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Wishlist

DannyH (WMF) (Director of Product Management, Wikimedia Foundation) has responded to some concerns over the wishlist.[1] His answer may be of interest to active new page reviewers who want to help to get developers to work on the list of Suggested improvements. To be perfectly honest, I was so angry about the whole situation that I handed back my new page reviewer right in protest, but after thinking it over on the weekend, I think I may see a way forward. I'm interested in hearing what you think, @Barkeep49 and Insertcleverphrasehere: (since you were involved) in particular. Perhaps the best place for that conversation is my talk page, not Danny's. Vexations (talk) 16:45, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

@Vexations: I felt bad and feel bad that I contributed to a good editor and good reviewer reaching their boiling point. Let me again say I am sorry - it was not my intention and I'm sorry that I hurt you. I am glad that after some time away you're thinking of coming back and are taking place in discussions.
That said, I have thought and continue to think there are ways forward. I will admit that I believe people are fundamentally good and that despite this (or because of this in a case like Wikipedia) organizations can move in sclerotic ways. I believe in working with-in the system, in most cases, and so I think that if we can get to the top 10 of the wishlist, a prospect I worry about, good stuff will happen. If despite real effort being made we can't crack the top 10 then we will need to think about other ways of moving forward - like the accumulation of scripts into a workable tool that ICPH has done above. I think WMF is prepared to be a good partner with us, as I think they largely were during the AfC spurred improvements which none-the-less got us some stuff fixed and added. Our end of the bargain is getting to the top 10. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:41, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, and my apologies for being a delicate little flower with a temper tantrum. Note to self: Grow up. Yeah, let's do this. I think I may have a solution for suggestion #39 BTW. Vexations (talk) 17:59, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
Vexations I think that the main issue is that DannyH (WMF) has to work within the structure he is stuck in. He doesn't have nearly as much freedom as we think he does to 'support NPP' at a whim outside of the wishlist. The WMF is terribly organised, but it isn't necessarily Danny's fault. It is easier for him to convince himself that the community will support our wishlist proposal and then he can use that as justification to throw his team behind NPP (by far the simplest way forward for him). He is probably right and with some good canvassing we should comfortably fall into the top ten. I think we should not worry at this point what would happen if we don't get in the top ten, because DannyH (WMF) probably has an obligation to tell us 'tough luck' even if he doesn't believe that is the right thing to say because he probably isn't allowed to take sides and pick favourites. Lets cross that bridge in the unlikely event that we have to. In the meantime, myself and Kudpung have some ideas of what to do to canvass the crap out of this proposal as soon as the voting opens. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 19:42, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
The structure of the WMF is not only disorganised, but as companies go, it's chaotic. The work of various departments overlaps and many staff work simultaneously in several departments, but this far from means that they all know what each other is doing. Indeed, in the psychology of communication, they assume they are all aware of all that's going on, but one of the most frequently heard comments in the office is most likely: "Whaat? I thought you knew about that!"
However, Horn's hands are not as tied as one may think. If the NPR request even wins the poll hands down, it's not guaranteed that the work will get done. He's obviously not going to accord all his available development capacity to it. He's more or less stated that for them, the poll is basically a feedback only and they will allocate resources as they think fit. That said, the WMF is not short of money at all and it's certainly within Horn's power to get more devs or contractors hired. In the old days, Sue Gardner was very approachable, took part in the weekly 'Office Hours' on IRC, made decisions, and told her managers what priorities to set, and so did her deputy. Nowadays the role of ED has morphed into one of 'ambassador' for the movement like a non executive presidency or constitiuonal monarch. Among all the travel, meetings, and presentations, there is no time to stay abreast of operations on the factory floor, and what goes on there is carefully filtered away from her.
The main problem is that there is no one in overall charge, and the top departmental managers just do what they belive needs to be done. Only the Board can insist on some changes and better allocation of funds, but I fear they just basically rubber stamp what comes to them from the office. Perhaps Doc James could elucidate and put pressure from the Board into getting some of these software issues addressed. After all, NPR is the only firewall, and only well trained reviewers with the right tools will be able to catch spam, undeclared paid editing, and copyvios. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:03, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
I am very much in support of more tech resources going toward community created and supported ideas.
With respect to copy vio [2] has played a very important role as has User:Diannaa among others in managing it.
I am strongly in support of AI tools to help with paid editing detection. I think it is the only way we can scale on this issue (plus get accurate data on the extent of that problem).
Anyway will support the NPR when voting opens. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:08, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

What is New Page Patrol?

Right now WP:NPP takes a person right to the tutorial. I would suggest it would be to our benefit to have a different landing page that simply and clearly explains what New Page Patrol is and isn't. The audience for this would be general editors, but especially newer editors that we come into contact with through patrolling. Sending them to a ~35 minute tutorial doesn't really help explain much of anything, is my thinking. If there's some support for this I will be happy to try a draft version for consensus before putting up as the "homepage". Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:00, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

I would suggest sending it to the same page that WP:NPR redirects to. Natureium (talk) 22:33, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
Um... I'd leave it the way it is. The tutorial clearly outlines what NPP is and what we do (the top paragraphs in the green box explain it all). It also gives an indication that they can join up as well. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 22:57, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
I would strongly recommend leaving it just where it is, and also to refrain from tinkering with it too much - but I no longer have anything to say in these matters. In any case, if the WMF gets its way now that they have started blocking users from commenting at Phab, causing yet other prolific reviewers to retire completely from Wikipedia, and posting discouraging comments on the wishlist even before the voting begins, there won't be much of a NPP system to worry about in the future. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:52, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
Blocking users from commenting on Phabricator? What gives you that impression? They might have account creation subject to approval right now, but this is because of spam (the anti-spam tools on Phab aren't as good as the wiki's). If you saw an account be disabled for conduct reasons, this was not the WMF but the community-ran Code of Conduct Committee (and hopefully they acted with good reason). — MusikAnimal talk 23:03, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
I'd also suggest leaving the current link. Starts with a good summary and then has any number of details and further links within easy reach. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 18:50, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

NPR tool

is there a problem w/ the reviewing tool mines isnt working?--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:15, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Ozzie10aaaa If it isn't visible, look in the 'tools' section on the left bar for 'curate this article' and click it. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 11:20, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:21, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
I told MMiller (WMF) and the others above (Wikipedia_talk:New_pages_patrol/Reviewers#Curation_toolbar_display_rules) that this is what would happen if they changed the display rules to make it disappear forever if you click the x. Did anyone listen? Oh well. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 11:24, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
This was a risk and I'm glad Ozzie found his way here to get help. It has also been nice to have the bar appear automatically when I happen to land on a new unreviewed page when not systematically going through the queue. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:23, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Help

Could someone else have a look at Special:Contributions/Gokulraj3. I'm in danger of appearing as obsessive as this COI editor if I don't step back. Thanks, Cabayi (talk) 17:21, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Well, it looks that at the moment they are keeping to one bad draft. If they mainspace it again, I can think of several CSD criteria to apply; further draftification presumably being pointless. Then warning, then report for continued pushing of unsourced garble. Ugh, I feel I can forecast this quite accurately |p... --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 18:07, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

New Page Reviewer of the Year

The cup has been engraved— Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 20:36, 10 November 2018 (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.

Over the last year, we have reduced the backlog by about 10,000 articles! It's that time of year again. It is time to award the New Page Reviewer of the Year trophy. It is fantastic to see so many new faces in the top 10. In particular, Cwmhiraeth, Semmendinger, Barkeep49, and Elmidae have all had the user right less than a year (Barkeep49 only for 7 months), so showing in the top ten is very impressive. Onel5969, Boleyn and JTtheOG were in the top 5 last year too, so congrats and thanks very much for your continued service. And thanks to all the others who reviewed so many articles (The top 100 reviewers of the year can be found here).

Top 10 from the last 365 days
Rank Username Num reviews Log
1 Onel5969 26,554 Patrol Page Curation
2 JTtheOG 15,059 Patrol Page Curation
3 Boleyn 12,760 Patrol Page Curation
4 Cwmhiraeth 9,001 Patrol Page Curation
5 Semmendinger 8,440 Patrol Page Curation
6 PRehse 8,092 Patrol Page Curation
7 Arthistorian1977 5,306 Patrol Page Curation
8 Abishe 4,153 Patrol Page Curation
9 Barkeep49 4,016 Patrol Page Curation
10 Elmidae 3,615 Patrol Page Curation

Looking at Onel5969's performance over the last year, I have to wonder how he does it. That dip in July where the backlog almost hit zero? The driving force behind that was almost entirely Onel5969's work. 26554 reviews is massive, and unprecedented, at least in recent years. At one point he was reviewing so much that it alarmed some members of the old guard, unable to believe that sort of volume could be kept up while still reviewing with quality. But nobody could find any errors in his log of seriously impressive work. I don't think there is any doubt that the cup should go to him, unless there are any concerns that I haven't heard. I think it is fair to say that our backlog charts wouldn't be looking good at all without Onel5969's amazing efforts this year. Thanks very much for your service. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 08:14, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Endorsements

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.

Save filters bug fixed

The bug that prevented some people from being able to change their filter settings at Special:NewPagesFeed has finally been fixed (in case their were some people who couldn't patrol because of it). Ryan Kaldari (WMF) (talk) 23:37, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Error message

Not sure what I broke - but the redirect won't parse. Atsme✍🏻📧 02:20, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

@Atsme: I changed your comment to the Template:R to scientific name Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:58, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
Thank you, Barkeep! Atsme✍🏻📧 03:02, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Scripts for redirecting

Hi does anyone know of a script that automates the tasks when converting an article to a redirect? I come across a ton of articles that I turn into redirects as an WP:ATD notably songs and albums. It would be brilliant if there were something along the lines of the draftify script that would:

  • Blank the page
  • Add #REDIRECT to the page
  • Pop up a search box to add the target
  • List the different "R to" or "R from" tags
  • Generate a message to the creator with the explanation from the tag

This would be a major gain in time for patrolling. Dom from Paris (talk) 07:29, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Domdeparis, sorry, I don't think there's one script that does all the stuff you mentioned here, but, Sagittarius+ by Sam Sailor is capable of at least doing the fourth task enumerated by you. Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 16:57, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
I've searched for a near-same script, quite deeply, about a few months back and none existed. But, I do have plans to develop one, though borrowing parts from the one Sshibum mentions. ∯WBGconverse 18:21, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Page Curation review status bug

On Battles of Nanking, the script says the page was autopatrolled when it was created by an IP. I've had the same problem with another page a day ago, so it would be nice if someone could look into this. L293D (☎ • ✎) 21:22, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

You triggered the action because you've (autoreviewer) permission. Moving draft article to mainspace by users who are autopatrolled will behave as if they create the article. Maybe this should not be happening, however. And what is the other page? –Ammarpad (talk) 22:14, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
The other page is now deleted. There was a request at WP:RM/TR to move a page from a user sandbox to mainspace in a title already occupied. I didn't do all the checks I normally do when accepting AfC drafts because Page Curation said the page was already autopatrolled, and it turned out that the page was a copyvios. L293D (☎ • ✎) 03:18, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
When I open a page like that, the toolbar shows up with a ✅...BUT I'm also now getting erratic results. I just reviewed 2019 ATP Finals and it's not showing up as reviewed. Same with a few others I've done tonight - what's causing that, I wonder? I cleared cache and it still shows up unreviewed. I just had another patroller follow behind me and review an article I just reviewed. I'm not getting any tools on the pages I reviewed but they're still showing up in the queue. I guess like you say, after it has been triggered, it doesn't show anymore but what I've discovered is it's not marking them as reviewed. At first I thought it was how I set my filters. Not so. Atsme✍🏻📧 01:57, 18 November 2018 (UTC) Updated 04:56, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
I'm not sure I'm following Atsme. When I checked the page you linked I see that you did the following "23:30, November 17, 2018 Atsme (talk | contribs) marked 2019 ATP Finals as reviewed" and don't see a second reviewer need to have done anything on that article. Are you have issues with the Page Curation toolbar, Twinkle, manual marking, or some combination? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:23, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
It's a combination, Barkeep. I did the following: restarted Safari (using a Mac, Mojave OS), cleared cache, reloaded page, went back to queue 2 or 3x and clicked on review - it was potluck to actually get the toolbar to show up for some articles whereas other articles it worked just fine (or so I thought). I'd review an article, but it would not show-up as reviewed and remained in the queue, even after refreshing the page. I also see the toolbar randomly when I'm looking at other pages when not in the queue - not sure what triggers that. I'll try working in FireFox or Chrome for a while and see what happens. I don't know if it has anything to do with Apple not supporting Javascript anymore, or what? ??? Atsme✍🏻📧 21:00, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Discussion: New CSD criterion for rejected / advertisement-declined drafts

Please see the thread here:

--K.e.coffman (talk) 00:55, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Draftifing (again)

Was it decided somewhere that it's acceptable to move any new article without sources to draft space? I thought that only blps required sources to remain in mainspace. I've seen several articles moved to draft recently that don't fit the criteria listed on WP:DRAFTIFY. Natureium (talk) 19:18, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't think it was ever restricted to BLPs? The four criteria noted at WP:DRAFTIFY (has promise + has issues + (no current improvement or COI) apply to quite a large range of possible candidates. Personally I'm treating draftification as a kind of vote of confidence in the author, in that I assume that they are willing and able to iron out the current obvious bugs, and send a usable-as-is article back to mainspace. In such a case chances are higher that it'll be done by the editor who is already up in the topic, than a random passer-by who notices the {{Unsourced}} tag. Not sure if that is strictly by the book, but this bit of NPP does come with a fair amount of discretionary latitude. --Elmidae (talk · contribs)
"Has issues" is extremely vague. Almost all new articles have issues of some kind, and if they don't it's suspicious. What's the line between tagging and marking patrolled and moving to draftspace where they have to either submit through AfC or know how to remove the template and move it back, and it won't get attention from anyone other than the author? Why are we aggressively moving pages into draftspace when they are better than a lot of the articles we have sitting in mainspace currently? Natureium (talk) 20:18, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
"Has issues" is vague. Let's say "has glaring issues that look easily fixable by the author". I don't know, are we aggressively moving lots of pages that would already be a gain for mainspace WP? --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 20:21, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
In practice, I usually draftify articles that have not passed through AFC when they don't meet notability guidelines but seem like a promising topic, or a topic whose sources would be difficult-or-impossible for me to find (i.e. topic whose coverage is unlikely to be in a language I can read, or subjects that are vague and/or niche and could potentially have relevant coverage that won't be found using a keyword search) and thus don't feel comfortable nominating for deletion outright. Essentially, I see it as a second chance to improve articles that should otherwise be deleted. signed, Rosguill talk 20:28, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Draftifying can be a drastic step. If an article has any incoming links they would then turn red, and any incoming redirects would then be deleted. Unless the creating editor or someone else notices the draftification, understands what has happened, and can fix it, the article is effectively deleted without due process on the decision of one new page reviewer. I suggest that tagging and the normal deletion processes are usually more appropriate. PamD 23:50, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
  • FWIW, When I used to do reviewing, I would draftify any page that IMO would probably pass AfD with a little work, but which would be a disgrace to leave in mainspace in its submitted condition. Most pages that receive maintenance tags and are left in mainspace just become perma-tagged articles and all they do is bolster the WMF's claim that Wikipedia has Xmillion articles. Some of these pages would be fit for mainspace after some treatment but NPP is not a field hospital, it;'s a triage; strictly speaking nor is AfC a first aid centre, but there is the WP:ARS - which I rarely hear spoken of. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:06, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
I endorse Kudpung's approach to draftifying. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 07:31, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
As do I. Boleyn (talk) 08:04, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
Me four. Having said that, Rosguill's approach is also something I support. Out of all the articles I've reviewed, I've only draftified a very few. And in one case, there was a sockpuppet who was simply moving articles from AfC to the mainspace without any regard to notability or quality, and I draftified about 10-15 of those articles. Although I probably "reviewed" about 40-50. Kudpung turned me on to leaving a message on the creator's talk page when tagging an article, and I think that will help cut down on permatagging, but only time will tell. Onel5969 TT me 20:15, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

MoveToDraft.js edit summary

When draftifying a page using User:Evad37/MoveToDraft.js, the script leaves a boilerplate edit summary that says, "Undersourced, incubate in draftspace (via script)." I think this is misleading, as it suggests both to article creators and to reviewers using the script that being "undersourced" alone is and can be the sole reason for an article's draftifying, which should not be the case, as briefly discussed above. More often it's some combination of poor writing, promotional tone, lack of evident notability and inadequate sourcing. There surely are new unreferenced articles that are well written enough that placement of an {{unreferenced}} tag would suffice, while on the other hand are promotional articles with multiple sources that aren't G11-worthy but bad enough to keep out of Mainspace. "Undersourced" does not reflect these nuances at all. I'm not an NPR, so I'm raising this here in hopes that those who use the tool the most would have some input on a better default edit summary to suggest to Evad37. --Paul_012 (talk) 18:15, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Nothing needs to be suggested to Evad37. It gives a prepopulated blank and allows you to fill in whatever reason you want. The problem is people being lazy and not filling in the reason they are draftifying. I almost never use the default summary, because it doesn't often apply. This is up there next to dishonest edit summaries on my list of things that make people bad wikipedians. If you are incompetent enough to not be able to articulate the reason you are moving a page to draft and change the message that is posted on the user talk page to actually be appropriate you should not be a new page reviewer. Natureium (talk) 19:40, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
Paul 012, I'm pretty sure you could change the default using var m2d_rationale = "Your message here"; in the same manner that he suggests on User:Evad37/MoveToDraft for m2d_notification. As for the default, undersourced articles are sometimes sent to draft, when they aren't yet complete but yes there often needs to be other problems as well. If there is another reason that it is being sent to draft, the user should change the summary. That being said, a change to some variant of "I'sn't ready for mainspace" would possibly be better. Ping Evad37. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 20:41, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Hello!

My NPP request has been archived by the bot & I am not convinced about the decision that was made on my application. Where can I further discuss the issue? I seek a justification for this rejection that seems unfair. Thanks! Dial911 (talk) 01:49, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

@Dial911: I don't know where outside of WP:AN you could appeal a PERM denial but would suggest, given that there was extended discussion that was had, that you go back to doing good work, continue with AfC and try NPP again in 90 days when a different admin might view the request or the same one might see different evidence and be ready to grant the right. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:49, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
Barkeep49, I think there should be a standard (as objective and as straightforward as possible) criteria for these rights no matter who reviews it at PERM. Thanks for the suggestion though Dial911 (talk) 04:36, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
It seems to be nearly totally at the Admin's whim, and once a decision is made they tend to follow each other. AFC is a heck of a lot more interesting. I use NPP only as I run across pages that are ok. It's mind numming work on the feed. Legacypac (talk) 04:54, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
Hey! Legacypac, definitely I like working at AFC. However, after facing such random rejections at PERM I tend to know what exactly does one need to become a reviewer at NPP. Admins have all the time in the world to discuss several other issues but nobody constitutes a common policy/rule about granting rights. Dial911 (talk) 04:59, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
And nowadays admins at their call grant NPP rights to those who are asking permission to work at AFC. Dial911 (talk) 05:00, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
(ec) It's more fun to discuss policy on calling spammers on the phone. User:Primefac or User:Kudpung might have some wisdom or be willing to grant NPP. I've seen quite a few NPP flags handed out to people applying for AfC lately too. Legacypac (talk) 05:04, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Community Wishlist Survey voting is open

Please go to m:Community Wishlist Survey 2019/Admins and patrollers/Page Curation and New Pages Feed improvements to support the New Page Patrol Community Wishlist Proposal. While you are there, have a look for any other good proposals that you feel should also have some support. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 18:13, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

m:Community_Wishlist_Survey_2019/Watchlists/Watchlist_item_expiration looks like it might be of interest to new page reviewers. Vexations (talk) 19:51, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
My plan had been to only vote for our improvements however I am pleased by the early support we've received (thanks for your canvassing work Kudpung and Insertcleverphrasehere). If we continue to look very solid suddenly voting for others would not look to jeopardize our chances. Are there other proposals like that one which people want to highlight which would have auxiliary benefits for patrollers? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:21, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
A few will quite help us and I will list them shortly.
Going by the current trends, (and comparing that with the trends of previous years), ICPH and K have been immensely successful in their canvassing efforts. ∯WBGconverse 08:27, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
Winged Blades of Godric, it's not canvassing when it's for the greater good of the populace.BD;DB,P! Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 16:52, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
SshibumXZ, I know that canvassing is explicitly allowed, had asked for a massive canvassing and was commending their efforts. ∯WBGconverse 17:03, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Don't worry, the canvassing isn't over yet - we still have more up our sleeves. But such a campaign has to be extremely carefully crafted, worded, and presented, otherwise it will just do more harm than good. - and the horn of plenty has made it quite plain that this exercise is only a 'survey', read: 'guideline.' We ain't there yet, but we did get get ACTRIAL after a fierce battle.... Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:24, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
That just isn't true. According to the votes so far, the NPP proposal is far in the lead -- twice as many votes as the #2 proposal -- and I'm pretty sure that means it'll finish at #1 by a wide margin. That's great; it guarantees that the Community Tech team will work on Page Curation next year, and being so far in the lead will give that project more weight with the team. It's good to keep telling people about the survey, and it'll be nice to finish with a really big total, but I don't think there's any risk at this point. This isn't a battle; it's just a way to gauge public enthusiasm for the most important projects. You're winning. You'll get what you want. Everything's okay. -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 03:17, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
DannyH (WMF), thanks. That's good to know. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:27, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Six more days of voting and we are only 9 votes away from having the most votes on any proposal ever (as it is we are in all-time second place behind the top proposal from last year). With 50 votes more than the second place entry in this year's wishlist, we are almost assuredly going to get the top slot in the current wishlist. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 08:26, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
Yeah we got over that threshold. Our proposal is now the most supported wishlist proposal ever, though the 'night mode' proposal might catch up to us by the end of the voting period (they work on them based on how high on the list they are, so please vote if you haven't already). — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 08:31, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Automate populating the NPP backlog chart

Allow me to assist with automating Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Backlog chart, if you think that's a good idea? I love humans but they make mistakes, and can be forgetful (and I don't mean you, Insertcleverphrasehere, but the human race as a whole :). I could author a bot for this fairly quickly, I believe. I'm a little concerned that daily updates would over time make the template too large, but as long as it renders quickly, I suppose this is fine. Also it currently lives on a talk page, which is a bit odd. Should we move it to the template namespace? Or maybe Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Backlog chart?

Let me know what you think! :) — MusikAnimal talk 23:27, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Automating it definitely seems like a nice solution, as long as it wouldn't be too difficult to set up. I feel it would be really nice to be able to not worry about updating the chart manually, although I can't really speak for ICPH, who's the main updater currently. I have never understood why it is in the talk namespace (well, technically Wikipedia talk namespace, but a talk page nevertheless :)); talk pages are for discussion or something which is solely useful for talk page transclusions, not for a backlog chart used mostly on Wikipedia namespace pages. I would definitely support moving it to Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Backlog chart or Template:New pages backlog chart. Also, for some reason the documentation is in the Wikipedia namespace, which doesn't make much sense.--SkyGazer 512 Oh no, what did I do this time? 00:26, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
I very much like the idea of automating (real virtue to having a sample at the same time every day) and moving it to WP space. Thanks Musik.Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:47, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
Great. Looking forward to hearing Insertcleverphrasehere's thoughts. Another thing -- it's been a while since I worked with the Graph extension, but I think if we store the data as JSON then it will load in real time. Basically, right now every change to the data means a job is fired to update every page that transcludes it. Similar to WP:SIG#NT this isn't a great practice if you want to keep putting this chart in your mass messages. JSON is more bot-friendly, anyway. I can handle all that technical gobbledygook — MusikAnimal talk 03:34, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
MusikAnimal I mean, that sounds fine to me. If you have a look at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Backlog chart, you'll see that I just use the hide brackets to comment out data older than 6 months. There is another chart at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Backlog chart 2 with all the data visible, but I only update it every couple of weeks. It would be good to have it automated, I've been doing it manually because I tracked down as much old historical data as I could and then sort of just kept updating it. Not highly tech savvy myself, so I had just put it together the best way I could originally, if JSON is better, that sounds good. I did notice that it wasn't necessary to purge any of the pages after updating the chart, I wasn't sure if that was because of local caching, but I guess it makes sense that its been sending updates to all the pages (oops). — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 07:22, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
@Insertcleverphrasehere: So it should only print the last 6 months of data? If that's the case, there's no worry of it getting too large. I can also make the bot update Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Backlog chart 2, but since that one is supposed to be long-term, I suggest we only update maybe once a week? — MusikAnimal talk 22:09, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
MusikAnimal Yeah 6 months seems managable on a chart as you can still see the day to day. On a 'year' chart you can't notice individual days. Updating the old chart doesn't have to happen often. I used nettrom's data for a while, but I'm not sure if it includes the 'nominated for deletion' section which is a hundred articles or so that I've been leaving out (probably does). The Backlog 2 chart has a lot of data from before Netrom started gathering data that I gathered from posts scattered through talk page archives around the wiki where various people mentioned the size of the backlog (that's where the data back to 2016 came from). — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 22:34, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal: I started tracking the NPP backlog 4x a day for ACTRIAL and have continued to do so. The code is here, the data is stored in the s53463__actrial_p.npp_queue_size table on the tools.labsdb server in Toolforge. Has data from late August last year onwards. Please don't hesitate to use any or all of that as need be! Cheers, Nettrom (talk) 16:32, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
Thanks Nettrom! I'll probably go by action=pagetriagestats since this is what has been used in the chart up to now (it's the same number you see at Special:NewPagesFeed). Your dashboards are very helpful, though. I don't know if they are linked to anywhere on the NPP pages, but if they're not, they should be! — MusikAnimal talk 22:07, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
But actually, if your numbers compare 1:1, or close to it, we can use that to import historical data. I'll check out the database. Thanks again — MusikAnimal talk 22:09, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
I checked it out. Thanks for making that database public! However it would seem the numbers are dramatically higher (currently at 16717, versus 3733). Are you including drafts, by chance? — MusikAnimal talk 22:55, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal: They started out at 16,717 in August of last year, prior to ACTRIAL being deployed. At the moment, the most recent snapshot I have is 2018-11-08 12:00:50 at 3,776 unreviewed articles. The query (lines 50–57 of this Python script) only counts non-redirects in the main namespace. It should be the same query that is used to show the number of unreviewed articles in the PageTriage feed, as that is what I used to write it. Hope that clears things up, and please let me know if something is confusing! Cheers, Nettrom (talk) 16:48, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
My mistake! I had it sorted in the wrong order =p Looks like the data matches the pagetriagestats verbatim. I will use it to import historical data. Thank you! — MusikAnimal talk 18:42, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

@Insertcleverphrasehere, SkyGazer 512, and Barkeep49: I have created the new chart at User:MusikBot/NPPChart/Chart. This sources the JSON page User:MusikBot/NPPChart/Sources/daily (and we'll have another for weekly, spanning a larger date range). Does it look okay? If so I can have the bot start populating it. I'll need to get bot approval to move these pages within the Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Reviewers space, but it shouldn't take long. — MusikAnimal talk 20:23, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

MusikAnimal, Can it be embedded at chosen sizes like the current chart? Will it autoupdate? Would like to use it at a smaller size in an updating fashion for future newsletters and other advertisements. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 20:26, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
@Insertcleverphrasehere: Yep, you can pass in |height= and |width=, as with {{User:MusikBot/NPPChart/Chart|width=400|height=200}} which produces:
It will auto-update, with the bot filling in the data at User:MusikBot/NPPChart/Sources/daily. Max 6 months at a time (though here it is a bit more), and the "weekly" variant will span as far as we have data. I could also add start and end options, I think. — MusikAnimal talk 20:34, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
MusikAnimal, Looks good to me then. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 20:35, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
Everything is all set up! The bot is now populating the data. There are four types of charts: hourly, daily (default), weekly and monthly. Each has their own dataset. You can control how far back the data goes for each type at User:MusikBot/NPPChart/config, where the values in the same units as the keys (so 168 hours = one week, 180 days = six months, etc.). Use * to tell the bot to never prune the data, and go back as far as data is available (August 29, 2017). Documentation for the bot is at User:MusikBot/NPPChart, and documentation for the template (to be moved later) is at User:MusikBot/NPPChart/Chart#Usage.

I'm going to let this run for a while before opening up a BRFA. Technically you shouldn't transclude the bot's template yet, since it's not approved, but no one is stopping you (I did transclude it above!). I'm going to do a BRFA either way. Once approved we'll move the template and the datasets as subpages of Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Reviewers. Cheers — MusikAnimal talk 00:02, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Oh, another thing. The bot is getting all data from Nettrom's database. I need to query it anyway to get historical data, so might as use it for current data too :) Thanks Nettrom for providing this! — MusikAnimal talk 00:06, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
MusikAnimal, Is there any way to get the historical charts (weekly/monthly) to show the old data from before ACTRIAL (going back to July 2016) which is currently found at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Backlog chart 2? — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 07:25, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
@Insertcleverphrasehere: You said those were manually entered? With all due respect, it's a bit iffy because those were human figures. E.g. you may not have remembered to include unreviewed pages that were nominated for deletion, etc. Or maybe we have non-human data from that time, Nettrom? I know we did a lot of analysis. My charts were about deletion rates, which wouldn't help here.
But furthermore, the bot has been written to query Nettrom's data on every run. So if we want those other numbers, I either have to make the bot manually honour them, or ask that they be added to Nettrom's database. — MusikAnimal talk 17:38, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
MusikAnimal, It's a bit disappointing that the graph wont show the data from when the backlog was insanely massive. The older data from Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Backlog chart 2 was gathered from various noticeboards where people mentioned the current size of the backlog. While it likely contains some amount of error. It is better than nothing, so I'd suggest requesting that Nettrom add it manually to his data set. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 19:18, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
@Insertcleverphrasehere: The automated data goes back to August 2017, when the backlog was 16,000+ articles. I think that's pretty massive! =p But reviewing the older manual data, I see numbers like 1000, 11500, 15800, etc. Those can't be accurate. Whomever was rounding up/down by at least a hundred. Also, was the backlog really that low in mid-2016?
If we really really want (I think we do), we could attempt to do some analysis to get more precise historical data. I foresee this as a big-ish perhaps infeasible project, so if it's okay, I think we should move forward with the bot-generated reports as planned. Obviously, we can continue to use Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Backlog chart 2 as we so please. There's no need to retire it. — MusikAnimal talk 19:45, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
MusikAnimal, The Backlog can vary by several hundred per day depending on the time of day it was recorded (i.e. that spike in July on the automated chart is from a few hundred redirects that were tagged for deletion, adding them to the backlog as 'articles'), I remember because I reviewed them, and I recorded it after reviewing them, which is why it doesn't show on the manual chart. That doesn't make the manual chart 'wrong', in fact, i'd say its more representtive of the actual situation on the day... but I digress.
My point is that we can rely on the bot data from august forward, but it would be good if we had the data from when it was 22000+ in the oldest charts. If you want the data to be 'perfect' well it can't be anyway because it goes up and down each day a lot sometimes. Rounded data is better than no data. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 20:03, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
@Insertcleverphrasehere: Sure, I understand. Hrm, this is tricky! I still am hesitant solely because it's unverifiable, and that's not to question that you were recording things correctly. But like I said, for long-term historical data let's just continue to use Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Backlog chart 2 for the time being.
For the bot's data, it's significantly easier to use the database. Let's see what Nettrom says. If he's able to add it, then the bot will automagically show it without us needing to do anything.
Do we know where the really low 2016 data came from? That in particular I am skeptical of, given it was pre-ACTRIAL. — MusikAnimal talk 20:11, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
MusikAnimal, I think I remember that the oldest 2016 data point was from a post that Kudpung made on DGG's talk page. He said something to the effect that the backlog had been practically gone several weeks before that point and was skyrocketing, so I put a point in at a relatively low level of a thousand or something a few weeks before the date of his post. That data point I remember being the most iffy. The rest of them were direct comments of what the backlog was on that particular day, or from other various charts that have been created in the past showing the backlog. The stuff from later in 2017 I gathered myself. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 00:09, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
@Insertcleverphrasehere and MusikAnimal: I'm sure I can add the historical data to the database by having a column defining what type of measurement it was (manual or automatic), and then add in the data from the chart. One thing I need to know, though, is what exactly we'll be adding. Based on this discussion, it sounds like we want to add everything from Backlog chart 2 up until 2017-08-29 (when the script takes over), with the exception of the first data point (2016-06-05, 1,000 articles in the backlog) as that data point is not trustworthy. Is that correct? Cheers, 18:49, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
Nettrom Sounds good to me. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 04:50, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
Nice work, MusikAnimal, thanks! I don't see any important issues with it currently.--SkyGazer 512 Oh no, what did I do this time? 00:10, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

(←) BRFA filed — MusikAnimal talk 01:16, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

A seven-day trial has begun. The chart is now at Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Backlog chart, with the datasets at:
Per above, these are not (yet) meant to replace the long-term data available at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Backlog chart 2.
@Insertcleverphrasehere: Whenever you are ready, we should be able to replace Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Backlog chart with #REDIRECT [[Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Backlog chart]] and all the transclusions of the old chart will still work. — MusikAnimal talk 19:28, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Not that it's any of my business these days, but the backlog has increased by a factor of 10 in less than 20 weeks. Stretching the graph to make it look flatter doesn't change the reality of the situation.What will happen is that the tiny handful of reviewers who do all the work are going to get fed up of it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:47, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
    Kudpung, The graph isn't stretched. The new one by Musik is basically identical to the one at the top of this page. If you are referring to the one in the NPR reviewer of the year section below, that one was a custom graph I made to be exactly one year. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 08:05, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
    I'm going to try to add "start" and "end" options to the new chart too, which will allow you produce a 1-year variant, or any arbitrary date range (but currently it will only go as far back as August 2017). — MusikAnimal talk 17:42, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
    @Insertcleverphrasehere: The BRFA has been closed as successful. I'll leave it to you to update Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Backlog chart. I think alls you need to do is replace it with #REDIRECT [[Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Backlog chart]]. Moving forward, be sure to trasnclude {{Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Backlog chart}} wherever you want to show the chart. If and when Nettrom adds additional data, it will show up automatically. I'll also look into making the new chart template accept date range parameters. Cheers! — MusikAnimal talk 19:14, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
    MusikAnimal, Looks like there is a slight error. The redirect isn't working correctly on the old newsletters because I fucked up when I templated it originally. I wrote {{Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Backlog chart|width=350|height=150|}} instead of {{Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Backlog chart|width=350|height=150}} (and extra | at the end), this causes the redirect to break. The old chart worked that way apparently, but the new one obviously doesn't because it has additional parameters. I guess I should request an autowikibrowser fix to the old newsletters. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 07:22, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
    I ran an AWB fix on all the newsletters that were still on people's talk pages. As for the archives, I hardly think it matters. all in all it looks like this is sorted satisfactorily assuming that Nettrom can add the historical data successfully (it still isn't showing on the all time weekly graph, so I assume that this still hasn't been done). — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 13:04, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
    Your assumption was correct, Insertcleverphrasehere. I found some time this week and have now updated the table with the historic data.
    MusikAnimal: The update adds a new column called npp_method. It's "manual" for all the historic data and "automatic" for all data that I've gathered using my logging script. Let me know if there's anything. Cheers, Nettrom (talk) 16:31, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Archives help

I recently updated my computer, which deleted by browser history, and I no longer have the link to the Special:BlankPage/Page-triage-stats-month (sic) page which was an alternate listing of top reviewers. IIRC, this was linked back in July 15 2017's patrol-push. (Archives 11-12) I cannot find the link anywhere in the archives, and it looks like the original discussion about the push is missing. Does anyone have the link, or a link to all Special:BlankPages so I can find it again? Thanks Thanks, L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 16:47, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

There's no list of Special:BlankPages, they're generated on the fly. You're looking for [3],[4], [5]. Which are generated to you because of this. –Ammarpad (talk) 17:55, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
Thank you! Thanks, L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 18:55, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Please be on the lookout at NPR for Pavan Kumar N R or similar, and report to an admin

An IP is asking for the FP to be removed from the multiple deleted Pavan Kumar N R. My answer was 'No', because the article, a highly promotional piece masquerading as a BLP, is the subject of persistent socking by a large sock farm and attempts to create/re-create the article by hijacking other articles. The master account, the eponymous SPI, is globally locked across all Wikimedia projects. I have blocked this IP, and in any case, IPs (and new users) can't create articles.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:22, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Please report all found accounts to stewards to be locked at meta:SRG. Thank you, Vermont (talk) 21:53, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Community Wishlist Survey 2019 Results

The results of the Community Wishlist Survey 2019 have been posted at m:Community Wishlist Survey 2019/Results --Vexations (talk) 15:33, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes, our result was very good, not only the top proposal this year, but actually more support than any proposal has ever received.
I also had a chat with DannyH (WMF) last week, his team will be contacting us in the next wee while as they put together a workflow for our proposal. On our end we will be able to put forward suggestions on how best to accomplish what we asked for, but he also made it clear that we have to keep cool heads during these discussions. Outbursts and/or negative comments will be negatively received, so bringing up the WMF's neglectful past or playing the blame game (however justified we feel that it might be) will result in delays to work on our projects. Keep it civil, positive, on the topic of how best to accomplish the goals we have set out (even if we have to swallow our tongues). — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 15:57, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

4th December Backlog Update

  • NPP backlog, number of unreviewed articles by creation date. Orange represents older than 30 days. Red is older than 90 days (indexed by google), the index point is marked by the red arrow.
    NPP backlog, number of unreviewed articles by creation date. Orange represents older than 30 days. Red is older than 90 days (indexed by google), the index point is marked by the red arrow.
  • The current trend of the backlog is not looking good at all.
    The last 6 months. The current trend of the backlog is not looking good at all.

The backlog continues to grow at a slow and steady pace. Currently at 4377 articles in the queue. Roughly half of our backlog is older than 30 days, which isa bout as long as something should ever remain in the New Article queue for. We need to step up out game a bit to reverse the slide and get in on a downward trend instead. If things keep going the way they are, the backlog probably grow to the point that it will extend beyond the index point sometime in January or February. We can't let that happen.

Please try to push a bit more so that we can get the trend reversing and on a downward slope. We don't need much actually, we just need a bit more each day from everybody and we can get it to level off and even drop. It's not time to panic yet, but we are going to get to that point if we aren't careful.

We have had massive success in the community wishlist, finishing in the top spot with more votes than any proposal in the history of the wishlist, but we need to prove to the community that we can stay on top of the new page influx, and that we are worthy of the development time that the community has bestowed upon us.

None of this is meant to be a criticism of the level of work done by the team, I also have been very inactive on the patrolling side, due to personal life stuff limiting my time on WP. I understand that there are issues for many of us, especially going into the holiday period. Try to help as much as you are able, but don't kill yourself, we want more people reviewing a bit here and there, rather than relying a few people reviewing many hundreds of articles in brief bursts (I mean, that is awesome, but contributes to burnout, and isn't sustainable long term).

Cheers, good luck, and happy holidays to all, — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 12:36, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Note: Consider that roughly 300-350 articles come in each day that need to be reviewed, we are only falling behind by about 30 articles a day (on average). This means that on average we are reviewing only 10% less than what we need to be doing to keep it steady, and if we increased by only 20% it would trend downward at a similar rate. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 17:07, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

NPP/AfC issues

Back in April I came here with issues about the NPP and AfC actions of CASSIOPEIA. I checked my watchlist yesterday and noticed they had left 34 messages on User talk:Pietro. Were Pietro not a long-term user, this would be extremely bitey. Currently, it just seems like spam. Half of these 34 messages are draftifying notifications, and the other half are notifications of comments on AfC submissions. For both of the scripts that added these, there is an option to not leave a talk page message. The articles draftified were all lists of museums in a given city, which should not have been draftified. They were lacking sources, but it was easily ready for mainspace. Praxidicae has since moved all the lists back to mainspace. They have been reviewing AfC drafts and new pages, commonly spending less than 3 minutes on an article. Notably, they reviewed the AfC submission Uniforms of the Italian Armed Forces in 4 minutes, which is nowhere near enough time to even open all 73 sources used to support the substantially long article. They had draftified VfL Eintracht Hagen, which doesn't seem to make sense to me as it's a notable subject that, although lacking sources, didn't require much work to find references and fix the article's problems. I have moved the article back to mainspace. I asked them about these issues on their talk page here and they did not seem to understand why the 34 talk page messages are wrong or the merit to the other problems I brought up. I haven't had the time to fully go through their recent reviews, but the ones I did check were not done well. For example, they marked the digital divide in Africa as not notable. The article isn't suitable for mainspace yet as it's basically an essay, but it is definitely a notable subject. Just looking for a second pair of eyes on this. Thank you, Vermont (talk) 02:41, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

@Vermont: I haven't had a time to take a close look but I would like to point out something about the draft. AfC drafts can be declined if they are not yet shown to meet the notability guidelines even if it would be possible with substantial work; hence "Submission is about a topic not yet shown to meet general notability guidelines." This submission was, as you mentioned, clearly not suitable for mainspace. It has only one source which supports very little of the content. The article is really an expository essay at the moment and little of it would be useful as an article. Reviewers are generally not expected to undergo a complete rewrite and add tons more sources and then accept the article; if an article is a very long ways from being ready for mainspace, it can be declined, especially if it isn't yet shown to meet the notability guidelines. There was even an RfC related to this which closed with a unaminous consensus to not require a BEFORE search when declining drafts.Again, I haven't had time to take a look at the other issues you brought up, but I do believe the declining of the draft wasn't inappropriate.--SkyGazer 512 Oh no, what did I do this time? 02:59, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
SkyGazer 512, I’m not questioning the declining of the draft. I’m questioning the reasoning behind it. An article on that topic would be an expansion of Africa, which is inherently notable being a continent. Vermont (talk) 03:24, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Africa is notable. The digital divide in Africa, rural Timbuktu, or in general is only notable if there is sourcing which discusses it. Now in this case we all agree that it is a notable topic, but had to chime in to slightly challenge the "it's an offshoot of a notable topic so it too is notable".
As to the drafitying well see my message two topics up. These 34 pages were essentially bot created by a bot that I don't believe was approved to do this kind of work. The community has not endorsed this kind of use of Wikidata to the best of my knowledge. I believe these lists to be notable but I find their creation to be EXTREMELY troubling and contra to policy. I did not go the mass draftication route, and would not have left 34 messages if I had, but it doesn't strike me as an unreasonable response to the situation. I had come here since this community is broadly knowledgeable about policy and procedures and these were new pages and I wanted to be sure I wasn't missing anything. Further investigation today only suggests my initial impression was correct. I do not think we can address this here - but I do think it needs addressing, with a reasonable outcome that we leave these pages but make sure it doesn't happen again. Courtesy ping to Listeria's programmer Magnus Manske. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:46, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
I know that Africa is clearly notable, but I don't think it's necessarily something that everyone can agree on that an expository essay about a sub-topic of Africa which fails WP:GNG is automatically notable. While I personally would've probably used a different decline reason, I don't see the notability decline as unreasonable.--SkyGazer 512 Oh no, what did I do this time? 03:53, 3 December 2018 (UTC)


I looked at the digital divide in Africa page before it was declined. It was not ready to accept. If I encountered a page on Italian Military Uniforms with 73 refs I would do a quick look over to make sure it was on topic and the refs looked to be from reasonable sources, check for copyvio, and accept. I would not spend more than 4 minutes on something obviously notable and well done. (I've not looked at the specific page, my comments are general based on how it was described). I would not draftify a list of museums even if there were zero refs, if all the entries were linked to pages. Either the linked museums are really museums in the state they are listed under or they are not. It's a "sky is blue" thing. Different users have different levels of experiemce with various topics, so your milage may vary. Legacypac (talk) 03:36, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

My understanding as below
  1. Wikipedia is a platform of knowledge sharing where under the Wikipedia guidelines the knowledge/content is sourced and verifiable.
  2. If a page in NPP has yet to shown the requirements needed like no sources provided it could be draftified by reviewer - see WP:NPPDRAFT and WP:DRAFTIFY.
  3. List pages do require sources just like other pages - see Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists.
  4. A NPP article move to draft, it would trigger an automatic message to the creator under move page user right "move to draft".
  5. Comments made on the draft pages is to inform creator of what is needed which was write politely and to the point. I notified the creator in good faith so their may know comments are made to their pages so their could provide sources. A page does not support by sources means not meeting the Wikipedia requirements where The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution.
  6. I do not understand the motivation of Vermont bringing it here as we have discussion in my talk page, and I hope not it was because I question them of why they approved an unsourced NPP article in their talk page which displease them, might want to get the admin to revoke my reviewer right as this is the second time of them bringing issue of my actions in NPP ( I might miss it and if so I apologies for that but I dont see Vermont complaint of other NPP reviewers any of their action in NPP) of notifying creator the issues needed to be fixed instead of leaving them to search of what is needed from ton of texts in Wikipedia or not sure what to do with the problems. If I am the creator, I would want to be notified so I know what happens to my article and what I would to do make the pages into main space. Just as I would normally, click the Talk Back /notification button when I have commented on Teahouse, AfD HD, HD or in AfC so the editors may know a comment is made.
  7. It is also a delicate issues for reviewers as sometimes we giving the creator more chances to rework on a draft yet we see complaint from other stating the draft needs to rejected instead of decline. And other time, we drafted an unsourced page, in regardless the subject is notable, as we act accordance to the Wikipedia policy and guideline where it stated content need to be sourced yet we face backlash of our action from other editors of why the page is draftified. Reviewers accepts a page without sources was not question yet they would question and complaint of others who do their job of why an unsourced page is draftified. I am here is to volunteer my service and learning a long the way as Wikipedia has so many guidelines and info which I believe even after ten year actively volunteering I would still find tons of things to know and to learn. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 04:49, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
    I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say,"I hope not it was because I question them of why they approved an unsourced NPP article in their talk page which displease them". I checked back to the discussion in April, and noticed you brought up my review of this page. I had explained that using the page curation tool reviews the page automatically once you apply tags. In that instance, I had BLP-prod'd the article as there were no sources and added a peacock tag. An hour later, there was a single source, so I removed the BLP-prod and replaced it with a BLP-sources. When I was finished with the article, it looked like this. You then added two more tags and seven {{cn}} tags. ([6]) I am not here to argue that; that disagreement is simply what caused me to add your talk page to my watchlist.
    In regard to the 34 messages (your point 5), you should have used one or two. 34 is basically spam.
    In regard to draftifying new pages, I think you're have the misapprehension that no sources = draftify in all cases. This is incorrect; the patrol, tag, or draftication of a new article depends on much more than simply number of sources.
    In regard to "we face backlash of our action from other editors of why the page is draftified", yes, yes you do. Everyone is responsible for their edits.
    I do not want your reviewer permission revoked. You are a great, active editor and patroller. I am here because I want you to recognize what was done incorrectly (34 messages, draftification of those lists, etc.) and understand why. Thank you, Vermont (talk) 10:56, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
@Vermont: I am afraid I totally disagree with this statement In regard to the 34 messages (your point 5), you should have used one or two. 34 is basically spam.. User:CASSIOPEIA was following perfectly the instructions in WP:DRAFTIFY which clearly say:
"Requirements for page movers
To unilaterally move an article to draft space, you should:
  • notify the author (this is facilitated by the script User:Evad37/MoveToDraft.js),
  • be accountable for your draftification decisions per the standard described at Wikipedia:Administrators#Accountability.
Other editors (including the author of the page) have a right to object to moving the page, and to have the matter discussed at WP:AfD. If an editor raises an objection, move the page back to mainspace and list at AfD.
Also at least one of the lists had only one entry and as to the usefulness of lists with a single entry...I have yet to find a guideline that deals with this. Dom from Paris (talk) 09:48, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
I was not suggesting that CASSIOPEIA not notify the author; rather, CASSIOPEIA should have used one or two messages rather than thirty four. Not only were they notified for every move individually, but also for the comments CASSIOPEIA added to every article after they had been moved to draftspace. Although it doesn’t seem to have caused much harm to the author in this case, I believe a new user would be dissuaded from continuing editing if they checked their talk page with 34 sections. Vermont (talk) 10:25, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
The script is specifically mentioned as it facilitates the required notification. These 18 list creations were part of an automated article creation process with little or no editorial input from the user so I don't think 18 x 2 automated notifications of moves to draft space is a problem. When you look at List_of_museums_in_Piedmont for exemple there are a lot of errors in there even after the manual intervention by the creator. A tower museum? This is not supported by the article Mole Antonelliana which appears twice in list basically because of this [7]. There are a number of museums that are classified as National Museums but this is not supported by the articles, eg. Museo Egizio which says "The museum became an experiment of the Italian government in privatization of the nation's museums when the Fondazione Museo delle Antichità Egizie was officially established at the end of 2004." The quality of the information from Commons is very poor, I personnally would be for sending these all back to draft space to be checked out and cleaned up before inclusion on mainspace. I would be interested in having the opinion of @Praxidicae: who moved them all back to mainspace. Dom from Paris (talk) 13:20, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
Domdeparis, Just to clarify: The reason Mole Antonelliana occurs twice in List of museums in Piedmont is that the Wikidata entry https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q201902 has two values for the property "instance of" (P31) and the Wikidata list template used to generate the list included the parameter/value |section=31. Listeria will create a heading (section) for each distinct value of "instance of", in this case, museum and tower. So Mole Antonelliana is not a tower museum, it is an instance of a museum and an instance of a tower. Vexations (talk) 13:58, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
Vexations This just goes to show why we shouldn't be generating articles with Listeria. there seems to be very little editorial oversight on what is entered in Commons. I recently came across an article in French about fr:Jean Cormier that had infobox info that said he was born in 1943 in the Kingdom of France I tried editing it and then realised that this info came from Wikidata and had been added back in June by an editor whose user page says ""Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough" (с) If you see that I broke some items, please let me know (ping or revert). This way I will learn from my mistakes". I mended what he broke but there is nothing in the article history that suggests there has been a change, I don't know if there is a notification on the watchlist or not. It seems highly dangerous to allow content to enter the articles here from a project that seems to mostly be concerned with copyright problems than any kind of accuracy problems. Pinging @Joe Roe: @Fram: and @Barkeep49: to see what they think. Dom from Paris (talk) 14:24, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
I think that we're extremely unlikely to resolve this long-running dispute here. The backlog is rapidly approaching 5,000 again; spending time worrying about how a handful of basically-fine lists are maintained doesn't seem productive. – Joe (talk) 14:46, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
Domdeparis, The problem with the museum showing up as a tower is not that there's something wrong with Wikidata; it's that the query was poorly written. Writing good queries is sometimes hard. As for watchlist notifications; In Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist you can turn on Show Wikidata edits in your watchlist. The nice thing about Wikidata is that, now that you have found such an error it is trivial to find all such errors by writing a simple query to ask for all articles about people born after September 4, 1791 who are born in the Kingdom of France. I've found 47 such articles in French Wikipedia en 22 in English Wikipedia. And guess what? If someone fixed those French articles by editing their Wikidata entries, all those English articles are fixed automatically. Nice. Vexations (talk) 15:08, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
(ec)Not really. The Kingdom of France existed long after 1791 (1814-1848), so your Wikidata "correction" would potentially make a lot of articles on many Wikipedias worse. One of the reasons why Wikidata infoboxes are not nice. Why anyone would use a Wikidata query to generate a list here with useless columns (the Wikidata description), dubious intersections, and less entries than we have on enwiki (which could easily be found through categories) is not really clear, it's a lazy, careless way of creating "articles". Letting Wikidata then continue to dictate the contents (through Listeriabot) is even worse of course. Fram (talk) 15:19, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

interesting...any chance of letting me have a look at the query? I'll see what I can do about modifiying the wikidata entries and adapting it to any other things I come across. But to be honest that doesn't really address the fact that wikidata (not commons my mistake) is not scrutinised in the same way that WPEN is. Dom from Paris (talk) 15:16, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

  • My 2c on this is that when you have a bunch of pages with similar issues by one author, it is generally better practice to send a creator one message explaining the issues with all the articles rather than many templated messages. This is more work and isn't required, but generally at the very least it is better to simply not send additional messages when the same issue is being conveyed, they'll notice the tags on their other articles too. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 13:42, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
Except that the mesages relate to specific articles & drafts. A message saying "I've moved A to Draft:A and you can guess what I've done with the others", or "I've reviewd some of your drafts, guess which" is not helpful. The links to the specifics are an important part of the message.
If, as a group, we'd like the tools to implement lightweight follow-up messages in the same sections, like "I've also moved B to Draft:B. sig" and "I've also reviewed Draft:C. sig", then that's an issue to put to the maintainers of the tools rather than berating the reviewers. Just my 2¢. Cabayi (talk) 14:57, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
If I'm reading Insertcleverphrasehere's comment correctly, they are referring to a message like, "I've draftified: [insert the 18 pages here]. It is due to [insert reason here]." A single message mentioning the 18 articles' issues is better than 34 separate messages. Vermont (talk) 02:29, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Lists whose content is entirely WikiData Generated

While patrolling today I found today quite a few new list articles, seemingly about museums, that were made by Pietro. These lists are all generated entirely from Wikidata using Template:Wikidata list. I have a lot of concerns about this. Is anyone aware of any on Wiki discussions about using this template to generate articles? I know there has been a fair amount of discussion about use of Wikidata in Infoboxes and my understanding is that the community has decided against that. This seems a step beyond that. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:23, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

@Barkeep49: Yes, there have been several discussions about Wikidata lists too. See e.g. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikidata Phase 2, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of female Egyptologists, Talk:List of women linguists. In short, there is no consensus. There's nothing ipso facto wrong with using Wikidata to generate lists, but there are concerns about sourcing, and the continued use of ListeriaBot to maintain the list (overriding local changes on enwiki) is particularly contentious. Often they end up being converted into regular lists after the initial generation, but this should only be done on a case-by-case basis with explicit local consensus. – Joe (talk) 06:54, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
@Joe Roe: This is helpful background but my research suggests that the consensus that use of the template should be avoided as an ongoing template - not the least of which is because Template:Wikidata list says not to use it in mainspace, which is also consistent with the AfD. As of Saturday when I was looking into this the template was only present in 2 articles beyond the museum lists that had been created. Whether it can/should be used to create the bulk of content in an article does seem to be less firmly established, though as I suggest below I'm not sure ListeriaBot was ever approved to act on articles. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:44, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
@Barkeep49: As you'll see from the linked discussions I was staunchly in favour of retaining Wikidata lists, so my take isn't unbiased. Still, I am certain there has never been a consensus against the use of ListeriaBot, and of course on Wikipedia we don't need to seek prior approval. Blanket-disabling it may well be effective, as it has in many cases, because editors who are tired of years of disputes about Wikidata will avoid edit-warring with you over it – but that's not exactly a good faith attempt to reach a consensus. Especially if you don't intend to continue maintaining a list yourself, why override the creator's desire to link the list to Wikidata? – Joe (talk) 19:25, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
@Joe Roe: I think the idea that I a Wikipedia editor cannot edit an article, only I a (currently non-existant) Wikidata editor can indirectly edit an article, is against the five pillars especially because that content lock is enforced by a bot, in a way that other content enforcing bots (e.g. Cluebot) don't operate: I could get into an edit war with it when other content monitoring bots will not try to reimpose their version if undone by a human editor. So I feel really strongly on that front. The museum articles in question are notable and so I have more complicated feelings about that - on the one hand, hooray there is more notable content on the encyclopedia. On the other hand I feel that it's creation via automated methods does go against policy and guidelines; on the third hand if he had created the pages in draft or userspace, removed the template, and moved them over to mainsapce that strikes me as more an assisted editing process and with-in policy and guidelines. There's a reason I thought better of my initial impulse to delete as a bad precedent and have instead left the articles for the time being as this is discussed - acknowledging that it needs to eventually end up somewhere more centralized; I am thinking WP:VPI or WP:VPT, but wanting to tap into the experience of this group for their knowledge, such as what you've done by referencing the earlier discussions. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:51, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
Barkeep49, Minor correction. Anyone can edit Wikidata. Vexations (talk) 20:07, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
Indeed. I probably said it inelegantly when I wrote "only I a (currently non-existant) Wikidata editor can indirectly edit an article". My point was that I do not currently edit Wikidata (though I could) but I shouldn't have to in order to work on Wikipedia article content. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:28, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Contrary to what Joe Roe claims, there is consensus, per Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikidata Phase 2, that such lists are not allowed in the mainspace. RfC close states "not appropriate to use Wikidata in article text on English Wikipedia ". At the moment, Wikidata use is basically only allowed (in the mainspace) in infoboxes and external links templates. Fram (talk) 08:51, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

And, as I think you know, it immediately follows that with, "There is a valid point raised that while running text is clearly not suitable for Wikidata use, it might be worth discussing use in tables specifically – but no consensus regarding this has been reached in this discussion" (my emphasis.) – Joe (talk) 13:54, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
And, as we already discussed, the two discussions you link above both lead to a consensus not to use these lists in the mainspace. So, a general consensus not to use it, a specific indication at the RfC that discussion about one implementation may be useful, and two discussions where this specific implementation was found not to have consensus, and was removed. So what's your basis to claim that "In short, there is no consensus." when everything (including the fact that the "don't use this in mainsspace!" stood for nearly two years without discussion) points to a rather clear consensus? Fram (talk) 14:15, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
The basis is that the formal close of a well-attended RfC literally says "no consensus". – Joe (talk) 08:33, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
No consensus, "might be worth discussing". It was tried anyway, and reverted after discussion, so the discussion has been had and at the moment indicates that such uses are unwanted. Feel free to discuss and get a change for this (consensus can change and all that), but don't ignore the discussions that have happened after the RfC closed. Your claim that converting the listeriabot-generated lists to standard lists "should only be done on a case-by-case basis with explicit local consensus" is not correct. A consensus is needed to use this non-standard, contentious system, not one to keep it out of mainspace articles. If there is local consensus on an article that in that case, such a Wikidata-based list overruling local editing is warranted, then an RfC / global consensus would be needed to remove it anyway. But no local consensus is needed to remove an implementation of such a list, local consensus is needed to include it. Fram (talk) 09:43, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

What the heck - we haven't eliminated the backlog have we?

Ok, so when I'm reviwing from the new pages feed, I usually set it to display the oldest first and then I work from the back forward. Usually there's 5-10 former redirects back there categorized by the redirect creation date, and then there is the actual back of the queue, which is usually 3-4 months old. Today however, the oldest articles it's showing me are from - drumroll please - yesterday. December 4. If I scroll down a little bit it starts showing me articles from today. I double checked and it is still set to show oldest first. So what's going on? We haven't somehow miraculously eliminated a 4,500 article backlog overnight have we? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 20:03, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

@ONUnicorn: Try refreshing the feed using the Refresh list button at the bottom. I've seen this as a bug before. :-)--SkyGazer 512 Oh no, what did I do this time? 20:08, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
Yeah it looks fine on my end, oldest article is from 2015. signed, Rosguill talk 20:10, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
This has happened to me sometimes, and I actually have to physically click to show oldest first (even thought that is already flagged) for it to function correctly.Polyamorph (talk) 20:11, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
This happens to me at times... or will only show like 6 total articles. Try clicking "newest", and then clicking "oldest" again. That usually clears it up.Onel5969 TT me 21:00, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
My experience mirrors Onel's. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:03, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
Thank you everyone! Refreshing it worked. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 21:41, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Unreviewing a page I created

It looks like I cannot unreview a page I created. I created the redirect Easy Transfer, but it has been changed into an article. I'm not thrilled with the article, but I don't work in the A7 area and shy away from most notability decisions. It does look substantially different that the spam version that was deleted previously. I'd like the article to be reviewed by a reviewer, but aside from the (inefficient) method of posting here, is there no way for me to unreview the article to add it to the queue? --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:27, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

@Floquenbeam: For this particular case, when a redirect is turned into an article, it automatically goes into the unreviewed queue. That mechanic is working correctly this time; I'm not seeing the full green check mark on the Page Curation toolbar.--SkyGazer 512 Oh no, what did I do this time? 22:33, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
Oh, that's great. Is that new? I thought this used to be a way spammers got around new page patrol. Thanks for the info, I'll wait for the normal process then. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:35, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
I don't know exactly how new it is, but I believe it's been around for at least a few months; I'm pretty sure when I first received the right back in August it was already a thing. Insertcleverphrasehere may know more about when this was implemented. It certainly is a useful system and helps immensely with disallowing advertisers to sneak their way around the NPP process.--SkyGazer 512 Oh no, what did I do this time? 22:45, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
It's been around at least from when I started reviewing I think which is May 2017. Dom from Paris (talk) 23:29, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
Floquenbeam, I can’t remember when it was done but yeah it was changed this way to remove the spammer loophole. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 23:35, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

640 Reviewers

Reading the next newsletter draft I see a note about "If only the 640 reviewers did 8 reviews each". IT feels obvious that some number of that 640 don't edit wikipedia actively at the moment while there are another roughly 100 sysops who hold the permission who are active. Does being more realistic with numbers help? I don't know but even if every person who is active were to do that 8 edits we wouldn't eliminate the backlog. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:31, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Barkeep49, Yeah. The reviewers total is always a power law curve. I changed it to indicate that we need to pick up an extra 10% on our rate (on average) to slow the rise that we have been seeing over the last few months (20% would have it swing the other way). — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 15:38, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
One of the things that annoy me is that I am coming across quite à lot of pages that have been tagged by users with the curation toolbar but have not marked it as reviewed. if the person is taking the time to go through the feed reading and tagging then why not mark them as reviewed. This kind of thing is fine when we are on top of the flow and we can afford for more than one reviewer to check it out but this is not the case today. Dom from Paris (talk) 15:44, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
If they are not confident about it, why not wait for another opinion? The quality of reviewing should not go down because of the backlog. Natureium (talk) 15:51, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
Domdeparis, Not sure who you are referring to, but we have a lot of new reviewers. With marginal cases or judgement calls new users sometimes feel more comfortable doing the stuff that they know and then waiting to see what other reviewers make of it. Once we have the reviewer notes system, they will be able to comment and let you know why they didn't mark it as reviewed. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 16:06, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
I don't think I am a new reviewer but for true borderline calls I will not infrequently place tags and let another reviewer make the final decision - on the theory that two reviewers are better than one. The other scenario is that for some NCORP type stuff where I don't think it's notable, but it has some reasonable claim, and it has lots of PROMO I will do radical article trimming of PROMO and then hope the next reviewer nominates it. I do this because I find my revisions of content tend to stick better if I don't also nominate it for AfD and thus seem like I'm out to get the article. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:23, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
I'll be honest with you if you have done the work of trimming the promo and tagging then that has to be sufficient to mark it is as reviewed. If I think an article should be nominated I tend not to remove any content first off because it's a waste of time if the article is going to disappear anyway, secondly because the promo content adds weight to the nomination, thirdly because the ref bombing is also a good indicator of lack of notability and fourthly to avoid accusations of bad faith editing (I was accused in the past of doctoring the article to make it seem less notable and then nominating it) what I do though is look and analyse every single source and list them in the nomination. There are already some serious problems with the quality of reviewing. I have come across quite a few totally unsourced articles or articles with single sources that were marked as reviewed without adding any maintenance templates at all. At one end of the spectrum we have reviewers who tick just on a feeling of notability and on the other we have reviewers who are sure enough about the quality of the article to tag and edit the article but do not tick on reviewed. I disagree that a growing backlog should not make us be bolder. If we allow the backlog to grow because articles are being reviewed multiple times by editors with the rights we will end up having a backlog drive and have to really drop the quality of reviewing to get through it or exhaust ourselves to the point of nausea and give up reviewing. I think if we are honest we will admit that his is what happened in the past. Reviewing is a time consuming task and we are not enough active reviewers to allow ourselves the luxery of doing this multiple time on the same article IMHO. Dom from Paris (talk) 16:57, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
Anyway on Monday I'm in for a minor operation on my shoulder but I'll be off work for a couple of weeks so in between binge watching sessions on Netflix and comfort eating I'll try and do a mini backlog drive. Dom from Paris (talk) 17:06, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
I will occasionally tag an article (usually for notability concerns), and then not tick it "reviewed". I do this so another reviewer will know that I have taken a look at it, question its notability, but want another pair of eyes to take a look. But I don't do it often. When I review an article, aside from the usual review stuff (e.g. copyvio, notability), I also try to tag articles which have raw links, are uncategorized, have a single source (or simply need more sources or footnotes), and if it's a stub (or any of the other tags on the curation tool). Then I attempt to fix the raw links (most of which can be easily and quickly fixed using either reflink or refill), and categorize the stub. I come across quite a few articles which have been reviewed, but haven't been tagged when there is one of those deficiencies. I also agree with Dom that if I feel an article is promotional, I'll usually tag it for deletion without trimming it. I'll also try to add a reference to an unreferenced article if it easily meets one of the notability criteria (e.g. villages, if a bio is about a general -- there have even been a couple of bios about Oscar winners which had no references). Onel5969 TT me 17:18, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
What % of backlog are marked as Prods, CSD or AfD?? How many are simply redirects? Are those numbers available? Atsme✍🏻📧 20:18, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
Good question, that would be good to know, I assume ICPH has/knows a tool that calculates this? Polyamorph (talk) 20:23, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
That backlog # does not include redirects, but it does include articles which have been tagged for deletion. As of right now, there are about 80 or so articles in the list tagged for deletion (you can check the totals using the filters, simply click the button for "nominated for deletion", and it will give you the count without those articles). Onel5969 TT me 20:35, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Tools acting quirky

Same ole same ole - sometimes the curation tools show up and sometimes they don't. I have to reload several times to get them up. Ok - so onto the problem and reason I'm here. Second National Front of Escambray has a big ole copyvio notice on it and no article to see except what's in the history. I used this version to check for copyvio and it shows that it was fixed. Why is the tag still on the page? Atsme✍🏻📧 16:37, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Atsme, have you tried clicking the 'curate this article' link in the tool sidebar? Did it fix the issue? — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 17:06, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
Yes, (my tools are in the top menu tool bar)-(Safari browser). I've tried purging, reloading, going back to NPR and clicking on Review again and again and again....sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Hard to move quickly when having to deal with that issue. Atsme✍🏻📧 17:12, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
Pinging Ryan Kaldari (WMF) and MMiller (WMF). — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 08:09, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
@Atsme: I'm sorry you're still having trouble with toolbar appearing. Our engineers think this has to with the particularly combination of gadgets and skins you're using. Does the problem still happen if you work in Chrome (or in an "incognito" Chrome window)? Or in a "private" Safari window? Let me know if you don't know how to make an incognito or private window. -- MMiller (WMF) (talk) 23:20, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
I'll try different browsers (I have Chrome and Firefox) and will go incog on Safari - will let you know in a few days. Thx for the follow-up. Atsme✍🏻📧 23:35, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
MMiller (WMF) - FireFox & Chrome work fine, but Safari v12.0.1 (14606.2.104.1.1) is qwirky. Incognito, the tools show up but it's still flakey. See following:
  • [Error] Failed to set referrer policy: The value 'origin-when-crossorigin' is not one of 'no-referrer', 'no-referrer-when-downgrade', 'same-origin', 'origin', 'strict-origin', 'origin-when-cross-origin', 'strict-origin-when-cross-origin' or 'unsafe-url' (European_Union_Observatory_for_Nanomaterials, line 18)
  • [Log] Exception in resolve: (load.php, line 2)
  • [Warning] Error: Unknown dependency: ext.gadget.MobileCategories (load.php, line 2)
  • [Log] Exception in resolve: (load.php, line 2)
  • [Warning] Error: Unknown dependency: ext.gadget.MobileMaps (load.php, line 2)
  • [Log] JQMIGRATE: Migrate is installed with logging active, version 3.0.1 (load.php, line 141)
  • [Warning] This page is using the deprecated ResourceLoader module "jquery.ui.position". (European_Union_Observatory_for_Nanomaterials, line 234)
  • [Warning] This page is using the deprecated ResourceLoader module "jquery.ui.widget". (European_Union_Observatory_for_Nanomaterials, line 194)
  • [Warning] This page is using the deprecated ResourceLoader module "schema.UniversalLanguageSelector". (European_Union_Observatory_for_Nanomaterials, line 622)
  • See https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T205744 for migration info.
  • [Warning] This page is using the deprecated ResourceLoader module "jquery.tipsy". (European_Union_Observatory_for_Nanomaterials, line 279)
  • [Warning] This page is using the deprecated ResourceLoader module "schema.ReadingDepth". (European_Union_Observatory_for_Nanomaterials, line 1)
  • See https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T205744 for migration info.
  • [Warning] This page is using the deprecated ResourceLoader module "jquery.ui.core". (European_Union_Observatory_for_Nanomaterials, line 189)
  • Please use OOUI instead.
  • [Warning] This page is using the deprecated ResourceLoader module "mediawiki.ui". (European_Union_Observatory_for_Nanomaterials, line 1)
  • Please use OOUI instead.
  • [Warning] Use of "addOnloadHook" is deprecated. Use jQuery instead. (load.php, line 4)
  • [Error] [Report Only] Refused to connect to https://xtools.wmflabs.org/api/page/articleinfo/en.wikipedia.org/European_Union_Observatory_for_Nanomaterials?format=html&uselang=en because it appears in neither the connect-src directive nor the default-src directive of the *Content Security Policy.
  • [Warning] Use of "addPortletLink" is deprecated. Use mw.util.addPortletLink instead (load.php, line 4)
  • [Warning] Use of "wgUserName" is deprecated. Use mw.config instead. (load.php, line 4)
  • [Error] [Report Only] Refused to connect to https://xtools.wmflabs.org/api/page/articleinfo/en.wikipedia.org/European_Union_Observatory_for_Nanomaterials?format=html&uselang=en because it appears in neither the connect-src directive nor the default-src directive of the *Content Security Policy.
  • [Log] Reflinks: Loading messages from cache @ 1543966752585 (index.php, line 61)
  • [Error] [Report Only] Refused to connect to https://xtools.wmflabs.org/api/page/articleinfo/en.wikipedia.org/European_Union_Observatory_for_Nanomaterials?format=html&uselang=en because it appears in neither the connect-src directive nor the default-src directive of the *Content Security Policy.
  • [Warning] JQMIGRATE: 'jQuery.easing.swing' should use only one argument (load.php, line 141)
  • [Warning] Use of "addOnloadHook" is deprecated. Use jQuery instead. (load.php, line 4)
  • [Warning] Use of "wgUserName" is deprecated. Use mw.config instead. (load.php, line 4)
  • [Warning] Use of "addPortletLink" is deprecated. Use mw.util.addPortletLink instead (load.php, line 4)
  • [Warning] Use of "wgServer" is deprecated. Use mw.config instead. (load.php, line 4)
  • [Warning] Use of "wgScript" is deprecated. Use mw.config instead. (load.php, line 4)
  • [Log] [XFDcloser] Current page is not an XfD page (index.php, line 93)
  • [Warning] Use of "importStylesheetURI" is deprecated. Use mw.loader instead. (load.php, line 4)
  • [Debug] Starting up worker (index.php, line 121, x4)
  • [Error] Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 404 () (arrow-expanded.svg, line 0)
  • [Error] Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 404 () (arrow-collapsed-ltr.svg, line 0)
  • [Debug] Shutting down worker (index.php, line 81, x3)
  • [Debug] Shutting down worker (index.php, line 81)

@Atsme: thanks for the detailed info. It helps to know that the problem is contained to one browser. I filed this here for the engineers to take a look, probably in January. Hopefully, you'll be able to review in other browsers until this gets figured out at some point. -- MMiller (WMF) (talk) 23:00, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Text solely copied from US government websites

The article USS Lead Superfund Site, created by a new editor, is almost completely copied from US goverment texts on the site. These are cited in the references but there is no indication within the article text that the text is not original.

Anybody got any idea of what to do here? It's my understanding that all this text is public domain, so there's no copyright issue, but there does seem to be a lack of attribution issue. Blythwood (talk) 14:29, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Blythwood, With public domain content, you don't actually need to attribute, technically. However, we usually have a copyright notice on the ref indicating it as a reminder so that nobody tries to CSD it as a copyright violation. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 14:43, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
​​It isn't a copyright issue but a plagiarism one. According to Wikipedia:Plagiarism#Public-domain sources, it does need to be attributed. — JJMC89 (T·C) 04:26, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
JJMC89, I stand corrected, Thanks for the info. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 08:30, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
The same plagiarism policy suggests having it noted in the citation is sufficient. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:22, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Training video

In view of an upgrade to include the new features of the Curation system, We have been asked by the WMF how helpful new patrollers find the video tutorial. I personally think the video as created by Fabrice Florin (WMF) would be extremely useful to new patrollers and reflects the rest of the work that went into creating the Curation process. IMO certainly worth updating.

Please leave your comments here. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:44, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

@Kudpung: Can you point to where we were asked this? Might be helpful context for me as I watch the video (again) and consider. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:48, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
'I' was asked - I just have a habit of using the corporate 'we'. The video is over there on the right → you can see it there. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:00, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
Kudpung, I mean, aside from being a bit out of date, its pretty good. It would be good to have an updated one made after the work is done on the tools. Something I just noticed in the video is that the red icon in the info button actually did work at one point (when issues such as 'no categories' were present it would highlight this with a red circle on the info button). This feature was either removed or became bugged, because it has never worked for as long as I've used the tools. It was one of the Phab tasks in the wishlist though, so hopefully will get fixed. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 00:15, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
AFAIK, Fabrice (WMF) is no longer active, but Pine is very good at this kind of thing, and I would insist on a grant allocation if the WMF do not have the means to do it themselves. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:35, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the ping, Kudpung. I anticipate that the pilot for my video series will be completed in the first quarter of 2019. The primary subject of the pilot video will be how to create references with VisualEditor. If there is interest in having page curation be a topic for a future video, I'd be glad to add it to my list of potential topics. --Pine✉ 03:42, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
So after watching the video I think it's good stuff. I would suggest, however, that it might benefit from being two or three shorter videos focusing on a particular element, such as navigating the feed and using the icons on the curation toolbar. Shorter videos could also make it easier to change as the information does. One father suggestion - is there an open source AI voice we could use? In this way making iterations could be easier since we wouldn't have to rely on a human narrator's availability/willingness as information/needs change and we wish to update the videos. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:29, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
I don't know if this is in the video (my speakers are broken) but can we try to also include a segment on using "MoveToDraft" as a middle ground between accepting and asking for deletion?
The video is already short, only 3:28, and that should not tax anyone's attention. Making multiple videos would probably be confusing. a new user only really needs to watch it once and they can always stop or rewind. For voice over see: See this. What does need to be added in the intro is: "Using the tools is easy and intuitive, but you should be already familiar with the guidelines on the Wikipedia:New pages patrol tutorial." The current full text is here. Somehow, the use of the New Pages Feed and its Curation tool need to be made more attractive and IMO placing emphasis on the video can help achieve this. (talk) 06:17, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Marked as reviewed?

This is probably a newbie question, but I poked around the NPP pages and couldn't find an answer. What is the purpose of reviewing ("marked as reviewed") user pages (including pages created via The Wiki Adventure), user sandbox pages, and pages such as common.cs and twinkleoptions.js? Thanks in advance. Schazjmd (talk) 17:07, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Schazjmd, There are a few people who like to patrol the userspace for stuff that shouldn't be there, marking it as reviewed serves the same function as mainspace reviewing. The New page feed can actually filter for userspace as well as main and draft space. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 17:24, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Curate Page Link Disappeared?

Has the Curate Page link under Tools disappeared for anyone else? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:25, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Barkeep49, It is only there on mainspace articles, and only if the curation toolbar is closed, and it is also renamed "Open page curation". — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 17:28, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. It was open for me but I was looking to answer the question that was open over at PERM but then saw it wasn't there for me. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:43, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Reviewing

After two threats to take me to ANI if I once more tag an article as unreferenced/needing inline citation without trying to add an inline citation myself User talk:Boleyn#Page patrolling and unsourced content and five hours later a threat to take me to ANI because I filled in the message twice letting an editor know their creation had been tagged (even though I had not let them know of the majority I had reviewed, and tagged) User talk:Boleyn#Curation, I am taking an extended Wikibreak and am not planning to return to NPP - I'm not sure how I can, and am planning to take a break from editing at all, as I can't in all conscience when people have felt there are serious concerns. I would like to thank the editors from this project, who have been so supportive and do such great work here. I have enjoyed the difficult work here. Best wishes, Boleyn (talk) 20:36, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

You do a lot of good reviewing. Anytime you do a lot of reviewing you are bound to have times someone disagrees with you. It's not worth getting upset over. Enjoy a well deserved break. Legacypac (talk) 20:50, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
I have always respected your reviewing Boleyn and am sorry it's become unpleasant. I hope you enjoy your wikibreak and you find your way back to NPP after a good long respite - we can never have too many quality reviewers. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:01, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
Boleyn, I've posted on your talk page and won't repeat myself here, but the accusations are entirely baseless. If you decide to return, we will be more than welcoming. I think I speak for most here that I trust your reviewing accuracy even more than my own. I hope you enjoy your break, and don't take the NPP hate too personally. Cheers and best wishes, — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 21:09, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
What a shame, Boleyn! I have always thought what a conscientious reviewer you are, and tried to use your actions as a guide to mine. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 21:14, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
Boleyn - Coming from someone who took a break from the project, I hope you do intend to come back after a brief respite. The messages on your talk page were completely unwarranted, and showed a virtually vacant knowledge base of NPP. Insertcleverphrasehere's commentary on your talk page was spot on. The only way new editors learn is if you leave messages, else they'll continue to make the same mistakes. It'd be a shame to lose you now that the backlog is beginning to tick up. But as I said, I understand what it's like to be in your position.Onel5969 TT me 23:31, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
This is a real shame @Boleyn:, had they taken it to AN/I they would have been ripped to shreds, there was no basis to their accusations, they should be ashamed of the disrespect they showed towards you. You are a good wikipedian, a good editor and a good NPP, one of the best. Polyamorph (talk) 18:54, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
  • I think the behavior of Ceoil and especially that of Rzvas, still a relative newbie and whose talk page is full of complainants, is totally inadmissible and they should be ashamed to have lost one of the longest and most experienced New Page Reviewers. Boleyn's work is irreplaceable and as a bastion of NPP for many years, her work will be sorely missed, and the backlog of Wikipedia's most important process will grow out of proportion. Good reviewers are hard to come by - don't be fooled by the number of 640, most of them are inactive or hat collectors. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:45, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
No offence Kudpung, but that seems like cheap talk and "ashamed" is a pretty big word. I don't buy this retirement or attempt at guilt tripping, esp given they had put up notice "after" I had weighed in. What I was asking for patrollers to be less hasty and not dont template regulars, with a specif editor in mind, ie provided a solution to genuinely problematic editing. And what did they do in 2-3 days...again template that regular. There seems to be an ownership gap here and hiding behind self righteous curtains wont help. Sorry but actions have effects. Ceoil (talk) 22:44, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
@Ceoil: I can understand why given the context that you would come out with a strong statement but that rehashing the previous incident here is likely not going to benefit anybody and not the encyclopedia as a whole. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:40, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
Barkeep I think you are missing the point that I only engaged with Boylen as they were repeatedly blanket templating long term editors, and my suggestion was that they slow down and consider more. Not that they slow down and retire. I think one thing that being missed here is that repeated templates are very off putting to core editors, esp when the templater has been asked not to do that again, but [shrugs]. Re Boylen. who is rather aggressive with this stuff, my impression is they can give but not take. I would apologetically prefer 6 templaters to 1 article creators. Ceoil (talk) 00:19, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
Ceoil, you yourself were far more combative in your comments on both talk pages than Boleyn was (who was quite polite in her messages). Find a mirror please. As for her sending the templates; I reviewed the instances in question, and not to point fingers at anybody, but they were both warranted and appropriate. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 00:22, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
Strawman, and that kind of detatched, from its merits comment rather prooves the point....we have a problem with editor competency on page patrol. Was intended to be meaningful or suggest a solution? Ceoil (talk) 00:24, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
Ceoil, I've already commented on Boleyn's talk page regarding this, in a lot more detail, I pinged you there already. I don't really feel like repeating myself here, so go and read those comments again. Unless I missed something, the problem here seems to be you not being able to let it go. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 00:31, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
I'd have let go about 5 weeks ago but have been multi pinged here multi times; I dont watch navel gavzng pages like this. The fuck do did ye expect me to do; all I will say that this is classic blame the victim, and outside that, could care less. Ceoil (talk) 00:50, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
Ceoil, That's fair I guess (I didn't notice the pings above). I think we should all just drop this and let it go. I do really hope nobody quits over this inconsequential nonsense though. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 01:04, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
Ceoil (not pinging as it seems to be your preference?) you were pinged once before you replied. I don't quite understand why you were pinged either. That's why I said given the circumstances it was understandable that you came out with a strong statement (here). I don't think I've missed any point and pinged you to try and express some empathy and avoid a rehash like the above. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:53, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Legacypac, Insertcleverphrasehere, Barkeep49, Cwmhiraeth, Onel5969, Polyamorph, Kudpung for your kind words, I had felt knocked for six by such strong, critical messages and like I must be completely misunderstanding patrolling. I didn't mean to start any arguments. Merry Christmas everyone, Boleyn (talk) 21:50, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Draftification Workshopping

There is a workshopping of a proposal about Drafticication at WP:VPP that might of interest to members of NPP Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Workshopping:_Integrate_draftification_into_the_deletion_policy. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:56, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Just an FYI

Draft:Naman_Ambavi currently at AFC has some history. Despite rejection at AfC, the author moved the article to mainspace on their own. A few NPP reviewers attempted to CSD it because it fails GNG. Jack Frost was the nom at AfD; consensus was delete. There has been suspicious IP activity (same geolocate) that resulted in a currently open SPI case Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Brianna_Wiest. There is reason to believe the author may be the BLP or otherwise connected. See history for attempts to get the BLP published, which dates back to 2013. After the article was deleted, it was restored Wikipedia:Requests_for_undeletion#Naman_Ambavi and is back in draft space. Atsme✍🏻📧 02:16, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Watchlisted... let's see where this goes, but current state does not make me optimistic. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 08:17, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
Atsme, throw the rule book, upgrade the warnings (because, they will never reply) and then let someone pull the block-trigger. And, even if they reply in negative, we can always block in bright-line cases like these. A deletion of their creations and a salting almost always follows. ∯WBGconverse 15:43, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
Thank you WBG & Elmidae, but the issue I'm having is probably best summarized in the following 2 diffs: here and here. Those two actions and prior responses introduced self-doubt so unless I know for sure I'm not imagining things and that what I believe is happening actually happened, I won't be assertive in my actions. I've posed the questions, so all I can do now is patiently wait to see what happens. The results will either make me bolder or more cautious. 🤔 Atsme✍🏻📧 15:53, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

User scripts

I have created 2 user scripts to aid in my patrolling, and they may be of use to others. User:DannyS712/Logs adds a "Logs" link to the top of the article, to see if it was previously deleted, moved-to-draft, etc. User:DannyS712/New pages feed aads a link to the new pages feed on the left side of the screen in the interaction section, right next to the recent changes button. --DannyS712 (talk) 02:23, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

@DannyS712: Thanks for your scripts! How does your logs script compare with superlinks? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:26, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
@Barkeep: I think that it is generally less intrusive, in part because it is simply smaller in scope. All it does is add a logs tab, on the same line and with the same styling as the "read", "edit source", and "view history" tabs, making it a lot less distracting if a user is not currently "on patrol" (I think). However, I don't believe that they are incompatible, so you may want to just try it and see for yourself? --DannyS712 (talk) 02:37, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
@Barkeep49: (tagging correct user) BarkeepChat 22:54, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Curation messages

It's long been an annoyance to me that the Page Curation messages encourage splitting conversations over different talk pages - not only because it once caused me to mistakenly have a pop at Kudpung. Today, thanks to Onel5969, I got to see the business end of {{Unreviewednote-NPF}} again. I've changed the message in the sandbox {{Unreviewednote-NPF/sandbox}} to better conform to this wiki's etiquette that discussions are best kept together, and created a simple testcase Template:Unreviewednote-NPF/testcases to show the two versions for comparison.

Thanks to SkyGazer 512 for putting the template's name in a comment which made it blindingly simple to find where the mystery message was coming from.

Any objections, suggestions or comments on the altered template before I make it live? Cabayi (talk) 19:07, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

I don't see an issue with the change but if we're mucking about, can we get rid of the word unfortunately? Sometimes it's unfortunate - because it was unreviewed as a mistake. Sometimes it's been unreviewed for other reasons. Unfortunate places a value judgement (you made a mistake reviewer) where as removing it neutrally explains what happened. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:19, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I find myself agreeing with barkeep49. Natureium (talk) 19:20, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
Yes, please get rid of it! I've always hated having it there for the reasons described above; I don't know why I've never brought it up before.--SkyGazer 512 Oh no, what did I do this time? 19:33, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
Yes, make the change, with Barkeep49's amendment. Onel5969 TT me 19:41, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
 Done Natureium (talk) 19:55, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
Cabayi, as the one who discovered the bunch of templates after years; I came across this but did not chose to change anything.
This template will be only substituted at a reviewer's t/p and he has sufficient competency to ping a person......No need to elucidate that; this's (sort of) for internal-use. ∯WBGconverse 19:24, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
I'm not really sure if we need the details about how to sign and how to ping, I expect that someone who's experienced enough to be a new page reviewer would know this already; but I do think the rest of the edit would be good and helpful to implement.--SkyGazer 512 Oh no, what did I do this time? 19:36, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
Winged Blades of Godric, SkyGazer 512, On this template, it may be teaching-grandma-to-suck-eggs, on most of the other NPF templates it isn't. I was hoping that this template would be a good testbed for the class of templates. Cabayi (talk) 20:18, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
Cabayi, Check my very recent edits and the ones over the last month or so, as to the NPP templates:-) ∯WBGconverse 20:22, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

If anything the tenplate should direct discussion to the article talkpage. Losing "unfortinately" is a good move. Legacypac (talk) 23:51, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Backlog more than 2 months

Just now, I patrolled the oldest unpatrolled article which was created on 12 October. To be clear, I talk about articles which has been created in the main space and never patrolled, not on articles accepted as AfC, moved from draft or userspace, nor reduced to redirects or blanked at some point. The next one was created on October 14 and has still not been patrolled. Once this lag is 3 months, the unpatrolled articles will start getting indexed. Please consider spending some of your time patrolling the end of the queue, paying attention to the type of articles I mentioned.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:56, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

The oldest articles have been around the two month time for several months now. I regularly patrol that side and can say it's stable and not worse. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:17, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
Ymblanter, The situation actually looks pretty similar to my 4th of December backlog update. See the 2 most recent Queries on my Quarry Profile. The tail at the back was a little longer on the 4th, but the 'cliff' is a little closer to the two month mark now. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 14:55, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
That's where my filter is set - oldest first - and it can be quite frustrating at times. The article I mentioned above (FYI section) was one that the author decided to ignore being denied and bypassed AfC on his own. It created a bit of confusion. He asked that the draft be AfD (wrongly tagged) and history merged to the mainspace article he moved over a redirect. When I tagged the mainspace A7, an IP (socks?) removed the tag, another reviewer restored the tag and it was removed again. Another 3rd reviewer made it an AfD nom (one article wasting the time of 3 reviewers, not to mention time spent at AfD). All around the same time, the SPA creator/potential COI requested a G7 of the draft, so it appears the closer misunderstood and tagged the AfD article G7, so it went back to Draft. Another reviewer restored the AfC tag that showed it was originally denied, and now it sits in Draft space while a SPI case sits awaits review. How long before we can delete that draft? If stuff like this keeps happening, I doubt we'll ever get the backlog caught up. Atsme✍🏻📧 16:16, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
I agree with Atsme that patrolling the oldest end of the queue is more time intensive than the new side. This makes some sense since some of the articles have already been passed over by multiple reviewers. That said, I continue my thinking that the overall size of the backlog is more important than where the cliff is (though that's a useful querry ICPH - is that linked on any of the NPP pages so I could return to it in the future?). If we start getting close to 90 days and the queue is 1000 overall articles it's relatively easy for us to whack the number of days back down. If we start getting close to 90 days and the queue is at 7500 articles the job is much tougher. So while I think the "cliff" needs regular monitoring, focus on the overall size of the queue is probably a simpler and better measurer. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:33, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
A few old outliers that no one feels are worth asking for deletion on is not a crisis. Yes patrol the back of the list but deleting new bad pages and quickly reviewing good ones to give editors the satisfaction of having them indexed is very good too. Legacypac (talk) 16:42, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
Legacypac, I agree. Barkeep49 makes a good point that the length of the backlog is less of an issue the fewer articles that there are in it total, because as it approaches the index point we can knock it back more easily. Thanks to everyone that patrols at the back though, because it is a lot harder to review the back of the queue. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 16:59, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
We are getting pretty close to getting back under 4000 again, I hope we can keep up the momentum through the holiday season and work it down a bit more from there. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 23:06, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Discussion at Template talk:Article for deletion/dated#NOINDEXing all nominated articles

 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Article for deletion/dated#NOINDEXing all nominated articles. — JJMC89 (T·C) 05:57, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

JJMC89, Thanks for bringing this to our attention. An important issue for sure. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 13:14, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Noindexing for UDP

FYI: {{Undisclosed paid}} is no longer noindexing new articles. Noindexing was originally implemented after discussion here. — JJMC89 (T·C) 19:13, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

References

Hi, everyone. I am a new NPP reviewer and looking for guidance on citations in unreviewed pages. It is my nature to be meticulous, so when I come across a page in the feed, I check every single reference to see if it's independent, secondary, and reliable to ensure there are at least two. Many pages have several references, particularly BLPs, but I still try to scrutinize and make sure they meet the criteria for acceptability (if no career-specific notability guidelines apply). I've had a couple of recent patrols challenged and I want to make sure I am doing this correctly. For example, I PRODed Anjan Mukherjee because he was in a fairly insignificant White House position (so he fails NPOL) and the only reference that meets the criteria is the WSJ profile, reference 7. The writer disagreed with me and said the references are fine. I want to make sure I'm not being too stringent and unnecessarily PRODding articles. Any advice is appreciated! Citrivescence (talk) 22:52, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

My somewhat cursory look at the sources suggests I agree with you. I definitely agree that his position is too low level to suggest SNG notability. My experience is that PROD tends to not be so useful when doing NPP and more often than not after doing a proper WP:BEFORE I default to AfD. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:12, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
@Barkeep49: Thank you, good to know. Citrivescence (talk) 01:03, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

Templates

Hello, any input here may be useful Template talk:Taggednonote-NPF. Thanks for looking at it, Boleyn (talk) 08:51, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, I've left a comment there.--SkyGazer 512 Oh no, what did I do this time? 14:19, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

Reviewing

Hello, Merry Christmas everybody! I was looking for other, uninvolved opinions at User talk:LouisAlain. I have repeatedly asked this editor to add references but they repeatedly create articles just with external links, 'weblinks' or nothing at all. I have tried to source some of these and couldn't find sources to show the information was accurate at all. I apologised to LouisAlain yesterday for being over-zealous but he has then created a load more of unreferenced articles with edit summaries like 'Go Boleyn, no references attached'. The editor appears to be autopatrolled and has created many articles. I'm hoping to avoid ANI or further arguments, but would appreciate anyone else offering them advice, whether they agree or disagree with me. Thanks, Boleyn (talk) 08:21, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

@Boleyn: Can I suggest that you use the ability of the new page patroller to move on to the next article in the new page feed. When you come across an article, especially a BLP by LouisAlain, and think it should be moved to draft space, pause, don't move it to draft, skip it and move on to the next article on the new page feed. Don't wear yourself out on problem editors incapable of or unwilling to adopt English Wikipedia policies. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:19, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
@Kudpung: Indeed. I've just revoked it. – Joe (talk) 12:30, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
Joe Roe, fair call. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:56, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
I agree with the revocation. If a user creates problematic articles they should be reviewed, regardless of the notability of the topics. Thanks, feminist (talk) 06:28, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

To all: I wasn't aware of this discussion regarding my little persona. Like I was stupid enough to stubornly refuse to add references or unwilling to adopt English Wikipedia policies. Just, the German wiki works on another pattern and has very, very few references. Also when I search through the Internet and can't find any ref. I indeed choose to add external links lack of other sources. Also I've been abstaining for 30 months I've been active here to refer to commercial sites only to learn 2 days ago that it was actually accepted. There are hundreds of thousands of articles without the slightest reference or source (I signaled two of them to Boleyn, to no avail though) and I've heard about the Pikachu argument which is perfectly dishonnest intellectually speaking. It boils down to: all users are equal but some are more equal than others.

Still, I don't know what autopatrolled right means, I won't suffer in my flesh but it is nonetheless an injury to my dignity. Oh well... LouisAlain (talk) 21:11, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

LouisAlain, We are fully aware that the German and French Wikipedias are not so strict on the requirement of sources, but this does not exempt the requirement for translations of germanophone or francophone articles from complying with the policies of the English Wikipedia. 'Auotopatrarolled' is not a right per se. It is not an award and does not accord any editing privileges or extra tools; its loss should leave you completely indifferent. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:57, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
I'll also add that I spared your 'dignity' by not initially mentioning your indeff block and ban in April 2016 on fr.Wiki. for sockpuppetry, and block evasion following a consensus at the French ANI . Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:38, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
Regardless of the merits of the revokation of this PERM this is a good example of summery revoking of a PERM without a discussion of the matter with the non-Admin user. Interestingly I tried to make this point at the GiantSnowman case and was prohibited from posting to the case page after a secret discussion. Some users are indeed more equal than others. Legacypac (talk) 12:28, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Advice

I am a new NPP reviewer and have been learning the ropes for the last two-three days only. Today, I came across R333ct0r a atutoconfirmed account with only 168 edits who seems to be tagging pages new pages. In particular, they tagged Nandan Pratim Sharma Bordoloi with {{BLP sources}} and {{Notability}} both of which I believe mean the same thing. Also, they have tagged Markus Gehring with both the {{Notability}} and {{Third-party}} tags at the same time despite both of them conveying the same meaning. I believe they are doing this in good faith however, I believe they need a bit of guidance and experience before they start tagging articles. I'd like to know what everyone else thinks... — fr ❄ 18:22, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

There's definitely a difference between {{Notability}}, {{Third-party}}, and {{BLP sources}}. Something may be insufficiently referenced or be referenced to sources close to the subject yet be notable. Not generally a fan of overtagging but the tagging is not problematic in that way. Galobtter (pingó mió) 18:27, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Page curation toolbar

Any advice on this issue gratefully received. Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Interesting_floating_menu_of_icons --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 10:51, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Resolved

--11:02, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Speedy deletion declined

I nominated Mark P. Lagon for speedy deletion under G11 and A7. It was turned down under both counts (I agree that A7 was stretching it a bit), and the net result was it was that it was marked as "reviewed", even though it is full of spam links and was created by an obvious CoI editor. I've put some tags on it now so hope the creator will answer my CoI question before improving it. I find it quite discouraging that admins should so heedlessly frustrate our efforts to keep such promotional articles out of article space. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 20:01, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

@Cwmhiraeth: Any articles with speedy tags shouldn't be marked as reviewed anymore (this changed recently), if that's what you're saying the issue is. It looks like that hasn't been fixed in the Page Curation toolbar yet but it has in Twinkle.--SkyGazer 512 Oh no, what did I do this time? 20:08, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
What that article needs is cleanup, not speedy deletion. It has plenty of claims of significance. Natureium (talk) 20:09, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
Cwmhiraeth, look at the sources. Below is a summary of the websites used by number of citations. Find the one that shouldn't be used (primary, not reliable, etc.) remove the statements supported by those sources and see if anything remains. If it's not enough to sustain an article, take it to AfD. Blogspot, linkedin are obviously dubious sources. I don't see a single reputable news organization. That's usally an indication something's not quite right. FWIW, the top most cited source is his employer. As you'd expect.
8 theglobalfight.org
5 2001-2009.state.gov
3 unanca.blogspot.com
3 polarisproject.org
3 gbcat.org
3 anthonyclarkarend.com
2 thehoya.com
2 gwcapitolhilltop.org
2 freedomhouse.org
1 un.org
1 theglobalfund.org
1 thecrimson.com
1 tandfonline.com
1 stories.clintonfoundation.org
1 sfs.georgetown.edu
1 press.georgetown.edu
1 polarisproject.org:80
1 ningunamujermas.files.wordpress.com
1 linkedin.com
1 iwp.edu
1 isst-d.org
1 gufaculty360.georgetown.edu
1 cfr.org Vexations (talk) 20:23, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
Cwmhiraeth, also note that Draft:Mark_Lagon was deleted under G11. Another thing you could do is ask that the author disclose their conflict of interest. I don't want to out the author, so I won't tell you their identity, but it's a pretty blatant case of a coi, and possibly paid editing. Vexations (talk) 20:47, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the advice. I have already asked the creator to disclose their conflict of interest. If the draft qualified for G11 then so did the article. I am stopping for the night so will leave it for the time being. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 20:55, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

New Copyvio script that displays as part of the page curation tools

Wasn't sure if my request would go anywhere, but someone recently integrated copyvio detection into the Page curation tools with a new script User:FR30799386/copyvio-check. After installed, it clandestinely checks earwig's copyvios detector, and then displays this info at the bottom of the 'info' page in the page curation flyout. All you have to do is click the 'info' button and it will display the %match number and also have a link to the earwig page. Seems to work well, but keen to have other's feedback as well. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 12:50, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Couldn't get it to work. On trying to install it I get 'This document contains errors." Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:31, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
Kudpung, click okay on the dialog. It's a standard warning which you get when the mediawiki software detects wikimarkup in a .js file. The software will convert it to Javascript while saving the file.  — fr ❄ 13:57, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
Very handy. Thanks. Onel5969 TT me 14:06, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
This is an awesome tool! Thanks Alucard 16❯❯❯ chat? 16:40, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Just a update, after a talk with the maintainer of the copyvio tool, I changed the script to do the copyvio check when the information icon of the toolbar is clicked and not autorun on its own as was originally intended due to concerns about overloading the copyvio tool. — fr ❄ 04:36, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Technical question on Drafts and moves

If a Draft page is marked reviewed before a move to mainspace does it stay reviewed? It seems so to me. I notice however that once I move a page I loose the ability/link to review the page which seems unreasonable. Part of the review process may be moving a page to a better title (to or in mainspace) including correcting DAB issues, capitalization etc. Legacypac (talk) 08:59, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

The inability to review a cross-space move is to prevent Autopatrolled from losing it's significance. ∯WBGconverse 10:01, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
For example, you belong to AFC as well as NPP. You see a shitty draft on Mr X and rewrite that completely; pending which you send it to main-space (valid AFC accept). If you have the ability to mark that very article as reviewed; you have basically created a new article and reviewed it by yourself without any second eye across the entire process; which is solely reserved for Auto-patrolled editors. ∯WBGconverse 10:06, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

undisclosed paid editing by multiple accounts with page curation and new page reviewer rights

Well, this is interesting. Thanks for the tip Michael Goodyear. lauren@worldresearchernews.com or Emily claims to have been editing on Wikipedia for 7+ years and created tons of pages and have multiple accounts page curation and new page reviewer rights. Time to demand that all editors with advanced permissions like new page reviewer sign a declaration that they will not edit for pay and purge sleeper accounts with such permissions. Pay close attention to new articles about academic with weird errors. Laurel or Emily is a pretty bad editor: wondered of, your self, i, wikipedia). Which makes me wonder if it's perhaps a scam: hand over your money and receive nothing in return. Vexations (talk) 23:02, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, those copyediting errors seem like pretty classic scam-screening. I would expect someone capable of being a NPP secretly approving un-notable articles for 7+ years to be slightly better at catching copyediting errors. signed, Rosguill talk 23:26, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
This one may be a scam, I had considered that, but it seems the practice may be common. For instance, see WikiProfessionals (which is a blacklisted link) --Michael Goodyear ✐  ✉ 23:59, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
It seems it is not a scam - here is an example of their work: cost $999 Ayman Al-Hendy --Michael Goodyear ✐  ✉ 23:14, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
That article is about a researcher with an h-index of 38 which is totally notable though, no trickery needed. signed, Rosguill talk 23:32, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
The point of these is to create AfD-proof puff bios on notable academics. Galobtter (pingó mió) 03:40, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
(Two comments in one because why not):
Galobtter, that's why I think WP:PROF is a load of gubbins. No other SNGs supersede GNG but for professors it's oh-so-different.
Rosguill, I was going to say: it kind of saddens me that people would pay that much money when they could just be upfront about it, do it themselves, and pass GNG. SITH (talk) 15:43, 13 January 2019 (UTC)
For the record, paid editors (disclosure or not) are explicitly barred from holding NPR rights ("The editor must review pages solely on a volunteer basis.") If 'Emily' isn't lying, they should be revoked immediately. But they're probably lying. – Joe (talk) 23:39, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
Joe Roe, 'Emily' is almost certainly lying when it comes to the photo, which they claim as own work. Going by the exif data, It looks like it was taken by an iPhone 7 or later, from a screen. The subject, looking at his online presence, has a preferred publicity shot that is not used here. If he had commissioned the article, he would have provide a better photo, I think. It's possible the article was created as a demo piece, without the collaboration of the subject. Vexations (talk) 03:35, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
As one who has negotiated photo releases with article subjects: bullshit. Guy (Help!) 22:10, 10 January 2019 (UTC)
JzG, Thanks for your constructive feedback. I'm clearly too stupid to edit Wikipedia, so I'll be on my way. Have fun without me. Vexations (talk) 23:20, 10 January 2019 (UTC)
Sure, enjoy your flounce. Meanwhile back in the real world pulicity shots are often not actually owned y the subject and many subjects will not release them anyway under a license that allows free use and modification, for reasons I think are obvious. Guy (Help!) 08:44, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
"paid editors... are explicitly barred from holding NPR rights" How do you reach that conclusion, from the text you cite, which says nothing of the kind? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:11, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
  • IMHO, we are (probably) a bit over-responding to a not-so-uncommon email. I have seen several emails in OTRS; wherein random subjects have been approached in a similar fashion and near-always; they have a bunch of page-patrollers and sysops, in hand. Also, they are generally far-experienced to be tricked into releasing any trails.

May NPP reviewers draftify a page on the basis that the author has a clear conflict of interest

May NPP reviewers draftify a page on the basis that the author has a clear conflict of interest?

That is, should WP:COIEDIT say “should” or “must”? With WP:DRAFTIFY following suit?

Please see Wikipedia_talk:Conflict_of_interest#Must_COI_authors_out_their_new_page_through_AfC?. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:12, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

I just stumbled on an interesting COI where the article on a highly notable female physicist (according to Nature, one of the world's leading scientific journals), and author of some 400 BLP on women scientists and other marginalised groups , was written by an acquaintance. While every possible due diligence should be made to prevent exploitation of the encyclopedia for advertising and financial exploitation, let's be sure to use some discretion when appropriate. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:04, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
Hi @Kudpung: I am hoping that I haven't been too harsh, it is just clear that some COI editing is taking place at both Jess Wade and Ben Britton, and I felt it best these be declared on the talk pages, as it may help prevent further COI editing there. I have closed the COI declarations from further talk and so hopefully you will acknowledge I have been fair and was acting in good faith only in the interests of full disclosure.Polyamorph (talk) 07:15, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
Polyamorph, if anyone is strict about COI, it's me because I have been coaxing NPP along for a decade. That said, I think Ben's COI is quite harmless, it's not as if there is any financial gain at stake or they have been conniving to get her a page on Wikipedia. One of the things that irks me is that every soccer player who has played five minutes in one match gets a BLP based only on their listing in a squad, while scientists who really have contributed to research and knowledge have to jump through so many hoops. I can advise on using discretion at NPP, but I can't tell topic projects what notability criteria to use. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:12, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
  • If a page is draftified then it will tend to be only looked at by people who know that it is there. If there's a possibility of CoI then it is therefore not sensible to silo the topic because only the putative CoI author is likely to work on it there. If what you want is the viewpoint and input of other editors then these are mostly likely to be found if the article is in mainspace. So, the answer to the OP's question is NO. See also WP:IMPERFECT. Andrew D. (talk) 09:51, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
  • I said this in the discussion that SmokeyJoe linked to but since we seem to be having our own version of it here, I will say that my thinking tracks largely, though not completely, with Andrew's and Kudpung's. If a COI article has substantial issues, such as lacking NPOV, then the COI may be a reason to Draftify. If the article is net positive it should not be draftified just because it has a COI. The way that this plays out practically is that an article about a scientist written by a COI editor is far more likely than say an article about a musician to be clearly net positive and thus should remain in mainspace and be incrementally improved (or not) as our thousands of our other articles. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:57, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
  • No. COI doesn't mean the material present in the article is no good and must be hid from viewers. Thanks,L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 16:13, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Eurovision Contest and WP:MUSICBIO Criteria 12

I am working with Girth Summit on training for NPP. As part of this he came across Arion (band). His question, which I don't know the answer of what we've done in the past and so I thought I would seek the wisdom of the group is They were finalists in the Finnish competition to select an representative for the Eurovision Song Contest in 2013. They came fifth in that, so wouldn't pass criterion 8 of WP:NMUSIC (coming 1st, 2nd or 3rd in a major competition), but the contest would presumably have been televised, and they might pass criterion 12 (subject of a substantial broadcast segment. Since there are a lot of groups that go through Eurovision at the country level, I figured that this has come up before and didn't know whether there was agreement that it satisfied criteria 12, or not. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:49, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Deactivate inactive/very-low activity NPR accounts?

The claim in the section above by the paid editing ring to have accounts with New Page reviewer and page curation rights is worrying. This concern I think is enough that I think we should purge the inactive NPR rights holders and institute a minimum review count as a rule for retaining the right. I'd suggest we remove anyone who has done less than 10 reviews in the last 6 months, then add it as a rule on the NPR rights page that if you do less than this number, your NPR rights may be deactivated by an admin at any time. I previously wasn't keen on this option, but if paid editors are abusing the NPR system, the least we can do is remove the inactive ones in the hope that we catch them in the net. As it is it might be very difficult to notice a sleeper account that only makes 1 review every few weeks/months (reviewing paid creations), as the review count wouldn't show up in the bot page. There are some 300 NPR rights holders that have done no reviews in the last 6 months, and another 150 or so that have made less than 10.https://quarry.wmflabs.org/query/32574 Ping Kudpung — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 17:22, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

    • What makes you believe that if someone were a paid editor they wouldn't review many articles? Natureium (talk) 17:24, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
      Natureium, Nothing makes me think that. But they might, and this is low-hanging fruit. We might as well go for it and cull the inactive reviewers as they contribute next to nothing to the project anyway. (Moreover, I am of the mind that such infrequent reviewing probably isn't enough to be able to keep from getting rusty with the NPR system, which is complicated enough that regular reviewing is almost essential to maintain a mental roadmap of the reviewing process without forgetting crucial steps).
      As for rooting out paid editors who also do regular-ish reviewing, this is a much harder to accomplish task. Others such as TonyBallioni (who frequents WP:COIN) might have more insight or ideas on how that might be accomplished. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 17:32, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
    Insertcleverphrasehere, what makes you feel that paid editors are abusing the NPR system? I don't see any evidence. ∯WBGconverse 17:31, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
    Winged Blades of Godric, We for one, that's what the message claimed in the email that Goodyear received. While this is only a claim, paid editing rings have been discovered with reasonably experienced users at the helm in the past. It isn't a stretch to consider that such editors would request NPR rights (and/or AfC) to try to skip the review system. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 17:34, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
    Are you into Upwork and all that stuff?
    As James/GSS might agree with; I have come across numerous users (with quite good hidden portfolios) that claim to have NPRs, sysops and what not. I refuse to believe that we have 100s of NPRs and sysops; who are into UPE and colluding in such nefarious activities. That's plainly irrational.
    During the times of ACE; you will find pretty many banned/blocked users boasting off-wiki about how they voted through their 13th sock. We don't go crazy and start a manhunt after each !voter to identify whether they are anybody's sock.
    Once you start taking decisions based on a shadowy foundation, (that oft lacks any semblance to truth), you start going down a slippery slope. I believe that the current level of awareness among our reviewers and sentiments in our community is quite-conducive as to screening out UPE; than that was a few years back. But, that's not a license to be even more aggressive and turn this into a wild goose chase.
    I, for one, don't understand the sentiments behind these proposals of right-revocation and fail to see about how this will improve the circumstances in any manner (If anything; it's far far easier for someone like Onel to push a borderline stuff courtesy his sheer volume of reviewing and (if caught) escape by the virtues of his other good reviews; Onel, I have great admiration for your tremendous work and if you read this, please don't take this as a reflection on your motives et al) esp. that IMO, every additional review contributes to the culling of backlog. Additionally, I am not a frequent reviewer (by any standards) but can assure you to have a clearer mental-roadmap of reviewing than a majority. ∯WBGconverse 17:53, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
    To your ACE point, scrutineers do check each vote. Natureium (talk) 17:56, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
    I know that; though there is some related bean-sy stuff. They claim to vote in a manner that evades the technical-mesh of CU whilst simultaneously venting about their socks getting Glocked in a regular fashion (which pretty much proves their capabilities). Also, the number of strikeouts is quite-quite less than the cumulative volume of all these claims which, if taken in a true sense, ought to lead the broader editorial community into launching behavioral investigations against all the users who remain largely inactive but become visible at the voter-logs. My opinion is that both of the claims are near-equally overblown.∯WBGconverse 18:09, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
    And more broadly if people aren't using a PERM I think it should be best practice to turn it back in. Whether or not that helps us with this issue, I suspect it would be of modest help since someone who is paid would be motivated to do enough to meet what would (and should be) a modest standard. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:05, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
    I agree with the first point on moral grounds:-) ∯WBGconverse 18:09, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
    Winged Blades of Godric, I'm not claiming we have 100s of UPE's in NPR; but there isn't much reason for these people to have NPR if they don't use it, and it lessens the risk of sleeper accounts if we deactivate inactive or mostly inactive NPR rights holders. This isn't the only reason to require some minimum amount of activity, as I state above, but I think it is the first reason that has convinced me that we should probably do it.
    I was previously of the opinion that having inactive NPR accounts didn't do any harm, which is why I've generally been against deactivating these accounts, but now that there is a reason, I am convinced that culling the NPR list to only users of a certain activity level is now the way to go. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 18:20, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
    Hi WBG - To be honest when I first read your post, I was miffed. Why the hell was I being dragged into this conversation? But after re-reading it a couple of times, I completely get your point. Folks who are more active are less likely to get noticed if they are approving crap. I think that's one reason why I did get miffed a few months ago when an editor I highly respect suggested that I wasn't performing my reviews well. But I take NPP pretty seriously. I do think, as other editors here do, that it is one of the most important functions of WP editors. Regarding the inactive editors, I'll leave my comments at the end of the whole thread.Onel5969 TT me 23:52, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
    Hi Onel5969. I think, what WBG is trying to say is: if someone wanted to perform one paid review, then they would review 100 articles. In that case, if caught, it would be overlooked as a mistake. —usernamekiran(talk) 00:10, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
    While I am broadly supportive of purging inactive reviewers for any number of reasons including this, I think implementing such a change would need to be supported by an RfC. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:39, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
    Barkeep49, Yes, I agree. We can discuss it a bit here to feel out how receptive people are, but ultimately we should probably have a !vote on it. It would be much easier to be able to point to the RfC when removing the rights from inactive of low-activity reviewers. My '10 in 6 months' figure was a number I just pulled out of my hat, if anyone else prefers a different bar, they should suggest it. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 17:51, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
    If someone is getting paid to make Wikipedia articles, I'm guessing he/she will find the time to overcome any activity barrier we put up. The only benefit of purging the rolls that I can imagine would be to clear the rolls of inactive accounts that could become compromised in the future (analagous to the reasoning for desysoping admins for inactivity... though a compromised sysop account can cause more headaches than a compromised NPR account...). That said, I'd support removing the NPR flag after 12 months with 0 reviews with a warning before the flag is removed. If we're lucky, the warning may inspire a few quiescent reviewers to do some reviewing! Ajpolino (talk) 20:17, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
  • A few weeks ago, I thought about the same as Insertcleverphrasehere. But there is a problem with the solution. If some non wikipedian is getting paid, they stand-out. If some "wikipedian" starts accepting compensation/money, then it is difficult to track them down. More experienced the user, more difficult to track them down. If we increase the bar, it will also increase the knowledge/experince of the undesired(s).
    Before my activity decreased (in this interval/period; i hope to be back soon), I came across a meat farm active in Indian television related articles. Around the same time, I found out in real life that there are PR firms, advertisements firms that are including "wikipedia" in their online marketing section. After I James Jesus Angleton-ed the on-wiki situation, I realised there must be a few experienced editors giving out tips to avoid CUs, and on-wiki scrutiny/behavioural similarities OR in worse scenario: a paid editor had a "clean start", and is now an experienced but still a paid editor. A perfect good hand account, without any socks.
    For a few different reasons, I think we should make a concrete rule of removing the NPR perm of certain inactivity. This would make a small impact on paid reviwers, it would also be beneficial for us to track suspicious reviews, and it would also get rid of the incorrect number of current reviewers. A bot can easily track the reviews, and create a list if editors to be removed from NPR group. But unlike desysop-ing, it should be done without email. I think we should have an RfC to avoid objections later, it would also be helpful for cementing the policy. —usernamekiran(talk) 23:15, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
    Usernamekiran, get rid of the incorrect number of current reviewers? And, what good does that do?
    Running a query and retrieving data on active-reviewers (you can define activity by quite-complex means non necessarily limited to a part. number in part. time-span) is pretty easy and fast.
    If you are urging the reviewers to be more active and believe that the wrong net-count is responsible for not instigating them enough; you can easily send out some lesser number (ext-linked with the query) that gives a realistic view of the net-active reviewers over the newsletters.
    And, as I said suspicious reviews are far far easy to be sneaked in-between tens of good reviews. ∯WBGconverse 05:24, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
    Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Website offering paid editing. A thread backing-up my concerns. —usernamekiran(talk) 23:49, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Comment - I agree an RFC is needed, but I would support removing the privilege from inactive users after a year. I honestly don't know about the paid editing aspect, other my normal despising thereof. Onel5969 TT me 00:09, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
  • One of the very reasons why the NPR right was created was to prevent New Page Patrolling from being used for corrupt practice. My views on the removal of NPR rights are well enough known. The current problem is partly my own fault because when I wrote the rule book for NPR I omitted to include a specific inactivity clause. If I had, it would have been there and would not have been disputed. Now we have to apparently go through the whole rigmarole of RfC to get even minor changes made to it.
Obviously with around 650 NPR accounts some are going to be used for UPE and let's not forget that we've had blackhat UPE by admins, autopatrollers, and OTRS agents using their privileges for money, so why not NPR? See KDS444 and this Signpost report- and while we're doing , that ascertain why the reincarnation of previously deleted, probably still non notable article originally created by KDS444 or Renee Hoyos was passed as patrolled (I made a private off-Wiki bet that he would be back as soon as CU data has expired).
I think fewer than 10 patrols in 6 months would be perfectly reasonable. However, if it has to go through RfC, it needs to be carefully planned - many RfC fail simply because the proposal was not well worded. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:03, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Can you please provide a few diffs for blackhat UPE by admins in recent past?
    And, (without any comments on the quality of the review), Hoyos has been reviewed by Ipigott; someone who has been here for quite quite long and has 78 reviews in the past 6 months. Given that the thread concerns with paid NPRs; where are you going with this?∯WBGconverse 05:40, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
    Winged Blades of Godric, where are ‘’you’’ going with this? What is the problem with removing advanced permissions from users that don’t even use them? or use them so rarely as to be more of a liability than help? I don’t think we need direct evidence of UPE NPR’s to know that it is likely something that UPE’s would seek out. If we can clean up the NPR group it might help (and also might have no effect). But where is the great harm in doing so? — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 08:50, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
    I am strongly against your statement which implies that all those who are not using their rights currently are a liability.
    This is a volunteer project, where we are free to work per our own wishes and it's not prudential to demand a certain workload (10 reviews is way too much). Also, my view is that you are over-blowing the security-concerns and those who wish to abuse our system will go on unabated; except that they will be more difficult to trap due to the enforced volume (with which they will comply) and that they will further have the excuse of hiding behind .....That's one bad review across so many; I'm innocent!!..... Also, in my opinion, EVERY additional review (even if one every year) counts towards a reduction in the backlog.
    And, since, we have thrown data-driven-talks out of the window, I note these, three and examples of NPP-flag revocation on UPE-concerns. you might wish to check their patrol-logs and activity-levels:-)
    To be fair, I recalled the above from my memory and they are not random. So, it may be perfectly plausible that there exists cases, wherein rights have been revoked from folks who would have failed the proposed activity barrier. Feel free to dig them up.∯WBGconverse 09:47, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Noting that there has been 156 NPP revocations (many of whom might have got them back; later) till date. Will look into adding other relevant stuff to the query, once I get some time.∯WBGconverse 06:56, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
    • Exclude those who are currently sysops and the number drops to 133, add names and you see not only cases of promotion like Tony Ballioni, but also sabbaticals from sysop duties like Kudpung. Some of the other names I recognise as locally blocked or globally locked. At least one that I see was granted the right with an expiration date and has not (yet) requested renewal. Cabayi (talk) 12:06, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
  • An analogous case is AFC where 6 months of inactivity results in removal of script access. Given many of us want to merge that quasi PERM with NPP we should align the inactivity requirements. Make NPP a flag that can be rerequested which allows a quick review of the user's activity. This will cut out the hat collectors. I do not think we need an RFC if we align NPP PERM with AfC inactivity removal. Legacypac (talk) 08:54, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

RfC of potential interest

An RfC is underway that interested "watchers of this page" wound enhance by participating, I hope that many will! The discussion is located at Wikipedia talk:Twinkle#RfC regarding "Ambox generated" maintenance tags that recommend the inclusion of additional sources. Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 06:43, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

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