Wikipedia:User pages/RfC for stale drafts policy restructuring

Background: The issue with WP:STALEDRAFT was apparently long-term. There were various changes to the policy, whether it was good or bad, community-vetted or not is now out of the question, since we're making this RfC. There have been moves across namespaces under the guise of "improvement", "more attention" and such. Again, whether they were right or wrong or if there was any actual improvement or not is not the question here. The consensus developed in this RfC will be the way to go forward. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 10:53, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
Related pages: WP:UP
If you want to add a proposal or a sub-proposal, please add them in order, while keeping the proposal code in mind. Please post proposals in such a way that there are limited options, you're welcome to start subsections under Discussions.
Closing instructions: The RfC must go on for a full 30 days (720 hours) from its start date to give enough time to consolidate consensus. In case a proposal has no consensus, it should be continued until one emerges. The ones with clear-cut consensus should be closed. Also, the proposals should be closed by preferably more than one person.

Proposals

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Should GNG apply to drafts (A1)

Support A1

• Yes Wikipedia should not contain articles about non-notable subject, whether in draft form or article form. However, the whole point with a draft is that it is unfinished, and we should accept that the draft may lack information (such as evidence of notability) which is needed in order to move the draft to mainspace. The burden of evidence for deleting drafts as non-notable should not be the same as the burden of evidence for deleting articles as non-notable. The distinction between WP:A7 (lots of articles about non-notable subjects qualify for deletion) and WP:U5 (very few drafts about non-notable subjects qualify for deletion) seem to accurately illustrate the need for different burdens of proof in my opinion. --Stefan2 (talk) 23:39, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Oppose A1

• No, a draft does not need to pass GNG. However, GNG must be met before moving a draft into Mainspace. Blueboar (talk) 11:42, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• No, of course not. Drafts are where pages are worked on to prepare them for the mainspace. Requiring them to meet mainspace standards would be absurd. JohnCD (talk) 14:03, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• No - the purpose of the draft namespace is to allow users a place to write articles before they're ready for the mainspace. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 15:56, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• No It's the whole point of drafts. Hobit (talk) 17:32, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• No but a failure of being able to pass GNG is a bar to keeping a draft which is why this is the wrong question. It's the equivalent of noting the difference between whether a mainspace page could move past a stub or does it move past a stub: the first matters for the baseline question, the second is extra. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 17:43, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• No, but see my note below. This is like asking "Should we delete everything on Wikipedia?". The answer is yes, but that doesn't mean there's consensus to keep everything on Wikipedia. Similarly, we'll obviously find that no-one wants to delete every draft that currently fails GNG, but that doesn't mean we should keep every draft that currently fails GNG. ~ Rob^Talk 17:49, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• No I have a number of drafts that I'm not convinced pass GNG, but I'm not sure yet, and I see no reason for them to be deleted while I'm figuring that out. Sam Walton (talk) 19:06, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• No. The whole point of a draft is that it is something not yet ready for article space. This may be because obsucre off-line sources are being sought, or indeed because it is a placeholder for a person or subject not yet notable, but plausibly likely to become notable in future. Or for any of a number of other possible reasons. Deleting for lack of demonstrated notability makes the existence of draft space pointless. and moving drafts to mainspace with the intention of deleting them for not having demonstrated notability is a particulalry obnioxious form of gaming the system and disripting the project to make a point. DES ^(talk) 19:43, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• No A draft is an unfinished page that is being put in a hold rather than immediately launched into articlespace, it doesn't have to pass WP:N from the get-go. And as an unfinished page it may not have evidence of meeting any tenet of WP:N - including WP:GNG - yet when it's first posted but may receive one during subsequent editing. But if a draft doesn't meet WP:N it probably should not be moved to articlespace.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:46, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• No. Absolutely no. Strongest possible oppose. This is absurd and bizarre. Does this mean that drafts for which the author has not yet established notability should be deleted, so that the author has to keep them in Word and restore them manually? Even proposing this appears to be part of some crusade about drafts. Whatever the problem is, requiring GNG for drafts is the wrong answer. So what is the problem? Robert McClenon (talk) 19:51, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
  • @Robert McClenon: The editor who posed this question is strongly on the "keep everything" side of this debate, actually. There have been several "insane" questions like this posed recently to later be held up as proof that we can't consider whether a draft actually helps the encyclopedia at all. See my comment below regarding this question being the wrong question. Note that zero editors have supported this, as should be the case! ~ Rob^Talk 23:00, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• No. A draft is a work in progress. The expectation is that at some point, it will meet GNG, but if it doesn't now, that just means it's not finished yet. It could be that the subject is notable and the draft just hasn't been fleshed out yet, or it could be that the subject isn't notable today, but has the potential to be in the future (i.e. WP:TOOSOON). Either way, it's perfectly valid to keep the draft around. -- RoySmith (talk) 20:05, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• No this completely contradicts the point of drafts. The whole idea is that they can be incomplete and not necessarily suitable for mainspace in their current form. That includes evidence of notability. Hut 8.5 21:13, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• No: If GNG applied to drafts it would defeat the purpose of a draft. I myself has a couple of drafts in progress right now that would not meet GNG but will in the future. --Majora (talk) 21:51, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• No: Searching for sources on an obscure topic, especially offline sources, is difficult and time-intensive. Editors should have the choice to keep their work as a draft while they attempt to complete this process. Altamel (talk) 22:29, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• No - That's one of the major distinctions between the namespaces. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 22:49, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• No Drafts are a perfect way to work on establishing notability without worrying about premature deletion. clpo13_(talk) 07:11, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• No, that would be silly. Stifle (talk) 08:11, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• No, exactly as Ricky81682 put it, building on Bluboar's more compressed rationale. I was thinking the same thing but would have put it in about 5 sentences. Heh. I will add that I have several times "rescued" things from AfD specifically to keep them around as userspaced reminders to check every year or so: a) whether something has become clearly notable or not, that seemed like it would; or b) whether more sources have turned up for something that clearly must be notable but for which the GNG-compliant sourcing has been barely too elusive (sometimes because few of the sources are in English, or they're very academic and the journals are I need are paywalled).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:14, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• no drafts also have other purposes other than proposed articles, it could also be policy page. Writers need some leeway. We also have the case of things that will be notable in future, such as films, or sporting events, that are suitable for an early draft. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:43, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• No Even articles in mainspace don't have to meet GNG; that's why it's a guideline not a policy. Andrew D. (talk) 17:15, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• No not at all, however as noted above they should meet GNG before being moved but apart from that no. –Davey2010^Talk 19:45, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• No – I'm maybe a "hardliner" on some things, but this is too "hard" even for me! Many drafts don't get sourced until a later stage – assuming they'll never be sourced is "assume bad faith"-y. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 04:18, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• No - Obviously the purpose of the draft namespace is to allow drafts that do not currently meet the GNG to be developed into articles that do. Applying GNG across the board to these drafts would therefore defeat their very purpose. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 06:22, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• No. It's one of the main reasons why the draft namespace was created. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:15, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• No Drafts are not articles. No reason to treat them as such, ever. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 15:18, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• No, however this does not give permanant licence for content that is clearly not a nascent article should not be hosted. Hasteur (talk) 21:15, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• No, and definitely not. The whole point of having drafts is so that editors can make sure that articles do meet GNG and other similar notability guidelines, before moving the article to mainspace. — Omni Flames (talk contribs) 09:54, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
• No. Editors contribute what they can, when they can, and most of all in a way that holds their interest. I, for example, started several drafts years ago, think that they are about notable subjects in a poorly represented field, read in some specialized sources that only mention them, but need to get to motivated to drive a half-hour to the university library and spend a day in the stacks gathering material that cannot leave the building. Other topics, that require less effort, catch my interest – my drafts may not look notable to anyone who does not know the topic. Also, it is far easier to keep those drafts in wikipedia than in my computer. –BoBoMisiu (talk) 10:38, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
• No Piling on. Probably meant to comment much earlier but this RfC has a lot of subsections, so now I'll just say per the above. Protonk (talk) 12:24, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
• No. Draftspace is for articles that are not ready for mainspace, including those where the drafter is attempting to demonstrate compliance with the GNG, but doesn't feel their efforts are yet sufficient. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by administrators since 2006. (talk) 17:40, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments A1

• Not the right question. No-one is claiming that every draft should meet GNG, so this is going to get a pile on of no's and then be misinterpreted. The real question here is A3, which I've listed below. ~ Rob^Talk 12:12, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Not really. A draft can only have two states: "passing GNG" or "not passing GNG", there's no mid-ground. What you're saying is vague and subject to misinterpretation. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 13:57, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

The rhetoric is nice and technically correct, but I can say the same thing. A draft can only have two states: "coming close to passing GNG" and "not coming close to passing GNG". There's no mid-ground. You could (and probably will) say that "coming close" is vague, but to be honest, GNG is vague. It's based on good-faith attempts to produce common sense outcomes at AfD. It evolves over time. I see no reason why we can't do the same with "coming close" - it worked incredibly well in establishing a firmer idea of what GNG is. ~ Rob^Talk 14:45, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Since when is GNG not well-defined. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 16:03, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Since always. I mean the _words_ are well defined, but serious and knowledgeable people can have serious debates about if a given topic passes the GNG or not. Does a 2 paragraph obituary in the NYT count? What if it was in 1930? What if it was in the Chicago Tribune? Or the Lansing Observer? What if it's 4 paragraphs? Etc. 90%+ of the cases are clear cut, but the rest can be tricky and subject to honest debate. Hobit (talk) 17:28, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

• Misleading question we apply GNG to drafts all the time, it is only a matter of when. No one should be testing my potentially notable topic while I'm building up the article. However, if I abandon the draft for a long time, the topic should be tested against GNG as part of a decision about the suitability of the draft. Even a draft that is an hour old should be testable against GNG though. Say I start writing up an article on my kid's wonderful report card - it should be deleted quickly because we all know it fails GNG. Legacypac (talk) 17:10, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Eh, boy, if you're going to upload your kid's wonderful report card, you can delete it under any of Wikipedia's wonderful policies, you don't need GNG for that. You and Rob can call the question misleading as long as you want but that won't make your statement truer. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 17:18, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Which policy? Just U5? What it was in draftspace where that doesn't apply? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 17:44, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

WP:NOTWEBHOST covers your kid's report card. A2soup (talk) 17:46, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

How about this – I'm currently doing research on racial achievement gaps in kindergarten and first grade. My findings are interesting to me, and they have some type of chance of eventually being published in a scholarly journal. If they were published in a scholarly journal, they're highly unlikely to ever become notable, because the area I'm looking at is very niche. If I created a draft about my research, is it WP:NOTWEBHOST or not? I would say it is. I imagine you would say it is not, because it looks vaguely encyclopedic and it has some highly improbable path to notability (like <0.0001%). That's where we need to find the line. ~ Rob^Talk 18:24, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

If the draft is in your userspace, and it's clear that you are writing a draft, not keeping track of your data or something, I would say definitely keep it. If the draft is long stale and you are long gone, blanking with {{Userpage blanked}} could be indicated for OR issues. But in general, you seem like you want to improve the encyclopedia and you seem like the sort of person we want to have around. I might drop you a note to say that the draft is unlikely to end up in mainspace as its own article, but why would I delete your draft? That just seems like unfriendliness that doesn't benefit the encyclopedia at all. @BU Rob13: why would you want to delete this hypothetical draft? A2soup (talk) 20:29, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

If Wikipedia gains a reputation as someplace you can host vanity content, then we'll end up with the entirety of wikia and all other semi-encyclopedic content in the draft space. If we're offering free web hosting to anyone who registers an account, why would anyone pay to host such a site and/or use a site with ads like wikia? It's a problem of incentives. (I should have specified in my question to ignore my other activity, by the way. While I don't think it's a good idea to treat established editors differently, I can kind of buy the "don't piss off productive editors" argument, since hosting their vanity content may well be a net positive. That's why everyone's been focusing on stale drafts, where the editors have not been productive.) ~ Rob^Talk 22:56, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

@BU Rob13: I'm not quite sure what you mean by "vanity" content, but if you mean autobiographical stuff or stuff about your company, then I am okay with deletion. Per WP:NOTWEBHOST, that is "encyclopedia-unrelated". What I don't want to delete are good-faith attempts at drafts by people who either didn't understand WP:N or WP:V or were otherwise incompetent (so the page may look like crap). That's why I specified "good-faith, non-problematic" drafts in my support in section A3. In these cases, the "problem of incentives" goes the other way, since we should encourage these sorts of drafts, not discourage them. As I noted in my support in A3, trying stuff out before you understand all the policies and wikimarkup is an important part of BOLD, and userspace is the designated safe place to do it. With that said, are you in favor of deleting good-faith, non-problematic drafts? A2soup (talk) 23:19, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

@QEDK: I'd appreciate you striking my name from your comment, as I never called your question misleading. I just said it was the wrong question. If you wanted to know why the sky is blue, you could ask the question "What color is the sky?" That question wouldn't be misleading, but it also wouldn't get you the answer you're seeking. The question we're trying to answer here is where the line lies between "keep" and "delete" at MfD. You asked whether editors support an ultra-deletionist line, which they clearly don't. Even the editors you disagree with, including myself, agree that this line goes way too far in the "delete" direction. It's not a misleading question, but it also is entirely unhelpful for finding the line. A3 is a much more interesting question that asks about a line far closer to the likely reality. ~ Rob^Talk 18:24, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Well, both mean false, but I get your point. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 19:49, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Eh, misleading implies malice whereas wrong does not. While we disagree, I don't have any doubt you're doing what you think is best for the encyclopedia (and I hope you can say the same about me). ~ Rob^Talk 22:42, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Perceptions vary, I'm not going to beat you up for it. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 03:45, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

My use of the term misleading was to say that the question will mislead users to vote in a way that will not result in an answer that can be used properly. It's just a badly worded question, or very cleverly worded if you want a result you can attack people trying to improve the project with. Legacypac (talk) 08:09, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

• Wrong question. We can only judge an article by what is on the page in front of us. Drafts, by their very nature, will not initially be of the standard required for articles. Equally, there should be a reasonable expectation that they achieve that standard in some non-infinite timeframe. I am assuming here that we're not talking about obvious no-hopers (WP:NFT violations) but about valid attempts to create drafts with a view to making them articles. Guy (Help!) 09:39, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

This is a policy clarification proposal and this question has arisen only because drafts are deleted on this basis. Btw, you wrote above the invisible line. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 18:55, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

What should be done after it's deemed that a draft fails GNG (A2)

Possible actions: Delete, Blank, Redirect, Merge and Redirect

• It Depends - If the draft is in Userspace, either do nothing (it does no harm to leave it), or adopt it and continue to work on it yourself. If the draft is in Draftspace, remove it from Draftspace (by either deleting it completely, or by findingvsomeone willing to adopt it and moving it to their userspace for further work). Blueboar (talk) 12:01, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Not delete - see my support in A3 below. Blanking is acceptable if {{Userpage blanked}} is used, but ideally there should be some other reason to blank, like mild promotional concerns or avoiding future maintenance work. Redirect and merge/redirect can also work if there is an appropriate target. A2soup (talk) 17:31, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• It Depends If the topic does not meet GNG and it's obvious it never will - delete it. If the draft in it's current state does not prove GNG but there is a good faith belief that can be fixed, put in Draft space and hope it gets improved. Merging and redirecting are other options, for example if the topic fits within a larger GNG topic in mainspace. Legacypac (talk) 18:18, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• It depends. The default should be to do nothing. If it is actively harmful, delete it as per the appropriate policy. If it is useless and likely to remain so, blank it. If it is useless and a through search and discussion concludes that it can never be useful, it might possibly be deleted. DES ^(talk) 19:47, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• It depends. If the content is useless delete per my reasoning below. If it can be redirected to an alternate article that can be done. Content that is still worthwhile should be merged.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:51, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• It depends. Question fails to argue the "stale" portion so if the editor isn't active (I don't care if they haven't touched the page in a decade), then we can consider what to do. If the editor is active, keep it there. If the editor is not active, it can be deleted, it can be draftified, it can be adopted or it can be left alone, it depends. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:11, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Invalid question if the answer to A1 is "no". Which it appears to be. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:23, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Although I doubt, A1 will pass, you should always vote in the sub-proposals in a way as if you think the main will pass. Kind of like fall-back. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 03:47, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

• If it's determined that GNG applies to drafts and a draft is determined to unequivocally fail GNG, that draft should be deleted. This goes for drafts in any namespace. clpo13_(talk) 07:18, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Draft space: delete. Userspace: blank. Stifle (talk) 08:11, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• It depends, per Ricky81682's expansion on Blueboar again. Youse guys should directly collaborate a lot. :-) DESiegel's points are also valid, but I don't think they address the issue; they're more pre-conditions (i.e., we already know that if it's an attack piece, it can be deleted regardless of any of these concerns, and we already know it's kept by default, since the question here is what to do when we're questioning that default in a particular case). And Smokey Joe is correct that the question is invalid (in fallacy terms, it's "assuming the conclusion" a.k.a. "begging the question", a form of circular reasoning).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:25, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Variable Do whatever enhances the encyclopedia the most. If the content is suitable to merge into another article than do that. If only the references are useful then use them. A topic that may make a GNG article later but not now can be left. If people are wasting too much time on drafts and not on article improvements, then leave it alone. Blank or delete if the content is in someway harmful, or the writer needs to be deterred. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:48, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Nothing Whoever finds themselves studying drafts in this way should please go do something useful instead. Andrew D. (talk) 17:17, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• again assuming we are talking about Userspace only, nothing - there is no reason to mess around in other people's userspace unless there is something that violates policy in which case it can be handled accordingly. Jytdog (talk) 02:57, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Nothing except remove categories Keep as is. However, if it is speedy deletable as copyvio or advert, speedy delete it. Mere suspicion of one of these issues should go to Miscellany for Deletion. And, remove any categories that put it in a backlog, once reviewed. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 05:24, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• If a draft's only failing is that the subject matter isn't notable, it's so far down our list of priorities that anything requiring another user's intervention is unconscionable. A negative assessment against the GNG is hard. Making other users comment on an MFD and another, probably an admin, close it isn't reasonable when more than half the AFDs, every day, get relisted, and if CAT:CSD has been fully empty even once in the past five years I'll be astounded. If it's an attack page or copyvio or speedyable spam, tag it, by all means; otherwise, that's what {{inactive userpage blanked}} is for. —Cryptic 10:58, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Incorrect question Depends too much about the nature of the draft. --Stefan2 (talk) 23:42, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Nothing Absence of evidence of notability is not evidence of absence of notability. Jclemens (talk) 06:26, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Case by case - Not meeting the GNG could mean so many things that using one outcome wouldn't work. Some drafts are closer to reintegration into mainspace than others, others probably never will be. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 06:33, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• It depends If it's in userspace, no sense in changing it. I don't particularly care what happens in draft space, but nothing would be harmed by letting it get deleted when it is stale. Protonk (talk) 15:03, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Nothing Non-notable subjects don't hurt the encyclopedia. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 15:19, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Nothing should be done unless the content harms someone, i.e. the draft should stay. My general rational is above . –BoBoMisiu (talk) 10:57, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments A2

Should drafts be kept indefinitely on the project if they likely will never meet GNG? (A3)

Noting this well after the horse has left the barn: When folks respond, please clarify what space this "draft" is in, and if you are talking about Userspace, please clarify how you know the page is a draft and not something else (a template, a sloppy way to remind yourself to work on something, etc). Also there is no point in citing PROMO or COPYVIO as these polices are not being questioned; if you cite "NOTWEBHOST" please specify what the concern is, because that is exactly part of what is driving the dispute. ack. Jytdog (talk) 04:36, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Support A3

• If not passing GNG is the only issue, then it does no harm to keep the draft in userspace. Obviously we should not keep drafts with other problems (BLP violations, attack pages, copyright issues, hoaxes, etc) Blueboar (talk) 12:25, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Support keeping good-faith, non-problematic (no BLP violations, SOAPBOX, egregious promotion, etc.) drafts indefinitely (at least in userspace). The best way to approach this is a simple cost-benefit analysis. The costs of deleting userspace drafts are editor time to !vote on the MfD discussion, admin time to make the deletion, and the small chance that the author will be alienated and less likely to contribute to Wikipedia in the future (which does happen - see here). What benefits outweigh these costs? (To clear up misconceptions about benefits of deletion, deleting does not save any server space, deleted pages are retained. Also, userspace is default NOINDEX, so userspace drafts do not appear in search engine results.) Often cited is the need to keep the draft "backlog" clean so that drafts worth improving can be easily found and draft "maintenance" is easier. However, neither of these goals require deletion. To make finding good drafts easier, it is more precise and efficient to categorize drafts as high, mid, and low potential at the abandoned drafts project. I am still confused as to what "maintenance" is required for drafts in other people's userspaces, but any maintenance demands can be reduced to zero by replacing the draft's content with {{Userpage blanked}}. Notably, both categorizing and blanking with template are quicker and easier than deletion, not requiring discussion or admin time. These actions are also unlikely to alienate editors. So they serve all the putative benefits of deletion with none of the costs.

In conclusion, when draft deletion is compared to the alternative actions of categorization or blanking with {{Userpage blanked}}, it has no benefits that offset its costs of discussion time, admin time, and potential user alienation. The only rational conclusion is to not delete.

I want to offer a final, different argument as well. When we delete pages, we discourage editors from creating other such pages in the future. I think an important part of BOLD is that newbies should try to create articles, even if they suck at it and don't know GNG. Obviously, it's a bit disruptive for them to be BOLD like this in mainspace, which is why userspace drafts are such a good thing - they allow newbie BOLDness without disrupting the encyclopedia. Newbies creating drafts in userspace rather than mainspace is a positive thing that should be encouraged. The purpose of userspace drafts is not only to develop articles; they are also a place for newbies to learn. Discouraging them by deleting the drafts is misguided. A2soup (talk) 17:18, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Illustrative example: see this current MfD for an example of a non-problematic stale draft created in 2010 by an editor who had not edited since then and had only edited that draft, yet happened to be around to say they still intended to work on it. Clearly, lack of recent or even past edits is not a reliable indication of lack of intention to edit in the future, as WereSpielChequers noted in an earlier related RfC. If the user had not fortuitously checked Wikipedia in time, the draft would have been deleted and the potential contributor thoroughly bitten. And no benefit would have been gained by deletion. A2soup (talk) 04:41, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

• Copied verbatim from comment since supporting it technically nullifies the proposal. There's no definition of "likely". If this proposal is passed, it will just act in contradiction of the main proposal (A1). Allow me to explain, there's a reason a draft is a draft, it isn't suitable to be an article exactly why we should expect GNG out of it. If we delete a draft because it's not a subject notable enough, it doesn't serve a purpose. We could and should keep the content, in the case it ever becomes notable. Remember, deleting them gets nothing out of it. If it really makes you itch, you can blank them, how's that. Also, the server space thingy-thingy is a myth if you're still erring there. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 17:24, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Abusive things (BLP, copyright etc.) need to go. And quickly at that. It may be that Wikimedia needs to discuss really getting no index to no index to prevent SEO or other issues, but on the whole I think deleting other's draft work isn't a good idea as it can make this place seem a lot less friendly. Hobit (talk) 17:31, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
  • I'd also like to quote from Blueboar: "Not all "drafts" need to be potential articles. Yes, to be deemed a "draft" there should be a potential that it might eventually be incorporated somewhere in Wikipedia... but it is not necessary that it be able to stand on its own as an article." This is an extremely important point that many of those opposed to this aren't addressing. Hobit (talk) 11:32, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
• I don't think mere failure to provide evidence of meeting the GNG should be enough to justify deletion. For a start the question should be about notability more generally, an article which demonstrates that the subject meets an SNG would almost certainly be fine. Furthermore "likely will never meet GNG" really means "doesn't include evidence of meeting the GNG and I couldn't find anything when I Googled it", which precludes the possibility of the author finding sources that the reviewing editor doesn't. The nature of drafts as works in progress means this isn't much of a problem. This doesn't mean that such drafts need to remain here forever, just that "fails GNG" isn't adequate by itself as a deletion rationale. Hut 8.5 21:13, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• In userspace, if not meeting the GNG is the only issue, there is no issue. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:24, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Given that in the status quo, drafts in draftspace will not be kept indefinitely in general, the question is logically pertaining to userspace.

The question A3 is absurdly posed and is being answered in confusion. The WP:GNG is quite different to WP:NOTWEBHOST and WP:NOT. NOTWEBHOST cases should excluded from the question about GNG-failing topics, because WP:NOTWEBHOST is much more clear cut. The remaining cases are then the difficult GNG boundary region. AfD testing against the GNG requires finding and examining all existing sources, not just sources already added. In userspace, testing against the GNG must require analysing not just all existing sources, but anticipated future sources. This is an absurdly difficult task for a possibly notable topic, for a harmless page. If deleted on a perfunctory rational, the deletion is likely to alienate the user. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:37, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

• Within reason, but by default: A precondition of this particular exercise is that it doesn't so blatantly fail GNG that it triggers something else like WP:NFT, WP:WEBHOST, etc. QEDK gets the point of it: "likely" is subjective, bordering on meaningless in this case. To elaborate: there is no mechanism to measure this "likelihood" as applied to the bulge of the bell curve on this. SmokeyJoe's quip is also pithy (again, within the constraint that the material doesn't fail some other criterion for keeping it).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:31, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Sure per WP:NOTPAPER. Andrew D. (talk) 17:18, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• assuming we are talking about Userspace only, of course - don't mess around with other people's userspace unless there is a policy violation. Jytdog (talk) 02:59, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Keep most with the caveat that any user can blank something that they believe is inappropriate, and something potentially harmful can go to MfD. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 05:25, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Keep them since even if a contribution may never meet notability or be suitable as a standalone article, there's no reason to think that no such content could ever be reused in a compliant article, list, or to augment an existing or future article at some later date. Jclemens (talk) 06:28, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Sure I'm not too clear on the structure of this proposal, but implementing the opposite would make the rest of the proposals worthless. Protonk (talk) 15:04, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Oppose A3

• Oppose as per WP:NOTWEBHOST. Drafts should at least show some plausible path to notability to remain on the project. If I make a draft about my late aunt in her memory, that's very nice, but she's never going to become notable enough to provide anything of use to the project. So we shouldn't be hosting it. ~ Rob^Talk 12:13, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose, but the decision to delete is not an obvious or clear-cut one. Unless some G13-like time-expiry speedy criterion is agreed, which has not gained consensus, deletion requires discussion. That is what WP:MFD is for. JohnCD (talk) 14:11, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose There are lots of places on the internet to host info about your garage band. If an article's subject itself is not notable then improving it will not bring it up to standards. Since draft space is for making articles then they should not be in draft space. We need to sort these and either promote or delete them otherwise the cruft will just accumulate and we will indeed be a web hosting provider. HighInBC 15:28, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

@HighInBC: What about in the userspace? Many of the controversial drafts are in userspace. A2soup (talk) 17:22, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

It does not matter what space it is in. Any article developed on Wikipedia should ultimately have a chance of being within our content requirements. There should be no special nook or cranny where something unfit for an encyclopedia can life out its life. This stuff needs to be sorted. I see AfD as a fine test to determine if something should be on Wikipedia. We are not talking about userpages here, we are talking about attempted articles. These pages are trying to be articles, they should be judged by that criteria. HighInBC 01:34, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

You think that article criteria should apply to drafts, got it. A2soup (talk) 02:09, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose - any page in the draftspace which will probably never be part of an article should be deleted. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 15:57, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

@Od Mishehu: What about in the userspace? Many of the controversial drafts are in userspace. A2soup (talk) 17:21, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose the more junk that accumulates the harder it is to find notable topics and drafts that should be worked on. We can test the topic against inclusion criteria. We can also tell that a draft with very little info on an existing topic that is well covered is pointless. Legacypac (talk) 17:14, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose- This is an encyclopedia. I agree with BU Rob13- everything in draft space needs to show some plausible prospect of ever making its way into mainspace. Reyk _YO! 19:27, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

@Reyk: I don't mean to broken record here, but many of the controversial drafts are in userspace. Would you apply this same principle to userspace drafts as well as draftspace drafts? A2soup (talk) 20:06, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose - per WP:NOTWEBHOST. Further, a number of not accepted drafts are undiscovered copyright violations or have other serious problems that merit their removal. Finally, when people look at drafts for stuff that needs removal for different reasons (e.g copyright violations as mentioned before) or search for content that is potentially salvageable (e.g by search draft titles or content) hopeless drafts decrease the signal-to-noise ratio.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:50, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is arguing that we stop the application of WP:G12 to drafts - copyright infringement is currently and will always be deleted on sight. Re finding salvageable content, have you seen the categorization system at WT:WikiProject Abandoned Drafts? A2soup (talk) 20:25, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

@A2soup: True, but I have doubts that G12 is sufficient to keep drafts copyvio-free. I know the (now halted?) Copyvio bot doesn't tag userspace drafts (I've encountered quite a few of them which were copyright violations) and when I thus proposed to expand its remit to userspace I was told that we just barely can keep up with the copyvios. This makes me think that draftspace needs a proactive deletion policy to cover for this shortfall.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 23:01, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

@Jo-Jo Eumerus: So proactively delete the drafts without checking for copyvio because there might be a copyvio? I don't really understand - if you are making an MfD nom, you should do enough BEFORE to detect copyvio. And then the MfD is unnecessary because you use G12 instead. So it seems that copyvio concerns don't really weigh on the present discussion, which is largely about deletion policy for non-speediable drafts at MfD. A2soup (talk) 23:34, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, @A2soup:. I should have been looking for a better word than "proactive". The idea of mine is that it's better to get rid of unsalvageable drafts to reduce the risk that you have a copyvio there. Not let 'em sit around because "they don't harm anybody" because that is questionable.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 09:17, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose: NOTWEBHOST applies to all namespaces, including drafts. We aren't here to keep every pet project or nonsense draft that someone decides to start. Common sense should rein here. If after a through search nothing to indicate GNG has been passed it is time to let go, delete it, and move on. --Majora (talk) 21:51, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose This makes zero sense given the passage of G13. Why would current drafts that have been submitted for review be subject to deletion but because someone created a draft years ago, they aren't? If you want to argue the review portion, that's fine but it seems bizarrely against the concept of WP:OWN. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:13, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Because some drafts aren't intended to be part of AfC? There is a reason G13 is limited to AfC. A2soup (talk) 23:11, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose as written per WP:NOTWEBHOST. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 01:56, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose I'd say let's take a bite that's easier to swallow than an ambiguous "stale drafts" argument: let's say 3 yr old stale drafts where the user hasn't edited in more than 1 yr should be deleted (I'd appreciate if anyone could run a WMFLabs query to see how many articles might meet this criterion). Once we achieve that benchmark, we could revisit this.--v/r - TP 04:41, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

There are close to 30,000 pages identified here Wikipedia:WikiProject Abandoned Drafts/Stale drafts that have not been edited in over a year. Very very few of these belong to active users and over 80% are in the userspace of users that never did anything else (throw away accounts). Legacypac (talk) 08:17, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

• No, if it's found that a subject can't possibly be notable while in the draft namespace, then the draft should be deleted or moved to the userspace of a willing editor. WP:NOTWEBHOST applies here. The same should apply to userspace drafts, though only if the user is long-absent. clpo13_(talk) 07:15, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Drafts whether in draft space or userspace that are unlikely to become articles, whether because of notability or because nobody has worked on them or appears willing to do so, should be deleted. Stifle (talk) 08:11, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Of course not. That would be an open invitation to gaming the system, a blatant violation of "not a web host" and a positive boon to spammers. Guy (Help!) 09:36, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose: Things that are not capable of being part of the encyclopedia do not belong in draftspace. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 12:42, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

@Mendaliv: As you know, many of the controversial drafts are in userspace. Do you feel the same way for userspace drafts? A2soup (talk) 15:45, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

I think userspace should get more leniency, but how much more I'm not sure. My thought is that if something is unquestionably an article draft (versus a scratch pad, sandbox, or draft of some other kind of page), then the namespace shouldn't make as much of a difference. But where there's a reasonable question as to whether something in userspace is actually intended as a draft versus a personal sandbox, we would probably err on the side of blanking when there's no overriding reason to delete. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 15:50, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying :) I guess I just wonder why you think it isn't helpful to delete non-drafts in userspace, but helpful to delete drafts in userspace? A2soup (talk) 17:19, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Glad to answer. Basically, I'm okay with taking out userspace article drafts because the idea of "draft" implies that it should someday be capable of being made into an article. If there's no objectively reasonable hope of being improved into an article (I've got some ideas for how that would work that are a little too lengthy to go into right here), it doesn't belong on Wikipedia. Non-article-drafts are different because the considerations for whether something can enter a different namespace are different. Draft templates are helpful to keep around to some extent, but the deletion standards should be different. Draft Wikipedia essays, same deal: Different standards. I don't support unilaterally keeping non-drafts indefinitely, but I believe an entirely different set of standards need to be used to evaluate whether something has an objectively reasonable chance of being useful. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 21:35, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose - No point in keeping crap that won't ever make it as an article, Whether it's in draftspace or userspace it still deserves deleting. –Davey2010^Talk 19:56, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:NOTWEBHOST. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:55, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:NOTWEBHOST. Gamaliel (talk) 15:51, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose Per WP:NOTHOST, we do not keep material that we do not have any use for. However, what we should do with an unwanted draft depends on the status of it, and there is unlikely to be a universal solution. --Stefan2 (talk) 23:44, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:NOTWEBHOST. Indefinitely keeping all material would defang attempts to avoid Wikipedia being used as a hosting service. If deterring editors is a concern, make/modify draftspace deletions to have an explicit reference to ways to retrieve the deleted material. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 06:38, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:NOTWEBHOST. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:11, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose per the repeated points at WP:NOT. People think this will be a good idea to retain indefinitely, I'm fairly confident they've never actually dealt with the COI mines that infest Draftspace/AFC/Userspace. Hasteur (talk) 21:21, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

To be clear, nobody is supporting keeping pages with COI issues - if this is passed, it's not a requirement to keep old drafts; MfD will continue to function. It just means that deletion will not be the default and GNG will be irrelevant - there will need to be some reason to delete beyond "stale" and "will never pass GNG". A2soup (talk) 03:47, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

This question specifically addresses whether "will never pass GNG" has a place in deletion discussions. So far, the consensus is fairly clearly "yes, it does". ~ Rob^Talk 03:56, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Right, I was elaborating on the meaning of a hypothetical consensus in support of A3 and how would have a bearing of the application of GNG but not on the application of COI. A2soup (talk) 06:14, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

@A2soup: (as of 03:47, 11 April 2016) Thank you for completely missing the purpose of my response. If you're going to advocate for keeping these, I want you to start reviewing some of the Userspace/Draftspace pages that your support will give an extension of life to. Approximately 50% of these that would be kept under Drafts shall be kept indefinitely on the project if they likely will never meet GNG are vanityspam, COI creations, 1 liners that don't even begin to indicate how they're going to get to be accepted in mainspace (see Draft:Quillen metric for a prime example). I was using COI as an example of something that "throw anything that might stick to derail the deletion process" keepers will misuse to try and get consensus on their side. Hasteur (talk) 12:59, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

What did I miss? I routinely comment at MfD and do not support keeping what I see as vanityspam or anything too promotional. I do support keeping 1 liners that don't indicate their mainspace potential. That was the clarification I was trying to make, that these things should not be lumped together, as you seem to be doing. This proposal would allow deletion of the former and stop deletion of the latter. Also, Draft:Quillen metric is not a great example as it's in draftspace, while many of the controversial drafts are in userspace. For me, that page belongs in userspace, not draftspace. Would you have a problem with it in userspace? A2soup (talk) 18:17, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

I stand by my rejection of this question (even after the clarification) as even with the shading of the question it is still an anathema to the stated purpose of wikipedia. In order to support these drive by creations, the foundation will need more money, which in turn means more fundraising drives, which means more "Sad Jimmy" banners. Anything to keep those to a minimum is more important than the 2 minute creation of a drive by graphiti artist that isn't here to improve the encyclopedia at large. Hasteur (talk) 13:12, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Hasteur, what about a page, apparently a draft, apparently failing the GNG, that does not fail NOTWEBHOST, or anything else in WP:NOT, or any other policy? A draft on a geographical feature, or something scientific lacking secondary sources? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:40, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

@SmokeyJoe: It depends on what namespace it is in and if the author has gone away. If the page lives in the user's namespace, I'm less concerned about it living on our servers. If it's in the Draft namespace, we start adding additional checks because we don't want users to make land grabs on titles for "creation credit". In draftspace I really see 6~9 months of non-work as the threshold that I start trying to coerce people into either putting their money where their mouth is by pushing it to acceptance in mainspace, or accepting it isn't ready and delete it. Part of this is providing a gentle reminder to the author on their talk page that the "draft" hasn't been edited for a while. Hasteur (talk) 00:03, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

@Hasteur: I understand your answer here to indicate that a draft in userspace failing GNG, but not violating any other policies/guidelines, can be retained indefinitely. Is that correct? A2soup (talk) 06:22, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

NB Terminology: The WP:GNG is not policy; WP:NOT is policy. The WP:GNG is a guideline on whether a topic warrants a standalone article, and it is a much higher bar than anything under WP:NOT. WP:NOT applies to the whole project. WP:N applies only to standalone mainspace articles and explicitly does not speak to content. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:18, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

I completely understand this - is there something in here that makes my question invalid? I don't really see the relevance of your comment here. I am trying to get at the point of whether "oppose per NOTWEBHOST" allows drafts irretrievably failing GNG but otherwise unproblematic to be retained indefinitely. That is the question I posed to Hasteur, and I am quite interested in the answer. A2soup (talk) 08:25, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Sorry A2soup, I am afraid I cannot be sure that I didn't mean to post that somewhere else. It wasn't intended as a challenge to you, I reads back to me know more as a frustration with the question, referring to the GNG, and the responses referring to WP:NOT. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:00, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

@A2soup: (of 06:22, 12 April 2016) Kindly walk off a short pier with cement shoes. I'm tired of your wordsmithing/wikilawyering to twist the will/intention of respondants that you disagree with. Pleas read the previous reply at 00:03, 12 April 2016 to SmokeyJoe and think how silly your followup question sounds. Yes we probably need to deal with abandoned userspace drafts, but in the grand scheme of things I'd personally get around to dealing with these shortly before we evolve into beings of pure energy and thought. There are plenty of Draft namespace pages that need disposition (either by improving the work to the point it could be accepted to mainspace deleting it by CSD/MFD). Hasteur (talk) 12:21, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

@Hasteur: Please, let's AGF here, I'm only asking because I'm genuinely unsure of your position on non-notable but otherwise unproblematic userspace drafts. What I'm getting from you right now is: "Draftspace drafts that will never pass GNG should not be retained indefinitely even if they aren't otherwise problematic, but this isn't a pressing issue for userspace drafts." An important part of the question being asked here, however, is precisely whether userspace drafts should be deleted (not are useful to delete) if they irretrievably fail GNG but are otherwise unproblematic. It's a central question, and it's important to understand where people stand on it, and I don't see you expressing a clear view on it anywhere. I promise to shut up the moment I get a simple yes or no on that. You can see that for the other commenters I requested clarification from, I stopped asking the moment their views were sufficiently explicated. A2soup (talk) 19:09, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Note to closing administrators/consensus evaluators Please note the repeated badgering of editors who A2soup disagrees with and post-facto wordsmithing of the question to twist either the question or respondants viewpoints into A2soup's PoV advantage. I've provided my reasoning about userspace drafts vs draftnamespace drafts twice and yet he still tries to boil it down to a Yes/No dichotomy. Wikipedia never uses binary decisions, there is always room for discretion and consensus building on individual cases. As such if A2soup wants a binary answer to cross off his pinheaded checklist, my response is Any draft that does that will never pass GNG, regardless of which namespace it's created in, should be deleted and with all due haste. Hasteur (talk) 12:11, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose this would be a blatant violation of WP:NOTWEBHOST. — Omni Flames (talk contribs) 09:56, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
• In principle, no. But actually deleting such drafts should remain very much the exception, not the norm; this isn't license to go around and MFD every one you see, let alone mistag them all as U5 speedies. Determining whether an article subject currently meets the GNG is difficult, so much so that we rightly don't let anyone do it unilaterally - otherwise, it would be a speedy deletion criterion. Determining whether one will ever meet it is correspondingly harder. If you want to waste all your time here dumpster-diving in abandoned userspace, that's your choice. But you don't have the right to demand that other users do the same by commenting on and closing your MFDs. —Cryptic 14:47, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
  • @Cryptic: What prompted me to pose this question is a rash of people at MFD voting keep on something that seems obviously non-encyclopedic ("Check out my mixtape" type stuff) merely on the grounds of "Userspace drafts can be indefinitely kept on the project" with no further response to delete rationales of WP:NOTWEBHOST, complete lack of coverage in any third-party source, etc. I do not intend this question to require deletion, merely to counter the keep argument that we can indefinitely keep all "non-problematic" drafts on the project, with "non-problematic" usually being defined as everything that isn't an attack page. I've even seen editors consider copyright violations "non-problematic"! ~ Rob^Talk 19:20, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
    • You may not have intended it, but that's how most people have been taking it. It was a poor question, like most of the ones here, as evidenced by different people saying exactly the same thing in each's support and oppose sections. I don't envy whoever ends up closing this. —Cryptic 21:48, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:NOTWEBHOST. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information; drafts exist as a way to work on articles until they're ready to be rolled out. The implicit assertion that they will eventually become an article is therefore an essential requirement for Wikipedia to host them. They have broad leeway as long as it's credible that the draft could eventually be improved, but a draft that clearly has no chance of ever becoming an article should be deleted immediately. --Aquillion (talk) 01:18, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

• WP:NOTWEBHOST is policy covering everything including drafts.

The implicit assertion that drafts will eventually become an article is an essential requirement for Wikipedia to host them. They have broad leeway as long as it's credible that the draft could eventually be improved, but a draft that clearly has no chance of ever becoming an article should be deleted immediately.

This is a beautiful statement that I think is agreeable to all. NB "no chance of ever becoming an article" is not the GNG test. "immediately" is not OK becuase it will some level of diligence to assess that each random looking thing has "no chance of ever becoming an article". For me, the real question of practicality is whether that diligence level is low and the failing page blanked, or the diligence level is high as required for deletion. NB CSD#U5 already sets a very low bar for non-contributors, cases that represent the vast majority of staledrafts. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:18, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Re: "The implicit assertion that drafts will eventually become an article is an essential requirement for Wikipedia to host them"... The problem with this assertion is that there are valid reasons to draft material on one's userpage other than to draft a potential article. For example, one might draft a potential section or sub-section of an article in userspace... this is an acceptable use of userspace, even though the material being drafted may never "eventually become an article" on its own. Not all "drafts" need to be potential articles. Yes, to be deemed a "draft" there should be a potential that it might eventually be incorporated somewhere in Wikipedia... but it is not necessary that it be able to stand on its own as an article. Blueboar (talk) 15:02, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments A3

• "likely will never meet GNG" requires careful investigation and source analysis. It is not realistic to ask this to be done for every draft. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SmokeyJoe (talk • contribs)
  • Then why do we expect this to be done for every mainspace article nominated for AfD? There's no real problems with such evaluations at AfD. What makes MfD different? ~ Rob^Talk 14:48, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

(1) Because mainspace is the product of the project, and its quality is important to mainspace, unlike either userspace or draftspace.

(2) Because once in mainspace, the expectation is that the GNG is met by existing sources. Meeting the GNG means that there exist sources, not that the sources have not been added. It is very normal in drafting that the sources are still to be added, unlike in mainspace. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:28, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Because we have different rules for what is acceptable and not acceptable in different namespaces. What is acceptable for MAINspace is (and should be) different than what is acceptable for DRAFTspace... Which is (and should be) different yet again from what is acceptable in USERspace. Blueboar (talk) 15:02, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

That's what this RfC is about - determining what standards have consensus. I'm just saying that the particular standard I'm recommending is not abnormal compared to similar standards we have at AfD. I'm not advocating GNG outside of mainspace. I'm advocating "likely will never meet GNG" as the standard for deletion. ~ Rob^Talk 15:31, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Join the club. The idea of "any" standard seems to be opposed. It's particularly frustrating when the same people then do supporting deleting a particular draft. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:24, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

I thought it was pretty clear that my standard for the past few weeks, at least, has been "keep good-faith, non-problematic drafts", with drafts not meeting that description being open to deletion. A2soup (talk) 02:17, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

• There's no definition of "likely". If this proposal is passed, it will just act in contradiction of the main proposal (A1). Allow me to explain, there's a reason a draft is a draft, it isn't suitable to be an article exactly why we should expect GNG out of it. If we delete a draft because it's not a subject notable enough, it doesn't serve a purpose. We could and should keep the content, in the case it ever becomes notable. Remember, deleting them gets nothing out of it. If it really makes you itch, you can blank them, how's that. Also, the server space thingy-thingy is a myth if you're still erring there. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 16:26, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Talking about server space is a straw man argument - no one else is worried about server space. There are lots of benefits to deleting unsuitable content - reduce the spread of error, make it easier to find and bring good topics to mainspace, discourage editors from spending time on inappropriate topics, reduce maintenance (tags, cats, images, links, vandalism fighting) on unnecessary pages. Legacypac (talk) 17:18, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

You're so wrong, I'm not going to start. Spread of error? If you take userspace drafts for reliable info, you're the idiot. Easier to find good topics? What. Also, you're not responsible for their maintenance (did you just say that cats and tags are used in drafts, lol), RC patrollers will do a much better job than you will. The pages you consider unnecessary are not unnecessary to everyone, mind you. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 10:10, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Let's go through these "benefits" of deletion:

• "reduce the spread of error" - Userspace drafts are default NOINDEX and have {{Userspace draft}} prominently displayed at the top. If it's not there, it should be put there (this action is far easier than deletion).
• "make it easier to find and bring good topics to mainspace" - This purpose is more precisely and efficiently (no discussion or admin time) served by categorizing the drafts by mainspace potential. This is currently possible - see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Abandoned Drafts.
• "discourage editors from spending time on inappropriate topics" - This is just a violation of WP:CHOICE; editors can work on whatever they want, so long as it is not problematic. If you think they should work on other things, a better approach than deleting their work is to, you know, tell them their efforts would be better spent elsewhere.
• "reduce maintenance (tags, cats, images, links, vandalism fighting)" - tags, cats, links, and vandal fighting are all related to keeping the page up to encyclopedic standards and functionality and thus unnecessary in userspace. Anyone doing "maintenance" on these things in other people's userspaces is just wasting their time. The only time maintenance is actually required is removing fair-use images. However, preventing this maintenance is more efficiently accomplished by just blanking with {{Userpage blanked}} than by having a weeklong deletion discussion that has to be admin closed.

Any other benefits you want to bring up? A2soup (talk) 18:00, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

How about you not telling everyone else that they aren't wasting time doing cleanup work? If it's a useful draft going somewhere, it's good work. I mean, I'd personally find it insulting if you came by and told I'm "wasting time" because I'm cleaning up a template following a project because you know that a particular old draft isn't going to be useful anywhere and rather than supporting getting rid of it, it's somehow my job to recognize useless old drafts so I'm not wasting time on them. That is how you drive actual editors away. Why is that a decade of systems of cleanup, non-free image patrol, template fixes all have be stopped in userspace (although there's no reason non-free image patrol shouldn't be, those are copyright violations) just because of the idea that drafts that aren't new AFC drafts can't ever be deleted? Why is that the very minority of people who decided that drafts must never be deleted are the ones who decide that a number of projects and cleanup work have to now distinguish between userspace and non-userspace? Would you want those clean-up tasks done on draftspace? Else, when exactly should a page be cleaned up? Only when it is ready for mainspace? Only when it is in mainspace? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:24, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Do you think that MfD deletion is a more efficient way to reduce maintenance work than replacing the content with {{Userpage blanked}}? My arguments are about deletion relative to other alternative solutions. Also, I can agree that maintaining useful drafts is good work, but you wouldn't delete those anyways - we're talking about drafts that people want to delete. A2soup (talk) 02:40, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

• Then we have essays and proposals to define what is "likely". Do you WP:N and WP:GNG was designed in a day? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:26, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

• if it is merely likely that the draft will never be suitable for an article, blank it. If the original author has been inactive for a long time, and no one has been editing the draft, and there is a clear consensus that the draft cannot under any circumstances become a valid article, it could be delt4ed after an individual discussion at MFD, but the no-consensus result should be to do nothing. DES ^(talk) 19:50, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
  • What's the difference between "never be suitable" and "cannot even become a valid article"? It sounds like you're describing the same thing. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:24, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
    • The distinction I am making is between "merely likely" and "clear consensus that the draft cannot under any circumstances become a valid article". In short, to justify deletion there must be much higheer assurance that there is no useful potential in a page than the term "likely" implies. This is rather like the difference between "preponderance of the evidence" and "beyond a reasonable doubt". I am saying that we should not delete (on these grounds) without very strong evidence, based on through searches or other valid reasoning, that there is no significant possibility that the content will be useful in building the project. (of course, copyvios, attack pages, hoaxes, and BLP violations should and will remain deletable.) DES ^(talk) 23:16, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
      • First of all, "Likely" is not similar to "preponderance of the evidence". I would consider it more akin to "clear and convincing". It's impossible to meet the latter standard you propose because any person/place/thing could suddenly hit it big. There's always a potential path to fame and notability for everything. That doesn't mean that it's at all likely, though. The chances of me becoming famous are <1%, so a draft on me shouldn't be kept. This is clearly in line with the text of WP:NOTWEBHOST and WP:NOTPAPER (the latter of which says that we shouldn't have a page on everything just because we can). ~ Rob^Talk 13:39, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• SmokeyJoe is correct. Assessing the "likelihood" is busywork. It would essentially be a mild, distributed form of WP:NOTHERE, like internal documentation of internal documentation, or fighting with your lover about how lovers are supposed to fight. We do not need more omphaloskeptic time-and-effort drains.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:35, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Drafts should not be deleted for failing the WP:GNG, but yes, they should be deleted for failing WP:WEBHOST. The two are not the same. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:52, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

As I read it, WP:WEBHOST only applies to "encyclopedia unrelated content", which excludes legitimate drafts whatever their status is vis a vis GNG. But people here seem to understand it differently than you and me. Perhaps an amendment to WP:WEBHOST will be in order once this is over. A2soup (talk) 05:20, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

I don't think people read the allcaps unspaced shortcuts they use. I noted many years ago, the use of catchy pronounceable blue glowing ALLCAPSCAPSONEWORDS was having a dumbing-down effect on written expression, and it is very evident in the oppose section. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:30, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

This is a very important point: Since NOTWEBHOST says nothing of the sort, all opinions citing it should be discarded by the closer(s). Jclemens (talk) 06:31, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

I concur. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 16:56, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

• I need to know why this proposal is not an accurate reflection of the first. If you think GNG is necessary for a draft, aren't you applying GNG to it? --QEDK (T ☕ C) 15:17, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

My impression is that the A3 opposers mostly just think drafts shouldn't be hosted indefinitely, and GNG is only tangentially relevant in that they should be mainspaced instead of deleted if they pass it. So I don't think opposes in A3 necessarily contradict opposes in A1. They do seem to contradict the overwhelming consensus at Wikipedia talk:User pages#Should old user space drafts have an expiration date, so that needs to be rectified. Looks like many of the commenters there haven't commented here yet, so it's probably just an issue of varying participation not actual confusion, which should sort itself out with all the exposure this RfC is getting. The only actual contradictory !vote I see is clpo13, who !voted against an expiration date there and against indefinite hosting here. @Clpo13: which is it? Can you either change your !vote in one of the RfCs or explain how they reflect a coherent position? A2soup (talk) 17:09, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

I prefer to have drafts evaluated on a case-by-case basis instead of having a firm expiration date. Drafts that obviously can never be improved enough to go into articlespace should be deleted, but if there's a chance, even if no one is actively improving the draft, then I would prefer simply blanking or doing nothing. clpo13_(talk) 17:15, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

• This question is eliciting strong responses as people are interpreting it differently. A draft in what space? I answered the question, assuming the relevant space was user space, but others are not. Secondly, if it is a page in User space, how are folks reckoning if that that page is an actual "draft" of a new article, someone's notes, a template that someone keeps handy as a basis for making new articles, or whatever? This question and the results are kind of a train wreck, in my view. Not a single person here believes that something that violates policy (e.g. WP:PROMO and NOTWEBHOST) should get to hang around anywhere in WP but the way the question is phrased, is leading to pretty kneejerk answers. Ack. Jytdog (talk) 21:54, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this is what we're stuck with. It's unlikely that your general comment here will do much to help - it would be more effective to ask individuals commenters to clarify. A2soup (talk) 04:19, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

@Jytdog: Re your hatnote, I don't really agree that NOTWEBHOST is not being questioned. Perhaps the letter of WP:NOTWEBHOST is not being questioned, since that doesn't justify the deletion of genuine drafts. But the way that NOTWEBHOST is usually applied and used in MfD discussions is to justify deletion of any "useless" material - and that is being questioned. So I think there is a challenge to a common application of NOTWEBHOST, if not its actual wording, going on here. A2soup (talk) 04:50, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

I don't know. In my view NOTWEBHOST is generally about PROMO stuff. But it is hard to interpret what people are talking abot when they just say "Per NOTWEBHOST". maybe i'll add a note to my already ridiculous note. ... Jytdog (talk) 06:11, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Should drafts be moved across namespaces or submitted for AfC without the author's explicit permission (B1)

Support B1

• Yes - a user does't OWN his/her drafts any more than his/her articles. If a draftspace page is ready for mainspace, it may be moved by anyone. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 15:58, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes it is already allowed by policy and not prohibited by any policy. If it helps the project absolutely. I've personally moved many good drafts from userspace of long gone editors to mainspace - why waste the editor's good work? Hopefully they wrote it up to be used, and if that was not their intention they are WP:NOTHERE Legacypac (talk) 17:55, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

What if they didn't properly understand GNG when they wrote it? A2soup (talk)

Obviously many new editors don't get GNG - and the vast majority of userspace drafts are from users that are new to the project. Many are just people trying to promote their band or website etc or just playing around. Legacypac (talk)

All the more reason to take it over and improve it. Compare what I saw versus what made it. Are we better off with a draft sitting around because the editor didn't complete something? That seems counter to the whole idea of a wiki. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:31, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

• Yes but only in a good faith effort to convert them into valid articles, not in an end run around policy to delete them. No one WP:OWNs any page here, and if a page is useful to build the encyclopedia, it may be and should be used. DES ^(talk) 19:52, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes. I agree that a user doesn't own their userspace. You get a fair amount of freedom to manage your userspace however you want, but if we're strictly talking about stale drafts from users who haven't been around for years, which happen to be in good enough shape to promote to main space (or, close enough that they could be improved to that point), then i don't see any reason not to move them. -- RoySmith (talk) 20:22, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• The author's explicit permission shouldn't be required. However common sense should be applied: if the author is still working on it and doesn't want it to be moved to mainspace yet then we shouldn't override their wishes. Hut 8.5 21:13, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes per the above (specifically Od Mishehu) --Majora (talk) 21:51, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes and because when we say that "All Wikipedia content − articles, categories, templates, and other types of pages − is edited collaboratively", we should mean "ALL" content. Else, it makes little sense in contrast with WP:UP#COPIES and deleting content already in mainspace. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:31, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes, if another user wants to take responsibility for it being appropriate for the article space. However, if it's from userspace (rather than drafts), then it should really just be if the user is inactive and if the user does not have reasonable objections to doing so. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 01:59, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes, so long as we're talking about stale drafts and absent users. Anyone should be able to adopt and improve a stale draft, regardless of where it resides and who created it. clpo13_(talk) 07:06, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes from draftspace. Only from userspace if it's been abandoned or with the author's permission. Stifle (talk) 08:12, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

• Yes, per WP:OWN, but there should be an expectation of engagement with the drafting user if they are still active. Guy (Help!) 09:40, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Only if the draft author has not been an active editor, for longer than the last year.. This is a proposal for invoking process to take something away from another editor's development, and involve other editors in that process. So it's a potential WP:BUREAUCRACY problem, and has WP:CIVILITY and WP:JERK issues. If the author is not around to object, then there's no objection. If are, and they do object, WP:OWN still applies, so an editor certain they can produce a viable article from what's been written so far is actually free to do so. They just may make another editor unhappy if they do it, if that editor is still active and has reasons for not being ready to go live with it yet. E.g., because they need to work out a WP:DYK plan (DYK has a short time limit, remember). Or they have already done enough research, just not added it all yet, to result in an B-class article ready for WP:GAN on day one, instead of the stub another editor wants to make of the material so far. Or maybe the editor inserted something and has subsequently found sharply conflicting information but not followed enough sources yet, and it would thus be objectionable to run with the current version pending that further research. Or ....  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:06, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Partial yes certainly drafts that are ready for mainspace, or are likely to be kept at AFD can be moved into article space. Putting into AFC is more problematic. However this should be an option for a draft created via undelete, where the condition of undeletion was to use AFC (often in the case of COI contributors). Otherwise sticking it into AFC without any adoption or intention to improve the page on the part of the person that did that just moves a backlog and a potential problem elsewhere. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:54, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes from draftspace; Yes from userspace if the draft author has not been active for longer than the previous one year – if you walk away from the project, proverbially, "All your base are belong to us!!" (as per WP:OWN). --IJBall (contribs • talk) 04:24, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes. And vice versa: Many new editors unknowingly mainspace unsourced, underreferenced work without knowledge of the AfC process. The encyclopedia is not well served by leaving the mess in mainspace or in bringing it to AfD. Draftspace is the place to incubate such work. czar 12:36, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes, but only in the case of clearly inactive users. Drafts are not owned by their authors, but let's have a little professional courtesy here. Gamaliel (talk) 15:52, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes but only if the original author is inactive. Otherwise the civil and collegial thing to do is to try to convince the original author to move/submit. Also, the moving/submitting editor should take responsibility for that action. Ie drafts moved to article space should be fit to be articles and disruptive moving there of unsuitable articles should be treated like disruptive creation of unsuitable articles. Editors submitting drafts to AfC should commit to working to improve them along with reviewer's comments. I think people adopting stale drafts is great, but I definitely want to condemn any attitude of "lets just toss it all into mainspace with no improvment, someone else will clean up my mess", especially in mainspace. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Happysquirrel (talk • contribs) 18:00, April 9, 2016‎ (UTC)
• Yes for draftspace and userspace of inactive users. No point wasting good work if it's usable. If the draft is in the userspace of an active user, bring it up on the talk page and work from there. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 06:41, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes If the draft has "potential", otherwise no because we're not doing the burecratic two step to try deleting it. Hasteur (talk) 21:24, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes WP:OWN should apply to drafts, too. — Omni Flames (talk contribs) 09:58, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes, but only from draftspace, and only when the mover believes reasonably and in good faith that the text is ready for mainspace. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by administrators since 2006. (talk) 17:42, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Oppose B1

• No - However, no one owns the topic of a draft... so if you think the topic is notable, instead of moving the draft, consider adopting the topic, and creating a draft of your own... Work on it, and when ready, move that to an appropriate namespace. Blueboar (talk) 12:12, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

• Why, though? If someone has already written an article on a topic that you think is notable, writing your own article is a significant and unnecessary duplication of effort. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:57, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

• And given the number of people who actively care about Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by article count, basically stealing credit for the article creation is going to be counter-productive if the goal is actual editor retention. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:28, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

• No (in some cases) In response to Blueboar, per WP:OWN, no one owns the draft itself either. I still must vote no, though, because it is not appropriate to move ALL drafts to the mainspace. See B2 for a more nuanced and useful question. ~ Rob^Talk 12:17, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Actually, there is a degree of WP:OWN allowed in userspace... For example, If you edit a draft that is in my userspace, I am allowed to repeatedly revert "my" draft back to "my" preferred version (and 3rr does not apply to my reverts). Yes, admins can "police" userspace and remove material that is deemed actually harmful to the project... But as long as the draft does no actual harm, we do give users a reasonable degree of ownership over their drafts. Blueboar (talk) 12:39, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

My response will be a direct quote from WP:OWN: "Wikipedia offers wide latitude to users to manage their user space as they see fit. Nevertheless, they are not personal homepages, and are not owned by the user [bold in the original]. They are part of Wikipedia and must serve its primary purposes ... While other users and bots will more commonly edit your user talk page, they have rights to edit other pages in your user space as well." ~ Rob^Talk 14:47, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

I think we are talking about different forms of "ownership" here.... Yes, Even user pages are subject to rules.... But the rules are (and should be) significantly different between Mainspace and userspace. A user does have a limited amount of OWNERSHIP in there userspace... OWNERSHIP that is not allowed in Mainspace. It isn't complete ownership... But it is ownership nevertheless. That limited ownership needs to be respected. Blueboar (talk) 15:29, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Blueboar is correct, we have complete control over our user namespace and we're free to limit anyone from editing or moving it (as long as we violate no basic policies). This proposal just seeks to make the point clear for users who are long gone because there are people who think otherwise when it comes to inactives. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 16:29, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

You are very incorrect and are twisting Blueboar's point. You can't and should not try to stop me or any other editor from editing in your userspace. That goes against the collaborative effort. If you want exclusive control of a page, start a blog or website of your own. Legacypac (talk) 17:54, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Cite the policy, right here, right now. Also, userpages are our own pages and there's nothing which can stop me from disallowing others to edit it. WP:NOBAN If you've ever read much of ANI threads, you'd know. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 19:40, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

My quote of OWN above clearly shows that editing of user pages is allowed. WP:NOBAN says you shouldn't continue if they ask you to stop. In the case of drafts that have been stale for years with long inactive editors, there's virtually no chance of being asked to stop by the creator, but if anyone were asked to stop, I would expect them to honor that request as per NOBANre. ~ Rob^Talk 23:04, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

The reason to not edit is only because they are not in a position to ask you to stop. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 18:57, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

• Blueboar says "instead of moving the draft, consider adopting the topic, and creating a draft of your own" and I say that is highly inappropriate. If you see a good topic in draft you should work on that draft. Blueboar's plan will quickly lead to multiple competing drafts and articles on the same topic. If I see Draft:XYZ and create Draft:XYZ2 which I move to mainspace in a race to get credit for the title, what happens to Draft:XYZ that is now redundant? Blueboar's plan leads to basically stealing people's ideas. Legacypac (talk) 18:01, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Stop conflating namespaces...Draft:XYZ is in DRAFTSPACE ... And I am talking about USERspace (User:username/XYZ). There is a difference. Having a draft in your USERSPACE in no way "reserves" the article topic. It is quite possible that right now two editors are both working on separate drafts on the same topic, without either of them knowing of the other. Whoever finishes their draft first creates the article in Mainspace. The other can then add their material to that article (or not... It's up to them). Happens all the time. No big deal. Blueboar (talk) 19:34, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Articles are not ideas. If an editor is inactive, there's no reason not to work on their draft, but it shouldn't be in their namespace for they might not want the edits we made, it's completely the user's choice. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 19:40, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

The difference is, if I found someone else's draft and they left years ago, is it really ok for me to just create my own page, publish it and then take their page to either be deleted/blanked/whatever? Wouldn't it be better and more encouraging if the original editor's history is there and acknowledged? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:33, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

If you got the idea from someone else's draft, took their references, and started again, they might well feel insulted, particularly if you do a worse job than they already did, but that's about it. If they have not done a good job, and you do a good job, good for you, thank you. If you acknowledge the first write, even if unnecessarily, that is a very nice thing to do that cost you nothing. In any case, if you end up writing a mainspace article, you should feel allowed (but not obligated) to redirect the old version to it. This will inform the returning author of the situation, and he can react however he chooses. He may well choose to improve the mainspace version. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:52, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Of course it is OK to write your own draft and upload it into Mainspace. It's not as if the fact that I also have created a draft prevents you from doing this, or in some way "reserves" the topic.

However, the fact that "your" draft is uploaded to Mainspace does not mean that "my" draft must be deleted. It can sit in my userspace without having any impact on the project. Blueboar (talk) 03:06, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

I agree strongly with this. Independent versions of the same thing don't need to be deleted, and they are not WP:UP#COPIES. If you were to make a draft that is an inferior version of a pre-existing mainspace article, I think you shouldn't, but for independent drafting towards the same missing article, there is no good reason to suppress access to someone's contribution history. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:47, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

• Not if the draft-author is an active editor; see my comments in the "yes" section (about inactive authors of drafts) for details.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:07, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• No There's no "should" about this – it all depends on the situation. Andrew D. (talk) 17:32, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• no the question should state more clearly that this is about something in userspace and the answer to this is no. You shouldn't mess around with something in another person's userspace unless it violates policy some how. Jytdog (talk) 02:47, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• No An editor doesn't own drafts in their userspace, but there is a certain expectation of courtesy and respect. If the editor is active, they are unlikely to be pleased by someone unilaterally moving or submiting one of their in-progress userspace drafts. Retaining an active editor is more valuable to Wikipedia than any draft they may be working on. If the question were rephrased to apply only to drafts authored by and in the userspace of editors inactive for at least a year, as in WP:STALEDRAFT, then I could support it. --Worldbruce (talk) 01:11, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• No, no, no,no, no! No reason to move someone else's work out of userspace (yeah it's not their's etc. but there's pretty longstanding and valuable norms pushing the other way). Especially no if we're planning on adopting considerably more strict restrictions on draft namespace content than userspace. Wikipedia doesn't need a new article on whatever more than it needs editors to not fuck with other people's space. Protonk (talk) 15:07, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• No In case of userspace drafts, please do not ever do anything to them, if you're interested to work on it (if inactive, otherwise you're stealing content), make your own copy. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 15:21, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• No Wikipedia has content because of the editors' sense of accomplishment. Construing WP:OWN broadly robs editors of that and is therefore destructive to the project. Chris Troutman (talk) 12:11, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments B1

• From DraftSpace? Yes, when it is ready
• From UserSpace? Sometimes. If the author is long absent and his intention can be divined, then helping the author is the right thing to do. If a draft is ready for mainspace, then yes. If the intention is to have the page deleted for not meeting the GNG, then no. If it doesn't meet WP:STUB or WP:N, then no. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:31, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• This question conflates far too many situations. From draftspace or userspace directly to mainspace, I broadly agree with SmokeyJoe. Moving an inactive author's draft into AFC is almost never the right thing to do, though, and here's why:
  1. If the draft is good enough to go into mainspace, either you should be able to assess that yourself, or you're not experienced enough to be assessing other people's work in the first place. Going through the extra step of AFC forces another editor to make that assessment, and then you're not actually accomplishing anything yourself.
  2. If the draft could eventually be good enough to go into mainspace if it got further editing, AFC doesn't make sense unless there's someone who's going to actively champion the article and get it to that point. If you're going to do that, just do it; there's no need for AFC. Otherwise, well, there are editors who patrol articles in the rejected AFC categories, but it's unfair and unrealistic to expect them to do that work on a six-month time limit - heck, Category:Articles needing cleanup from October 2007‎ is a bluelink. (This is compounded if you think typing {{subst:submit|authorname}} is too complicated and so you get all the automated AFC messages instead of the draft's author, to be immediately removed from your talk page but otherwise ignored.)
  3. If the draft will never be good enough to go into mainspace due to its subject matter, you should again be able to tell that, and review of G13s is inconsistent enough that AFCing in this case turns into a six-month-delayed speedy deletion. If a draft must be deleted, it should be done through the channels designed for that, which get proper oversight.
  4. Overall, AFC is a tradeoff where you get feedback on your draft in exchange for either an obligation to continue working on it or its eventual deletion. You don't need the first, you're not going to do the second, and you have no business imposing the third.

  There's other situations that meet the letter of this question besides "inactive authors' drafts" - I frequently require an author to go through AFC as a condition of userfying an article I've deleted, for example, if I think there's a COI or it's in the #2 class above - but that's not what the question, or this entire RFC, are about. —Cryptic 10:35, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

• Poorly phrased question if the intent is to use the contributed content to improve the encyclopedia, then work on an idle author's work, which was freely contributed by them to the project, can proceed without their ongoing involvement. Jclemens (talk) 06:32, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Should drafts be moved across namespaces or submitted for AfC without the author's explicit permission if it's fit to be an article (B2)

Support B2

• Support for all the obvious reasons. Why throw away the hard work of another editor just because their life moved on? As per WP:OWN, they do not have ownership of their userspace draft, and so any editor can improve it and move it to the mainspace. ~ Rob^Talk 12:15, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Not quite right.... We do allow a degree of OWN in userspace... 3rr does not apply for example. You don't OWN the topic (someone else can create their own draft on the same topic), but you do have a degree of ownership over the text of your draft.

Note that this limited degree of OWNership only applies to drafts in USER space... It does not apply to drafts located in Draftspace (Because Draftspace is designed to be communally edited, while userspace is designed to be individually edited, should the user so desire). Blueboar (talk) 14:32, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Please see my response above, which quotes text from WP:OWN. ~ Rob^Talk 14:49, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

• Support, provided the material meets mainspace standards including WP:N and the WP:Core content policies. The result need not be a stand-alone article - material may also be used (with due attribution) to improve an existing article. JohnCD (talk) 16:02, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Conditional support The problem is that I'm _still_ seeing folks moving things to mainspace and then them quickly getting sent to AfD. Still a potential WP:GAMING issue and those drafts should then be moved back to userspace rather than deleted. Otherwise, even if done in good faith, the net effect is the deletion of someone's userspace work when it was fine in userspace. Hobit (talk) 17:21, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
  • An example of such a move headed toward deletion can be found at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Wang_Dongma Hobit (talk) 02:40, 8 April 2016 (UTC)This was unsigned for a while, sorry. Hobit (talk) 02:40, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

I call bull on the unsigned allegation. That is a well referenced draft that happened to duplicate a 6 year old mainspace article under an alternate spelling of a name. I did not move it to mainspace to have it deleted. Legacypac (talk) 18:14, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

@Hobit and Legacypac: You are both wrong. The creator moved the original first and then recreated it again in their userspace and then began changing it around. I'd guess both are probably nonsense unless the sources are describing twins or something. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:41, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Legacypac, I didn't claim the move was done in bad faith. I'm saying that the effect is that the user's draft article could get deleted because of nothing they did wrong. And I'd prefer in that case the article be re-userfied (though that too could be easily subject to gaming by the person writing the draft having a friend move it?) rather than deleted as deleting it for being "almost good enough" seems WP:BITEY. And sorry I didn't sign the previous note. Hobit (talk) 02:40, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

OK, something weird is going on. Legacypac and I both think he moved it from draft space, but I can't find any evidence he did. No idea what's going on (I'd just assume I screwed up somehow, but if he thinks he moved it also, he probably did and I'm just missing something). Off topic, but if anyone has a clue what's going on, that would be great. Hobit (talk) 02:49, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

This is confusing for there are two similar pages that differ by a letter in the name. I found one in userspace that looked pretty good, lots of refs etc. I searched the artist's name, found nothing, so moved it to mainspace. Then someone AfD'd a mainspace article with a slightly different name (off by the first letter) and linked them. I was accused of moving the userspace version to delete it, which is absurd because I was not even aware of the alternative titled mainspace one. So I moved one version to main and the origional author moved another in to mainspace. Legacypac (talk) 08:01, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

• Absolutely, but only provided that this is done in a good faith attempt to create a valid article. Any Afd should strongly consider moving the page back to draft or userspace if it concludes that page is not fit for mainspace. DES ^(talk) 19:56, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• The author's explicit permission shouldn't be required for this, but it should only be done if the moving/submitting editor genuinely feels that the content is suitable for mainspace, and it shouldn't be done if the author actively doesn't want it moved to mainspace yet. Hut 8.5 21:13, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes, if clearly fit. If not clear, it may be adopted by an interested editor, but gnomes should not be instructed to move things at an unclear threshold. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:36, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes if another user wants to take responsibility for it being appropriate for the article space (i.e. only in a good faith attempt to create an article, as others have said above). If it's being moved from userspace, it should only be if the user is inactive and if the user returns with a valid objection, that objection should be considered. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 02:06, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes obviously the author submitted the work under an open license and they do not own it. Userspace doesn't grant any ownership rights either. We allow certain activities in userspace, but users don't own it.--v/r - TP 04:43, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes, so long as we're talking about stale drafts and absent users. Anyone should be able to adopt and improve a stale draft, regardless of where it resides and who created it. If it's suitable to be an article, then there's no question that it's appropriate to move to mainspace or submit to AFC. clpo13_(talk) 07:09, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes, of course. Stifle (talk) 08:12, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Only if the draft author has not been an active editor, for longer than the last year. See above for details. "Fit" is subjective.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:38, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• support move to mainspace only in this case. If someone has done the work to tell that a draft is ready and fit to be an article there is no use putting it into the AFC process, to cause this work to be repeated. Just put it into mainspace. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:58, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Support move to mainspace, not AfC or draftspace - If you've done the work to see it's a valid article, just mainspace it, don't bog down AfC and make someone else sign off on it too. Also, in the past, editors have tried to GAME AfC to accomplish backdoor G13 deletion. Since there's no benefit to AfC here, might as well just say don't do it. A2soup (talk) 11:03, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes (for either), but only for editors inactive for over one year. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 04:28, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes per common sense. The project of the project is to have articles. NE Ent 14:15, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes, but only in the case of clearly inactive users or the user is not response to repeated requests over a reasonable period of time. Drafts are not owned by their authors, but let's have a little professional courtesy here. Gamaliel (talk) 15:54, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Sure with the caveat that work found wanting after being so moved in good faith should be moved back rather than deleted except in extreme cases (attack, copyvio, promotion). Jclemens (talk) 06:36, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes to avoid wasting good work, but note that it would be polite to discuss it first if the original author is still active. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 06:43, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Conditional support If it seems that an user is active, maybe it's still a draft for a reason. Move it only if the user has been inactive for over a year. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 15:23, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes with the proviso that the editor wanting to promote to mainspace should seek advice from the author if they are still "active". Hasteur (talk) 21:26, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes, of course. It would be highly illogical to keep valid articles out of mainspace. — Omni Flames (talk contribs) 10:00, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
• Support. –BoBoMisiu (talk) 11:20, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
• Support, per common sense. APerson (talk!) 16:29, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Oppose B2

• Not if the draft-author is an active editor; see my comments in the "support" section (about inactive authors of drafts) in the previous question for details.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:39, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• No There's no "should" about this; it all depends on the situation. What we don't need is a one-size-fits-all policy for this. Andrew D. (talk) 17:35, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• question is badly framed but assuming we are talking about userspace, no you are free to make a copy and submit that with attribution, but why are you mucking around in someone else's non-policy violating userspace? I don't understand the impulse here. Jytdog (talk) 03:02, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• No, except for moving an inactive user's draft directly into mainspace, and even then only if you're willing to take some responsibility for it - as an absolute, rock-bottom minimum, wikification and a good-faith response to deletion challenges. A user who's even minimally active should be politely nudged on their talk page instead, and if it's "fit to be an article", you already know that it doesn't need to go through AFC. —Cryptic 10:47, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• In limited circumstances but usually no. Protonk (talk) 15:09, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• No As I explained earlier, users have to feel comfortable developing content at their own pace or they'll stop contributing. Chris Troutman (talk) 12:14, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments B2

• This is frequently a positive action. A concern, however, is that the draft will then be eligible for WP:G13 deletion if it is declined. Thus, this action may sometimes unintentionally be equivalent to deleting a good-fatih, non-problematic userspace draft. Per my support comment in A3, this action is always negative. So perhaps we can arrange for the draft to be removed from the AfC process if it is declined? A2soup (talk) 17:42, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

This is a conspiracy theory and not rooted in logic. There are many editors that patrol declined AfCs and improve them for main or at least edit them a little to prevent deletion until someone works on them. The path from stale userspace to mainspace is very tough because very few editors are looking at stale drafts in userspace. The path from AfC to mainspace is much easier because these pages are looked at and worked a lot more. If the draft has potential, any editor can look at the AfC comments, make the corrections, and send it on to mainspace or AfC again. Legacypac (talk) 18:10, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

I'm not making accusations of a conspiracy. I'm saying that this is something that can happen unintentionally, which makes it a problem. Do you agree that it is a serious possibility, even if no one is trying to get the draft deleted? A2soup (talk) 20:04, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

• "fit to be an article" would need to be explicitly defined. This whole concept leads to issues. What if the page is moved, we assume good faith of course that the user thought it was fit, then it is speedied or nominated for AfD and deleted under mainspace standards? The only way to solve this would be stating the pages must be submitted to AfC and as a special case are exempt from WP:CSD#G13. @A2soup: this is sort of along the same lines as you what you were talking about.—Godsy^(TALK_CONT) 20:01, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Must not fall into CSD#A criteria seems sound to me. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 20:09, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Should it be permissible to move userspace drafts which do not meet article content standards to mainspace in order to seek deletion (B3)

Support B3

Oppose B3

• Oppose. This is WP:FORUMSHOPping. Standards for drafts and user space are intentionally different from those for mainspace, and WP:MFD is the proper forum to discuss them. JohnCD (talk) 15:13, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose for all the obvious reasons. I slightly rephrased the question to try to be a bit more neutral. Hope you don't mind JohnCD. ~ Rob^Talk 15:37, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Point taken, but I have re-re-phrased - I intend this to include the mainspacing of obvious A7 or BLP-prod candidates. JohnCD (talk) 15:55, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

And I have re-re-re-phrased to take out the archaic phrase "in order to" because it grinds my gears. ~ Rob^Talk 23:05, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

@BU Rob13: archaic? I reach for my trusty Fowler's Modern English Usage, 3rd ed 1996:

"It is ocasionally claimed that to, rather than in order to, is all that is needed, and it is true that it is much the more commonly used of the two... There is clearly room for both constructons. It is hard to pin down reasons for the choice of the longer form. Some have claimed that it is slightly more formal. ...considerations of rhythm and emphasis."

I chose it deliberately as giving slightly more emphasis to the purposive nature of the moves described. However, people evidently understand what is meant, so I won't edit-war about it. JohnCD (talk) 22:28, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose - just like a recreation of a deleted article isn't covered by CSD G4, a userspace draft may not be mainspaced in order to delete it. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 15:59, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Strong Opppose WP:POINT violation - nothing should be purposefully placed in article space by an editor acting in bad faith, in this situation they are obviously not trying to advanced the encyclopedia for the readers. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:00, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose of course. Per above and my comments elsewhere. Hobit (talk) 17:24, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose Draft and userspace are NOINDEX'ed for a reason. Spurious moves out of them and into mainspace will result in search engines grabbing sub-par, and quite possibly false or harmful, content. Delete content in its location, under the procedures established for that location, or not at all. Jclemens (talk) 18:16, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Strongest possible Oppose - Moving drafts that are not ready for mainspace into mainspace in order to delete them is not only absurd and bizarre, but is offensive and serves no useful purpose. If this is done systematically (and I have seen charges that it sometimes is done systematically), the editor should be taken to WP:ANI and given any of a move-ban (mildest sanction) to a site ban. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:54, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• very strong oppose Not only should this not be permissible, but doing so should be grounds for a block for tendentious editing and disrupting the project. Doing so repeatedly should be grounds for a ban. DES ^(talk) 19:58, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose - Absolutely not. Standards regulating what can exist in each namespace are different by design. Moving a page and then personally nominating it for deletion is a bad faith action that attempts to thwart the already established community process of MfD.—Godsy^(TALK_CONT) 20:06, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Absolutely not. We have a process to delete pages in userspace. Some things can be speedy deleted under WP:U1, WP:U2, WP:U3, or WP:U5. If it doesn't fit one of those, bring it to WP:MFD. If you feel something should be deleted, but none of those processes apply, then work on building consensus to change those processes. -- RoySmith (talk) 20:30, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Strong oppose this is an abuse of process and an attempt to game the system. If you want to delete a draft then use the processes associated with drafts (MfD and the userspace speedy deletion criteria). Nobody should be moving content to article space unless they genuinely feel it is suitable for article space. Hut 8.5 21:13, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• of course not. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:38, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• No of course not — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 02:07, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• No, that's what WP:MFD is for. clpo13_(talk) 07:11, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Rather obviously not, but the concerns that MFD is too lenient on this need an airing. Stifle (talk) 08:13, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Obviously not. That would be bad-faith WP:GAMING.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:40, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose as this is like a speedy delete, without the policy to do it being approved by the community. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:00, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:POINT. Andrew D. (talk) 17:21, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• No .... We have MFD for a reason...., –Davey2010^Talk 19:58, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• no this harms WP during the time prior to deletion; cleaning out the basement by dumping everything in the front yard isn't pretty and doesn't help people find reliable information - it isn't good for the actual encyclopedia. Jytdog (talk) 01:59, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

• Actually, the harm lasts even after the page is deleted. The search engines are amazingly fast at finding new pages, and once they index them, they live on in the search engine caches for a long time. -- RoySmith (talk) 03:48, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

• Congratulations! You've just taken a page that was harming nobody and was almost impossible to find from the outside world and given it eternal life through mirrors and search caches. —Cryptic 11:11, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Of course not per common sense. NE Ent 14:16, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose. Take it to MFD. No reason to do anything else, and Cryptic offers a compelling reason why moving it to article space should never be done. Gamaliel (talk) 15:56, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose If it doesn't belong in mainspace, don't bring it there. If deletion is warranted, take it to MFD or bring it up in the relevant forum. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 06:44, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose what is this even doing in this RfC? Protonk (talk) 15:09, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Because folks have been doing this. In fact, that's what started this whole RfC I believe. Or at least what got me to notice the issue. Hobit (talk) 16:48, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose If this was always the opinion, why in the world didn't we action the thread at ANI. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 15:25, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose because WP:POINT. Hasteur (talk) 21:28, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose for so many reasons. This is just absurd, and as others have brought up, this WP:POINT violation. — Omni Flames (talk contribs) 10:02, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose. –BoBoMisiu (talk) 11:24, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose per JohnCD. Chris Troutman (talk) 12:15, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments B3

Where a userspace draft is moved to mainspace by a user other than its author, but is then found to be unsuitable for mainspace for reasons which would not apply in userspace, should it be returned to userspace rather than deleted? (B4)

Support B4

• Support, to ensure that the backdoor route to deletion is firmly closed. JohnCD (talk) 22:07, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Support conditionally. If it's clear that the nominator and/or the mover did so in bad faith, just move it back as per consensus above. If a move-war starts or it is not clear that the move was in bad faith, use AfD, but a delete outcome should be treated as userfy unless the reason for deletion is something serious like a BLP violation or copyright violation. In other words, please don't treat the consensus that will obviously emerge on this issue as your license to move-war. ~ Rob^Talk 23:08, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Support - When unsuitable content is moved in this manner it creates issues: deleting the content at AfD is the improper forum; any non-general and non-userspace speedy deletion is improper process. This proposal will ensure moves from the userspace to mainspace are only done in good faith, as the page content will be restored to the userspace anyway if the content is found to be unsuitable. However, this will be to difficult to track and enforce; it would probably require implementing another layer of things for administrators to check when closing AfDs and judging speedy requests.—Godsy^(TALK_CONT) 23:23, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes normally. If a copyvio or the like is discovered, that would be a reason to delete even in uderspace. Even if the mover acted in good faith, we should generally move it back if an AfD disapproves of the (recently) moved page. There might be occasional exceptions. DES ^(talk) 23:25, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes, and the page mover should be informed of the result and counselled on knowing what is suitable in mainspace. If everyone is acting in good faith, this will be a grey borderline issue, and one or two occurrences are not to be concerned about. Already we have seen this happen, and post-move-back to userspace, the draft was further improved and made suitable for mainspace. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:41, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

• Should a page moved to mainspace be so unsuitable that it is not even suitable for userspace, then the page mover should be doubly chastised for incompetence. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:55, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

• Support Definitely, I appreciate that JohnCD made this proposal, it certainly sets the problem aside. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 05:25, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Support - This just makes sense. If a userspace draft is deleted, it should be deleted as a userspace draft. If this passes, it would allay my concerns with some current practices. A2soup (talk) 05:33, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Support This would essentially be gaming the system to move articles out of userspace so they could be deleted under other CSD categories. Although I support cleaning userspace, this seems like a reasonable concern about gaming.--v/r - TP 05:41, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes in the absence of any particularly concerning issues (such as BLP violations, copyright violations, etc.). clpo13_(talk) 07:10, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes pretty obvious. Hobit (talk) 08:38, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes, otherwise it's a nasty WP:GAMING loophole. This is kind of pointless to ask anyway, since it's already standard operating procedure to userspace, upon request, anything at AFD that may be salvageable with more work, if it doesn't violate all-namespace policies/guidelines like WP:NPA and WP:NFT.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:43, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Considered for speedy deletes for some reasons like A7 then it should just be moved back. However for AFD of a page in this situation, both return to userspace or draft; or total delete should both be considered. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:02, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• yes since it shouldn't have been moved anyway. Jytdog (talk) 03:04, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes, most of the time but is there is a good reason it shouldn't have been in userspace in the first place, deletion might be acceptable. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 05:27, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes If one has made a mistake, it is safer to revert than to compound the error by digging deeper. Andrew D. (talk) 08:51, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes. If it needs to be deleted, it can be deleted at MFD. Gamaliel (talk) 15:57, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Of course and finally we have a really well worded question: if any of the reasons for deletion would have applied to the userspace draft, then of course we shouldn't put it back just to speedy or MfD it from there. Jclemens (talk) 06:39, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes as long as the user still wants to keep the draft. If deletion is warranted, the proper forum is MFD. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 06:46, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes Doesn't hurt anything. Avoids a potential trip to REFUND. Protonk (talk) 15:10, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes, that is assuming that the user in question still wants his/her draft. — Omni Flames (talk contribs) 10:03, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
• Support per JohnCD: "to ensure that the backdoor route to deletion is firmly closed". –BoBoMisiu (talk) 11:27, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes but this mustn't be interpreted as applicable to any other scenario other than (1) It was a draft in user or draft space, (2) another user moved it to the article space, (3) it is not appropriate for article space, (4) it is appropriate for user space (without the need for U5 or G11). If we're being specific about when it's ok for another user to move a draft, this shouldn't be an issue. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:03, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by administrators since 2006. (talk) 17:45, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Oppose B4

• Not necessarily. Consider the case of a promotional page created in userspace by a user with no other contributions and abandoned for a long time - years, perhaps. If it looks like an article, then move it to main space. If it's deleted then leave it deleted. Crap needs to be nuked, and we should not concern ourselves with bringing the right kind of shrubbery. It's reasonable for an active user to have some say in the process, but where a user is inactive there is absolutely no point moving it back to user space in the pious hope that one day it will somehow magically not be crap, or the user will, like Lig Lury Jr., one day return from lunch. Guy (Help!) 09:45, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

I am with you but it should be speedy-able per WP:U5 if it is promotional or a different user-speedy criteria if it violates something else... Jytdog (talk) 04:20, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

If a page is clearly promotional, it can be speedy deleted under G11 in any namespace. There is no needto move it to mainspace in the first place to delete it. If it is moved in error, but the consensus judges it too promotional to exist, that would be an exception to the rule created by this proposal, or it could be separately tagged with G11 and so deleted. Ther is no need to open the door to gaming the system to handle such pages. DES ^(talk) 21:54, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

I don't really mind either way, but it worries me that someone would move something to mainspace that they know is unsuitable. Happy Squirrel (talk)

• No, in part: While I agree that if it's not appropriate for mainspace, it shouldn't be automatically deleted, but because it was in mainspace, I don't think sending it back to userspace is the right action. I'd like to see it sent to Draft namespace (possibly with AFC on it) to try and get it ready for mainspace. Hasteur (talk) 21:33, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments B4

• By what method? Moving directly? Admin move? An AFD discussion that results in userfication? I'm prefer an AFD just to make sure this isn't a one-on-one dispute between the editor who moved it and the one who disagrees. We have the same issues with AFC pages being moved back and forth and the best resolution is either a WP:RM at that point or at WT:AFC but it's basically the same idea: discuss the matter among more people. I support the point of moving it back but I won't support page move arguing over it as that's bad enough elsewhere. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:59, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• As a practical matter, it depends on when it's found. If it's already gone through a full, non-contentious afd - which is supposed to assess the subject, not solely the current state of the article - before the original move is discovered, there's nothing to gain from undeleting and reuserfying it unless someone is willing to actively work on it and expresses a good-faith belief that it can be salvaged. This is the same standard we use to userfy any other article: if someone wants a deleted article someone else wrote and can't articulate a better reason than "deletion is wrong" or "I don't believe in notability as a matter of principle", they can and should be told "no". Any other time - if the afd is a borderline delete, or it's early in a landslide-delete afd, or it's prodded or (properly) tagged for speedy deletion - then yes, send it back to userspace, status quo ante. —Cryptic 11:26, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Should drafts with potential be moved from userspace to draft space by a user (other than the creator) who intends to improve the draft to mainspace level (B5)

The B-questions above all deal with moving from userspace directly to mainspace. I think that the scenario of moving from userspace to draftspace for further work is more plausible, or at least as plausible, and it should be clarified also. DES ^(talk) 16:14, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Support B5

• Yes as proposer. WP:OWN clearly establishes that no one owns any page on Wikipedia. If an editor in good faith notices a userspace draft with potential, particularity if the editor has been inactive for some time, there should in my view be no bar to moving it to draft space with the intention of editing the draft in an effort to get it ready for mainspace, and then to moving it to mainspace when it is ready, with or without an AFC review. The whole object is to build the encyclopedia, which is to get more valid articles into mainspace, as well as to improve the ones already there. Any policy or practice which blocks that fundamental goal is inappropriate. Posting text even to userspce means irrevocably licensing it under Wikipedia's free licenses. There is no good reason to force a good-faith editor bent on creating a valid article out of a draft to pointlessly repeat the work of drafting that has been done, provided that the existing draft has enough quality and potential to be worth building on, and that is an editorial judgement. Obviously this should not be mis-used in an attempt to WP:GAME the system, but then that is true of all Wikipedia policy and practice. DES ^(talk) 16:22, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes for the reasons given by DESiegel above. Semantically speaking, draftspace is a more collaborative environment than userspace and drafts should be moved there if a user is inactive. clpo13_(talk) 17:11, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes for the reasons above. This sounds like a good workflow for userspace drafts with potential as it allows some work before a move to mainspace. I think any reasonable objections to the move from the original creator should in general be respected, though. Happy Squirrel (talk) 17:37, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes to encourage editors to build stale drafts into mainspace material. ~ Rob^Talk 18:17, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• If the original user is inactive. —Cryptic 18:27, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes, per Cryptic. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 22:38, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Sure if done in good faith and with material improvement of what was moved from userspace to draft, why not? Per the points above, it's no one's private work, and draftspace is an ideal place for things which are going to be improved upon in the near future. Jclemens (talk) 06:41, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes if user is inactive. Impolite to do this to active users without prior consultation. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 06:47, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Conditional support Only if user is inactive for over a year. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 15:27, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• The only-if inactive thing is important I'd say. Hobit (talk) 16:46, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Support without condition, though I think giving the user 6 months in their own userspace is reasonable. Hasteur (talk) 21:34, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Support, whether the user's inactive or not, WP:OWN still applies. — Omni Flames (talk contribs) 10:03, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Oppose B5

• Strongly Opposed - First there is no need to move a page from userspace into draftspace without permission, since you can write your own draft on the topic and move that to draftspace instead. (Note: if the user tags it for AFC... That counts as permission). Second, as I have repeatedly stated, DES is wrong in his interpretation of how OWN applies to Userspace. We actually DO allow a limited degree of WP:OWN in userspace. For example, a user can request that another editor (or editors) not leave messages on their talk page, or otherwise edit in their userpages. Not only are such requests allowed, but sanctions can apply if the other editor refuses to abide by this request. Clearly, a limited form of OWN is allowed in userspace. Finally, I don't understand the logic behind saying that we should respect an active editor who asks that their draft not be moved, but remove that respect if he goes away for a year or two. NO... If anything we should give more protection to users who are not around, since they are not here to say whether they agree to the move or not. Blueboar (talk) 22:33, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose. Either is it good enough to be moved to mainspace and completed in ten minutes, or it is so incomplete that the editor interested in the topic should take the references and start again. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:57, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose Unless the creator is dead, I see no reason to usurp their draft. Chris Troutman (talk) 12:16, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments B5

• If a draft in userspace has potential but is not ready for mainspace, and if much of the existing text is good enough to be part of a mainspace article, but more is needed to make it ready, then why on earth should a prospective adopter have to do the work of redrafting when perfectly good text sits handy released under a free license? Blueboar, SmokeyJoe, I don't understand your objections, and it seems that most others here don't share them. I don't see any policy or guideline behind them. To be clear, i am not saying that such a draft should be moved and worked on only if the creating editor is absent, only that if the editor is present, it is courteous to notify him or her, and at least listen to any objections. But an absent editor can't present any objections, and the mere fact of posting to Wikipedia invites collaborative work on and reuse of any and all such text. So consent should be presumed in the case of an absent editor. DES ^(talk) 23:47, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Because USERSPACE is the one location where we do allow editors to work non-collaboratively (solo) if the wish to. It is precisely when a user is absent and can't object that we should respect that right to work solo. Blueboar (talk) 00:57, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Your own computer, blog, or website is where you can work solo. Maybe your main userpage here (if you don't violate policy there). Everything else is community space. Legacypac (talk) 21:02, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Wrong. Project space is community space, DraftSpace for drafting. In userspace Wikipedians have considerable leeway and are responsible for their own userpages. As long as you don't violate policy (eg WP:NOT). Note that WP:N is not policy in usserspace. Making use of draft material in userspace is justifiable if it improves mainspace. The few editors "cleaning" other Wikipedian's userspace has no advantages to mainspace, and offensively strong disadvantages to community collegiality. Briefly active SPA accounts that dumped junk, U5-able, do not count as Wikipedians. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:34, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

What should be done after a draft expires (C1)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

This proposal depends on the result of this RfC.
Possible actions: Delete, Keep, Blank, Userfy

If the page is in userspace

• Ignore it unless it violate WP:BLP or WP:POLEMIC, and trout any editor that goes trolling through other user's space looking for pointless drama. NE Ent 14:17, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Anything that violates WP:BLP or WP:POLEMIC or WP:NOT, and not fixable, should be deleted, or blanked if not offensive, without regard to being a draft or not. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:59, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• If it's not so bad that it requires deletion (attack, copyvio, promotion), I see no point to deleting it. Jclemens (talk) 06:42, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Ignore it unless it violates the above bright lines (which were already recognized). Protonk (talk) 15:11, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Agree with NE Ent in all details. Hobit (talk) 16:43, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Ignore unless it requires deletion for BLP, copyright, advertising reasons. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 17:59, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

If the page is in draftspace

• Userify it to principal author's userspace. NE Ent 14:18, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Again, agreeing with NE Ent. Hobit (talk) 16:43, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments C1

• This is one of those areas where I think it makes sense to divide the discussion into two parts: Draftspace and Userspace. I think it makes sense to have an "expiration" date for drafts in Draftspace (since that is a space for collaborative work, there comes a point when we have to say "either this can not be improved, or there is no interest in improving it")... But I don't think we should have any "expiration" date for drafts in USERSPACE. A user should be allowed to take as long as he/she wants to work on his or her draft, and get it to a state where he/she is happy with it. Blueboar (talk) 18:21, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• I don't think ther should be a concept of an "expiration date" for a draft, and doubly not in userspace. If a draft is being worked on in good faith, it can stay a draft for 10 years. If a draft is 'stale' (a concept I wish to banish) but there is some reasonable chance (say at least 2%) that it will eventually become an article, then there is no good reason to delete it unless there is something actively harmful in it. Only if it is "stale" And it is evaluated by a group of editors in an MfD discussion to have effectively zero chance of ever becoming a valid article, and has no other useful purpose for the project, should it be perhaps deleted. Obviously copyvios, BLP violations, and irredeemably promotional pages should go much sooner. DES ^(talk) 20:19, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• I don't think of pages "expiring". We have many Wikipedia:Dusty articles in mainspace. Even G13 isn't an expiration date so much as a review and check date. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:01, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Old drafts should be assess for potential. Drafts without potential should be deleted under some to-be-written D* CSD criteria. Drafts with potential should be retained. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:43, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Triage them. Well formatted ones go to mainspace to sink or swim on their merits, crap ones get nuked, edge cases can be userfied if the drafting user is active and wants to keep it. We have a pretty low bar to restoration of deleted drafts and a metric fuckton of crud to wade through, let's not tie ourselves down with process just for the sake of it. Guy (Help!) 09:47, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Assuming this only applies to draftspace, since "userfy" doesn't apply to something already in userspace. Triage, mostly per JzG. If user is active, userspace it. If not, keep it if it's a viable stub o better, delete it if it's something that would inspire the average person to prod or AfD it on sight.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:45, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• this seems to be about draftspace and it is unclear why it is under discussion here - Jytdog (talk) 03:04, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

The RfC cited at the top is actually exclusively about userspace. Since this section is predicated on the result of that RfC, which seems to be trending against the idea of a expiration date at all, it seems odd to have have this section here in the first place. It's odd. A2soup (talk) 06:35, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

• This section should not have been opened since it is predicated on a positive result in an RfC that will almost certainly return a negative result. I am accordingly closing the section and recommend that the !voters so far (NE Ent, SmokeyJoe, Jclemens, Protonk, Hobit, and Patar knight) express their positions on dealing with stale drafts either in the expiration date RfC or, preferably, the A and B sections of this RfC, if they have not already done so. A2soup (talk) 18:19, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should all drafts marked for AFC be moved to draftspace (and out of userspace) (D1)

I am starting to realize that at least some of the confusion and disagreement over what to do with "stale" drafts stems from the fact that we have AFC nominations in both Userspace and Draftspace. This should be explored further, so I ask it as a separate question.

• leaning towards "Yes" - I don't think AFC nominations belong in Userspace. USERSPACE is for solo work... and when you mark a draft for AFC, you are requesting community review, comments, and edits. That is what DRAFTSPACE is for. So, logically, all AFC submttions should be located in Draftspace. Blueboar (talk) 13:41, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• We have to be careful about deletion GAMEing here. If AfC drafts are automatically moved to draftspace, and draftspace ends up having more stringent deletion standards than userspace, a determined editor could tag non-deletable userspace drafts for AfC, move them to draftspace per this, and then acheive deletion there. There needs to be a clear proviso that other people's userspace drafts should not be submitted for AfC. If you think it's good enough for mainspace, put it there yourself. If you think not or are not sure, leave it alone (or bring it to MfD as a userspace draft). There is no reason to kick it to AfC (which is already chronically backlogged) except to accomplish backdoor deletion. A2soup (talk) 17:29, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

valid point... The only person who should be allowed to add an AFC tag to material that is in your userspace is you (because you are the only one who can say "I now want others to work on my draft.")

This does not prevent someone else from creating there own draft, and submiting that to AFC... It simply means that no one will take the version that is sitting in your userspace and submit it to AFC without your OK. Blueboar (talk) 18:43, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

When an AFC draft is reviewed, it is typically (if feasible) moved by the reviewer to draft space, so that it is no longer in user space. I see no need to prohibit draft originators from starting in user space, knowing that their drafts will be moved into user space. (A draft cannot be moved from user space to draft space if the subject/title is unknown because the draft is too poorly written, or if a draft with that title is already in draft space (a duplicate).)

Then the only change is a shift in when the AFC is moved into Draftspace .. Instead of the reviewer moving (on review) the submitter moves (on submission). It could even be an automated process.

The idea is to more clearly define the difference between drafts in Userspace and those in Draftspace ... As I see it, Userspace is for solo work, while Draftspace is for communal work. In Userspace, the expectation is that others will not make edits (including moves) without explicit permission. In Draftspace, on the other hand, the expectation is that others will make edits. You can create a draft in your Userspace, and work on it solo... but if you want others to work on it (which would include AFC submissions) you should move it to Draftspace. Blueboar (talk) 20:10, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

I see no need for this prohibition either - I was advocating a prohibition on submitting drafts to AfC that you did not have a significant stake in writing. Your options for a draft in another user's userspace should be (1) move to mainspace (i.e. act as an AfC reviewer yourself), (2) adopt (if stale), (3) ignore, (4) blank or categorize, or (5) delete. Submitting for AfC is not helpful and opens the door to backdoor (or even accidental) G13 deletion. A2soup (talk) 23:42, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

• yes this makes sense to me. if you are intending to create an article now and are using AfC it should be in draftspace to help manage the AfC process in a more orderly way. Jytdog (talk) 03:07, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• yes as long as no one is adding an AFC tag to someone else's article and then moving it. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 05:30, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• No I think the present practice of moving pages more or less automatically out of user space to draft space when they are tagged with the AFC template is a mistake, particularly if someone other than the creator did the tagging, or if the creator has not been informed of the effect of such tagging. There is no reason why AfC cannot operate on drafts in userspace -- it has in fact done so on quite a few occasions. I also disagree with Blueboar's distinction above: IMO userspace is not just for solo work. The difference is in fact largely a product of historical accident, not of design. DES ^(talk) 15:57, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Easy enough to fix... Don't allow others to tag userspace drafts for AFC... Only the draft creator. Do that and there is no issue with moving the draft to Draftspace. Blueboar (talk) 19:47, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

I think a user ought to be able to mark his or her own draft for AfC without that being taken as a request to move it into draftspace. Actually it is precisely when someone else marks a userspace page for AfC (not at the user's request that I think the case for moving to draftspace is strongest -- and I do think this should be allowed, and even encouraged, see proposal B5. DES ^(talk) 21:41, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

• Probably. Using the AfC process and the AfC tag implies the intention of both working with others and asking for their help. Possibly, only experienced users should be allowed to draft in userspace, now that we have DraftSpace. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:02, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes as long as it's tagged by the original author or with their consent. AFC is a community process. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 17:07, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes, and it's traditionally the view at AFC that if someone has submitted content to AFC, then it should be moved to the Draft namespace once the AFC review has been completed. Hasteur (talk) 21:36, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Question: how long is the typical lag time between initial submission and review? Blueboar (talk) 22:00, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

For a considerable while, the lag has averaged about two weeks or less. Worldbruce (talk) 05:11, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

@Blueboar: The lag is a function of the size of the AFC backlog. If there are hundreds of submissions, an initial review could take longer. If there's only 200 total submissions, it could be reviewed the same day. Hasteur (talk) 12:36, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

• Yes, makes sense. Might as well have them all in one namespace. — Omni Flames (talk contribs) 10:05, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes. AfC is a community process, and draftspace is the true community area for building articles. ~ Rob^Talk 18:25, 16 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes Subject to the condition that writer added the submit tag and released it for review, But I am too lazy to do the move myself. So if I restore a file to userspace or Wikipedia talk space, I will probably just leave it where it come back. Also if others move the page, the writer(s) should be informed. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:53, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Discussion (of the proposals generally)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

• I think it important that people responding to this RFC distinguish between drafts located in Userspace vs drafts located in Draftspace. The two namespaces serve different functions (and to my mind should have different standards.) Blueboar (talk) 11:33, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

That applies to new drafts, but draft space is relatively new. I would support hooveirng up userspace drafts into draft space and having one process. Guy (Help!) 09:49, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes I agree with blueboar a zillion percent. Most of the questions above are gmisches about draft and user space and those are different animals, with different answers. Jytdog (talk) 03:09, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

• I've considered userspace drafts and Drafts: as drafts. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 11:46, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

And that commingling is part of the problem. We have two namespaces in which to place drafts for a reason... Drafts in Draftspace have been submitted for community editing... And thus they should be held to a different (I think stricter) standard than drafts in Userspace (which are not necessarily submitted for community editing). Blueboar (talk) 12:47, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

I understand Draft space is a fairly new thing and most of the stale userspace drafts predate Draft space. Everything submitted to Wikipedia is for community editing and always has been. It's part of the license. If you don't want something edited you should find an alternate outlet for your writing. Legacypac (talk) 15:47, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

No, there are no different standards, if that's happening, it's a problem with us. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 13:55, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Userspace drafts should not be treated the same as DraftSpace drafts. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:47, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Want to chime is that there is a distinction. For example, one could argue that an incompetent draft in draftspace should be deleted for WP:TNT reasons, so that someone in the future could make a more competent one. Also, userspace is often considered a sort of "sandbox" or "scratch pad" - I have never seen draftspace considered that way. A2soup (talk) 18:05, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

• If you ready Wikipedia:Draft it is pretty clear that a draft is a draft regardless of where found. Legacypac (talk) 18:23, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

@Legacypac: Please bullet your comments, I've said it enough already. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 19:42, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

• @A2soup: You've been putting your text below the notice line. Please be more careful. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 19:42, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, not used to such well-structured RfCs. A2soup (talk) 20:01, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

What can I say? I've always been a stickler for perfection and order (even when there's no need of it), maybe one of the reasons I don't have a girlfriend. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 20:12, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

• I don't see a huge difference between drafts in userspace and drafts in Draft space. Note that I didn't' say no difference, however. There's a certain tacit understanding that people have more freedom and latitude in their own userspace than they do in draft space, but it's more of a gentleman's agreement than a law. But, as I said above, if we're strictly talking about stale drafts, i.e. drafts which haven't been touched in years, in the user space of people who haven't made any contributions for years, then the distinction ceases to have any value. -- RoySmith (talk) 20:38, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

@RoySmith: I would say that since the draftspace is a "common area" of sorts, there is some small value to cleaning it out just for the sake of cleanliness. Is there any such value in cleaning out userspace? And, if not, why should it be cleaned? That's the difference to me at least, do you not see a difference on that point? A2soup (talk) 20:44, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

I see very little (perhaps zero) value in cleaning out user space just for the purpose of cleaning up. I was thinking more about promoting stale drafts to mainspace when I wrote the above remarks. -- RoySmith (talk) 20:58, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

I don't know what "clean up" is referring to. People want to scroll through PrefixIndex without seeing page? I feel like it's just used to criticize any attempt to look through anyone's userspace drafts. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:07, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

@RoySmith: So then do you see a distinction between userspace and draftspace in terms of when drafts should be deleted? A2soup (talk) 02:08, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

• The biggest difference, RoySmith, in my opinion, is that not everything in UserSpace that looks like a draft is a draft. UserSpace is also for notes, records, things only obliquely related to possible new content. In UserSpace you can keep your notes, and it can be extremely offending to find them tampered with. In DraftSpace, this is not the case. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:47, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

I absolutely agree with that. I thought it was so obvious, it didn't need stating. A draft is something which, ostensibly, will evolve into an article. Not every page in userspace is a draft.

• Some editors including User:Blueboar say that it is important to distinguish between drafts in draft space and drafts in user space. I partly agree and partly disagree, having to do with the different uses of user space. I will try to explain. As an RFC reviewer, I review AFC drafts in user space and AFC drafts in draft space. Not only is there no distinction between them, but AFC reviewers are encouraged to move AFC drafts from user space into draft space. The difference is between AFC drafts (anywhere, but with a preferred location of draft space), non-AFC pages in user space, and non-AFC drafts in draft space. I also don't see a distinction between AFC drafts in draft space, that is, drafts that have been submitted for review at least once, and non-AFC drafts in draft space, drafts that are being developed presumably for review and eventually intended for mainspace, but that have not yet been submitted for review at least once. The real distinction is between non-AFC pages in user space, and drafts in either user space or draft space. If that is what Blueboar means, then I agree. Otherwise I request a clarification. Non-AFC pages in user space can have various uses. They may be essays, for instance, or they may contain analyses of data, or they may be editing tests. Editing tests are supposed to be done in sandboxes, but a sandbox is just a user subpage. (Very often sandboxes contain draft articles. These are treated no differently than other draft articles in user pages. Normally the sandbox draft is moved by the reviewer into draft space. A sandbox that is an editing test rather than a draft is not moved.) The real distinction is between drafts, whether or not in draft space, and non-AFC user subpages. Drafts are subject to G13 expiration after they have been submitted for review at least once. I see no reason why other user pages should have expiration dates. For instance, essays, whether in user space or in Wikipedia space, do not expire. I agree that there is a difference between drafts in any space, and non-AFC pages, such as essays, in user space. Is that what Blueboar is saying, or something else? Robert McClenon (talk) 01:51, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

• Agree. I would prefer to delineate between (1) Drafts in DraftSpace; (2) Drafts in userspace; (3) Non-drafts in Userspace.

(1) has the G13 process, and I think it should apply to every draft in draftspace, AfC tagged or not. However, there should be a way to mark a draft as a quality draft with potential to prevent its auto-deletion. Probably for rare obscure topics.

(2) what to do with these is debatable. Some say leave them where they are. I support moving them to DraftSpace if the user is long inactive.

(3) These pages are either valid notes by established Wikipedians, or NOTWEBHOST violations by non-contributors, and almost never anything else. The first set should never be touched, please let's respect each other, barring actual problems, and the second can be deleted under U5. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:26, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, non-drafts in userspace may not be notes. For example User:DESiegel/Tools I would not call notes. i used to have it as part of my user talk page, but found a better way to get at it easily. It is, however, a non-draft intended to assist work on the project, and so is in the same general category as note pages are. DES ^(talk) 22:06, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Of course. Notes are just one of many non-draft examples common in userspace. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:05, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for this Joe. I agree with your organization of the distinctions. Here is how I think each should be dealt with (in all cases, I am assuming that the draft does not violate BLP, COPYRIGHT, etc)

1) Abandoned Drafts in Draftspace should be reviewed and either promoted to Mainspace, deleted, or adopted by an active editor and userfied.

2) If the draft is marked for AFC... It should not be in USERSPACE... Move out of userspace and into DRAFTSPACE for community editing, or retain in USERSPACE but remove from AFC process (remove AFC tags templates and categorisation). If the draft is not marked for AFC... And It does no harm (no BLP or copyright issues, etc.) Leave it in userspace, or adopt the topic - write a new draft in your own userspace or start a new draft in Draftspace for consideration AFC.

3) Leave alone.

The key is removing AFC from Userspace. Blueboar (talk) 12:36, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

• Just dropping a note that it'd be nice if someone updated the table every 12 hours. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 05:58, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

I just removed it, before I saw this comment. I can't imagine it serving any purpose before 30 days are up. It just encourages a poll mentality, which isn't positive. A2soup (talk) 10:55, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

It helps maintain count. The power is in the numbers, whether we admit it or not (unless there's the obvious blah-blah). Then again, I did add the notaballot template. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 15:29, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

• Draft space was created largely because IP editors have no userspace, and cannot create pages in mainspace. If any of the many proposals limiting editing to registered and logged in users had passed, draft space would probably never have been created. In my view, the rules for draftspace and for drafts in userspace should not be very different, and there is no good reason to move drafts from userspace to draftspace (while the original creator is working on them). It is true that working in draftspace implies more of an invitation to collaborate, but really, posting anything to any Wikipedia space is an explicit invitation to collaborate. On the other hand, if a draft has been abandoned but has potential, any editor who intends to work on it should be free to move it to draft space and edit it with the intent of eventually having it ready for mainspace. The original creator should have no veto on such a move, as per WP:OWN. DES ^(talk) 16:05, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
  • I'd disagree slightly. Technically, anyone is free to veto a move. It isn't the first mover who is correct. The response is then to discuss whether or not the page should be moved, via a WP:RM. The fact that the creator opposes it is important but not significant to the matter. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:13, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
    • Anyone can object to a move, and in most cases anyone can revert a move. But to veto a move is to have a binding say that it will not happen, even if others think that it should. No one has that right. If there is consensus to make a move, it will happen, evne if the original creator of the page objects. DES ^(talk) 22:01, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

The problem is that an editor who is absent (say on a multi-year Wikibreak) can't object to the move. Blueboar (talk) 13:06, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

So? There's no way to tell a "multi-year Wikibreak" from "I'm done with the project". We had a decade-old-draft argued about at MFD "because the editor didn't put a "retired" tag on their page". They can't complain if their mainspace version is edited mercilessly because they aren't here. They couldn't complain when we raised WP:V and raised standards, they couldn't complaint when WP:BLP passed and stuff got deleted, they couldn't complain when attacks pages were added. We can't actually run the project if we sit around waiting on volunteers to possibly return. Again, why is that everything must be held up because "ONE" editor (the content creator, let's say) hasn't voiced an opinion? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 20:04, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

But nothing IS held up"... As I have repeatedly said... Another user can start their own draft on the topic and move that into Mainspace if the wish. Your concern might be valid if having a the draft sitting in inactive person X's userspace some how prevented us from creating a Mainspace article. But it doesn't. Active user Y can easily create a draft in his userspace and promote that version to Mainspace instead. There is no reason to touch person X's draft. It can be ignored until user X returns. And if he never does return ... His draft does no harm. Blueboar (talk) 21:56, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

User:DESiegel thanks so much for providing that historical context about draft space! Makes sense. Coming at this as I have, without being in the flow of that history, it always seemed to me that all of AfC stuff should go through draft space, just process-wise. I wonder if adding the AfC template could automatically move the article to draft space... that would be useful. Jytdog (talk) 21:24, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

I think there are some technical problems with that, and some practical problems. Often a move from userspace to draft space involves a rename as well, particularly when the userspace page had "snadbox" in the name. That cannot safely be done automatically.

As I say under the D1 proposal, there is in my view no good reason why AfC reviews cannot be done while a draft is in userspace, and no good reason to insist on automatically moving pages under AfC to draftspace. Originally AfC drafts were lodged in the Wikipedia talk namespace, but that was a kludge because IP editors could create pages in that namespace. DES ^(talk) 21:47, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

I totally hear that. I don't know if trying guide (or require) articles in AfC to be in draft space would help the people who work AfC, would be just bureaucracy or otherwise unhelpful, or irrelevant. I've left a notice at WT:AFC so the people who work on that stuff are aware and can comment here if they like. Jytdog (talk) 22:04, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

• Broaden the base of the pyramid One of the problems we have in Wikipedia is increasing user contributions--many of which are utterly useless and never suitable for mainspace--while not degrading mainspace quality. Fact is, we have more people who want to write their own stuff than who are willing to take others' work and improve upon it. Sad to say, in the 10 years that I've been active on Wikipedia, I think the deletion wars have ended up chasing off most of the editors/revisors/expanders, and we have an imbalance of both deletionists/perfectionists and creators left around. I think a full analysis of Wikipedia article quality would find a power law relationship between quantity and quality: For ever 10 started drafts, there is probably one article worthy of mainstream; per 10 of those, one will achieve GA; per 10 of those, one will go on to be featured content. If we have to have 900 rotten drafts to get 90 articles, 9 GAs, and 1 FA, then let's get those drafts! Let us not gripe about disk space or bandwidth or difficulty of searching, but rather be happy that people are still trying to find things that Wikipedia has not yet written about. Leave the drafts, even if they suck, unless they're outright harmful--and, thankfully, we have a well-established set of criteria for determining what is harmful, and being old, abandoned, and inferior content simply isn't on it. Jclemens (talk) 06:51, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

I don't think there's any difference in interests. We just have stuff on the lowest hanging fruit already made. Even now, we G13 delete hundreds of pages a day and yet the volume of new editors isn't dying off. If it's not so harmful to delete drafts that haven't been edited in six months that started today, which we've done since 2013, why is so harmful to delete another draft that was also created in 2013 that hadn't been edited in two years? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:59, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Drafting in mainspace

• Serious drafting on notable topics with reliable sources should be done directly in mainspace. Referring newcomers to write for the first time on new topics in draftspace or userspace makes more work that it is worth. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:55, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Beg to differ, to an extent. If it can't survive AfD (which involves much more than GNG) then it should not be saved in mainspace. If it's a spinoff of another topic, draft it in that parent article's talkspace, or in userspace, wikiproject-space, or draftspace. If it's in mainspace it must be a viable article or it'll be subject to deletion. AfD it very costly of editorial productivity, so we should not do things that are apt to fire it up for no reason. But of course noobs don't understand this. We shouldn't harangue them about it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:49, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Have you seen what happens to newcomers' articles at AfD? Even if it ends up kept, it's always a thoroughly unpleasant experience for them. Drafting in userspace or draftspace should be encouraged for newbies until they become comfortable with our guidelines, which I would imagine takes a few months on average. A2soup (talk) 10:53, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

What's wrong with drafting in mainspace? enwiki is a work in prgoress! Take a look at this page: Special:PermaLink/2814496. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:49, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

I just mean as a practical matter to avoid unnecessary biting. I wish it wasn't like that - I would love to say that newbies could safely draft in mainspace. A2soup (talk) 15:43, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

I very strongly disagree with drafting in mainspace. Very few experienced editors can compose a properly sourced article that will survive CSD and AFD in article space (mainspace) in a single edit. New or intermediate editors almost never can compose a properly sourced notable article in a single edit. Editors who are confident that they known when they have completed a minimally sufficient article should create it in user space and then move it into mainspace. Encouraging editors to draft in mainspace will just result in the drafts that are not yet ready for mainspace being nominated for speedy deletion or deletion via discussion. Drafting new articles in article space, even by experienced editors, is not a good idea. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:26, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Newcomers who don't know what is required of a mainspace article shouldn't be encouraged to write drafts. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:56, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

But surely a whole slew of potential editors come because they want to write an article, not improve existing ones? We should let them get involved, and userspace drafts are a great way to do that - they can't possibly disrupt the encyclopedia (until people get all wound up about "processing" all their drafts, that is). I'm not saying we should openly encourage drafting, but surely we should let them know it's an option and not discourage it, no? A2soup (talk) 23:38, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

It is far easier to find an article needing improvement than to find an missing notable topic. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:09, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

• mainspace is not for drafting!! ack. Jytdog (talk) 03:07, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

• Yes, mainspace is where articles should be started. This is important for several reasons:

1. It's the wiki model of collaborative editing as documented in our editing policy. It is a fundamental feature of this model that pages are built up from nothing in an incremental way rather than being used to publish polished work by a single author.
2. Our policy WP:OWN quite firmly indicates that pages do not and should not have a single author/owner. Encouraging private drafts is contrary to this policy.
3. Most of our processes such as recent changes patrolling, deletion and search are based upon mainspace. Introducing other workspaces causes confusion and complexity, as we see in the RfC which is already quite byzantine and too long. The fundamental nature of our project is that it's the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. This open door policy means that we should keep all our processes short and simple per the KISS principle.

Andrew D. (talk) 09:10, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

You and I bumped heads on this sort of thing, didn't we Andrew! If the first draft is actually something like an article, sure. But a first draft that looks like this, which I found in mainspace made by a conflicted editor and moved to draft space, should not be anywhere near mainspace, in my view. Jytdog (talk) 10:23, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

• Should not be in mainspace until sufficient sources are included to support notability. Further enhancement beyond that could be done in mainspace, draftspace, or userpage, depending on the preference of the author(s) per WP:NOTBURO. NE Ent 14:21, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Agree with user:NE Ent. I think drafts should be started in userspace or draftspace at least until they have a couple decent sentences and a couple decent sources. Nothing fancy, just enough for a new page patroller to properly decide whether to nominate for deletion or not. I think the problem is that people should absolutely not feel that they need to create an entire start class article before moving it. I think a good thing would be to emphasize that this is an incubator. Premature babies go in incubators to ensure their survival. Toddlers do not belong in incubators. Happy Squirrel (talk) 16:17, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Without sufficient sources included to support notability, initial drafting is probably WP:OR. Sources are everything. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:08, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Agree, but this ship has sailed. Protonk (talk) 15:17, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• Most admins won't delete a page under CSD#A criteria in it's first 10 -15 mins. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 15:31, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Side question: What happens if there is more than one draft on the same subject in the same userspace?

Just a question ... it is quite possible that an editor could have more than one draft versions of the same article in their userspace. For example, the editor could have written two drafts in order to compare different ideas on how to organize the material (the order of sections etc.) ... or he could have written two drafts to try out different ways to format a list (say a chart vs. a bullet pointed list). When this happens, which draft gets moved? And what happens to the other draft version? Blueboar (talk) 20:49, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

If the draft is moved to mainspace: move the best one and merge with any useful content from the other draft and redirect the other draft. If the draft is moved to draftspace: move all to "Draft:Title (1)", "Draft:Title (2)", ..., "Draft:Title (n)", in my opinion. --Stefan2 (talk) 20:58, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

• If not obvious, try asking the user on their user_talk page. In someone else's userspace, do not begin by assuming incompetence on their part and unfailing wisdom on your own. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:54, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

SmoakyJoe, what would you suggest when the editor isn't around to ask (i.e. the two drafts both qualify as being "abandoned" or "stale"). Blueboar (talk) 00:16, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

• Has anyone actually seen this, or is it purely hypothetical? What I have seen, plenty of times, even from novice editors, is an edit in-place and then a self-revert when the old version turned out to be better. —Cryptic 00:38, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I have had two drafts for the same article going at the same time in my own Userspace (Not currently, but I could see myself doing it again). That's why I asked. Let's say I get pulled away from editing Wikipedia for a long time... how would anyone else know which version I preferred (i.e. Which version I would have moved myself, had I not been called away). Blueboar (talk) 01:12, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Then I'd suggest treating them the same as any other pair of duplicate articles. If and when the original author returns, and he thinks you picked the wrong one, he's unlikely to get reverted when he changes the version in mainspace. —Cryptic 15:18, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes, see what is going on with Category:Draft-Class EastEnders articles. There's often multiple drafts and drafts being merged together since everyone knows that there will only be one mainspace version. Whichever version is "good enough" to pass mainspace is the first part, then it's all about getting the good content all together. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:55, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.