Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Combining AfC reviewers and new page reviewers

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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Background

In October 2016, a large discussion found consensus to create the "new page reviewer" user right. The recommended minimum criteria for granting new page reviewer were set at 500 undeleted edits to mainspace, 90 days on the project, no recent behavioral issues relevant to new page reviewing, and demonstrated knowledge of our policies relevant to page quality control. This user right is necessary to use page curation tools and mark a page as patrolled. It does not prevent other editors from improving or tagging new pages, but their work must be reviewed by a new page reviewer before the page is marked as patrolled and removed from the new pages feed. This was intended to improve the quality of page reviewing on the project and prevent some of the past abuse associated with allowing any autoconfirmed account to mark a new page as patrolled (e.g. Orangemoody).

Articles for creation (AfC) is a WikiProject that allows new editors or IPs to submit articles in the draftspace for review by a more experienced editor. The reviewing editor determines if the article meets our content policies. If it does, the article is moved to the mainspace. If it is does not, the reviewing editor leaves comments centered around improving the article. The new editor can continue working on it based on this feedback (or move on, if the issue is a notability issue). The goal of the project is both to foster the creation of mainspace-quality articles and to more broadly educate new editors on how to create articles.

Reviewers for Articles for creation must have 500 undeleted edits to mainspace and 90 days on the project. They may then add themselves to the CheckPage which grants them access to the helper script.

Proposal

We propose that only new page reviewers (and administrators) be granted access to the helper script (and therefore be allowed to review AfC submissions). The proposers believe this is advantageous for several reasons.

1. The criteria for being added to the list of AfC participants and the criteria for becoming a new page reviewer are already quite close.
2. The rationales for creating the "new page reviewer" user right all apply to AfC. In particular, the implementation of a user right would help ensure that AfC reviews are high quality.
3. Combining the two groups may encourage AfC reviewers to patrol new pages and new page patrollers to review AfC submissions.
4. Combining the two groups into one reduces bureaucracy slightly. It also makes it easier to communicate with all editors reviewing new pages.

The main potential disadvantage would be an increase in the backlog at AfC. If low-quality reviewers aren't given the new page reviewer user right, then the total number of reviews at AfC may decline. This would only be a result of weeding out poor reviews, though, so it's questionable whether this is really a bad thing.

Here are a few things that we are not proposing, for clarity:

1. We are not proposing that editors without the new page reviewer user right cannot edit, improve, or comment on drafts submitted for review. We're just proposing that a new page reviewer would give the final acceptance on an AfC submission. Any editor could continue to improve drafts.
2. We are not proposing that any AfC reviewers will automatically receive the new page reviewer user right. Existing AfC reviewers would need to apply for the right at WP:PERM/NPR. Implementation details will be left to administrator discretion, but this would likely be after a mass message is sent out to alert everyone of the change and a grace period.
3. We are not proposing any technical changes to the new page reviewer user right itself. The only technical change being made would be to alter the helper script to check for a user right instead of a username's presence on the CheckPage.

RfC

Should only new page reviewers be able to review AfC submissions and use the AfC helper script? 03:21, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Support

1. Per above rationale, especially points 1 and 2. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 03:22, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
2. Per Rob. I also think it makes for a more uniform review process and a greater quality control of the page review process.TonyBallioni (talk) 03:36, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
3. Support. It should be noted that this doesn't prevent socks/spammers/other bad actors from moving stuff from AFC manually. MER-C 03:44, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

   Makes sense. AFC has always been problematic to article creators. feminist 05:11, 17 March 2017 (UTC) Moved to oppose. feminist 13:43, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

4. Seems as a straightforward simplification, provided a reasonable quorum of AfC reviewers (who are most directly affected by this proposal) also support this change. VQuakr (talk) 07:45, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
5. Yes, presupposing of course , that a few more AfC revieweres would take up the initial invitation they were all sent individually in November, and presented themselves for review at PERM. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:28, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
6. Strong Support. Per the rationale put by nom.Winged Blades ^Godric 12:21, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
7. Support per MER-C and nom's rationale. KGirlTrucker81 ^{huh? what I've been doing} 13:05, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
8. Let's not turn this into a debate over merging NPP and AfC. Whether or not you agree that's a good long-term goal, this is just a very sensible rationalisation of two very similar user rights for two very similar processes. – Joe (talk) 13:37, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
9. Support. I've done both, but that said, I would also prefer to see a merge of NPP and AfC. The worst abusers of new article creation (particularly the creators of dozens of articles on non-notable minor celebrities or sports figures) never use AfC anyway. Montanabw^(talk) 19:31, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
10. Support I have NPR and don't review AfC because I don't like to run scripts on a phone. Maybe if this was in place, I wouldn't need a script. (?) White Arabian Filly ^Neigh 21:44, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

    @White Arabian Filly: This wouldn't change anything in that regard. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 03:48, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

    Well, crud. I'm still supporting though. At some point in the future I may have a desktop and be able to review AfC. White Arabian Filly ^Neigh 20:35, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

11. Support The requirements are essentially the same., and we;re not a bureaucracy. Individual people will probably specialize in one or the other, but flexibility is a good idea. I will certainly support merging the processes when we've figured out how to do it, but even if we never do, this step is rational. DGG ( talk ) 09:52, 21 March 2017 (UTC) ,
12. Support per nominator's rationales and above Nördic Nightfury 08:00, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose My reasonings are stated in discussions below. Thanks to all for their work they put in to try and find a solution. This is not it. Antonioatrylia (talk) 11:37, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
2. Strong oppose per Anne Delong's comments below. Keep AfC right and NPP right separate to avoid problems with NPPers at AfC. StarryGrandma (talk) 13:53, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
3. If you want to further limit the amount of AfC drafts that are reviewed and severely increase the backlog, sure go ahead. Just another limitation to block people from helping out. This doesn't reduce bureaucracy. It throws up a barrier for those that just want to help. Locking more things behind userrights seems to be what's in vogue nowadays and it will only continue to harm the project over the long term. --Majora (talk) 21:50, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

   As a side note, there is a fundamental flaw with attempting to lock scripts behind userrights. It wouldn't take that much skill to duplicate the AfC helper script, remove the check, and run it on your own account. It would take me all of 10 minutes to do and I would much rather do that than "present myself for review" like some animal wishing to be judged. --Majora (talk) 22:26, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

4. Oppose for the reasons I posted in the discussion section. If others feel that the AfC reviewer criteria need changing or better enforcement, I'm not necessarily against that, but the AfC reviewer list and the NPP list should remain separate, because different skills are needed.—Anne Delong (talk) 03:27, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
5. Oppose - On face value, as we require the concerned user right for new page patrol, it seems reasonable that we might as well do so for articles for creation. This began as a support, but as I thought about it more, I converted it to an oppose. This user right is necessary to use page curation tools and mark a page as patrolled, that is what gives the new page reviewer user right its teeth in restricting others from otherwise completing the concerned tasks. The AfC helper script is an aide, one can decline and leave an AfC review or accept and move a page to the mainspace without it. There is no good way proposed to technically restrict users from doing so. Majora's first two sentences in their adendum to their comment describe another flaw, which I won't reiterate. I would also oppose a merge of AfC and NPP themselves. That aside, if this passes, I'd like to see the requirement that one must add their username to Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Participants to use the AfC helper script abolished. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 03:44, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
6. Per Majora. Thanks for reminding me that the AfC check page only enables a script and effectively does not affect what actions a user can perform. Simply put, useless and can easily be circumvented by a bad-faith editor. In fact, limiting the AfC script to NPRs may even encourage more users to attempt circumventing the system. feminist 13:45, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

   I may support this if users without the user right are technically restricted from publishing AfC drafts, but how? A possibility would be to require the NPP user right for moving pages in the draft namespace, but that would create further problems. feminist 13:49, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

   @Feminist: We shouldn't do away with the 500 edit/90 day current requirement for reviewers, should we? That's totally unenforceable through automatic technical means as well! If an editor edits against consensus, we already have ways to deal with that, mainly warnings and blocks. This restriction is no more difficult to enforce than the existing restrictions that the community has in place. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:50, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

   Nothing stops an editor without 90/500 from editing Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Participants (the page is protected under 30/500 because 90/500 protection is technically impossible outside the use of edit filters I think), but yeah, I see your point. I still disagree with tying a script to a user right. feminist 15:06, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

7. How would a New Page Reviewer know that a draft is ready for mainspace? I'm not confident that the NP Reviewer would detect a reliable source or notability for an article topic. Also, the proposal would more likely increase possible PRODs or AFDs on pages moved to mainspace by NP Reviewers. Alternatively, that would prompt administrators to revert the moves back to previous namespace, most likely "Draft:", creating a huge workload. Even I would ask an admin to double-check and to move an article back to non-mainspace. George Ho (talk) 17:17, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
8. Since apparently this is being read as formally restricting moving Draft pages to people with this right, I'm opposed. It is contrary to our mission of being an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Limiting access to a tool like the AFC helper script is one thing, not really any different from limiting access to Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser. But it is a step to far to say that editors can't even make the changes the tool would make, on account of not having the user-right. You want to switch the script to check for the new page reviewer right instead of edit count, fine, but I'm Strongly Opposed to going further and telling people they can't move an article to article space unless they have the user-right. Monty₈₄₅ 20:09, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
9. Oppose Per Majora, I agree that this will just increase the backlog. Also, NPP should be separate from AfC. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 16:00, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
10. Strongly Oppose per Majora. NPP should be different from AfC. Yoshi24517^Chat _{Very Busy} 16:05, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
11. Oppose This seems too restrictive. Andrew D. (talk) 19:17, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
12. Exceptionally strong oppose: How are persons meant to gain experience in curation if we are shutting them out of AfC? Being a former NPPer who has been previously shut out of NPP when the user right was brought in and told to come to AfC to gain experience, I am opposed to anything that could reduce opputunities for NPP candidates to gain experience. I also note that it's previously been said that AfC is a stepping stone to NPP - so why are we now equating NPP to AfC? -- sandgemADDICT ^yeah? 03:31, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
13. Oppose: There is some subset of NPR reviewers that are qualified (and able) AFC reviewers having enough of the same skill set to qualify them to do both tasks. There is also a subset of the reverse. Not all the members of those 2 primary groups meet the other's requirements. NPR is focused on slapping the defect banners onto pages because they're in mainspace and the general reading public needs to be aware of problems with the text. AFC is focused on helping new page creators who submitted their work through the Article Wizard get their submission up to muster so that it has a decent chance of passing NPR or a XfD nomination. If NPR gets 100 spam pages a day, AFC probably gets 300 of them before they get passed along to NPR or other pages. Yes it invests more time in getting the article up to high standards before it moves to mainspace, but we want to make sure a new editor doesn't submit their work only to have it slapped down with multiple maintanance banners and dishearten them from ever working with wikipedia again. Hasteur (talk) 01:20, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
14. Strongly oppose The backlog in AfC is already horrifically large and requiring AFC reviewers to apply at NPP certainly won't increase the number of people at AfC. In addition, AfC tends to reject drafts that need improvement, while NPP tends to tag the article and pray for cleanup. ProgrammingGeek ^talktome 17:44, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
15. Oppose AfC and NPP are very different from each other. It'd only lead to more backlogs. Yashovardhan (talk) 12:04, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
16. Oppose - Without getting into the details, there has been at least one instance where a fairly prolific AfC contributor has actively been taken off NPP for cause. That's enough for me to say that if there needs to be a right, it should be a separate right. TimothyJosephWood 12:18, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Neutral

1. Neutral. I don't see how some of the goals listed on the page can be realistically achieved. For instance, #3: Combining the two groups may encourage AfC reviewers to patrol new pages and new page patrollers to review AfC submissions. As some users rightly pointed out, most, if not all of the current NPPers, are already eligible to add their names to the AfC project if they wished to do so, and I doubt more NPPers would take part in AfC just because the script is automatically available to them. As an NPPer myself, I'd say while I enjoy patrolling pages, doing AfC reviews is something I have never tried before, and is certainly not something within my comfort zone. I probably wouldn't have an intention to join the AfC project even if this proposal gets passed. Having said that, i don't necessarily see any harm in having this proposal passed, and indeed I echo some of the comments in the support section in relation to the advantages of this proposal. Sure, there are probably better alternatives than this (like separating the NPP right and the AFC Reviewer right, considering NPP and AFC involves different skillset), but it doesn't mean this proposal wouldn't work. Hence, although I don't think what was being proposed is the best solution to the problems we face, I couldn't in good conscience vote against this well intentioned proposal either. --Dps04 (talk) 15:11, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Discussion

This is another step in the long-term objective of merging NPP and AfC, presumably to help NPP by getting the AfC reviewers involved. NPP might be short-handed but AfC is, too. I fundamentally disagree with the merger because the two WikiProjects have different tasks. NPP is a triage to make sure new articles aren't problematic. The patroller only has to slap tags on articles as needed. AfC is about advising new editors how to improve their drafts to the level of acceptability or publishing those drafts when appropriate. The reviewer is expected to be interactive and patient; it's not meant to be a drive-by task. I've done both jobs and they both cause frustration because new editors inevitably want something they cannot in most cases have. The further difference is that AfC deals with editors who are not registered, have a CoI, or are too new to publish directly into the main namespace. NPP deals with all editors who don't have the autopatrolled user right. I don't think this merger would cause any harm to Wikipedia and it might reduce bureaucracy but I don't predict it will bring the success the proponents of this plan envision. I think separate WikiProjects, even sharing the same pool of participants, would better organize these efforts. Chris Troutman (talk) 03:52, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

So, let me understand this please. This RFC is to possibly combine NPP and AFC programs. My question is about this statement in the RFC, if low quality reviewers aren't given the the new page reviewers right, then the total number of reviews may decline. That statement makes it sound like a group of AFC editors have already been labelled low quality reviewers. Is there such a list somewhere? I find it odd that in November, the editors who had done a certain number of patrols over a stated amount of time were grandfathered in to receive the NPP right automatically, yet with this suggested combination of the two programs, the current AFC editors are thrown out to the cold, and told that they can apply at PERM if they want to continue AFC reviewing articles for final publication. Why is that? Thanks for explaining the thinking and rationale for that part. Antonioatrylia (talk) 04:10, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

@Chris troutman: My intent is not to eventually merge the two programs, and I know for a fact this isn't the intent of some of the other major reformers surrounding the new page patrol. I would oppose a merger, actually, because I think AfC is meant to be a nurturing environment far more than the new page patrol, which is tasked mostly with defending the mainspace from shit articles. The intent here is to ensure the quality of AfC reviews by screening them through the same process as new page reviewers. That outcome is important to ACTRIAL, but that's the extent to which this fits into a plan of reform. Antonioatrylia The vast majority of AfC editors should have no problem whatsoever obtaining the new page reviewer right. You most certainly are not "low quality reviewers". Are there a few reviewers who wouldn't obtain it? Sure. I don't think anyone reasonably argues that all AfC reviewers pass muster. I've seen at least one reviewer in the past promote several articles that are blatant copyright violations, for instance, which would have been easily spotted if they even reviewed the sources. Something like that wouldn't make it, but most would. This would be case-by-case at permissions. As far as why require case-by-case, some admins reviewed the AfC reviewer list when we started up the new page reviewer user right and found the portion of AfC reviewers in a small sample who were making blatant errors was too high for automatic promotion. That doesn't mean they wouldn't be accepted if they applied, at which point we can discuss errors and ensure they understand them, but it does require some oversight/review. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 05:31, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

That is kind of what I mean, seems like the planning group around this RFC have already done their own independent assessments of some of the AFC editors before this RFC was posted. Maybe I am reading what you are saying about all this wrong. I agree with Chris Troutman, the two programs work differently in how editors interact with the the page creators. Patient AFC editors work with creators over sometimes a bit of time to make sure the draft is ready for mainspace. In NPP there is a way to post a comment automatically on the creators talk page, but mostly a review is conducted to check for everything, and it leaves not much communication back and forth. I think both programs are needed, and they need to be kept independent of each other for the reasons I have stated, plus the rational by Chris Troutman above. I will listen some more, but I am heavily leaning towards Oppose. Thank you for the rationale explanations BU Rob13 . Antonioatrylia (talk) 06:01, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

@Antonioatrylia: All this proposal does in practice is add a requirement to AfC reviewers that their contributions be looked over by an admin to make sure they're up to snuff when it comes to patrolling and our basic content policies before they jump in. While we're using one user right group to handle this for simplicity's sake, that doesn't mean we're combining the projects, merging how they patrol, or doing anything else to adjust how AfC work flow works. As for the planning, I didn't look at any reviewers before this RfC, but I know myself and others reviewed a very small sample of AfC participants when deciding whether to grandfather them into new page reviewer as well. At the time, this small sample showed enough issues that we figured grandfathering wasn't for the best, and I've yanked that attitude forward to the present, keeping in mind that the burden of just saying "hey, can I have this right?" is very low for good existing reviewers. Note that this isn't even unique to AfC; we've yanked grandfather new page reviewer from multiple new page reviewers because their reviews were low quality, and I personally think grandfathering at all was a net negative. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 06:07, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

• Responding to MER-C above, a change is already approved by the community to make page moves which aren't done by autopatrolled editors, page movers, or admins be visible in the new pages (or possibly a separate) queue for re-patrolling. That addresses the move issue. Speaking of which, we should probably add new page reviewers to the list of user groups that will automatically patrol such articles, giving even more reason for AfC reviewers to have this user right. That's a discussion for another day. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 06:11, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

So to summarize all that is being proposed here is that all AFC reviewing editors, who do not happen to have the NPP right are being tossed out in the cold, and will not be able to approve drafts for publication to the main space. They may do all the other AFC work, but no approvals at all. Those editors may apply at PERM to ask for the NPP right which will be given out with administrator's discretion. Antonioatrylia (talk) 06:22, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

@Antonioatrylia:--No body is tossing the AFC reviewer's into the cold.If a reviewer has a good track record in AFC field, I fail to understand why an admin would refuse to grant him/her the rights.Pinging @BU Rob13: on the accusation of admin discretion.I personally feel quality control is much more imp. than quantity.And the narrow set of people who actually regularly participate in the AFC work will have no difficulty in traversing this barrier.Winged Blades ^Godric 13:48, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Administrators discretion is no accusation. It is often quoted to the appliers at PERM. It does not matter if you meet the prerequisites for any user right, because administrators have discretion in granting the right. It is in the NPP guideline pages. See here: [1]Read over any of the PERM archives and you will see what I mean. No need for any diffs because it is mentioned all over there. So please Godric, do not make it sound like I am accusing anyone of anything. And pinging BU Rob 13? I am sure he is already aware. Antonioatrylia (talk) 19:06, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• Hello, Rob. Thanks for engaging in discussion here. I see that the conversation might be heating up a bit, so I'll try for a more subdued tone. And I'll start by noting that I am not at all surprised that your brief sampling of AfC acceptances revealed some substandard review work. But it is also fair to note that the very reason that NPP underwent last year's reforms was that there was a lot of substandard work being done there, as well. I salute the efforts made by you and many others in reforming the process and I acknowledge that some similar reform would be helpful at AfC. Indeed, the instant proposal might even be a workable way to achieve that reform. But the issue that rankles is the grandfathering. I see that you personally disagreed with the community's decision on that point, so it might be a bit unfair to ask you to defend it. But still, when the community reformed NPP, it was willing to grandfather its existing active NPP reviewers, at least until such time that the reviewer demonstrated an inability to do competent work. But here, there is no such willingness to assume competency. And that's a disheartening observation for many of us at AfC. I'll be happy to hear any comments that you care to make on this point. NewYorkActuary (talk) 06:58, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
  • @NewYorkActuary: Actually, I'm not alone on this one; the proposers of the NPP RfC, who agreed with grandfathering there, disagreed with grandfathering the AfC reviewers when that was considered. Not sure if he will comment here, but I know Kudpung, one of the main drivers of that reform, had done a comparison between people patrolling new pages and those reviewing AfC submissions and found a larger percentage of the latter lacking. I've tried to avoid spelling out implementation details too much, but the way I see this working is with a substantial period in which we both encourage existing AfC reviewers to directly apply for the right and seek out existing reviewers who qualify proactively. This is how the new page reviewer proposal was enacted, and there weren't any major issues there. The reality is that we don't have much in the way of an alternative, unless anyone has a good idea we haven't thought up yet. If we have poor reviews now, then allowing all current reviewers to remain would be an issue. We're not "tossing reviewers out in the cold", as Antonioatrylia put it. We're building a better shelter with heat and checking IDs so we can keep out the couple of people who pissed in the furnace at the last place. The goal is not to keep the average AfC reviewer out. The reality is that grandfathering has resulted in non-trivial issues for new page reviewing and it makes little sense to repeat the effort with a population that has a higher rate of poor reviews, based on samples taken in the somewhat recent past. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 07:14, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt response. I didn't know that grandfathering the new-page reviewers created issues. If it doesn't take us too far afield of the main topic of discussion, might you explain what those issues were? NewYorkActuary (talk) 08:16, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Let’s first put a couple of assumptions aside. The patrollers who were grandfathered into the new New Page Reviewer group were not done so entirely automatically. On the short list that was made based on a set of narrow criteria, each one was carefully reviewed and accorded on admin discretion. Quite a few did not make it, and later on, the rug was pulled from under a few others. Grandfathering was essential in order to ensure that there would be no break in the New Page Reviewing process - and here is where the fundamental difference between NPP and AfC lies: NPP is an essential core process while AfC is an accessory. Secondly, 20 - 25% of all users who add themselves to this list are flagrantly and blatantly ignoring the in-your-face edit notice. If it weren't for the watchful eyes of Wiae and Primefac it would be in n even worse state.

Not to belittle the work of some of the AfC reviewers who do do a good job, after all, without Wikiprojects such as for example Med and MilHist, the quality of the encyclopedia would get nowhere fast, but without AfC, Wikipedia would not be mortally wounded. One day, ACTRIAL will have to become a reality, particularly where the WMF is still blatantly refusing (and getting rude now with it too) to accept that a proper landing page for new users is the missing link in the entire encyclopaedia-building process, and that NPP is not a gadget of convenience.

I strongly resent the disingenuous attempts here to summarise quite falsely what Rob’s intentions are, and I’m sure he’s beginning to feel now exactly what finally drove me away from the project. He has my entire support for what he is proposing and I hope to see it become reality very, very soon - at least quicker than the the 6 years it took me to get a group of qualified page patrollers off the ground. And if this were in fact another step in a long-term objective of merging NPP and AfC (which this particular discussion clearly is not about), I for one would welcome that too: the objectives of the two processes may be slightly different, but the required tool set, New Pages Feed & Curation, is a software solution that would serve both of them perfectly (with a couple of minor tweaks). Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:16, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Kudpung กุดผึ้ง, could you point me to the WMF discussions you mentioned above? My specialty is tracking WMF-community matters, and that one isn't on my radar. Thanx. Alsee (talk) 18:53, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

• I am concerned that editors who are very good at NPP may not do well with the interactions needed at AfC. If NPP right is necessary and sufficient to do AfC, how can we keep those NPPers away who shouldn't do it. I am fine with requiring equivalent permissions, but I think we need to be able to restrict AfC if necessary. StarryGrandma (talk) 12:17, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
  • @StarryGrandma: Three things. First, any new page reviewer could add themselves to the AfC CheckPage now and start reviewing at AfC. There is no restricting that, since our only requirements for AfC at the moment are 500 edits to mainspace and 90 days on site, which are two of our requirements for new page reviewers. So if a new page reviewer wanted to review at AfC, they could do so right this second with no way to stop them short of seeking a topic ban. It makes little sense to reject a proposal that aims to inject some sense of quality control in favor of a status quo with no sense of quality control. Second, no-one is going to put a gun to a new page reviewer's head and make them help at AfC (or even encourage it, really – we have a large enough backlog on new pages at the moment to keep them plenty busy). If they didn't want to review at AfC before, no reason to think they'd suddenly want to after this passes, so there isn't going to be some influx of new reviewers on any large scale. Third, giving poor new page review or poor AfC reviews would be ground for losing the user right. Once we have measures in place to ensure a basic level of quality for all new page reviewers and AfC reviewers, we're able to devote more of our time to quality control, bettering our reviewers, and removing those who cannot seem to reach standards on a consistent basis. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 15:45, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

BU Rob13, "status quo with no sense of quality control"! Anyway, in response to your points

• First - can be rapidly removed by members of the AfC project if necessary
• Second - upping edit count by cursorly reviewing/rejecting those "low quality" new editors wouldn't happen?
• Third - NPP would really take away patroller right from a useful NPP editor on a mere AfC project request?

StarryGrandma (talk) 00:21, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

@StarryGrandma: Correct me if I'm wrong; anyone with 500 edits and 90 days on site can add themselves as an AfC participant. Barring a topic ban via consensus of the community, there is no mechanism to remove them. You're talking about an AfC project request, but a WikiProject can't ban an editor from doing something, and I'm aware of no guidelines or policies that give anyone authority to unilaterally prevent an editor from engaging in an activity. An admin could block based on disruption, certainly, but that's the only unilateral authority available to an admin here. That's what I mean by "no sense of quality control". I'm not commenting on the overall quality, just that there's no real control available, except for consensus discussions (very clunky) and blocking (even more clunky, since the editor could be productive elsewhere). If we tie this in with a user right that admins have authority to revoke after a history of bad reviews, that's a lot easier to control quality. Addressing your three responses; the first I've more-or-less just responded to. The second I'm not quite sure what you're saying, but if you're implying that new page reviewers would review AfC submissions with the intent of inflating an edit count via quick reviews, I'd want to see some darn good evidence supporting that concern (mostly so I could personally take away the user right from whoever caused the concerns). Third, absolutely, after avenues of improvement are exhausted. If an editor is biting newbies while patrolling and doesn't rapidly improve upon further instruction, that's disruptive patrolling. It would be grounds to take away the new page reviewer right. I'm not sure what an "AfC project request" is, but any uninvolved admin can rescind a user right from an editor who meets criteria for revocation. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 06:39, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

BU Rob13, the list is monitored and editors removed. You couldn't think of a reason for an NPPer to come to AfC. I wasn't worried about "biting" but about being unwilling to actively help editors. StarryGrandma (talk) 19:29, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• Discussion and proposals

There are different approaches here with not incompatible goals:

NPP - fending off as well as marking for improvement the daily flood of new articles by new or non-encyclopedic or promotional editors

AfC - training new editors in encylopedia writing to increase new editors, plus quite a bit of fending off also

Two separate points have come up in this discussion. First, should AfC no longer get to decide who reviews? There is no techical reason AfC can't keep its list of those who get to use the AfC tools. The software can check both the list and for patroller right.

Second, should patroller be a requirement for AfC review. Currently AfC is accepting articles at a rate of 21.3 per day, out of 150 to 200 submissions and resubmissions daily. NPP marked about 300 articles as reviewed on March 17 (I thought it would be a lot more). It would help a bit if AfC articles came in as patrolled. I understand Anne's concerns about having to get administrator approval to review, but I think it can be done by making it staightforward.

• Grandfather in the existing reviewers. Primefac pruned the list to those who have reviewed within the last 6 months. If there are concerns about certain editors they can be raised afterward by looking at subsequent behavior as with any new NPPer. (I am assuming this RFC is not targeting anyone in particular.)
• Add enough to the AfC Reviewing instructions so a new reviewer seeking patroller right need only demonstrate understanding of one tutorial rather than two (there is already overlap).

StarryGrandma (talk) 19:37, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

March 17 was St. Patrick's Day, not a good day to count! On Feb 28 there were 614 pages marked as reviewed. Does AfC's 20 pages a day really make much difference. StarryGrandma (talk) 19:54, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• Comments from Anne Delong:

• "NPP is an essential core process while AfC is an accessory": I tried for some time to write an indignant rebuttal to this, and gave up; it was spoiling my breakfast.
• "Disingenuous" means "deceitful". I, however, believe that the editors who are objecting to the proposed change because they see it as a first step in the dissolution of AfC or the merging it with NPP, are sincerely and openly expressing their concern for the future of AfC. Calling them names is inappropriate, as is reframing their legitimate concerns about possible consequences of the proposal as personal attacks, which may cause others to discount them.
• Combining the AfC reviewer and NPP patroller lists: I do not agree with this, because I feel that the skill sets are different for the two groups. Editors who can accurately add improvement or deletion tags to articles are not necessarily good at helping new users. (sorry, edit conflict - I wrote this before seeing the post just above.)
• Having administrators decide who can review: I frequently come across discussions among longstanding editors who are not administrators, complaining about creeping admin "powers". I am the one who originally proposed the current method of keeping the list; I suggested it because before that there was no control at all, and it was an improvement that was fairly easy to implement. Yes, it would likely be a good idea to have additions to the AfC reviewer list controlled more stringently, and it may be that the only practical way of doing this is to have the page editable only by admins. But, that is a technical issue, and is not the same as having admins decide who will be on the list.—Anne Delong (talk) 12:30, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

• Thinking about this over the past week, the one thing that gives me pause is that I would not want to see a situation where someone who is familiar enough with notability ends up getting turned out of AfC because they don't have extensive knowledge of CSD and PROD, which are pretty essential for NPP, but mostly irrelevant to AfC. So we may find ourselves in a place where we either give someone a right when they don't know CSD/PROD and risk them being a burden on NPP, or require knowledge of CSD/PROD to do AfC, a process where they will rarely if ever apply that knowledge. TimothyJosephWood 14:55, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

@Timothyjosephwood:. I don't see the connection between CSD/PROD and the proposal under discussion. Both NPPers and AfCers need to have the same level of understanding of notability criteria, how to recognise COPYVIO, COI, Hoax, attack, and other inappropriate pages, and how to provide some basic tips to the good faith new editors who just aren't getting it right. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:30, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

I do agree that there are overlapping skill sets, but you can do AfC with a thorough understanding of notability, a pretty weak understanding of CSD (in the comparatively rare case you need it and the software doesn't do it for you based on decline criteria), and literally no understanding of PROD (since it's outside mainspace), whereas you cannot at all do NPP unless you well understand all three. TimothyJosephWood 15:58, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

@Timothyjosephwood: Not wanting to split hairs, but is there really so much more to understand to be able to tag an artucle for CSD, Afd, or PROD? Methinks not, and that's why, incidentally, that in site of the efforts to get NPP cleaned up by introducing a qualified user group to do it, the community in its wisdom still insisted that such tagging remain able to be done by every newbie, younger user, and other inexperienced users for whom maintenance tssks are a magnet. At least I prorosed and got some sort of basic 'qualifications' introduced for AfC (which BTW, Anne Delong may not have realised.) Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:46, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Hey, I was there and helped get them implemented.—Anne Delong (talk) 03:20, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

@Kudpung: From the perspective of our current AfC and NPP contributors, i.e., those who are already well verse in all the above? No, there is not that much to understand and they all flow fairly intuitively from one another. From that of recruiting new patrollers/reviewers? They're fairly different and require work in mostly unrelated tasks to gain experience in. I'm not sure it needs said that in order to understand CSD, it is required but insufficient to read the criteria. Editors also need to actually do it and get a feel for where in the grey areas the decisions of reviewing admins fall. PRODS can be even more subjective.

Maybe there's a difference in perspective where I'm used to working a bit more regularly with new editors, but from the perspective of ignorance, I strongly suspect they are related but very distinct skill sets. Unless we're willing to say that were not going to be turning down applicants at PERM, who are applying to do one task, for the reason of not having experience in the other, then I think it may be more beneficial to the project to create two separate permissions. TimothyJosephWood 12:18, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

I am supporting this proposal because I think that the same skillset is applicable to both areas: Assessment of both quality and notability. That said, it’s kind of a drop in the bucket and does not address some of the larger problems. Now, I may be derailing the thread here, but one thing that has yet to be addressed at NPP OR AfC is the problem of extremely inconsistent standards for notability and the confusion of quality issues with notability: Deletion is not appropriate for an article topic that is notable but is poor quality. I think that some method of adding a major cleanup tag allowing a move to draft space would be a better solution than CSD, PROD, or AfD. As for NPP/AfC, where the most minor of celebrities or sports figures (see NFOOTY or PORNBIO) often pass GNG but someone such as a TED fellow cannot, we have a serious problem. The other problem I keep seeing is that material is CSD or prod tagged without adequate WP:BEFORE or a check of page history to see if there was some drive-by who erased a previously-adequate article and replaced it with a copypaste of either a copyrighted site or some kid’s term paper. Finally, I have concerns about deletion proposals alleging poor quality writing rather than notability. But, if we can have one set of tools and a unified set of standards, that is a start. Montanabw^(talk) 19:43, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

• Hold on a second. Under the things not being proposed listing is "We're just proposing that a new page reviewer would give the final acceptance on an AfC submission." While I know the AFC Helper script has been restricted to AFC members, and there was consensus for that, I am not aware of any policy restricting editors from manually moving content out of draft space, AFC tagged or not. (Assuming the content is of appropriate quality for its destination space) Is this proposing a restriction, or are we still just talking about using the helper script? Monty₈₄₅ 23:12, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
• Comment-@BU Rob13 and Kudpung:--I will echo the concern that seems to me to be the most sensible from the oppose votes---

(Per Majora) Anybody can tweak the AFC script a bit, and circumvent our proposed restrictions easily.As to this particular concern how do we safeguard us? At, the same time, it's true not many of the users who frequent AFC (and are gen. for the first time on WP) are so tech-savvy but this reason do not satisfy me so well.Winged Blades ^Godric 14:19, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• @Winged Blades of Godric: If there's consensus that only new page reviewers should do the approving (which is part of the question being posed) and an editor creates their own script to bypass that consensus, then that would presumably be treated the same as if an editor with less than 500 edits and 90 days on site did the same right now. Bypassing consensus is disruptive. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:48, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
  • @BU Rob13: And this is one of the very very few times when ignoring all rules is actually a valid and useful policy. What are you going to do to me if I just port the script over myself? Block me? "Consensus" would have been stopping me from maintaining, and especially improving, the project. Call that disruptive all you want but I'm calling your bluff. --Majora (talk) 16:32, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
    • @Majora: Ignore all rules does not mean ignore consensus. If you were to approve AfC submissions after an RfC closed stating the user right is needed to do that, I would evaluate whether you should be a new page reviewer, and offer you the right if you qualified and were performing good reviews. If you refused to take the right due to some sincerely held beliefs, then you'd need to stop reviewing. If you were not eligible for the right due to bad reviews, then blocking would be on the table due to disruptive reviewing. Script forks that were intended only to circumvent community consensus would be deleted. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 19:09, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
      • What is consensus but a fancy word for a rule? IAR most certainly does mean to ignore all rules if they keep you from improving the encyclopedia. Period. And I'm telling you right now, if this is implemented I will 100%, without any hesitation, call your bluff. If you decide to block me or delete my port I will appeal your decision to the community as a whole. As I don't perform poor reviews all you would be doing is blocking my ability to improve the encyclopedia. From past experience, the community doesn't take too kindly to that sort of thing. --Majora (talk) 19:56, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

This proposal would achieve two things: create a more formal list of users permitted to review articles for creation submissions, and make those wanting to officially review articles for creation submissions go through a screening process. The purpose of a user right is to "affect [the] ability to perform certain actions on Wikipedia" (emphasis added by me; i.e. carry out an action), which taking that quite literally, this does not do. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 15:34, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

@Godsy: Why do we have rollback as a user right when Twinkle contains the same functionality? Mostly for access to Huggle. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 19:10, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

@BU Rob13: I don't believe twinkle rollback grants the ability to rollback from the watchlist as true rollback does. If I'm wrong, and it is identical, then perhaps that is something to reconsider. However, Huggle is ≠ to the AfC helper script in many respects. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 22:48, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

@Godsy: One could create a script that takes Twinkle and adds in that one watchlist functionality, just like one could fork Huggle and make it work without having the rollback user right. This is what people are arguing in opposing this – that people could create a script to bypass the change. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 03:17, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Rollback, and mass message sender to a certain extent, are the exceptions to the rule (I'm not too familiar with the education user groups, so I can't speak in regard to those). The main functions of other user groups can't be replicated and gained through scripts. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 17:33, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

• Comment--I read and re-read the arguments from the sides of oppose and this is what I made out--

• The point raised by Majora and Feminist certainly was good enough but as BU Rob13 said forking the script is altogether a different event which is equivalent to bypassing consensus and if it's a valid concern then it's a equally black spot on the face of Rollback Rights etc.Majora's primary argument-that it prevents editors from helping out others and instills bureaucracy-- does hardly convince me.Helping others is good but the quality of the help matters a lot. And if somebody is already found to have a good track-record at helping AFC users or a new user of either of these interface can make an admin believe that he/she can help other users in AFC /NPR in a net-positive manner, I fail to see why won't he/she be accorded the user right?edited at 05:13, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

• Godsy seem to oppose because he/she thinks this does not affect ability to perform certain actions on Wikipedia.....But IMO there's little substance in the argument.All that is proposed here affects the proficiency/quality of the AFC evaluaters not those who use it.It's true AFC is optional for article submission but that hardly means keeping some non-proficient people in charge of the process.And, it's really troublesome for a new-user whose article gets submitted by some incompetent AFC reviewer but then once in mainspace gets tagged for deletion,notab. issues etc.--which should have been well-tackled in the AFC itself.
• In response to Anne Delong and StarryGrandma--Whilst it is fundamentally true that there is no complete overlap of the skill sets--most of NPR folks have already passed the WP:AFC threshold and they can easily add their names to the project.And I don't see any mechanism to tackle them if they start messing up.(Unless he/she is taken to WP:ANI etc.)And the fact, so far that most NPR folks have resisted desire to join AFC, probably means they will decline from contributing particularly in AFC even after the proposed merge.Winged Blades ^Godric 04:24, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

• While it seems to have evolved past that I thought I should point out that my point regarding script restriction was originally an addendum and specifically cited as a "side note" to my original opposition reasoning. My actual oppose is for completely different reasons entirely. --Majora (talk) 04:43, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

@Majora:--Replied to.Winged Blades ^Godric 05:13, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

There are those of us that shun user rights. Seeing them as unnecessary burdens that are held by the privileged few to dangle in front of us peons. Your failure to see why we wouldn't be granted the right is hardly the point. I know for a fact that I qualify for many user rights here and on other projects as well. I just choose not to have them. You, as a reviewer, obviously don't see the effects a proposal like this would have as you would just be able to carry on your merry way. --Majora (talk) 05:18, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

@Majora:--That you are against the principles of user rights in general--relating them to showcase you as peons and the holders of the right as privileged ones --is altogether at a diff. philosophical level.We can But to the best of my belief and experience- the number of Wikipedians belonging to your style of beliefs--those who will give up reviewing in-spite of being good at the project just because it hurts their self-esteem personal feelings to ask for a right--are few.But then, who knows--I may be horribly wrong!Cheers!And yeah,I am merry at whatever I do!.Winged Blades ^Godric 05:30, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Your assumption that it is my self-esteem that is at stake when you know nothing about me is a testament to your complete lack of understanding of the issue. In any case, while no one is irreplaceable, losing someone from a project that has so few to begin with is something that should cause a lot of Wikipedians pause regardless of their "philosophical" views on the matter. As my original oppose reasoning explained. You want the backlog at AfC to explode? Enact this proposal. And please stop pinging me. I'm obviously watching the page as you are. Hence my lack of pings to you. --Majora (talk) 05:37, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Anyway, I don't believe the back-logs will explode because IMO most of the people who do the major AFC reviewings will easily get across the barrier.And who am I to enact a policy?Winged Blades ^Godric 06:18, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Looking back to the three RfCs that led to the development of the current process for determining who uses the AfC Helper Script, RfC Reviewer permission, RfC for AfC reviewer permission criteria and RfC for AfC reviewer permission implementation, it can be seen that there was significant objection at the time to the requirement for potential AfC reviewers to have to request permission and be approved. The AfC Helper script is a tool which makes reviewing easier, similarly to the way that WP:Twinkle eases the process of starting an Articles for Deletion discussion or leaving a user warning. It doesn't do anything that an autocomfirmed user couldn't do themselves manually. For most of the tools which have been developed to assist editors in working more efficiently, editors just sign up and start using them, without issues of hat collecting or the placement of the user in some hierarchical structure. Wikipedia already has processes for stopping users from abusing such tools. The implementation of the minimum experience barrier was able to gain consensus, just barely, because editors acknowledged that the damage done by incorrect reviews is personal rather than technical, and so is harder to revert, and because the process tends to attract new users (like me at the time) who have just been through the review process themselves.—Anne Delong (talk) 13:00, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

@Majora: You may wish to stop and think about whether your attitude towards user rights is counter-productive. I fully agree with you that any good-faith and competent editor should be able to do most things, although we'll have to agree to disagree on whether there should be checks to ensure an editor is competent before accessing many of our high-risk tools. But how does refusing user rights, meaning less users have access to those functions, help us with having a more "equal" editing community? The solution to a perceived class system is to hand out user rights to everyone who qualifies, not bunker down and widen the divide between those with user rights and those without. Food for thought. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 16:42, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't even know how to respond to the idea that the AfC reviewer helper script is "high risk". Jesus, the "unlink" feature on Twinkle is far more high risk and we allow that to every autoconfirmed user who manages to stumble through their preferences. Unless you plan on restricting the "move" feature in draft space this proposal does nothing besides erect further barriers for those that actual participate in AfC. And kudos on the false dichotomy there. The idea that stratification of editors is actually a good thing as long as we give them a way to apply for the right is ludicrous. I can guarantee you that there will be those that do qualify but will be put off from it for the sole reason that they have to apply for a user right. --Majora (talk) 18:23, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

I'd previously noted my concerns at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers. I've taken the liberty to copy them over (with the responses by BU Rob13) below. --Paul_012 (talk) 16:49, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

• Comment: I'm tending to disagree with this, as it's going to erect another bureaucratic barrier against competent editors who aren't AfC/NPP regulars and don't wish to be bothered with going through the process of applying for the NPR right. Why prohibit someone who has read and understands the reviewing process from dropping in to make an occasional review, e.g. when they come across a draft in their area of expertise? (There already is a barrier, though, in the form of the current requirement to sign up on the AfC participants list.) --Paul_012 (talk) 20:24, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
  • @Paul 012: How do we know they've read and understood the reviewing process if we don't check for that in any way? Note that this proposal doesn't require any level of activity to become a new page reviewer beyond what's already required for edits/tenure, and it also doesn't stop editors who currently review AfC submissions from continuing to make comments on them. There isn't much process to apply for the NPR right. They briefly apply (<5 minutes) and then perhaps answer some questions (<10 minutes to respond). I'd argue that any reviewer who isn't willing to spend a maximum of 15 minutes on the application process is unlikely to perform in-depth reviews anyway. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 02:15, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
    • Well, we don't actually know right away either, whether a user will make a good reviewer, when they first apply for the right. In either case there's still the need to check reviewers' work, and for a mechanism to prohibit bad reviewers from continuing. I just think that the extra first step is a largely unnecessary burden and would have preferred that everyone had permission to begin with and be disqualified when it's shown that they aren't competent. Many Wikipedians made their first edit anonymously, and seeing the results of their efforts led them to create accounts and become regulars. The same could apply for such processes as AfC reviewing. Going through the request process might not be a hugely difficult task, but it's still a deterrent that requires prior commitment to join. Some users might be willing to make that commitment right away, but others are looking around to see what areas of the project they'd enjoy participating in; they're not sure if they want to commit, and making such a requirement might actually turn them away even if they could turn out to be great reviewers if encouraged to join. --Paul_012 (talk) 20:52, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
    • Of course, I'm not expecting that these comments will stop the proposal. Given the current state of things, with the NPR right already here, it doesn't seem unreasonable to use it for AfC as well. I'm just wary of the consequences, given the unexpected backlog and scarcity of participants NPP has seen following implementation. (I didn't follow the original discussion that led to the creation of the NPR right, but in hindsight it seems clear that things aren't going as well as expected.) --Paul_012 (talk) 21:02, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
      • I think it's difficult to gauge how well things are going because everyone is using different metrics. Some point to the backlog and say things are going poorly. I point to the quality of reviews (which I believe has increased, somewhat) and say things are going well, not to mention the inability for paid editing rings to approve their own articles. I've caught many more paid articles than normal due in part to this increase in oversight. I believe most of us agree that good reviews are more important than fast reviews, and using that metric, we aren't doing half bad. New page reviewer is just one step in a larger reform, though, and so we do have to keep plowing ahead to give it a chance to really work. (As for people just "jumping in", I largely agree with you. I fought very hard for the right of non-reviewers to dip their feet into new page patrolling by placing CSD tags, cleanup tags, etc. before becoming an actual new page reviewer. The only thing they can't do on new page patrol is actually his the "mark as patrolled" button. That's the new "gateway" activity; if their review is good, a new page reviewer will quickly be able to mark it as patrolled later. There's not really much of an analog for AfC, but I don't really see that as much of a bad thing. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 22:03, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Another question: How is this proposal expected to affect the mechanics of the Draft namespace in general? Since the namespace serves many other purposes apart from AfC, it would be inappropriate to impose such restrictions on the entire namespace. On the other hand, once an AfC is declined and/or abandoned, any autoconfirmed editor is free to publish it to the Main namespace without regard to the formal AfC process. Is this possible circumvention a cause for concern? --Paul_012 (talk) 19:50, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

As far as I understand, Paul 012 a new regulation has recently been implemented that requires all pages moved to mainspace to appear in the New Pages Feed for review by New Page Reviewers. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:56, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

• Comment - Insofar as actually granting these rights, I support the proposal, but I am concerned that this might become a barrier to more people getting involved in one or the other because of a lack of experience with both. As is seen with the current RfA process, users who just want to use a couple tools are put at a disadvantage when rights are unified because of a lack of experience/interest in the other right areas. I wouldn't want to see users declined because they have never participated in AfC when they have been studying the NFP guidelines and that is all they want to work on. BlAcKhAt9(9 (talk) 21:36, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
• Comment - Seems that there is "no consensus" in favor of this proposal, Rob. May you please close the discussion as withdrawn then? George Ho (talk) 10:08, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
  • A neutral closer is welcome to close it, but I don't withdraw what I see as good ideas. Without this, I struggle to see how WP:ACTRIAL can be enacted. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 15:00, 17 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.