Wikipedia:WikiProject Article Rescue Squadron/Newsletter/20091001/Interview2

Article Rescue Squadron Newsletter

Issue 2

Interview with WereSpielChequers

In this regular feature readers get a chance to learn more about the various editors who contribute to the Article Rescue Squadron.

With more than 39,000 edits, WereSpielChequers has been editing Wikipedia since April 2007, an administrator since February 2009, and has been a member of the Article Rescue Squadron since only September 2009.

What drew you to Wikipedia, and what prompted you to begin editing?
I've been a bookworm since I was about 8 or 9. I was on the Internet for a decade before I started editing Wikipedia, and in hindsight I think the surprise is why I came here so late. But when I did, one of my first edits linked two articles, and I was hooked.
What is Wikipedia:Newbie treatment at Criteria for speedy deletion (acronym WP:NEWT)?
In a nutshell, it was an informal study of how we treat new editors and the articles they contribute.

It was inspired by a several things, including the concern at Wikimania and elsewhere that we had become a less welcoming place to newbies, as epitomised by this critique of wikipedia, which poses two challenges: can we avoid the problem of new articles by newbies being tagged for speedy deletion within two minutes? And, can such new articles survive for 7 days? So I bounced the idea around at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/new users#Lets all create an extra account and it kind of took off. After two people created redirects from Wiki space to my userspace I moved it, and eventually it settled at Wikipedia:Newbie treatment at Criteria for speedy deletion.
There was an uproar about WP:NEWT, which was mentioned in the Wikipedia newsletter. Did you expect such backlash when you created this project in October 2009?
WP:NEWT was covered quite positively in an article in the signpost (I should at this point disclose that I submitted a draft and others reworked it). The backlash came later. I'm a regular participant at Wikipedia Talk:RFA, I was editing Sarah Palin the night she was named as John McCain's running mate, I watchlist Marylin Manson, Richard Dawkins, the Large Hadron Collider, and at one point three of the articles involved in the Russell Brand Show prank telephone calls row and I'm an occasional visitor to the Dwama boards. So perhaps my threshold for what constitutes an uproar is higher than some people. I did know that though I've deleted thousands of pages, the scores of deletions I've declined cause far more discord. What I didn't expect was either that the first opponents would be so easily won over, or that some of the later opponents could not be. Though to be fair to the detractors, despite the instruction "Write an article that doesn't meet the deletion criteria" there were a few submissions that were IMHO correctly deleted. Also not everyone involved was as diplomatic as they could have been when pointing out mistakes by New Page patrollers. But to put the "uproar" in perspective - we've already had two RFAs this year that attracted more opposition than WP:NEWT had at the point when it was put on hold.
Now that the data compiling portion of Wikipedia:Newbie treatment at Criteria for speedy deletion is finished, what are the next steps?
Some of the things we found were really unexpected. The first article created under NEWT was deleted whilst the editor still had a redlinked talkpage. I think that shocked a lot of people. As for the rest - check out Wikipedia:Newbie treatment at Criteria for speedy deletion#proposals inspired by these tests
How did you learn about the Article Rescue Squadron and why did you join the Squadron?
I can't remember when or how I first came across it, but possibly it was following links from the userbox page. I joined months later when I realised that rescuing articles had become my favourite activity on the pedia.
What advice would you give to editors joining the Squadron?
I'm not sure that my advice will be that helpful, as I specialise in CSD and I think your main focus is AFD - though perhaps I can persuade a few of your readers to visit Special:NewPages and Category:Candidates for speedy deletion - remember you don't need to be an admin to remove an incorrect CSD tag. However:
1. "What links here" is terribly useful, especially for saving things from {{db-nocontext}} deletion, it also can give links to articles with relevant references and categories.
2. Lots of articles are created with the wrong name, you don't need to be an admin to correct the name of an article, and the improvement isn't just cosmetic - a move can give an article useful links and even de-orphan it.
3. Edit conflicts are frequent at NPP and frustrating - especially if you've spent twenty minutes salvaging something that has been deleted whilst you were editing it; So if something has been tagged for deletion don't be scared of doing multiple small edits in a short time.
4. If you've improved an article after it has been nominated for deletion, point that out in the AFD.
5. If there's been a previous decision to keep an article, It's important to make people aware of it and can be useful to use the same arguments that swayed the earlier debate.
6. If you see a {{G12}} on a page, and you think the subject merits an article, remember the template says or you intend to fix it, please remove this notice. So if you aren't the author, Category:Copyright violations for speedy deletion is a good hunting ground for opportunities to create a sourced stub using the copyvio link as your reference. One edit to remove the tag with an edit summary of OK I'll fix the copyvio and a few minutes of stubifying should do the trick.
7. If you haven't installed wp:Hotcat try it out, it isn't just a quicker way to categorise (though that in itself is useful as it sometimes brings articles to the attention of specialists who are better placed to say whether the subject is notable or not). I find it a useful tool for converting deletionists into categorisers.
8. Appointing more Autoreviewers is one way to take some pressure off New Page patrol and hopefully reduce the number of mistakes there. There are loads of editors out there who would qualify for wp:Autoreviewer; We've already increased their numbers from about a thousand a couple of months ago to 1115 on the 5th Jan. If you come across someone who you think meets the criteria feel free to nominate them at Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Autoreviewer.
Lastly, please remember Wikipedia is not a battleground, so take care to be as discreet and gentle as possible when informing fellow editors of any mistakes they may have made.