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RfC on G13

Background: The G13 speedy deletion can be used to delete rejected or unsubmitted Article-for-creation-process pages when they are not edited for 6 months by humans. It has long been known that the G13 is an unsatisfactory and problematic solution to deal with inactive drafts in the draft namespace. Two main problems are

  1. It is in conflict with the view "Wikipedia:There is no deadline." In fact, there is no mechanism to delete not-actively-edit pages in the main namespace.
  2. It is essentially an automated process: the draft pages can be and have been deleted regardless of their status or viability for further development.

In addition, in view of some editors, the criterion is inconvenient to use since it does not apply to non-AfC drafts.

Continuing the previous thread Wikipedia_talk:Drafts#Continued_discussion_on_G13, I (Taku) therefore would like to propose/ask: -- Taku (talk) 23:56, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Proposal: the use of G13 to be suspended for time being

The proposal to suspend the G13 process has been rejected by the community. There were two major positions within the opposition. THe first was that removing G13 would leave us with no way to clear out drafts that had an extremely low likelyhood of being valuable to the encyclopedia in the future. The second argued that G13 is likely imperfect, but serves an appropriate function, and should not be suspended without a viable replacement. An interesting proposal was made by Anne Delong to allow any experienced editor to exempt a promising AFC draft from G13 deletion indefinitely. This proposal gained a significant amount of support. The community is encouraged to discuss this issue in a dedicated RFC. Tazerdadog (talk) 02:18, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

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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  • Support as a proposer. Basically I do not believe G13 is a good deletion mechanism. Assuming we can find a good replacement, we don't need this problematic mechanism any more. -- Taku (talk) 00:43, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Support given the inconsistent applicability of G13, at a minimum (I continue to oppose stale draft deletion generally, but this is a more specific issue which needs to be addressed). A lot of editors agree (see thread above) that the current G13 is broken in some way but we don't all agree on how it's broken. Let's figure it out. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 00:07, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Support - There is an emerging consensus at MfD, largely driven by SwisterTwister's nominations, that AfC drafts which are resubmitted tendentiously without addressing reviewer comments may be deleted. While it has some problems of its own, this sort of draft deletion is far better than G13 - it targets drafts that are causing problems rather than drafts which are not (I never understood the need to delete stale drafts that are not bothering anyone), with the added bonus of a chance for other editors to review and potentially object to the deletion, not something G13 really affords. I believe it renders G13 redundant in every way. I propose that G13 be stricken and replaced with a formal statement on WP:AFC (or another prominent location) that drafts which are tendentiously resubmitted without addressing reviewer concerns are liable for deletion at MfD. A2soup (talk) 04:18, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose G13 is fine, it helps get rid of disregarded junk. Beeblebrox (talk) 06:37, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
At a time when I was a little too busy with real life to actively participate, Beeblebrox was on a tear regarding his contention that "local government people are generally not particularly notable" WRT the Matanuska-Susitna Valley of Alaska. This particular view of "disregarded junk" means that in the case of this topic area, we've retrogressed from reflecting factual occurrences. In its place, our coverage as it stands now is centered upon such things as Stubbs the cat, a "mayor" of a community which has no legal authority to elect or otherwise declare a mayor, and Levi Johnston's "mayoral campaign", which consisted of issuing press releases while filing a bare minimum of financial disclosure paperwork but not filing a formal declaration of candidacy, and was built heavily upon cherry-picking tabloid sources in a BLP article while disregarding more credible sources which painted a different picture of the situation. Yet again, we cloud the difference between an encyclopedia and a newspaper with that sort of nonsense. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 01:51, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
You're way off topic here my friend. The content you are talking about was in main space and was deleted through consensus at AFD. That's miles away from speedy deleting stale drafts at AFC. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:20, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose In the absence of any evidence that any stuff from the rejected/unsubmitted pile is recoverable, I can only assume that there isn't any. As I see the tagged stuff, it's mainly abandoned starts on non-notable subjects, previously unspotted spam or attacks, cases of IDHT where the author didn't want to drop their spammy style and just decided to go advertise elsewhere, or stuff about subjects that in fifteen years time might achieve notability (or get a regular job instead of struggling to become a star). Articles about non-notable subjects are harmless - except that they lower the value of the encyclopaedia as not being another Facebook - but we don't keep them in the hope that they might some day suddenly pass the requirements. Currently, there's six months for would-be rescuers to go into the draft pile and rescue things. Does anyone do this? It might be a good check on the reviewers that decide things aren't article-worthy. And if an author reappears after six months in hospital, they can always request the restoration of their work. It's not been burned in a furnace, and the powdered ashes mixed in with the pig food, so that nothing remains. Peridon (talk) 13:25, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
Like everyone else who makes arguments along the lines of "not notable yet" or "we need to wait for sources to become available", you're conveniently avoiding acknowleding topics which were notable years before Wikipedia ever existed and/or for which sources have long existed but may require a lot more effort to locate than utilizing an online search engine. Of course, filling up the encyclopedia by picking the low-hanging fruit of today's headlines and trending topics is easy work. However, some of us are taking the extra steps beyond that but aren't particularly keen on doing all of that work. There's been a lot of games played, whether it's hiding material in draftspace from view of potential collaborators or by eradicating good-faith contributions made in article space because some other editor didn't go to fifteen different steps right off the bat. When this is done merely to ensure that only the few are engaged in doing the real work, it not only belies any notions of a "collaborative environment" but will only frustrate and eventually run off those editors doing that work. Arrogantly assuming that "people come here to dump their junk because they have nowhere else to turn" doesn't quite wash in a billion-website world. Using common sense and judgement instead of going through the script-editing motions will go a long way towards alleviating any of those problems. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 01:51, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
Are you saying that all things pre-Wikipedia or pre-internet should be allowed articles? We do get people wanting to put articles up 'because there isn't anything about this anywhere and I think that there should be'. Sometimes, it's something about a member of their family, and what they want to post is based on the tale that's come down from great grandpa. Sometimes, not that. Allow those, and we become a sort of Facebook. Yes, there are loads of other sites. But we are the best known for information, so they come to us. Do you really want to lower the standards we have? Wikipedia is not here for publishing stuff that isn't reliably published elsewhere. It's a compendium of existing sources, paper and electronic, and is to act as a basis for people who want to go further to know about those sources. It's NOT an original source. See WP:OR. Material in Draft space is for working on. Right. It's not articles, and is there for people who want to work on it, not for people looking for 'reliable' information. It's not 'hidden', which is why it shouldn't be allowed to accumulate like AfC did. Even articles from 2006 get deleted because they are found to have escaped proper review. Why should drafts be any different? Peridon (talk) 12:47, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
Excuse me, sir, you want eveidence that stuff from rejected drafts is recoverable? See user:Anne Delong/AfC content rescued from db-g13. Courtesy ping to Anne Delong. Other editors may too have occasionally rescued drafts, though they haven't maintained detailed logs for that. 103.6.159.93 (talk) 06:08, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose leaving ourselves without a deletion process for an indefinite period. G13 should not be scrapped but should instead be extended to unsubmitted drafts. Those declined at AfC have at least been looked over, and flagrantly inappropriate ones could be deleted then & there. Those never submitted may never have been looked at by anyone - and if you sample some of the 8,000-plus unsubmitted drafts over 6 months old listed here, you will soon find plenty of adverts, hoaxes, jokes and facebook-like stuff. As pointed out previously these pages can be found and linked to over the internet, so not all that "harmless". A deletion process is definitely needed, but to pull out the odd clearly notable topic before deletion, editors should be invited to take part in an "Old Draft Patrol" fed by a daily list of drafts due for deletion in a week's time - this is preferable to notifying the draft creator only: Noyster (talk), 00:10, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Don't take away housekeeping tools without first providing a workable alternative. Guy (Help!) 09:00, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Definitely missing an "and replace with" option here. I strongly oppose any measure that makes it more difficult to deal with stale drafts. ~ Rob13Talk 09:01, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Peridon. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:39, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose NODEADLINE is an essay, same as WP:DEADLINENOW and WP:REALPROBLEM. G13 works fine. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:02, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose. For one thing, this page isn't a good place to debate getting rid of any speedy deletion criterion; this proposal should be made at WT:CSD. But even if you took it there, I'd oppose it, basically because it remains useful for getting rid of junk and abandoned unuseful content; we're always going to have more candidates, since people will always continue to create new drafts. Nyttend (talk) 01:11, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Support per nom. For reasons that I have been stating foe some time now. Replacing it with PROD-like system is also fine, in case removal in entirety isn't getting consensus. 103.6.159.93 (talk) 06:08, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose. G13 was created for a very good reason (thousands of drafts without any chance of ever becoming an article, but containing many copyvios, BLP violations, ..., and without not enough people willing to go through them on a case by case basis to se whether it was "harmless but useless, don't delete" or "potentially harmful, delete"). While G13 has resulted in the deletion of pages that might, one day, have become articles (for which we have REFUND and which doesn't stop recreation in any case), it has also resulted in the deletion of many more problematic pages and countless useless, abandoned pages. The comparison with unedited articles made above is not correct, these articles have been vetted (or should have been at least) and are being used as part of the encyclopedia. Not being edited once it is made in the mainspace is not the same as not being edited when it is still a draft or after it has been rejected. I do think that G13 should include other kinds of abandoned pages, but for now it should remain active until a better alternative is in place. Fram (talk) 09:18, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment DGG,Rankersbo and a number of others have also worked extensively in saving worthwhile drafts, so my list is just a small percentage of what's been done. Sorry to be wishy washy, but there are pros and cons to this. I stopped looking at the G13-eligible drafts over a year ago because there were so many that I had already postponed that it was taking more than six months to go through and improve each one even minimally, so my work was being wasted. I needed to concentrate on those I'd already postponed. From my point of view, I see that there are two types of pages in Draft space - those which have been created through or submitted to AfC, and those which have been created as plain drafts. The former are subject to deletion under db-g13, and the latter are not; in fact, part of the process of getting consensus for G13 in the first place was an agreement that regular drafts were not to be affected. I'd like to see the G13 process continue, but include an extra feature in the AfC Helper Script to remove G13-eligibility from a draft that's been checked out by an experienced editor and found to be not a copyvio, about a likely notable topic, and to contain quite a bit of usable text and/or references, even though it may need going over for NPOV, essay-like text, etc. After six months without an edit, the AfC templates have mostly lost their original purpose anyway at that point.—Anne Delong (talk) 16:32, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
+1 for this, the most reasonable solution I've seen so far, and it should be an agreeable compromise. We will probably need a separate RfC to discuss it specifically, however. A2soup (talk) 18:39, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
+1. I must admit I like this idea, maybe better than my original proposal. If the details are ironed out, I agree this should work. -- Taku (talk) 21:42, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
+1. Actually, this reminds me of my proposal Wikipedia_talk:Drafts/Archive_5#Tagging_drafts.
These above tagging should be regardless of whether the draft is submitted. They are the extremes. Rejected drafts are neither of the above, but should be processed similarly to current, except: (1) Messages should be posted on the talk page, not templated on top of the article; and (2) Reviewers should have the option of subsequently deciding on tagging {{Non-starter draft}}, or a variation in wording, instead of allowing the author to endlessly fiddle and endlessly resubmit. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:41, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose It's a massively bad idea to get rid of something with no solution to replace it.. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 20:22, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose. G13 is, if anything, too cautious. I think reviewers need to have more freedom to delete hopeless drafts. This may require that reviewers be qualified. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:44, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose per above. Missing a workable "and replace with" clause. -FASTILY 05:24, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Support - A draft that is never submitted to articles for creation is de facto retained indefinitely unless it is taken miscellany for deletion, while ones that have been submitted to articles for creation are speediable after six months, regardless of the respective quality (barring meeting other criteria for speedy deletion). Firstly, drafts are drafts, and they should all be treated equally. Secondly, having this in place actually discourages the use of a good process (i.e. articles for creation), because it opens content that may returned to and improved later (if it isn't currently accepted by said system; e.g. perhaps more sources are found or become available, or the topic becomes notable) to deletion. If consensus is gained for a broader criteria covering all drafts, so be it, but a half-baked system that is unfair should be removed.— Godsy (TALKCONT) 05:30, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose for lack of an alternative option. We either need to improve it or integrate it totAfC, but plain abolishing it is unreasonable. We need some intermediate stage for fixable but not yet ready material. Actually, I think the problem is not the structure, but the lack of workers. No way of dealing with new articles will be good unless experienced people do the work. It's a reasonable argument that the current version of AfC is so hard to work in that it discourages people (I for one usually accept manually ignoring all the paraphernalia) -- but most formally structured WP processes are no better (and I avoid them also.) DGG ( talk ) 05:48, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Beeblebrox: G13 is fine, it helps get rid of disregarded junk. DGG also hits the nail squarely on the head. We need more, and better reviewers and this is one reason why AfC should be merged t the New Page review interface at Page Curation. It's the best tool for the job, and it has an official vetting process for its user group members, thus (hopefully) instilling some consistency and accuracy. AfC is like a city sidewalk - someone walking their dog allows it to do a dump and expects other people to clean it up. Wikipedia has a false obsession that every single article has to be rescued somehow; all I can say is that some people need to actually work at AfC and NPP to fully understand what's involved. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:13, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose per above, especially Beeblebrox, DGG and Kudpung. G13 should be expanded to all drafts -- the same reasoning that applies to deleting unsubmitted AFC drafts applies equally to all abandoned drafts. MER-C 04:58, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
    • MER-C, do you oppose manual curation of promising drafts, making them ineligible for G13, though the main purpose would be to help attract attention to promising drafts? I agree that most old draftspace drafts can be deleted. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:18, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
      • No, I don't mind if promising material is exempt from deletion. What I meant was that G13 should apply to Category:Stale userspace drafts and the whole of draft space. MER-C 05:48, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
        • Glad you agree that promising drafts can be saved. I agree with expanding G13 to cover non-AfC drafts in draftspace, and AfC / Article wizard drafts in userspace, but I would oppose G13 being expanded to non-AfC/Wizard pages userspace. Previous attempted mass-deletions of old pages encountered too many false positives. If G13 were to be expanded, I think a curation process for promising drafts should be set up at least six months ahead. Looking through Category:Stale userspace drafts, I estimate that about 5% are "promising", but that most of the 5% are in the userspace of users that I recognise. I might suggest that auto-deletion of Category:Stale userspace drafts should exclude the drafts in the userspace of any user who is WP:EXTENDEDCONFIRMED. If we are to go in this direction, some more thought should be given to the details, but I agree that we should go in this direction. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:15, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
          • There has always been a strong opposition to apply G13 to all drafts, as this would mean that articles moved from main to draft space would be deleted merely for triggering a timeline. Deleting content that could be used in an article merely because no one is changing it, without providing further reasons for why it doesn't fit the encyclopedia, is unacceptable and against WP:PRESERVE. Diego (talk) 09:37, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose This looks like a "Bully stole my lunch money, so I'm going to get the bully put in detention" problem. G13 doesn't consider the worthiness of the article, it simply considers how long an AFC submission has remained without improvement. Unless things have radically changed, there is a near zero possibility of a pending (i.e. "Please review my submission for inclusion") submission reaching 6 months unedited, so that bogyman can be thrown out. I would estimate that at least half of the submissions presented to AFC are from mayfly creations (Live for one day and never come back). AFC has as one of it's core tenants "AFC submissions must have improvement made on them" and for that reason we can introduce the "If you haven't been improving the submission in 6 months, it is likely you've forgotten about it or can't get it above the threshold for inclusion" justification. G13 doesn't consider attack pages, patently false information, or other permanent exclusionary criteria. Hasteur (talk) 14:01, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose--Wikipedia draft space is not and shall not be a reservoir of all content that some random fly-by editor throws at the gauntlet in a hope that we will be obsessed about keeping it and converting it to a full fledged article some day.Specifically, in absence of any clear alternative I am at a complete loss to support for abolishing a much necessary work-load cum junk reducing ASD criterion.Winged Blades Godric 05:22, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose Keeping articles around which have not reached even the ridiculously low bar we have for Main Space already is essentially digital hoarding... keeping garbage around because of the irrational belief that it might be useful someday. JbhTalk 13:21, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose Keeping hopeless articles just in case is pointless and G13 serves a purpose. Six months is plenty of time to have an article accepted if it complies. JMHamo (talk) 23:25, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose There's no point in keeping junk around indefinitely. — Train2104 (t • c) 18:04, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should there be a PROD-like deletion process that can be used as a G13-replacement?

Worthy of a follow up discussion, but insufficient clarity for a result here.

The closer of the first RFC section, Tazerdadog, concurs.[1] There should be a fresh discussion in the now-clear context that G13 is being retained. The new discussion should specifically address the desired scope and terms of the prodlike process. There was ambiguity whether the proposal would only apply to AFC drafts, whether it would apply to draftspace, or whether it would could even apply to drafts outside draftspace (i.e. userspace drafts). The main interest appears to be for draftspace or "all drafts", but any any intent to extend this beyond draftspace would have to be explicit.

The original RFC author Taku, or anyone else, is invited to post a new RFC. It is suggested, but not required, to ping the participants from this discussion. Alsee (talk) 15:16, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

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.

If yes, what should the criteria be?

  • Yes. This doesn't seem to be gaining traction but I believe the inclusion criterion for the draftspace should be usefulness and potential for improvement and moving to the mainspace, as opposed to the some sort of editing activity (the latter makes no sense in Wiki.) In other words, the deletion criteria should be that the pages don't belong to the draftspace. -- Taku (talk) 00:05, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose if it is targeted at staleness. I do not think stale drafts should be deleted per se - it brings no benefit to the project and creates a backlog which must be processed by admins, in addition to being a gross violation of WP:There is no deadline. I believe G13 should be replaced with a formalization of the emerging consensus that drafts which are tendentiously resubmitted without addressing reviewer concerns may be deleted at MfD. A2soup (talk) 04:25, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
  • If G13 needs to be replaced (which I disagree with), a prod system would be of use. A2soup can see no benefit in deleting the junk. I can see no benefit in keeping the stuff. Peridon (talk) 13:27, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I watch WP:REFUND, the delay between deletion and restoration requests is typically long enough that this would, IMO, make no practical difference. Guy (Help!) 09:03, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Strong support if this is open to all drafts, not just AFC drafts, but also little hope that the community will understand why this is necessary. Stale drafts hide the crap, which includes blatant copyright violations, walled gardens, attack pages, etc. Because they're not in the mainspace, they're less visible, but they're still there. Not to mention the WP:NOTWEBHOST issues of maintaining drafts with low likelihood of ever benefiting the encyclopedia. We need to clean things up to ensure we're not hosting problematic content. ~ Rob13Talk 09:04, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
I feel that WP:NOTWEBHOST is deeply misunderstood - people seem to read the allcaps link shortcut instead of the policy itself. NOTWEBHOST is not targeted at anything unlikely to benefit the encyclopedia - it specifically targets "material unrelated to wikipedia" (in addition to some more specific things). No amount of notability problems/hopelessness can make a draft "unrelated to Wikipedia" if the draft is intended to be an article. As someone who has looked at a lot of stale drafts, when you exclude those also covered under G11 (adverts are "unrelated to Wikipedia"), it is a small minority that are deletable per NOTWEBHOST (the policy, not the allcaps link shortcut). Your other point about ensuring we are not hosting problematic content is a fair one. A2soup (talk) 10:00, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
"Material unrelated to Wikipedia" includes all content that poses no chance of benefiting the encyclopedia. If you dress up a self-published website to look like a reliable source, it doesn't become a reliable source. If you dress up a no-chance draft to look like a Wikipedia article, it doesn't become a Wikipedia article. Vaguely article-looking content which isn't of any benefit to the project isn't related to the project, in my opinion. ~ Rob13Talk 06:13, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
By your logic if there are two newbies, both with no understanding of WP:N, writing good-faith drafts, one of which happens to be notable and the other of which happens to have no chance, then only one is doing encyclopedia-related work and the other is not. I think that's silly - if you are trying to write an article in order to inform readers, then you are doing encyclopedia-related work in my opinion. You certainly aren't be working on an "encyclopedia-unrelated project", as required for NOTWEBHOST to apply. But perhaps our opinions just differ here. A2soup (talk) 06:44, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Support for all drafts per BU Rob. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:39, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose G13 is necessary bureaucracy to prevent editors from willy-nilly PROD'ing drafts. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:03, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Support as this will allow content rescuers more time to recover salvagable content. I proposed this earlier at Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Archive_55#4-day_delay_period_for_G13_deletions. 103.6.159.93 (talk) 06:12, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Support per BU Rob13, who sums it up perfectly. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 20:23, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
  • A PROD-like deletion process that can be used as a G13-replacement in addition to G13. Qualified NPP/AfC reviewers (there must be a qualification test, minimum article and edit counts, plus community vetting) should be able to nominate and second any draft at any stage of having no hope of being suitable for mainspace. When any two agree, the draft is deleted. Salt and block to enforce if required Particular recommended reasons should include: No plausible notability (CSD#A7 level); WP:NOT violating. Most MfD-deleted drafts fail WP:NOTPROMOTION. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:51, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Conditional Support: only if this new PROD process is used in conjunction with the existing G13 process. -FASTILY 05:24, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Conditional Support: As per Fastily: only if this new PROD process is used in conjunction with the existing G13 process. This could prove to be hugely beneficial to the reviewers' workload. DRPROD should generally be applied to drafts which clearly don't have a chance of the subject matter meeting Wikipedia criteria or non encyclopedic content. Like anywhere else, creators might remove the PROD without addressing the issue(s), and the draft cannot be re-PRODed, but it can then be deleted G13 if it receives no attention or 6 months or speedied by any other appropriate CSD criterion. Excellent if AfC were to be combined with NPP and the legacy AfC reviewers given the NPR user right. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:25, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Conditional support: As above as a supplement to and not replacement of G13. Having the prod will allow reviewers to have a tool in the shed to try and propose deletion on a justification without having to wait 6 months to delete. It is likely that a non-trivial portion of prods will be de-PRODDED out of spite/willfullness and therefore become PROD immune, but having gone through the less combative mechanisms for deletion paves the path for a MFD if there is reasonable doubt about the page being even reaasonable for Draft namespace. Hasteur (talk) 14:06, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Support a PROD-like process, used in conjunction with a modified G13, that allows for the tagging of all drafts. If deprodded by the author and no additional edits occur for 6 more months, it should be able to be deleted via G13, as someone has "reviewed" the page and "denied" it already by prodding it. In other words, G13 would apply to denied AFC submissions and DRPROD's removed by author, in any namespace, which must not have had any human edits for 6 months. To ensure that at least one set of eyes beyond the deleting admin has looked at everything, the current G13 allowance for unsubmitted drafts should be removed if this were implemented, and those cases handled through DRPROD instead. — Train2104 (t • c) 18:04, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Conditional support in addition to an unchanged or expanded G13. There's a whole bunch of drafts currently at MFD that contradict the purpose of Wikipedia and/or will never be notable enough for mainspace, and debating their deletion is a waste of community resources. I'm going to hazard a guess there's tens of thousands of these "drafts" that shouldn't be hosted by this online encyclopedia -- especially if you look in userspace. MER-C 03:20, 16 February 2017 (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.

Subcategories for Category:Draft articles

Do you think we should create subcategories for Category:Draft articles? There are so many entries in this category that it really is not helpful in a navigational sense. I think we should add subcategories based on topics to help people locate drafts that they may like to work on. Something based on WP:GA topics might work:


We can even modify Template:Draft article to automatically place new drafts in one of the above subcategories by adding a parameter like |subject=Agriculture, food, and drink.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 15:43, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

I support this idea. Previous discussion against classifying drafts argued that drafts shouldn't appear along with regular articles in main space, but that is avoided if we have separate categories, only for drafts. This could be a good way to implement the result from the above RfC, which is leaning towards having some classification mechanism.
I would make the name for the categories equal to the equivalent category for articles, just adding "drafts". This way, a bot could convert them automatically. Drafts being included in regular categories is a problem (I've fixed one just today). Diego (talk) 11:25, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
We could also consider a system based on Stub sorting. However it's done I think the category title should start with the word "Draft" rather than appending it to the end, as that would be more immediately visible and also facilitate easier searching. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:35, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
I'd be okay with that. So for example instead of Category:Agriculture, food, and drink drafts, we could use Category:Drafts about agriculture, food, and drink.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 15:28, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
I also support this idea. I think as Diego pointed out above, this might be helpful in weeding out some of the drafts as users were interested in doing in the above RfC discussions. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 15:13, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
  • There is already at least one sorting/classifying/categorizing mechanism for drafts. If one only wants to examine drafts related to Rock music, say, one can use PetScan to scan Category:Draft articles for Drafts that have {{WikiProject Rock music}} on their talk page. As far as I know, this method has been used mainly at Articles for Creation on Category:Pending AfC submissions. For example, some projects that currently have 5 or more drafts pending review:
  • 38 WikiProject Biography
  • 27 WikiProject Organizations
  • 19 WikiProject Companies
  • 13 WikiProject United States
  • 10 WikiProject Film
  • 8 WikiProject Video games
  • 8 WikiProject Canada
  • 7 WikiProject California
  • 5 WikiProject Software
  • 5 WikiProject Websites
Projects can do the sorting by using AlexNewArtBot to monitor new articles for drafts that might be in their scope, and then adding their project template as appropriate. Other editors can do the sorting too, manually or with importScript('User:APerson/draft-sorter.js');, but historically there have been more editors wishing that drafts were sorted than there have been editors who sort drafts. --Worldbruce (talk) 19:24, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
Actually that would be a good way to kickstart the classification. We could make a bot that classifies drafts in specific categories according to the wikiproject tags in their talk pages, thus making permanent the results of those PetScan searches. Diego (talk) 14:45, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
If there aren't any objections, I think we can go ahead. I'll make a request to modify Template:Draft article .--TriiipleThreat (talk) 15:42, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Image use in drafts

Is there any guidance provided on WP:DRAFTS regarding image use? I looked, but did not see anything. The reason I'm bringing this up is because there seem to be many editors adding non-free images to their drafts, which is something not allowed per WP:NFCC#9. Some editors just add the file, but others try and add a non-free use rationale even though a valid one cannot be written. These images are usually flagged as NFCC#9 violations and may be subsequently removed when noticed. If the image is being used in another article, then usually this is not a problem; some users, however, have uploaded the file specifically for use in the draft they are working on, which means the file will be an orphan when removed and eventually deleted per WP:F5. It might be helpful if there was something mentioned about this on this page, so that editors are made aware that it is best to upload a new non-free image after the draft has been moved to the article namespace. Of course, it won't completely eliminate the problem, but it may help mitigate it a bit. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:44, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

 Added some text regarding this with this edit. Adjust as needed. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 21:36, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for doing that Favre1fan93. I tweaked what you did just a tad because I've come across some editors who mistakenly feel that images already uploaded to Wikipedia mean they can be added anywhere regardless of WP:NFCCP. I personally don't like the "and/or" construction, but I couldn't think of a better way to say such a thing without getting too wordy. If the consensus is that such a tweak is not needed, please revert. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:08, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
I think I solved the "and/or" use, by simply removing "uploaded". - Favre1fan93 (talk) 02:20, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the speedy response. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:56, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

The consensus on the "draft article" template

This is somehow related to the early RfCs and the discussion on the categories for drafts.

My question is what is the consensus of the use of the "draft article" template? Should the use of the template be encouraged or discouraged? Right now, most of the pages in the draft namespace do not have this template. What is the purpose of the template? (for the pages in the draft namespace) -- Taku (talk) 04:13, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

  • The purpose is to make the page eligible for G13. No one ever has any incentive to put it on their page. Neither do they have any good reason to use draft space. Draft Space is just a place we send newcomers so that they don't make much bother. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:15, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

RfC: Draft classifier template

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The proposal is closed as no consensus as currently written. Even a number of those supporting the proposal below express only partial or conditional support. Those conditions and the oppose voices seem most concerned that the proposal mixes two issues, being of the template itself and G13 applicability. It is clear there is no rough consensus in favor of the proposal as written. (non-admin closure) Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 17:21, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Background: This RfC is about a possible implementation of some suggestions made in earlier RfCs and other threads. It has been suggested that it is desirable to have

  • A way to indicate that someone looked at a draft and, although not ready to be moved to the mainspace, the content should be kept; i.e., should be exempted from G13, which essentially is an automatic deletion mechanism for old AfC drafts.
  • A way to sort or rate the drafts by subject, notability or potential encyclopedic value.
  • Some streamlined deletion mechanisms for non-AfC drafts.

Proposal: I propose we use a template that looks like the following to implement the above objectives:

Usage:

  • The template is to be added at the top of a page in the draftspace (not drafts in user pages).
  • "Main" is an automatic link to the page of the same name in the mainspace; the link is typically red but this allows a draft to show up in "what links here". If the link is blue, then that would indicate the draft is a fork.
  • "Notability" can be either "unset", "unlikely", "likely" or "yes". The idea is that setting "notability" = "unlikely" is a diplomatic way to tell a draft is hopeless.
  • "Subject" will be filled using a drop-down menu (apparently that's possible?), using the classification in Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Compact. Its initial value will be "unset". The field will be used to create an automatic list of drafts by subject.
  • "G13 applicable" is perhaps most controversial. By default, this field will be "yes" if the draft is an AfC draft and "no" otherwise. But we allow the editors to change that setting. In the spirit of "assuming good faith", we ask editors not to indiscriminately change the field to "yes" or "no". Note also that allowing this option represents an extension of G13 to non-AfC drafts.
  • There may be further optional fields such as "merge target".

One might find some details about the deployment are missing. This is deliberate; please make suggestion if there is any. -- Taku (talk) 22:52, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

  • Conditional support: even as a proposer, I have some reservation about this; that this might open up a path for abuse. If this were to be implemented, I think we need some policy mechanism to make sure that editors are not setting the G13 field to be yes en masse. -- Taku (talk) 23:01, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Support I don't think Taku needs to be so cautious, as this template does not compel deletion of any draft. It is just an indication that someone has looked at that draft and concluded that it is or is not worth saving. It will help us in evaluating the contents of Draft space and indicating those drafts that merit further examination. I also support the extension of G13 to non-AfC drafts where this field has been set to "yes" on the proposed template: why should drafts be exempt from this process just because they have never been before an AfC reviewer?: Noyster (talk), 15:32, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
Because draft space contains pages that at some point were moved from article space, and were placed here for reasons other than being unfinished (dubious notability, changes in policy since the article was created...). It doesn't make sense to apply an unambiguous speedy deletion criterion meant for half-backed submissions, which is G13, to pages that are not abandoned submissions. Diego (talk) 09:17, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Support as per discussions above. Great idea for dealing with a space that needs organizing but also some love. PanydThe muffin is not subtle 17:49, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Support. Looks good. However "Notability" and "G13 applicable" come pretty close to being redundant. There is something wrong if someone is tagging it as non-notable and G13 exempt. I also find it hard to picture when a yes-notable rating by an experienced editor should be differentiated from asserting a G13 exemption. In any case, I suggest the entire "G13 applicable: yes" should render as blank. This avoids confusing newbies with mysterious babble, and reduces the likelyhood that they'll mess with it. If someone wants to assert an anti-G13 claim on the draft, let them put ~~~~ into the field. Then render that as something like Patron: <expanded signature>. "Patron" is probably the wrong term. It was the first term I could think of, to indicate the person wanting to claim long-term retention for the draft. Putting the signature in there lets us know who to talk to, if someone else considers the draft to be non-viable. The signature's timestamp seems like a decent freebie. Alsee (talk) 21:59, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
Agree about the two fields being closely related: "G13 applicable" could be autofilled depending on the contents of "Notability", able to be overwritten in some exceptional case. The G13 field has the function of making it immediately clear if someone did not want the draft deleted. Don't think we need this unusual "patron" thing: no-one owns articles; no analogue for similar actions like declining a PROD; not hard to see from page history who it was that filled the template: Noyster (talk), 07:21, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
Basically what Noyster said. It's like if you are not married, you can leave some fields blank when filling a form. The template can be programed so that notability = yes results in G13 = no by default. I think it is important that the G13 field is not hidden; there have been too many instances of the use of G13 for non-AfC drafts. This must be an indication of the design flaw, which this template attempts to, well not solve but alleviate at least. The template is akin to a stub template; i.e., the main purpose is to sort pages so that the editors can zero in some specific instances. If there is any dispute on say notability, that has to be resolved independent of the template. -- Taku (talk) 22:57, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
Only if "Note also that allowing this option represents an extension of G13 to non-AfC drafts" is implemented. Currently, G13 depends on whether a draft contains the {{AFC submission}} template, hence a draft could easily be non-notable and G13 exempt. — Godsy (TALKCONT) 08:37, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment - I'll basically reiterate what I said in Wikipedia talk:Drafts#Draft classifier: It should be optional; I don't support a bot applying it to all drafts, and the creator and others drafting should be free to remove an application of the template if they so desire. Core content policy field(s) with options may be a good idea as well. — Godsy (TALKCONT) 07:32, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose due to "Note also that allowing this option represents an extension of G13 to non-AfC drafts." That should be proposed on its own, not through the backdoor, lumped in with what seems at first like an innocuous new template. Would drafts be eligible six months after the G13 parameter was set to "yes"?; What if one editor deems it not eligible and another changes it later?— Godsy (TALKCONT) 08:01, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The question of whether to extend G13 to non-AfC drafts is a policy question that should not be tucked within a discussion of templates. As for the notability setting, which draft creator would not set it to "likely" or "yes"? NewYorkActuary (talk) 11:59, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
    About the second point: the standard response is "assume good faith". Wiki has continued to be a radical idea today; anyone can edit? Crazy? What if someone inserted false information? In Wikipedia, we use Wiki and I don't think the draftspace is any different (or maybe the draftspace shouldn't be wiki???). Less philosophically, I don't think every creator would automatically set the notability to be yes. Some newbies don't have good idea of notability. Even if the creator sets the notability to be yes, I think that's good; it means the creator is consciously making an assertion that they think the topic is notable. This is better than some instruction (AfC wizard) that asks to follow the notability rule.
    As for the first point, the question is on both if and how to extend G13 to non-AfCs drafts. We had some early discussion before on if. So, I don't think asking if and how simultaneously is particularly problematic. -- Taku (talk) 23:13, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
    The proposed system is too complicated. Pages in the draftspace should either be eligible for deletion after a certain amount of time or not, without depending on a parameter that can fluctuate at a whim, which opens the door widely for gamesmanship and disputes. If consensus is gained for such pages to be eligible for deletion after a certain amount of time, something on the order of, but more limited than, {{G8-exempt}} could be considered for G13 (though that would share some of the same flaws). — Godsy (TALKCONT) 09:17, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
    @Godsy: But that's not the current system; the current system distinguishes between AfC drafts and non-AfC ones. This is apparently confusing and thus is a source of errors (the design flaw mentioned above). I would argue that the template like this one clarifies the situation since it will tells whether G13 applies or not very explicitly. For me that seems an improvement. -- Taku (talk) 23:18, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
    Yes, I understand how the current system works. I supported its suspension. The system proposed here is more confusing, not less. — Godsy (TALKCONT) 04:44, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Procedural oppose This RFC should be closed and replaced with three separate RFCs about each of the proposals. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:03, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
What 3 components? (I get the G13 part but what is the third?) If you prefer, you can think this RfC consists of several parts and support or oppose each component separately. -- Taku (talk) 18:16, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Conditional support Everyone above has presented good points regarding this and I too am concerned that the G13 bit could be possibly exploited and/or used en masse. With that said, I think it is a good idea as the draft space is full of drafts that do not have a hope and/or have not been edited for (in some cases) literal years. I have come across drafts not edited since 2015 or earlier that are clearly abandoned but not eligible under current guidelines/policy. --TheSandDoctor (talk) 03:02, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
I still fail to see why there should be any action performed on pages that have not been edited in years. Again, what is exactly the problem that requires deletion of non-AfC drafts, and why can't it be solved with MfD? Diego (talk) 13:12, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
The problem, Diego, is that these thousands of totally unsuitable drafts are part of Wikipedia, available to any reader, and as Anne Delong pointed out above: NOWIKI stops reputable search engines from including these pages, but not mirror sites or anyone else. Web pages can link to them to promote unsuitable subjects. Swamping the MfD discussion channel with large numbers of open-and-shut cases would not be a good response. So G13 needs to apply to non-AfC drafts, subject to action on the "significant support" already identified to allow any experienced editor to exempt a promising AFC draft from G13 deletion indefinitely. This proposal offers a compact way to achieve both, and instead of adding to the already extensive series of discussions on this page each concluding "this isn't quite it", it's time for this one to be approved I think: Noyster (talk), 17:25, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
Why is it a problem that unsuitable drafts are available to readers? They are very obviously not Wikipedia articles, and will only be found by editors wanting to search content for expanding the description of a topic. They are not part of the encyclopedia any more than drafts and essays in user space. For the few examples that require deletion for being problematic, such as copyright and BLP violations, there are already ways to speedely delete them. I still fail to see any argument that would justify a massive deletion of pages in draft space that won't equally apply to the User:, WP: and Talk: spaces, and which we don't delete in the same way. Diego (talk) 18:19, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
This is a bit digressive and hope the others don't mind. I have this theory: some people enjoy deleting stuff. There is this segment of the editors who are more interested in simply engaging in the activities in Wikipedia. What interests them isn't an encyclopedia-building. The end game is the deletion; that the content is of low quality gives them a cover. From the encyclopedia-building standpoint, there is not much gain by deleting stuff in the draftspace. Some might ask (and they have): what is of the use of having the content that will never go to the mainspace? The standard response is that it is useful to allow for some failures and mistakes for the content development. A novelist might not finish all of their drafts. That's perfectly ok since they can learn from what didn't work and often they can start new works based on the failed attempts. I thus tend to see the draftspace as a place, where one can try to develop the contents (duh?); others simply don't share that point of view. -- Taku (talk) 21:32, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
@Diego Moya: - I still fail to see why there should be any action performed on pages that have not been edited in years - I seem to be approaching this from the opposite end but the problem for me is that there is a veritable treasure trove of potential content that nobody is looking at, because there's no system where they are easily accessible. Reviewers are being swamped because they're a rare breed but image what content creators could do with a giant repository of potential subjects? PanydThe muffin is not subtle 17:52, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
@Panyd: You're right, and I agree that there should be a repository of well classified drafts; I should have said "I don't see why there should be any deletion action" with them. My concern is that, once some pages have been classified as "poor quality / unlikely notability", some people will push for getting them deleted, which is a severe problem. Drafts should not be deleted after only one or two people have reviewed them, if they don't incur in any of the problems that merit speedy removal (BLP, copyvio, attack pages, etc).
Hiding those pages would be against having that large pool of potential valid content available for content creators. Even if many (or most!) of those pages is very low quality, a good classification system and/or some automatic data mining tools could help future editors find the gems of valuable data standing among the noise. This could never happen if the low quality drafts are removed, even if a mechanism exist to REFUND individual pages one by one. Diego (talk) 09:49, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment Before the creation of Draft space, all of the "drafts" were in "Wikipedia talk" space. The problem with that is that when mirror sites copied the pages, they all started with the word "Wikipedia", which made it easy to mistake the text for a Wikipedia article. Now that the pages just say "Draft", it's less of a problem, because although the text may appear on the internet, it is not necessarily associated with Wikipedia. If the proposed draft classification happens, it's important that this benefit is not undone by introducing the word "Wikipedia" back onto the pages.—Anne Delong (talk) 23:10, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Partial support, with caveats. I agree to create a formal, unified mechanism for classifying drafts by subject. I concur with Roger that the inclusion of tags for "subject", "(estimated) notability" and "G13-applicable" should be decided separately. I would support the subject tag, and maybe the notability tag (with the caveat that unlikely notable drafts should not be deleted without a MfD, even if they become stalled).
I don't like the G13 part as is - anyone nominating for G13 should already know to look for the presence of the AfC template and understand that it can't be applied without it. Maybe the tag should be "Speedy deletion applicable? (Yes/no)", and in case of "Yes", the parameter should say what speedy criterion can by applied (so it could be either G13 if it really is an abandoned AfC, G12, G3, etc). Diego (talk) 10:05, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
Comment - there's a proposal below for classifying drafts through specific categories, rather than with templates. Any one else supports it? This would largely solve the issue, IMHO. Diego (talk) 09:39, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
I too am aware of that proposal. But thr proposal is about classifying drafts having the draft template and so it will not apply to the vast majority of pages in the draftspace. Also, the use of categories is inappropriate in my opinion; categories provide the navigation system for readers; drafts have no readers. -- Taku (talk) 09:15, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
You don't think editors should also benefit from having a proper navigation system, to find promising drafts? Diego (talk) 10:36, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
We shouldn't treat drafts like regular articles; setting up the categories, etc, can make the draftspace that is just like a part of Wikipedia. I agree that we need to setup some system to list drafts by subject. I think this should be like the lists of requested articles. In fact, as I mentioned before, I think it makes sense to have the system of lists of requested articles merged with the draftspaces. "Makes sense" since the end game is the same, to prepare mainspace articles. -- Taku (talk) 19:17, 13 April 2017 (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.

poor visibility of drafts

Take Kursk (film) as an example. There is a draft: Draft:Kursk (film) and the mainspace article redirects to the director's article.

But the only way I found that out was an off-hand comment in the edit history!

What is needed is either or both of two things:

  1. that we create a redirect template that essentially says the opposite of the Draft article template: that this is a draft placeholder redirect pending some event that makes the draft go live.
  2. whenever I start editing an article, the system checks if there's a Draft and informs me. (Not just at article creation that is; we're in the scenario when someone tries to edit the redirect in good faith)

There must be a big hint: "don't bother reinventing the wheel" - there's already a draft HERE, go look at that instead of writing an article from "scratch" where scratch means a placeholder redirect.

It's just a waste of effort when people redo articles from scratch - not to mention the "ownership" issues when a draft is mostly created by a single editor that vigilantly shoots down any attempts (in mainspace) to do what he or she has already done. CapnZapp (talk) 21:31, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

This is the old id of the effort that was repeatedly shot down: There have been at least one other attempt at a Kursk (film) article, here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kursk_%28film%29&oldid=770388296
I maintain that one effort is not inherently superior to the other. Why should one live on as a draft and presumably in mainspace, while the other is reverted debris?
And please don't answer "editors that don't know about Draft mainspace deserve getting deleted". We really can't allow people to revert efforts just because they have something lined up already. It's far too invisible! But mostly: yes, editors do revert cases like this without being friendly and inviting and explaining the existence of Drafts. So the system should do it automatically. CapnZapp (talk) 21:44, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

The fundamental tension is that, by design, the drafts are not too visible. Since the drafts likely have some issues (else they should be in the mainspace), we don't want to make it too easy for the readers to find out about them. So, that's why it is, for example, not appropriate to have a redirect to a draft article. I do agree they should be more visible to the interested editors, although I don't know the best way to achieve that. (One option is to use the classifier template that I proposed early.) -- Taku (talk) 04:52, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

It's OK that drafts are not too visible to readers, but we should find ways to make them visible to editors. I agree that the system should make it easy to know when a draft exists for an article, whenever the topic title leads to an empty page or a redirect. Diego (talk) 10:29, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
Agreement on the reader vs editor issue. In this particular case, the article is about an upcoming film. Per policy WP:NFF it is correct for no article to exist at this particular time, but that doesn't stop drafts from existing. The problem here is that the draft author deletes attempts at article creation. While this is technically correct (per aforementioned policy) it would be much preferred (and just) to incorporate those attempts in the existing draft. There are two issues:
    1. that the editor might not even know the draft exists. Remember, he doesn't create a new page (that previously was deleted), he merely upgrades a redirect into a real article.
    2. the editor with the draft should not have some kind of precedence. But this is exactly what the current situation will lead to! When the article can be published (in this case, that principal photography have commenced) one editor's efforts will become visible (the editor of the draft) while another editor's efforts will go in the garbage bin (=exist as reverted in page history) or even not exist at all (if page is deleted entirely and then draft is used to recreate article). NOTE: I realize having a draft will always have precedence since that is the proper way of doing things, but then it is an absolute must that other editors are invited into the draft work rather than having their efforts (in mainspace) merely reverted or deleted.
As a final note, I'm sure you all are already aware that drafts can exist not only in the parallell Draft namespace, but at users own pages too. How to ensure that editors are made aware of such drafts, I leave up to you. One option would be to have Draft namespace be automatically alerted, and to prohibit uninformative deletions when you sit on a "secret" draft. Also; whenever an article is moved from Draft to mainspace, it should be mandatory to look through page history for useful efforts of people unaware of that their edits were made in the "wrong" place. CapnZapp (talk) 13:56, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
I think that if this were done as an WP:EDITNOTICE, it would allow editors to find the draft without advertising it to readers. However, since editnotices on articles can only be edited by administrators or template editors, this would either have to be done by placing a group notice on all of article space that automatically detects if a draft exists (but checking for page existence is expensive from a server-time standpoint, so we probably don't want to do it for every page edit) or having a bot with the appropriate permissions that creates the mainspace edit notice when it detects draft creation (which means we would also want to update our admin procedures for deleting drafts to include deleting the editnotice, and set up the bot to flag them with {{Db-g8}} if an administrator misses it). --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 13:50, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
My previous comment somehow snuck in before yours, Ahecht. It was not intentional. Regards CapnZapp (talk) 13:59, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
@Ahecht: I concur that a WP:EDITNOTICE is the best way to do this. The edit notice would be populated through {{draft}} and {{Userspace draft}}. To ensure this works properly, bots should regularly check and add this to every page in the Draft namespace that doesn't already have it. Should we submit this in Phabricator as a feature request? Sondra.kinsey (talk) 14:11, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
@Sondra.kinsey: {{Draft article}} is already much farther use than {{draft}}.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 14:23, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
Is Wikipedia talk:Drafts/Archive 2#Announcing Template:DraftChecker helpful? Thincat (talk) 14:28, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
@Thincat: FYI, that template is embedded in the one I mentioned above.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 14:35, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
It's not ideal, as even though it's hidden for logged-out users, it would still run for them, which would mean that we would be performing an expensive operation (checking for page existence) on every single page edit. There's no advantage over just using {{#ifexist:Draft:{{FULLPAGENAME}}, which would actually be as simple as removing a conditional from {{Editnotices/Namespace/Main}} (since it already does that check if the article doesn't exist). I think it would be easier on the servers to have a bot add {{There is a draft for this article}} to the editnotices of pages with drafts. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:49, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
There is no need to add a template to every page in the Draft namespace. A bot could search for either a page in the draft namespace or a page with one of the three draft templates. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:58, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

RfC: the clarification on the purpose of the draftspace

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The union set of the purpose of this RFC and a meanigful expenditure of community time is precisely a null-set.Winged Blades Godric 14:35, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

There is a clear disagreement on the proper use of the draftspace. For example, one edtior in the just above section wrote "a draft must be developed or face deletion". This is a very clear indication that, in his view, there exists a deadline of sort on the pages in the draftspace; the user is not alone in thinking that way (develop or die!). My understanding is that the draftspace was created to host drafts that are previously hosted in the user pages; so to improve discoverability or avoid duplicate efforts. This meant no deadline for example. Anyway, I just wonder what the other editors think and I want it to be on the record that the claim like "a draft must be developed or face deletion" is as fake as (put your favorite example). -- Taku (talk) 21:10, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

  • Because TakuyaMurata is not telling the full truth, I will. TakuyaMurata wants to legitimize their argument that Draft space is the perfect place to store micro-stubs that barely have enough content such as Draft:Cotensor product forever without any improvement. That Math wikiproject has suggested that they take their content back to userspace (which has been rejected), that MFDs have endorsed the delete, that I and others have suggested to him that instead of creating new content, he finish cleaning up what messes he's already made. In short, Drafts are administration pages in the Draft namespace where new articles may be stored. They help facilitate new articles to develop and receive feedback before being moved to Wikipedia's mainspace. nowhere in the policy page does it indicate that drafts that appear to have a chance at becoming articles ergo why WP:NOTWEBHOST applies. Hasteur (talk) 22:38, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
  • This pseudo RfC is nonsense. One editor wants to indefinitely store fragments on a website, and they have chosen Wikipedia. The problem is that mounting piles of stuff means it becomes impossible for anyone to find useful content in the drafts—content that might be developed to an article. The purpose of Wikipedia is to develop an encyclopedia, and indefinitely storing passing thoughts about topics related to science or pop-culture or anything is not helpful. Johnuniq (talk) 01:44, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
  • See User:TakuyaMurata/Drafts for a list of about 50 such pages. If Taku spent half the time on developing his microstub drafts as he does defending their existence we would have several dozen useful articles instead of silly drama. Legacypac (talk) 05:01, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Suggest Speedy close as this RFC is clearly improper. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:02, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Suggest Speedy close as this RFC is clearly improper, and as per Legacypac. Also suggesting that TakuyaMurata withdraw this RfC themself or face a lot of complaints for wasting the community's time. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:06, 30 July 2017 (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.

RFC pointer: CSD G13 to include all draft-space drafts

Watchers of this page may be interested in WT:CSD#Expand G13 to cover ALL old drafts. --Izno (talk) 12:08, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

That proposal has been opposed at this page for years and now it gets discussed at a different page? How quaint. Diego (talk) 07:20, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
Can you point to past discussions here? New CSD criteria get proposed at WT:CSD. It is driven, for me, by the state of MfD, see WT:MfD. Do you have alternative suggestions? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:53, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
Best idea I've seen in a long time for dealing properly with the mountain of crap so we can find the notable Drafts Legacypac (talk) 15:49, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

RfC: on the proper use of the draftspace

Speedy close. There is no proposal here. Taku is advised:
  • RFCs with no clear proposal are rarely productive.
  • The "proper use of draftspace" is to work the page towards mainspace.[2] Informally, the general community consensus appears to be that draft space is a useful place for productive drafts, and that vast numbers of hopeless or unproductive perma-drafts are disruptive.
  • It is generally a poor idea to open an RFC less than 13 hours after a previous RFC was closed.[3] It was particularly unwise, when that RFC was rapidly snowed with speedy close responses cautioning you to withdraw this RfC [yourself] or face a lot of complaints for wasting the community's time.
  • Advertising this RFC at Village Pump[4] didn't help.
  • You are severely advised[5][6] not to hastily open yet another RFC without getting some support for the question or proposal. Alsee (talk) 07:06, 31 July 2017 (UTC) (non-admin closure)

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 does exist a need for some broad discussion about the proper use of the draftspace, as opposed to having local fights in MfDs and such. As I wrote above, the draftspace was created to hold draft pages that were previously kept in the user pages. The idea was this would reduce, for example, the duplicate efforts or allow a new editor to pick up when old drafts are left abandoned. This is why imposing a deadline or deleting abandoned drafts does not make sense. It is important to codify this fact somehow. (Moving the draft pages to the user pages also make no sense for the same reason.) The RfC is the best method for that. Can we just cool down and have actual discussion? (Obviously having discussion should not be opposed for the sake of opposition.) -- Taku (talk) 03:31, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm aware of the view that the draftspace is a failed attempt or not heading in the right direction. We may need to revisit that view; i.e., maybe we should just dump the draftspace. Please comment on that too. -- Taku (talk) 03:41, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

  • Experience from participating in RfCs shows that they are pointless unless framed in terms of an actionable question to be resolved. Is the proposal that WP:NOTWEBHOST should be repealed and people should be able to store drafts indefinitely? Johnuniq (talk) 04:49, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
    • This is the third discussion Taku has started along these lines, presumably to support his use of draftspace as a webhost for a bunch of stubs. If a fourth discussion goes up before the week is out, the proposal will be to topic ban Taku from discussions related to the use of draftspace. ~ Rob13Talk 05:21, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
    • Being able to store some drafts indefinitely is not a revocation of WP:NOTWEBHOST, since that policy only applies to personal content. Encyclopedic facts that may belong in an article are governed by WP:PRESERVE, which mandates us to keep them around, yes, even permanently. I don't know about the stubs that TakuyaMurata wants to preserve, but drafts that are fact-based, supported by reliable sources and relevant to the topic defined by the draft's title are good candidates for keeping them forever, so that we have a chance to eventually find good use for them. (Also, we don't need to change policy to be able to keep some drafts indefinitely; this is the status quo now). Diego (talk) 08:56, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
    • (For the record, I'm not interested in preservating my stubs. Some took me 3 min to create and don't mind if they are gone. This RfC is not about my personal stuff but about the confusion on the proper use of the draftspace. -- Taku (talk) 09:02, 31 July 2017 (UTC))
(This RfC is unrelated to the draft classification template.) To respond, I'm not proposing anything concrete but is asking for the clarification. For example, WP:NOTWEBHOST is really about off-topic content; it doesn't say anything about the draft pages on notable topics. If the community believes there need to be the deadlines on draft pages that has to be properly documented and mentioned in the main page. Obviously we can have a discussion right? -- Taku (talk) 08:38, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
Here is a concrete question
How do we determine whether the draft pages are developing towards the eventual move to the mainspace?
I do think this seems to be the heart of the matter. I agree the draftspace should not be used as a place to merely host encyclopedic content (incidentally WP:NOTWEBHOST is not about this). Currently there is no good way to make such a determination, I agree. I guess my point is that deletion need not be the answer to this question, except the no-hope case (if an AfC page was rejected for multiple times, we can safely assume it's not going to move to the mainspace and thus the deletion is appropriate.) -- Taku (talk) 09:07, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

exclamation mark  Notice: Multiple administrators threatened Taku with a topic ban. Taku then proceeded to revert a closure on this discussion.[7] I acknowledge my closure was uncommonly prompt, however I believe it was warranted. In case Taku is unfamiliar with community expectations regarding closures, you do not simply edit war a closure you dislike. According to Challenging other closures, the first step is to take any concerns to the closer (me) trying to amicably resolve the situation. If I fail to adequately respond to your concerns, you can request a Close Review at Administrator's Noticeboard.

I do not intend to edit-war to restore my close. If someone else would like to restore my close, I invite you to do so. Alsee (talk) 09:18, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Alsee, the topic of this RfC is legitimate, and some people here are trying to discuss it. I don't think it should be closed merely because of some disagreement with the editor who opened it; that seems contrary to the spirit of WP:DR. Diego (talk) 09:35, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) In my opinion, two very good indicators of advance in a draft are:
  1. It exists
  2. It has not been deleted (yet).
Any draft that has survived all the deletion processes in place has very good chances of being suitable material. I've lost count of how many times I've followed a link to learn what someone had to say about some interesting topic, only to find out that it had been speedily deleted, PRODed or AfD'd with very low participation.
People arguing for "cleanup" (i.e. removal) of everything which is not perfect have a very short term view of the utility of draft content. Some decades from now, a researcher might make good use of any available information for a topic that has become completely unknown. Even if it's totally unreliable, any tidbit of information can be a starting point to ask the right questions for researching the topic. Moreover, we're starting to see information procesing techniques that rely on large corpuses of content, and could take advantage and find the needle in the haystack. Even if each piece has low value on its own, keeping them around will provide much value in the aggregate.
Draft space is the perfect place to keep those bits of information that don't infringe any policy for the long term, as keeping them out of view doesn't cause harm, and this large of freely licensed content and has such large potential for automated treatment. Diego (talk) 09:32, 31 July 2017 (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.
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