better as you go" mindset that has accomplish orders of magnitude more than we thought it would. Crappy, awful pages eventually die or, less often, improve, but in the process they don't really do any harm. It's not like readers can't avoid them and are saying "I will never use wikipedia because I encountered a bad page!" - DavidWBrooks (talk) 11:09, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is not that crappy articles are created, as we can deal with those quite effectively. The problem is that the newbie editors creating those pages are driven away from wikipedia. Our retention rate among new editors who create a page which is then deleted is 0.63%, while our retention rate is among new editors who start with editing existing pages is 2.6%. (sample set of some 50.000 users, see User:Mr.Z-man/newusers). The "plunge in and get better as you go" mindset has become "plunge in, get your page deleted, a talkpage full of warnings and quit in disgust". Yoenit (talk) 08:20, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I guess I don't see how "plunge in, hit an annoyng registration wall, quit in annoyance" is much of an improvement, except that it avoids the crappy article syndrome which I think is a minor issue. I think you're underestimating the effect this would have on the overall psyche (that's not exactly the right word, but something like that) of wikipedia - it's the "anybody can do this at any time without any training or preparation, unlike anything else of this magnitude in the world" ethos (maybe that's the word) which has kept it going. I think this would seriously undermine that personality (?) over time. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 11:53, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per nom, per support arguments above.  – OhioStandard (talk) 03:11, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Unfortunately, this is necessary. NPPers dont want to bite the newbies, but the integrity of the encyclopedia and the rights of living people are more important than the newbies. Our resources are not currently able to cope with the workload, so we need to reduce the workload. IMO we should not allow newbies to create new pages (in mainspace) unless there is a redlink to it which is stable for at least a few days. This depends on Special:Wantedpages, which is 'too inefficient' (last updated 2009-10-12T12:55:54). John Vandenberg (chat) 05:15, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. This wouldn't have made sense years ago, but it makes sense now. We have to figure out how to help new users create articles, instead of the traditional sink-or-swim approach which so easily turns people off (besides the workload involved). I created the Article Wizard because of that, and maybe a year ago (?) I suggested limiting article creation to autoconfirmed, with a getout clause for immediate creation if the user goes via the Article Wizard (which ensures a certain minimum of education). I still think that's a good compromise. Rd232 talk 19:05, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I strongly believe new users need at least a few edits before plunging in to their first article. These few edits will at least familiarize them with the layout of a Wikipedia page. Furthermore, the time limit will help to discourage the drunken Saturday night joke pages or the pages that eleven-year-olds create out of boredom. Although this may also have the unfortunate side effect of discouraging legitimate editors, I think that the benefits outweigh the costs. – GorillaWarfare talk • contribs 23:28, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well at least some people are saying that it may result in less discouraging of legitimate editors. At any rate, those who are so easily discouraged are not really the ones we need to attract: the older WP gets, the more patience and dedication are important qualities. Far more important to help the really good potential editors who struggle a bit with it (eg older people perhaps?) than to worry about putting off those who haven't got the minimum patience to wait a few days to have an article live. Rd232 talk 00:10, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I've just recently begun doing a bit of NPP, and it's clear that there needs to be a minor speed bump in the process of creating a new page. The main benefit is not that it would require less of Wikipedians, but rather it's that we can give more attention to improving new articles that are worthwhile. -- DanielKlotz (talk · contribs) 01:45, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. There's too much crap coming in the door, frankly. But we need to become better in helping new editors writing content that is not crap, either in new articles or elsewhere.  Sandstein  06:42, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support if the phrase "not allowed" can be avoided on the response page for the new user. Not sure how it works technically, but a message like "Thank you for adding to Wikipedia. Click here to go to Articles for Creation if you are ready to write your article right now" would be great. --Pgallert (talk) 07:41, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I wouldn't have supported this a few years ago, but nowadays we don't have to worry about getting new article ideas from anywho anymore, including inexperienced editors. It's better to (1) clean up and keep clean what WP already has, and (2) give newbie editors more time to learn before they find out the hard way they're yet too inexperienced. This proposal is two birds with one stone. – sgeureka t•c 08:42, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I have been in discussion for a while, but not yet added my support. Let me use this to debunk some myhs which could lead to oppose rationales.Yoenit (talk) 09:01, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This will seriously decrease the amount of new articles created
No, even if AFC/userspace options did not exist we would lose only 5-10% of new articles. New users generate somewhere between 20 and 33% of new pages, but 80% of those are deleted. Also, if the wp:AFC option is presented properly I wouldn't be suprised if it actually increases the number of useful articles created by new users
This proposal is WP:BITEY and decreases the number of new editors
No, what we are doing now is bitey. The cold reality is that 80% of the articles contributed by new users is deleted and our retention rate among those editors is a mere 0.6%. (For comparison, editors starting on existing pages have a retention rate of 2.6%). If we can direct even some of those editors creating new pages elsewhere it is likely to give us a net benefit of editors. Yoenit (talk) 09:01, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Addendum: Statistics from User:Mr.Z-man/newusers. Yoenit (talk) 09:05, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support, provides a small impediment to creating articles which will screen out the most commonly-deleted articles before they get in. Stifle (talk) 09:27, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. I do not think that turning Wikipedia into Citizendum will solve any problems. You know that Citizendum has failed, and I do not want Wikipedia to have the same fate. Ruslik_Zero 12:20, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Your oppose is invalid since it opposes a proposal radically different from the one made: making new editors wait a few days before they can make a new article go live is nothing like Citizendium. You might as well oppose a proposal to go shopping by saying "no, I don't want to go to the moon". Rd232 talk 12:32, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • It is a fine example of a straw man argument and should be ignored. I think it is telling that he could not oppose without resorting to a fallacy. Yoenit (talk) 12:40, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • If your goal is push this proposal at any cost, by insulting anybody who oppose it, I will make sure that it never passes and that appropriate measures are taken against you. Ruslik_Zero 14:21, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
          • No one has insulted you. Your opposition has been criticized, from what I can see, in a reasonable and civil manner. I'm not sure how you intend to "make sure [the proposal] never passes", but ambiguously threatening statements are definitely not helpful. Feezo (Talk) 14:47, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
            • It seems your oppose is based on a wildly flawed interpretation of the proposal. Making a small prerequisite to create a page is not at all like Citizendium. Nobody has insulted you, they have rebutted your argument. bahamut0013wordsdeeds 21:43, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose for now; support if/when this won't prevent new uysers from creating their own user pages. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 14:12, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well, technically the proposal is for users creating articles, not pages, so you're in agreement with the proposal anyway. I'm not sure how much harder it is to implement a restriction that only applies to mainspace (compared to all namespaces), but it doesn't sound particularly difficult. Rd232 talk 15:16, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support for mainspace only Yes, yes, yes. We need this; route everyone to AfC, institute a strict no-BITEy review process in which all non-attack pages may not be deleted immediately. We should tell users how to rewrite spam, etc.; obviously non-notable bios and stuff can be deleted after, say two days. Also, this helps developing Wikipedians learn our content policies better, and show ravenous taggers that "no, we CAN talk to new users". All this requires is some dedicated reviewers. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 14:40, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. "80% of the pages created by new users is deleted". I should add that a lot of the remaining 20 % are not kept because they are good, but because they are not bad enough. Sole Soul (talk) 16:52, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Autoconfirmation is an extraordinarily minimal requirement which will weed out a vast amount of vandalism. Sign-In-To-Edit is also long overdue, but this is a start. Carrite (talk) 18:59, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment just to be 100% clear, this is only intended for article space; users should be able to create their own userpages, as that's the perfect place for editing tests. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 20:55, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support As long as we're able to make sure that non-autoconfirmed users are able to make their own user and user talk pages. We don't want to turn off that ability. But, yeah, this should drastically improve both the retention of new article and, hopefully, the retention of new users. SilverserenC 22:42, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Wikipedia is now a mature encyclopedia. New articles tend to be on obscure topics or news items. Asking editors to register and wait a few days before creating articles is a reasonable step to move the project towards a focus on quality instead of quantity.   Will Beback  talk  22:59, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment If this proposal is adopted, I think it is essential that some careful thinking go into the messaging provided to then end user when they click a red link or otherwise try to create an article. Communicating clearly what is going on, and what is the best path to creating an article (right away in a sandbox, or in a few days after some exploration) would be absolutely vital. -Pete (talk) 01:09, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongest possible oppose the life of Wikipedia depends on continually attracting and keeping new editors. Editors are more important than articles--we can always re-make an article than gets deleted, but we cannot retrieve n edit who gets discouraged. Many people come here specifically to write about something they know, and many of them do fine. Of the new articles submitted to Wikipedia we keep half of them. Of course, many are formulaic articles by continuing editors, but the ones by new editors also have a very considerable percentage of acceptable edits. And even the ones that are not acceptable as submitted an be made acceptable. What we need to do is the exact opposite of this proposal.: encourage and facilitate the creation of new articles by anyone, guiding ips to register in order to make their articles. And then follow up each individual person and each individual article.
The comment above that NPP is now entirely negative is very much to the point--the purpose of NPP is not just to identify what must be deleted, but also what must be improved. We newed to get new people involved in this, and taught how to do it properly. But the lack of them is not a current crisis. Two or three years ago a great many more new articles escapted checking--and we are now dealing with the process of removing them, especially the unjustifiable very minor BLP articles. We're actually doing better now., Two years ago,m when I patrolled at the end of the backlog, I found immense amounts of unchecked junk. Now I don't--almost all of it gets removed earlier.
The way to kill Wikipedia is to inhibit the flow of new editors. This will be a rather sure step along the way. DGG ( talk ) 02:34, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As much as I like being as open as possible (and I'm actually really warming up to WereSpielChequers' idea at the Allow IPs to Create Articles RfC; I think that's a really neat solution, and we should try to go that route first), I'm not particularly encouraged to see that in the few days I've been fairly inactive, Special:NewPages has developed a several-day backlog (which I will begin going at shortly). Since March 17th, we have just under 1500 unpatrolled pages, which is roughly what I would have done in that time frame (anywhere from 200-300 a day). It's nothing unmanageable now, but it's indicative of a problem; it's not good that two people (Kamkek and I) are doing such a grossly disproportionate amount of NPP. The problem is, unlike vandal fighting, we need human eyes on every page. It's like Rush said in Second Nature; "I know that progress has no patience, but something's got to give". The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:13, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • support I do some work at NPP myself, and it's sad because I understand not biting new users, on the other hand, is there any other possible way of dealing with some highschooler writing an article about their lunch table clique or their best friend or a game they made up? I rarely actually get to an article BEFORE it's already been speedy tagged anymore by users faster than I. I would honestly LOVE to find an article I can improve on, but almost always it's something that doesn't belong here and never, ever will. I could wikify and format and add categories and remove peacock language all day long and it's still a highschool garage band that's never released a CD and never played anywhere but the local high school battle of the bands and their drummer's dad's pole barn. I understand that discouraging new users hurts Wikipedia, but on the other hand users with nothing to add beyond material that violates policy don't HELP us either, and the massive waves of advertising spam garage bands and non-notable unsourced BLPs piling up will do measurable harm. HominidMachinae (talk) 08:44, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. The requirement to register raised the threshold for newcomers, but at least didn't make it much more difficult since registering an account is quick and easy. Adding a temporal quarantine adds another hoop which makes the creation of legitimate new articles much more difficult in that they need to wait for a long time. If someone wants to write a new and valid article, a autoconfirmed requirement will easily make the newcomer lose interest. Registering an account should bring with it some immediate benefits, not benefits which are a long way off. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:31, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • "a autoconfirmed requirement will easily make the newcomer lose interest." - I don't see that. We are talking about exposure on one of the world's top ten websites. Frankly, even in this ADD modern world the sort of users who can't wait a few days to have an article go live on such a site are users we can do without. Besides, at 3m articles the primary issue is no longer creation of articles, it is conversion of newcomers into dedicated Wikipedians, and we do that better by converting an extra 1% or whatever by drawing them in with better support and less biteyness, than by allowing Tom, Dick and Harry to slap down a half-arsed effort and then walk away (and probably see it deleted). Anyway, one possible compromise is to allow immediate creation for users who go through the Article Wizard (ensuring a minimum of education and direction to support); what do you think of that? Rd232 talk 11:44, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support. Unfortunately, the current situation leads to negative outcomes for all concerned; well-intentioned newbies feel bitten, somebody has to spend long hours cleaning up the mess, and some crappy new articles (including vandalism & hoaxes) still survive to appear on readers' screens. It's not as though we have a shortage of existing articles to edit; our "encyclopaedia that anyone can edit" principle is quite compatible with a specific and reasoned restriction on article creation, just as it is with blocks and with protecting the main page. We are here, first and foremost, to build an encyclopædia, not as a social experiment. bobrayner (talk) 16:28, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I don't think this will result on more offended new users. On the contrary I think a user will be less offended by a message saying "you don't have permission to create pages yet, sorry" than by seeing their article summarily deleted, which is the fate experienced by the vast majority of pages created by very new users. Even the ones that survive only do so needing extensive cleanup. This proposal has many advantages: it will reduce the workload at CSD, NPP, cleanup etc and it will reduce the number of BLP violations, copyright violations, hoaxes etc that make it into mainspace. And finally our focus as a project should be shifting from creating as many pages as possible towards cleaning/improving up the ones we have. Hut 8.5 18:46, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree, but I think it's worth emphasising that this involves (or should involve) a substantial shift in emphasis towards helping newcomers instead of dealing with the fallout from their lack of experience. In essence, if experienced Wikipedians aren't constantly rescuing people who can't swim, they will hopefully have time to teach some people to swim. Rd232 talk 22:07, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • support But allow non-autoconfirmed users to submit articles for creation at WP:AFC. Perhaps some work to make AFC a slicker system would be helpful as well. Pol430 talk to me 22:38, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, just in case it wasn't clear from the discussion. Feezo (Talk) 22:53, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongest possible oppose. Registration is a sufficient barrier to keep the tides of crap out. If you're a newcomer and you want to create a new article, you can deal with "OK, I have to register, fair enough." Waiting 4 days and making 10 edits unrelated to what it is you actually want to do is a great way to keep the good ones out because a newcomer will go "fuck it, I'm not dealing with this stuff". I know, because that would have been my reaction, because this was not the cause, I've been here for 3 years now, with roughly 100K edits, created Wikiprojects, wrote templates, a few DYK, cleaned countless of articles, wrotes an FA and an FL, etc... Developing better edit filters is the answer, not going "Sorry newbie, but you can't play here just yet, this is the big boys & girls' encyclopedia". Bringing the new editors to a interstitial page saying something like "YOU'RE ABOUT TO CREATE AN ARTICLE... BUT BEFORE YOU DO, HERE'S A FEW THINGS YOU SHOULD CONSIDER", with a small guide to the basic mistakes new editors make is a much better idea (This page would go away after you're autoconfirmed) than this you-need-to-be auto-confirmed-before-you're-allowed-to-create-an-article crap. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:52, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Apparently the WP:Article Wizard is what I had in mind. Bring new editors trying to create new pages to that rather than prevent them from doing so. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:58, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support for mainspace - Trying to teach new users how to create a passable article is an unreasonable proposition. Creating a decent new article requires knowledge of basically every major policy and style guide. We can spend huge amounts of effort trying to educate new users through guides, wizards, etc. or we can let them learn by experience. Excessive reading makes Wikipedia boring and frustrating and too many users will simply ignore it; if we make the reading too short, we'll invariably leave out important information and users will continue to fail and be discouraged. If new users still want to try to create a new article, they can do it through AFC. Users who start by editing existing pages already outnumber those who create articles and they're far less likely to have negative first experiences. This would also have the effect of reducing the ridiculous quantity over quality emphasis that some people still cling to. Mr.Z-man 03:06, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongest possible oppose. This idea doesn't actually fix the problem; it just foists it off, overburdening the Articles for Creation people instead of the Special:NewPages people. I appreciate that the workload is heavy, but if we let more users get involved, and help them do that, then the number of new page patrollers will increase incrementally as the userbase does. There are alternatives to leaving problematic articles involved which don't disenfranchise new users; since many of them come to Wikipedia seeking instant gratification, putting an additional hoop in place for them to jump through will drive many potential contributors off. Yes, that will deal with the issue at hand, but at what cost? Ironholds (talk) 03:36, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't get that proposal. It just seems as though you want to start some new wp:AFC process for crappy pages "with potential" which have already been deleted. Why wait for the pages to be deleted first? Why not just sent them through AFC straight away. Wouldn't that be much more productive? Yoenit (talk) 08:52, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If you read the proposal, you'll see that it's both deleted and undeleted-but-problematic articles. Yes, it'd be more productive to send them through AFC straight away, if it wasn't for the fact that (a) AfC'll quickly get overburdened and (b) things still get deleted. It's a bit pointless saying "you should have sent articles through AfC before they were deleted!" unless I've somehow got a reputation as an omnipresent being who can preclude all CSDs made on en-wiki. As for "crappy pages" - one of the articles I saw was about an Egyptian cabinet member. It was A7'd. Ironholds (talk) 21:10, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well yes, you'd need a lot more involvement in AFC (especially if the immediate-creation-via-Article-Wizard doesn't happen). But part of the idea here is that rapid-fire CSD decisions more easily go wrong (eg with the Egyptian example) than AFC. Rd232 talk 00:16, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongest possible oppose. I feel the idea that the only (or best) way to solve the problems of New user biting or the New Page Patrol backlog is to get rid of the new users by stopping them from creating pages is horribly knee jerk and doesn't seem to be done for any actual data driven reason. As Sue said in last week's Letter to the community our community is shrinking (even dieing). The last thing we possibly need is to close down the project even more. Only 5 other WMF projects even restrict page creation for anonymous users (and none of them are in the top 10 other then enWikipedia). The Editor Trends Survey, which came out with the update and Ironholds touched on, shows even more data such as the fact that 37% of the users who DO make 10 edits ("New wikipedians" in the graph) take over 2 months to get there (50% take over 15 days) so this isn't a "just wait 4 days" issue.
I'm trying to get my hands on the data about how many editors never reach that 10 edit level at all, my gut and anecdotal review says it is absolutely enormous, I will certainly share that with everyone as soon as I get it. Before you make a decision here I encourage you to try a different kind of New Page Patrol and specifically look for articles that would be viable and can be moved into user-space or incubated. Jalexander--WMF 05:57, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If we start userfying and incubating pages randomly we are just creating a poor, disorganized copy of wp:Articles for creation. Better to just sent everything through AFC and use its excellent review structure (which is what we are proposing here). I would also like if you could clarify whether your position here is personal or the official WMF position, as it is likely to carry weight. Yoenit (talk) 09:04, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You think that moving everything to AfC would not simply create the same problems (backlog, biting, stress) that they do at Special:NewPages? Ironholds (talk) 23:05, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's what we already do, at least myself; if I thinks something is salvageable, I'll ask the user if they want it userfied. However, as has been said above, these articles usually aren't salvageable, and in case you haven't noticed, we're being overworked to the point of burnout on NPP right now. We are possibly the most hated people around (I actually like that essay a lot, including the title, by the way); we're generally treated like shit because newbies don't like when we tag their garage bands, and regular users see the planes that crash, not the overwhelming majority of planes that land safely with our taggings. I've been pretty much inactive since the 17th (although not for much longer), and since then a giant backlog has built up at Special:NewPages; that's not a good sign. I will give you the basic data again, in case you missed it; 80% of articles from newbies end up deleted, two people (Kamkek and I) have done a grossly disproportionate amount of NPP in the last couple of months, and in the week I've had to be out over 1,500 pages have built up unpatrolled. So we can either chase away newbies by deleting their pages (which almost always have to be deleted), or we can do what just about every other website on the Internet does and put some basic restrictions on creating something (in our case, pages); which, even then, will be much less than just about every other website. In addition, it doesn't matter how long it takes for someone to get to 10 edits; if they don't have at least that, they probably aren't ready to make a page anyways. I've seen editors make a page on their 6th or 8th edit, and there's no real difference. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 02:36, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support. I believe in Wikipedia, but I don't like the people that run it. They treat new users as enemies instead of friends. So I'm supporting this idea knowing it will reduce the in flow of new users. I'm hoping this will help bring about Wikipedia's demise. Then maybe the people that run things will realize the importance of new users.

You do realise that the hope of many supporters is that this change would make it feasible for new users to be given more support, with less time spent cleaning up through deletion and tagging (cleanup which scares many off)? Rd232 talk 18:46, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to be a counter-productive goal anyway... killing Wikipedia wouldn't fix the BITEy problem. It's a sarcastic/satirical oppose !vote. bahamut0013wordsdeeds 21:43, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Jalexander. This is just going to exacerbate the problem in the long term, not make it better. Kaldari (talk) 20:31, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Jalexander. The data we have indicates that a move like this would likely be lethal to the community - perhaps in as short a timeframe as 8 months.--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 21:35, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    What data would that be? The data that I've seen show that the vast majority of new users who start out by creating articles have a negative experience (~80%) and then leave the project. The new users who start out by editing existing pages (and who outnumber the article creators by ~3:1) tend to have much better experiences. Mr.Z-man 22:06, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Can you show me where that data is? I can't seem to find it though I've seen the statistics (the 80% one especially) mentioned multiple times (not at all saying it doesn't exist I just haven't found it yet). I'll post the table below in the analysis section so as not to clutter this but as I was trying to collate data I came across the % of editors who make more then 10 edits. Of all users (who made at least one edit) less then 20% ever make 10 edits (about 60% only make 1 or 2 edits) and as I shared in my !vote above that 19.4% does so very slowly. We've learned in basically everything we do that people leave very quickly and I don't see how moving people to AfC will help that. Making an article that sits there without feed back (or gets deleted) is no better for the user then making it in Main Space, perhaps worse. Jalexander--WMF 23:04, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    My data is at User:Mr.Z-man/newusers. The problem with your analysis is that it assumes all or most new users want to create new articles, which isn't actually the case. Mr.Z-man 00:48, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: I think the constant stream of crap Wikipedia's been recieving in the last few years is getting worse. The encyclopedia's reputation as a reputable reference hasn't really increased much in the last decade, and I'm constantly seeing newbies whine when exposed to our standards "this is why WP is crap/unreliable/etc. and I'm leaving because you didn't want to keep my crappy page about something unnotable". I think it's generally recognized that the project has a very long way yet to go to become the "sum total of human knowledge" (especially IRT to systemic bias), but we've really hit most of the essential subjects pretty hard, and we have less a need for quantity and more for quality. That means we need editors who are invested, and less stock in the number of fly-by editors who contribute little. Thusly, it is my opinion that an editor who quits over having to wait a few days and get a bit of experience before creating an article is probably not the kind of editor who will contribute effectively to the project anyway. I know I'm generalizing, and some editors have longer learning curves than others, but I think the point still stands. And of course, this seems to fly in the face of my eventualist ideals ("baha, the crummy articles will get deleted no matter what, so why have to prevent them from getting created"), but I have to counter that the impact on a new editor to getting an article deleted is probably worse than being prevented in the first place, and the latter has the advantage of being automatic (i.e. without wasting the time of editors and sucking up gigabytes of data). In any case, I think the predicted "lethality" is terribly exaggerated.
TLDR? I'm not troubled by the idea that the community is shrinking (especially in comparison to the quality of articles and depth of coverage Wikipedia has), and I don't think this proposal will cost us many quality editors. We need better edits more than we need more articles. bahamut0013wordsdeeds 21:43, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's what is known in critical thinking as a "false dichotomy". The choice is not cut and dry between good edits and new articles. Lots of users start off by writing an article about something, and we then have the possibility of turning them into good members of the community. If we disenchant them immediately by not indulging their first effort (to write an article) the chance of turning them into a long-term contributor hovers around zero. The choice is not between new articles and good edits; we can get the writers of new articles to make good edits. But not if we shut the door on them. Ironholds (talk) 23:09, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"If we disenchant them immediately by not indulging their first effort" - yes, we should support new editors writing new articles, especially if they have zero experience. The question is whether the BITEy CSD+tag-emphasising status quo is actually a good way of supporting them, especially with an eye on making them feel welcomed by the community. In fact the status quo does not seem reasonably characterised as "indulging", it's much more "here's a car, here's the keys, what do you mean 'driving lesson', anyone can drive". Rd232 talk 01:26, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongly oppose - Serves no purpose other than to further confuse and hinder new contributors. Welcome to Wikipedia, the encyclopedia you just might be able to edit! Juliancolton (talk) 22:23, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • ?? What the status quo gets us is lots of (a) immediate turnoff (b) very shallow engagement over one article (c) tiny, tiny fraction of new editors turned into Wikipedians. In essence, systematically handing newcomers the keys to a car they don't know how to drive is not working in terms of producing competent drivers in substantial numbers. We ought to be able to do better on that score by finding ways to give more support to newcomers (which includes this proposal of not allowing them to immediately drive solo and almost certainly crash, burn, and leave). We may indeed get fewer people getting in the car, but we'll get a greater number of competent drivers, and that's what really matters. Rd232 talk 22:28, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • I was by no means a knowledgeable or skilled Wikipedia editor when I started editing, but I did so because I was able to create articles immediately – even though most of them were summarily deleted or merged or something. The word wiki itself literally means "fast", which means as much as possible should be able to be completed and viewed immediately... putting speedbumps on things undermines the foundation on which wikis are built. Juliancolton (talk) 01:51, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • Then you are in a tiny minority. From data last year, less than 1% of new users who created an article and had it deleted were still editing a few months later. Mr.Z-man 02:39, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Provisional Support. While I'm sympathetic to the concerns Ironholds and Jalexander express, we have yet to be shown any data that actually demonstrates that the losses from requiring new editors to introduce themselves to wikipedia before starting an article would be greater than the losses we currently experience from new users creating, getting deleted, feeling bitten, and buggering off. If the Foundation or any of our resident data wranglers can provide some evidence for the doom-and-gloom "death of the wiki" scenario Jorm and Jalexander predict, I'm more than willing to be persuaded - I doubt they're opposing so strongly just for fun - but as it stands, we have historical evidence for "new users who create crappy new pages drop out fast" and none being presented for "omg the world is going to end if we make them do ten edits first."

    This proposal could easily be implemented with an approach such as,

    Welcome to Wikipedia! We require new users to have some familiarity with how Wikipedia works before they can create something from scratch. To do this, we suggest you try [link to gnomish thing] or [link to easy thing]. You'll need to have carried out ten edits before you can create a new article, but if you don't want to wait, you can suggest your idea at WP:AFC.

    This would keep users from feeling bitten, give them a timeline for when they can create an article, and give them some constructive suggestions for where their first ten edits could be useful. Foundation folk, could you please provide some sort of data that an approach like this is going to cause users to run away rather than feel welcomed? A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 23:23, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

ETA: It's been pointed out to me that autoconfirmation isn't, as I thought, ten edits OR four days, but is in fact ten edits AND four daya. Given that, I find it a bit more believable that users who are asked to autoconfirm before being able to do their work might throw up their hands and leave. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 23:43, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Really? Have you never seen people play Farmville? Even the ADD internet generation has more patience than people seem to credit. Rd232 talk 00:12, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Given how long it takes people who DO reach 10 edits to get there (you can see the graph here "New Wikipedian" means 10 edits) this is certainly one of my concerns combined with the amount of editors that don't reach it at all (see below). Jalexander--WMF 02:25, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Analysis

The primary concerns here seem to be

  1. Getting lots of new articles created. (It's agreed this is a lower priority than it was a decade ago, relative to maintenance and quality improvement of existing articles, but it's still an issue.)
  2. Converting new article creators into Wikipedians - i.e. editors with an interest beyond their article.

Now, some historical perspective. Back when Wikipedia was starting off, and for long after, a lot of articles were started by editors who did nothing (or very little) beyond editing the articles they created. They came, they created, they buggered off - and that was OK, because the standards generally were much lower and kicking an article off was better than nothing, and enough people were getting more substantially involved as Wikipedians that this didn't matter. The model was focussed on 1. rather than 2., and it worked fairly well.

Now the vast majority of articles created by newcomers are rapidly deleted (and much of the rest need a lot of work). That's partly just a function of the fact that so many notable, easily-sourced topics have now already been covered. Now we need a lot more emphasis on 2. - the conversion of casual editors and would-be editors into Wikipedians, drawing them into the community. The question is simple: is the best way to do this by slapping a lot of these people in the face when their efforts are inadequate or unacceptable (through speedy deletion and various tags)? Or is the best way to say to them "whoa, you can drive solo in 4 days, but first, let's give you some support so you don't crash and burn first time out"? And if we give this support during the article creation process, won't that help 1. as well, by ensuring we get more articles that are not deleted and not borderline-deletable crap? Rd232 talk 13:43, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Some users have been working parallel to all these NPP issues for a couple of months. For their recent developments seeUser talk:Snottywong#NPP and then User:Snottywong/Patrollers. --Kudpung (talk) 17:49, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I mentioned this above in my response to Z-man (under Jorm's !vote) and wanted to include the data here (from stats.wikimedia.org about 1/3 of the way down). In the table "Wikipedians" are all users who have made at least 1 edit (hence why 100% of users in the table made an edit). You notice of course how quickly it drops off, only around 40% make 3 edits, only about 19% reach the 10 edit auto-confirmed threshold. This is my biggest worry, if we do not support them at the start we are losing them and I do not see this proposal helping. Even if we assume that we can siphon them all to AfC I see no reason not to believe that they will just create pages there that generally get little to no feedback (especially before they give up and leave) and/or get deleted. The added backlog that will go to AfC is FAR from small. Jalexander--WMF 23:28, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Edits >= Wikipedians Percentage
1 3434408 100.0%
3 1387363 40.4%
10 667570 19.4%
32 260945 7.6%
100 106814 3.1%
316 46728 1.4%
1000 20851 0.6%
3162 8420 0.2%
10000 2506 0.1%
31623 473 0.0%
100000 40 0.0%
316228 5 0.0%
  • Aha, numbers! I still think that stemming the tide of new-user article creations is a good idea, but I understand your concerns a bit better now. I wonder if there's some sort of compromise possible here where we can up the conversion from first-editor to autoconfirmed-editor so that requiring autoconfirmation for article creation isn't such an onerous burden. Jalexander, do you think any difference could be made in the conversion rate if new users were welcomed in a way that gave them direction? As it is, you create an account and you just kind of flounder. Maybe you get a welcome template linking you to the rules, maybe you don't, but either way, you don't really know what you can do, and pulling ten edits out of your ass just so you can do something else sounds kind of farfetched. I'm imaging a system where new users are provided with links to stuff that needs to be done ("Do you like grammar? Here are articles that need to be copyedited! How are your language skills? Here are some things we need translated!"). A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 23:52, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, we could use more guidance on gnoming and learning curve stuff (at one time I tried to get guidance for that on the Main Page...). There's always the Article Wizard option below - any thoughts on that? Rd232 talk 00:19, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Compromise

Some people are much concerned about the loss of instant gratification ("I want to have an article live on a global top ten website NOW - what do you mean I have to wait 4 days and get some support to make sure it isn't deleted in 5 minutes, oh well then I won't bother") - so what about the compromise mooted above several times: allow instant creation for non-autoconfirmed if going through the Article Wizard? What do people think of that? Rd232 talk 13:43, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This, so called, wizard is not a wizard at all. It is just an adviser—a user still needs to create the page manually. Ruslik_Zero 17:56, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The Article Wizard is precisely a Wizard (software), viz a user interface type that presents a user with a sequence of dialog boxes that lead the user through a series of well-defined steps. Tasks that are complex, infrequently performed, or unfamiliar may be easier to perform using a wizard. I mean I'd love to have a Version 3 of the Article Wizard which goes beyond the limitations of wikitext and uses Javascript to be more sophisticated and more helpful, and combined with a really working genuine WYSIWYG editor it would be even better, but that would take real development effort (maybe one day, WMF?). But really, I don't see how you can get away from "manually" - it is never going to be some kind of automatic article creation machine ("insert title, press enter..."). Rd232 talk 18:42, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
For disambiguation pages, I've made a tool which is fairly automatic. Just copy edit the results and group into appropriate sections in the customized WYSIWYM editor (wikEd). Admittedly, the constraints on disambiguation pages format make this task much easier than others. I am unsure if it was worth the effort, as fewer than 20 people have used it since it was announced in September. To justify a similar thing for AfC, I would expect 50-200 editors daily. — Dispenser 20:53, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The fact the article wizard makes it pretty doesn't change the fact that the reason they're deleted is core to the articles: they're often just not notable in any way approaching wp:N. It can be properly formatted and categorized and wikilinked and include all the right templates... but it's still your brother's garage band. HominidMachinae (talk) 20:20, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well this morning you asked for "a way to more gently guide new users into an understanding of WP:not and WP:n so that they see what they can and cannot create". The Wizard is intended to do just that. Rd232 talk 21:09, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have some concerns but I like the Article Wizard at some level (even for experienced users ;) ) but I think the level of work required is being underestimated. The problem is that the Article Wizard as it stands can not be used how you are thinking, it is a wiki based tool that can not really be set up in a viable technical way to require people to go through it (or allow people to only create an article through it, they would require the 'createpage' ability). To do what you want would require what I believe would be a fairly extensive Extension and some very very real development time. I think finding ways to polish it and get it in front of new users much more would have better dividends for time invested. Jalexander--WMF 02:20, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Give new pages longer to develop

Imagine you're using a website for the first time, with a complex interface and strict user rules. You start to create an article. It takes a while for you to figure out how to do headings and formatting. You add a few more sentences. You receive a message saying that you must include references. You follow the link to read what's needed and then search the web for some. Then you try to figure out how to add references, which is strangely complicated. How long has all this taken so far - 30 minutes? Maybe an hour, if you went and had a snack in the middle?

Your page by now has been deleted. Maybe you work out how to use a talk page and send a frustated message to the new page patroller. Maybe you recreate the page - now you get told off for recreating a previously deleted page...

WP:NPP recommends that "A good rule of thumb is to wait until at least 15 minutes after the last edit before tagging the article" How many new users can create an acceptable article in 15 minutes? No wonder 80% are deleted. Either we need to give them much more time, or we should force them to develop new articles in their own user-space until they're acceptable.

Hope it wasn't WP:TLDR. I recognise many of you are friendly to newbies and are working hard on a large backlog. But I think the process currently tends towards biteyness.--Physics is all gnomes (talk) 19:20, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. I haven't created too many articles in my time here, but I am a pretty experienced editor, with what I believe is a good grasp of "the rules", and it certainly took more than 15 minutes to create the article. I think we need to extend that recommendation to at least 30 minutes, and to be a bit less itchy on the trigger finger. (BLPs excepted, of course, to avoid potential legal issues.) oknazevad (talk) 19:36, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Minutes? We are all amateurs here, I would say hours, maybe longer. What's the rush? Britmax (talk) 20:04, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
IMHO - unless the page is a clearly a malicious attack article or BLP violation - that at least 24 hours should pass before any "bitey" templates and particularly speedys are slapped onto a new article. Anything less than 12 hours is definitely biting - the article creator may have done the initial work just before going to bed - just because it's 9 am at your location does not mean it's daytime for the article originator. Of course if it is 9 am in the newbie's time zone he/she is possibly at work and would not be able to respond to that speedy or other "this is a load of crap" template before getting home in the evening. I have personal experience of a speedy being slapped on an article I was just starting, literally while I was typing the second paragraph. Roger (talk) 20:29, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You obviously aren't seeing things from my end, which is in no way shocking given what I've said above. The vast majority of pages from new users are rightfully deleted; we don't and shouldn't have articles on every MySpace band or retain advertisements for companies. Your "solution" will enable a rather dramatic increase in spam, as businesses will figure out that they can post something for (depending on who's solution we're talking about) 30 minutes to 24 hours here to improve their search engine rankings. Furthermore, it will break our backs on NPP; we don't exactly *need* more to deal with right now, as the section heading should rather clearly indicate. If you don't believe me, try doing NPP for a day and see what we're up against. Also read what I've said above; if it wasn't for Kamkek and I, you'd be up Shit Creek without a paddle. The idea is nice in theory, but it can't possibly work because as much as everyone bitches about us, almost no one can be arsed to actually do it themselves. I've given my view at the abovementioned RfC, and I'd also suggest that not every user comes here wanting to create an article straight away. I started because I saw minor grammar issues that bothered me, and I wanted to be able to fix them- I didn't create my first article until I was here almost 11 months. Maybe, just once, we could assume that not everyone wants to create an article from the get-go, and that the perceived biteyness from raising the bar to autoconfirmed won't affect nearly as many newbies as people seem to think. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:37, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
^^ I agree with Northern. New page patrollers don't need instruction creep, and the vast majority of articles that are speedied are copyright violations, clearly unnotable, etc. It is unlikely that an article will get deleted in 15 minutes due to "incorrect headings" or not understanding how to make references show up. Also, please see WP:KITTENS.AerobicFox (talk) 05:57, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"If you don't believe me, try doing NPP for a day and see what we're up against." Fair enough, challenge accepted. I feel quite strongly about this, but maybe I'll be proved wrong. At any rate, I'll be able to come up with a more workable solution once I've seen the issue from both points of view.--Physics is all gnomes (talk) 14:29, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not really understanding objections to the idea that new articles should be given more time. It's not any more or less work to process the same stream of articles 24 hours later, it just shifts it in time, e.g. this link gives all new articles exactly 24 hours at the time of this comment. It's quite rare that any article, whether a copyvio, BLP, or whatever, can do enough damage in 24 hours that we really have to worry about checking the brand new ones. After all, many copyvios and BLPs are detected months or years after creation, and the sky hasn't fallen yet. Dcoetzee 03:32, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm absolutely with Dcoetzee on this. When we started Wikipedia we didn't have 15 minutes to sort an article out, it was more like 15 weeks. At that time our list of editors was growing exponentially. Now it's not. Is there some connection? I wouldn't be surprised. So I'd be inclined to rewrite the NPP guidelines replacing every occurrence of minutes with days. But I'm prepared to compromise if necessary and replace minutes with hours instead. Having said that I don't want to knock the good work that New Page Patrollers are doing. I've done my share in the early days. But we all know that there's a difference between absolute crap and good content with crap formatting and no citations. The trick is to speedily delete the former and improve the latter, or tag it for improvement. -- Derek Ross | Talk 04:42, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That distinction is what makes NPP so hard to get into. It takes a few months to figure out when a wikify tag works and when it should be speedied under G1, and it definitely takes a few mistakes to find what the threshold for "credible assertion of notability" in A7/A9 is. Vandalism is much more straightforward; NPP not so much. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 14:58, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not a BLP violation, hoax, copyright violation, or any of the other extreme speedies... but why should we wait 24 hours or longer (or even 30 minutes) to tag and/or delete e.g. Pokehearts? Fram (talk) 15:32, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly, the whole point of CSD is that those are the cases where there is no hope for the article anyway, for everything else we have AFD/PROD. Deletion is Bitey anyway, whether it is done after 5 minutes, 24 hours, or two weeks. The solution is to stop those crappy articles being created, not to let them linger for a bit longer before killing them. Yoenit (talk) 15:56, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There are many experts at NPP that are doing an incredible job and I wish to thank them all. There are also many less experienced people at NPP that are working very hard and doing some good work, but occasionally somebody jumps the gun and good articles are misjudged. removed example as I don't want to single out a small mistake from a good user It was speedied less than 60 seconds after it was created. Luckily it was declined and is now a decent stub, but things like this happen all the time. Mistakes like this unfortunately have given Wikipedia a bitey reputation in the media and to the general public. Just to reiterate, the majority if CSDs are proper and the community thanks those users that are working their butts off. What's trying to be addressed here are the few mistakes that give us a bad reputation, not the good work that everybody does. Thanks. - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 04:32, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I am one of the editors who has been correctly criticised for jumping the gun and WP:CSD-ing articles against policy, before they are given a chance. I'm fine for my contributions to be examined for the purposes of this discussion. --Shirt58 (talk) 10:11, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with the logic behind this. See for example the text you are presented with when you go to create a new page. (This can be edited at MediaWiki:Newarticletext, in case you care.) Users are presented with several pre-warnings about creating an article, being WP:YFA, WP:AW2, a warning to have references, and an option to create a userspace draft. If they have ignored all the warnings and proceeded to create a page in mainspace, then they have, in my opinion, accepted the risk that their page will be deleted. Stifle (talk) 09:32, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I always give the benefit of the doubt if I can, but what should be done for an article which will obviously never meet standards? Should we wait 15 minutes or 2 hours or 2 days or 2 weeks to delete an article on someone's garage band or geometry teacher just because it's a new article? Most of what shows up in new pages violates core Wikipedia tenets (mostly wp:not and wp:N) in blatant and flagrant ways, waiting to pull the trigger doesn't give them any greater a chance of survival, nor does it assuage the feelings of the creator just because it existed for a few more hours. What we need in my opinion is a way to more gently guide new users into an understanding of WP:not and WP:n so that they see what they can and cannot create. HominidMachinae (talk) 08:53, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment No, sorry, lets stick with policy. If the article is so egregiously bad that it meets CSD criteria - lets CSD it. If not, and an editor still feels it should not be included, lets PROD or AfD it. If it's only very slightly bad, then lets do that little bit of work to improve it and keep it. In short the current deletion processes are not particularly broken, so let's not seek to fix them... Pol430 talk to me 22:45, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Everyone go to CAT:AFC and help a new user's article

Just wondering how many people here have actually done some AfC work. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 14:45, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I did some yesterday, must say I like it better than NPP. Yoenit (talk) 14:48, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've lurked there a bit, but I don't want to commit myself to it until we can significantly throttle NPP down; as much as AfC needs to be done, the worst attacks generally come at NPP and that still needs eyes (I've come across a couple of pages that, if I saw them now, I'd request oversight). The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 20:52, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Audit Subcommittee appointments: Invitation to comment on candidates

The Arbitration Committee is seeking to appoint at least three non-arbitrator members to the Audit Subcommittee, and is now seeking comments from the community regarding the candidates who have volunteered for this role.

Interested parties are invited to review the appointments page containing the nomination statements supplied by the candidates and their answers to a few standard questions. Community members may also pose additional questions and submit comments about the candidates on the individual nomination subpages or privately via email to arbcom-en-b@lists.wikimedia.org.

Following the consultation phase, the committee will take into account the answers provided by the candidates to the questions and the comments offered by the community (both publicly and privately) along with any other relevant factors before making a final decision regarding appointments.

The consultation phase is scheduled to end 23:59, 21 March 2011 (UTC), and the appointments are scheduled to be announced by 31 March 2011.

For the Arbitration Committee, –xenotalk 00:00, 14 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discuss this

Lists of non-English actors

  1. List of non-English Total Drama voice actors
  2. List of non-English Phineas and Ferb voice actors
  3. List of non-English Family Guy voice actors
  4. List of non-English Ed, Edd n Eddy voice actors
  5. List of non-English SpongeBob SquarePants voice actors

Are these really notable intersections? Why not list all the actors? The first two were created recently by the same editor, and the third is from 2009. Feezo (Talk) 11:47, 14 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at these pages, these are lists of the actors who dub these cartoons in other languages. Seems like a reasonable topic for a list article; they certainly would be too long for a section on the main series article.
Honestly, I'm not sure what your concerns are. The choice of "intersection" in your comment reminds me of a CfD discussion, but these aren't categories. And what do you mean by "all actors"? The lists look pretty comprehensive. If you mean the English-language casts, they're already included in the main series article, which is more than appropriate as these series are originally written and produced using the English language. oknazevad (talk) 14:00, 14 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, those page titles are not helpful at all. I read them as "people on the Family Guy show who aren't British" and not as "voice-over actors for Family Guy in other countries." Should they be given a more informative name? Aristophanes68 (talk) 16:44, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly. At the very least, it should use "non-English language" so there's nonpotential confusion with the English nationality, as you thought. oknazevad (talk) 18:49, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I read the titles in the same way as Aristophanes68; oknazevad's suggestion would fix the issue. Feezo (Talk) 03:18, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So what's the best way to do this--speedy rename? Or do we first need to hold discussions on each of those pages? I'm with oknazevad's suggestion of adding the word "language" as the simplest solution. Aristophanes68 (talk) 17:09, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

choosing FA(s) from different languages as a representative article

I needs your help, especially the help from those who can use multi-language. I am trying to assess the featured articles across diverse languages on Wikipedia in order to find what factors affect the difference of the quality of the featured articels by language.

As you know, I cannot manually evaluate all featured articles from diverse Wikipedia languages because the total number of featured article approved over all the languages reaches thousands. I need to select a representative that explains the quality of the featured article group of each language on Wikipedia as a sample for the quality evaluation.

I established the criteria for selecting the sample as follows:

  • Not translated, that is the representative article does not use other language source as reference as less as possible
  • concerns history, particularly historical person whom most sources about was written in its own language
  • When a language does not have a featured article satisfying the criterion above, the article from other topic, for example geography can be a representative article for the test.
  • When a language has more than one article meeting with the criteria above, the best quality article is preferable

I have found the representative article candidates for each language as seen in the table below. Please give me your opinion on the candidate list, and the advice for updating the list if you know the better one for candidate for what I try to do, with short explanation of why you recommend the new article. cooldenny (talk) 03:57, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

long table with articles
language candidate
English Robert Sterling Yard
German Ostfriesland zur Zeit des Dreißigjährigen Krieges
Spanish Momia de Mánchester
French Benoît de Boigne
Hebrew יוסף רוזנבלט
Italian Regno di Napoli
Hungarian II. Fülöp Ágost francia király
Polish Zofia Jagiellonka (1464-1512)
Russian Изабелла Баварская
Catalan Edgar Degas
Portuguese Guerra de Granada
Swedish Josefina av Leuchtenberg
Finnish Malmedyn verilöyly
Croatian Andrija Mohorovičić
Vietnamese Lê Đại Hành
Dutch Vergissing van Troelstra
Georgian განმანათლებლობა
Slovenian Anton Podbevšek
Esperanto Edvard Beneš
Chinese 林则徐
Afrikaans Cetshwayo
Norwegian (Bokmål) Magnus Berrføtt
Ukrainian Український військовий клуб імені гетьмана Павла Полуботка
Basque Bigarren Mundu Gerra
Romanian Vincent-Marie de Vaublanc
Indonesian Cut Nyak Dhien
Bulgarian Дойран
Turkish Ankara (isim)
Serbian Опсада Београда (1456)
Arabic عبد السلام عارف
Japanese 源義経
Czech První bulharská říše
Thai พระเมรุมาศ
Bosnian Visoko
Malay Mahathir bin Mohamad
Malayalam എം.എസ്. സുബ്ബലക്ഷ്മി
Slovak Pavel Jozef Šafárik
Korean 여운형
Greek Ανδρέας Μιαούλης
Austrian Antón de Marirreguera
Limburgian Kölle
Latin Gaius Iulius Caesar
Javanese Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Norwegian (Nynorsk) Den austerrikske arvefølgjekrigen
Urdu سلیمان اعظم
Simple English Billy Graham
Belarusian (Taraškievica) Максім Багдановіч
Latvian Ģibuļu pagasts
Serbo-Croatian Goli otok
Telugu NA
Interlingua Carl von Linné
Tagalog Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck
Danish Østrig
Aragonese NA
Cantonese 中國史
Lithuanian NA
Yiddish NA
Tamil NA
Albanian NA
Icelandic NA
yo:Wikipedia:Àyọkà_pàtàkì Yuruba NA
Uzbek NA
Walloon NA
Bengali NA
Estonian NA
Silesian NA
Azeri NA
Occitan NA
It is unclear to me what your intention exactly is or why you use those criteria, but if you want to compare featured articles between languages I would select articles which were promoted at the same time. On english wikipedia standards for featured articles have been changing and a 3 year old FA is not comparable to one that was promoted a month ago. I would select for example the first historical article which was promoted since 1 January 2011 for every language. Yoenit (talk) 12:17, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I may also point that the FA criteria (or by how much it is actually enforced with nominations) may not be similar to ours, and an article accepted as featured at another wiki may not be accepted even as a good one here. For example, there is a rule here of referencing with footnotes at least every paragraph. In the Spanish wikipedia, this rule was proposed and rejected (and, if it was enforced, more than half of their FA would be demoted) MBelgrano (talk) 12:32, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yoenit, you showed me a good point. Your method of choosing the first historical article which was promoted since 1 2011 for every language is another good method of choosing a representative for each language. However, I cannot read some languages at all, so I cannot find when a FA was promoted on some language Wikipedias by myself. cooldenny (talk) 14:40, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

MBelgrano, you gave me an interesting case of Spanish version, which rejected the rule of referencing with footnotes at least every paragraph. The reason I try to compare FAs across many language Wikipedias is on that. As you know, almost all contents of encyclopedia must be made of the materials from reliable sources with suitable attribution. However, some language versions have been ignoring the basic rule. As a result, the quality of the language versions could not improve even though the number of articles and users of the versions increase. cooldenny (talk) 14:40, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Verifiability is a standard that the English Wikipedia has imposed on itself. If we (lost our minds and) chose to, we could eliminate that standard. The fact that the English Wikipedia's community chose this standard does not mean that other WMF communities are required to follow the same standard. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:19, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your good advice, WhatamIdoing. Your opinion is absolutely right. As you said, the fact that the English Wikipedia's community chose verifiability standard does not mean that other WMF communities are required to follow the same standard. Choosing the standard is up to each WMF community. However, we can guess that the quality of articles of each WMF depends on whether or not the WMF communities accepts the standard or other standards about encyclopedia editing. Thus I would like to show the relationship between the quality and editing standards in a WMF. cooldenny (talk) 14:32, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Does wikipedia do anything about sites which have copied its material without attribution?

I have recently found a website for an artistic roller skating club which has a section about their sport. The problem is that they have cut and pasted the Wikipedia article on artistic roller skating without giving Wikipedia the credit. Is there anyone in Wikipedia who deals with this?

The website is http://www.meridianrsc.co.uk/aboutas.html which is a direct copy of the wiki article on artistic roller skating Molybdomancer (talk) 19:01, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There are some suggestions on how to deal with it at Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_Forks#Non-compliance_process. Hut 8.5 19:24, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's difficult to take action because the copyright holder (the author) of the content has to take an interest, and they rarely do. WMF cannot enforce copyright of any content on Wikipedia except for the logos. Dcoetzee 03:26, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have seen picture books in bookstores where the text is WP articles. Steve Dufour (talk) 06:00, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not a lawyer, but do we need to satisfy some type of due diligence clause to maintain the Wikipedia copyright status? We could create a form letter that editors can fill out, add to a queue for administrative verification, have the letter dispatched to the site in question, then log the action for future use.—RJH (talk) 17:46, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There is no such requirement that I'm aware of, although enforceability of the license has not been tested (much) in court. I'm not a lawyer either.--Chaser (talk) 19:50, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That rule is about trademarks, which must be defended. Copyright owners can permit unlicensed copies completely at their whim, without losing their rights. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:21, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I never got that ... the author of the piece. Given all the changes articles go through, who the heck is the author? I think its a dodge than rather say... we dont care about it ... After all, they are supposed to credit WP, not the "author." Honestly I dont lose sleep over it, but it would be nice to see credit where credit is due.Thelmadatter (talk) 20:10, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Actually mirror sites are required by the GFDL or CC licence to credit every single person who has contributed to each article that they mirror. The simplest way of doing that for them is to link back to Wikipedia where the article history is kept but in principle they don't have to link back provided that they display their own list of the contributors who jointly wrote the article as required by the licences. Even Wikipedia itself does not own the copyright to its articles except inasfar as that is allowed by the GFDL and CC licences. The ultimate copyright for each article is jointly owned by the contributors to the article. For the roller skating article which you give as an example, it would be necessary for one or more of the contributors to that article to write to the club concerned and complain. Wikipedia itself is not in a position to do so. -- Derek Ross | Talk 21:48, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • When I contribute to WP I want to contribute some information to the public. If someone copies that it doesn't hurt me in any way, so I don't see why I would want to be involved in some complaint. Wolfview (talk) 22:25, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to formalize that, you can add a template like {{userpd}} to your userpage to release your conributions into the public domain. Feezo (Talk) 22:42, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I will do that.Wolfview (talk) 02:01, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A search on Special:ListUser

I did a search on the user list page and i came across a couple of users in which the date they were created are not listed. They seemed to be dormant accounts. Anyone know why this is? For example, Button. Simply south...... 23:28, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Accounts which were created very early in Wikipedia's history do not have a creation date attached to them - I believe the dates have been logged since 2005. --Kateshortforbob talk 13:12, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Copyvio report impossible

I just met my first "possible copyvio". I am a serious editor, and I could not find a single template to make a note. A horror, and I am not invited to notify a copyvio ever again. See Braille embosser. -DePiep (talk) 20:58, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think Wikipedia:Cv101 is a good guide to the basics of dealing with suspected copyvio's. I must admit it seems complex, but then it probably needs to be to deal with the different possible cases - and we need to consider legal implications. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:44, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I came across that one too when browsing. My point stays: I know what editing is, and when I encounter a possible copyvio (no small matter), I don't get a clue. Not a clue. -DePiep (talk) 22:06, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear: I am not asking what is a copy-vio. I am asking: why do I not find the right template/procedure/help. -DePiep (talk)
Are you asking what templates to use to post to WP:CP, or how to indicate the copyvio on the article's page itself? Corvus cornixtalk 22:38, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Good Q, cornix. It's not about what template to use. It is: how to find the right template at all. And then, there is the procedure. I do can put a page for deletion at AfD and win, thank you, but to notify a possible copyvio -- no way. -DePiep (talk) 23:01, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You go to wp:Copyright Problems, then you see the "instructions" section (wp:CPI). After that it should be trivial if you can do AFD. Which part of this was causing you problems? Yoenit (talk) 23:35, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the fact that I am here and still have a Q says it. I am saying: I know that copyvio is relevant, and I cannot get to the right place, let alone procedure. Or: the Help does not exist. (Really, do NOT explain here where to find my template. Nor where I can find the Help). My Q is: why did I not find it? -DePiep (talk) 00:52, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps because you have never made it easier to find? After all, this is wikipedia, where we're supposed to do things ourselves, not complain that others haven't done them already for us. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 01:26, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Nice trick, DavidWBrooks. So we're not a community at all. If problem, solve it yourself. -DePiep (talk) 01:46, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm still not sure what exactly you're asking. If you want to report a user, there's Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations. And Yoenit showed you how to report a page. The procedures you keep asking about are all listed at the Wikipedia:Cv101 page posted above. Or are you wanting an easily-accessible drop-down template on the edit page? Aristophanes68 (talk) 02:01, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) I don't know why you didn't find it. I don't know what you tried. But if you type "Wikipedia:Copyright" in the search bar, it takes to you to the policy, which includes a sidebar with a number of helpful links, including one that's labeled "Copyright assistance". Wikipedia:Copyright assistance is also full of helpful links, including one of "Wikipedia:Copyright violations if you feel your copyrighted material has been improperly used and you want to ask, discuss, complain, or have it rapidly removed." Even if you just type "copyright" into the search engine, our article includes a link to that same policy, while Help:Copyright offers a link to the policy or the Copyright assistance subpage. Meanwhile, if you type "template:copyright" into the search engine, it takes you to {{Copyvio}}, which tells you exactly what to do. If you explain what you tried, maybe we can devise ways to make sure that others who try the same avenues meet with better success. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 02:11, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm still not sure what exactly you're asking: me neither. If I knew what I was looking for, I'd have found that. But. That is the point. I find a possible copyright violation, first time in my life. I want to tag it, so I type "WP:copyright". Please join me. That page opens with an "OK"-thing,because it has to do with legal stuff (why the green OK-notch?). Below, there is a big area of warnings on red, not for me. Then, 2 pages down, there is a TOC. Even if I care to read the TOC, it's nonsense to me & what I am there for. This is only the best link you provide, and I could have think of. (Again) I am not here to ask for specific help. I say: why does not even a moderate editor like me can find their way. Even the best editors in town keep saying look there. Instead of: OK, our Help & guidance is way below. -DePiep (talk) 02:44, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And oh yes I saw {{Wikipedia copyright}}. None of the relevant links are useful (try 'General assistance''General help' or 'Copyright assistance' - for fun). (after (edit conflict)) -DePiep (talk) 03:07, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You saw Processes: Suspected copyright violations, Copyright problems, Possibly unfree files, Contributor copyright investigations but you didn't think any of them were useful? I am not understanding something. Rmhermen (talk) 03:10, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Most likely, I saw them all. Read all the pages. Clicked all the links (now we are at a 100 pages). And yes, still I did not get it. Any idea why I did not? -DePiep (talk) 03:17, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, no idea. You typed in Wikipedia:Copyright, it gave you a sidebar including Copyright problems which says in its first line that this is the page you need. The table of contents has a instruction section. That is two pages, not 100. If you went WP:Copyright, Suspected copyright violations, its first line directs you to Copyright problems, that's 3 pages, not 100. Rmhermen (talk) 03:28, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, after WP:Copyright I should have skipped the (red background) Important note:. Then I click "Copyright problems" (of course. Not "Suspected copyright violations", "General help", "Copyright assistance", "Process page for text-related copyright problems", which are irrelevant at first glance, how stupid can I be). Really, you ae saying again: 'do as I know'. Thank you, a bit. -DePiep (talk) 03:47, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I understand that you are frustrated but you aren't showing us how we could do better. "which are irrelevant at first glance, how stupid can I be". But "Suspected copyright violations" has a top line which says "For images and media suspected of violating copyright, see Wikipedia:Files for deletion. To report suspected copyright violations, please use Wikipedia:Copyright problems". That seems pretty clear to me, not irrelevant. Rmhermen (talk) 04:28, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder if perhaps the reason you can't find the tag you are looking for is that it doesn't exist - and perhaps for a good reason. Leaving a suspected violation in place, with a 'possible copyright violation' tag on it might look like negligence if it did turn out to be a violation - one is supposed instead to remove the violation from view, and then alert others to the problem. I'm guessing here, but it seems to make sense. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:04, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If the tag does not exist for a good reason -- then lead me to a good explanation (not here, but beforehand) that says so. -DePiep (talk) 03:19, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A tag for copyright problems? If something is copyrighted it should be deleted imediately.
I believe what you are looking for is Template:Copyvio. For future reference if you are looking for a template then you can just type Template:XXX in the search bar and you can usually come up with the type of template you need. For instance, here you were looking for a template that deals with Copyvio, you could have simply typed in Template:Copyvio into the search bar and that would've taken you there. If the whole article is copyvio then you should mark it for speedy deletion. You may also want to check WP:CPI for general instructions on what to do with copyvio problems.AerobicFox (talk) 04:36, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Two thoughts:

  • You don't have to use a template to get help. You could have asked a friend, left a note at one of the usual noticeboards, or just re-drafted the material.
  • Given that you describe it as a possible copyvio, you might have been looking for {{Cv-unsure}}. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:41, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The only thing I can glance so far from dePieps comments is that we might have to rethink the headers of wp:COPYRIGHT. It currently contains a massive dablink, but does not link to wikipedia:Copyright Problems
WP:C redirects here. You may be looking for Wikipedia:Consensus (shortcut: WP:CON), Wikipedia:Civility (shortcut: WP:CIV), Wikipedia:Categorization (shortcut: WP:CAT), Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries (shortcut: WP:COUNTRIES) or Wikipedia:WikiProject Council (shortcut: WP:COUNCIL).
WP:COPY redirects here. You may be looking for Wikipedia:How to copy-edit (shortcut: WP:COPYEDIT) or Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia (shortcut: WP:COPYWITHIN).

Most of this is because of the shortcut wp:C, through which only 10% of the traffic finds wp:Copyright. An even smaller part of that is gonna be interested in that huge fucking dab link, so I propose we remove it and sneak in a link to wp:CP in the other dab.

WP:COPY redirects here. You may be looking for Wikipedia:Copyright Problems (shortcut:WP:CP), Wikipedia:How to copy-edit (shortcut: WP:COPYEDIT) or Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia (shortcut: WP:COPYWITHIN).

Yoenit (talk) 10:54, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I added a link to WP:Copyright problems to WP:COPYRIGHT and moved the WP:COPY dabs before the WP:C dabs. I wasn't prepared to remove the links to WP:C, though. I also added a link to WP:Copyright problems near the top of Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files. Rmhermen (talk) 16:48, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
When I came across a possible copyvio not long ago, and read through the reams of stuff I was supposed to do about it, I had to heave a humungous sigh ofrelief on discovering (logically, and with suggestion!) that it was 'them' who had copied from 'us'. Honestly, though I think I;m pretty bright and resourceful, I felt that I really cba to go through all that stuff ...... way, waaay too much. What about a simple 'call an admin / experienced user' button to deal with it, if someone really doesn't feel able to do it? As in, actually live-ping! someone, not just stick some kinf of tag there ..... something where someone else can actually communicate with you, say "Yup, looks like you're right - no worries, I'll take it from here. Watch what I do and learn ......" kind of thing :o) Pesky (talk) 13:22, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you all, I have read and learned. Of course I was frustrated, as one editor noted. Our Help/Documentation department is not examplary. In general, I think we might meet again on the future WP-project "improving help & documentation", probably involving a Wikimedia resources. -DePiep (talk) 00:45, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The MOTD project needs you!

I took another look at WP:CANVASS and I don't seem to violate the rules, so here it is: We're lacking mottos. Recently, we had a handful of close calls; there was even a day when there was no motto at first. There's still ongoing discussion at WT:MOTD/N about how to solve it in the long run. In the short run, though, we really need more mottos, and more comments on the current ones. Please support MOTD if you want everyone to have a new motto to display on userpages every day! Kayau Voting IS evil 03:22, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. I'm thinking of giving out barnstars for editors who nominate mottos when we most need it, or, to use a Chinese phrase, to give us charcoal when it's snowing...

Bytheway, Japanese Earth quake crisis to Wikipedians charity What a things? --MOTOI Kenkichi基 建吉(gikoneko擬古猫)as Kenkichi Motoi (talk) 19:39, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

400 free Credo Reference accounts available

Another 400 free Credo Reference accounts have been made available for Wikipedians, kindly donated by the company and arranged by Erik Möller of the Wikimedia Foundation. We've drawn up some eligibility criteria to direct the accounts to content contributors, and after that it's first-come, first-served. The list will open on Wednesday, March 23 at 22:00 UTC, and will remain open for seven days. See Wikipedia:Credo accounts.

Feel free to add your name even if you're lower on the list than the 400th, in case people ahead of you aren't eligible, and good luck! SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 04:41, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Seven days? More like seven minutes :). /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 15:36, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Would be so useful. But I don't qualify :o( Pesky (talk) 13:35, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A question about quotation practice

Okay this probably isn't the best place to ask this, but does anyone know where this practice of italicizing quotations in Wikipedia came from? While my knowledge of conventional forms of punctuation is not exhaustive, & neither is my knowledge of the various Manuals of Style embraced by various professional journals, I'm familiar with enough of them to say ith confidence no one else does this. Yet since at least 2005, I have found countless articles where all of the text between quotation marks or in block quotes is italicized. So why do people insist on doing this? -- llywrch (talk) 06:45, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Manual of style actually does not prescribe italics for quotes - WP:MOS#Italics and quotations - so you are free to change it to regular text. Roger (talk) 07:04, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've been doing this already -- for years, in fact. So that wasn't my question; I just don't understand why people are following this unusual practice. And AFAICS, many people are doing it because they see it is done & think it is proper practice. Maybe getting the word out that this isn't an accepted practice might end it. -- llywrch (talk) 14:47, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It comes from one person doing it and others copying. Using decorative quotation marks also looks cool but is wrong even when used in the Signpost. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 13:49, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Mormon"? ...Or "Latter-day Saint"?

A WP:Manual of Style page is dedicated, in part, to this question. I have tweaked it, though, and desire input from the Wikipedia community. The edit I made is presented on its talkpage here.*

________
*And, for the not faint of heart, there's a somewhat technical discussion of the terms "the Mormon Church" and '"the LDS Church" here: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Latter Day Saints)#Regarding term "the Mormon Church".--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 16:07, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Problem with Beauty

It seems that User:ISJM can't take a hint. He appears to have inelegantly slammed a deleted article on feminine beauty into the main article, with absolutely no discussion. Apologies if this is the wrong place to bring my concern. TheRealTeln (talk) 21:03, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the material, but I sure am having trouble figuring out which warning template to use on the user's talk page! Aristophanes68 (talk) 23:17, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The generic one on disruptive editing works. {{subst:uw-repost|Article}} would sort of fit, too. I'd be inclined to leave a very specific message without any boilerplate. Rivertorch (talk) 23:42, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I ended up using a level-2, but I sure look through a lot of other templates first. Nothing seems to fit this situation very well, and I'm surprised this problem doesn't occur more often. Aristophanes68 (talk) 23:58, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The best solution is to use no template at all. Tell him why what he did was wrong, and inform him of the consequences of continuing to be disruptive. Templates rarely serve any purpose except to either confuse or enflame and already volatile situation. If you really wish him to stop, and to behave better, tell him in your own words. --Jayron32 01:21, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Templates tend to be the most useful for anonymous editors and/or vandals, where they demonstrate a pattern of behavior for other editors to notice. I agree they are annoying for experienced and generally well-behaved editors.—RJH (talk) 17:48, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't realize that about templates. I did add a more detailed explanation, but I thought we still needed to use the template. Thanks for letting me know this; I'll use those more sparingly from now on. Aristophanes68 (talk) 01:15, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If you'll let me climb up on my soapbox for a minute: The bit about "with absolutely no discussion" is irrelevant. Editors are not required to get advance permission to make changes to articles. The normal WP:Consensus#Process does not require anyone discussing anything in advance. We'd get very little done if we had to discuss everything first. WP:BOLD editing is desirable (just maybe not exactly that particular example of bold editing, which is why you're permitted to BOLDly object to it, either through improving it, removing it, or starting a discussion). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:04, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
All perfectly true, but may I suggest there are instances where advance discussion (not permission) is advisable. Examples include major changes to articles on highly contentious topics, IAR-type changes that run afoul of one or more guidelines, and so on. In such cases, one can sometimes avoid being reverted unnecessarily simply by explaining what one proposes to do and why. It isn't required, of course, but it can prevent misunderstandings and unnecessary drama. Rivertorch (talk) (standing on an adjacent soapbox) 03:58, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

lower case in names

probably this has brought up, but is there a way to make an article title where the first letter of the name is lowercase? having trouble with a certain article.Bread Ninja (talk) 16:54, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Try using {{lowercase}}
It didn't work.Bread Ninja (talk) 19:15, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Now try {{lowercase title}}. {{lowercase}} redirects to {{lowercase title}}.--Tagishsimon (talk) 00:16, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No i tried that one. here's the article Enigma (manga).Bread Ninja (talk) 19:11, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's because schwa is not the lowercase form of Ǝ. Anyway, we shouldn't be reproducing the stylization in the title of the article like that - it should just be under "Enigma" if that's the name. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 19:24, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

ONly released in japan, and no official source has romanized it as "enigma" I added the upside-down lowercase e in the title, and it automatically turned it uppercase.Bread Ninja (talk) 19:26, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like that came from the anime & manga header infobox, which automatically sets up an italic title. That italic title overrode your lowercase title template. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 19:32, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Regardless, the move you performed was done out your assumption rather than verification. the name Enigma has only been mentioned per fans, and some have fan-romanized it as enigme. So i think you shouldn't be moving things so quickly without verifying it. a good example to this is Weiß Kreuz.Bread Ninja (talk) 19:41, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We should base the title on sources. The only source cited in the article uses "Enigma", so that's what we use. If you have another source, cite it. As it is, the article looks like it may not have sufficient sources meet our guidelines to exist as an independent article rather than a mention in another. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 19:53, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The source with Enigma in it, i doubt is reliable as it doesn't show up in the reliable source list of the wikiproject. The article may nto be notable yet, so i'm planning on putting it on a special page in case it gets deleted.Bread Ninja (talk) 19:57, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Academic papers under a free license

I don't know if this was noticed earlier, but in January the 5th Bienniel Conference on Innovative Data Systems Research (CIDR 2011) took the unusual leap of allowing all authors of accepted papers to release their work under a Creative Commons Attribution License, including diagrams, etc. They apparently did this because Internet content is one of the topics of the conference. This could be a really exciting source to borrow content from, and would help to generate positive feedback for CIDR's generous donation. Keep in mind that these papers are not solely a good source for the original research they describe (which, being new, has limited impacted thus far) but also have related work and introduction sections that could provide excellent background information for existing and new articles, complete with references. Dcoetzee 11:03, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds like something good to shove on wikisource. Ironholds (talk) 23:11, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Titling a new article

I'm writing an article about a multidisciplinary dance company, called Contraband. Can anyone please give some feedback on the following title options? Especially in terms of internet searches.

Contraband (dance performance)

Contraband (dance/performance)

Contraband (live performance/dance)


I put ones with slashes in to differentiate- dance performance reads as its own category, when I think what is meant is dance and performance. Is it not a good idea to put too many words into the parentheticals?

--Jennifer.Marie.Hoff (talk) 20:05, 24 March 2011 (UTC)User:Jennifer.Marie.Hoff[reply]

you said it was a company so why not Contraband (company)?Bread Ninja (talk) 20:09, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) "Contraband (company)" is probably the simplest. Before you spend time on the article though, have you read the inclusion criteria for organizations and companies? –xenotalk 20:09, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, company denotes a business, and this was a dance company, aka a dance troupe. The problem is they didn't just identify as dance in their performances, they used dance, theater, music, props, etc in ways that make the category potentially limited, and not truly descriptive of what they did. --Jennifer.Marie.Hoff (talk) 20:29, 24 March 2011 (UTC)User:Jennifer.Marie.Hoff[reply]

Ah. Any of the above would be fine, but does the group meet the general notability guideline? –xenotalk 20:32, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
How about "performance troupe"? Avoids the potential business-y appearance of "company", while not limiting the type of performance. "Theatre company" might work as well, as "theatre" doesn't just imply acting (dance, music and props are standard to any musical, for example). I will reiterate the call to ensure notability, as well. oknazevad (talk) 20:43, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, they are notable. There are reviews from newspapers like the Washington Post, etc of them. I guess my question is really more about using one descriptor, vs using the slashes to indicate multiple descriptors. --Jennifer.Marie.Hoff (talk) 21:05, 24 March 2011 (UTC)User:Jennifer.Marie.Hoff[reply]

I'd suggest Contraband (dance company). The purpose of the disambiguation is to disambiguate, not to convey a full sense of all of their facets. "Company" being open to misinterpretation, I'd plump for the fuller disambig. The pertinent advice from WP:NCDAB appears to be "If there are several possible choices for disambiguating with a class or context, use the same disambiguating phrase already commonly used for other topics within the same class and context, if any. Otherwise, choose whichever is simpler. For example, use (mythology) rather than (mythological figure)." --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:18, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, thanks, that link was helpful. I'm leaning toward

Contraband (dance/performance)

Any problem with the slash in there? --Jennifer.Marie.Hoff (talk) 23:40, 24 March 2011 (UTC)User:Jennifer.Marie.Hoff[reply]

That name would make me think it was the name of a specific show, rather than a troupe. I also dislike the slash in general. What about Contraband (troupe)?

How can I change the title of a Category?

There is a category whose name should be changed, but I can't find any way to do it, since the Cateogry page has no Move tab. How can this be done? Wahrmund (talk) 22:11, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You should initiate a discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion GB fan (talk) 22:13, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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