Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 177

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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (policy). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

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I propose that an article being tagged for over a decade as completely uncited should be a reason for deletion

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lane sharing Chidgk1 (talk) 19:16, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Well, a link to a deletion discussion isn't a policy proposal. Even if it were - we shouldn't delete notable items because they are uncited. If you see such a thing, why not cite it yourself? It's a different matter if there are no sources. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:21, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Please explain how any so-called "article" can be characterized notable when there are no sources indicating so. 104.247.55.106 (talk) 13:05, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Articles aren't notable. Subjects are. Just because we have a poor quality article on a subject doesn't make that subject non-notable. And we don't (and shouldn't) delete articles on notable people. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:17, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Evasive. Obviously what was meant was that subjects of articles are notable. So, how can one tell that subjects are notable if there is no proof? Because Wikipedia says so? 104.247.55.106 (talk) 13:22, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Please don't talk to me like that and have a read up at WP:N and our general notability guidelines. If an article is written poorly for a long time and lacks citations, we don't just delete the article. Either we go to WP:AFD/WP:PROD for items that are not-notable (ie, that sources do not exist), or we should improve them by adding sources. That's what a WP:BEFORE search is for. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:32, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

At least one should make sense. The notability guidelines presume notability according to so-called "reliable sources". Above it is posted ... items that are not-notable (ie, that sources do not exist), which is exactly the counter-argument. Can't have it both ways. Deleting an unsourced piece of rambling prose is not hurting Wikipedia, on the contrary. It also does not matter in the end. Anything on Wikipedia can be found elsewhere if one really wants to learn. In other places, and with proper sourcing to boot. 104.247.55.106 (talk) 13:55, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

As multiple people have said, we draw a distinction between “no sources exist” and “no sources have been cited (yet)”… so the question is: are there sources that could (should) be cited, but have not (yet) been cited? If so, the solution is to add them to the article, not to delete the article. Blueboar (talk) 14:40, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

And that distinction (not there vs. not yet) is obvious to readers? In another tack, is there a furious pace (relative to the need) of proving the wikitext claims of uncited/poorly cited articles? If so it has escaped attention. 65.88.88.194 (talk) 16:06, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand. All content should be sourced, and we should tag and fix articles that are poorly referenced. But, there is also WP:NODEADLINE for fixing them. It's not great that we have items unsourced, but that is a reason to work through our backlogs and find suitable references for items. Deleting items because they are poor but notable isn't really helpful. As for readers, they don't really care if an item is notable or not, just whether or not we have an article on that subject.

On a separate note, we do request that if you have an account that you remain logged into it unless there are specific reasons in place. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:53, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

This is going in circles. How is one to tell that an item is "poor but notable" if there are no references, or no reliable references? If a subject is notable, it should be relatively easy to prove it is so, by supporting references. If notability cannot/will not be demonstrated, the article may be a piece of fiction and doesn't belong.

The only thing one can reasonably assume is that readers are looking for accurate information. The distinctions made here are meaningless to them, and so far as they perpetuate the status quo, a disservice. All these endless discussions are constantly tackling problems, but never solving them - except by often producing yet another "guideline" and moving on to the next item, in rotation.

Your request was noted. Do discuss the argument, not the participant. The fact that you are using an account is immaterial, and has nothing to do with the weight of your current argument. We are all anonymous, whether so-called "logged-in" or otherwise. Imbuing anonymity with an artificial personality and a history is not a concern of mine. 172.254.222.178 (talk) 12:12, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

How is one to tell that an item is "poor but notable" if there are no reference? Well, most of us doing by looking for sources, and not just for little blue clicky numbers served up on a silver platter in the article. You figure out whether a subject is notable with search engines and libraries, not by looking at what previous editors have done and assuming that their work represents the best possible sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:46, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

The Lane sharing AfD failed because you neglected WP:BEFORE. It had nothing to do with the rationale "uncited for over a decade". -- GreenC 14:51, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Having engaged with the completely unsourced articles heap recently, I can attest that nearly all of the articles in my subject areas are fairly readily sourceable with the aid of the Wikipedia Library, often from bullet-proof sources such as Oxford encyclopedias. In the early days of the encyclopedia, there was no requirement to source anything and often editors didn't, but their information nearly always came from somewhere. Espresso Addict (talk) 20:26, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

• Being tagged as “unsourced” for a long time is certainly a red flag that proper sourcing (ie sources that discuss the topic in reasonable detail) might not exist, but we can not make an automatic assumption one way or the other. We have to do a proper WP:BEFORE search.

Also, rather than deleting the article, consider merging it with a related article, or moving it to DRAFTSPACE so editors can bring it up to minimal standards and then move it back into MAINSPACE. Blueboar (talk) 20:50, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Moving a decade-old article to draftspace is not supported by policy. There is no action less likely to result in improvements. Espresso Addict (talk) 21:44, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

+1. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:46, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Forced moves to draftspace are always a disaster. If the creator or major editor requests it, that's one thing, but not like this. --Jayron32 14:03, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Why would you merge something that may well be total bullcrap (without sources there's no way to tell) into an article? --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:11, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

It's really simple: if it doesn't have sources, add some. If you can't find some, PROD or AfD. No special rules or exceptions required. It doesn't matter how old the article is. -- GreenC 14:29, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Not the community's view - Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lane sharing has rightly closed as keep. Just out of interest, do you think anything in the article is actually wrong? Johnbod (talk) 14:45, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

• FYI - I note that a lot of the sources that discuss Lane sharing conflate it with Lane splitting. Are these topics distinct enough for two articles? Perhaps a merger? Please discuss at Talk:Lane sharing. Blueboar (talk) 15:29, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

  I think this type of article is part of a larger problem that many editors feel that "every topic must have its own article", and do not readily consider more comprehensive articles, merging multiple closely related topics (such as here, what feels like would be a glossary of driving terms) and using redirects to make sure topics are still searchable. A paragraph or two bare of sources inside such a more comprehensive article that is otherwise reasonably sourced is far less of a concern than these source-less standalone articles. Masem (t) 15:40, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

  Yuck. Had I know of the AfD, I would have voted to delete. If the topic really is notable, somebody should write a good article about it based on WP:RS. In the meantime, this is just a bunch of WP:OR. Maybe articles like this were acceptable 15 years ago, but I would have hoped our standards would have improved by now. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:55, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

  [re Masem]: It's not just "every topic must have its own article" (though I agree that's an element); fitting one topic into another article can be tricky and verge on original research unless multiple sources directly address the way the topics fit together. It's easier to have an article on lane sharing (using sources that talk about lane sharing) and another on lane splitting (using sources that talk about lane sharing) than to try to work out what the interface between the two topics might be. Espresso Addict (talk) 17:17, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

I agree that at some point an article that has been taagged as needing citations has had its chance and should be deleted. How long? Not sure, but a decade is definitely too long. If it upsets you enough to make you go out and find actual sources, great. But until you come back with them, the page is no better than fanfic and should be removed.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 18:17, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

I understand why something tagged as unsourced for a decade is problematic, but as others have noted here, the article shouldn't be deleted solely because of a lack of sources. Do a WP:BEFORE, take it to AFD, consider adding sources yourself. Everything is a work in progress here. — Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 18:34, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

@Chidgk1I would suggest a voters guide after the AfD for Lane sharing, that the ones who vote keep also add the RS for it. And to @Johnbod, if the AfD were on a subject which was not common sense in some English language culture, the whole article would be considered WP:OR and deleted. That an unsourced article was kept even without added sources... I don't have the words for it.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 19:33, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose - While it's not entirely clear whether this is a proposal for a new speedy deletion criterion or if it merely intends to establish "uncited for more than a decade" as policy compliant rationale for deletion in discussions at AFD, I would oppose its addition in either regard. Our policies are sufficiently robust in these regards and no allusion to lessor requirements wp:before pursuing an article's deletion would serve to improve Wikipedia. This is not an argument for keeping articles on non-notable topics, it is an argument for maintaining the current level of wp:before work that is minimaly expected to have been performed.--John Cline (talk) 19:39, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. We add sources or we delete because there aren’t any decent ones, not because something has been around for ages. Mccapra (talk) 12:42, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
• The argument at AfD should always be about whether quality sources exist about a subject, not about whether the article as currently written cites quality sources. Mz7 (talk) 20:38, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
• Comment As you can see at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Articles_lacking_sources there are still tens of thousands of articles which were tagged as unreferenced over a decade ago. Chidgk1 (talk) 12:35, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

No surprise there about the old ones, but the newer ones bother me. A handful will get through NPP but it looks like hundreds of unsourced articles a month must be being created by autopatrolled editors. Worrying. Maybe we should focus on stopping any more new ones getting added to the pile rather than mopping up the old ones? Mccapra (talk) 12:46, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

It looks like those are categorized based upon when they were tagged, not necessarily created. For example, Farm museum was created in 2007, but not tagged until September 2021. I checked ten random ones on the first page of Category:Articles lacking sources from September 2021 and all were created in 2014 or early. — Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 13:01, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict)And? What you are suggesting is to delete tens of thousands of articles with no vetting for being unsourced, rather than trying to find sources for items on notable subjects. I agree it's a good thing to try and reduce, but deleting on mass is not the solution. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 12:48, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

I don’t propose it is a reason for speedy deletion but a reason for deletion. Chidgk1 (talk) 13:18, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

No, it's a reason to improve the article. If you try looking for sources (WP:BEFORE) and nothing is found that supports notability or veracity, then take it to AFD. The existence of aging maintenance tags should *not* be the sole reason used to delete something. — Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 13:28, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

It’s actually a bit more complicated than that… When you come across an article that has been tagged for a long time, AND have done a reasonable WP:BEFORE search, THEN it is appropriate to mention BOTH facts when nominating. The long standing tag can add weight to the fact that your BEFORE search came up empty (presumably others may have searched as well). But the tag should not be the ONLY reason to delete. Blueboar (talk) 13:45, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

+1 Totally agree. — Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 14:39, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose as official guidance; if you find such an article, try WP:BEFORE and if you can't find anything yourself, WP:AFD also exists. If you can't be bothered to look or take it to AFD, then feel free to do nothing. No one will do anything to you for just letting someone else take care of it. --Jayron32 13:07, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
• IMHO, articles without sources should not exist, and editors who grievously fail to perform WP:BEFORE when nominating (and in some cases even participating) in WP:AfD should be sanctioned. Now that I've made my diatribe, on a practical level Oppose, because common sense dictates that if something is obviously notable, we shouldn't be making arbitrary rules to delete it. A pox on the houses of both the editors who create sourceless articles and those who want to make arbitrary rules to punish them, to the detriment of the encyclopedia. Jacona (talk) 13:26, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
• I don't care enough about that particular article to look for sources myself. However proposing deletion(not speedy deletion) of an article is very easy and quick nowadays. I suspect a lot of readers on mobile are unlikely to notice the "unsourced" tag. If they then read duff info it may reduce their trust in other articles. Chidgk1 (talk) 14:26, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

If the community is going to support keeping unsourced articles, an incentive for adding sources to unsourced articles (which at Lane Sharing was not done) would be helpful. An unsourced articles backlog drive for example or if it would be possible to nominate a formerly unsourced article to DYK, I assume several of them would be worked on.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 21:11, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

It's a lot more common than you think. For example 180 (video game) was unsourced when it was created in 2007 and remained that way until sources were finally added in 2017. It took 10 years to get 4 sources, and the article mentions two more reviews without citations that can probably be located sooner or later. Had the article been deleted the day before the sources were added, it would be gone now and likely never recreated. 207.229.139.154 (talk) 14:19, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

But what if it had turned out to just be something somebody made up back in 2007? Then we would have been lying to the reader for 10 years. I find that a much worse proposition than the possibility of deletion leading to a permanent lack of an article. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:14, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Having done some work on the completely unsourced articles heap (there are 135,520, fwiw) I have not found a single hoax, nor anything with obviously fundamentally incorrect content. Generally the information in areas I'm familiar with turns out to be verifiable. Espresso Addict (talk) 15:52, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

It's worth noting that, whilst a good argument, there's nothing stopping sourced articles being complete hoaxes without checking what's in the sources. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:58, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Lee's correct. The Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia includes many pages that list references. Bad citations were a thing before Wikipedia existed. Consider some of the more (in)famous definitions:

Proof by ghost reference:

Nothing even remotely resembling the cited theorem appears in the reference given.

Proof by forward reference:

Reference is usually to a forthcoming paper of the author, which is often not as forthcoming as at first.

If people were doing this in peer-reviewed journal articles before Wikipedia (indeed, before the internet), then there's nothing inherent about a little blue clicky number that will stop them now. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:55, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose As mentioned above WP:AFD is more than sufficient to deal with these. IMO this seems to be a way to avoid WP:BEFORE. Lee Vilenski is correct that sourced articles can be complete hoaxes. User:Rhododendrites/Chaney is one of the most extraordinary examples that I ever saw of that fact. MarnetteD|Talk 16:12, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
• I would counterpropose that an article 10+ years without a source should be speedily moved to draftspace, with a notice to the page creator. BD2412 T 04:47, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
  • I would oppose the counterproposal because it makes this an even more hopeless mess. Jacona (talk) 18:44, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

  and they'll just end up deleted in six months. Garuda3 (talk) 19:49, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

  I would also oppose this counterproposal. I am curious in one regard, however. To those who feel this improves Wikipedia, or similarly: that our readership is overly vaunerable without such a change, why would you wait ten years before acting? It seems that if these articles are as problematic as feared, they would have been so ten years ago. --John Cline (talk) 09:56, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

  John Cline, I agree. While it is not ideal for an article to not have a source, to automatically determine a course of action is to close our eyes to common sense. We should either improve it or use the tools already at our disposal to deal with it properly. — Jacona (talk) 14:28, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

  I also oppose the counter proposal, for the same reasons I oppose the main proposal. If you come across an article like this, spend some time looking for sources. If you find them, add them to the article and it's no longer a problem. If you don't find any sources, nominate it for deletion and it will cease to be a problem when the discussion is closed. Moving it to draftspace doesn't help anybody. Thryduulf (talk) 15:07, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Preventing people from making user pages of indef-blocked Wikipedians

Simple proposal, lock the "create" function of user pages tied to indef-blocked users behind admin, that way possible socks can't remake the user page and cause chaos. This is my first proposal, so apologies in advance if it's not up to snuff. The Shamming Man has appeared. Sham me / Where I've shammed 17:22, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Why? We don't generally impose technical restrictions without a clear reason. Is this an actual problem? * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:26, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Well, not yet, but it seems possible for a second sock and/or meat puppet to go in and re-make a User page with the same information, and make their user page redirect, which sounds chaotic. I'm just prepping for possible chaos. The Shamming Man has appeared. Sham me / Where I've shammed 17:32, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

What about a user who is just adding a missing {{Banned user}} or whatever appropriate banner that might have been missed? Is the problem that is coming going to outweigh this usecase? Terasail^[✉️] 17:35, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

That would be a special case to take up with the banning admin in that case. The Shamming Man has appeared. Sham me / Where I've shammed 19:35, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Pointless. What you've just described would then make it even more clear whom the sockpuppet was and get a block. There are also legitimate reasons why a user page might be created after a block - such as times where a user has been WP:SELFBLOCKed, for instance. A "solution" looking for a problem. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:52, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Newbies can't edit other editor's User: pages. This has prevented a lot of lost comments (meant for the User_talk: page) and some vandalism. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:30, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

WP:BLP has an RFC on the inclusion of denials in BLPs

WP:BLP has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. DFlhb (talk) 03:15, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

There is also a more specific RfC, on the use of ABOUTSELF sources for rebuttals/denials here. Additional input would be helpful. Newimpartial (talk) 03:39, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Seems that we have two rival RFCs… not a good way to establish consensus. Blueboar (talk) 21:06, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Both RFCs were started without prior consensus on their scope or wording. One ran into an impasse (with editors disagreeing on what the options would actually mean if applied), and the other seems to have sputtered out. I've started a discussion to workshop a new RFC, with proper consensus on its scope & options, that would subsume both RFCs above. Everyone is invited to join us in workshopping it; the outcome of this future RFC may have very wide-ranging effects for all BLPs, so it's important that it reflects a wide consensus. DFlhb (talk) 21:40, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Draftify things, or improve-in-situ

Note for newcomers to this thread: The ANI discussion linked in the first line is now here. PamD 07:34, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

I am opening this as a discussion-place following yet another big dispute arising at ANI [1] concerning (1) whether recently-created articles that still lack adequate sourcing should be draftified; (2) and if so, how long should be left between their creation and draftification as grace for the original editor to make a cup of tea and continue with their work? Is it acceptable to write articles in main-space directly, with the inevitable consequence that for a period, main-space contains an imperfect article? Related to this is (3) the question of whether poorly-sourced articles from the past should be deleted, draftified or merely tagged as in dire need of sourcing, and (4) the question of whether a likely-true-but-unsupported edit should be reverted, or tagged as needing a source.

My viewpoint is that this is a fundamental clash between two important concepts in Wikipedia. On the one hand, we believe strongly that all information in Wikipedia should be reliable, and therefore we want reliable sources. On the other hand, it has always been accepted that Wikipedia is a work in progress, and that it will always improve: we write articles on the understanding that they will not be perfect, and others will build on our work and improve it. Poor can become Good via Mediocre.

This clash leads to a lot of arguments at ANI, but more importantly, to lost editors, editors who leave the project in frustration, or editors who lose the will to edit in main-space because it's a lot harder than piddling around writing proposals at the village pump. I think it would be very helpful if we could have some community debate on the relative merits of deletion/draftification versus tagging/improvement in main-space, perhaps leading to some better guidelines on when each is appropriate. Elemimele (talk) 16:31, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Poor can become Good via Mediocre, but a text without basic verification is not an article but a draft. At least the notability of the article's subject has to be verified. Editors who create a new article always read the following sentence on their screen: "Before creating an article, please read Wikipedia:Your first article." I am not sure that those who are unable to read our relevant policies before starting an article are able to add value. Borsoka (talk) 17:12, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Editors who create a new article always read the following sentence on their screen: "Before creating an article, please read Wikipedia:Your first article." ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 19:12, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, I do not understand your message. Try to create a new article and you will read the text on your screen: this is the first sentence above the editing box. Borsoka (talk) 02:35, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Banner blindness is a thing. Just because it's displayed on the screen doesn't mean anyone ever clicks the link and reads it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:34, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

• I think the elephant in the room here is that currently almost all draftifications rely on a degree of IAR. There is no clear policy basis for the majority of them. And so when one person says "that draftification has no basis" and the other says "but it made the encyclopedia better", it's possible that they're both right. But it's not a great status quo. Some parts of the project run fine on IAR and common sense. Deletion policy and anything related it tend to not be one of those parts. Perhaps we're overdue for formalizing draftification into something more akin to CSD. (Consider more niche draftification scenarios that are currently entirely IAR, like WP:NFF fails.) -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 17:20, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

  I agree, in spirit, with the things said and the sentiments carried thereby. As to the letter, I wish only to say that IAR is a misnomer in light of a process with no formal rules to ignore, and offer my opinion, that: a codeifyed ruleset defining appropriate draftification of main space pages is (more than missing) badly needed. --John Cline (talk) 08:19, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

• More in line with the specific query, currently the official or official-ish rules on time before permittable draftification is either 15 minutes or 1 hour. I don't think it should become too long, but we could expand it to 4 hours without significant issue (CSDs still apply, though A7 and its ilk perhaps should still wait). Nosebagbear (talk) 17:28, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
• I waiver on this myself. Sometimes I think draftification is a great idea, sometimes I think it's a terrible idea. It think it's a good idea for some articles and some editors, and it's really hard to know before doing it which is which. I'd like to see it used less, but I still want it to be a tool in the box. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 19:22, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
• This is a good discussion to have. Because of __NOINDEX__, I'm not quite as concerned about subpar articles in mainspace. If it's not CSDable, and it's not something super controversial that will attract gobs of page views, just leave it for a couple days. I usually leave a talk page message in this case, and sometimes it ends up with the article consenting to a draftification so they can work in peace (e.g. User talk:Mitch199811). Ovinus (talk) 20:15, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
• I agree with Tamzin that we lack a specific policy or guideline about draftification. We do have Wikipedia:Drafts but that is an essay and I agree with much of it while disagreeing with some of it. I know that many editors may disagree with my view of this, but I believe that all unreferenced articles, even those written one minute ago, violate our core content policies. By their very nature, they violate Verifiability because the reader has no way to verify the assertions. They violate the Neutral point of view because our articles are supposed to summarize what a range of reliable sources say about the topic, and an unreferenced article reflects the point of view only of its author. They violate No original reasearch because an unreferenced article reflects only the personal knowledge of its author. We have personal sandbox space and draft space for a reason. Those spaces allow editors to develop acceptable encyclopedia content at their leisure, which is six months for drafts and indefinite for personal sandboxes. I believe quite strongly that content should only be added to the main space of the encyclopedia when it arguably complies with the core content policies, and an unreferenced article by definition does not comply. I understand that that this style of article creation was probably necessary in the very early days of this encyclopedia, but the project is 22 years old and we are at the point where new article quality is much more important than new article quantity. I have never written an unreferenced stub in main space and would be ashamed to do so. I do not think other editors should be permitted and implicitly encouraged to do so. Cullen328 (talk) 00:56, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
  • A zero-tolerance approach like that would be very alienating, especially with the vague and aloof user talk templates in common use. Ovinus (talk) 04:21, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
    • Ovinus, how would draftifying alienate any editor who is truly here to write articles that comply with our core content policies? Such editors would have the opportunity to improve the draft until it complies with core content policies. Draftification is not deletion. If editors determined to ram and jam non-compliant articles into the encyclopedia right now are alienated, then I consider that a beneficial thing in every way. If they reform their thinking, they can return at that time. Cullen328 (talk) 06:22, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

      The message draftification sends is "your content is not welcome and has been removed". If the author of the draftified article doesn't get the memo and continues to make a good faith effort to improve the draft, only to see its proposed article status passed over for months or repeatedly rejected over increasing demands that it obey alphabet-soup requirements, the message becomes "we will make you go away by wearing you down with bureaucracy". How could that not be an alienating experience? —David Eppstein (talk) 06:38, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

      (edit conflict) That's not what it's like from the newcomer's perspective. She joins this MMORPG of sorts with some excitement and trepidation, and then gets interrupted mid-edit, justified by a (clearly semi-automated) message that doesn't even address what specific problem her article has, or give suggestions for improvement. Frustrating. Also, is the right advice to the creator of a near-WP:A7 candidate that is clearly never going to be notable, "please keep working on this draft meets WP:GNG, and press Submit! for a review"? No, it should be, "please find a different topic to write on", or, "please read Notability in a nutshell before continuing to create articles", or "I'm sorry, you aren't good enough with English for this site; please find the Wikipedia in your own language", or, "hey, check out WP:WIR or WP:JAPAN". Anyway, the damage caused by a poor article in mainspace being seen by a handful of people (mostly NPPers, and only a few random readers) over a few days is less than the permanent deprivation of a potentially prolific contributor. Ovinus (talk) 07:07, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

    That's a great argument for fixing the problem with user talk templates and then coming back to that approach. We could require that drafitification also requires a message to the creator explaining the issues with the draft in detail. Lurking shadow (talk) 06:24, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

    I agree. The draftification message is far more WP:BITEy than the act itself. Ovinus (talk) 07:07, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

• The problem is that draftification fails to distinguish two classes of new articles by relatively new editors: (1) spammers, paid editors, and self-promoters and (2) enthusiastic and potentially valuable contributors who have not yet written and edited enough articles to have a firm grasp of what is needed in the way of notability and sourcing in a new article. The new page patrollers are so overwhelmed with (1) that they feel forced to draftify new content far more quickly and indiscriminately than the draftification process actually specifies, but this has the effect of biting and driving away (2) and leaving us with fewer productive contributors in the long run. Stricter enforcement of delays on draftification and on the too-often-ignored guidance to patrol from the back of the queue, not the front, might help. What is needed is for the contributions of people in class (2) to stick around long enough for them to show up on new-content reports so that, at least in some cases, more experienced editors can take the new content in hand and fix it up to the point of being keepable. Instead, it vanishes so quickly that nobody ever sees it, as does the potential contributor who has been turned into one of the crowd of people on outside forums complaining (correctly) about how hostile Wikipedia is. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:33, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

• The biggest change that we can easily make is to change the templated messages use when something is sent to draft. For example having a specific "Hello, as the article that you created does not yet have any references we have moved your page to draft where your page can be worked on without having to worry about any issues you might have." Especially if it also has easy to use links for getting help. I also think that having consistent messaging from the NPP and AfC would be aa good thing. Gusfriend (talk) 06:40, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

  But that would be a lie. What draftification actually means, most of the time, is "Hello. We have moved your article to draftspace because we think it should be deleted but it doesn't actually meet our requirements for speedy deletion. Instead, we are going to make any attempt to move it out of draftspace so bureaucratic and sisyphean that we hope you will give up and let us delete the draft six months later." —David Eppstein (talk) 06:48, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

  Dang. Right on the spot (except last twenty words). IveGoneAway (talk) 14:49, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

  How is getting a draft out of draftspace "bureaucratic"? Autoconfirmed users can just click "move" at the top of the page... Whether the info on how to do this is accessible and understandable enough is a different question, and, if this doesn't already exist, I do think there should be quick instructions on moving to mainspace in the draft editing platform itself. Maybe even two "publish" buttons, one for draftspace and one for mainspace, with the latter being greyed out until the user is AC. JoelleJay (talk) 22:07, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Very few editors I've encountered realise that they are allowed to move articles out of draftspace themselves. Many many editors stuck in unproductive AfC loops hit autoconfirmed way back, yet the reviewers rarely if ever tell them that they could simply publish it themselves. Espresso Addict (talk) 23:12, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

I agree, but that's not really an issue of how draftspace operates as much as it is a problem with our instructions and overall UX. JoelleJay (talk) 02:18, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

I like the two options for publishing which @JoelleJay has suggested. On that we could think a bit more at the RfC on mass-created articles.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 01:19, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

• I would like to scrap draftspace. It was a good idea, but it fundamentally does not function as anything like what it was intended to be, whereas "improve-in-situ" is the tried-and-tested formula that got us where we are today. But I don't think that's going to happen any time soon. As for what we can do now, I think Tamzin hit the nail on the head: we need to overhaul WP:DRAFTIFY so that we have clear and specific criteria for when an article cannot be in mainspace, that do not contradict each other or the established deletion policy. And most importantly, we need to communicate those reasons to the creators of the article. The situation we've come to in the last few years, where solo new page patrollers can arbitrarily decide an article is "not ready for mainspace", leaving the creator with only a canned edit summary and jargon-filled template message to try and decipher why, is untenable, and I dread to think how many potential editors it has driven away. – Joe (talk) 07:09, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

  To a large degree, we do have "clear and specific criteria for when an article cannot be in mainspace": our speedy deletion criteria. To me, it follows that draftification should specifically depend on an article's vaunerability under that criteria where draft space offers a clear safe haven. Best regards. --John Cline (talk) 10:53, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

  Joe, you've hit the nail on the head here. If you make a formal proposal to scrap draft space I will certainly support it, but I'm afraid I don't have the time or the energy to propose it myself. The problem seems to be that nothing tried on Wikipedia seems to have clear success (and so failure) criteria attached to it, so every change that is made becomes permanent. This leads to a great reluctance to try any changes. I'm sure that if such criteria had been proposed for draft space when it was first tried out it would have failed them. And "not ready for main space" must be about the most wishy-washy subjective criterion we have, even beating "significant coverage". Phil Bridger (talk) 18:01, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

  +1. I'm under no illusions about how difficult it would be, but I'd like to scrap the draftspace entirely. Anything that needs to be outside of the mainspace for further development can go to userspace, exactly like we normally do for a WP:REFUND. And when "not ready for mainspace" means "I don't think this is a notable subject", that should be handled at AFD, not by moving the page to draftspace. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:46, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

  +1. Here's a frustrated user who was unsuccessfully trying to publish Draft:Daniele Santarelli since February. In the meantime, someone else has created Daniele Santarelli (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) in the mainspace, and the subject has won the world women's volleyball title as a coach. But that still was not good enough for the AfC crew, so no wonder the last user's message was "fuck you all". No such user (talk) 09:13, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

  Let's dissect this one a bit more. The first draft the user submitted in February contained 4 refs: 1) a press release from the Croatian Volleyball Federation (obviously not independent of its members and the leagues it governs); 2) a press release from the Volleyball Federation of Serbia (ditto); 3) newspaper coverage of his victory that is primarily quotes from him with only a few independent sentences from the author that are directly about the subject (not SIGCOV); and 4) a blog post (fails RS). This was correctly declined July 8 with the comments:

  This submission's references do not show that the subject qualifies for a Wikipedia article—that is, they do not show significant coverage (not just passing mentions) about the subject in published, reliable, secondary sources that are independent of the subject (see the guidelines for sports persons and athletes). Before any resubmission, additional references meeting these criteria should be added (see technical help and learn about mistakes to avoid when addressing this issue). If no additional references exist, the subject is not suitable for Wikipedia.
  
  Absent a volleyball-specific notability guideline, notability must be established per WP:GNG, which requires significant coverage in multiple independent and reliable secondary sources. Arguably none of the sources cited meets this standard.

  The user then resubmitted the draft on July 11 without adding any references, and this was correctly declined by a second reviewer, who left the note

  There is a problem, the same problem, with all the references except https://hos-cvf.hr/2022/01/18/hrvatski-odbojkaski-savez-nije-produzio-ugovore-s-izbornicima-reprezentacije-santarellijem-i-zaninijem/ whcih can be consiodered to be about Santarelli. The others are announcements pretty much the same announcement three times. We call this churnalism and it adds no value to verification of notability LIke DoubleGrazing I can't find a particularly useful sports notability to guide you. But have a look at WP:NATHLETE which covers coaches. It ought to prove a useful model

  This review was even laxer than it should have been, as the one source it highlights as acceptable is definitely not due to being primary and lack of independence.

  The final submission, on July 20, included a few new references: 5) a piece of SIGCOV in RS Y; 6) his profile/stats on his club's website (not independent); 7) a two-sentence announcement from the same newspaper as (3) (not SIGCOV, and does not increase the total number of SIRS cited); 8) a passing mention in a volleyball magazine (not SIGCOV); 9) a passing mention in a sports outlet. This is halfway to meeting GNG, but still isn't there.

  However, I do think AfC severely dropped the ball at this point as it was not reviewed again until the day after someone else created an (also poorly-referenced, non-GNG-demonstrating) article in mainspace. If it had been reviewed earlier, more guidance could have been given on finding GNG references. The submitter is fully justified in being frustrated with AfC, that was a pretty shitty thing to have happen. But that's a failure of AfC, not of draftspace, and by this point the submitter was well past autoconfirmed and could have put the article in mainspace themselves. JoelleJay (talk) 21:51, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

  JoelleJay: But let's dissect that correctly declined from the reader's perspective: Women's volleyball is an Olympic sport; Serbia women's national volleyball team were the reigning world champions at the time, and (relatively unknown) Santarelli has replaced the legendary coach Zoran Terzić. There's no fucking way that a guy who comes to coach a world champion team in an Olympic sport is not (real-world) notable, and nobody gives a fuck that the submitted article by a new-ish editor did not satisfy {{shrubbery}} required by Wikipedian arcane policies and even more arcane interpretations. If a statement about a new national team coach by a major national volleyball federation is not WP:INDEPENDENT enough to warrant an article, then that policy (or its all too common interpretation) is seriously fucked up. Yet the editor was not aware of the navel-gazing policies, the reviewers did not know squat about real-world importance of the subject, and as a result the readership was left without an article that we ought to have had.
  There's a huge disconnect between draft editors (unaware of our arcane policies) and the reviewers (ignorant of many real-world matters). In an academic world, you will get your article peer-reviewed by subject matter experts who would have substantial knowledge to approve its existence. But in Wikipedia, you don't get any sort of subject matter experts at the first line of defense, so the articles just get stalled forever. Had the article had a test on an AfD, it would certainly be kept or improved, but we never got to that point. The system is broken. No such user (talk) 13:48, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

  Our notability and RS rules are not "arcane", they're necessary to prevent articles on subjects people think "must be notable" based on fandom or COI or whatever. As @Robert McClenon pointed out below, these types of article submissions are very common. The problem with those subjects is that if they don't have coverage in RS, we can't write an NPOV article on them--a situation that can have very real, harmful consequences in addition to degrading the quality of the encyclopedia. And organizations like sports confederations are never independent of their members: they have legal and financial relationships with them and therefore their coverage of members will not be neutral. JoelleJay (talk) 16:00, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

  Whatever. Again, you're explaining Da Rulez to me, when I'm trying to explain that a blind algorithmic application of those, combined with a BITEy bureaucratic approach has led to a catastrophic result: Wikipedia not having an article on an important subject, and a frustrated good-faith user leaving in disgust. As an experienced user, I can find several sources that would satisfy Da Rulez, but the newbie apparently could not. I acknowledge that Da Rulez are there to prevent an inflow of spammy promotional articles, but the one in question obviously was not one. At the time of second decline [2], the article contained a clear claim of real-world importance In the summer of 2018 he took the position of head coach of the Croatia women's national volleyball team, a position he held until the end of the 2021 European Championship. During that time he won two silver medals in the European league, held in Varaždin and Ruse. sourced to Croatian Volleyball Federation (I suppose that was most convenient for the user to cite). Declining publication of an obviously significant achievement due to being sourced to an insufficiently WP:INDEPENDENT source is just wikilawyering, of the "not my fucking job" kind. No such user (talk) 08:02, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

  I'm not arguing that AfC wasn't a shitty experience for this user, and I would support making it clearer to new editors that they don't have to go through AfC once they're autoconfirmed. It's very unfortunate the submitter ignored the instructions in the first decline asking for more SIGCOV sources and just resubmitted three days later with the same deficient references. I think that was what caused reviewers to avoid the draft afterwards, even though a quick look at it would have shown citations partially meeting GNG were added. Perhaps an automatic summary of the edits (like ref tags, net bytes of prose added) between latest decline and resubmission would help AfC volunteers prioritize which ones to re-review.
  
  

  That said, this user chose to go through AfC, which explicitly does not consider "claims to significance" sufficient for acceptance (If what is written in the submission meets the notability guidelines, but the submission lacks references to evidence this, then the underlying issue is inadequate verification and the submission should be declined for that reason. Notability is a higher standard than lacking an indication of importance or significance) and does not directly enjoin reviewers to do the work of searching for notability-affirming sources. Treating "being head coach of X", sourced to a reliable but clearly non-independent website, as grounds for article approval is literally why like 1/6 of all bios were on football players, something so blatantly incongruous with the purposes of a general encyclopedia that we had a gigantic RfC on NSPORT to deprecate all presumptions of athlete notability. So while it would have been nice if reviewers had recognized such an achievement as probably corresponding to SIGCOV, expecting such valuations by reviewers is piling even more subjectivity onto the already subjective process of assessing GNG. JoelleJay (talk) 22:39, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

  I would add that you appear to be arguing for notability by association. The notability policy states: "If appropriate sources cannot be found after a good-faith search for them, consider merging the article's verifiable content into a broader article providing context." The footnote (7) to that sentence includes: "... articles on persons only notable for being associated with a certain group or event may be merged into the main article on that group or event." I think that applies to the above case. Donald Albury 16:50, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

  No it does not. The issue here is that no one involved knew how to find "appropriate" sources, and there is apparently a wild disparity in definitions of "appropriate". No such user (talk) 08:02, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

  Is Triboo Media "a blog" or "a WP:NEWSBLOG"? I don't know. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:48, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

• Also should draftifications automatically land up going through the AfC process, or should they merely be moved to draft space? If someone's writing in main-space, and comes back from a tea-break to find that their article is in draft space but they get a genuinely friendly, collegial message explaining what's happened, they might not be too upset. If they come back and get a template message that their article has been draftified because it's rubbish, and they've now got to make the improvements that they'd already intended, hit submit, and wait potentially months before it gets accepted, they'll be frustrated. A lot would be solved if (1) we review the WP:DRAFT essay and make sure it reflects up-to-date views, and is sufficiently precise (the section on whether there's any active improvement is very woolly); (2) the messages were made more friendly; (3) it were made clear that, if you find the article you were writing has been pushed into the AfC process, it is totally acceptable to finish off the writing and move it into main-space yourself. At the moment there is definitely a stigma associated with prematurely exiting AfC and moving "your" article out of draft-space; AfD people don't like it, and AfC people sometimes see it as an attempt to bypass quality-control. But we should assess the article, not the editor or how the article came to be where it is. AfC should be seen as a helpful way to get a second person's help in checking an article is ready, not as a way to punish someone who's caught inky-fingered with an incomplete article in main-space. (4) I'd add, I'd personally have nothing against a policy saying that all articles should be developed in draft-space (or personal spaces) until they're deemed ready for main-space (probably either by an author of the article, or by an AfC reviewer after "submit" has been pressed, if AfC is in use); that's what draft space is for. Draft space needn't slow the process down, and adds very little effort. Elemimele (talk) 12:01, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

  Well said Elemimele! It's important to consider the way a process makes a new (or even a more experienced) editor feel. Newystats (talk) 22:42, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

• Back in the day, before we invented DRAFTSPACE, articles were “draftified” by being sent to someone’s USERSPACE. This was initiated by request of a user who volunteered to actually work on “fixing” the article. They could take as long as they wanted to “fix” the article, but at least someone was responsible for doing so. Perhaps we need to bring that concept back? Blueboar (talk) 12:52, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
• Agree with David Eppstein that a major problem is the two different classes of editor, one of whom (the paid spammers) we would dearly like to chase away, the other (the good-faith newbies) we wish to encourage & educate. Moving articles of the latter group to draftspace with brusque indecipherable boilerplate messages is stifling our population of new editors. I have said repeatedly over years now that the "incubate in draftspace" message is laughably inaccurate; there is nowhere one is less likely to get actual personalised helpful assistance on an undeveloped article than draftspace. There needs to be a lot more clarity over how one can move articles out of draftspace; very few editors (apart from the paid ones) understand that it is fine to address the problem and then move it back themselves. Espresso Addict (talk) 13:50, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

  The latest example of chasing away the kind of editor we should wish to encourage & educate: Sergey Kislitsyn, most likely notable (the new article makes a clear case for WP:PROF C1b) and sourced to a reliable source for the brief biographical history it contains, authored by a well-known professor of mathematics at UCLA who is otherwise unrelated to Kislitsyn. User:WaddlesJP13 should be ashamed of their careless WP:BITEy behavior and take better care next time to more accurately distinguish promotional content from valid new articles by valid contributors. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:58, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: I don't appreciate you shaming me for a simple draft move everywhere. I did not intend to attack the article's creator. I reviewed the article, clicked a few buttons, then went on with my day. I did not look at who the user was besides their username. Why am I supposed to see who the article creator is first, and why should veteran editors be treated differently from new editors simply because of the time they've been editing Wikipedia? If I'm moving an article to drafspace, I couldn't care less whether the creator had 5 edits since last week or had 100k since 2005. If someone makes an article that is not ready to be in the mainspace, then it's perfectly fine to move it to draftspace Waddles 🗩 🖉 17:25, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Your failure to realize that this behavior is WP:BITEy is exactly the problem. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:35, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

I disagree. The alternative, proposing deletion, is far more bitey and disheartening to new users. To draftify is to tell someone "hey, this needs some work". Users who have their pages deleted often don't understand they can request the page be undeleted and interpret it as a loss of what they had been working on. Hey man im josh (talk) 17:42, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

I concur with Hey man im josh, drafts are significantly less bitey than deletion. I'm also not convinced that sending a BLP sourced exclusively to, what appears to be, an employer-made publication listing to draftspace is an entirely unreasonable decision. W42 18:33, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

No, actually. AfD of a shitty article about a clearly notable topic is likely to end in keep, with an improved article, after one week. If the article is draftified, it will occasionally be rejected after a few months of waiting and then the original author will give up. That is significantly more frustrating than the short trial-by-fire at AfD.  —Kusma (talk) 20:28, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: I'd like for you to explain why it's bitey though. You keep saying it is but haven't specifically told me why. Waddles 🗩 🖉 18:06, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

I have said so, specifically, over and over in this thread, but apparently you're not listening. Let me try again. Because taking the time and effort to put together an article, only to be told by someone "that's not good enough, but I'm not going to put any effort into making it better or explaining what you should do, just move it out of the way and leave a boilerplate message on your talk page" is hostile. It's telling them that the hour they spent on putting together the article is not even worth one minute of your time to take seriously. It's telling them that their time is being wasted working on Wikipedia, when the Wikipedia editors won't take the results seriously. And if they do keep trying to improve the article and get it approved through AFC, it's worse, because the result will be months of being ignored followed by more templated uninformative messages, no progress towards becoming an article, and eventual deletion of all of their efforts. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:58, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: It's one thing if the article actually took hours to make, but if it's a quick BLP stub sourced by one external link, then moving it to draftspace is perfectly justifiable. Like Hey man im josh said, it's just telling the user that the article needs improvement before it can be in the mainspace and is far less bitey than tagging it for deletion. If the draft gets deleted due to WP:G13, that is their fault, not mine. They had an entire half of a year to submit it for review or make an edit as small as a grammatical correction to prevent it from being deleted for another 6 months, but I think someone as experienced as a veteran editor would figure that out themselves. Like I said though, someone with 15+ years of experience on Wikipedia shouldn't be publishing borderline BLP vios in the first place. Waddles 🗩 🖉 21:02, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Marking the page for deletion, which is the encouraged action instead of draftifying by several people in this thread, is far more hostile and bitey than draftication. Nominating an article for deletion is way more likely to push a user away, and much more closely resembles telling someone they've wasted than time, than telling someone they need to improve their work. Hey man im josh (talk) 01:53, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

It's telling them that the hour they spent on putting together the article is not even worth one minute of your time to take seriously. That might not be a pleasant thing to hear, but that’s often the truth.

On a descriptive point of view, the time spent by article creators is much larger than the time spent by NPP and AfC reviewers. I would be extremely surprised if the ratio was not 100:1 or worse. So yes, an article that takes one hour to create is "owed" less than a minute of evaluation on average, if reviewer time is to be split fairly. Changing the modalities of review (let it hang with a noindex in mainspace instead of being draftified etc.) cannot change that on average the time spent on review will be much lower than the time spent on creation.

On a normative point of view, some articles should be evaluated much quicker than they are created. I can take months digging through my grandfather’s photographs, archives etc. to put up a detailed account of his life, but anyone reading it will see it’s WP:A7 (plus WP:NOR to boot). (That is not a contrived example; look through the questions at WP:TH, 20% or more are "I created a draft about some borderline-A7 bio and it was declined at AfC".) Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 09:02, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

• While I agree with Cullen that we're at a point in time where we should focus on quality over quantity, the current processes around drafts can be made more friendly.
  • I see no reason why we can't wait at least 30 minutes to review articles (or even 1 hour), rather than our current minimum of only 15 minutes.
  • The draftify message people get imply that their edits may have been disruptive (where you can incubate the article with minimal disruption, a bit ambiguous whose disruption), and that they need to go through AfC (When you feel the article meets Wikipedia's general notability guideline and thus is ready for mainspace, please click on the "Submit your draft for review!"). We should improve this message (or give reviewers an option to ask for AfC if they believe that the editor may benefit). The user page message should ideally contain personalised feedback, even if it's just half a sentence.
  • Having DRAFTIFY policy/guideline established would solve a lot of tension; hope we can agree on something.
  • Bit longer-term is an improvement of the AfC process. If we can discourage spammers more, or get better software to deal with spammers faster, we will have more time to mentor good-faith editors. Femke (talk) 18:59, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

  @Femke, the number-of-minutes-until-review has been mentioned several times, so let's add a little clarity around that. IMO the correct number of minutes until the first review by the first New Pages Patroller is: zero. Seriously. We want someone checking for attack pages, blatant vandalism, obvious hoaxes, and other CSD-worthy problems as soon as possible.

  What you're describing is the work done by the 10th or 20th person to look at the page. It's not unusual for an article to get 50+ page views during its first day in the mainspace (examples: 1, 2). Since page views normally drop substantially after the first day (really, the first few hours), I think it's reasonable to assume that most of these people are editors looking for obvious problems. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:33, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

• Draft space is for articles on potentially notable topics where notability has not yet been demonstrated by the sources provided, or where sources do not yet even demonstrate verifiability. Those are I think valid reasons for not keeping an article in mainspace. I know it is a common practice to draftify suspected UPE spam but I don’t see the point myself, because it’s not clear what the UPE spammer should do do not be a UPE spammer and no one else is likely to touch their work. The idea that any article in mainspace will be improved at some undefined point in the future by someone else is I think contradicted by experience. Editors are prepared to work on well-drafted articles where they feel they can improve them, but very few people are willing to do extensive surgery on really poor starts. We also have the experience of editors like Carlossuarez46 spending many years filling the encyclopedia with utter rubbish that we are only now clearing out. We owe it to our readers to provide them with articles that are minimally factual and verifiable, even if their notability is questionable. Abolishing draftspace does not serve that end. No objection to a clearer set of rules to determine what gets draftified and what needs to be done to get something moved out of draftspace. Mccapra (talk) 20:16, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

  Prior research shows that other editors are much more likely to edit articles in the mainspace than articles that have been moved to the draft space. If your hope is that "poor starts" will be improved, then you should always want them in the mainspace. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:56, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

• If it was mine to make one change to our method of draftifying pages from Wikipedia's main space I would discontinue unilateral actioning of the page move and instead, model a procedure closely resembling proposed deletions where one editor proposes draftification by clearly stating why the page is subject to deletion in main space and why it's better to draftify it instead. Then, after a prescribed period elapses where no contest has been raised and the problems needing correction haven't been corrected, a different, willing editor, would effect the page' move into draft space. The information pages about draftification already use language remenisent of proposed deletions, why not align out actions as well? Best regards.--John Cline (talk) 20:26, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

  This is a fundamentally excellent idea. Instead of just summarily moving to draft there would be something saying, "Hey, X thinks there are serious issues with this article that are fixable. If they aren't fixed in (2, 5, 7, whatever days) and Y agrees, it will be moved to draft space for improvement. If it is not worked on for 6 months, it will be deleted." ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 18:51, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

  I also think this is a good idea. A {{proposed draft}} process? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:57, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

• Draft is a place with zillions of possibilities of how and when articles articles go in and come out. Any "draft policy" would inevitably be an over generalization. If an article has established that it has met the "existence as an article" criteria (Notability and wp:NOT) it should be in mainspace. All of the other flaws are are about content within the article which needs removal, fixing or improvement and mainspace is the place for these. But there are lots of reasons for draft space. The most common is when wp:notability has not yet been established it should not be "let in" to mainspace (unless it's flagged for hopefully quick NPP review) As one example of the zillions of possibilities at NPP I had a new good faith editor generate >200 articles which should not be articles. What we came up with (rather then hitting them with >200 AFD's) is them agreeing to having them moved to draft space and I've been mentoring them during which they are learning and agreeing that they should not be articles and we are working on proper disposition for them. And yes, the draftificaiton messages are bitey. I had an experienced editor draftify a 2 minute old article of mine where I had GNG sources all set and they would have been in at the three minute point. The boilerplate messages had all kids of nasty and bossy wording on what I was supposed to do do next which is that case was also wrong. Again, the problem for those is that they were an overgeneralization. Next, wp:before creates a feasibility mess because it (at least prima facie) dumps the whole giant wp:notability research job onto whoever is taking an article to AFD and draft space is a good place to put that job back into the hands of of where it belongs....for the article creator to establish notability. Finally, a little side note. We should not talk like that the main thing for new editors to do is create new articles and structure things around that. With en Wikipedia maturing, it's usually very difficult for a new editor to find a suitable topic for a new article there is a gigantic amount of work to be done on existing articles.North8000 (talk) 20:35, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
• I do feel some editors are in too much of a rush to move things to draft. I mean we have 90 days and it’s not a race. Generally I think it’s better to tag a new article in mainspace and leave it for couple of weeks. If there’s no improvement in that time then draftification is appropriate because it’s clearly not happening in mainspace. But I don’t think in most cases we need to make a snap judgement and rush it into draft. Mccapra (talk) 21:55, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

  I did a spot-check on Special:NewPagesFeed last week. About 97% of the articles had been resolved within the first day. Perhaps that was an unusually speedy day, but as Tigraan said above, most articles don't require a lot of time and thought. They're either easy keeps or obvious CSD candidates. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:00, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

  @WhatamIdoing: That's a very interesting comment, but I disagree with your stats. They're either easy keeps or obvious CSD candidates- maybe other patrollers get different impressions and review much quicker, but I don't see this being the case, most articles are borderline notable and not easy keeps. I'm just looking at the stats from Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Backlog drives/October 2022- 90% of articles are "patrolled", with the rest being mainly draftification (6%). Just 4% is deletion, which is mostly balanced between AfDs/CSDs/PRODs. Even if it's assumed that half of the articles tagged for deletion are CSD candidates, just 2% are CSD-worthy. Therefore, I personally disagree with this, as only a very small amount of articles are CSD-eligible. Further, looking at the last 500 page curation log (at the time of the writing), 59 out of the 500 entries are tagged with problems, which is just more than 10%, indicating that most of these aren't easy keeps IMHO. Therefore, I disagree that CSD-worthy candidates really make up that large of a percentage. However, a lot of the AfC drafts are obviously eligible for G10/G11/G12. VickKiang (talk) 05:51, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

  A page is an easy keep if you don't spend days wondering whether the page should be kept. A page can be in bad condition (e.g., meriting many tags for problems) and still be an easy keep. Nobody would say that the first version of this recent article was in good condition, but nobody would say that October 2022 Conservative Party leadership election needed any slow or careful consideration by reviewers. Only a copyvio could have resulted in its deletion, and the rest is just a matter of clean up. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:16, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

  Yeah, solid point per WP:NEXIST. Only a copyvio could have resulted in its deletion, and the rest is just a matter of clean up- of course, this is not always the case sadly as G12 thresholds vary, sometimes a 60%-70% infringement might not be deleted under G12. Occasionally just a matter of clean up for copyvios assembled from various different sources might be harder though, but I'm getting off-topic here in a discussion focused on potential changes and improvements for draftification. Many thanks! VickKiang (talk) 01:30, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

  Also, not all of these tagged pages are necessarily patrolled/marked as reviewed, indicating that not all of these tags are for notable topics that needs cleanup, which is probably what you are implying here. Many thanks for your reply again, apologies I'm going off topic again. VickKiang (talk) 01:45, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

• I sat down to reply to this and my answer got way too long, so I went ahead and created an essay: User:Novem Linguae/Essays/Thoughts on draftspace. Regarding the ideas mentioned in the above conversation, I think I see some consensus emerging that the draftification automated message needs to be improved so that it is warmer and more welcoming. I think this would be simple to do. We can propose a better message in a subsection, get consensus, then change the code for User:Evad37/MoveToDraft. Hope this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:09, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

  To me this is an interesting essay, and IMO changing the Evad37 message to make it more welcoming with possibly an alternative version focusing on notability instead would be better than the current one more vaguely requiring sources. VickKiang (talk) 04:19, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

• I'm of the opposite mindset and would rather see all new articles start in draftspace with easy "Move to mainspace" and "Submit to AfC" buttons. We should lower expectations of new articles being instantly included in the encyclopedia. Additionally, get rid of the six months delete on Draft and better expose draft articles to experienced editors. Editors can sort drafts into promising, neutral and non notable with only non-notable being subject to deletion after six months. Slywriter (talk) 00:01, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

  I agree with using draft as the initial state for all articles. Creating an article in the mainspace gives the user a sense of accomplishment; getting it pulled out feels like rejection and is going to be taken negatively, especially with the impersonal and blunt templates/messaging. The AFC process includes more guidance on how to write a good article than creating a new article does, and I suspect having a draft declined (which often comes with more constructive feedback than a Draftification) feels far less bite-y than a draftification. -M.nelson (talk) 15:43, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

  You appear to not understand how draft space is actually used. Draft space is not a viable way of creating new articles. It is not even a way to get new contributors to learn their skills. What it really is, is a honeypot to attract spammers and promoters (or to push their content into via draftification) as a way of keeping it out of mainspace without going through the effort of a full deletion discussion. The rate of promotion of material from draftspace to article space is very very low. This proposal would effectively shut down all new article creation. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:03, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

  If that's true, then we should define draftification to apply only to spammers and promoters (etc), and not to good faith article writers (obviously, tricky to define). It's too BITEy to the latter group. -M.nelson (talk) 17:31, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

  @David Eppstein, I think it would be a good idea to get some stats on the likelihood of pages entering the draftspace and the likelihood of them emerging from it, and maybe even a random sample of what AFD says about their notability. We're not expecting perfection (a 1% error rate at NPP would misclassify about 20 new articles a week, which isn't terrible), but if what does happen significantly diverges from what should happen, that would suggest that we need to change urgently. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:04, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

• I had begun drafting a comment until I saw the remarks by Cullen328 who sums it up perfectly and most eloquently as he usually does. As one of the early and most vociferous proponents for the deprecation of the old incubator and creator of the draftspace, I couldn’t agree more. Any other arguments are simply a conflict of ideologies. Wikipedia has grown up and is no longer desperate for quantity of articles over quality of articles even though that is still the warped, doubled-down philosophy of the WMF (they think the quantity draws the donations and it's one of the underlying reasons they are avoiding upgrading the Page Curation software - indeed one staffer openly claims that NPP is not even a necessary process!) At the time of creating a user right in 2016 for reviewing new pages, most of the routine tagging, deletion tagging, and draftifying was left available to all autoconfirmed users. This has proven over the ensuing 6 years not to have been completely ideal.

Above, Slywriter makes a couple of valid points that which with refinement could be the proposal(s) for a separate RfC - cretainly that all articles from new users should be created through the Article Wizard and submitted to AfC. Much if the fault lies with the WMF for having abandoned the development of an excellent landing page when the senior dev left in the 2015 mass exodus. At the end of the day, the onus is on the creators to submit policy compliant articles, and thety should not expect other editors to clear p their mess for them.

A zero tolerance approach (Ovinus) would educate new users rather than alienate them, there is no such intention among serious NPPers to tell new users to clear off and don't come back; to assert anything similar is a collective PA against a dedicated user group. The kinds of nasty and bossy wording is the fault of allowing governance obsessives to draft them without some control. If some editors are in too much of a rush to move things to draft then it’s time Mccapra and Ovinus for you to train your colleagues at NPP to take more time over their reviews, not make snap judgments, and be less thirsty for barnstars whose value has been watered down anyway over the years. Finally, for anyone who is still unaware of what the thankless task of NPP really involves, this 2018 article NPP: This could be heaven or this could be hell for new users – and for the reviewers in The Signpost will remove any doubts. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:21, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

A zero tolerance approach ... would educate new users rather than alienate them. Perhaps the humbler ones. But I'm confident that, were my additions rapidly draftified or removed when I was a newbie, explained with a half-hearted message, I probably would have left, and quite quickly. Ovinus (talk) 01:35, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

I agree. I have a very low tolerance for disrespect and what I see as other people wasting my time. I could easily see myself running into the current bureaucracy that new editors face, quickly concluding that I don't have time for that shit, and moving my energies to other places than Wikipedia. I can (but probably shouldn't because of outing) name multiple high-profile academics, whose subject-matter expertise would be very valuable here, but who appear to have been driven away by exactly this sort of behavior. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:06, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Indeed. I've met several academics who were trying to write articles covering notable figures in their subject area but had walked away when they encountered draftification or the AfC process, and were told their efforts were promotional because they were in the same subject area. Espresso Addict (talk) 08:04, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Since I am almost certainly the person referred to in one staffer openly claims that NPP is not even a necessary process, I would like to clarify:

1. I have said that I'm not convinced that it's necessary for anyone to use Special:NewPagesFeed, which is the mw:Extension:PageTriage software. Alternatives to that exist, particularly Special:NewPages, which is used at all of the other WMF-hosted wikis in addition to some page patrollers and admins use here, including the German-language Wikipedia (660 net new articles per day during the last year), French (560, just like us), Russian (520), Farsi (500), Spanish (480), Chinese (430), and Turkish (400), not to mention Commons (>10M new files per year). For comparison, when I checked last week, we had 560 new articles, some of which have since been deleted or removed from the mainspace. IMO if all of these communities can manage without this exact piece of software, then so could we. "This exact piece of software is not necessary" is not the same thing as "NPP is not necessary".
2. I have said that I believe NPP should focus on CSD, instead of trying to do everything, including tagging, gnoming, encouraging newbies, deciding what's notable, etc. Saying that "notability...IMO shouldn't be NPP's problem" is not the same thing as saying "NPP is not necessary".

Also for clarity, I've been working with the WMF since 2013, and I have never once heard a staff member say anything even remotely like "quantity draws the donations". I do not know where (some) editors get this idea. It's probably not true, either. Quantity probably doesn't draw donations; it's probably more relevant to have the information people are actually seeking. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:12, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

• I find myself strongly agreeing with North8000, Cullen328, Slywriter, and Kudpung here. First of all, draftification needn't be the opaque, condescending punishment it seems editors think it is. We can make it much more useful by including updated friendly feedback in the talk page template, including what the specific problems are and ways to fix them. The whole experience would also be a lot smoother if starting articles in draftspace and only publishing once minimal criteria were met was the norm; then being sent back to draftspace with a personalized note on what you need to improve would be a lot less discouraging.

But secondly, it is not some onerous chore to provide the reliable source you used to start an article. Why should we care at all about retaining editors who go straight to creating an unreferenced standalone in mainspace? It's not 2006 anymore: the average English-speaking internet user has encountered countless Wikipedia articles over the last 20+ years, and the idea that facts in general and on Wikipedia in particular should be sourced is so engrained in Western society (especially in post-2016 America!) that "[citation needed]" is an everyday phrase; there is really no justification for expecting anything less than a reliably-sourced claim to notability for an article to be in mainspace.° If a new editor can't even copy-paste one URL or write author name+year somewhere in their creation before submitting it, and would be so upset at their article being draftified that they would refuse to edit ever again, then they clearly weren't here to build an encyclopedia as a regular editor in the first place. To restate: someone who is desperate for their topic to have a page title on WP immediately regardless of merit or article quality, but is also totally uninterested in putting in the barest effort needed to keep it in mainspace, would never have stuck around as a long-term contributor anyway. Nor would someone who is so invested in getting their non-notable subject a WP article that they rage-quit when apprised of our notability guidelines.

Thirdly, we shouldn't be encouraging new editors to dive right into article creation at all. The possibility that a four-day-old account with 10 dummy edits has identified a topic of critical, NORUSH-superseding importance as a standalone is just not worth the burden placed on AfC/NPP of having to comb through however much poorly-formatted unsourced text in each submission just to identify whether it has even a claim to notability. Adding more pages that have to be patrolled, assessed, tagged, wikiprojected, and watchlisted--all before anyone even knows whether the topics meet WP:N!--is a much greater strain on editors than is adding the same content to existing articles.

°What would really resolve a lot of issues would be requiring everyone's first°° article submission fully demonstrate notability upfront, with checkboxes like "does the article [cite multiple SIGCOV SIRS of the subject]/[meet whichever SNG reqs]" and "could the topic be DUE as a section in an existing article instead, like [auto-link relevant pages]" and "does the topic violate WP:NOT" and "if you are unsure about whether the subject should have a full article, you can ask [auto-link relevant wikiprojects] for feedback". This would align the specs for creation with our actual standalone requirements, so people whose pages escaped CSD by having a claim to notability would be much less likely to be surprised by an AfD where they now have to prove it; establishing that the topic you chose to write an article on, which you should know is very likely to be notable based on the sources you consulted/are at least aware of, and then clicking a few extra buttons, should not be difficult at all for the types of editors we would want to retain; new editors would be forced acknowledge our P&Gs and so shouldn't be blindsided when other editors reference them; first-articles not containing at least two sources can be auto-draftified; and NPPers can just click through or google the provided citations to verify notability claims rather than having to do their own literature searches.

°°Or how about every article? JoelleJay (talk) 01:27, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with your second point, but very much agree with your third. A vanishing percentage of recently autoconfirmed editors have the capacity to write a modern-standards-compliant article; some statistics would be interesting. Ovinus (talk) 01:35, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Ovinus, if you want stats, why don't you ask for them, and include the number of good faith users who quit after their unsourced article was dumped in mainspace then sent to draft? FWIW we're already working on improvements to the system and you can be sure that the handling of drafts in a friendlier way is among them. The draftification script text was written by a user. I think it's fine and it can always be customised. Of course, patrollers in the race for barnstars have no time for niceties... 05:02, 21 October 2022 (UTC)Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk)

I disagree about forcing new editors through AfC. Firstly they may not be as new as they look: they may be people who've been using Wikipedia for years, possibly even edited occasionally as an IP address, and who write professionally in their line of business; some will be very familiar with citation requirements. Secondly, it's an unfortunate truth that AfC, with its over-stretched volunteer staff, is not very efficient, and probably never will be. New editors bringing valuable content to our encyclopaedia are going to be greatly discouraged if they see their effort disappear into what looks like oblivion; the best technical writers are busy people. We should let them transfer their article to main-space as soon as they feel ready, and AfD if it's bad. But yes, I very much like the idea of a submission check-box system: "Have you checked your subject is notable? Have you added citations and references?" Elemimele (talk) 08:48, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

It doesn't matter, Elemimele, how good they are at being professional writers, Wikipedia is not the same as writing an instruction manual for a combine-harvester, or a tourism column in a Sunday supplement. IMO, and from what I regularly see in Special:NewPagesFeed, almost every editor who is not extended-confirmed should go through the Wizard which has almost the kind of check box system you want (or was, before it was radically over simplified as to be almost meaningless). If they then choose to skip the step through AfC, many of them will end up there anyway. You seem to assume that every article brings valuable content to our encyclopaedia. The feed provides all the meta information on the creator at a glance, newbies and not-so-newbies are easily identifiable and what the feed and ORES doesn't tell us, their style of writing English (if it is indeed intelligible English) tells us the rest. Perhaps you might like do some New Page Reviewing for a year or two - every bit of help is needed there. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:54, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

AFC is a process for telling people to go away. The AFC reviewers are mainly looking for excuses to reject content, and they will find those excuses over and over until the new editor gets tired. Forcing new editors to go through AFC is telling them to go away, that we don't want new editors. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:08, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Per DavidEppstein, AFC should always be optional. It was envisioned as an alternative to deletion, and it was initially thought to be a likely friendlier place where new users could get shepherded and guided through article creation, so they would get experienced users who could help them craft a proper article. Whoaboy, was THAT every not what it became. It's basically a gigantic faceless bureaucracy where new users get told to "fuck off" (in the form of rejections filled with arcane, alphabet soup policy pages that no one ever takes the time to explain) repeatedly until they actually do. It's a nightmare where WP:BITE is encouraged and no one gets any useful help. We were FAR better before it existed, when we just nominated the article for deletion. It was still a bit bitey, but it was at least an honest kind of bitey, instead of pretending we're being useful. --Jayron32 18:31, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm 100% with Jayron32 & David Eppstein. AfD actually provides much more tailored actionable feedback (even if it is of the form this is never going to be notable, try again with something else) and sometimes results in editors wading in and improving the article. The only successful function of AfC is to provide a barrier against spam/paid contributions. We shouldn't be putting spam/paid rubbish in with good-faith articles and expecting the same overworked group of people to deal with both. Espresso Addict (talk) 07:12, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

@Elemimele, @David Eppstein@Jayron32, I'm confused where this "forcing new users to go through AfC" claim came from? I didn't suggest that at all. JoelleJay (talk) 23:34, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, it wasn't you, JoelleJay. Kudpung quoted it as an opinion of Slywriter I think ("Above, Slywriter makes a couple of valid points that which with refinement could be the proposal(s) for a separate RfC - cretainly that all articles from new users should be created through the Article Wizard and submitted to AfC") Elemimele (talk) 09:36, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

• There REALLY should only be the following ways something ends up in the DRAFT namespace:
  1. The page is created in the draft space, possibly through the AFC process.
  2. The page is undeleted by WP:REFUND per a request from someone who wants to work on it
  3. Community discussion has determined to move it there, usually as a result of an XFD discussion.
• I can't envision a time where someone who is NOT a major contributor to an article should be moving it to the draftspace. If it doesn't belong in the mainspace, take it to AFD. NPPers shouldn't be draftifying anything. --Jayron32 14:51, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

  The problem is that nearly all NPP-ers don't agree with the above claim, and in the end their opinions win unless someone spends time patrolling the page move log, and moves articles they know aren't ready for mainspace back to mainspace to make a point. From July to September, I systematically enforced the well-established "don't draftify articles than have been in mainspace for a long time" rule, but in the end gave up when I found myself falling into the same dilemma. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 14:57, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

  It shouldn't be an option to do so unless the significant contributors agree to the idea. We definitely need stricter guidance on this stuff. --Jayron32 15:31, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

To be honest I have moved articles on BLPs to draft when I found them in the speedy queues, where there was some potential for notability but a lack of references. I always try to leave a hand-written message for the creator to tell them to add references, link the relevant guidelines, and advertise the Teahouse. I'm essentially giving them 6 months to improve it, rather than the week for the BLP prod. And occasionally for other topics as a slightly less-bitey response than speedy deletion. Espresso Addict (talk) 07:23, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

@Pppery, what you were doing is valuable and it could probably be simplified by using a bot/script. I don't think it would be difficult to make a list list of articles that have been in the mainspace longer than the limits of WP:DRAFTIFY and for which no AFD page exists. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:19, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

The problem isn't finding them (they are already logged by Special:AbuseFilter/1076 and there are few enough of them that AfDs (and REFUNDs and draftifications of recent expansions from redirects) can be filtered out manually). The problem is someone being willing to do it and knowingly reinstate junk like Buddhism in Réunion or Chiiief to mainspace, probably someone who's an inclusionist rather than a deletionist with a focus on enforcing the rules like me. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 01:25, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

• Thanks Jayron32. Case study #2: Draft:Cyclone Sitrang is an ongoing tropical storm that has badly hit Bangladesh. The article now at was created on October 23 on the first news of its arrival. On October 24, someone "helpfully" draftified it (as a very basic stub with an infobox) with the rationale Not ready for mainspace, incubate in draftspace (via script)). Incubate my ass, of course: In no time someone else created Cyclone Sitrang (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) in the mainspace (at a different title, originally), so for a while we had two independent copies that people have been working with, and now we have a problem with duplicate histories and attribution. Draftifying someone else's article without due process should be expressly prohibited. No such user (talk) 08:33, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

• I have often thought that DRAFTSPACE needs to be cut in two… so we have one SPACE for actually drafting new articles, and another SPACE for fixing old articles. Perhaps we could call the second space: WP:FIXSPACE. Each would have different rules and expectations for when, why and how an article gets moved to it and how long it stays there.

The NPP could then focus on new pages without getting overwhelmed with fixing old pages. Blueboar (talk) 15:21, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

That's not a bad idea. I suppose that FIXSPACE wouldn't be managed in the way that draftspace is, it would be up to a major contributor to move the article back when they've fixed whatever problems landed it in fixspace?

Related to this, there are the exceptional situations at AfD where the subject of an article is obviously notable, the article isn't entirely without merit, but it is sufficiently bad that it shouldn't be in main-space, and there's no guarantee anyone is going to work on it where it is. I'm in favour of draftification in this situation. Yes, sometimes it just means deletion with 6 months' delay, but it's the least-worst option. Again fix-space would be handy. Maybe if we could add an automatic category of articles in fix-space that are 5 months old and teetering on the brink of deletion, we would attract a new crowd of Fix-space project people, repairing the repairable, and salvaging what is good. Elemimele (talk) 16:00, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that's a fine thing because at least that's a community discussion, which is left open a week, where contributors to the article in question get a surprisingly good amount of feedback, and have time to work on things, and we have documentation of the problems in the article. Watching your newly-written work get shuttled off into the infinite abyss that is the DRAFT namespace with no meaningful explanation is not a good idea. --Jayron32 18:36, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

It sounds like something like that could work. Moving an article from mainspace to draftspace is just "Articles for Re-Creation". Maybe "Articles for Repair" could be a thing. Waddles 🗩 🖉 21:06, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

IMO all draftified/"fixspace" articles should be autolinked at the relevant wikiprojects, which the draftifier would select from a list of participants, by date of last edit. Then they'd be more findable and collaborative. JoelleJay (talk) 02:20, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

• I think folk seem to be forgot the state we were in between 2008 and 2012 when the mad rush of UPE/Paid editors staking their claims to the free advertising platform, shows the whole "develop in-situ model" can no longer work. It is a busted flush.

  • Since AFC/NPP has went in, there has been huge increase in the quality of articles going into WP in general and quality is really important (A massive problem on its own). I think the idea that somehow we will go back to the situation is entirely untenable.
  • There is problems with drafting and AFC, sure. One of the big problems is there is no landing page for new editors. It like turning up at an airport with no idea where your going to go. It is the single most important thing for a company HR now.
  • There is also no known way of seperating genuine earnest editors from spammers and trolls. Perhaps AI driven software check followed a editor check, possibly. Its certainly possible that if we could do it with some degree of certainty, the "develop in-situ model" could go back in.
  • I disagree with the comments about AFC. I don't see any evidence for that. I've worked with loads of editors whose work has went into draft and the genuine editors don't mind working in draft or AFC to improve their article. That is different from what has been said above. There is a complete lack of acceptance of junk content and established editors who have no patience for it; which is different thing. One problem is we still see the same kind of problems in new articles that we did 15 years ago, but they're has no attempt to solve them. There is no guidance for new editors coming in, it is really patchy. They are more or less on their own and that's really never changed. Other organisations fix these problems, we don't. It like Soviet bunker software we use. We have a complete lack of real software.
  • Lastly WP is an old project. The fashionable days are long gone and people look at it with its quaint interface, rules and forget it. Anybody who want to write is on substack.
  • We won't get the same numbers we did in the past, so we really need to finesse the onboarding process properly and have much more interaction with new editors. I always message them, when I'm reviewing to suggest changes and if its great, tell them. scope_creep^Talk 19:29, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

  There is a landing page of sorts for new editors now. They are shown a popup that encourages them to visit a personalized home page, which is also linked to from their username at the top of the page. See Wikipedia:Growth Team features § Newcomer homepage for more details. The home page lists suggested tasks. Ten percent of new editors are shown an assigned mentor; not all of them are provided a mentor due to concerns about having enough mentors to avoid overextending them. (There was discussion in September of increasing the percentage to 40% but I'm not sure of the current status.) isaacl (talk) 21:29, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Reading the responses here I would like to make the following points:

• People have been describing an AfC process at odds with the one I see. I frequently improve articles at AfC, either small things or (sometimes) enough edits to make them suitable for publishing.
• I like the WP:FIXSPACE idea. Apart from anything else I see some articles at AfD that would be an excellent addition to such a space and it would reduce wasted effort.
• I think that there is a strong arguement for better software for NPP and AfC (and possibly AfD).
• There is an even stronger arguement for more nuanced and finer divisions of notices for NPP and AfC.
• Sending articles to draft via NPP is often a much better alternative than PROD or AfD.
• A lot of articles at AfC (and probably seen by NPP) are truly terrible with a constant supply of YouTube, etc. content creators.
• A better onboarding mechanism would be great. Perhaps shortly after getting your account created a bot based introduction message to the user talk?
• From everything I see the people at AfC and NPP are doing their best to work within the current structures to make Wikipedia the best it can be. Gusfriend (talk) 08:41, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

@Gusfriend, have a look at the overall activity. That's what experienced editors are doing in the draft space right now. Of the most recent 20 articles there, I could 12 being edited by the person who created the page, 5 moving pages into the draftspace (including three that are undoubtedly notable subjects plus already containing multiple sources), 1 declined AFC, 1 comment from AFC, and 1 instructor cleaning up a draft left behind from a previous class. The number of experienced editors involved in improving articles they didn't create in my sample: zero. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:31, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

I try to improve at least 1 each time I do a AfC stint, if only so that I don't spend my whole time declining which gets to you after a while. Gusfriend (talk) 06:48, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

I can imagine that being the "Deliverer of No" would really wear on most editors after a while.

As a practical result, I expect that the people who can sustain it through thousands of articles over the space of years are not typical Wikipedia editors. It's a challenge that we see in every area: the few who can avoid burnout at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement are the ones who end up making most of the decisions there; the few who have a passion for anti-spam work effectively control the Wikipedia:Spam blacklist; the few who can keep pushing the boulder up the hill at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations... WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:12, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

AfC, and later the draft namespace were created with the very best of intentions and their creation was not a willy-nilly idea done on the spur of the moment without any deep thought and deliberation. I absolutely do not buy in to the suggestions that drafts are being used as a back-door route to deletion or a catch-all for cluless NPPers, or that AfC reviewers are just looking for any excuse to reject articles. - David Eppstein, I see your name reguarly at AfC, are you telling us you've never rejected a draft? These are fanciful, unsubstantiated claims, and if I'm wrong, give me examples and the names of the culprits.

We smartened up NPP immensely when we wrenched the right to patrol new pages away from every newbie and all-and-sundry and created a user right for it. Admins are now finally (after being badgered for years) being more careful at handing out the user right, doing proper due diligence, and bestowing the bit on probation. The only thing I don't wholly agree with is turning NPP into a MMORPG every two months with a backlog drive that is a race for barnstars. No one can properly patrol a new page in 30 seconds. I've been patrolling on and off for 12 years and for the life of me, unless a page is a blatantly obvious COPYVIO, spam, attack, or unsourced 20-word stub, it takes me as much as up at least a minute or even more, and that's without doing any 'fixing' which, BTW Blueboar, is not in the NPP remit and we don't do it.

AfC is not overwhelmed, they have six times more active reviewers than NPP and only a sixth of the number of daily new pages to contend with - let's not beat about the bush that most of what they have to process is genuinely ulikely to have much of a future on Wikipedia. That said, AfC is not an 'official' process per se and apart from some vetting, it is not a user right. If there are any complaints about RfC they should be addressed to the user who coordinates it. NPP on the other hand has almost always had some semblance of coordination and/or leadership since 2010 and it has a good, new team now working hard in the background to address all the reasons for the anti NPP and AfC sentiment expressed in this thread. Moreover they've badgered and browbeaten the WMF into forcing the new Director of Product & Technolgy to publicly admit that she is going to be ultimately accountable for addressing the problems of what's wrong with the way newbies are onboarded and create their articles, and the way their articles are processed.

Much of what is wrong is due the Foundation's own wrongdoing. Since around 2015 there are no staff left who are experts at UX. T can read the research that a lot of money pays for but they don't know what to do with it. They may be excellent at working with php and js but they are no good at knowing what needs to be built with it, so they build what they 'think' might be useful, and generally, they don't build it very well. PageTriage was an exception because we had a say in what we wanted and what it should look like. The WMF needs to be told, and they need to be told by us who do the work for free.

Over the years there is a litany of wasteful, expensive developments and experiments that they got wrong and which nobody wanted anyway. They are trying to do it again with some costly weird new landing pages and mentorship schemes that will never have a significant overall impact. On their admission it's using up all their bandwith and they are telling us that if MediaWiki needs fixing, we should f-off and do it it ourselves. The problem is they don't and won't listen to the communities and the ideas we offer them. So please, let's not come down too hard on all the volunteers who are doing their best to keep this encyclopedia clean with the resources we do have at AfC and NPP - both human and technical. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:25, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Kudpung "They are trying to do it again with some costly weird new landing pages and mentorship schemes that will never have a significant overall impact." - Have you tried out the new landing page? I honestly hadn't paid much attention to what they were doing until yesterday, but you can go into your preferences and enable it like you're a new user and try it out. It doesn't seem terrible to me. It's certainly better than most of the software changes they've sprung on the community over the years, and it's better than nothing, which is what we had before. It's sort of a combination of the task center and suggestbot, with some additional features and guidance. It's reminiscent of the tutorials you get when you start some mobile games which, for all the gamification of editing is not to be encouraged, feels familiar and helpful. I'm concerned that the mentoring aspect won't work as well as it could, but I don't think the landing page is bad. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 17:43, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

ONUnicorn, to me it's all just another classic example of the WMF not having a clue what's needed and even less understanding of UX. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:25, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Well said and I totally agree. The more that I think about it the more that I am surprised that there hasn't been more angst to do with AfC and NPP reach the level of ARBCOM and the need for formal proposals. Gusfriend (talk) 12:13, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

The issues with AfC NPP, and the onboarding of new users are not within the remit of Arbcom which is Wikipedia's high court for judging and sentencing users and admins for serious infringements of policy. We can all rest assured that a team of users is now actively working with the Foundation to obtain engineer time to address bugs and discuss the development of new features for helping new users and and to improve the processing of their new articles. .Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:57, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

• Draft space was tried before – the WP:INCUBATOR and that failed too. There seems to be more paraphernalia and process now but this mainly adds lots of bureaucracy and complexity. The biggest problem seems to be that AfC might take weeks or months to review a draft and this is contrary to the essence of Wikipedia, which is that it should be quick – that's what the word Wiki means. What Wikipedia is being turned into now is a "You kids get off my lawn!" kinda place – hostile and intolerant. Some changes are needed to make the place work better but draft space isn't the answer. There are sensible alternatives such as userfication which is what experienced editors seem to prefer for drafts. So, it would be best to consolidate and simplify the article creation workflow, eliminating such experimental bits that don't work. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:12, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

I don't any evidence that article creation needs to be quick. Nowhere is the notability policies does it say that the criteria are time dependent and transitory and you must get it as quick as posisble. That whole idea is contrary to the ethos of Wikipedia 5P. Editors sometimes take months to complete an article if the complexity of the subject warrants it and that is standard. Quick here means the quickness of the editing process not the quickness of article creation. I've not seen any research to say that draft is hostile to new users. scope_creep^Talk 07:42, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

I agree there is nothing hostile about drafting an article that is not ready. With that said I stopped doing it recently. I instead tagged the deficient articles at NPP for "no refs" and shortly after other NPPrs sent them to draft. My own opinion is competency is needed. There is no shame in working on a deficient article in draft space. Bruxton (talk) 19:52, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

• Agree with Slywriter and Cullen328. Frankly, I was shocked to learn that New Page Patrollers are supposed to look for sources themselves when page creators don't provide them. If new articles were created as drafts and only moved into article space after basic quality standards were met, the burden would be on the article creator and workload at NPP as well as AfD would be lessened. This is the standard across academia and the publishing industry; you wouldn't submit an unsourced paper to a journal and expect the editorial board to go to the library, look for sources and make sure that the topic has absolutely no potential before rejecting it. They wouldn't say "well, this looks like it had potential, so we'll put it up on our website right away." Obviously Wikipedia is unique and shouldn't work like a normal publisher, but having basic standards should not come as a surprise to article creators and shouldn't scare away the type of editor that we'd like to keep around. Simply changing the wording of the templates would go a long way toward improving the user experience and removing the stigma that's currently attached to draftification. –dlthewave ☎ 13:45, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Ending Draft Space

From time to time, including above, the idea is advanced that draft space should be ended. I think everyone understands that this would mean an increase in AFDs. One question that I think should be addressed by anyone who wants to end draft space is what the effect would be on the ability of new editors to submit articles. Would we take away their ability to submit articles, or would we go back to allowing them to dump crud into article space? A system could be set up for them to submit draft articles in user space, but that would amount to a version of draft space that has all of the disadvantages of regular draft space.

I think that the idea of doing away with draft space is not fully thought out. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:09, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

I don't think it would lead to a significant increase in AfDs. Anecdotally, NPPers who lean heavily on draftify do so when they know (or are worried) that an article would be kept at AfD, but feel there is something else "wrong" with the article. We're more likely to see an increase in cleanup tags, especially {{Notability}}, but I don't think that's a big deal. I know there'd need to be hard data on this to convince anyone, As for your second question, personally I'd say we just stop offering non-autoconfirmed editors a way to create articles. Practically speaking that is what we do now, but I think it is kinder to say "sorry you can't do that yet" than "sure you can do that, just fill in this form, and wait for a reviewer, and..." with the same effect. – Joe (talk) 06:19, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

It might be anecdotal Joe, but: NPPers who lean heavily on draftify do so when they know (or are worried) that an article would be kept at AfD, but feel there is something else "wrong" with the article is going to need some pretty heavy concrete evidence. It's something a lot of users claim who have never, or rarely done any New Page Reviewing, so it's jusy pure conjecture unless someone has gone through the tens of thousands of draftified (from NPP) articles. I would seriously caution against this kind of scaremongering because any curious new(ish) users reading the VP might believe it quicker than they can be bothered to read the rules before they dump their crap in mainspace.

On the second part, yes, I wholly agree with you that it's time to take ACPERM to the next level. Probably to extended-confirmed. In no way would it conflict with ' The encycolpedia anyone can edit' which is the meme people try to use when some restrictions are suggested. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:45, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

I don't think any of us have data either way, that's the problem. I'm drawing on experience monitoring CAT:R2 and "previously deleted" articles in the new page queue (usually R2s or drafts moved back to mainspace), where I see a lot of arbitrary moves to draft with no explanation to the creator beyond the canned summary and message. I can recognise the picture you paint as how the Ideal Reviewer, and to be fair a lot of our more experienced and prolific actual reviewers, would approach draftspace, but unfortunately it isn't what everyone is doing. I agree that we shouldn't rush into making changes here, but with the backlog eliminated, this is an excellent opportunity to take a detailed look at what is and what isn't working with new pages. – Joe (talk) 08:39, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

• We don't have to wonder how we'd manage without draft space. It was created at the end of 2013 and so Wikipedia managed fine without it for over 10 years – a period when it was most successful in recruiting new volunteers. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:27, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Being successful at attracting new volunteers was great when the focus was on quantity… but today the focus is more on quality. Blueboar (talk) 10:58, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

And who do you imagine will be doing the work to improve that quality? – Joe (talk) 11:12, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

A smaller, but more dedicated group of volunteers. Yes, we still want new volunteers… but we need a different kind of new volunteer. Focusing on numbers won’t get us that. Blueboar (talk) 11:27, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

I'd like to say two things in reply: 1). I disagree that we need a different kind of new volunteer. We have always valued volunteer editors whose selfless priority is the building and betterment of Wikipedia (then, now, and in perpetuity). And: 2). While I am certain that your comment is given in good faith, and further certain that you did not intend to marginalize the old school volunteer or diminish the value of their tenure and presence, I must say that your comment's letter absolutely depends on knowledge of good faith (as I know of you) or an assumption thereof (as some may depend). For it carries implications that would, otherwise, be hard medicine, impossible for new editors of yesteryear to swallow, if inversely parsed from a literal sense. --John Cline (talk) 23:26, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Meh, why not both. There's tons of articles left to be made, and I don't see the real need to focus on quality over quantity, both should be a priority. Ortizesp (talk) 20:21, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

I would just like to say for the record that I have over a thousand drafts in draft space right now, and I know of other editors who have something in that range. That's down from my high of more than 1,600 drafts, with 600+ having become articles so far, some quite good and useful (I would point to Deletion of articles on Wikipedia, Eric Chappelow, Battlefield, Steve Rogers (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Hesitation, and Charles Erasmus Fenner). A fair number of these have benefited from community editing that I don't think would have occurred if they were in another space. Draft space, used properly, works. BD2412 T 14:42, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

1600! Sounds like Article creation at scale. But I'm not understanding why BD2412 is doing it this way. They have autopatrolled status which indicates that they know how to start a respectable article and, if they were put directly into mainspace, there would be no work for the NPP. But putting them into draft space seems to make additional work for AfC and I don't see why the articles would get more project attention in draft space than they would in mainspace. Is there some pattern which explains this? Andrew🐉(talk) 22:04, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

How does this possibly make more work for AfC? Anyone can just move articles from draftspace directly to mainspace, no one ever needs to go through AfC unless they're not autoconfirmed or there's some sanction. JoelleJay (talk) 22:55, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Going through AFC even when you don't technically need to can provide some protection against an incorrect review at NPP or a trip to AFD, especially if you write articles about businesses or other spam-prone subjects. You might spend months waiting for AFC reviewers (who might also give incorrect reviews), but if you get their imprimatur, editors mostly assume that the article is okay. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:23, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, when, if ever, have you done any new page patrolling? Your post 2015 colleagues at the WMF have no clue what a serious process NPP is and that is why they automatically assume that somehow, every newbie already has a perfect knowledge of notability before they even register an account, and why they won't allocate any resources to do anything about the reality of the situation. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:24, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

I stopped doing new page patrolling at this wiki when a special user right was required for it here. Before then, I patrolled about 500 pageshere. It looks like I was fond of PRODs. For comparison, looking at the other names in this sub-section, since this is public information, JoelleJay has done zero, Andrew Davidson has done 117, BD2412 has done 44, Blueboar has done zero, Joe Roe about 1300, Robert McClenon has patrolled zero, and I assume that you've done thousands. In other words, of the seven editors you're talking to here in this sub-section (not counting yourself), I seem to have the second-most experience with page patrolling.

I wonder why you keep making assertions about what WMF staff believe. In discussions with me, WMF staff have expressed exactly the opposite view. They seem to believe that it is extremely difficult for newcomers to understand the notability rules. Where do you get these ideas? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:12, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

A quick note- I might be totally wrong with my stats, but the stats for Robert McClenon probably isn't exactly zero patrols, I do remember this editor patrolling one of my pages... just saying, minor point with no comments otherwise though. Many thanks! VickKiang (talk) 04:21, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for that correction, @VickKiang. I was very surprised but those results. I wonder if I mistyped his username. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:30, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your note and clarification! Another note- I believe the page curation log is now more widely used. I know that you object to numerous elements of Page Triage (for which let's respectfully disagree), but there is indeed a discrepancy. It displays that I have done 300 page curation logs but just around 100 patrols, though. VickKiang (talk) 04:49, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

The page curation log includes all actions performed with the page curation extension, including adding tags etc. (which many NPPers do with Twinkle). The patrol log shows patrols only (i.e. clicking "mark as reviewed"), regardless of whether they were done using the extension, so is probably the more accurate way to count patrols. – Joe (talk) 11:27, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

In my opinion, the page curation log, with the log filter "Reviewing" applied, is best. More info at Wikipedia:New_pages_patrol#Patrol_versus_review. Hope this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:16, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

@Andrew Davidson: My motivations are multivariate. Most of my drafts are one or two line substubs on U.S. state supreme court justices (inherently notable, but requiring sourcing) along the lines of Draft:John F. McAuliffe or Draft:Henry Y. Webb. I improve and move one of these every few days on average. I also tend to pick up strays like Draft:Fairness, Draft:Errand, or Draft:List (information), for which we currently have a disambiguation page or redirect, and need an article, if a coherent one can be written. Lastly, there are things I come across somewhere for which I put down a few notes to revisit later, like Draft:Johnny Mac Soldiers Fund, Draft:National Center for Employee Ownership, and Draft:Association for a Better New York. Sometimes I prefer to move those to mainspace myself (almost always with the judges, as there is no question of notability), and sometimes I prefer AfC review, particularly if I am proposing a broad concept article to displace an existing disambiguation page. BD2412 T 03:10, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

BD2412, I only recently discovered that one of the first articles I created was one of your drafts! Curbon7 (talk) 03:20, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

@Curbon7: The system works! BD2412 T 03:24, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the details. It seems that most of these pages don't have an AfC header or any categories and they so will be largely invisible to most editors. In your view, how are editors supposed to know that these drafts exist?

For example, Henry Y. Webb is a redlink at Justice Webb. I reckon we'd be better off with the draft in mainspace to fill that redlink and so provide some information for readers, albeit stubby.

I very much like the broad and commonplace topics such as errand and fairness. They would be best developed in mainspace but our current disambiguation rules tend to get in the way of developing such pages into articles. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:05, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

@Andrew Davidson: I generally advertise the judge drafts on their respective Wikiprojects (like this) and on talk pages for their courts and lists of judges (like this and this). As for the disambiguation resolvers, those are more commonly addressed to the disambiguation project. BD2412 T 23:46, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

When I click on that redlink at Justice Webb, I get a big pink box at the top of my screen saying, "There is a draft for this article at Draft:Henry Y. Webb." Don't you? —Cryptic 03:35, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Draftification is too easy

Pushing the button to move an article to draft space is easy. Writing an AFD is work. I think that the ease of moving an article to draft space sometimes results in less-than-appropriate draftification, including moving an article to draft space more than once. I, and some other editors, think that the guidelines are clear that the originator of a page may object to its draftification, and that moving the page back into article space is a form of objection, so that a page that has been draftified once should not be moved back to draft space, and that if another editor thinks it is not ready for article space, that is what AFD is for. It appears that some editors disagree, or at least think that there are exceptions, such as conflict of interest, in which a page may be draftified repeatedly. We may need to clarify again that moving an article to draft space twice is move-warring and is disruptive.

It might also be worth considering making it harder to move an article to draft space, possibly by requiring that the reviewer write a statement rather than using a canned statement that is often not the reason for a draftification anyway. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:09, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Robert, the canned statement is easily customisable. If NPP wasn't a MMORPG race for barnstars, reviewers should take time over their reviews. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:36, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

User:Kudpung - I know that it is customizable. I edit it when I use it. But I don't see tailored messages. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:58, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm sure you do Robert, but like me, you're not on a paper chase for awards. I have never draftified without editing the default message. The default message is an essential aid however. Without it most reviewers wouldn't know quick enough what to say. It's really only a prompt but I think it's quite a good one. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:46, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Please be careful speaking ill of barnstars. Our two recent backlog drives are a major reason the backlog recently reached zero. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:09, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

The WP:ONUS is on the editor who wishes to include the article in mainspace to demonstrate that it is ready for mainspace. BilledMammal (talk) 02:13, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

That is policy thumping in the face of new editors, who haven't a clue how to "demonstrate" an article is ready. Experienced editors, sure. Ovinus (talk) 03:01, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

No, Ovinus, it's yet another demonstration that landing pages designed and implemented by the WMF are a clear example that they have no effect whatsoever in informing new editors what they can and can't do. It's the WMF that doesn't have a clue. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:31, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Well that is what the canned summary in the draftification notice tells them. ‘Please add sources to the article you’ve created.’ We can’t assume everyone knows this when they start, so at what point do we make this expectation clear? Mccapra (talk) 09:41, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

I looked at ONUS. It's only four sentences long. It does not say anything about demonstrating that an article is ready for mainspace. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:26, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

I propose we require a summary, including at least one specific suggestion for improvement, if the article is likely to be a good-faith creation. Canned summaries should only be used for promotion and promotion-adjacent. Ovinus (talk) 03:03, 23 October 2022 (UTC) Already placed by Robert McClenon below—thanks. Ovinus (talk) 03:32, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

I was trying to make three different points that I rolled into one, and so was not as clear as I meant to be. The first and main point is that draftification is too easy, and so is sometimes used lazily when AFD would be better. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:49, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

There's all this hand-wringing over draftification scaring away new editors, but where's the evidence that they would've continued editing if their article wasn't draftified? Why would we think someone who isn't willing to work on their article in draftspace, or doesn't even notice it's been moved there, would become a regular contributor? Is there a way to quarry the return rate of new editors whose first article creation was retained in mainspace? I'd also like to see what percentage of our regular editor corps started out as article creators versus gnomes/talk page complainers/info-adders (depending on how we defined it, I could arguably fall into all four of these categories...). JoelleJay (talk) 23:17, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

@JoelleJay, I'm pretty sure that your question could be answered at Wikipedia:Request a query. From memory, back in the day, when we were new, as much as a quarter of registered editors' first edits were to create a new article. Looking at 20 editors who created an account yesterday and have already made an edit, I find that two of them started articles in the Draft: space with their first edits, 16 made edits to existing pages, and two more I don't know about, because their contributions have been deleted. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:39, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Inaccurate Draftification Message

The second point is that many draftifications use the canned summary which says that reliable sources are needed, when there is a different reason why the article is not ready for main space, such as notability. Because it is easy to press a button, reviewers sometimes press the button and use the standard draftification message when the problem isn't the sources. This sometimes causes the originator to reference-bomb the draft with low-quality sources, which is the natural result of being told to add sources. Because there is one standard canned draftification message, and other reasons for draftification, sometimes the result just completely misses the point. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:49, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

This is true, but NPPers (the majority of draftifiers?) are encouraged to edit and tailor that message as appropriate. Mccapra (talk) 19:50, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

I've mentioned above that the draftification message is obviously supposed to be customised. If NPPers would take more time over their reviews it would not be a problem. One can only wonder who does not read instructions - the NPPers or the creators who dump their crap in Wikipedia. Incidentally, the 'Move to draft' script was developed in total good faith by a user. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:56, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

My observation, although not statistically controlled and so not scientific, is that draftifiers very seldom edit or tailor the message. The message is good for articles with no sources or cruddy sources, but is wrong and harmful for articles with notability problems. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:04, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

I don't think I've seen a tailored message, either. Espresso Addict (talk) 02:23, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

FYI, Espresso Addict, I have rarely come across a draftification I do where I didn't need to customise the message. Perhaps better training the reviewers is the answer. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:07, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, I never use the custom draftify script, just do the move myself, and leave a hand-written message for the creator. It does take longer but it seems less offensive, though I don't know how often the creators actually work further on the article; not very often, I fear. I do think the custom tool may have made moving to draft too easy an option. Espresso Addict (talk) 03:13, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Customisation in this context means you can rewrite the entire message if you want to. It's as easy as that, Espresso Addict. Try it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:51, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

I personally currently use 4 customized versions of the canned message, along with it, depending on the circumstance: UPE; UPE with additional ref concerns (although that one is rarely used); GNG concerns; and VERIFY concerns. That last one is for where an article is most likely notable, but large swaths of the article are wholly unsourced. I could mark it reviewed and leave it in mainspace, but if I removed the unsourced material, it would gut the article. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 00:39, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

@Onel5969: Sounds like those would be good templates for improving the current, one-size-fits-all summary. Would you be willing to share them? – Joe (talk) 11:29, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Sure thing: User:Onel5969/Draftify templates. I forgot, there was another one, for NFOOTY stubs. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 11:32, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, you say, "many draftifications use the canned summary which says that reliable sources are needed, when there is a different reason why the article is not ready for main space, such as notability," But, how is one supposed to demonstrate notability? Through sources - specifically reliable ones that are independent of the topic. So the message saying they need mor reliable sources isn't wrong, just incomplete. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 03:04, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

ONUnicorn, most of us reasonably experienced users know what notability means in Wikipedia's concept. What we get is new users insisting 'But he is notable because he's famous.' With the exception of a few sng like those footballers who have only played one match as an injury reserve and the only source is a listing in the club's squad, it's easy enough to supply some alphabet salad in the text to point them in the right direction. It all comes down to the volition of the reviewer. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:17, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

User:ONUnicorn - The message is wrong in that what it advises the author to do will not improve the draft and will waste the time of the author and further reviewers. You are right that notability is established by sources. If the subject is a run-of-the-mill businessman, and the article is draftified with instructions to find reliable sources, the author is likely, in good faith, to look for sources, and will find sources, that will not be independent and significant. So the author has been sent on a useless quest. That is what is wrong with the incomplete advice. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:58, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Note: We have a longstanding Wikipedia:Userfication essay, which precedes the existence of draft space. Much of that could be adapted towards a draftification policy. BD2412 T 05:22, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

• While I fully defend the use of the draft space, I now have conclusive proof that not only are reviewers not customising the 'Move to draft' default message, but some reviewers are not using the script and not leaving a message at all. Good faith creators are being left to discover for themselves that their articles have been moved and to find out why. This is just one example of why two-stage reviewing might be a good idea. Admittedly the WMF is at fault for not making it clear where to find the instructions for creating articles, but two wrongs don't make a right. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:49, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Double Draftification

My third point is that, because draftification is easy, sometimes an article is draftified more than once, although the guidelines say that an article should only be draftified once. If the originator thinks that the article is ready for article space, and demonstrates this by moving it back to article space, the reviewer should either write an AFD or tag the article. In my opinion, an article should not be moved back into draft space twice. Some experienced reviewers apparently think that there are exceptions, such as conflict of interest. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:49, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

IMO draftification should be done only once. If a draft gets moved back to mainspace and is still not appropriate (even if moved by a AfC reviewer) then AfD should be the next step. AfC gives plenty of advice to the user but is not a clean up station any more than NPP is. Strictly speaking nor is AfD but it does very often start a successful clean up campaign by those who are willing enough to do it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:56, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

The guidelines say that an article should only be draftified once, but some reviewers, even some experienced reviewers, have their own interpretation. I am not sure whether their reason for draftifying more than once is that they don't think that COI editors should be allowed to move articles to article space, which they should not, or that it is just easier to send it back to draft space. It is true that COI editors are not allowed to move articles to article space, but maybe it should be made clear that move-warring is not the right sanction, and that the non-compliant editor may be partially blocked or blocked, and that the article can be nominated for deletion, and draftification is a valid close on an AFD. Maybe we need to restate the guideline even more clearly. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:33, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Personally, I feel the draftify guideline should be modified that the exception for only draftifying once is COI/UPE editing. The rationale is that there is really no other way to discourage COI/UPE editing, since that is not grounds for AfD. This appears to be a conflict between two guidelines: COI/UPE are not allowed to move articles into mainspace, but if they do, and it's been draftified once, other editors are not allowed to correct their error? The article can be AfD'd, except COI/UPE editing is not grounds for deletion.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 00:43, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

If you suspect COI problems, but you believe the subject to be notable, you can stubbify it down to a bland "Subject is a foo in Location" with an assortment of independent sources, and leave it like that. The reason we care about COI/UPE is that it produces biased articles on doubtfully notable subjects. If it's notable, and if you can solve the bias problem, that's enough.

Of course, if you have any non-COI-based reason to doubt the subject's notability, then that is certainly grounds for sending it to AFD. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:55, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

There should be only a single exception: explicit consensus. Everything else is move warring and should be treated as such with warnings and (partial) blocks as appropriate. If you think an article subject is not notable, nominate it at AfD. If you think it just needs improvement, tag it. If you have COI concerns then tag the article and explain in detail on the talk page. If you think it should be merged into an existing article, nominate it. If you think there is some other reason it shouldn't be in the encyclopaedia then nominate it at AfD. Never move war. Thryduulf (talk) 10:53, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Double checking

Introducing a user right in 2016 for reviewing had a huge, positive impact on NPP, but the process is of course still far from perfect. Because it demands a high level of knowledge of notability and deletion policies, and has a complex array of functions more than any other Wikipedia process (except maybe Twinkle), it only attracts a very small number of editors. Some find it too complicated and they give up because they bit off more than they could chew. A few others were probably hat collectors, and a small number obtained the right with the express intention if abusing the system (none of this is conjecture - it's all documented). There are currently 727 NPPers but in reality there are abut 20 regular active reviewers who are doing around 90% of the work.

Now that the backlog is really down to a handful of articles (sorry to say, but it will probably creep back up when the reviewers have relaxed their efforts), it's time for the active reviewers to take more time and use the features of Page Curation more often to their advantage. One solution could be a fail-safe by double checking - a simple system of double reviewing. It does not add more than 2 or 3 seconds to a review (tested). The first reviewer does their thing, and a second reviewer either endorses it or makes a suggestion for a different solution.

This does not mean being a Stasi, Gestapo, or the KGB, with reviewers assuming poor work and ratting on each other. Outside Wikipedia, such collaboration is called 'teamwork' and no one resents having their work checked by a workmate. It would avoid a lot of bad faith and enraged newbies stomping off in disgust for having their unsourced 3-line stub which 'took three hours to create' being draftified or listed for deletion. Let's not forget that the way good faith newbies are treated at NPP and AfC makes a huge difference to their early Wiki experience. After all, the WMF is always yelling "Retention, retention, retention!" even if they don't have a clue how to go about it themselves. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:02, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

This would also a great way to mentor newer reviewers. They would do a first review, and then see if it was endorsed by the second reviewer. MB 04:04, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

A proper second review would likely take as much time as a first review, which is a significant amount of time when done properly. So in theory this would double the amount of time it takes to review everything, and double the backlog. I would be hesitant to support something that doubles our backlog. Don't forget the NPP backlog was unmanageable (over 10,000) earlier this year, and only our bus factor reviewer getting active again and two backlog drives got it under control again. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:07, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Yes, bus factor... We don't get to hear about the mistakes because the complaints are made on the creators' talk pages. When I look at the speed of reviewing during a drive, I really do not think the 3 seconds more for an endorsement would negatively impact the process especially if the backlog can now be kept down to manageable proportions. I actually see enough dubious reviews to give me pause but I don't say anything because to do so on Wikipedia is big no no. It would be an interesting exercise after 6 years of the NPR right to examine the hundreds of thousands of reviews to see how good the performance of NPP actually is. But if course that would be impossible. I just believe 'Prevention is better than cure', and the bigger the Wikipedia gets, and the bigger the WMF gets (rumour has it that it will have nearly 700 employees by the end of next year), it's time for Wikipedia to install some better checks and balances. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:54, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Like. Curbon7 (talk) 03:13, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

I like this idea broadly, though I see significant issues if it is enforced via software implementation or that policy prohibits clicking the review button until a second NPPer approves. Something I can envision is the creation of a program which is more comprehensive than peer review cohort that effectively does this and perhaps there are certain time based requirements to have been in this program and pass or be a "mentor" in the program to retain the user-right if active. —Sirdog (talk) 03:47, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Ultras and Other Types of Editors

User:David Eppstein wrote:

The problem is that draftification fails to distinguish two classes of new articles by relatively new editors: (1) spammers, paid editors, and self-promoters and (2) enthusiastic and potentially valuable contributors who have not yet written and edited enough articles to have a firm grasp of what is needed in the way of notability and sourcing in a new article.

Yes, and there are at least one more class of editors who write low-quality articles, and are sometimes mistaken for spammers or self-promoters. Those are editors whom I call ultras, who should be recognized as a distinct class of editors requiring a different sort of attention. These are editors who are "fans", which we should remember is short for "fanatics", about a particular topic, often a film director or studio, or subgenre of film, or a particular celebrity, or a particular sports team. I am taking the name ultras from the hard-core groups of fans who follow particular association football teams, who sometimes both have in-stadium ultras and in-Wikipedia ultras. They have some of the same characteristics as paid editors and promoters in being disruptive, but are in good faith. When they are asked to make a conflict of interest declaration, they say that they have no conflict of interest, because they have no conflict of interest, but they can be just as tendentious as paid editors.

They require different handling than either paid editors, or run-of-the-mill enthusiastic inexperienced editors. One practice that is in particular characteristic of ultras is gaming of the titles of articles, changing the spelling of a title, or adding an unnecessary disambiguator, or similar devices, to try to get by a history of previous declines or deletions. We recognize that paid editors are a serious problem, and that enthusiastic clueless new editors are a potential resource. We don't always recognize that ultras have some aspects of both.

There may be more other classes of problematic editors, but I don't know. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:20, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, I wonder what inspired this section? :) JoelleJay (talk) 23:44, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

User:JoelleJay - That's one example of ultras, the most recent example to be obvious. There have been others. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:59, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Oh I am very familiar with "the others". JoelleJay (talk) 20:31, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Robert, I agree with everything you're saying, but NPP already demands a knowledge of policies beyond even that of some admins. There aren't many genuine NPPers, to require them to be even more specialised and recognise social sub-groups of article creators would drive them all away. And then there were none. And one WMFer would have a field day because NPP would finally be gone. And after 16 years of it, we could all pack up and go home, play snooker, go sailing, or watch telly. Or go contribute to a Wiki fork or WO. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:39, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

So what are you saying that we shouldn't do? Robert McClenon (talk) 03:59, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Cry? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:05, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

This is recognised sub-group already in-part. I don't how you address this though at NPP. It usually through coi on a per case basis. scope_creep^Talk 07:45, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

If User:scope_creep is saying that concerns about these editors must be addressed on a per case basis, I agree. If they are saying that we can address them via conflict of interest, then I may not have been clear. Concerns about these editors cannot be addressed via conflict of interest policy, because they do not have a conflict of interest. They are non-neutral and are sometimes tendentious or otherwise disruptive, but they do not have a conflict of interest. In that respect, they are like nationalist editors, because the policy that is applicable is neutral point of view, which is the second pillar of Wikipedia. They are often thought to have conflict of interest, but they don't, so that trying to use the COI policy is unproductive. They must be dealt with on a case by case basis, but not through COI. Do I need to explain further? Robert McClenon (talk) 19:15, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Please do. scope_creep^Talk 19:28, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Changing the titles re: "Battle for Dream Island" which is gaming the system, is classic behaviour in this class of editor. scope_creep^Talk 19:46, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

But how do those editors have a COI? JoelleJay (talk) 20:33, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

It was assumed due the fact they really desperate to get the article in, beyond all reasonable expectations, they were being driven by a client, maybe an agency something like that or perhaps expecting to get a bonus when the article is in. So they get more and more desperate. Very rarely does it seem to be a fan or a sports editor, although it might be one here. So there was an assumption that its some of kind of coi. There doesn't seem to be a reason for it. Its so bizarre. Its worth looking at that "Battle for Dream Island" on the main admin noticeboard. There is multiple accounts, multi changes in the article names, multiple avenues being in attempts to create it. Ultra is a good name. The Admin Corps will address this, as it another avenue to WP:GAME the system. scope_creep^Talk 12:55, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Might be simpler than it looks

Well there's the OP question, and then there the other 30 questions that we've been discussing. The OP sort of combined other considerations with the structuraly most fundamental question which is: Is the topic of the article allowed to have a seperate article under Wikipedia's policies and guidelines? (which are basically wp:notability and wp:not)

• If the answer is a known "no" it needs to get deleted
• If the answer is a known/established "yes" it should go/stay in mainspace which is the best place for all other article improvements including expansions and fixes
• If the answer is "unknown/not establised" then there are three posibilities: Deletion. draft, or spend a short time in the NPP que tagged for improvement regarding that particular question

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:09, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

That is kind of how it works now, but a firm "no" doesn't necessarily mean deletion. There's certainly items that aren't notable, but go to draft space as they may be in the future. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 10:40, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

?? A known "no" means GNG suitable sources couldn't be found for the topic and (if such exist) it failed any applicable SNG criteria. Changes in that status would typically require creation of additional coverage by RS's or real-world changes in the topic's compliance with any SNG criteria. That's unlikely to happen in a draft space time frame. But my main point with respect to the OP question is that if a topic is wiki-OK to have a separate article, it's best to put/leave it in article space for handling of all other issues. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:28, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Create all articles as drafts

I'm a strong believer that all articles should be created as drafts which are then moved the main space when ready. Stuartyeates (talk) 10:31, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

What's the point of that if an article is already written to a high quality? You'd be putting in a technical restriction for no reason. Once someone is autoconfirmed, you can simply move your own draft to mainspace regardless, so we don't gain anything from only creating in draftspace. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 10:38, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

We make draftification feel like less of a punishment and more like a normal place for new articles to exist. It's literally only two more clicks to start in draft. What do we gain from everyone publishing directly to mainspace? JoelleJay (talk) 21:32, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Not seriously annoying established contributors, who actually create a large proportion of content? Not losing some large fraction of newbie articles to G13? Espresso Addict (talk) 03:16, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

This would be in conjunction with something like what Kudpung suggested below, where drafts would be patrolled and the ones that are actually encyclopedic can be rolled into mainspace by reviewers or anyone who is autoconfirmed. And I don't see what we're losing with abandoned drafts that don't meet extremely minimal standards being G13'd. JoelleJay (talk) 03:29, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

This would take a complete rethink of how draftspace is used, as currently one has to submit a draft for anyone to take any notice of it, or move it into mainspace. Otoh, nothing needs to be done in mainspace to make the article visible to NPP. And anyone who thinks nothing usable is wasted at G13 has never looked at the G13 heap; there is no test whatsoever for minimal standards, it's just essentially automated deletion, the more so now the one person I know of who combed through them systematically has reduced his contributions. Espresso Addict (talk) 04:46, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Who would decide when they are ready? Phil Bridger (talk) 10:45, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

The draft approval process is already completely overwhelmed (as well as being far too variable in quality), & this would jam it up completely. Johnbod (talk) 12:12, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

No, not necessarily it wouldn't. Why not simply pool resources and merge AfC with NPP? All new pages have to go through NPP anyway. A single process: 'Mark as patrolled' does just that. Listing for deletion works as usual. Tagging works as usual. 'Tag and leave as draft' leaves as draft and moves the article to the draft queue which already exists in the feed. Merge the user rights of both AfC and NPP (insisting on the same due diligence before according the right. Actually this suggestion s noting new. We were talking about it in 2016. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:26, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Kudpung กุดผึ้ง's fleshing out of my initial idea is great. I do both AfC and NPP and there's a _lot_ of similarity to the work. Many of the straight-forward cases are very quick (we recently cancelled an NPP drive mid-drive when we got to zero), what makes AfC slow is dealing with the COI issues and other problematic cases. Stuartyeates (talk) 19:24, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Except no one who can create an article in mainspace needs to have their draft approved. JoelleJay (talk) 21:13, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Not their draft, but certainly their mainspace article comes under even stricter review at NPP, JoelleJay. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:55, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Why is that a problem? Articles from new editors should be under stricter review. JoelleJay (talk) 22:05, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose moving all new articles to draft space, that is a waste of time.

Ortizesp (talk) 20:25, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

"Draft" is a place not a process. AFC and NPP are processes. I think that AFC is both different and more stringent than NPP, maybe too stringent. Because someone who approves an AFC article sees it as sort of putting their neck on the line for various aspects of the article including that it is reasonably good. The core NPP function is controlling whether or not the topic of the article is allowed to exist in mainspace as a separate article and trying to implement/apply the big fuzzy defacto community standard regarding only that criteria. North8000 (talk) 21:44, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose No, no, no, 1000 times no. We need to be reducing barriers to quality work, not adding meaningless bureaucracy. I liked it much better when we just deleted inappropriate articles; the entire AFC process and the draft space is just an insult to new users in a highly WP:BITE way, at least AFD is an honest and open process about why something isn't appropriate for an article topic, and WP:CSD is similarly so blatant as to be obvious and easy to explain. AFC and the draftification process is arcane and the entire thing is the opposite of helpful. Furthermore, as noted above, experienced users create good articles all the time, hundreds of times a day. Why must we get in their way by forcing them to go through some pointless bureaucracy. This is a terrible idea. --Jayron32 21:52, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per Jayron32. This is solution that will simultaneously not fix the problem it attempts to while making existing problems worse and also creating new ones where they don't currently exist. Thryduulf (talk) 10:59, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
• I'd opposd any such effort for the reasons given and the many other reasons not given as yet. Please focus your energy on changes that could be an improvement; this is not. --John Cline (talk) 16:31, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
• There still hasn't been a reply to my question above, without which this is a meaningless proposal. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:45, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Proposal to make WP:LONGDAB a guideline

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see: Wikipedia talk:Organizing disambiguation pages by subject area#RfC: make this page a guideline

This is a proposal to elevate an essay to guideline status; there's also a more specific suggestion to merge it into MOS:DAB.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:55, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Cradlepoint Prod

I recently tried to prod the the Cradlepoint article but editor user:Explicit came in the edit summary "Declined PROD - previously deleted via PROD, ineligible again. Next step is WP:AFD". The decision seemed to be a bit odd as this is a brand new article. Its seems to have been deleted and recreated but I'm not sure and I can't see evidence for it. Is it not the case of because its a new article, it has its own state and therefore the prod would apply. I spoke Explicit who stated at User talk:Explicit#Cradlepoint: "Any page deleted via this process and then recreated is not subject to speedy deletion under criterion G4, as recreation is a way of contesting the proposed deletion". User:Marchjuly stated on the talkpage discussion: "any page deleted via Prod and then created is not subject to speedy deletion under G4". That would suggest its been deleted and recreated its not applicable under G4. G4 is not prod and I never G4'd it. Its a different process. I can't see how the article can't be prodded because the previous version was also prodded. I think the original prod should be have been applied and its a simple mistake. I done hundreds of prod and not heard anything about this. scope_creep^Talk 08:22, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

The evidence that this has been deleted before is where you would expect to see it. And I'm rather surprised that you have never "heard anything about this" - it's right there in the lead section of WP:PROD and is referenced frequently. The reference to G4 seems to be a trivial mistake. Just take the article to AfD. Phil Bridger (talk) 08:55, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

WP:PROD seems extremely clear that prod may only be used once per article. The only exception regarding deletion is a new article that has no connection to a previously deleted page at the same title, which is not relevant here. Thryduulf (talk) 16:30, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

I think my post on Explicit's talk page should be looked at in it's entirely and not just as one blurb. The entirety of what I posted was The link Explicit provided has an extra number sign, and it should be WP:PROD#cite_note-8 instead. My reading of that particular note is that "any page deleted via Prod [this process] and then [re]created is not subject to speedy deletion under G4". I think it explicitly only mentions G4 because by definition an article can only be prodded for deletion once so there's no need to explicitly state the obvious. An article which has been deleted via prod which is subsequently recreated is, in my opinion, essentially no different form an article being de-prodded prior to being deleted. Prod deletions are considered to be WP:SOFTDELETEs and soft-deleted articles can be restored upon request or simply recreated if someone wants to do so, even in bad faith. So, unless there are any other CSD reasons for deletion the second time around, policy seems to imply that the article should go to AfD. Perhaps my reading is incorrect, but my intended point was that an article can only be prodded once regardless of who deprodded it or why they did so. No reason even needs to be given per WP:DEPROD. When an administrator declines a prod, they are essentially deprodding it themselves. They are making an assessment that further discussion is needed. Even if their reasoning for declining the prod is incorrect, it would still seem to be a "valid" deprod. Now, perhaps in a case like this it might be a good idea for a WP:HISTMERGE so that the previous prod is visible in the recreated article's page history. It might also have helped if an {{Old prod}} template for the first prod had been added to the recreated article's talk page. My guess is that user who recreated the article either didn't think about any of that or felt it was unnecessary. -- Marchjuly (talk) 23:52, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

BLP: Replacement of images at subject's request

EDIT: Thanks to suggestions in the replies here, I have written this proposal into an essay. It is accessible at Wikipedia:I look ugly in this! with shortcuts WP:ILOOKUGLY and WP:BADHAIRDAY. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wpscatter (talk • contribs) 08:58, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Failing to find policy that addresses this specific case, I would like to propose one.

In the case that the subject of a BLP article wishes to have their photo removed from the article, we can use that as sole justification to replace it, regardless of the subject's reasoning, provided:

• The new photo is also freely licensed,
• The new photo is generally representative of the subject, and
• The new photo is suitable for the article, equally or more so than the original.

If the subject suggests a particular image to use instead, we should make an effort to use it provided it meets the above criteria.

I am not proposing any of the following:

• That we should remove images which BLP subjects oppose without replacement,
• That we change policy regarding the removal of article content the subject opposes, nor
• That the quality of an article should be sacrificed to please its subject.

In fact, this policy would not explicitly allow anything that isn't already allowed. However, codifying it would stop comments such as "is this really a good reason to change the image?", and lengthy discussions under it, in cases where there is no other justification to make the change.

There is precedent for a subject to have direct control of information that appears in an article, though for different reasons: see WP:DOB. See also WP:BLPKINDNESS.

There is a short discussion about this situation at WP:BLPN#Hasan Minhaj, but no real consensus was reached. WPscatter ^t/_c 16:42, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

• I agree with this in broad concept, but with reservations. There may be good reasons to NOT use the image preferred by the subject (example: if it also unduly promotes his/her business). Blueboar (talk) 16:54, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

  I think this, and any other reservations I can think of, are covered by my proposal already. An image unduly promoting a business is not suitable for the article. WPscatter ^t/_c 18:11, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

• No policy please! Should be case by case. These are reasonable principles though - do it as an essay? Johnbod (talk) 17:37, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks for the suggestion, I think that's a much better idea. I wasn't aware there was a "policy bloat" problem. Wikipedia:I look ugly in this! WPscatter ^t/_c 08:59, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

• Personally, I don't think we should be changing articles based on the whims of the subject - but if a better item does exist then we should change it. I don't see why we'd want to policy-ify it. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:47, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

  Simply to avoid the "is this really a good reason to change it?" argument when it comes up. Also in cases where the given image is already good and it wants to be changed to one of approximate equal quality - we've all seen "old one was fine" reverts. WPscatter ^t/_c 18:12, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

  If the items are equally good, then there is no reason to change it. The subject of the article has no more weight than any other editor. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:39, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

  That the subject of the article should have more weight than other editors when it comes to the page image, and that it should be a valid reason to change to an equally good image, is exactly the policy change I'm proposing. Stating that it isn't currently the case isn't an argument, it's the entire point. WPscatter ^t/_c 21:53, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

  Maybe "the point" you are making is a bad one? Maybe the idea that the subject of an article should have control (beyond the basic avoid libel type stuff) isn't something we should be doing. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:46, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

  If you have any arguments as to why a subject's desire to have an image removed should be a reason against replacing it with an equally (or better) suitable one, please post them. I've written an essay about it, I welcome discussion on its talk page. WPscatter ^t/_c 09:00, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

  If their preferred image is better, the fact that it is better is the reason to change it. If it is only "as good", then the change is just pointless. The onus is on the subject to show that their image is better. And "I think this picture of me is prettier" is not a reason that holds any weight. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 19:39, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

  "If it is only "as good", then the change is just pointless" - okay, why? If thousands of people were seeing an image of you that you didn't like, I'm sure you'd feel differently. The fact that the person is not presented in a way they like makes it not "pointless". And besides, even if it is "pointless", surely that means we can make the change without affecting anything negatively, which is why I will continue to argue that we should. I still have not read any argument as to why we should not. WPscatter ^t/_c 20:32, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

  ""If it is only "as good", then the change is just pointless" - okay, why?" Because any change made to any Wikipedia article should be one that makes the article better. If the picture is only "as good", then it does not, by definition, make the article better. It is just rearranging deck chairs. "If thousands of people were seeing an image of you that you didn't like, I'm sure you'd feel differently. " I'm not sure why you are so confident about what I would feel when I pretty much said that a person's own opinion about a photo of themselves is of no importance. And, to reiterate my point, "not affecting anything negatively" is not a reason do something. The reason to do something is because it will affect things positively. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 20:51, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

  May I direct you to WP:BLPKINDNESS, which is policy and states "Editors should make every effort to act with kindness toward the subjects of biographical material when the subjects arrive to express concern." Are you willing to argue that saying "no, the old picture is fine as is" is acting with kindness when a subject expresses that they do not like how they are presented? WPscatter ^t/_c 21:46, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

  You are completely misrepresenting what WP:BLPKINDNESS is about. This has nothing to do with "showing leniency to BLP subjects who try to fix what they see as errors or unfair material". The point of BLPKINDNESS is not to throw the book at people who are technically acting with a COI. Not to coddle their vanity. As I've said before, if the existing image does not meet guidelines for not presenting the subject in a negative fashion and for presenting them in a way that is generally representative, their proposed image would be preferred. Beyond that, if the two images are equally good, I see no reason for a change. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:49, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

  "I see no reason for a change" - that isn't true. The reason is that the subject prefers the new one. You just don't agree with the reason. And you still haven't argued why, outside of simply saying "we should ignore them". WPscatter ^t/_c 16:59, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

  Their preference for one photo over another falls under WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Which specifically covers "subjective opinions concerning the usage of fair use images". --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 17:45, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

  First of all, that's an essay, not policy. But more importantly, the subject of a BLP being the one who doesn't like it changes things. BLP matters often trump other areas of policy and procedure. It's really a stretch to say this is outside the realm of BLPKINDNESS.

  Others have presented fair arguments against making this policy, such as that it opens the door for subjects to whimsically request changes very often, leaving us obligated to have a constantly rotating image in the article. You haven't presented any other than a dogmatic "subjects shouldn't have control over their articles". Again, my entire argument is that this (where an equally suitable or no-consensus image is preferred by a subject) is a special case in which considering the subject's opinion does not negatively affect the article. If you would like to argue why it would negatively affect the article I welcome that. Appealing to dogma is not an argument. WPscatter ^t/_c 18:34, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

  While I'm waiting for you to give a reason why we should do this instead of sticking with the Wikipedia wide principles of 1) not making changes that do not improve the article and 2) being independent of the subject. I'm also confused why you would bring up BLP issues when you already specified that this is only for cases where the two images are equally suitable. If there is a BLP issue with one of the images, then the other is preferable. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 11:11, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

  If we think as kind, considerate people rather than Wikipedia policy robots, the reason why we should do this presents itself rather obviously. Of course "this person is being represented in a manner they aren't okay with" is a reason to change the picture, all else being equal.

  Let me remind you that Wikipedia policies exist for reasons. The reason COI and BLP self-edit policy exists is because it tends to make the article worse via violations of NPOV or uses of unreliable, non-independent sources. They don't exist because "subjects shouldn't have control over their articles" was divinated from on high, to be followed uncritically by all Wikipedia editors to follow. Please make an argument as to why appealing to the subject in this special case would make the article worse. Otherwise this discussion is not productive and I will not continue it. WPscatter ^t/_c 18:05, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

  @Khajidha said: Because any change made to any Wikipedia article should be one that makes the article better. If the picture is only "as good", then it does not, by definition, make the article better. It is just rearranging deck chairs.

  This isn't actually a policy. It's your opinion. It's a fine opinion, but it should not be mistaken for a requirement or a view that has general consensus.

  We have consensus that edits should not make articles worse. We do not have consensus that if the article says "The film is known for A, B, and C", and someone wants to 'rearrange the deck chairs' so that it says C, A, and B, that you get to revert them because you think the change was pointless. If there were any community consensus on such changes, it would likely be that you shouldn't get in the way of editors who believe they are improving an article when you think their changes are pointless. The very first item in WP:BADREVERT is about "edits that neither improve nor harm the article". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:20, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

  If the current photo is a mug shot or looks like the subject just walked through a tornado, then a picture of them in a normal setting with normal grooming would be better. And that would have nothing to do with their preference. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 19:53, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

• I don't think we need this as policy, just that yes, if the subject is able to provide a quality free image that is seen as an improvement by editors, that should be preferred. (We should have a guideline somewhere related to "handling content requests from the BLP subject" that this should be covered in). --Masem (t) 17:59, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
• Probably not a great idea. In some cases, sure. I remember the case of Lauren Wolkstein. Her face isn't entirely symmetrical. I think she looks fine, but that's not the point. File:Lauren Wolkstein Montclair film festival 2017.jpg used to be the infobox image. It's not a poorly timed photo, it's just what she looks like. After photos without permission were uploaded and inserted repeatedly we now have File:LaurenWolkstein2021.jpg with OTRS permission. It's a fine picture, but it also deliberately tries to make her face look more symmetrical than it is. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 18:19, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Yeah that's the rub, if the person wants to present an airbrushed picture say. However, I haven't seen that very much. If both pictures are OK but the one the subject wants makes him look somewhat better, but no less like he really looks than the existing picture... it's fine. Which is most cases. Per the spirit of BLP, we should lean over backwards as far as reasonably possible to accomodate the subject. (But then there is also the question of the person requesting being the actual subject, or her agent, if there's no OTRS ticket). Anyway, we have too many rules already, and rules are supposed to codify existing procedure, not be mandated from above. An essay would be good tho. Herostratus (talk) 23:23, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

• Support. Where the subject's preferred photo is appropriately licensed and equally good or better then I can see absolutely no reason why we wouldn't use their preferred photo. If the image is overly promotional then it is worse than the current image and so this wouldn't apply. If someone's face is notably asymmetric (or has some other notable feature) then there should be reliably sourced content in the article supporting that. If that content is in or near the lead then a photo that doesn't show that aspect isn't equally as good as one that doesn't. If the content is lower down the article then use the original photo adjacent to that content and the preferred photo in the lead. If there is no relevant reliably sourced content in the article then the preferred picture not showing that is not a reason to regard it as worse than the current one. In all cases though it is perfectly acceptable to discus which photo is better any why, the only changes would be (1) that one photo being the preferred photo of the subject is not a reason why it is worse than the previous one and (2) no consensus (or consensus they are equally good) defaults to using the preferred photo. Thryduulf (talk) 11:02, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose - if the subject has a better photo to offer, the relevant fact is that it is a better photo. Not that it is from the subject. We aren't part of their social media presence, their likes and dislikes are no concern of ours. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:07, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
• Comment. Individual cases should be considered on their merits. It may be appropriate to take the subject's personal preferences into consideration, but trying to make this into some sort of policy makes no sense, given the multitude of other possible factors that may be relevant. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:16, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
• I dislike the proposal's wording, because it says "sole justification" and then goes on to list three non-trivial requirements that the preferred photo must satisfy, which is a little contradictory. However, I do support the general idea of using the subject's wishes as a tiebreaker in "no consensus" scenarios, as opposed to defaulting to the status quo as we usually do. There is precedent for this type of action, cf. WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 16:22, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks for bringing up the "tiebreaker in case of no consensus" idea, since I think that's an important point and I hadn't thought of it. I've incorporated it into the essay I wrote on the topic. WPscatter ^t/_c 09:03, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

• Support I used to deal with this a lot. I fully appreciate that many people dislike poor-quality or embarrassing images of themselves like mug shots. A particular problem is when a person derives income from their appearance and therefore prefers the airbrushed publicity photo. Given that our definition of free is "free as in free enterprise", prioritising the interest of corporations over those of the encyclopaedia, I am generally willing to accommodate this. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:16, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
• The important question is: is the proposed new image better than the current image (both in terms of quality and our rules)? It does not matter who proposes it. Blueboar (talk) 18:24, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

  That's a fair point, and really I suppose the only thing this proposal would change is the case where the new image is of approximate equal quality or no consensus can be reached. WPscatter ^t/_c 09:02, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

• Support wholeheartedly. Typically, a Wikipedia photo represents a person across the Internet whenever you search for them: it is deranged for us to insist on using terrible photos because using good ones would somehow be capitulation. I mean, the same argument could be applied to any insulting thing: what if we added a sentence to every BLP saying "there is no evidence that John Smith is not a pedophile"? And then we could preen ourselves about how we didn't cave in to the demands of subjects by removg it. And it would even be true, technically speaking! But it would also be pointlessly mean moustache-twirling vindictiveness. jp×g 19:19, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
• Support if the replacement photo is just as good, it doesn't have to be better to make it a kind thing to do to replace. Newystats (talk) 06:00, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
• Support So long as it is of equal or better quality, I have no problem respecting someone's wishes. --Jayron32 14:56, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
• I support in principle as a tiebreaker, à la WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE. The proposed wording is a bit dramatic, though. Ovinus (talk) 20:39, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
• This is in line with what I understand typical practice to be. Some people seem to take an adversarial stance against article subjects for some reason, rather than just tell them "it's the best we have. give us a better alternative and a reason why it's better, and we can see about changing it". It seems pretty in line with BLP to be respectful and empathetic to people who don't like the photo we have (and to guide them accordingly). I don't think this needs to be introduced to policy, but an essay in projectspace makes sense to me. You'll just have to decide if that essay is for Wikipedians interpreting policy or article subjects to explain to them what's going on (and how to upload something better, if they own the copyright to it). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:54, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose making a policy that gives article subjects editorial control. If they prefer a different image every month, we should be free to ignore them. We should honour reasonable requests, but making this policy goes way too far. —Kusma (talk) 14:23, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

It goes without saying that there needs to be some authentication, such as WP:UTRS if the person makes their comments on Wikipedia. We wouldn't be able to take any action on an unauthenticated message or through an untrusted channel. Elizium23 (talk) 14:33, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Actually, we can sometimes/often take action without authentication, because fairly often it doesn't matter who made a request. If someone shows up and says "Hey, I'm the subject, and please fix this obvious problem", we should focus on the obvious problem, not on checking who said it. After all, we didn't ask the people who wrote the article/added the image/caused the problem to authenticate themselves. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:25, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Support, and if they're both "equally good" but one is preferred to the other, then they're not equal IMO - the preferred once should be used. Caveat should be put into place so the subject doesn't constantly change the pictures. Ortizesp (talk) 20:00, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Support as long as the replacement photo is freely licensed and of high quality. Kindness toward living people who are the subjects of our articles is essential to the reputation of the encyclopedia. Cullen328 (talk) 20:09, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

• Strongly Oppose -- this is a waste of time to codify this as actual policy. Reasonable requests should be honored, but this should not be policy. --Rockstone^{Send me a message!} 23:29, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
• Strong support, but the policy should be very clear that a consensus that the proposed image is worse according to objective criteria (sunglasses, improper crop, funky lighting etc) still overrides subject requests. Arbitrary criteria, like facial asymmetry, aren't encyclopedically relevant, and pictures that highlight e.g. asymmetry, or fatness, are not "more objective". Cameras always lie. Even RAW files don't necessarily match what our eyes see and must undergo processing.

The policy should also clarify "unduly promotional" so it's properly applied: if a notable writer or philosopher happens to prefer a picture sitting at their desk, in front of a bookcase, where their face is clearly visible and correctly zoomed-in, that shouldn't be rejected as "unduly promotional". Same with a doctor in a white coat, a chef in a chef's hat, or a scientist in a lab coat, as long as the pictures look good and meet objective criteria, there's no reason not to accomodate. If an African living person prefers a picture in traditional garb, rather than an occasionally-worn Western suit & tie, why not accomodate? It helps readers gain context, and does not constitute bias in favor of article subjects.

Quite a few BLP subjects have complained that Wikipedia photos were "biased", but seemed unaware that they could propose better ones. Codifying this as policy will hopefully increase their awareness that nothing stops them from putting pictures in the public domain, which we sorely lack for many BLPs.

When people Google someone they've never heard of, the first think they'll likely check is Wikipedia, and I think it's good to preserve subjects' dignity by making sure the first impression people get isn't instantly disfavorable to the subject. This should help. DFlhb (talk) 10:49, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Support in general, but if the subject provides the image, only if the subject acknowledges they are aware that such photos on Wikipedia are distributed under our CC licenses, which for the most part includes commercial use with attribution. Except for celebrities known for Wikipedia, like Jimbo Wales, Larry Sanger, and Depths of Wikipedia, I don't think it's a good assumption to make that famous people are aware of this policy. There are obviously exceptions, so in reality it's all going to be decided case-by-case, but in general, I do not oppose codifying this. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 21:15, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

• Ummmm so in regards to The new photo is suitable for the article, equally or more so than the original. that is an editorial decision, and discussion is already the mechanisms to determine what is the most suitable content for an article. Encouraging better, freely-licened media is certainly a good thing - but that won't override any illustrative purposes unique to other pieces of media. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:23, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Automatically display recent changes to a policy in a highlighted color

We currently allow bold changes to policy, for good reason. The problem is threefold:

• New editors reading these policies can't easily tell what is established language from what was added days ago. That's bad for bold changes that may substantially change a policy's application.
• Edits may "slip through" that lack consensus, without page watchers catching it in time. This is a problem when substantial changes take too long to be noticed, since the change, which was made without conseensus, is then thought to require affitmative consensus to revert, thus cementing non-consensus changes as policy.
• Long-time editors may simply not notice changes to policies, and may continue applying the "old" policy rather than the current one. See the Mandela effect: established editors may not even notice the change.

Here's my proposal:

• Recent changes to policy should be highlighted for a certain period of time (done automatically by MediaWiki, not as an optional template), so that editors can easily identify changes.
• The highlight would look like the text= parameter of the {{Clarify}} template, or something similar.

That wouldn't just help identify bold changes; it would also apply to recent policy changes that resulted from an explicit consensus/discussion. Enabling "pending changes" review for all policies would not address the threefold problem, since edits that lack wider consensus may still be accepted by a single page reviewer.

Why do I feel this change is needed? It would help us avoid future acrimonious debates like these on which version of the policy is the status quo, which no one benefits from. DFlhb (talk) 11:34, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

@DFlhb this "automatic" thing that you want us to do here on the English Wikipedia - does this exist (please point to an example)? If not you will need to invent that software first before we could decide if it is something that our project should use. I suspect one challenge you will run in to there is that mediawiki has almost no knowledge in to the "meaning of content" on a page, so how would it even know that a page was a "policy" (there is no concept of that being "special" content). Locally, this could possibly be done with markup - but that markup would need to be managed by editors. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:42, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

MediaWiki wouldn't need to "know"; it would just be an extra page setting (like "pending changes" is a page setting). It would also not replace semi-protection; it would be purely a supplement. It would need to be newly built into MediaWiki, and we would apply it to all policy pages. The goal is indeed to avoid having to need editors to manage markup, since that poses the exact same "stuff sometimes slips through" problem.

If editors here agree with this proposal, then I'll take it to Phabricator for it to be added to MediaWiki. DFlhb (talk) 11:53, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

@DFlhb ok, so this would be some setting that someone (admins perhaps) would apply to a page. There may be existing extensions that could possibly do this, perhaps mw:Extension:Approved Revs, mw:Extension:FlaggedRevs, or the like. I doubt this would ever get built in the mediawiki core, so that would mean that an extension would be the way to go. That being said, there is an extreme minority of pages this would ever even apply to here (~68 of our 60,482,362) pages - so running special software for these pages that don't really impact our readers at all is another unlikely scenario. This could be done "process wise" by full-protecting the pages, requiring that all changes are marked up and published. Bold editing could still take place, but would need to use edit-requests and consume admin time. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:37, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Hadn't heard of the Approved and Flagged Revs extensions, so thanks for the links, but they'd be more similar to "pending changes" than what I propose; I just want any additions to be highlighted for a month (and removals to be struck through, I suppose). I do fully concede that it's an extreme minority of pages; but given the importance of policies for all Wikipedians, I feel it's worth it. Given the maturity of our policies, full-protection may be reasonable, but would be a more radical change than I propose. DFlhb (talk) 12:46, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

It is a good idea, although the implementation may be tricky. Programmatically, such tracking seems more akin to version control for the mainspace, and I am not certain that mw can/should handle it. As xaosflux stated the effort required doesn't match the yield (less than 70 pages?) Basically you want the software to flag revisions (for a certain defined time-period based on the commit timestamp) and render such revisions differently. However, there may be additional revisions which should be distinguishable, or reverts (which may also need to be signaled). Also, I suppose the "accepted" flag should be set upon review to de-emphasize accepted edits. As stated, conceptually is a good idea. Whether it is doable is another issue. 71.247.146.98 (talk) 12:55, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Add: there may also be an issue with minor edits. Should a one-character punctuation edit be signaled? Perhaps. Punctuation (such as the placement of a comma) may change the meaning of a sentence. Sorry for bringing this up, I have worked with lawyers. 71.247.146.98 (talk) 13:06, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

I think such a thing could be built from https://api.wikiwho.net/en/whocolor/v1.0.0-beta/ but it would be slow as molasses in winter for heavily edited pages (say, anything with more than a few hundred edits ever). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:45, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

• These seems like a Very Bad Idea. We shouldn't be treating policy as some kind of sacrosanct set of laws handed down from a supreme deity and written onto stone tablets, never to be changed again. Policy follows process, and NOT the other way around. Wikipedia's policies and guidelines should ideally be descriptive and not proscriptive or prescriptive; which is to say they should reflect existing best practices and not restrict people from doing what is best for the encyclopedia unnecessarily. The OP's proposal has the effect of fossilizing all policies in place in the state they currently exist in, by making it look like any changes to policies are not "accepted" or "approved". That shouldn't be how Wikipedia works; best practices will evolve over time as we find that somethings work better in some situations than others; so Wikipedia's policies and guidelines should evolve with changing community norms. If we flag every change to a policy page, those changes read as "Someone changed this after God already determined it was perfect", and that is NOT how policy should work. --Jayron32 14:53, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

  Well said. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:55, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

  No idea how my proposal enshrines anything at all. My proposal is meant to make sure that all changes are in line with consensus, without contentious changes being "sneaked in". How would it fossilize anything? Maybe I should clarify that the highlighted content would not be "everything changed after X date", it would be "everything changed in the last week" (for example). If there's consensus for a change, it wouldn't get reverted, so nothing's fossilized. DFlhb (talk) 14:59, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

• I'll just say that many years ago (more than 15) I sort of proposed that policy pages should be harder to modify than other pages, and was called "overly bureaucratic". I don't think general sentiment on the topic has changed since then. - Donald Albury 16:48, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
• I think the intent to make changes to policies more visible is a good one, but given the above comments I'm not sure how practical the above ideas are. I've got two suggestions, present below, that while probably not as helpful as the original idea would be would go a little way towards the same aim while being easier to implement:
  1. Adding a template at the top of policy pages giving the timestamps and edit summaries for the last N edits/all edits in the last N days to the page with a link to the diff
  2. A watchlistable (and transcludable) feed of all edits to policy pages. Something like:

Policy	diff	Timestamp	Editor	diff size	Minor	Edit summary
Wikipedia:Sockpuppetry	diff	13:34, 10 November 2022	Industrial Arthropod	+10	m	Added a shortcut that wasn't previously in the Shortcuts section
Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons	diff	11:47, 10 November 2022	DFlhb	+355		→‎Using the subject as a self-published source: This is intended merely to clarify the current consensus on how to apply this policy; NOT to change how it's applied.

Thryduulf (talk) 18:30, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

I would love a "policy watchlist" page, which would be separate from our own personal watchlists (I already have hundreds of pages on mine). That would come a long way to addressing my concerns. DFlhb (talk) 18:39, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

@DFlhb, that's easy. Just make yourself a list of the pages you want to watch, and use Special:RecentChangesLinked. See Special:RecentChangesLinked/Wikipedia:List of policies as an example (although that page contains links to pages that aren't policies). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:47, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, that tool is extremely helpful. DFlhb (talk) 23:53, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Doesn't makes sense given WP:History functionality. Usually, one can find consensus that have introduces change to the policy on the talk pages. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 10:54, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

• Support this is a great idea, provided that the fine print explains (A) that the highlighted new (or changed) text is equally valid as the long standing text and (B) it is to be applied/enforced just as the non-highlighted text. By highlighting recent changes, we will be supporting the ongoing contribs from veteran editors who remember what policy X used to say, and may have not noticed when Policy X was updated. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:40, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Are WP:TEMPLATEs subject to the policy?

Are the Wikipedia templates pages regulated by Policies and guidelines? To what extent if yes? Please refer me to existing discussions if I'm missing something. I couldn't find any topics on this in the archives myself. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 11:01, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

• It depends on which specific template and policy you are talking about. Blueboar (talk) 12:08, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
• Some policies apply to all templates in the same way they apply to other pages (e.g. Wikipedia:Consensus), some polices apply to all templates in some way but not necessarily the same way (e.g. Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not), some policies apply to templates in a specific way that is different to (but may overlap with) how they apply to other pages (e.g. Wikipedia:Deletion policy), some policies apply to some templates but not others (e.g. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view), and others are completely irrelevant to templates (e.g. Wikipedia:Banning policy). Thryduulf (talk) 16:00, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

  Please take a look at my reply below, thanks! AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 15:20, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

@Alexander Davronov, an overall policy is WP:CONSENSUS when it comes to content disputes about templates as well as about articles. See Wikipedia:Dispute resolution for steps to take if discussion at Template talk:Unix commands doesn't work. Or you can write a template that includes a different set. The French and German equivalents to that template each have a different approach. StarryGrandma (talk) 21:23, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

StarryGrandma Strictly speaking it wasn't about that specific template but thanks anyway! AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 21:49, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

We can’t really answer the question without context. Could you be more specific, which templates and which policies are you discussing? Blueboar (talk) 21:57, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Well I'm interested in broader consensus on what applies where. To be more specific, do you think that WP:RS should be applicable to {{Unix commands}}?

And further example: what if some template {{FOO}} is placed onto a page of a living person that may classify it in some way? What then? Would be WP:RS applicable? Should we treat templates as part of articles and apply the same rules as ones applied to the article itself? I think we need consensus on this. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 15:19, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

What do you mean by "apply"? Levivich (talk) 19:01, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

@Levivich: By "apply" I mean that rules of the given policy are enforced upon content of the template itself. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 07:30, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

@Alexander Davronov We can't reach a consensus on something that abstract because templates take many forms and apply to articles in very different ways. For example {{Citation needed}}, {{infobox person}}, {{Cite book}}, {{Use American English}}, {{AfD}}, {{close paraphrasing}}, {{weasel-inline}} and more could all appear on the same BLP article but all have very different relevance to and interaction with WP:RS, let alone any other policy. Thryduulf (talk) 20:38, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Proposal: Establishing a guideline outline preferred dimensions (aspect ratio) for images in the inboxes for biographies and elections

Moved to the proposal pump SecretName101 (talk) 17:23, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

I think the MOS:IMGSIZE would be a right place to start with. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 07:32, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Using Move Request to draftify?

There recently a Move Request to move an article to draft space. It was created in article space, and then moved to draft space by a reviewer, and then moved back to article space. Then the reviewer tagged it with a Move Request to move it back to draft space. My question is whether this is a satisfactory way to ask for a second draftification. I and some other editors have been repeatedly saying that a unilateral second move to draft space is move warring, and that AFD should be used in such cases. So, is a Move Request an acceptable alternative to AFD? The instructions for Move Review do not explicitly answer the question. They say that Move Requests may not be used for moves from draft space or user space to article space. May a Move Request be used the other way, from article space to draft space?

One disadvantage to using a Move Request rather than AFD is that AFDs are listed via Deletion Sorting, which may bring in editors who are interested in the topic. I think that the rules should be clarified, either to say that Move Requests from article space to draft space are made by AFD, or to say that a Move Request is a means for requesting draftification. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:39, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

P.S.: It has been moved back to draft space again, so the question is not about the specific page, but I think it is a policy question that should be addressed. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:39, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Moving back to draft space does sound inappropriate. A move request, or move debate is a waste of time. AFD should be the way. If BRD is followed, the initial draftify is the B. Restore to article is the R. Discussion should follow, and that should be an AFD. Draft is not a final state, either it should end up as an article or be deleted (or possibly merged). Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:15, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Maybe I should propose adding to the instructions for when Move Requests should not be used to say that it is also not the procedure for a contested draftify, which is done by AFD. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:41, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Support adding to the WP:RM instructions that Move Requests should not be used to for a contested draftify, which is done by AFD. Deletion sorting, and existing procedures for notifications are a sufficient reason to justify this. SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:45, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

User:Graeme Bartlett - You are using an interesting and useful extension of the BRD concept, in which sometimes there is a formalized process for discussion. Article content disputes are often BRDD, where the first Discuss is on the talk page, and the second discuss is an RFC. Sometimes I mediate a discussion at DRN that is BRDDD, where the first discussion was on the talk page, and the second discussion was at DRN with a moderator, and the third discussion is the RFC. We need to keep in mind, as you did, that sometimes there is a formalized method of discussion. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:41, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

I disagree that BRD should be used for page moves. BRD means that the initiating editor thinks their action is BOLD. BOLD is good for editing, but for page moves, if there’s a chance of reverts and subsequent BRD, it makes for really confusing edit histories and page logs. Unilateral page moves should ONLY be used where the page movers believes that there can be no reasonable objection, where the move is non-controversial. SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:48, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

WP:RMUM also disagrees with this idea of reverting page moves. Move wars cause more problems (e.g., screwing up double-redirects to the point that the bot can't untangle them) than regular edit wars. There are very, very, very few reasons to revert a page move without first having at least a quick discussion.

I think it would also be a good idea for editors involved in disputes to review Wikipedia:Drafts#Objections. The rule is that unilateral draftification is a one-chance deal, just like WP:PROD. And just like PROD, if the other guy disagrees, then you send it to AFD instead of re-reverting. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:56, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

I think the guiding principle should be that once a page has been moved out of draftspace it may not be moved back in without consensus at an AfD. Establishing is going to be a lot simpler and avoid good or bad faith disruption from discussing each possible alternative to going to AfD. Thryduulf (talk) 16:25, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

If a (non AfC or NPP reviewer) editor unilaterally moves a draft to mainspace, and a NPP reviewer thinks it meets the WP:Draftify criteria, it seems to me pretty reasonable for the reviewer to immediately Draftify it, ideally with an explanation to the first editor. Once any editor invokes WP:DRAFTOBJECT, it may not be moved back without consensus at AfD. Possibly, should all non-AfD draftifications be required to to accompanied by a reference (eg in the edit summary) to WP:DRAFTOBJECT? SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:42, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Any move of a page from draftspace to mainspace can and should be taken as an invocation of WP:DRAFTOBJECT because it is not uncontroversial that the page is not appropriate for the mainspace. Thryduulf (talk) 16:05, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

I might agree with this.

If agreed, it should be noted at WP:DRAFTOBJECT.

A counterpoint might be that the mainspacer made an obvious mistake than can be easily explained to them. I’m not sure this is a strong counterpoint; educating other users is a good use of AfD. SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:44, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

WP:RM should not be used to Draftify a mainspace article, but it may be used to Draftify a non-mainspace page, or to mainspace a draft. Uses of WP:RM to move non-mainspace pages to draftspace, or to mainspace a draft are unusual but possible. WP:RM is mostly about titling, but for miscellaneous questions of the correct namespace, where no other venue such as AfD exists, WP:RM works.

For articles, WP:AfD should be used if there is any doubt or contest to the draftification of the article. Draftification can be a pseudo-deletion, and AfD not RM is the competent process to do this.

The required use of WP:AfD in the case of WP:DRAFTOBJECT is already documented. SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:35, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

• Perhaps what is needed is a new process specifically for draftification… call it WP:AfDraft? It would focus on improving the current STATE of problematic articles (sourcing, neutrality, OR concerns, etc), as opposed to examining the notability of the topic (which would remain under AFD). I could also see having two separate DRAFT spaces… one for new articles, and another for fixing existing articles. Blueboar (talk) 16:50, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

DRAFTOBJECT is an essay. What matters is the quality of the article/draft, and who objects. If the article creator moves a terrible draft on a potentially notable subject back to the mainspace, then Afd is not the answer, but redraftifying is the perfect solution. The one who wants to promote it to the mainspace can always let their draft be reviewed by an uninvolved editor, and if it is acceptable it will be moved to mainspace. But I have no idea why people continue to claim that some essay means that no article, no matter how terrible, may be moved back to mainspace if anyone, even the creator, objects. Such disputes is not what AfD is needed for and are just attempts to add a load of bureaucracy to efforts to keep mainspace articles to a reasonable minimum standard. Fram (talk) 16:46, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Unless and until draftspace and AFC are compulsory (and as far as I am aware there is a strong consensus against making them so) then there is no policy mechanism by which anyone can prohibit someone, even the creator, moving an article of any quality into the mainspace. An explicit consensus is, and in my opinion should continue to be, the only means by which an article can be returned to draftspace once it has been moved out of there (for any reason and regardless of article quality). Where the appropriate place to hold such discussions should be can be discussed, but at present consensus is that it is AfD. Thryduulf (talk) 21:21, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

So policy is what counts when it suits your POV ("there is no policy mechanism" etcetera), but when there is no policy to support your POV (on that redraftifying isn´t allowed and Afd the place to be) then no policy is needed apparently. There is, to use your words, no policy mechanism to prohibit me or anyone to redraftify an article. None. And considering that redraftifying is often done to keep shit articles (on perhaps notable subjects) out of yhe mainspace, I have no idea why you and a few others are so insistently claiming that by some miraculous, unknown process it already isn´t allowed. You are making Wikipedia worse, not better, with such dubious claims. Fram (talk) 22:05, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

There is [...] no policy mechanism to prohibit me or anyone to redraftify an article. incorrect - WP:MOVEWAR, WP:BRD, WP:CONSENSUS, WP:DRAFTOBJECT (and likely other polices, guidelines and/or essays) all say that that once an action has been objected to that you do not repeat that without consensus. If someone moves a page out of draftspace they are asserting that it is a notable subject, if there is a disagreement about whether a page is or is not notable then only consensus can settle the question. The place to determine consensus regarding the notability or otherwise of an article is AfD. Thryduulf (talk) 23:37, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

This is a pattern I've seen come up repeatedly: a rule says (by one interpretation) X is disallowed, but you stumble across people doing X anyway and nobody stops them. The result is a de-facto technocracy, in which the rule (in this case against repeated moves to draftspace) only protects those who know it exists. For a while I criticized this trend, but I've come to realize it may actually be a reasonable governance model.

To be clear, the above is not just about draftification (although Fram is far from the only person who has draftified articles multiple times), but a general observation I decided needed to be made. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 02:40, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

DRAFTOBJECT is not an essay, but is small-p policy. SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:46, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

If you have to invent some construct like "small-p policy" to win an argument... Fram (talk) 14:18, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Under what circumstances will an editor (in good standing, and not COI editor) objecting to a draftification be dismissed? I think in all cases, it should go to AfD, and in practice, does go to AfD. Policy documentation is supposed to document policy in practice, and this is policy in practice. Do you disagree with the practice, or disagree with the taggery (lack of) at WP:Drafts, or are you protesting a lack of formality, or RfC, in ratifying the documentation of current practice? SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:21, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Well, for starters, draftobject has nothing about "in good standing" or "not COI" or any other such distinction. And no, I don´t believe it represents current practice, it represents what a number of editors want to be current practice, and what another group doesn´t follow. I often see pages I have moved to draft being moved back to draft by others afterwards, so I´m clearly not the only one to disregard this essay. Wikipedia usually is better of for it. Fram (talk) 06:45, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

User:Fram, to inform this discussion, could you please link a few examples? SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:02, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

“In good standing” would mainly refer to editors evading their block or ban. To refer their mainspacing of a draft would be justified for that evasion.

WP:COIEDIT includes “you should put new articles through the Articles for Creation (AfC) process instead of creating them directly”. Reverting a COI mainspacing of a draft would be justified by COIEDIT.

Putting these things into DRAFTOBJECT would be to bloat it with redundancy. SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:27, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Block or ban evasion should be g5, not draftified. And whether the essay draftobject applies to all drafts and editors should be clarified if you ever want it to become policy, as it looks to me as if some of the others here don´t care about distinguishing between coi or not, and want to blanket oppose any redraftification. I still have no idea why they are so adamant about putting dreadful articles in the mainspace though... Fram (talk) 16:24, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

The ban-evading editor may have mainspaced someone else’s page, go G5 won’t always apply.

I do not want junk in mainspace. I am not adamantly opposed to redraftification, but am adamant that where there is disagreement, allowing caveats, WP:AfD should be used to resolve the disagreement.

Again, can you point to some examples of repeated unilateral draftification of the same page, where you think this was well done? SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:02, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, I have no intention of throwing others under the bus here (not meaning that you would drive the bus, but in general) Fram (talk) 21:16, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

So, you are not personally bullying innocent good faith content writers into staying in draftspace. Whatever the taggery status of DRAFTOBJECT, it makes it easy for the new article writer to force their page to have its week at AfD. Can I presume that cases you have in mind don’t have authors who want to make their case at AfD? SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:41, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

You seem to presume a lot anyway, and coupled with the rather loaded question, I´ll let you go on with this and continue to do things my way. Considering how new article writers react to Afds, I´m rather amazed that you believe that draftifying is somehow bullying (even though editors have 6 months there to make their case, or longer if they continue to improve the page), but the 1 week do or die of Afd, which doesn´t say "your article has potential but isn´t good enough yet" but "we don´t want your article here" instead, is somehow the less confrontational, less bullying, more userfriendly option. Fram (talk) 07:33, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Me presume? I think that I am making an effort to guess what you are thinking and why you've written certain things. Actual examples would have helped, but if the examples are not yours, but others doing things that you see, I can accept that you want to not throw others under buses. I take it that what they have been doing is dubious, but you think that it is within policy.

Bullying? If a newcomer is repeatedly mainspacing a draft, and an old user repeatedly re-draftifies, this sounds like a move war. This would be intimidating to the newcomer.

WP:DRAFTOBJECT means that the twice mainspaced page needs to go to AfD for a consensus to draftify it it. The "more userfriendly option"? Can you show me an example of a userfriendly repeated draftification? SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:14, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

"Me presume? [...] I take it that what they have been doing is dubious". And feel free to read "less biting" instead of "more userfriendly" if that helps you understand the point. Fram (talk) 13:42, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

So, someone creates an article, someone else moves it to draft: per the policy posted by Thryduulf (only one of them was a policy, the others essays, but they don´t seem to care about the difference again and again), the problematic issue is the original editor moving it back to the mainspace, as they are the one violating WP:CONSENSUS and BRD. But this inconvenient fact is overlooked of course. Fram (talk) 08:09, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

If you don't like the policy feel free to get consensus to change it, but unless and until that consensus happens policy is what it is. Thryduulf (talk) 12:08, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Any reason you are posting this advice to yourself here? I like policy, and I actually know the difference between a policy and an essay. We have had this discussion before, at ANI, and I hoped you had learned your lesson then, but apparently not. Can you perhaps explain why you are so desperate to misinterpret policy (and present essays as policy again and again) when following your misinterpretations would only make Wikipedia worse? Fram (talk) 13:15, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Ignoring the unnecessary personalisation (which seems to be a common theme when you disagree with me), there are two problems with your comment, first my interpretation is the one in accordance with policy and with essays that have common acceptance, secondly the reason they have wide acceptance is that they don't make Wikipedia worse: if you think a particular article is not ready for mainspace but someone else disagrees it should be in draftspace then the second most harmful thing you can do for the encyclopaedia do is war over it (the most harmful being speedy deleting it out of process). If you have a disagreement with someone over something, policy, and essay say to discuss it, and policy says that the place to discuss disagreements over whether an article belongs in the main namespace is AfD. Thryduulf (talk) 13:29, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

I personalise it because we had this discussion before, at ANI, after I was incorrectly blocked, and you produced the same incorrect claims there, including the complete disregard for the differences between policies and essays, which is very worrying for an admin. I´ll try to explain it once more, although I fear it will be mainly for the peanut gallery: creation if an article is Bold, moving it to draft is a Revert of that Bold creation, and shows that there is no Consensus for the existence of that article, in that form, in the mainspace. If the creator then puts the article back into the mainspace, then they are the ones not trying to find consensus, not discussing the dispute, not following policies. Fram (talk) 13:41, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

I would say that regarding the creation of an article as a BOLD action is a rather novel interpretation of policy, but I don't think it would help given that I (and others) have explained current policy to you multiple times, shown you guideline and essays that back up the policy and explain why it is policy, and reminded you multiple times what to do if you disagree with policy, but you still feel the need to resort to personalising a dispute while ignoring everything. Thryduulf (talk) 13:51, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Fram; the status quo is that the article does not exist, and the creation is the WP:BOLD action. This applies to all creations but is more obvious if you consider a redirect being converted into an article. BilledMammal (talk) 14:02, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

No, Thryduulf, you have again and again pretended that Draftobject is policy. That is all you have done. The only policy you have linked to is wp:consensus. And of course, like here, you always ignore it when policies or guidelines contradict your prefered outcome in these discussions, but then again what else should I expect from an admin who claimed wp:iar could not be used when it broke a rule... Basically, feel free to proclaim your essay=policy as often as you want, I´ll continue to ignore this and you and go on with actually keeping peoblematic articles out of the mainspace. That way, we´ll both be happy. Fram (talk) 14:39, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

If we assume creating a page is a WP:BOLD action, and that page is then draftified and subsequently restored to mainspace, WP:BRD-NOT advises against repeating the draftification (BRD is not an excuse to revert any change more than once. This applies equally to bold editors and to reverters. If your reversion is met with another bold effort, then you should consider not reverting, but discussing. The talk page is open to all editors, not just bold ones. The first person to start a discussion is the person who is best following BRD.). Garuda3 (talk) 14:56, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Only if no discussion was started at the time of the first move (preferably) or at the time of the second move. Fram (talk) 15:12, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

If any user in good standing does not want the page in draftspace, use AfD if you disagree. Whether the original mainspacer is knowingly asserting that point is a pretty small question. If in doubt, use AfD. SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:52, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

This is pure wikilawyering. Draftspace was never intended to be mandatory and WP:BRD was never intended to apply to article creation. Removing of an article from the mainspace is not analogous to reverting an edit because it's irrevocable and unreviewable (albeit with a delay if it goes via draftspace) for non-admins. That's why we have a deletion policy that only allows undiscussed deletion in very limited circumstances. If it's okay for anyone to come along and block an article being in mainspace because there isn't a positive consensus for its creation, then why have we being wasting time with CSD, PROD, AfD, DRV, etc. for all these years? Why do we vote keep or delete at AfD instead of create or keep in draftspace? – Joe (talk) 14:01, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Nothing to add other than I agree with Joe, Thryuulf, and SmokeyJoe. A second move to draftspace isn't ok, and an RM doesn't seem like the best way to handle it. Once we're starting a formal discussion, why not do it in a way that gets some outside attention, after all? Side note: I'd be more amenable to moves to draftspace [in certain cases] if it weren't a undiscriminating timed death trap for articles (useful for spam and nonsense, not so good for everything else). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:14, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

There is currently a proposal where promising drafts could be tagged with relevant Wikiprojects. This would extend the six month limit, and would make it easier for the relevant Wikiproject to identify relevant drafts. Would that help address the undiscriminating timed death trap for articles issue? BilledMammal (talk) 03:14, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Where is the proposal? It is an old fight. I don't have a firm opinion on it, preferring to recommend WP:DUD, and to say that if a WikiProject finds a draft promising, it should move the draft out of draftspace and into the WikiProject. And if an individual finds a promising draft, which will be more that six months before it likely becomes viable, they should userfy it and strip all afc taggery. SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:39, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Userboxes and userspace - What's allowed, what isn't?

We need to discuss the applicability of WP:UPNOT and how much latitude we allow in terms of userboxes or userpages espousing political, religious, sociological or any other beliefs which could be regarded as divisive. There's been a recent increase of activity at WP:MFD over the past couple months, and what concerns me is the fact that our current system entrusts a handful of editors (myself included) to cast judgment on whether or not a userbox is in violation of user page guidelines. In light of the fact the guidelines do state that the Wikipedia community is generally tolerant and offers fairly wide latitude in applying these guidelines to regular participants, I've started to wonder where we are supposed to draw the line.

Now as a full disclosure, I've been a regular and perhaps somewhat aggressive participant in these MFDs. I've usually !voted to keep, in most instances, because I tend to lean more towards what the quoted passage says above. No, we aren't a WP:SOAPBOX, but numerous regular editors (and a few admins) have been given latitude for expressing viewpoints on their userpage. If nothing else, I feel strongly that we ought to prioritize our efforts towards building an encyclopedia rather than seeking out minor userspace violations. My participation in this space, therefore, has been out of efforts to maintain the status quo rather than create an atmosphere that is hostile to our diverse userbase. I recognize that this may actually be counter-productive to my message, but it's why I've decided to go to the village pump finally, to get input from the community at large.

We've talked on and off about creating an RfC for userboxes. Are we at the point now where an RfC is necessary to settle the userbox question? I certainly don't want to kick off another massive conflict in the process. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 16:48, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

I would support such an RfC, having prompted much of the discussion about this by nominating for deletiog things I felt were in clear violation of the rules (BLP attacks, advocacy of violence, discrimination, etc), but it seems even many of those were controversial. My personal belief is that all polemic and advocacy content should be at least discouraged if not removed entirely, but my main concerns are the aforementioned subjects. I think the top priority should be the extent to which users can express support for the use of political violence, military action, or terrorist organizations. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:05, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

There was a very recently closed RFC at WT:User pages and a similar issue, particularly the alternative proposal. My problem with those proposal extend here, simply who makes the judgement? Either all such things should be banned, or we accept that we are banning those things we don't like. That's not to say that editors should have carte blanche to post anything on their userpages. If an editor posts text/images/iconography that singles out a specific group ("X people be eliminated", "X people shouldn't exist", "X people should be subservient") then they are attacking editors who are in those groups and WP:CIVIL applies. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 22:00, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

After reading through that, it's disappointing how many of the !votes either come down to WP:FREESPEECH, a right to violate WP:SOAPBOX, or that their specific extreme ideology should be exempt because WP:ILIKEIT. I maintain that the solution is to actually enforce WP:USERPAGES and WP:SOAPBOX as they stand, but at the very least, advocacy of violence (explicit or implied) should not be tolerated. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:12, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

You can say WP:ILIKEIT, but equally WP:IDONTLIKEIT applies. Personally I don't see why we have these boxes at all, beyond those about Wikipedia (language boxes for instance), but I don't feel the end to impinge my opinion on other editors userpages. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 22:20, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

ILIKEIT and IDONTLIKEIT only apply if it's in absence of policy and guidelines that support it. Current policies and guidelines support the removal of divisive content on user pages. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:28, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

You brought up WP:ILIKEIT, I was only pointing out the opposite applies to what was nominated. What is or is not divisive is always a tight rope walk, between understanding the position of others and understanding our own biases. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 22:40, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

This is my point exactly. I don't think the current process that we have in place works for userpages and userboxes due to the limited number of editors involved in the process. MfD wasn't really built with continuous userspace trawling in mind, or at least, I think it envisioned higher participation than what we currently have. But right now, we do have a system that can be abused to favor or disfavor certain viewpoints (WP:ILIKEIT and WP:IDONTLIKEIT as mentioned above), because the surrounding policy and guidelines are subtly imprecise. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 23:26, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

I remember a userbox issue over those that claimed something like "I support marriage define as between a man and a woman" that was more than a year ago that ended up with a lot of those deleted, and I think we really need to reconsider that in this framework as well. I can understand that editors that may express such views are likely in a small minority among editors, but in that discussion I remember that it was driven by editors that felt that that message was hostile to them and thus that the ubx needed to go. This also goes hand in hand with the NONAZIS essay, which doubles down on excluding editors that may have extremist viewpoints but otherwise willing to edit without disruption. We definitely do not want editors make othe editors feel so uncomfortable due to an expression of what they believe that us purposely hostile and calls out an editor or group of editors. But we also state that WP is a commonplace of ideas and you as editors will likely encounter other ideas that will make you uncomfortable, and WP cannot really protect you from that. There's definitely some balance needed here because I think we have overreacted on ubx and need to bring it back a bit. Or otherwise be very clear the difference between expressing a view that is nonspecific to whom it may be intended, and expressing opinions that are clearly meant to disrupt WP. Masem (t) 22:15, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

(FWIW, the discussion I recalled was this ANI and the linked XFDs [3]) Masem (t) 01:45, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Oh, yes, I remember that. Although the consensus for that thread wasn't unanimous, it's clear from a consensus standpoint that the community does seem to frown upon discriminatory userboxes. This one became a particular lightning rod for whatever reason - call it serendipity or just the surrounding circumstances such as current events or whatnot. But that being said, I do also think there was some desire that the userbox and userpage question be settled in a manner so that we are not continually finding ourselves sniping at userspace on an ad hoc basis. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 13:43, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

• I will repeat what I said during the debate about NONAZIS: We should ENCOURAGE editors with extreme viewpoints to identify themselves on their user pages … so that the rest of us know who they are and can monitor what they do elsewhere in the project… to make sure they don’t edit the more public parts of WP in a disruptive way. Blueboar (talk) 22:41, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
• Perhaps Wikipedia should compile a list of beliefs and opinions permitted to be expressed in userspace. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:43, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  And not only that, perhaps we should entrust a select handful of editors with determining the content of this list, as well as ensuring its subsequent enforcement. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 23:23, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  The problem is that that group would be a likely target for harassment, so it would be best if the members of that group were kept secret. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 23:26, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  Also, since we don’t want people gaming the system, we should keep the list of beliefs and expressions a secret. Only the secret group of enforcers can know what they are enforcing! Blueboar (talk) 00:22, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

  We'd need a way to keep it secret. Reliable sources state that two can keep a secret if one of them is dead. I propose that one living person and one deceased person be chosen randomly to serve. Since this is an even number of people, disputes will be settled with rock paper scissors. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 00:30, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

  To avoid gaming the system by running out the clock, we will need to ensure that if the living person of the pair dies, the dead one is revived or reincarnated. DMacks (talk) 04:59, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

• If we are going down this path, and I'm not sure that's wise, we desparately need to become rather more evenhanded about both the rules and their execution. Nosebagbear (talk) 20:51, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
• We should just get rid of all the damn things. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 12:01, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
• I may not be aware of all the relevant guidelines right now but here's my opinion: there's no cause for alarm. I wouldn't be comfortable with excessively patrolling what users put on their paged. Fine, if it violates Wikipedia:No personal attacks or targets specific people or editors, then it would be appropriate to take action. Otherwise I don't see why we would be need to police userboxes including the "i see marriage as between a man and a woman". We may not all agree but this harms no one and if the editor in question is able to edit productively without bias getting in the way, I don't see what's wrong. — Python Drink (talk) 18:40, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

  I strongly disagree. In your particular example, that's harmful to LGBT users, and by extension to Wikipedia as a whole. Users with such a statement in user space are clearly suggesting that LGBT users are less welcome here, and that affects the ability of Wikipedia to maintain a healthy environment to retain editors. All polemic content has such an effect, and that's why it's inappropriate on Wikipedia. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:01, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

• Yes, LGBT users might get their feelings hurt if they see such a statement. But what else would a statement like that do? I can't say much. Are we gonna act like anti-LGBT ubx are the only things that might hurt someone's feelings . Pretty sure you'll agree that this is a diverse community and some of us feel pretty strongly about certain things. Consider this: if someone had a ubx that says that they wouldn't befriend a Republican or feminist, surely that might make such people feel "less welcome" as you said? (Even I myself cringe hard when I see certain ubx but I wouldn't think of denying them that) Do we bend over to accommodate them? What do you think would happen if we applied this consistently? Would you also want a ubx gone that says the "Bible is a big book of fairy tales" as that might make Christians feel "less welcome". Hopefully you get the point I'm making, namely we can't afford to accommodate people's feelings so much. No matter what you do, people's feelings will be hurt. It should be up to them to suck it up—unless it's targeted harassment or incitement to violence which is already covered by policy — Python Drink (talk) 20:03, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

• No, we should not be asking users to "suck it up" when editors deliberately post unnecessary bigotry, as the community agreed a few years ago. Black Kite (talk) 20:17, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Genuine question, @Black Kite. Would my examples count as unnecessary bigotry? By the way, my previous comment was a response to the notion of users "feelings unwelcome" not exactly "bigotry" whatever that means to you (which is why I'm asking for clarification) — Python Drink (talk) 20:38, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Every single one of those examples is counterproductive to the construction of an encyclopedia, not to mention just plain rude. I would vote to delete any and all of those. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:22, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

@Thebiguglyalien, you might as well ban ubx. I think basically whenever we express an opinion or affirm something about us, we rusk offending someone. Perhaps there should be much more clearer clarification as to what's allowed. Although this discussion is making it more complicated than it needs to be. By the way, how would you rate the "unwelcoming factor" of my ubx? Lol — Python Drink (talk) 20:38, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Political propaganda untruths

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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This article is full of slanders. Marjorie Taylor Greene — Preceding unsigned comment added by BenHistory (talk • contribs) 14:25, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

What is your policy-related question?

Generally, if it bothers you too much, attempt to fix it. 50.75.226.250 (talk) 15:32, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Well, the article has a WP:BLUELOCK. However, BenHistory, you can suggest changes, inline with WP:s policies and guidelines, and supported by WP:RS, at Talk:Marjorie Taylor Greene. Good luck! Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:10, 22 November 2022 (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.

What is wrong with word "American" and "British"?

Why people write "UK version" and "US version" over "British version" and "American version". Why not "FR version" instead of "French version"? UK is an abbreviation so the full version would be "United Kingdom version"? Eurohunter (talk) 16:07, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

because they want to? how is this a policy question --Golbez (talk) 16:12, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Aren't "UK" and "US" acronyms? 50.75.226.250 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 16:49, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

The United Kingdom and Great Britain aren't exactly the same places, the same as the United States and the Americas aren't the same. But, we should follow what the sources say. This isn't a policy discussion though. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:16, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Not exactly parallel. American used as an adjective in English (as opposed to americano in Spanish) almost always refers to the United States (with a few exceptions like the Organization of American States). America is not quite as one-sided, but as a stand-alone noun also usually means the United States. We have an article at American (word). --Trovatore (talk) 19:06, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

@Golbez: What they want and who are they? @Lee Vilenski: Citizens of the United Kingdom are British and citizens of the United States are Americans so they are actually British and American. "Follow what the sources say" doesn't makes sense - it's like saying use "French Republic" after source - no we would say just "France" describing the country in most cases. Eurohunter (talk) 21:29, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

The Northern Irish would have to disagree with your assessment. Sources don't say "French Republic", why would they? Please provide such references. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 23:40, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Try going to Glasgow and telling people they're not Scottish but have to use British. See WP:UKNATIONALS, there no good solution that covers all bases. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:39, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

No, they aren't acronyms. An acronym is an abbreviation that is pronounced as if it were a word. That is, "UK" would be an acronym if it were pronounced to rhyme with "buck", but it isn't. It is pronounced "U-K". Georgia guy (talk) 02:26, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

The Oxford English Dictionary and Wikipedia's acronym article don't agree with you. Both say that acronyms may either be pronounced as single words or as individual letters. CodeTalker (talk) 06:30, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Yuck. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 07:48, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

And my opinion of the OED just dropped precipitously. I don't expect any more from Wikipedia, but Oxford disappoints me. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:26, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

The OED has always rightly followed usage, rather than being prescriptive. Johnbod (talk) 16:57, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

I am nearly 50 years old and I had never come across anyone calling things like FBI "acronyms" before about 10 years ago. And even then it was from people who commonly made obvious errors such as confusing it's/its, to/too/two, or (mindbogglingly) ancestor/descendant. So, not the sorts of "usage" I would expect any dictionary to lend support to. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 23:11, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

FWIW, the OED has a citation of "acronym" used with letters pronounced separately in 1940, so it's hardly a recent usage, despite what you've personally come across. The first citation for the meaning "pronounced as a word" is later, in 1943. CodeTalker (talk) 18:50, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Yep, and in British English, acronyms that are pronounced as words are often written with only an initial capital letter (i.e., Nato or Nasa), but if its an initialism and each letter is pronounced (i.e., DCMS or FBI) it's written all uppercase (regardless of whether or not points are used). — Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 18:53, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

An acronym is single word/abbreviation made of the first letter(s) of each word. It's got nothing to do with pronunciation. FBI is an acronym and no one pronounces it as "fbee". Unlike, say J. Phys. Chem. which isn't an acronym, because it's not a single word. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:19, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

I wonder whether acronyms should be considered abbreviations. First, they apply to multiple terms. Secondly, since they regularly use only one letter they bear no discernible relationship to the word they represent. Rendered without the dot separator between characters, they could be defined as initial-letter concatenations of multiple words. 65.88.88.237 (talk) 18:20, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

It's a continuum: All initialisms are acronyms and all acronyms are abbreviations, but not all abbreviations are acronyms and not all acronyms are initialisms. — Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 18:48, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

This is getting convoluted, but apparently not all linguists consider initialisms to be acronyms, and the word's etymology (from the Greek compound "edge/end"+"name") seems to imply a distinct term named from end-of-word letters. 68.132.154.35 (talk) 20:28, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure about that etymology. The OED shows it coming from initial + -ism (first use around 1899) and initial coming from the Latin initiālis from the Latin initium, meaning 'beginning', and referring to the beginning of each word in a phrase (i.e., its initials). Oops, sorry just realized you were referring to acronym's etymology. — Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 21:24, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Support acronyms and initialisms. 98.246.75.122 (talk) 05:35, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Support... What? There's no proposal here. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:40, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Support supporting when there is no proposal. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 20:55, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

 Oppose supporting supporting in general, although I  Support opposing supporting. — Qwerfjkltalk 21:00, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Child safe searches

should wikipedia searches be child safe 23.115.40.162 (talk) 00:21, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Generally, this will be not the case because of the policy WP:REDACTION and I don't expect you'll see any momentum to change that. If this is important to you, the best idea is probably a client-side solution like web filtering software. Jahaza (talk) 03:51, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

The very first problem with something like this defining what is meant be "child safe" in some objective way, and the second problem is getting consensus on a single definition given that everybody has different ideas about what children should and shouldn't be able to see. One common suggestion is basing it on something like articles in Category:Sex. However, that would cover articles that most people find innocuous such as ZW sex-determination system, Golden calf, List of female Nobel laureates and Wildflower. Restricting it to the top-level of the category but not subcategories would block Female and Sex segregation but not Sexual intercourse or Paedophilia. Thryduulf (talk) 15:10, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

@Thryduulf is correct that there is no universal definition of what "child safe" means. For example, the general consensus in the United States seems to be that violence is OK, but nudity is not. I would argue exactly the opposite. I'm sure you have your own idea of what's acceptable and what's not.

I like the way IMDB does this. Rather than assign ratings, reviewers describe specific things which are depicted in the films. "'Balls' is said once in a vulgar context." "Several positive characters are killed or mortally wounded on-screen during the movie, which may be disturbing for the audience.", "we see their backsides ... quite a bit". I think there's a great opportunity for a third-party rating service along these lines. Build a database and invite people to describe potentially objectionable aspects of articles. Expose these ratings though a publicly accessible API. Now, somebody could build a search tool which sits on top of Mediawiki's own search API and uses your ratings API to provide filtering according to criteria you select. "Don't show any articles which contain pictures of human nudity". "Don't show any articles which describe violence". "Don't show any articles which contain any of this list of words".

I don't believe content filtering is something wikipedia should be involved in. But our licensing and API availability make it possible for people to do their own. It's not a trivial undertaking, but there's nothing that's fundamentally difficult about it. A proof-of-concept would be a reasonable semester project for an undergraduate software engineering course. The hardest part is getting enough quality crowd-sourced data, but that would be true no matter who implements it. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:45, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

And What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not censored is policy. I will note that section of the policy was originally entitiled "Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of minors", so the policy that we do not censor the contents of Wikipedia to protect children goes back to the very early days of Wikipedia, and would require a major shift in one of the fundamental policies of the project. Donald Albury 15:21, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Any sort of search where things were censored would have to be external, as we are WP:NOTCENSORED. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:30, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

If you want a version of Wikipedia that is safe(er) for kids, try Kiddle. They take our freely licensed content, censor and rewrite it so that it is more kid-friendly, and republish it under a free license. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 15:40, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Fifteen years ago, when I was running the library/computer center/network at a small school, I added a similar "kid-friendly" WP clone site to the school's computers. Good to know that something similar is still around. Donald Albury 16:58, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T306246

Perhaps the OP is referring to the new and "improved" search bar in Vector-2022. Go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/?useskin=vector-2022, and try searching for "analgesic". But type very slowly, letting the page update after each letter. Readers (whether children or adults) should not have NSFW content WP:GRATUITOUSly forced on them like that. Search for the name of a body part, click on the article, and you should expect to see a picture of that body part. But not any page with a common prefix. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:33, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, we should be filtering search suggestions, as I think Google and others do, to avoid this problem. I haven't looked but I bet there's already a phab ticket and it's probably years old. Levivich (talk) 02:21, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

The challenge with filtering is that you'd have to start classifying articles as ineligible for inclusion in search autosuggest, and I'm not sure if there's already an easy classification to re-use. You could specify certain categories, but those are always subject to change and it would be easy for anyone to troll autosuggest by adding/removing the relevant categories from their article of interest. The major search engines do this with a combination of algorithmic analysis and human-curated lists, and I foresee both practical issues and editor drama from trying something like that here. Taking the "analgesic" example above, I see that analgesic does appear immediately below the potentially NSFW result. If people are truly searching for "analgesic" on a large scale, then a better ranking implementation would go a long way to solving this issue without getting into filtering and classification. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 02:40, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree, ranking is probably better than filtering, but I don't think it will be difficult to come up with a list of naughty words and phrases to exclude from autosuggest. And also, it wouldn't be hard to have a "safe search" toggle like Google has, either, so people can filter or not filter results. And we could turn safe search on for school IP ranges. Levivich (talk) 03:17, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Let's please not go down the road of automatic censorship for schools. When a school kid wonders if their penis is normal and comes to us looking for pictures to compare against, we should be showing them pictures of penises. Because if we don't, they'll go elsewhere to find the information they seek.

Google operates under a different set of constraints than we do. Google makes money by selling advertising displayed as part of their search results. When Walmart says, "We won't spend any of our huge advertising budget here if our ads show up next to pictures of penises", Google listens. And they build tools like "safe search" to placate advertisers like Walmart. That's not an issue here. -- RoySmith (talk) 04:05, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

To be clear, I was talking about the images that will soon appear in the search the suggestions on desktop, and already appear on mobile. I don't think links to any article should be hidden from the suggestions. But showing File:Wiki-analsex.png to everyone who searches for a subject starting with "ana"? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 04:31, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Hmmm, from reading phab:T306246, it looks like we might be able to take care of that ourselves, through MediaWiki:Pageimages-denylist. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 04:45, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Strongly disagree with the idea of censoring encyclopeic content or supporting any third-party efforts to do so. Wiki articles are not movies, and any effort to assign movie-style labels or ratings to articles would inevitably be misused to deny access to articles like sexual intercourse in public libraries and other institutions. –dlthewave ☎ 13:59, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Standard for harmful content on user pages

There's been some debate regarding what constitutes harmful content in userspace and what's considered disruptive or inflammatory. Personally, I've leaned toward not allowing any sort of strong political expression, seeing it as inherently disruptive. I'd like to suggest a compromise:

Users may not advocate or endorse the violation of any rights described in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

This declaration of human rights was written in 1948 in response to the Holocaust, and it's the most widely agreed upon list of human rights. Advocating the violation of human rights would be a very obvious way to determine whether a user has crossed a line, and it aligns with the current policies against Nazism, sexism, pro-slavery, etc. To respond to what I expect would be the primary concern: no, it's not a precise standard. There would still be discussions about what is and isn't acceptable. But it would be significantly more precise than the current standard of gut feeling and WP:IDONTLIKEIT, giving a clear foundation for these discussions that currently doesn't exist. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:13, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

pinging WaltCip because you've posted about this problem a few times. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:14, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

My personal line for this sort of thing is having/advocating content on user pages that is negative toward groups of people. Though I could also see extending it toward political content. But the Universal Declaration does seem fine as a baseline. Silverseren^C 21:16, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Unless one feels UDHR is another worthless feelgood statement, good only for decorum, legal and political grandstanding and for making gullible people believing there is/will be some sort of "progress". Let's pretend that most of the signatories have not once violated any of the enumerated rights since the document was signed. One may realistically consider it a failure, just like its sponsoring institution. It is interesting that it was proposed only a few years after civilized, well-educated and democratically elected people used nuclear weapons (twice) on civilian targets. This is not an anti-American statement, or even a political one, it is factual. That fact (that universal human rights can easily be violated by well-meaning people) never meaningfully entered the discourse around that document. The fact being ignored, keeps reappearing, over and over. 104.247.55.106 (talk) 21:55, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

One of said rights is 'freedom to hold opinions without interference'. Does this include the right to hold opinions incompatible with the Declaration? I think we may have encountered a paradox... AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:06, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

The paradox exists only because the document exists. Otherwise any opinion is just that, an opinion. There was a quote by Brecht about calling an overflowing river "violent", when the banks that constrain it define the overflow. 104.247.55.106 (talk) 22:33, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

This brings us back to a fundamental debate about human rights: are they divinely granted and endowed upon us by a Creator, or are they conferred by a document or a rule of law? Are they revocable at any time or are they innate and irrevocable, even when unrecognized and violated? Elizium23 (talk) 09:52, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately, most people haven't read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, much less ponder its contents or its message, so I doubt this would be a very effective rule. I'm with AndyTheGrump on this one. But moreover, I think any potential RfC focused on userboxes with political or divisive content needs to focus on being an all-or-nothing affair, specifically to prevent posses from running MfD and determining what is and isn't allowable. I don't see there being much compromise available beyond that. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 00:42, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

I bet i could get my userpage deleted just by selective quoting of the Articles. fiveby(zero) 01:03, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

That likely won't fly, considering that the Islamic world rejected the UDHR and drafted the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam in its place to remove referenced to religious freedom. 2603:7080:8F02:2B11:D13C:AE3B:86FB:FB29 (talk) 15:16, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

IP vandalism guideline

I want to make IP vandalism a guideline. I have already made the page. SpyridisioAnnis Discussion 15:39, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

This (assuming we're talking about Wikipedia:IP vandalism) is redundant to the vandalism policy. firefly ( t · c ) 16:12, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

That's because there should be multiple vandalism guidelines about different ways of vandalizing Wikipedia SpyridisioAnnis Discussion 04:40, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

One such guide is enough, unless any type of vandalism is too complex to handle that covering it in the one guide would make the guide confusing or otherwise unreadable. Animal lover |666| 06:20, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Don’t move to draft perfunctory!

You should not move articles to draft space just for them being new and unfinished!

I created an article and it was moved to draft almost immediately, Draft:Raksila Artificial Ice Rink Pakkalan kenttä. The reason given was, that there were no sources. OK, fine, I understand. So I add sources. It’s done in an hour. Now, to have the article un-draftified, it will likely take months, or so it at least says in the information box provided.

Wouldn’t it be better to just contact me and ask me to add sources to the very new article I had written? (If you feel you cannot do it yourself.)

I think draft ought to be used only for articles which we have given some time to become better, with reasonable suggestions to the writer, but the article still hasn’t become better. Bandy långe (talk) 23:07, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

@Bandy långe, articles done directly in main space should be reader-ready from the beginning. Start articles either in a user sandbox or in Draft space. You can move them to main space yourself when they are ready. Review is optional for autoconfirmed users like yourself. StarryGrandma (talk) 19:30, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

@StarryGrandma, so? Please comment on the topic in stead of giving advice not asked for. Wikipedia does not work the way you seem to think, articles are not created ready from the start. The whole point is that this encyclopedia is a collaborative effort where people write things together. Bandy långe (talk) 22:52, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

@Bandy långe, you seem to have missed the part where StarryGrandma says you don't have to wait for months for it to be undraftified, you can just move it to mainspace yourself. And I'm curious why you would publish an article to mainspace before adding the sources you used to write it? JoelleJay (talk) 02:04, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

She did not say that. She said that if I had started the article in draft or in a sandbox, I could then move it to main space myself, not if someone else moved it to draft. Bandy långe (talk) 18:23, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

It doesn't matter how it got to draftspace, you can always move it back to mainspace as an autoconfirmed user. JoelleJay (talk) 19:58, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

If I'm reading the timestamps right, the article was in mainspace for seven hours before being draftified. This is well above the minimum guidance at WP:NPP. Also, if you object to the draftification, you should just move it back to mainspace using the more menu, then clicking move. Hope this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:57, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

No, it says it should stay in draft space until it has been reviewed. As far as I understand the information, you are not even supposed to approve the article while it is there (but I did that in a way anyway, by adding the sources; I suppose I should appologise for that). It is therefor generally considered better, I suppose, to have it in draft spce limbo for months than to just remind the writer to add references to it. Do you mean I am not obliged to wait for a review? Won’t it just be moved back to draft if I overrule the person moving it to draft by moving it back? Bandy långe (talk) 18:23, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

No, it says it should stay in draft space until it has been reviewed. As far as I understand the information, you are not even supposed to approve the article while it is there (but I did that in a way anyway, by adding the sources; I suppose I should appologise for that). Where are you finding this very incorrect information? None of the policies or guidelines related to draftspace say any of that. JoelleJay (talk) 20:01, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

This is a good demonstration of Wikipedia's unreliability. First, the OP treats this site as a blog, posting something or other without any backing. Because, the sources will-appear (?) soon (?). Then, the blogger expects others to come and validate the "contribution", doing the hard work. However, as anyone that ever contributed facts in Wikipedia knows, the wikitext and its sourcing are intimately linked, and both the substance and the presentation of an article depend on the context and the content of the sources supporting it. And that is even before applying conceptually higher-level policies such as NPOV and impartiality.

I can't see how one can offer a coherent article without simultaneously adding a minimum of basic sources. Off to draftspace, come back when the article has something to say. 71.247.146.98 (talk) 13:25, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

You got it wrong. Maybe it’sbecause you are a casual visitor to Wikipedia, not having a login, so you don’t know how this works. It is the person who sends an article to be reviewed in draft space, who thinks someone else should take care of it. He thinks the person who started the article should not continue working on it, but that it should be reviewed by others within some months. You should read about what Wikipedia draft is. Bandy långe (talk) 18:23, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

@Bandy långe, you are conflating "review" in the New Page Patrol sense (as is linked in the draftification notice) with "review" in the WP:AfC sense. NPP reviews all articles created by non-autopatrolled editors, but a review is not required to remain in or move a draft to mainspace. AfC is a completely different process for submitting articles into mainspace and is not necessary for autoconfirmed users. You can bypass AfC completely by moving the article yourself.

As for He thinks the person who started the article should not continue working on it, I have no idea where you got this idea. The draftification notice explicitly says you can continue working on the draft: Your article is now a draft where you can improve it undisturbed for a while. JoelleJay (talk) 20:22, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

§ Don’t move to draft perfunctory!

You should not move articles to draft space just for them being new and unfinished!

It seems you object to your mainspace post being drafted in the first place. Your draftspace-related lecture is a newer thing. You claim to know something that should be published in Wikipedia. We want to know why. Don't reply to me or anybody; just add reliable references. There, situation resolved. 65.88.88.59 (talk) 22:25, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

@Bandy långe: Wikipedia articles in article space are often a work in progress. But to exist in article space they need to meet the "Is an article of this topic allowed to exist in mainspace?" criteria which is mostly/usually WP:Notability. And usually this means supplying 2 (maybe one) GNG type sources. It will inevitably get reviewed regarding this by New Page Patrol. IMO it is good practice and a reasonable expectation that new articles in mainspace (at least within an hour) include GNG type sourcing to establish wp:notability and that they reside somewhere else as a draft until they have that GNG sourcing. But if it meets those criteria, IMO it is OK to be in mainspace regardless of the amount of work needed in other areas. And when it meets those criteria, you can move it yourself, you don't need to wait. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:03, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Really? The information about the draft space and the need for draft review suggests otherwise, I think. Bandy långe (talk) 19:47, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

@Bandy långe What information about draft space and draft review are you reading/looking at that makes you think otherwise? Perhaps there's some policy page or guideline that needs to be clarified. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 20:01, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Not sure even which part of my post they are talking about. If it's the "you can move it" part, I think that boilerplate text on one of the draftify templates falsely implies otherwise; maybe that is where Bandy långe's impression came from. North8000 (talk) 20:55, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Editors that use this draftification script (including me) are given default language to use on the article creator's user talk page. It ends with "When you feel the article meets Wikipedia's general notability guideline and thus is ready for mainspace, please click on the "Submit your draft for review!" button at the top of the page."Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 21:13, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

The OP has identified a common problem. Editors who have made 10 edits and whose accounts are more than a few days old have the ability to create articles directly in the mainspace, and also the ability to move articles out of the Draft: namespace. However, almost none of them know this.

I suspect that the more active reviewers don't actually want this to be well known. If they have to personally approve everything, then the mainspace will always meet their standards of being "reader ready". If (almost) anyone can move pages, and they know it, then the mainspace will inevitably be sullied by all of these WP:IMPERFECT articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:57, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

The draftification script is deceptive/wrong. It says that when you're ready "click on the "Submit your draft for review!" button at the top of the page"" thus implying that that is THE (=only) next step. And most editors will assume that such is authoritative or based on some rule. BTW I think that you you made some pretty incorrect and negative assumptions about active reviewers. NPP reviewers mostly want to just get the review done, and "perfection" isn't the standard. I think that AFC reviews are a lot tougher only because the the system coerces the reviewers to be overly cautious and thus tough. A AFC approval is implicitly a stamp of approval of everything about the article. A NPP approval is implicitly less, something along the lines of "an article of this topic is allowed to exist in article space" North8000 (talk) 21:16, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

I think that AFC reviews are a lot tougher only because the the system coerces the reviewers to be overly cautious and thus tough. Might not even be this. AFC is similar to NPP except AFC doesn't do WP:BEFORE. AFC requires all sources to be evaluated to already be in the article. This makes it de facto slightly tougher than NPP. The rest is very similar. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:55, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

I think that what you said is structurally true and how it should be, but not true in practice. I think that in practice, an AFC approval is defacto sort of the reviewer signing off that the overall article has no significant problems, which is a broader and tougher standard than NPP. While a NPP'er may tag an article for other quality issues, the reasons for failing an article are much narrower. Another reason for this is that failure at NPP is a more "severe" act (AFD or the reviewer moving the article out of article space etc.) than an AFC reviewer just saying that it needs more work and re-submittal. North8000 (talk) 22:17, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree with North about the incentive structure, but both review systems (NPP and AFC) suffer from this. Nobody wants to be the "bad reviewer" who "approved" a "bad article". I've seen articles declined because:

• the sources weren't in English.
• the refs weren't formatted using ref tags.
• a navbox is "promotional" (it looked like the list of names at the top of Template:Disney).
• the newly appointed CEO of Disney isn't notable.
• a 1300-word-long news article entirely about the subject doesn't show notability (it's in-depth, secondary, independent, and reliable, but still not enough for that reviewer).
• thousand-year-old National Treasures of Korea haven't demonstrated notability.
• BLPs should have sources at the end of every sentence.

I've also seen reviewers decline autobiographies, mostly of young people who think that being one of the millions of aspiring professional musicians or athletes should make them eligible for an article; I list only obvious errors here, not the everyday, run-of-the-mill decisions to decline articles.

To give you an illustration of the misaligned incentives here, consider Draft:Richard Winkler (Producer) which Greenman declined today. It is a decision that is both correct and incorrect. The subject "has won seven Tony Awards and five Olivier Awards", which pretty much guarantees notability. No Broadway producer going to win that many Tonys and Oliviers and not get written up in at least his hometown newspaper (that'd be the Detroit Free Press, if anyone wants to search), and a dozen "well-known and significant awards" easily clears WP:ANYBIO. AFC is supposed to accept anything that is likely to survive AFD, and this will. But the sources that are presently cited in the article are unimpressive, and precisely because his name is on everything, it's going to take more than a couple of seconds with a search engine to find sources that do more than just mention his name and his role in a play. Worse, there appears to be a television producer with the same name, so nearly all of the sources contain no more than a single sentence about this Winkler, some are about the other Winkler, and you're trying to find the tiny fraction that actually help you write a whole article. So you decline it, because the cited sources are unimpressive, and it will take some effort, probably by someone who knows which sources to focus on if you want to know more about a theater person, to improve the sourcing, but you probably shouldn't because it is about a notable subject, except if you accept it, then someone might yell at you about the weak sourcing, but if you don't, you're declining a BLP that met ANYBIO twelve times over, over a problem that can be solved through normal editing, but...

You can see the bind we're putting the reviewers in. There is no action this reviewer can take that everyone will agree is correct. We also don't have a culture of deference towards the reviewers making decisions on borderline cases, the way we do with admins at WP:AE. The only thing we can say with reasonable certainty is that there is more scrutiny on accepting than on declining, so you're slightly less likely to get yelled at for declining a weak article on a notable subject than for accepting it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:29, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

All of what @WhatamIdoing said is exactly why it's easier for the original author to include the sources that the draft or article was based on, from the start. Surely, @Bandy långe, you didn't write the article out of thin air, and you have ths sources readily at hand, correct? If you have edited here long enough to create articles directly in article space, it looks like you are expected to know the requirements. Just my thoughts. David10244 (talk) 07:04, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Technically, avoiding speedy deletion per {{db-person}} requires that there be a Wikipedia:Credible claim of significance in the Wikipedia article itself, not just in the cited sources. One might also have sources that support ANYBIO notability (e.g., Variety (magazine) saying only "Winkler has won seven Tony Awards" in passing), but the reviewer might be looking for GNG-style sources. Merely including the sources from the start doesn't solve the problem. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:30, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

I consider myself reasonably intelligent, but I was submitting articles for years before I discovered that I could polish my work in draft and then move it to mainspace. It was the wording of the draft template that threw me. Just saying!! Downsize43 (talk) 07:54, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

This is a common gap in knowledge, and we are not really incentivized to tell editors the truth about it. (You can also polish your work in a userspace sandbox, which is the choice that most experienced editors seem to make.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:31, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Using user page subpages for article development is covered in Wikipedia:User pages#Terminology and page locations, but new users have a lot of other P&G pages they should look at, as well, so they may miss it. Donald Albury 21:10, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Justapedia: the far-right historical revisionist Wikipedia FORK

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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• File:Justapedia creator Justme edit to Nazism article.jpg
  • caption1 = Edit to Nazism
• File:Justapedia creator Justme edit to Template Nazism let wing.jpg
  • caption2 =Edit to Template:Nazism left wing
• File:Justapedia creator Justme edit to Template Nazism let wing editnotice.jpg
• caption3 =Edit to Template:Nazism left wing editnotice

Yesterday I posted a message at ANI and it was suggested this was a more appropriate place to alert the community about Justapedia. Basically it is a proposed online encyclopedia being marketed as "the neutral and objective encyclopedia that Wikipedia should have been". Yesterday the website was taken down after the post at ANI.

The creators of Justapedia appear to be active Wikipedia editors who, unhappy with the way this community works, have download the entirety of English Wikipedia with the intention of marketing it as their own. They have even plagiarised the majority of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Since the post at ANI yesterday they seem to have taken their website down for now.

Where their project starts to diverge from Wikipedia appears to be American politics and administration. In terms of content, the overwhelming majority remains what contributors to English Wikipedia have made. But, they are removing critical commentary of conservative US political figures and engaging in some far-right historical revisionism, for example claiming Nazism is a left wing ideology that is comparable to contemporary US Democratic Party ideologies, on the right are some screenshots of some Justapedia diffs that were taken before visibility was restricted. In terms of project administration, they seem unhappy with community consensus and instead intend to retain complete control through a Politburo-like "Board of Representatives", while all editorial decisions will be enforced by a number political commissar-like appointees to the "Editorial Board".

• File:Justapedia creator Justme user TP comment 1.jpg
• File:Justapedia creator Justme user TP comment 2.jpg
• File:Justapedia creator Justme user TP comment 3.jpg

The creators have even started their own foundation and of course an associated fundraising campaign, a promotional video has been uploaded to YouTube and it is being marketed on social media. I recommend going to YouTube and searching for "Justapedia". Apparently the Earthwave Society is sponsoring them for now [4]. It appears the same person founded both organisations, I assume they are Justapedia editor User:Justme, to the right is a screenshot of the since deleted user page comment that led me to believe this.

How does the community feel about active contributors here attempting to distort the ideology that led to the Holocaust for their own shallow political ends? And how does the community feel about these same Wikipedians attempting to profit from the years of hard work of the community? Justapidiot (talk) 07:21, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure how 'the community' feels about it actually matters much, since the right to fork content has been built into the project from the start. That's how a Creative Commons license works. As long as content is properly attributed, it can be copied. And this isn't new - people have been creating Wikipedia forks for years. They rarely last long. AndyTheGrump (talk) 07:33, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Is it being properly attributed? Silverseren^C 07:38, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Hard to tell, with the website down. Thought even if it isn't, actually doing anything about it isn't easy, since copyright for edits remains with individual contributors, and the WMF can't act on their behalf: see Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks. AndyTheGrump (talk) 07:44, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

I have blocked this account since the username references a controversy and insults people who have forked Wikipedia, which is legitimate. I have no idea who this person is, but it seems clear to me that this is probably an illegitimate use of a sock account in an attempt to evade scrutiny. Cullen328 (talk) 07:57, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

@Cullen328 I have filed a DR on c:Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Justapidiot for these screenshots. Lemonaka (talk) 10:53, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

The block was fine but I dont think there were trying to evade scrutiny as they are clearing receiving scrutiny and their username was clearly made in order to attract scrutiny. Qwv (talk) 12:29, 4 December 2022 (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.

Controver... articles

I am review some parts of wiki due to other issues that I am working and reporting on and I note several different title format issues that in most cases do not follow and particular logic or are not linked to the correct article or category and other issues. I have had a look and can find no guidance or policy, and as an IP user I cannot just rename them to something more suitable, and in many cases I cannot edit, to add to the appropriate interested group, container cat etc. the solution I feel would be update policy to cover these article, search provided below and then add to the various spaces as required. [[5]]

Policy would need to say something like avoid the use of the words controversy, controversial etc in the title (except specific music, book, etc titles), these article must be linked to or placed in the See also of the main article and that the title must begin with the subject focus, so, as an example Controversies of the Hong Kong Police Force, would become Hong Kong Police criticisms or whatever is agreed by the wider team. The goal is to place these potentially leading article in front of all interested parties to promote clean-up, better referencing, merging, redirects and avoid invalid unwanted duplications etc 2404:4408:638C:5E00:B099:F55F:A773:FF11 (talk) 10:15, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Galactica and RS

Platform 9¾ at King's Cross Station

Meta's Galactica seems to be able to rapidly generate WP pages, although at present they're going to be relatively easy to identify as fake. Presumably they're going to get better in the future.

My question is really about the fake references it might generate and how we are going to better protect ourselves against fake content, fake notability and fake RS. For me, one of the great weaknesses of AfD discussions has always been the possibility of printed RS which exist on a dusty library shelf. If we have AI that can generate plausible looking book references, isn't it going to be an increasing challenge to identify completely fraudulent pages? JMWt (talk) 10:02, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Well how are fake but plausible-seeming references generated by organic intelligence dealt with now? I wouldn't overwork myself trying to find out. There is no formal validation of citations for accuracy or relevance in Wikipedia, and there is no other metric that will help the answer. It is left to the community to haphazardly and erratically certify references, at least outside of vanity projects like so-called "good" or "featured" articles. If anything the pre-seed of native AI present now (the relationship of relevant Wikidata properties with article verification policies/guidelines) when applied is likely to make things worse, as there is no context validation of Wikidata data to begin with. 65.88.88.68 (talk) 16:22, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

And on the other hand, there's Assigning Numbers. RAN1 (talk) 20:40, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

@JMWt, is your concern that the machine-learning system will write a book, that book will get published somewhere/by someone, and the book will be cited in Wikipedia? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:00, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing I think it is more plausible that some machine learning system generates references that look like very old books that would take a lot of effort to check. I don't think it needs to get to the stage of actually publishing anything to be a problem. JMWt (talk) 08:25, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

The question posed was not answered: why are machines producing articles with inappropriate references a bigger concern than humans doing so? Some of the latter may be doing so now, undetected. And does it matter what kind of entity publishes misinformation? In any case compiling an encyclopedia is a mechanical process, there is nothing creative about it. Non-human machines will be able to replicate it easily. 69.203.140.37 (talk) 14:36, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

@JMWt, if the machine-generated pseudo-book isn't published, then how would a Wikipedia editor have access to its contents?

69.203, at some point, quantity becomes its own quality. A human who types all day without stopping (e.g., to interview anyone or to double-check facts) can usually only produce a volume of text equal to about one book a week. A room full of computers could produce a book a minute without stopping. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:11, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Wasn't there a recent convoluted discussion/RFC about mass article production/publishing articles at scale? 64.18.11.71 (talk) 01:56, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing Galactica can generate convincing looking references. An editor could just machine-generate a whole WP page including the refs. All completely bogus. Maybe I'm missing some detail that you are asking me? JMWt (talk) 11:21, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

@JMWt, Are you concerned about ghost references ("nothing remotely resembling the content appears in this real source") and hoax citations ("There is no Platform 9¾ at King's Cross Station, so your content can't be supported by a source located there")? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:52, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing Galactica was, I think, creating completely bogus references. If they are recent, we can probably identify them with a search of the ISDN or DOI. If they are old, that's going to be nearly impossible. It might also be copying real references and claiming they contain facts that they don't. Both are a problem, no? JMWt (talk) 07:12, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Given how much research has been done (for five or ten years now) on matching newspaper articles to Wikipedia statements, I wonder why they would bother creating a hoax citation. Just to see if the software could mimic the style, with plausible content? But they could plug in the other system, and get real citations to real sources. There'd be some limits on accuracy ("A traffic problem of nightmarish proportions occurred when Joe Film stopped to sign an autograph and a clamoring crowd of thousands formed around the star. Police were called charged the actor with Pranks without a Permit in the third degree": a simple software program could find "Joe Film" and "traffic", but might not be able to figure out whether it should be written to suggest guilt, innocence, or even whether it's worth including.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:08, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

@JMWt Apropos of this, Stack Overflow have explicitly - for the moment - banned the use of a similar tool (ChatGPT). They specify that specific one and not the general class of tools, though it might just be that this is the only one usable at scale at the moment - Galactica lasted about a week so presumably isn't much of a problem any more! Andrew Gray (talk) 14:10, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

"Deleted image removed" - how long is long enough?

While perusing punctuation errors, I found that Strongwoman has a not-uncommon feature in Wikipedia articles, a block of hidden text saying up front, "Deleted image removed". In 2009. Can we please have a bot scour all these ancient deleted images and purge them from the Wikitext altogether? BD2412 T 23:05, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Not sure there is any policy/guideline/etc requiring these to be made, retained, or removed. They are still actively being added (e.g. Special:Diff/1124102240) by User:ImageRemovalBot - operated by User:Carnildo who may have more background on this. There are about 20,000 articles like that. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:34, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

I have no objection to the addition when an image in the article is deleted. I just think that there's a shelf life beyond which they are no longer useful, and become nothing more than pollution of the Wikitext. I would say that after a few years (perhaps two or three, even), the notice has outlived any utility it may have initially had. BD2412 T 23:48, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Is there any actual need to remove these comments? If not, they should probably only be removed as part of an other edit, and certainly not by a bot. Animal lover |666| 06:15, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

The need to remove these comments is that useless strings of hidden wikitext make it more difficult to find and edit the wikitext that needs editing. From my own experience, I fix a lot of punctuation errors, and would prefer not to be bothered finding such errors in hidden text, where they crop up for some reason. BD2412 T 17:45, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

If this is going to happen, one thing to consider going forward would be to ask the bot to add the date to the comment (e.g. Deleted image removed 20221128: ...) to make it easier on future updates. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:49, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Maybe that information should be added to the talk page instead of the wikitext. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 17:51, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

I can see the value in noting where in the article an image has been removed from, as it makes it easy to add a new one or restore the old one if it is undeleted for some reason. However, the value in that decreases as the article develops without the image there - time is a proxy for that but I don't expect it's a very consistent one. There have been 54 revisions to Strongwoman since the image was removed, looking at some other articles the bot edited that day (20 July 2009) there have been thousands (so many it doesn't tell me the number) of revisions to Manchester Arena but only 9 to Type 518 radar. I think it would be rarely problematic to remove the text when it has been in place for the greater of 2 years and 50 edits, or where the article has since become a GA or FA (although how likely the text is to still be there in them I have no idea).

Timestamps are good idea, and posting on the talk page as well as the article also seems sensible. Thryduulf (talk) 21:43, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

@ONUnicorn I suggested in the wikitext, as that would make a future bot cleanup job much easier (as it would have the data there - as opposed to having to try to scrape the history to see how long it was there). Now another possibility would be to have that bot not do this at all anymore, and instead just post it to the article talk page. Not sure if that would be even less useful though? — xaosflux ^Talk 21:50, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

I can see the use of such a hidden note for a short period. An editor currently working on the page notices that an image has disappeared, clicks to edit to see if there is something wrong in the wikitext, and sees a note explaining that the image has been deleted, so they don't have to chase after what happened to it. I would say that if such notes are going into the wikitext, they should be there for two years at most (no matter how many edits have been made to the page, if no one has bothered after a deleted image for multiple years, the note will be of no further value). BD2412 T 17:14, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree with the general point here. That aside, there's a fairly strong community aversion to bot edits that have no effect on the appearance of a page as seen by readers. Essentially the upside (cleaner wikitext) is perceived as outweighed by the downside (watchlist flooding, additional page history rummage). So there would need to be a rather strong case for why this is somehow qualitatively different; even linter-fixing bots engaged in future-proofing have proven controversial. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 19:08, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

The original reason for replacing the images with something was to avoid breaking table layouts. I don't know if that's still a problem or not. The specific replacement with a comment was as a result of a discussion during OrphanBot's approval back in 2005; when I split OrphanBot's tasks between ImageTaggingBot and ImageRemovalBot, ImageRemovalBot inherited the behavior. --Carnildo (talk) 19:30, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

RFC Related to Reliable Sourcing

I'm requesting input at Talk:Jason David Frank#RFC: Cause of Death, specifically on a dispute related to Wikipedia's reliable-sourcing policy; one user has suggested a few implications of the policy that I don't think are supported by text or practice. TMZ has reported that, per anonymous "law-enforcement sources," Jason David Frank died by suicide. The aforementioned user has said that this report cannot be included on the JDF page. There are three aspects of this dispute, all related to WP:RS.

1. Does WP require an official statement from family or law enforcement? (According to the user: "we 100% . . . need an official statement from his management team or law enforcement.")
2. If an authority itself relies on anonymous sources, can that authority be cited? (According to the user: "Doesn't matter if it's a death, sports transaction, or whatever per that policy, no citations based on anonymous sources.")
3. Is TMZ an unreliable source? (Note: WP:TMZ, an essay, has some thoughts on that subject; it recommends explicitly attributing information to TMZ.)

Given how differently he and I read existing policy, I think third-party perspectives would be helpful.--50.86.94.196 (talk) 08:09, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Briefly,

1. No, however we do require that WP:RS of some kind to have covered a cause of death for it to be included.
2. Depends, does the source have a reputation for high-quality fact-checking and responsible reporting? If so we can probably trust they've done the legwork, but situationally editorial discretion always applies (sources split, only reported in one source especially if the claim is surprising/important, current events/developing news etc.)
3. Currently classed as WP:MREL which more or less rules out using it to support controversial WP:BLP (also applies to recently deceased) information. You can always ask for additional input at WP:RSN if you believe that the source has been misclassified, or that one particular piece should be viewed differently from the publication as a whole.

For future reference the help desk and teahouse will usually provide more prompt responses to inquiries. If you are looking for input into a dispute that involves you and one other editor you can also follow the process outlined at WP:3O. Since this particular case already has an associated RFC there really isn't any additional need to request input on matters of content; hope this helps, 74.73.224.126 (talk) 19:27, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi! Appreciate the tip. I was following the suggestion on WP:RFC to publicize the RFC on the Village Pump ("To get more input, you may publicize the RfC by posting a notice at one or more of the following locations: One of the Village Pump forums, such as those for policy issues, proposals, or miscellaneous"). I think the publicizing did its job! Got quite a bit of input. Thanks though!--50.86.94.196 (talk) 23:41, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

No problem, in general the intent is for WP:APPNOTEs publicizing discussions to be brief; often just using standard templates such as {{rfc notice}} or {{please see}} to avoid forking the discussion. And of course all ongoing rfcs are automatically listed at WP:RFC/A. That said it looks like you did get plenty of additional input; all's well that ends well I suppose. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 01:22, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Global deleters addition at Global rights policy

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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Turns out m:Global deleters Is a thing... Was just boldly added to Wikipedia:Global rights policy. This was after a 2 hour discussion at the Bureaucrats' noticeboard. If you are interested: Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard#Request for permission to run Synchbot Terasail^[✉️] 21:12, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Should global deleters be permitted to delete local pages when fulfilling m:Synchbot requests?

This would be made effective with the section currently {{proposed}} at Wikipedia:Global rights policy#Global deleters. This follows the above-mentioned thread at WP:BN.

 Note: There is (currently) only one global deleter (who previously carried out this function with local admin privileges). –xeno^talk 23:21, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

• I would prefer wording this in a slightly different way ("should the English Wikipedia allow Synchbot to delete pages", incorporating the way Synchbot works by reference), but otherwise support this. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 23:37, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

  Synchbot is only a concept, an ideal… –xeno^talk 23:42, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

• Yes — pre-existing global user right (2014) designed for this use case — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 23:40, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
• Reluctant yes. Yes as far as the WP:GRP goes, this works and is fairly uncontroversial. Reluctant in that I don't like this process and think it needs to be overhauled, but that needs to happen upstream, and upstream from there at the lack of developers - and I don't think we should break this fairly rare process here in the meantime. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:56, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
  • The very fact that it's rare - about 30 deletions a year - means that "breaking" it is of minimal harm; and I don't see how it's been broken at commons or arwiki anyway, which have both for many years required Synchbot to place a speedy tag instead of just deleting. —Cryptic 00:56, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
• Yes per xaosflux. --Rschen7754 00:01, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
• I'd be less uncomfortable with this if m:Synchbot made it explicit that it won't delete pages that have been moved into userspace. I trust Pathoschild, as a former enwiki admin, already checks for that; I have no way to know if whoever else starts up a new Synchbot-like service in some nebulous future after Pathoschild goes inactive will think to. —Cryptic 00:56, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
• Yes to this and the CSS/JS section below. No preference on wording; I'm not really fussed about how we choose to define the rules for one trusted person and their ~30 uncontroversial deletions a year. Giraffer ^{(talk·contribs)} 09:35, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
• If there's also a bot approval for it Besides the question as to whether the bot should be allowed to use its global permission here, there's also compliance with WP:BOTPOL and Wikipedia:Global rights policy#Global bots to be considered here. Anomie⚔ 14:42, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

  Anomie: Should this be done even though it's not a bot in the traditional sense? Although on Meta it is marketed as a bot, in practice it is a user running a semi-automated script on their own account. –xeno^talk 15:20, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

  @Anomie there is no bot here, this is just a script that is letting a person script some of their (rather infrequent) actions. The only person that ever does this doesn't do it unattended either. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:54, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

  @Xeno and Xaosflux: How odd that there's a bot account with the name, and this RFC is talking about allowing the bot to operate, and the linked topic at WP:BN is titled "Request for permission to run Synchbot", but the bot doesn't actually perform the task. If a human continues doing it in a semi-automated manner, then ok. If it becomes an actual bot at some point, then said bot would need a BRFA. Anomie⚔ 23:35, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

  There's no bot account with that name. Synchbot is a bot in the general sense of 'a tool or script which performs actions', but not in the enwiki policy sense of 'an account with a bot flag' (similar to other tools like Pywikibot). So 'Synchbot' is both the custom bot library (which performs the edits/deletions) and the abstract service (which users submit requests for), and I use that library through my regular wiki account to fulfill those requests. The naming dates back to 2008 when I guess that usage was more common. —Pathoschild (talk) 01:03, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

  @Anomie this entire discussion so far has nothing at all to do with the account Special:CentralAuth/Synchbot, which is a doppelganger that only exists to avoid having someone register it and cause confusion with the script of the same name that we are talking about. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:14, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

  Sure. Except where the BN thread specifically said "Request for permission to run Synchbot", and some above said similar things. Anomie⚔ 01:57, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

  @Anomie I think we can agree the names are confusing! "Synchbot" is an action automation tool, it runs under the credential of a logged in user; the only person that ever uses it (pathoschild) has some global permissions that mostly let it work on all WMF wiki's. That person was until very recently an admin here, who resigned in the face of upcoming inactivity requirements. They would like to keep using it here, using their global permissions. They asked on BN, even though that really isn't the right venue - but they were following up on their resignation -- which has led us to here. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:20, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

  I'm glad I'm not the only one that got ridiculously turned around about this situation. Primefac (talk) 13:09, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

• This should be allowed. These three points define enough of a scope for the rights use. Terasail^[✉️] 15:30, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
• Yes, and strikes me as something that should be relatively uncontroversial given the minimal risks compared to the benefit that the service provides. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 19:51, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
• Support per NOTBURO. HouseBlaster^talk 17:33, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
• Yes this process has been running uncontroversially for years and the global group was created specifically for it. I'm not too bothered over the exact wording; Pathoschild can be trusted to act within community expectations. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 18:47, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
• Yes, but considering the global right has existed for years already and had the approval of meta, I'm not even entirely sure that we as the enwiki community have the authority to say no. casualdejekyll 22:49, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Interface editing

Another task Synchbot does is make edits to user CSS/JS pages. This is even rarer than deletions, and was historically allowed by virtue of his global interface editor access, but, by a strict reading of Wikipedia:Global rights policy#Global interface editors is now prohibited since Pathoschild has previously had the administrator or interface administrator right removed at the English Wikipedia. I suggest changing the quoted section, and while I'm at it the substantively identical wording at Wikipedia:Global rights policy#Global rollbackers, to previously had the administrator or interface administrator right for cause removed at the English Wikipedia * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 00:28, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Agree: this makes sense to me. –xeno^talk 00:37, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Shouldn't that be "removed for cause", or is this an ENGVAR issue? —Cryptic 01:13, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Should be "removed for cause", that was a typo. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 01:29, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

"Inactivity" is a cause. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:15, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

But I'm fairly open to supporting an update to that that would get around voluntary resignations, or even just procedural inactivity removals alone. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:18, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

I was thinking "for cause" in the sense that Wikipedia:Former administrators/reason/for cause (and the mainspace redirect for cause) uses it, not "for any cause at all", which would be obviously useless. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 01:29, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Xaosflux that I would prefer not to use "for cause" as a blanket term that is assumed to exclude procedural removal of user rights, if there is consensus for a change. I think for clarity it would better to list the specific exceptions desired. isaacl (talk) 02:15, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

"for any reason other than inactivity" (the wording used at WP:EFH) would seem to work here. If there are other reasons for admin removal then they can be spelled out too. Thryduulf (talk) 14:50, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

You would also need to explicitly exclude resigning (since that's what Pathoschild technically did). I'm still not convinced of the need to spell this out any further than my initial proposal, though. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 15:13, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

• OK so GIE's can edit here if they were never admins, assuming they follow all other types of policies and don't do things that make people mad.... We certainly don't want GIE's operating when the editor was already desysoped for cause related to negative behaviors here. Inactivity isn't really the same, since if they just never bothered to become an admin here it wouldn't apply. Since we're touching the GRP\GIE section how about a bigger change
• FROM:
  • Global interface editors can use their rights by default, provided they have not previously had the administrator or interface administrator right removed at the English Wikipedia. If removal has previously occurred, they must request and be granted interface administrator and/or administrator access locally by an English Wikipedia Bureaucrat. Furthermore, any English Wikipedia bureaucrat can ask a global interface editor to stop using their global privilege if what they deem to be misuse occurs, and the global interface editor must comply with such a request. Such a decision by a bureaucrat can be appealed to the wider community. Failure to comply may result in a block. Interface editors are reminded that some interface pages, such as the watchlist, require discussion prior to use.
• TO:
  • Global interface editors canmay use their rights by default, provided they have not previously had the administrator or interface administrator right removed at the English Wikipediainvoluntarily, other than procedurally for inactivity. If such a removal has previously occurred, they must request and be granted interface administrator and/or administrator access locally by an English Wikipedia Bureaucratprior to using this access. Furthermore, any English Wikipedia bureaucrat can ask a global interface editor to stop using their global privilege if what they deem to be misuse occurs, and the global interface editor must comply with such a request. Such a decision by a bureaucrat can be appealed to the wider community. Failure to comply may result in a block. Interface editors are reminded that some interface pages, such as the watchlist, require discussion prior to use. Interface editors must comply with local policies, such as the protection policy.

I think that clears up this issue, and takes care of some housekeeping. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:45, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Under this proposed rewrite, users who voluntarily resign their advanced user rights, would still be allowed to use their global rights, even if the resignation was voluntarily given while the user was under a cloud. This doesn't sit well with me, as this would essentially create a loophole whereby editors who lose EnWiki community trust could nevertheless still take interface admin actions on EnWiki by simply resigning.

Something along the lines of Global interface editors canmay use their rights by default, provided they have not previously voluntarily resigned the administrator or interface administrator right under a cloud or had the administrator or interface administrator right removed at the English Wikipediainvoluntarily, other than procedurally for inactivity. would solve this problem. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 21:13, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

In such situations the bueraucrat who pushes the button to remove admin or Iadmin access can invoke the any English Wikipedia bureaucrat can ask a global interface editor to stop using their global privilege if what they deem to be misuse occurs clause. Since clouds are currently determined by crats at the time of resysop that would be more consistent with the way adminship works.

To be clear, I have no objection to any rewording that makes it clear this doesn't apply to Pathochild (or Mr. Stradivarius, who technically violated the aforementioned clause with this series of edits in October 2022 after losing IADMIN for lack of use in August 2022), but I don't see this line of working as necessary. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:28, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

I think this is covered by WP:IAR and WP:NOTBURO; we don't need to change policy due to a single exception. BilledMammal (talk) 21:59, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

If a user had previously held a right, and would get it back on request, then they should be allowed per IAR to operate a bot as if they had gotten the right back. If a request would need to be discussed first, then the discussion must precede getting the right to operate such a bot. Of course, this doesn't override any other rules or restrictions on operating bots, such as approval of the task itself. Animal lover |666| 06:05, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

As of January 2023, Pathoschild won't be able to get his admin bit back on request. That's the entire point. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:28, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree with the proposed changes above, we note that consensus at AN (or some other venue) can restrict a user from exercising the privileges granted here. HouseBlaster^talk 17:33, 6 December 2022 (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.

Newly autoconfirmed editors

Since creating a new article is "one of the hardest things to do" on en:wp, why do we allow accounts with only four days and ten edits to do that, directly in mainspace (unless I am mistaken)? The Teahouse, Help Desk, and AfCHelp are frequently advising new editors to spend some time (a few months) learning how WP works before attempting to create a new article. We tell new editors, and it's true, that they will very likely have an unsatisfactory and frustrating time at Wikipedia if they don't spend some time learning the policies and procedures first.

It seems like four days and ten edits is far too few to allow articles to be placed in mainspace, for NPP to look at.

I don't know what the right numbers are -- two to four weeks, and 30 to 50 edits? But not what we have now, based on the repeated discussions at the help desks. (I see a poll and discussion on this subject from 2008.) I am only mentioning this for creating completely new articles directly in mainspace; not for any kind of editing. Comments? David10244 (talk) 03:22, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

• Four and a half years ago WP:ACPERM was achieved after many years of struggle with 'authority'. The community was overwhelmingly in favour of the change but it's not certain that a further restriction would be met with so much enthusiasm. Very few users are aware of what the small team of NPPers have to put up with every day. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:02, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

  I agree it shouldn't be that easy and that it creates a lot of work for others. I'd prefer 500 non-trivial edits. Doug Weller talk 15:36, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

  It definitely should not be so stringent as to require EC. We don't need articles to be near-perfect at creation, just moderate quality is enough. My first mainspace article ([6]) was created about 60 edits and 1 month of active editing into my tenure, just about in line with the OP's timeline. Sure it's not great and there are problems (I literally cited Find a Grave), but it's enough to build upon. Curbon7 (talk) 15:55, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

  I'm sympathethic to raising the bar for being able to create an article, but I just looked back to 2005 and realized I created ten articles (all stubs, of course), four redirects, and a DAB page in my first 50 edits, and none has been deleted. I don't think I would have been discouraged from editing by not being able to create articles so early, as there were plenty of other things I could do (my fifth edit was to start rewriting and expanding an article). I am willing to concede that things have changed enough that we should require a bit more experience than I had before creating articles. Donald Albury 19:59, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

  @Donald Albury Well, YOU are likely better at this than most.

  I just wanted to get others' ideas. David10244 (talk) 05:30, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

  I fear we'd lose a lot of good articles that way. It's a baby-and-bathwater situation. Someone must have the statistic but it must be something like 90% of non-deleted new articles are started by non-EC editors? Levivich (talk) 15:55, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

  Levivich I would like to see the age (in days) of the accounts that create articles that don't get deleted, maybe the average, or a chart/plot. Also, the age of accounts that create terrible drafts that are quickly rejected (don't follow policy, etc.). My off-the-cuff guess is that your 90% figure is too high. I would guess 50 to 75%. David10244 (talk) 05:43, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

4 days/10 edits is way too low, but I think extended-confirmed (30 days/500 edits) is too high. I'd be in favor of something like 15 days, 100 edits. Levivich (talk) 15:56, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

@Levivich I'm glad you agree that the current setting is too low, and 30/500 is too high. 15/100 or even 15/50 would be better than 4/10. David10244 (talk) 05:32, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

I oppose making it harder to create articles while the AfC review backlog is more than a day long. Also, many newbies do not want to edit other people's articles (out of some misplaced respect) and would rather write their own. We can't afford to lose too many potential new editors. —Kusma (talk) 20:14, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

@Kusma If the bar was a bit higher, wouldn't AfC have a smaller backlog? And maybe (I could be wrong here) with 6.5 million articles, maybe "new article creation" is not our most pressing need. The help desks often say that a new editor can help the project the most, by improving existing poor articles. We'll still get new articles created, they might just be better on average. Perhaps. David10244 (talk) 05:47, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

AfC via draft space is where article creation happens for non-autoconfirmed editors. With its long backlog, adversarial process and excessive expectations, it is a deeply frustrating process that is not good at attracting new editors. I don't want to send anyone there if I can avoid it. Honestly, I think ACPERM and the creation of draft space were bad ideas, and I don't think we should make the newbie experience even worse. —Kusma (talk) 06:19, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

• I appreciate every point you're making, but if you were here when WP:ACPERM happened, you'd know how much it took to even get that much of a restriction. It took seven years for the devs to turn on a feature that had very widespread support (proposal passed in 2011, enacted in 2018). There is quite literally no CHANCE that we're going to get any more restrictions in place out of WMF before the heat-death of the universe. You're just spinning your wheels. Trust me, it doesn't matter if every language Wikipedia community worldwide had unanimous support for such a change, it would NOT happen. Drop the matter before it consumes your life. Trust me, speaking from experience. There's nothing but pain down the road you are headed. Not because you don't have a good idea, mind you. But good ideas are rarely sufficient... --Jayron32 18:51, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
  • Isn't that an outdated example though, not really reflective of the current WMF? Aren't all the WMF leadership responsible for that now long gone? By comparison, the recent banner thing took a few days from RfC close to WMF action, a great improvement over seven years. Levivich (talk) 19:05, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
    • I mean, you do you. I'm just saying I've still got the scars from the ACTRIAL fiasco and I wish you well. I pray I don't get to say "I told you so". --Jayron32 19:11, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

    Levivich, The complete WMF neglection of NPP recently does not inspire confidence that they care about such things as community consensus. It's only when we make a big ol' stink, like with the fundraising banners, that they notice, and even then it is for PR damage control. Curbon7 (talk) 19:13, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

    • • For what it's worth, I started writing my first article in my sandbox after 17 previous edits over 29 days. I moved it to mainspace two hours later, and it still exists. I think that it is more important for new editors to study policies and guidelines than to spend several months making hundreds of edits elsewhere before trying to write a new article, but I know that a lot of other editors disagree. Cullen328 (talk) 19:22, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

        I certainly agree with that last bit. It’s important to learn how to edit. That usually comes through experience combined with reading our policies and guidelines. Doug Weller talk 20:00, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

      • I come from a similar place to Cullen. My first article was Leon Douglass, which I took live with my 5th edit (unless some intervening edits have been deleted). 11 days after I registered, because I built it up over a few days in a Word file (as can be intuited from the smart quotes in the first saved version). That was 2008 and things have changed a lot since, most saliently that NPP is now a right requiring training rather than another task that experienced Wikipedians are encouraged to share in, and another being that NPP guidelines now encourage draftifying deficient new articles rather than tagging or fixing; those changes mean there is a much more effective barrier against a problematic new article staying live than there was then. So the concerns that led to the institution of the conformed requirement are less serious than they were then. What hasn't changed is that it's usually going to be an outsider that spots we don't have coverage of a notable topic or group of topics; people who are already editors would more likely than not have fixed that deficiency if they were aware of it. Therefore, not only is wanting to fix such a deficiency an important driver of participation by new people (and of registration), but not having big obstacles to creating new articles is very important to preventing the project from drifting into compacency about our coverage based on groupthink. It would be very dangerous to slip into thinking along these lines: "The encyclopedia must be nearly complete; so many people have worked on it for so many years, if it mattered, someone would have already written about it". None of us knows what we don't know, and entrenched bias is a real thing. So no, I oppose making it any more difficult for a new account to create a new article. Yngvadottir (talk) 02:06, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
        • Heh. The first article I created became a redirect. (But it was a different environment then.) I admit I didn't know much about writing articles for Wikipedia back then, but think I learned a bit since. -- llywrch (talk) 19:54, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

          Well, it was an idea. There seems to be some agreement, and some disagreement, and a couple of examples of excellent editors who created articles very quickly. These editors could have still created good articles even if the bar was raised just a bit; it would have taken them slightly longer.

          I think raising the bar a bit would not overly discourage those excellent editors (I hope not), but it might result in fewer bad articles being created.

          Well, I have made my suggestion, and if anyone wants to take it any further, feel free. It's apparently not a burning issue even though there is some agreement, and Yngvadottir makes good points too. David10244 (talk) 06:11, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

        @Yngvadottir, I don't think the encyclopedia is complete; I wasn't suggesting banning all new article creation. But I see your points, and thanks. David10244 (talk) 06:15, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Editing under an open proxy

It is prohibited to edit while using an open proxy. I was trying to edit under a proxy server to detour censorship in my country.

It it totally understandable to block editing under a proxy but I think it is to strict.

For example, editing a page of in one's own namespace may not be a problem. In addition, a logged-in user (not an anonymous IP user) with considerable experience (either in time or edit counts) may be not so vulnerable.

Shouldn't the rules about the proxies be relaxed a little bit? Regpath (talk) 00:10, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

@Regpath you can see the rules about editing with proxies here: Wikipedia:Open proxies. There is no block on reading articles via proxy. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:38, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

@Xaosflux Thanks. I already read that article and know that reading is not limited. I wanted to discuss 'editing' policy under proxy. Regpath (talk) 00:42, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

An experienced logged-in user can be granted the ability to edit via anonymizing proxies by asking the checkuser team for an exemption from IP blocks—see Wikipedia:IP block exemption for more information. Generally, this privilege is only granted to editors who demonstrate a need for it, e.g. because their country censors Wikipedia. Mz7 (talk) 03:50, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Given that iOS devices have the option of turning on the "private relay" which is an open proxy I think that this is going to start affecting more people over time. Gusfriend (talk) 07:16, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

This is already affecting editors, and the situation is getting worse. When MediaWiki was written two decades ago, IP addresses were pretty close to fixed. The same group of IP addresses might be shared across a whole university campus, but you could still narrow the person down to a pretty small place. Now, if I were to edit on my phone, I'd have four different IP addresses just from walking a short distance down the street, as I switch between different networks, and at least one of these IP addresses is dynamically assigned to something on the order of a million customers. Good luck trying to get a message to me. You'd have to post less than 30 seconds after my edit, and even that might not be quick enough.

We (the whole movement) probably need to give up on IP addresses as the primary identifier. CheckUser likely needs proper device fingerprinting. This would require a huge amount of effort, especially from the devs, but, later on, also for vandal fighters and Special:RecentChanges patrollers, who would have to learn the new system(s). OTOH, tech folks (staff and volunteer) have been telling us all for at least a decade that our overreliance on IPs is only going to end in tears, and we've been kicking the can down the road ever since, because it wasn't completely broken yet. I believe we need to get busy on this. This is a multi-year project; we shouldn't get started after the next generation of spam bots and vandal bots appears.

We are making some progress with m:IP masking, but there is much more to do. Hiding an editor's complete IP address from the general public is nice for those few people whose IP addresses pinpoint their physical location (and is also what we did when Wikipedia was brand-new, by the way, so there's definitely precedent for it), but it's not enough to solve the problem of accidentally blocking good editors when we're trying to stop one bad actor on a dynamic IP address. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:28, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

I'd like to share my experience: I live in mainland China with Wikipedia blocked by the GFW. I couldn't create an account using a proxy. Then I tried to request an unblock but found it hard. IPBE can only be used by all users but anonymous users. Then I finally looked at the Chinese WP and found the TCPioneer. That is useful because it can bypass the GFW without changing the IP address. I recommend users with the same problem edit through this tool. IntegerSequences (talk | contribs) 00:54, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

US judicial information may need to be vetted

As part of the National Defense Appropriation Act that is clearing both the House and Senate is the text of the "Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act", and thus will likely be passed soon. [7] That act would allow any federal judge (Supreme court down to districts) and close family members to request specific personal information to be removed from social media sites (which Wikipedia appears to be covered under) upon receipt of request to remove that information. Most of the information that is covered is stuff we'd not include like home addresses, etc. but it also includes things like birthdays. See the last version of the bill here [8]. I don't know if that means we need the WMF to set up something but we may need to set up information related to this on WP. Masem (t) 03:26, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Per Section 4(d):

(ii) EXCEPTIONS.—Clause (i) shall not apply to—

(I) the display on the internet of the covered information of an at-risk individual or immediate family if the information is relevant to and displayed as part of a news story, commentary, editorial, or other speech on a matter of public concern;

(II) covered information that the at-risk individual voluntarily publishes on the internet after the date of enactment of this Act; or

(III) covered information received from a Federal Government source (or from an employee or agent of the Federal Government).

I would contend that Wikipedia coverage of judicial officers constitutes "speech on a matter of public concern"; additionally, most information we have on federal judges originated as "information received from a Federal Government source", specifically scraped from the database of the Federal Judicial Center. BD2412 T 04:03, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Well, consider that the FJC is something set in the legislation that would have to scrub their databanks should it be requested. And while I would agree the reading of (I) *should* clear WP of any issues, we don't know how some judges would react. Masem (t) 14:02, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Like every other time we play Chicken Little games with legal news we have no training to interpret and act upon, we should wait for the WMF legal team to do something about this. A bunch of untrained randos have no business interpreting legislation and deciding what it means for us. Let the lawyers that WMF hires decide that. --Jayron32 14:10, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

All I'm saying is we should be aware of this is in place, and may need to be prepared to act if the WMF agrees we need to. Masem (t) 14:19, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

I presume they won't keep it a secret. Indeed, if they need to, WP:OFFICE will be invoked, and there's still nothing we can do about it in that case. --Jayron32 14:21, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

@Masem: Whether the FJC scrubs information in the future or not, we have already received the information. BD2412 T 14:14, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Furthermore, IF the information will need to be removed from Wikipedia, it will require that a notice be sent to someone. The WMF will receive that notice, and will need to be the ones to decide how to act upon it. There's nothing we need to do pre-emptively until that happens. --Jayron32 14:20, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

All that I think is important right now that of some new user or ip comes along and demands removal of a judge's personal info under this law, we should redirect them to the WMF, barring any new directive from WMD, and importantly not immediately treat it as a legal threat. Awareness this could happen is my main concern. Masem (t) 20:45, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Rather than focusing on the legalities or legal requirements, I think as a community it'd be more productive to focus on the principles and equities at issue; in other words, the important parts (to me) are not the requirements of the law but the reasons for the law.

This US law was passed in response to problems with judges being targeted because as public figures, their personal information (like address, full date of birth) are generally freely available online. An exception was created that shielded this information for the judges' safety.

We should consider the safety aspect of it. I've never been convinced that a full date of birth (as opposed to year/age only) is truly necessary encyclopedic information for BLPs. It seems to me that limiting BLP DOBs to year only is a reasonable safety precaution. I feel the same about place of residence (city/town) for a BLP. Why make such details so readily available by including them in Wikipedia BLPs?

I think this law should prompt us to look at our own policies and see if we're properly balancing privacy interests and encyclopedic interests. It's not just judges, but many public figures, whose risk we may be needlessly contributing to.

Aside from that, if this law is signed, I think Masem makes a good point that we should be aware not to process requests for the removal of such information as a legal threat. But it'd be better to enforce such things as a matter of Wikipedia policy rather than US law. Levivich (talk) 21:01, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Well said. The community should be focusing on determining principle aspects rather than legal ones (which WMF is much better-equipped to deal with). 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 05:31, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

• I would also argue in most cases, a BLP article only needs the year of birth and a listing of the age. Maybe a month as well. If the exact year of birth is widely available, and multiple other publications make observation of the person's birth date, than including a full birth date for a living person is reasonable. However if this information is based on one source, you really need to ask is the full day and month as well as year the person was born needed. Donald Trump and Joseph Biden their birth date is very public and there is no reason to announce it, for some other people this is less so. Clearly for some people who are marginally notable, or who were in the public spotlight years ago but are not so much now, having the exact month and day of their birth is not needed. I do not think including the city of residence is going to be an issue, and have never seen an inclusion of exact addresses in Wikipedia, so I think only the date of birth is an issue. I really see no reason to be more exact than a month for living people, although as I said if the exact day of birth is widely and regularly publicized, we of course would cover it, but we do not need to to make it available if it is not well known. I am not really sure there is much needed to do about this now, but I think it is a useful guide for article creation or if you are editing BLPS for other reasons.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:20, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
  • I picked the 3rd circuit district level judges just to review somewhere to see what we are looking at. Of the currently active district level judges under that circuit we have full birth date (day month and year) for 35 judges, and either only year or month and year for 24. Almost all of the judges born before 1970 we have the full details on, while most of them born after 1970 we have only the year or month and year of birth.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:30, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
    • For the record, I would object to any removal of sourced information on life dates. BD2412 T 16:29, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't disagree in principle that a date of birth doesn't necessarily add a lot of value to the readers; but surely in practice if Wikipedia editors have found the persons DOB in reliable secondary sources there's very little harm done by including that information, as anyone who intends to misuse that information could find the secondary sources themselves. i.e. WP:V means we only include information that's in the public domain already, so I don't think the argument that republishing it here causes harm is particularly convincing. JeffUK (talk) 15:58, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Also, keep in mind that Martindale-Hubbell when it was published in hard copy usually included full birth dates for attorneys. If I recall correctly, Martindale discontinued their hard copy version around 2010 and also began to scrub full birth dates from Martindale.com as well. It's harder to find that information online for attorneys admitted to the bar after 2010. This may explain the pattern discerned above by John Pack Lambert. --Coolcaesar (talk) 16:20, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Overdose of rules must be avoided

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.

---

There are editors who are not native speakers of English. They can edit Wikipedia, but can't take part in such high voltage debates.

Not possible to remember what pronouns one prefers, while discussing about some other topics.

If a long term British administrator face language issues, I don't know what will happen to others.

Different countries also have different culture. Calling someone monkey in one country is racist, but in another country it's considered comedy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Archive347#TheresNoTime_%3A_accusations_me_of_hate_speech_and_ableism 42.105.5.206 (talk) 08:01, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree that there are issues with policy bloat. I agree that bickering about turns of phrase is unproductive and many users in that discussion needlessly escalated the situation. However, you're linking to a discussion that was closed over a month ago, and it's not clear what exactly you're proposing. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:47, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

If you really can't remember what pronoun someone uses, and you can't be bothered to find out before commenting (which is honestly not that much of an ask, but okay), then just use the {{gender:}} magic word (though it doesn't work for neopronouns). –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 03:55, 28 December 2022 (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.

Deleting part of a rule

Hello Wikipedia administrators.

I went to fix the Bangor, Maine page to put the "st", "rd", and "th" in superscripts when they are used in ordinals. I am confused why Wikipedia has a rule called MOS:ORDINAL that says that we should not do this. The rule says "Do not superscript", but it's gramatically correct to use the superscript in the English language, so the part of the rule that says not to use superscript should be deleted. Why have Wikipedia administrators made this rule?

Thank you for your time and I look forward to your response. Lobster from Maine (talk) 02:03, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Lobster from Maine, the community makes the rules, not the administrators. You can start a discussion on the MOS:ORDINAL talk page, but I doubt the MOS will change if the only basis is "grammatically correct" as this is a global encyclopedia and does not follow a specific set of grammar rules. Which is why we have an extensive manual of style. Slywriter (talk) 02:11, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

@Lobster from Maine, you can find the discussion where this was decided here[9] in the archive of the talk page for the manual of style. The reasons given then were that the superscript was unconventional and rejected by AP style as well as the style manuals of a number of university presses. Jahaza (talk) 05:28, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Note that if you wanted to change the rule, you'd want to start the discussion on the current talk page Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers, not on the archived one. Jahaza (talk) 05:29, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Okay. Thank you for telling me why this was made and where to go to get it changed. Lobster from Maine (talk) 07:14, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

This is not a matter of grammar, but of orthography. I know of no variety of English where the writing of ordinals without superscripts is incorrect. Phil Bridger (talk) 08:55, 30 December 2022 (UTC)