Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/Archive 22

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Articles for Creation checklist for editors

I tend to review, or rescue and accept, older articles for creation. I have not been very successful in getting editors to follow my comments to improve their articles. Teaching people how to write encyclopedia articles isn't easy. I think the "teachable moment" may be right as they are submitting an article for review. I would like to provide a short checklist for editors to look at before pushing the "Submit" button, with a "read this first link" next to the button.

A note about footnotes for reviewers. References are hard. The goal is to get as much content from the editor as possible, not have to look for it ourselves. Anything between ref tags is acceptable at this stage, bare URLs or simple text. References can be fixed up after the article is accepted. Editors don't need to learn this now. StarryGrandma (talk) 18:45, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Quick note: Not everything must have a footnote, in fact WP:V says quite clearly All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material. Therefore having a footnote for every statement could easily push the submission into WP:CITEKILL territory. Also while it is nice to have inline citations, it's not a hardline requirement for the article to be accepted.

Hi, Hasteur. At some point as the article grows we need to know what material in it comes from where. The original editor is the best person to get this information into it in the beginning. Is there a better way of asking for sources of specific information in the articles? StarryGrandma (talk) 19:04, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

A good idea, but I'm not sure how much it will solve: point 1) very few new contributors are capable of grasping the non-notability of the subject they're writing about. In my experience it takes two or three reviewers to repeatedly point out the unimportance of the topic before they understand. I like point 3, but as Hasteur points out, point 4 is not supported by policy and will likely lead to CITEKILL issues that will then have to fixed, by someone. Bellerophon _{talk to me} 19:36, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm hoping this will help editors learn how to write articles, so it isn't just aimed at those trying to put in non-notable stuff. (Notability is hard to explain to an editor when their pet project isn't notable.) I wanted to give some sense of what will happen when the article is reviewed, that it might all not all be looked at the first time. That other things will be looked at later. Editors complain at the Teahouse that they fix something (usually notability), then get turned down for something else. You are both right about point 4. What about something like:

4. Can we tell where the information comes from? If you are using more than one source, put in a few footnotes to show which source goes with which information. You can use sources associated with the subject for some of this material. They don't need to be online but you need to provide enough information that others can find the source.

StarryGrandma (talk) 21:33, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Also a comment on citations, since I've been working on fixing reference problems in articles for over two years now. I shudder to think that it was all unnecessary. WP:CITE says Wikipedia's Verifiability policy requires inline citations for any material challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations, anywhere in article space. However, editors are advised to provide citations for all material added to Wikipedia; any unsourced material risks being unexpectedly challenged or eventually removed. StarryGrandma (talk) 21:56, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Citations are not necessary to meet the bare minimum standard to not be deleted, so yes in a sense it is "unnecessary", but in a more accurate sense citations greatly improve the quality of an article and thus fixing/adding them is much appreciated. --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:59, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

It's a balancing act between not enough and too many. Ideally I look for about 2 to 3 references per section of content for quickfail arguments. If I see a cluster of 5 references all on the same statement, that's enough to push me into CITEKILL declines. Once I've gotten past those rocks, I look at the content and read carefully. I keep a running count of the number of sensational statements that I'd want to slap a {{cn}} on. If I get above 4, I decline and point out the statements I want reviews on prior to it being accepted. Hasteur (talk) 00:59, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. As I reread WP:V it has finally sunk in that verifiability means that there are reliable sources "out there", but they don't need to actually be in the article either as footnotes or in a list of references, unless needed for the listed reasons or to demonstrate notability or something is challenged. But Wikipedia is evolving to include more references. And material that isn't specifically cited can be removed, so if you want to be sure it stays there, put in citations. Does that about sum it up? StarryGrandma (talk) 02:49, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

This is a fantastic idea. I personally am fond of footnotes, but even if we were to trim what is said to simply talk about what is required in the way of sources, *some* kind of education at the submit point might have a substantial impact on AfC. --j⚛e decker^talk 00:31, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Once again I would like to point out the already approved but never implemented proposal for which the javascript is already written (although the word "citations" needs to be changed to "references", since not all articles require citations). I didn't know how to get it done then, and I still don't. —Anne Delong (talk) 10:50, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

@Anne Delong: It's a shame that proposal has not yet been implemented, despite it's significant support. I suspect StarryGrandma's idea would be far quicker and easier to implement, even if it is a less complete solution. Bellerophon _{talk to me} 15:44, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Not so, because the code is all written and functional, and needed only someone to test it, but no one offered. If this is done instead, I will accept it, but I will SULK (oh, wait, I've already done that; maybe I'll take up knitting....) —Anne Delong (talk) 15:58, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

What is involved with testing it? Sorry I'd either missed this entirely, or forgotten, but what can I do to help? --j⚛e decker^talk 16:43, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, deploying this method would require packaging the Javascript code as a widget and getting the widget installed and enabled by default for all users. I think this second need would be a sticking point; the few proposals I've seen at Wikipedia:Gadget/proposals in my quick search that proposed an opt-out policy were not well received. However, nothing ventured, nothing gained; perhaps a discussion at the gadget proposal page would be good to have. isaacl (talk) 22:40, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

This was discussed, and yes, it would need to be in the default package, but it would only ever be seen by new editors who used the article wizard to make their first article, when they submitted it for review. No one else would ever see it. However, that's why it needed to be bug free, so that it wouldn't annoy anyone else. If you want to see what it would look like, you would first need to add "importScript("User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/afcDialog.js");" to your common.js page and then look at this page and click where it says "click here". —Anne Delong (talk) 23:59, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the instructions; it is appreciated. It would probably be useful to prepare for deployment by obtaining approval for the proposal at Wikipedia:Gadget/proposals, so implementation can occur promptly once testing is completed. (Or if approval is not obtained, then efforts can be redirected towards other approaches.) isaacl (talk) 00:16, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I"m enjoying that popup, Anne--and it appears to be working properly for me. --j⚛e decker^talk 23:24, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

@Anne Delong: Anne's checklist popping up automatically is lovely. It seems much more effective for getting reliable references in at the beginning. I was proposing asking editors to click on something to read before submitting. How many would take the time to do that? I'd still like to see some sort of very simple checklist that users could choose to read. Maybe another link under "How to improve your article". StarryGrandma (talk) 02:37, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

StarryGrandma, There's Wikipedia:Your first article, and Wikipedia:Writing better articles, but both of these are a lot to digest. It would be nice to have a page like these, but short, with only the information that relates to getting a draft article past AfC. —Anne Delong (talk) 03:23, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

What is checked before launch?

I was wondering what the criteria are for approval of an article. Quite often I find articles on Articles With Multiple Dablinks that are just approved on AfC en launched. For example Martin Watier, what came with a whopping 47(!) links to disambiguation articles. An article with so many links to disambiguation pages is just not ready for launch... The Banner talk 15:03, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

@The Banner: A commonly used phrase is "If an article has 50% chance to survive an AFD, it should be accepted". Generally this means that article's should be able to pass the various CSD criteria, have a claim to notability and a couple of reliable sources to back that claim up. Grammar, style and wikisyntax issues are generally not a reason to decline an article. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 15:25, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Ow goody. So approval does not necessarily mean that it is a wiki-worth article? The Banner talk 16:10, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

"Wiki-worthy" is an opinion. Insisting on perfect articles is not the way to encourage new users. Policy is that the subject must be notable and that the article must be free of copyvio and promotional language, be neutral, and be comprehensible. Furthermore, any contentious claims must be referenced by inline citations, taking special care wth BLPs. Anything beyond that is cleanup work and not a sufficient reason to decline. --ThaddeusB (talk) 16:40, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The criteria are (in a nutshell): the article must be about a notable subject, adequately verified through appropriate sourcing, BLP compliant, NPOV compliant, not a copyright violation and basically presentable. Which, I feel, is enough for reviewers to have to consider without worrying about DABlinks, which can be fixed in a heartbeat by the AWB army. I suspect newly created articles (via AfC) rarely contain so many. Bellerophon _{talk to me} 15:27, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. (What I will often do about dablinks, though, is leave a note on the approved talk page. I have some option turned on that makes dablinks glow yellow, it's very easy for me to write down a short list of "hey, these wikilinks don't go where you think they do." I believe there is, also, a maint. template as well for articles containing 5 or more dablinks.) --j⚛e decker^talk 15:49, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

I do not belong to the so called "AWB Army" (I use WikiCleaner), but I do solve a lot of links to disambiguation pages. It is quite frustrating to see those articles coming and it is even more frustrating to read here "don't worry about links to disambiguation pages, some other fool will solve them". To stay positive, I hope approvers are now a bit more aware of the existing frustrations and keep an eye on disambiguation links. The Banner talk 17:01, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Of course the person promoting the article can fix dab links and perhaps should be encouraged to do so. However, expecting a newbie (i.e. an AfC user) to get everything right is not reasonable. --ThaddeusB (talk) 17:26, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

We have a real problem these days where articles are deleted or stalled for quality reasons. They should not be. We're supposed to be a collaborative project; if it has a probllem that offends you, you get to fix it. AfC should be passable when an article meets our basic standards for existence, not for quality. Then we start to work on the quality.

As it is, good articles on good topics are stifled because they don't pas this new invented "minimum quality" standard. We don't have any such standard and such a thing would be harmful to progress. If you don't like an article at AfC, you can of course fix it before it goes live. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:45, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

As has been stated, the rule of thumb is "would you AfD it". I've never seen an article going to AfD with a rationale of "too many disambigs" - it would (all things being equal) be speedy kept. Don't assume by me passing Mike Stone (defence) that I think it's a well written, neutral article that in no way puffs up the subject! To be honest, I get the odd dablink notification (usually thinking "I can't believe there's more than one Brentwood") and just run off and fix them. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 07:29, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Section edit problem?

I tried to edit one of the existing sections on this talk page, and the text in my edit window was from the section above. I tried several sections and subsections, and each time I had to pick the edit selector of the section below in order to edit. Is this happening to anyone else? —Anne Delong (talk) 23:09, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Anne Delong I know this occurs when the sections of a page are changed after you load it. The edit link itself contains the parameter "&section=<Number>", where number is the number of the section on the current page. If someone inserts a section above the section you are trying to edit all sections will receive new numbers (Or in simpler and more accurate terms: section 1 will now be section 2, section 2 will now be section 3 and so on).

However, on your outdated page the section 1 link will still be displayed next to the "old" section 1 (Which now renumbered to section 2). Clicking this section 1 link will request section 1 from the server which, in the newly saved version, is another section than it was before. The same applies for all section beneath it, as all will be off by one (or more!) numbers. The simplest way to solve it is a good ol' Bypass of the cache. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 00:13, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Ah! Thanks, Excirial, that explains why I've had this problem occasionally at the Teahouse, where the sections are added at the top in the normal course of business. Hey, if I hang around here long enough, all of the knowledge of the world (well, okay, of Wikipedia) will pass by... —Anne Delong (talk) 00:28, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Submissions duplicated in mainspace

I was just reviewing Draft:Lowborn (Anberlin album), when I noticed that two days after the author put the submission on the queue, another editor created Lowborn independently in mainspace. I feel this is usually a good thing, as it indicates a genuinely notable topic if two editors independently decide to create it, but I don't know how we track this back to the submitter. It's not fair to decline it as "submission already exists", as when they hit the "submit" button, it didn't!

For now, I've redirected to the mainspace article and left them a note. This isn't the first time we've taken so long to get a submission accepted that events have overtaken and its gets created independently by someone else - The Beatles' rooftop concert was another example. How should we normally tackle these? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:36, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

• Is the content identical or is there useful info in each that's not in the other? A WP:HISTMERGE "may" be appropriate. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 11:07, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

They're reasonably different, but while the AfC submission has more content, the sourcing is not as good as the live article. I'm not sure what you could comfortably pick out of it. I don't recognise underthegunreview.net as an unquestionably great source, although it doesn't leap out as being all user-submitted. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:16, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

• Ritchie333} IMO, I would have declined the draft as "existss in mainspace" and encourage the draft's advocate to migrate appropriate content from the draft version to the main article (thereby resolving the copyright-attribution problem from the equation). If the draft's advocate doesn't feel like migrating anything, in 6 months the draft will become eligible for G13. Hasteur (talk) 12:52, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
• Personally, I tend to do exactly what Ritchie did and redirect to mainspace, with due consideration to content and history merging. Bellerophon _{talk to me} 14:40, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
• Getting the original editor to move any useful additions to the draft over to the mainspace article is the optimal way to deal with these copy-pastes; then the draft copy isn't needed at all and can be G6'd. No matter how quickly the reviewers work, there are always impatient editors who make another copy even sooner (I've seen one created only ten minutes later). However, if there's valuable sourced information in the draft and the editor doesn't respond, a content merge is called for: moving the content with an edit summary saying who the original editor was, moving the draft to mainspace with an appropriate alternative title and then redirecting it to the main article. On the redirect page a {{R from merge}} template should be added so that no one will delete the redirect. If this isn't done, the content will be eventually lost to G13 as mentioned above, and this may be inevitable in many cases because often AfC reviewers just don't have time to do content merges. —Anne Delong (talk) 15:32, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Helper script access?

Could I have access to the AfC helper script to remove an annoying notice that will not go away? jps (talk) 22:13, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

• What notice, where? — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 22:15, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Appears to be a pop-up. Twinkle problems perhaps? Anyway, I'd like to avoid future popups. jps (talk) 22:51, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
  • NM. I'll just add myself to the participants list. jps (talk) 22:56, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

• Alternatively you could disable Yet Another AFC Helper Script in Preferences > Gadgets --LukeSurl ^{t c} 23:00, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

• Not sure how it was enabled in the first place. jps (talk) 10:59, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

• Oh! That notice. Yeah... Just disable the gadget. We'll have to look into that more... Theopolisme, I know you're not expected back from your "vacation" for another week, but, when you get back, is there any way that that notice can offer a button that when clicked will disable the gadget for them and reload the page? — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 12:04, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

An annoying quirk

I find it very frustrating that as a non-admin (but autoconfirmed etc.), I can easily move existing articles over redirects if they have only one line in the history which simply created the redirect, e.g. [1]. But I can't move accepted articles out of Draft or Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation space over such redirects and have to ask an administrator. I wonder what the rationale is or is it just some quirk of the Wikimedia software? If it's a quirk, is there some way to get it fixed? Voceditenore (talk) 09:06, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

When trying to move pages from Draft or AfC space over a redirect, are you performing a page move with AfC Helper Script or a standard page move? Bellerophon _{talk to me} 09:40, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

A standard page move, Bellerophon. For some reason the "helper" script doesn't work at all for me. Not that I mind, I think it's too impersonal. Mostly what I do here is accept articles or write comments on the drafts with recommendations if I wouldn't accept them. However, I believe that editors here who do you use the script have encountered that problem. Example yesterday, I tried to move this, but at the time Tarbat House was a simple redirect to Milntown Castle with no other history. Interestingly, the administrator who did it for me (Yngvadottir) had to delete the redirect page entirely [2] before being able to make the move. So it looks like it not even administrators can move stuff from AfC space directly into article space over an existing redirect. Has anyone else here who does use the script had this problem? Voceditenore (talk) 10:57, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

I've not encountered the problem myself. In the past, it was not uncommon for some new users at AfC to effectively 'accept' their own submissions — which is not necessarily a problem. When such submissions were clearly going to be speedy deleted, it was also not uncommon for reviewers to move them back into AfC space (over a redirect) to avoid this. This used to be done as a standard page move, by non-admins, without problems. So moving mainspace pages into the old Wikipedia talk:Article for creation/ space is/was possible; it is interesting that it does not seem possible to do the reverse. I'm unsure if the Draft: namespace works in the same way. Secondly, I believe if you try to move a page (in any direction) over a redirect, using AfC Helper Script, then you simply get a 'page exists' error. I suspect the problem you are experiencing is a Mediawiki quirk. Bellerophon _{talk to me} 11:50, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

It is definitely part of the Medawiki software that you can't move cross namespace over an article space redirect. Why this is the case, I don't know. --ThaddeusB (talk) 17:01, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

@ThaddeusB: This is not true - the Mediawiki software will let you move over a redirect across namespaces. However, it will not let you move something on top of a redirect unless the destination 1) is a redirect pointing at the source, and 2) there is only 1 edit in the redirected page. The idea is if you MOVE page A to page B it will leave a redirect behind. If you make a mistake, you can MOVE it back without an admin's help. You can also MOVE a page from one name to a different name even if someone previously created the page as a redirect to the existing page. Both scenarios work fine across namespaces. Any other scenario, such as moving over a redirect that points to something else, moving over a redirect that has had more than one edit (such as the common case of a bot-repaired double-redirect), moving over a soft-redirect, or moving over a non-redirect, won't work without advanced user-rights. The AFC Helper Scripts may or may not allow cross-namespace redirects, but (unless it's a script-only limitation in the Mediawiki Software that does not affect manual edits) this is not a limitation of the underlying software. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 23:21, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

• There is some detail about this on

T60383 for those interested. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 17:43, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Weird template

I've come across two sumbissions today that had the following at the end: {{SAFESUBST:Void| ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ }} See Draft:Pink Team Cleaning Services. Does anyone know anything about this? FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 23:00, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

• FL, yep... I know all about it, since I'm the one that modified the preload to do that. The only reason you saw it, was because of the broken <ref>...</ref> tag that was after the {{reflist}}. I suppose now I need to explain how it is suppose to work, and why I did it... First, {{subst:Void}}, is quite simple a template, that has absolutely nothing in it. The purpose of that template, is when substituted, to leave no trace of itself or any parameters that were passed to it (as you can see in the diff where I fixed it just above). This is useful for this because it allows the user to see the message we want them to see, but doesn't leave any trace behind once they click save (per the instructions). The reason I did this is I've been finding a lot of drafts lately that still had the long "just click save blah blah blah" message despite being cleaned or declined. The helper script is "suppose" to remove those, but one version or another hasn't been. Theo has been away fro a couple weeks now, and isn't due back until later this week. So, it will be hard to get him to merge any pull requests on the rewrite for the script. Also, I don't see any reason not to make it a permanent change, as it will help reduce the number of those comments left behind (and people seem to like to change the wording a lot which is why the helper script has such a hard time finding it). — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 23:52, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up, mate! FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 15:58, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

• Is this the same thing? Draft:Omar S. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 20:21, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
  • It wasn't, and I have no idea where it came from, but I've cleaned it up and Theopolisme, my removal in this diff should be added to the cleanup section of the AFCH(RW) because I've seen it before as something that comes from one of the new draft helper templates, but I can't remember which one ATM. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 22:24, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

"Abandoned" reviews

I have come across several drafts that were tagged "Under Review" a day or more ago and then the reviewer did nothing further. Please do not take a draft under review if you're not going to complete the review within a reasonable time - IMHO an hour or two should normally be sufficient. Tagging a draft has the effect of removing it from the "pending review by age" categories, thus other reviewers don't normally see them. This is unfair firstly to the submitter and also to other reviewers, because such submissions can sit untouched for an extended length of time - one that I untagged was tagged about a week ago and them forgotten. If you have tagged a daft as "under review" and some circumstance prevents you from finishing promptly please release it or if you need some time to search for a source in a library or such please leave a review note to that effect so that other reviewers can see that you will be returning to it soon. Then don't forget about it. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 10:45, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Dodger67, you just reminded me to check Category:Pending AfC submissions being reviewed now Fiddle Faddle 17:43, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

I've screwed this up before, so let me be clear--if I've been inactive for two hours or more on a review marked "under review", and I haven't left a comment to the contrary, it's a mistake on my part. --j⚛e decker^talk 17:46, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Detection of deletion of copyvios

So I marked User:Mdbusinessguide/sandbox for deletion as a copyvio. The reviewing admin agreed and deleted it as a copyvio, but saw fit to use a custom reason, and thus it has not registered on the Adjustment page.

I'm not being bitter about the points, but if this has happened to me on one out of 87 pages reviewed, that is, over all the reviews made, a significant number of errors. Now I am new around here, so I don't know if this issue has been raised before, or if people don't really care, but would it be possible to amend AFCBuddy's algorithm to get around this? (@Excirial: thoughts?)

I don't really mind if it isn't fixed, I just wanted to raise it here to satisfy my gnomish nature. Thanks, BethNaught (talk) 18:13, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

@BethNaught:

As far as the the Mediawiki software cares a deleted page is just something that was removed - the only indication why the page was deleted is the edit summary left by the user who performed the removal. Default edit summaries are simple enough to detect yet a custom summary can literally have thousands of unique phrases to describe that the page was removed as a copyright violation. The current check is already very lenient and therefor prone to false positives (It checks if both "CSD" and "G12" are present in the deletion summary, causing it to incorrectly match a custom rationale such as "Deleted as CSD A7, the G12 tag does not apply in this instance").

The good news? Most admins just use the default edit summaries for removals. The result is not perfect, but the detection rate should be quite decent most times. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 19:04, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you Excirial. I didn't realise how difficult it was! BethNaught (talk) 19:34, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

• Funny you should bring this up Beth, I'm in the process of writing a userscript right now to assist in detection of copyright violations by scanning the page for URLs, and running those URLs against the content of the page in both Earwig's CopyVios and Dcoetzee's DupDet tools on TS and Labs (Earwig hasn't copied to labs yet as far as I know, but Dcoetzee has a copy there). I'll let everyone here know when it is done. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 19:23, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

That sounds interesting. Looking forward to hearing more. BethNaught (talk) 19:34, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Awesome, Technical 13, thank you! --j⚛e decker^talk 20:03, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

• Okay, so anyone that feels bold, I have an alpha version of the script ready for testing. I've added some console logging, which you can view by following the directions on WP:JSERROR and only showing the results for "Logging" → "info". To try the script, add:

if(mw.config.get('wgNamespaceNumber') === 0 || mw.config.get('wgNamespaceNumber') === 2 ||  mw.config.get('wgNamespaceNumber') === 118 || ((mw.config.get('wgNamespaceNumber') === 4 || mw.config.get('wgNamespaceNumber') === 5) && mw.config.get('wgPageName').indexOf('Articles_for_creation/') !== -1)){
	 mw.loader.load( 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Technical_13/Scripts/CVD.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript' );//Alpha testing for [[User:Technical 13/Scripts/CVD]]
}

To your skin custom .js (so if you have a major issue you can go to Preferences → Appearance and pick a different skin to undo the adding of the script and still be able to edit). Also, if something looks off, please use the JavaScript console and copy the code between the two obvious comments to a post here or more preferably, on my talk page, and I'll take a look at it. Before we even get to this complaint, Earwig and I are both aware of the "Mako Runtime Error" complaining about "IndexError: list index out of range" or "IndexError: tuple index out of range". Earwig will fix it when he has a moment. Yes, he is also aware that his tool is still on Toolserver, and it is the last tool he has to move to Labs, and he'll get to it when he has time. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 03:45, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

@Technical 13: I've been using this tool during the current backlog drive; it's given me good results. The errors you've mentioned only occur sporadically. I appreciate that it warns me when it plans to open large numbers of new pages. It's been very useful in detecting copyvios and close paraphrasing. The script is a much more certain way than googling random sentences. Chris Troutman (talk) 04:52, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

• That's awesome Chris! Just a heads up on that script, I got an email this morning from GitHub saying Earwig closed a ticket entitled Move to labs!. I need to get a hold of Earwig and find out exactly what the new tool URL is so I can update my script. In the mean time, no worries if the copyvios tabs have issues because TS is off. :D I'm also looking for someone who knows a lot about which sites are in the WP:PD so I can add some better filtering and further reduce unneeded tab opening. :D — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 11:01, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

@Technical 13: http://tools.wmflabs.org/copyvios? Earwig said that it is not yet ready, and he is still coding it, but I think that that is the link which is going to be it. (You'll even be able search if a special revision is/was a copyvio from what I can tell. (t) Josve05a (c) 12:52, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

@Technical 13: Yes, toollabs:copyvios is correct. — Earwig ^talk 02:33, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet for Wikiproject Articles for Creation at WIkimania 2014 - updated version

This is an updated version to a previous post that I made.

Hi all,

My name is Adi Khajuria and I am helping out with Wikimania 2014 in London.

One of our initiatives is to create leaflets to increase the discoverability of various wikimedia projects, and showcase the breadth of activity within wikimedia. Any kind of project can have a physical paper leaflet designed - for free - as a tool to help recruit new contributors. These leaflets will be printed at Wikimania 2014, and the designs can be re-used in the future at other events and locations.

This is particularly aimed at highlighting less discoverable but successful projects, e.g:

• Active Wikiprojects: Wikiproject Medicine, WikiProject Video Games, Wikiproject Film

• Tech projects/Tools, which may be looking for either users or developers.

• Less known major projects: Wikinews, Wikidata, Wikivoyage, etc.

• Wiki Loves Parliaments, Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves ____

• Wikimedia thematic organisations, Wikiwomen’s Collaborative, The Signpost

For more information or to sign up for one for your project, go to:
Project leaflets
Adikhajuria (talk) 09:23, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

See #Wikimania section above. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:54, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Review waiting versus Draft article not currently submitted for review

Hi. Two quick questions (I hope). As I go through the articles, I have worked on those with the "Review waiting" label on them, and bypassed those with "Draft article not currently submitted for review". First, was I correct in assuming those with the second box are not to be reviewed? Second, on several, there are both boxes. What to do in those cases? Thanks. Onel5969 (talk) 13:46, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure the reason, but a lot of submissions retain AFC templates they shouldn't when submitted, and they are often misplaced. If you "Clean the submission" (an option in both AFCH versions) it will sort these templates out leaving only those which are relevant to its current status in the proper position. Cleaning submissions is a generally risk-free thing to do to almost any draft you see, and I'm a little surprised we don't have a bot doing it automatically yet. --LukeSurl ^{t c} 13:51, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

A bot task was started on it by me but abandoned because the attempt to re-implement this was causing more false positives than successes. Hasteur (talk) 13:55, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you. Onel5969 (talk) 23:22, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Help Desk

Okay, I modified the preloads for the template, waited about a week or so, then implemented a change in the {{Lafc}} template so there should now be a TB link included next to the OPs name and links. This TB link is designed to open to the edit window of the OPs talk page with the {{AFCHD/u}} template preloaded for you. All you have to do is click save. This is the best I can do without a userscript, and it offers a chance to add a little custom detail if you wish. Has anyone tried this feature out yet? Comments, complaints, suggestions? — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 22:35, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Response on my declining Thomas Kent Miller

Hi. After I declined the article, Draft:Thomas Kent Miller, I got the following response:

Thank you for your specific and detailed response. Also thank you for explaining how to communicate with you. I fear, though, that that method is not self-evident.

I will now stop the exercise of creating this Wikipedia entry. You have convinced me that, by Wikipedia rules, Thos. Kent Miller is not notable and cannot be made to appear notable. However, I disagree for this reason: Miller is notable because he is the first and only author to bring back Rider Haggard's important character Allan Quatermain (in two novels: 2005, 2013) in a literary fashion (as opposed to through the medium of comic novels). That makes him most notable in my book.

Please remove my entry whenever convenient for you.

Best, doyleelmocollins Doyleelmocollins (talk) 05:50, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

I do not know how to comply with his request to remove the article, however. Thanks for your help (and please let me know if I should be sending requests like this someplace else, rather than posting them here). Onel5969 (talk) 14:51, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

• Onel5969, this has been  done. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 15:09, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Advice for an AfC newbie

Hi, so I've recently started doing some AfC reviews. Most of it makes perfect sense, but I'm curious about notability declines. Those that I've done so far, I've generally given pretty much what I'd expect a nom at AfD to give in order to show compliance with WP:BEFORE. Is that intended to be the same level of work a notability decline is given? I know many notability declines I've seen at AfC have been without comment. Is this considered appropriate? To an outsider (or to me, anyway) some notability declines look to be because the references in the submission don't provide evidence of notability, rather than a search for sources by the reviewer revealed no evidence of notability. WP:AFCR isn't exactly clear on this, and I couldn't easily find anything in the archives here (mostly for lack of search terms that didn't give untold numbers of false positives). —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 20:03, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

• I suppose a "notability" checker could be my next module for the AfC reviewer helper add-on I've been working on once I get the Copyright Violation Detector working the way I want it. I still have a little debugging to do and some more features I want to add before moving on. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 20:12, 21 June 2014 (UTC)
• As a fellow newbie (though approaching 1 month's tenure) at AfC, I would appreciate some clarification of this issue. Usually I will expand on what notability means and explain why sources don't show notability in a comment. In terms of accepting or declining, I usually go by what is presented in the article, but if it's borderline I will often see if I can add sources to prove notability. In this way I have accepted a couple of articles. BethNaught (talk) 20:16, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

The precedent, so long as I can remember, has always been to review the submission based on its actual content at the time of review, and this extends to its references. Where notability is concerned, it can sometimes be difficult: an absence of references (whether they simply exist or are present in the submission) does not automatically make a subject non-notable. It is quite possible for the content of an article to assert notability, but for it to lack the references to evidence notability. In such cases, it is inadequate verification that is the problem for the reviewer. In contrast with deletion discussions, where WP:BEFORE applies, the generally accepted standard for AfC is that it is incumbent on the submitter to either assert a clear claim of notability and supply references to evidence this, or to demonstrate notability through referencing as defined by the WP:GNG. This principle mirrors other decline rationales: it would not be acceptable to delete an article at AfD because the article violates NPOV, but it is a reason we would decline an AfC submission. Bellerophon _{talk to me} 20:41, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

As I understand it, the standard for accepting an AfC is that it has a reasonable chance of being accepted at AfD, and has no outrageous errors otherwise--and lack of notability is not the only standard for rejection at AfD. AfC is not expected to produce good articles, only adequate start-class articles or even stubs, that will, like all WP articles, be improved by normal editing--or even just kept permanently as valid stubs. If the notability is clear but inadequately documented in a formal sense, the article would very likely be kept at AfD, and I see no reason not to accept it from AfC. If an article fails to show NPOV, and this were within the usual levels for incoming WP articles, I would accept it from AfC--though I would not if there were so strong a POV that AfD would probably delete it (and contrary to what was stated above, AfD does delete articles with unfixable POV problems), or unless the POV amounted to promotionalism. If the style of references is wrong, if there are insufficient links, if there's material missing, none of these are reasons why an article would be deleted, and none of them are reasons to decline accepting a draft no reason for deletion. As a practical illustration, I've just looked over a dozen or so somewhat borderline drafts that I've accepted--every one of them has been improved substantially since then. Had I not accepted them, nobody would have worked on them.

When I come across an draft proposed for G13, that I think passable, I have in the past almost always merely postponed deletion for 6 months, but I have now learned that sometimes the better course is to simply accept it. (Actually, I usually do not simply accept it--I almost always fix myself one or two of the key problems. ) We should be giving articles the benefit of the doubt--I think we will reach the right level when about 10% of the accepted drafts are subsequently deleted--not 0 %. DGG ( talk ) 05:43, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

I was generalising; and trying to answer Mendaliv's question concerning the expectation that reviewers should search for sources, in all cases, before declining on notability grounds. As usual you have explained things far better than I can. Bellerophon _{talk to me} 08:19, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Frivolous reviewer

Could somebody keep an eye on SurangaNanayakkara (talk · contribs)? They have already tried to add themselves to the reviewers list twice, despite not meeting the criteria, writing an autobiography and having it declined. It's a rare day that I go to two reverts, so I need more eyes on this. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:25, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Looks like a few of us have a weather eye on him ;) Bellerophon _{talk to me} 22:50, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

• I think this illustrates the need for that page to be protected. As such, I'm asking the WPAFC team here, what level should we protect that page to?

• Full protection: Would require assistance from an administrator every time we want to make a change. WPAFC has a couple administrators that review drafts.
• Template protection: I do believe that "most" of our AFCH(RW) developers have at least this level of ability. I believe that this would double the amount of people that could edit the list on a quick basis.
• Pending changes: I'm not sure how this would work. Would the script pull the last approved version of the page or the most current version of the page. If this is an option, this would be my preferred level as it would allow the most existing WPAFC participants to modify the list. Theopolisme, have you played around with what version of a PC protected page a script would get from the API? This might be an interesting and optimal way to go. I would be interested in seeing how it works with both PC1 and PC2 level protected pages.
• Semi-protection: Using this example as a use case, this level of protection wouldn't have made a difference in deterring the addition of the user.

If a PC level protection will not work, then my next personal level of protection that makes sense would be TE. I'm interested in hearing others opinions and I'm sure we can get one of our administrators to make the change for us based on a consensus. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 23:19, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree, Pending Changes is my first choice but if it doesn't work Template Protection is the best remaining option. Semi is basically useless and Full protection is overkill. How would a new "applicant" indicate their wish to be added? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:03, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Either someone just posts a request on this page, or we implement something like Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage. Personally I think something less formal than that would be better but given the relatively high volume of new reviewers we don't want to spam the main talk page either. BethNaught (talk) 12:03, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

All of this is using the proverbial sledge-hammer to crack a nut. The vast majority of people who are signing on are doing so simply to get rid of the pointless and annoying pop-up that appears every time non-members with the "helper script" checked in their preferences/gadgets visit certain spaces. Lots of editors check all of them as a matter of course, especially new page patrollers, etc. Note that on the preferences page, it is described as "Yet Another AFC Helper Script: easily review Articles for creation submissions, Files for Upload, redirect and category requests." They may well be checking it because they think they might want to use it for the latter 3 functions. Nowhere in the description does it say you have to be and AFC member to use it.

Most people who've signed lately have no intention of reviewing or using the script for that—they just want to get rid of the damn pop up. Why not simply disable the pop-up? (See the discussion above which came to nothing.) The SurangaNanayakkara case is an outlier and yet all kinds of page protection, extra bureaucracy etc. are being discussed to deal with it? It won't prevent shenanigans like COI editors de facto approving their own an/or each other's articles. Any autoconfirmed editor can move drafts into article space. They don't need to be an official AfC member to do that, nor do they need the helper script to do it. Voceditenore (talk) 13:18, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't think we need to do much more right now. This was the first case I can think of where someone edit warred to keep themselves on the reviewer list. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:23, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

• Human nature, and the nature of promotional content that we get at AfC suggests this will be an ongoing problem. As such, "some" level of protection on the participants list is required, or the requirement to be on the list is moot and that consensus that we needed an enforceable way to restrict use of the script isn't being carried out. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 14:46, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

• I don't believe that they just want to get rid of the damn pop up. I also agree that they have no intention of reviewing or using the script for that. My belief, as has been demonstrated in the past on some occasions, is that they just want to get the script so they can "accept" their own draft because they are not familiar with how the wiki works and our documentation suggests that the script is the only way to do this. As far as the popup goes, I'm working on that as we speak to completely get rid of "that" concern. I'm researching how to add an interface they can use from the popup to disable the gadget for them via the api. I'm going to compile that with an adjustment so the popup only appears if the script has been initiated by interaction (instead of automatically showing on every page load). Theopolisme, busy today so we can get this taken care of and pushed into the RW (beta 0.9)? — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 14:46, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

• Theopolisme, I was playing around with the api and the resource loader and blah... What I have so far (I'm sure it can be trimmed back some, it's just fully expanded for playing and testing purposes) is:

(Redacted)

What this does it get the options token, and then is suppose to turn off the gadget specified in "change:". Not quite working yet, but it is close (I was playing with modrollback because it is the preference on the top of the page and required the least scrolling on page reloads to test it). I think we could use something like this to have the script offer a button to allow the user to deactivate the script in a single click for them (with a success notice informing them of how they can get the script back if they choose). What do you think? — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 16:17, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

• I don't believe any level of protection is either needed or supported by the protection policy. The participants page is being quite effectively policed at the moment and persistent edit warring editors who refuse to listen can, and should be, blocked. In particular the protection policy makes it clear that template protection is not to be used simply because it exists. Voceditenore's comments about the message relating to the helper script in preferences are very valid and the message next to the checkbox should almost certainly be rewritten. Bellerophon _{talk to me} 16:27, 21 June 2014 (UTC)
• So, Theopolisme, I have the code to turn of the gadget in a single click...

( new mw.Api ).postWithToken( 'options', { action: 'options', change: 'gadget-afchelper=0' } ).done( function(yay){ alert('You\'ve disabled the "Yet Another AFC Helper Script".  To re-enable it, please /(request to be added|add yourself)/ to the participants list, then enable the gadget by visiting [[special:prefs]], checking the box next to "Yet Another AFC Helper Script" and clicking save at the bottom of the page...'); }).fail( function(boo){ alert('Apologies, the gadget was unable to automatically disable itself.  Please try again, or if you get this error repeatedly, report this error (...error message...) to [[WT:afchrw]].'); });

We would of course use a much better popup notification box than an alert, but can we get something like this merged in? — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 17:03, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Canonflood Be Autoconfirmed USERS

I Can Be Confirmed USER Canonflood (talk) 11:59, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

You will be autoconfirmed as soon as you make one more edit - you currently have nine edits on your contributions log. -- Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:08, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Personal userspace pages being marked as AFCs and moving to draft space

In recent weeks, since the major push to move what are supposedly draft articles into the draft space, I have been called upon several times to suppress what were intended to be pages personal to the editor in the userspace. I am not quite sure what is happening here; it appears that the new editors must be following some sort of recommended practice that applies the AFC template to it, which then seems to more or less automatically move the page to draftspace. I'm posting this here in order to alert AFC reviewers that if they stumble upon such a page (most commonly, a biography of a non-notable minor whose name is similar to the article creator), they should seriously consider blanking or deleting the page, removing the templates, and notifying the Oversight team by emailing User:Oversight or other means of contacting them. Best, Risker (talk) 01:31, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

moving articles from userspace without even notifying the users is a very problematic procedure. I understand the desire to get article drafts into the revision process, but this has been done recklessly and mechanically. In addition to the critical problem specified by Risker with minors, brief autobio pages of people who are not minors are being treated as article drafts, even when they are more likely intended as the sort of material permitted on user pages. I do not think the current procedure of moving them to draft space and then deleting them after 6 months is at all appropriate. DGG ( talk ) 02:50, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

• I believe it is a direct result of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/2014 2#Proposed change: Make the Article Wizard place new submissions in the prefix "Draft:" (i.e. stop new submissions from landing at "WT:Articles for creation/") which implies that all drafts must be moved to the Draft: space, despite the fact that draft space isn't ready for such a thing. It's kind of like building a house and moving all off your furniture in as soon as you can without taking the time to put the flooring down, or sheetrock the walls, or put up the ceiling... It's just going to end up in draft space never getting realized to its full potential to make everyone life so much easier from submitting new articles for review to reviewing and accepting them because there is too much "stuff" in the way. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 03:03, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

A combination of that and " [{{fullurl:index.php|title=Special:MovePage/{{FULLPAGENAMEE}}&wpNewTitle=Wikipedia_talk:Articles+for+creation/{{#ifeq:{{lc:{{SUBPAGENAMEE}}}}|sandbox|{{urlencode:{{#titleparts:{{FULLPAGENAMEE}}|1}}/{{#titleparts:{{FULLPAGENAMEE}}||-1}}|WIKI}}|{{SUBPAGENAMEE}}}}&wpReason=Move+Articles+for+creation+submission+to+project+space}} To project space]" on the pending and declined templates and on the draft template the big input box that looks like:

— {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 03:13, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Is there a way to make the submit template "fail" if it is placed on a User page? Perhaps with an error message that explains what the proper function of the User page is and that article drafts should be written either on a User subpage or in Draftspace. While we're at it how about making the submit template also "fail" if it's on an otherwise blank page? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:53, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

• I'm unclear as to what you think that would solve Roger. It wouldn't help the issue reported by Risker where he has been called upon several times to suppress what were intended to be pages personal to the editor in the userspace. The only thing I can think of from the top of my head is an edit filter that prevents moving pages from the users' main pages to anywhere else on wiki by anyone other than the user or an administrator. At this time, that is probably overkill, but maybe it would be a good idea to create one that logs when this happens for now so that we can maybe instruct those users better on how to review or whatnot? I'm guessing it is mostly reviewers that are doing this, and as such, Risker if you could help us when you see users doing this, leave them a message on their talk page saying that is unacceptable (which I would guess you are likely doing anyways). Perhaps I can make a uw-template that could be added to Twinkle for that? Help me set up the wording and I'll take care of the templateFu if you are interested. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 13:38, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

• My thinking is to entirely prevent editors from submitting their main user page for review. An error message can explain that they should never draft an article on that page. Perhaps it could further offer to move the draft to their sandbox, where it should have been created originally. My secondary suggestion is a way to prevent blank submissions, they currently constitute a significantly large proportion of all first-time submissions and as such are a waste of reviewer time. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:04, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

• Oh, how cute... the user who was the entirety of the minority side of the debate on a 23/1 consensus continues to argue that the consensus is invalid and should be rolled back. GIVE IT UP. You're not going to get that RFC overturned just by making snide comments. Now on to Risker's point, Category:Pending AfC submissions in userspace contains the pending submissions that are in userspace which is pulled through by the AFC submission template. I would hope that reviewers are evaluating the submissions carefully to decide if
  1. The submission wasn't really intended to be submitted to AFC (in which case delete the AFC submission template with a note)
  2. The submission has no chance at all of passing (Decline or turn back to "Not yet ready for submission" mode) and leaving it in the userspace.
  3. The submission has potential, therefore moving it to the unified drafts namespace has potential in addition to bringing more eyes to assist is a good thing
  4. The submission is a hybrid between an article and a "About this user" that could be a userpage and therefore probably works better to remove the AFC banner.
• For these reasons, it's a lot of intuition to determine what is the best solution. Hasteur (talk) 14:12, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

• I have been away for a few days, so I missed this - are people adding AfC templates to other people's user pages and user subpages, and then moving them to Draft?? That would be a problem. If people are submitting biographical pages about themselves (not about their Wikipedia activities), I don't see the problem with moving them to Draft - if they stay in user space without being submitted they are WP:FAKEARTICLEs. If they are non-notable or promotional, that's what AfC is for - they should be declined and eventually deleted. Why would any of these be better off in userspace? As for user subpages on other topics, if they are submitted for review, they should be in Draft, and should be improved at least once every six months or else be deleted. If the user comes back years later (as occasionally happens) and wants to pick up where he/she left off, there is always the refund. Of course there will be exceptions; perhaps a user has submitted the article accidentally or through misunderstanding, or submitted a talk page with discussion, or something like that. I don't, however, understand the argument that a submitted page which the user intends as an article should be left in user space because it has no potential to be accepted. "Userspace is not a free web host and should not be used to indefinitely host pages that look like articles." —Anne Delong (talk) 15:49, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree. We need to remember we're all volunteers here and that should be respected- I tend to think that all too often it gets forgotten, or taken as read. For example where someone is voluteering their time to the project, but whose judgement is a little off: we need to be a bit more tactful and less direct when dealing with their transgressions. Most importantly because we are volunteers, doing this in what spare time we have (and often- if we're honest- actually don't really have) the pool of talent and man hours we have is limited.

We don't all see the world through the same eyes, and sometimes a what seems obvious to us is not as unambiguous as it appears. Most importantly- we're not mind readers. I have moved many articles from user to draft space- not a single one has been obviously not an attempt at a mainspace article, be it an attempt at self promotion or a directory entry for a buisiness or individual.

I have asked for articles with the details of minors to be surpressed- but the name space of the page has always been irrelevant in these matters. If any of these were clearly an attempt at a user profile with the AfC template placed by mistake, I politely beg to differ. And whether in userspace, draft space, or WT space, G13 applies after 6 months, so in that respect moving to draft makes no difference. Rankersbo (talk) 08:14, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Rankersbo has made good points about being helpful and about G13 in userspace, although according to Hasteur the Hasteurbot will not nominate userspace drafts for deletion, so they would have to be tagged manually. Since the AfC reviewers' main purpose is to help new editors develop to their first articles, I'm sure that we all do our best to take these editors' intentions into consideration. If there are no AfC templates on a userspace page, then the page is none of our business as reviewers (although it may possibly be for other reasons) and we shouldn't add AfC templates ourselves. An exception might be if there had been templates and it appeared that they had been removed accidentally or through misunderstanding, and it is important in the case of active users to make sure they understand what is happening and agree that they want the opportunity to resubmit. If there is a submit template on a userspace subpage, and the page's user has added it deliberately, then the page is likely a draft article and should be moved to draft space. If it's not ready for for mainspace, it should be declined. That leaves a template with a resubmit button for when the draft is improved.

If the submitted page happens to be the user's main user page, this could be for several reasons:

1. The page was intended to be an editor profile, and is about Wikipedia activities and was submitted by mistake - obviously then the user should be contacted and the submit template removed.
2. The page is a future draft article, either about the user's real life or about something else, perhaps just beginning to be developed, or is a utility page for collecting information and references for future use, etc., and was submitted by accident or through misunderstanding. In that case the purpose a user's main page should be explained to the new editor, the submit template removed, and the page moved to a user subpage.
3. The page was intended to be an article about the user, is about the user's real life, and was deliberately submitted. This should be moved to Draft space, accepted or declined as is appropriate (or if the user is a minor, dealt with according to the concerns mentioned above), thus freeing up the user's main page to be used for its proper purpose.
4. The page is a draft article about some other topic, is only on the user's main page because he or she doesn't know about subpages and/or about the proper use of a main user page, and was deliberately submitted. It should be moved to Draft space and be declined or accepted as is appropriate, this freeing up the user's main page for a more appropriate use. —Anne Delong (talk) 15:55, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Notability

See User_talk:FoCuSandLeArN#Victorious and Draft:Victorious 22 (V22LA). Was I wrong? FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 13:56, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

• I don't think so. Not only don't the citations seem to indicate notability, it has two issues in the writing of the actual article: first, NPOV, as the article reads something like an advert for the company (although not nearly as blatant as others I've read); and second, it is not written in a formal tone, with phrases like "It was around this time ..." and "... ambitions on becoming exporters of high end apparel ...". Onel5969 (talk) 14:13, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

• Agreed. No real evidence of likely notability in any field, and somewhat promotional. The standard is whether it would have a decent chance at AfD, and it wouldn't. This is the sort of article where I sometimes say. "Please try again when you become more notable." DGG ( talk ) 15:13, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Re-reviewing

So Zack Vega's re-reviews are turning up about as much red as green. Considering that he has done almost 900 750 reviews perhaps we should be giving this a bit of attention? --LukeSurl ^{t c} 10:02, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

I only see 1 outright fail (with 2 comments) out of 750 reviews. If we find 50+ fails, we might look at it then, otherwise I wouldn't worry about it, as long as the submitter doesn't get bitten and run away. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:12, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

As I write, out of the nine re-reviews Zack has, there are four passes, one disputed (one pass, one fail), one confirmed fail (two reviewers failing the review) and three unconfirmed fails. There's no particular reason to believe this isn't indicative of all of his reviews this drive (however it is a small enough proportion of his total reviews to potentially be an unrepresentative sample). If it is indicative, there is quite a serious problem. --LukeSurl ^{t c} 11:30, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

On the other hand, I see Zack has made nearly 40 declines that are now deleted. To me, that sounds like an implicit pass for them. I don't think we can pass any judgement on this until a wider sample is looked at. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 12:11, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Such re-reviews should be done as a matter of priority. Current data suggests that about half of Vega's reviews are incorrect. --LukeSurl ^{t c} 12:38, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

• To be honest, I've come across some of this users reviews and have had some concern myself. I'll look into this in a bit, but I'm wondering if either of you has informed Zack of this discussion, asked them to limit themselves to 5-10 reviews a day for a bit while we look into this, or attempted to discuss any particular review with them on their talk page to understand how they came to the conclusion that they have. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 12:41, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

• Pinging Zach_Vega here as a notification. --LukeSurl ^{t c} 14:20, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

• I concur that in the 3 re-reviews I did, while their action is correct, they missed a bigger problem (Verifyability, non-independent sourcing, COPYVIO, and G11 issues) that indicates in my mind that all of their reviews need to be fine toothed combed. Hasteur (talk) 13:19, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

• I disagree with you that verifiability preceeds notability in how reviews should be done, as my reading of Wikipedia:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation/Reviewing_instructions is the opposite. However your identification of the copyvio miss was right on, and that is a more serious issue. --LukeSurl ^{t c} 14:20, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

• I checked 5 - 2 were no brainer declines, 1 was a correct decline that required soem thought, 1 was correctly passed but not cleaned up at all, and 1 was declined for the wrong reason (on notability when poorly formatted RS sources were provided when it should have been an ad-like decline). So 4 pass, 1 fail, but looks like a general patteren of doing reviews as quickly as possible to earn points... Incidentally, is there a reason why checked reviews are copied to their own section? Seems like it would be a lot more efficient to have the re-review(s) next to the review to make it easy to see what has already been done. --ThaddeusB (talk) 13:58, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
  • @Excirial: I agree with ThaddeusB that it would be a lot more efficient to have the re-review(s) next to the review to make it easy to see what has already been done. (t) Josve05a (c) 14:04, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

• @Josve05a: The re reviews are in a separate section for technical reasons. The entire list of reviews is generated from scratch each time the statistics are update - any re-review templates in the list would therefor be overwritten if they were left in that list so they are moved to a separate section (Moving them is the simplest solution). Aside from simplicity the re-reviews section was initially just an area of text that AFCBuddy didn't touch (Before we started counting re-reviews for the leaderboard).

Even so it is convenient to see if something has already been reviewed so i cobbled a change together to do just that. If a specific review has already been reviewed there will be a small "Pass" or "Fail" icon next to the article in the main review list. It might need a few tweaks since i didn't have the time to test this thoroughly, but so far the result seems to be decent. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 19:06, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Great! --ThaddeusB (talk) 19:18, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

• My concerns with Zach stem from 2 facts: if you see his edit history and talk page, he's only ever participated in drives at AfC, while practically never reviewing outside those drives; he's apparently 16 years old. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 14:58, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
  • practically never reviewing outside those drives That sounds almost like me.
  • he's apparently 16 years old So am I.

(t) Josve05a (c) 18:55, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

We can therefore conclude that the bases for FoCuSandLeArN's concerns are misplaced. Concerns raised by other people in this thread do seem valid, though. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:30, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

You've misinterpreted me. I said they "stem" from those facts, but are not limited [my concerns] to those superficial respects. I disagree with several of his reviews I've come across; I was just adding another angle to our conversation. Oh and by the way, is it possible to see an editor's rereviews bundled up? FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 19:37, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

@FoCuSandLeArN: Have a look at the adjustment tables. Each rereview an editor does is listed under his or her name, alongside a link to the draft they reviewed and a link to the AFC Drive page of the participant they rereviewed. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 20:57, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

@Excirial: Let me see if I understand: If I look at those lists and see "REREVIEW" followed by a "1" it means they gave that particular one (the one listed to the right) a pass? Thanks, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 22:35, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

@FoCuSandLeArN: Close, but not entirely right. The table displays score adjustments for the listed user; A re-review awards the user who made the review with 1 bonus point to their drive total. The "REREVIEW" entry merely denotes that the editor reviewed a review, not that the result of that review was a pass. Aside from that one you may see the "DELCOPYVIO" adjustment (The user tagged a draft as a copyright violation, and it was subsequently deleted as such) and the "FAILEDREVIEW" adjustment (A review received two more negative than positive reviews. For example: Two negatives reviews or three negatives and one positive review). Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 22:50, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

We want to attract extra reviewers during backlog drives, and age is not a problem in itself. However, it may be a good idea in general to do re-reviews early of reviews by people who aren't regulars. Those who come for the drive are likely to view their drive pages frequently, and since most are good faith reviewers, and also want to get points for their reviews, they will likely read the re-reviews and improve their reviewing. I have been spending most of my time on the abandoned drafts, and I have noticed that when I postpone deletion of articles that were declined during backlog drives, the percentage of missed copyvios, duplicate submissions needing history merges, references hidden by technical problems, submissions incorrectly declined as needing inline citations for non-controversial information, lacking sections, etc., goes up. By the time I seen them, the editors have given up and gone away, and there are literally thousands of these. Here are some that have been saved from deletion, fixed up by various editors and are now articles: User:Anne Delong/AfC content rescued from db-g13, and here are some more that are in the works: User:Anne Delong/Afc submissions for improvement. (These are just the ones that I postponed and there are several other people working on this, so this is a small sample.) I was away for a week on a trip and fell behind on checking the new ones coming up for deletion, which is why I have taken only token participation in the drive this month. If the queue get down to the bottom, I hope that some reviewers will consider, while waiting for new submissions, going back over their own declines and picking out promising submissions to improve and editors to encourage. —Anne Delong (talk)

• On the subject of re-reviewing, there have been a few occasions when re-reviewing that I wish to make a comment without offering a "pass" or a "fail" decision. I'm pretty sure I could edit Template:AFCDriveQC to allow for a third option (specifically, a "C" option for comments), but I'd like to check with @Excirial: first that doing so wouldn't cause issues with any of his useful tools. --LukeSurl ^{t c} 16:59, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea. I've reviewed several submissions as "Fail", but that's just far too strong a word - all I'm saying is that I'd have done things differently, rather than suggesting anyone's work was substandard. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 17:04, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

• The template now supports "just a comment" by using anything other than case-insensitive "P" or "F". You, however, will not likely get any credit for a review if you do this, and I'm not convinced that those that don't want to spend the time to P/F the review should get bonus points. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 17:13, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Awesome - thanks a lot! --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:14, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

• @ThaddeusB: @Technical 13: If adding this functionality was as simple as adding another parameter to the template i would have already done so - unfortunately it is not. The regex used to detect and move rereviews is - by design - rather strict in regards to the parameters it accepts. Unless the parameter for PassorFail is a P or an F it won't be accepted as a rereview and will thus be wiped out during the next run. There are several other code snippets that need to be adjusted (or at least checked) such as the part that moves rereviews, the part that generates the adjustment table and the part that generates the list of rereviews. All quite possible, but it takes time to implement. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 23:35, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

• Zach now has 32 checked reviews. I counted, and there were 7 double fails, 2 fail and passes, 7 unconfirmed fails and 16 passes. I feel that 32 reviews is a large enough sample size to be representative of all his reviews, and that may mean we have a serious problem. Darylgolden^(talk) 02:06, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure about a serious problem as Zach hasn't edited since the 11th June, but he does perhaps need some review coaching (if he returns). And he should probably not be reviewing other people's reviews at this point. I hope he does return, as he is clearly quite committed. Bellerophon _{talk to me} 12:23, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

I reviewed nine of Zach's reviews and a fair amount are fine but at this stage, 27% of his reviews have been re-reviewed as double-fails and 9% are single unchecked fails. For comparison, Timtrent has 8% single unchecked fails; Hewhoamareismyself has 2% double-fails and 4% single unchecked fails. I'm sure Zach read the writing on the wall and won't be returning any time soon. God only knows how many of Zach's 123 re-reviews are faulty, too. Now the question is if this fail rate reaches Makro-level problems. Shall we choose an unacceptable percentage to invalidate his results and remove him from the WikiProject? Some number of fails is expected and perhaps if we establish a number now it'll set a precedent for down the road. Chris Troutman (talk) 05:36, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

There is certainly a level above which one ought to express concerns. Before one establishes that one ought to establish a genuinely acceptable percentage for what one might term 'simple error', by which I mean an error made in good faith where it is a matter of a difference of opinion, as opposed to a 'hard error' where it can be viewed that one requires further competence and really ought not to be reviewing at all until one gains it.

There will always be misreviews (is that even a word?). IN judging them there also needs to be a judgment "Has genuine damage been done?"

Examples of a misreview might be acceptance of an article that one feels is below the threshold in the knowledge that it really ought to be an article, but that the author is not getting anywhere, that one hasn't the resources to do it one's self, and that the community can be 'trusted' to take it forward if accepted. Would that be a simple error, a hard error, of a matter of judgment that may not always go right? Other examples might be being more stringent than other reviewers with pushing an article back for further work.

So, at what point is genuine damage done? And how does one seek to ensure that this does not happen?

I do have a different idea on how to limit it, because something has struck me about the drive. This is the first time I have participated. I may have been on WP for a goodish number of years, but I became interested only recently in AFC, three or so weeks prior to the drive. I chose to specialise in the oldest submissions, though that is irrelevant to my suggestion. I am amazed that, today, I top the leaderboard. It amuses me, but amazes me. It should not be so. Even so there is a part of me that wants to stay there. While I do not believe that colours my reviewing (I take care to leave comments, to welcome new editors, to correspond with them, etc), it may colour it. It creates competition that is not always healthy.

So do not publish the results until he drive closes.

This will change the focus from a daily "I want to see the results, how am I doing!!!" to folk working perhaps slower, perhaps better. Indeed I have watched and commented on the June drive's talk page about the drive running out of steam. I suspect that is because the leadership is pretty much set, now, and has been for a while. It's hard for places to be changed. And no, this is not a divergence from the topic. I believe it to be all one topic. My belief is that, whatever the section title it is, we are discussing how to make the project, drives in partticular, better. Fiddle Faddle 07:36, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

There is one challenge with this approach. If we do not publish the list of reviews, how do re-reviews take place? That is a soluble issue, though. There are ways of presenting random and anonymised source lists of reviews for re-review that we can devise if we consider the delaying of announcement of leaderboard positions until the end. Fiddle Faddle 08:22, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Wikimania

I stumbled upon this. What do you think? FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 16:31, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Should be done.

Problem is that the project is not currently stable enough to include a proper explanation of how to review, nor even a link to what might become such an explanation. Do we mention the "old script", the "new script", the "beta script", or various aspects of the development and significance of each one as they might be some weeks or months from now? Links and explanations to how to use each? Do we describe how each one does different things, some of which some people in the project apparently feel are undesirable? Do we mention that "concern" will "stem" - and be publicly expressed, including naming names, - if anyone newly trying to participate in the project admits to being under 18? (Or under 25? What is the preferred minimum age?) Do we mention that a significant proportion of the project feel that reviewing an article without leaving a custom comment of some sort (or accepting) amounts to sub-standard work?

Or do we just say that seasoned editors with plenty of free time, and a thick skin, are much needed at WP:AFC? The problem with that is that the copyright project has been saying that in many many venues, for a long long time, and it has not got them very far. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:31, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Oh my, some strong words there. I don't think we should be as dramatic as that. Simply get some much sought-after attention and use it to our advantage if and when we get new reviewers, obviously outside of any drives. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 21:59, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

• An idea...

Your contact details	uh... any volunteers?
Project name	Wikiproject Articles for Creation (AfC)
Short Description	Hundreds of draft potential articles are written by new editors every day, and the range of submissions, in scope, suitability and quality, is immense. Wikiproject AfC's editors work through these submissions to make sure those that are made into articles are positive contributions to Wikipedia.
Longer description	Wikiproject AfC was established as a way of helping new editors and the project as a whole. 'Draft:' space is an environment for editors to submit potential new articles, safe from many of the deletion reasons which apply in mainspace. With Wikiproject AfC drafts are reviewed by experienced editors for notability and other policy compliance before promotion to a full article. If drafts are not ready, reviewers offer advice and support on how they can be improved. Due to the success of Wikipedia, the rate of article submissions is increasing. In order to offer every submitter a timely and useful review we urgently need new volunteers. Reviewers should be familiar with general policy regarding article inclusion and be keen to support new and inexperienced Wikipedians. Please introduce yourself at the Wikiproject's talk page. A supportive and vibrant community looks forward to welcoming you to Wikiproject Articles for Creation!
Logo
Primary webpage URL	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation
Mailing List	?
Email contact	?
IRC channel	#wikipedia-en-afc connect
Facebook page
Twitter handle

--LukeSurl ^{t c} 11:56, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm based near London and can be around at the time of Wikimania, so I may be able to represent AfC, as it aligns with my ideals of welcoming new editors and retaining them, though I would ideally like to do it together with my other half, who is big on social media. I'll get back to you! Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:13, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

That looks great Luke. I've tweaked spelling of one word. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:56, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

@Ritchie333: would you like to be the designated contact for AfC? Reading the info, I don't believe you would be committing yourself to guarantee attendance. --LukeSurl ^{t c} 13:57, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Please be advised - to ensure that the leaflet is seen at Wikimania, the deadline to submit the leaflet is 1st July. Adikhajuria (talk) 13:28, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I might be able to be the designated contact. However, I need to read up on what Wikimania is. More importantly, if I was to talk about Wikipedia and related projects, it would contain criticism and suggest AfC (and WP:WER) as partial solutions. I'd like to review the text in the leaflet, as I think it needs to emphasise that creating new articles is too hard for mere mortals and contributes heavily to systematic bias. I don't know if that's going to go down well. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:43, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

• As the deadline is today, I've gone and added AfC with the above. I've set this talk page as a the contact, which is apparently OK. --LukeSurl ^{t c} 08:17, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Time to codify long-standing practice of restoring removed AFC templates?

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.

---

The primary author of Draft:Propulsion methods utilizing fuel accelerated from a remote fuel source, Matthewhburch, has removed AFC templates on multiple occasions. On Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/Reviewer help#Please check my review of Draft:Remote fuel propulsion (the draft has been recently renamed) he defended his actions with the comment

Once I have addressed issues mentioned by reviewers or commentators, I will remove the review and comment references from the visible page so that future reviewers are not immediately influenced by prior reviews. This is what one should expect in a draft process. Suggestions are offered, prior versions are archived, actions are taken, and then the document is resubmitted. [emphasis original]

He goes on to say

I believe the fact that there is no rule to prevent article owners from deleting rejections and comments is a clear indication that Wikipedia accepts the same drafting process that the rest of the scientific community follows.

This goes against long-standing AFC tradition of treating AFC-decline templates and afc-comment templates similar to talk pages. That is, the way we handle AFC templates is based on (but not exactly the same as) the practices outlined in Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines. As such, we keep (and restore, if removed) all AFC templates until a page is accepted (except vandalism, test edits, etc.). We do so with the full knowledge and even the expectation that "future reviewers are immediately influenced by prior reviews." As a reviewer, I need to know what problems have already been found and fixed - or found, not fixed, and found again - so that I can make a better review.

I think it's time to document the long-standing practice somewhere. My recommendation is to add a "small print" line to Template:AFC submission/pending and similar templates notifying users that "afc" templates should not be removed until the article is accepted. Any objections to putting in writing in a prominent place what we've been doing for years? davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 06:18, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Since this directly mentions me, I will comment. If Wikipedia deviates from standard draft processes, then Wikipedia deviates from science and math itself. Matthewhburch (talk) 06:51, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Um, I'm not following your logic there. I find previous reviews very useful, and I don't understand how we're deviating from science. BethNaught (talk) 07:08, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

When one drafts an article, whether in science, math, literature, or anywhere else, the reviewer reviews it, marks it in some way or another, and then you are expected to correct it. After you correct it, you provide a corrected version without all the prior markups and red pen all over it so that it can be reviewed again. You might include the prior version with the most recent draft, for comparison, and that would be equivalent to the history of the document, which I have not been altering. I have been adhering to a draft process that is centuries old, and has defined everything that Wikipedia is. For Wikipedia to step outside the drafting process that gave us Computers, space flight, Moby Dick, and everything else worth having in this world would be surreal. Matthewhburch (talk) 07:43, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

The mistake that Matthewhburch makes is the assumption that AFC is similar to the reviewing process that submissions to scientific journals go through. AFC's purpose is to help new editors to create acceptable articles - a scientific journal's review process is primarily to asses the scientific validity of the content of the submission. AFC does not really assess the content of the draft - it is perfectly possible for "scientific gibberish" to pass through AFC without being detected. It's only BLPs that get a close content review.

For example at AFC complex mathematical formulae will be accepted if they are correctly formatted, errors in the formula itself are not our concern. We care more about form than substance - just look at the criteria we use. As long as there are valid refs sprinkled throughout the article, it is written in neutral non-promotional language, there are no major layout/formatting errors that render the page difficult to read, etc. we accept that the substance is ok. When we do have doubts about the substance we ask relevant Subject WikiProjects to evaluate it.

AFC reviewers need to know what problems have been found in previous rounds and whether the advice given by previous reviewers had helped the submitter to fix the problem. A submission without any previous review templates and/or comments is presumed to be a first time submission, thus it is possible that the submission may be repeatedly declined for the same problem that the submitter is just not fixing because they do not understand the advice (or in some cases might be acting in bad faith). Without a track record it is impossible to detect that the draft author is not understanding the advice. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:22, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

AFC reviewers can know, if they read the history. Gibberish doesn't only come from people writing drafts. I've seen a lot of it in the last few days from reviewers. If you review the responses in the case, you will see that some reviewers gave absolutely nothing in the way of useful data at all, basically just vandalizing the page, while others provided useful information, actionable information, which was acted on. If you prevent people from cleaning out drivel reviews and comments, then future reviewers will see drivel as their first exposure to the draft. Matthewhburch (talk) 07:47, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

• Support formal codification When WP:AFC worked in the old manner, solely in the Wikipedia Talk: namespace, the rule was enforced by Talk Page Guidelines. Now we are migrating to the Draft: namespace this is a rule that previously required no further codification, and now requires it.

We should be grateful to the author of this draft, ploughing his lobe furrow of removal of rationales he considers that he has dealt with for both removing them and making the brouhaha he is making over it, because it ensures that we will codify this existing rule.

Yes, we read the history. Having to read the history puts another obstacle in the way of acceptance. It is far more likely that a reviewer will have the internal dialogue of "Hmmm. Something to conceal here" and either be far more pedantic that before, or will simply ignore the draft and move on. Fiddle Faddle 08:14, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

• Support formal codification. I agree entirely with the points above. --LukeSurl ^{t c} 09:39, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
• To make my position clear, I support formal codification. Having the previous decline rationales and comments not only allows us to perform better reviews, it helps us understand what particular issues the draft/drafter is facing, or what they may be consistently failing to understand about our comments, so that we can give better feedback and hopefully accept more and better articles. BethNaught (talk) 10:16, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
• Unfortunately, the only possible outcome of this is more abuse by reviewers who simply want to plonk a generic template on a case, say WP:OR and wander away without helping the user at all. Matthewhburch (talk) 10:39, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Though sometimes a comment is not given where it would be helpful to clarify the decline, you shouldn't accuse reviewers of abuse unless you can give positive examples of such abuse. BethNaught (talk) 10:50, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

@BethNaught:TimTrent specifically indicated on his talk page that he made an arbitrary decision, and later created a thread on the reviewer help page where he asked for someone to re-review the case. While I can respect him for manning up and recognizing when he was wrong, that is EXACTLY the kind of problem that requires that the draft creater and not some random person needs complete control over active draft content. As my first exposure to rejection from someone that did more than run a tool and find a unsalvageable flaw (first rejection was due to missing reflist) that put an extremely bad taste in my mouth for all Wiki reviewers, and defense of the practice of leaving page vandalisms in drafts is making me more concerned that the problem is pandemic. History should never be deleted, but every draft should have the option of being seen cleanly without prejudice. Matthewhburch (talk) 11:05, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

What I said on my talk page was "So there you have it. Acceptance has a degree of the arbitrary about it, but the retention or deletion of articles is consensus based." and I stand by it. You have the habit of appearing to hear only what you wish to hear. When I reviewed your essay I called it what It was and what it remains. For the exact words, thanks to your insistence on going against consensus and removing the prior reviews I will have to delve into the article history. I choose not to. I object to all that you have said about me. In earlier times I would now be swatting you with a gauntlet and asking you to choose your weapons. We have a policy of no personal attacks, and you sail mightily close to the wind of personal attacks here.

Wikipedia works the way it works. It seems that this is not congruent with the way you work. You will never change it. It will never change you. But, if you want to work here and enjoy it, you need to look at your behaviours as exhibited so far and consider modifying them. Fiddle Faddle 17:29, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I also said "Acceptance of articles is based on the reviewer's opinion, or the eventual opinion after multiple reviews. We use experience of what is and is not acceptable coupled with policies and guidelines. We get it right most of the time. When we get it wrong others put that right. IT can be viewed as arbitrary with guidelines" and I see nothing to defend in that. It is the way it works. The entire conversation is here. Fiddle Faddle 17:38, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

• Support formal codification Matthewhburch It appears you're trying to argue a very interesting and outside analog focused interpertation. You do realize that 99% of process on en.Wikipedia is defined by the way en.Wikipedia chooses to define it? For all intents and purposes we could call it CalmentFlauthEntecy. The process operates how Wikipedia dictates it operates. Now on to substantive arguments, Having the previous decline templates and AFC comments allows the reviewer at a quick galance tell if the submission is improving with a possibility of acceptance or if it's continuing to stay a sub-standard submission. I would also note that an editor who has no experience with a WP process who is edit warring over a process with someone who is familiar with the WP process has very little ground to stand on. Hasteur (talk) 12:25, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

@Hasteur:If you look at the history of the article that started this discussion, you will see that when I was provided actionable advice, I did in fact act on it, and thanked those who provided meaningful advice. When the article was vandalized by reviewers with nothing actionable to say, I was, of course, unable to take any actions to resolve issues. The article has not remained static in the face of the efforts of your reviewers who provided useful comments. The fact that many useful comments have been salted into many useless comments, is a clear indication that your reviewing staff has a great deal of disparity between the quality of advise offered by various members. In the real world, this is called consistency, and it's generally required for real knowledge to flourish. You cannot root out all inconsistency, but you CAN implement policies that support it, like a policy that allows editors to have their articles reviewed based on their content, rather than their meta-content. Matthewhburch (talk) 18:34, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

• I would note that Matthewhburch is exhibiting extreme WP:OWN over this community shared draft. I would strongly suggest that the author take a step back and re-read the collaberative editing environment that we're supposed to be working in lest they find their submission blackballed and their editing career prematurely terminated. Hasteur (talk) 12:30, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

@Hasteur:A collaborative editing environment requires trust that the other side will consider an article fairly, which has been in short supply here due to arbitrary reviewers, and commentary that has not been actionable. Matthewhburch (talk) 18:34, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Matthewhburch If a review or comment does not have actionable content, it will be deleted. If a rejection review or comment is addressed, it will then be deleted and resubmitted. If you don't understand verifiability and WP:CALC or have something actionable to say, please don't review it. That is 100% OWN and borderline hostile editing. Frankly your continued insistence that you know the process and operating procedure better than AFC volunteers who do this actively indicates that you're not wanting to participate in a collaberative environment, but in a academic forum. Hasteur (talk) 18:51, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

@Hasteur:You cannot collaborate with arbitrary rejections that have no actionable advice. When offered actionable advice, I acted on it. Perhaps it would be a good idea to implement a requirement that every single reviewer must offer at least one useful comment in every rejection? Matthewhburch (talk) 19:04, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

• Support formal codification although I'm somewhat confused. I vaguely remember already discussing this with someone and I had thought there was already a bot that did this. If memory serves, this discussion was on IRC in the #wikipedia-en-afc ^connect channel (so, I probably don't have a log), and it was with one of Hasteur — Theopolisme — Earwig — Legoktm: (and I'm sorry if I pinged you and it wasn't you and you have no interest in this, if this case I won't be offended if you just disregard and ignore it). — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 12:41, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

• I suspect the bot, if it existed, was coded to work in the Wikipedia talk: namespace, not the Draft: namespace? Fiddle Faddle 17:32, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

• (edit conflict)I think the bot action Technical 13 was referring to was Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/HasteurBot 3 and/or Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/HasteurBot 5. Task 3 went through and looked at the members of Category:AfC submissions with missing AfC template (both enabled and disabled versions) to see if there was an AFC banner present, so they could be removed from the category. Task 5 traversed a pre-computed set of pages and marked them with the category if appropriate.

  Now because we work in Draft space, I could design a persistent (not ending) bot process to monitor the recent changes feed for Draft namespace and if the bot sees that a diff occurs where an editor is removing a AFC submission banner without moving the page to a new namespace (i.e. Promotion to mainspace, sending back to user sandbox space) that the bot slap a hidden maintenance category on the page to flag it for volunteer review.

  A couple things: If we're going to take the stance that a page in Draft or Userspace once branded by AFC should be flagged for review to determine if the AFC banner needs to be restored, we need a well advertised RFC (homed at WT:DRAFT and specifically advertised at VPP) to establish that there is consensus for this position. Second, I think that removal of the maintenance category should be guarded by a positive signup list to confirm that the user removing the category has evaluated the context of the AFC submission removal (though I do see some obvious exceptions for holders of advanced permissions like admin, rollback, autopatrolled are reasonable not to demand a signup from). If the removal of the hidden category is reverted, I think dropping a notice on the removal user's talkpage explaining the purpose of the category (and how they can stop getting the notices) is reasonable. Hasteur (talk) 18:48, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

• Arbitrariness has absolutely no place in any discussion about knowledge, facts, and science. Absolutely no place at all. All you do by insisting that your reviewers have a right to keep their arbitrary comments on a draft is damage Wikipedia and it's knowledge collection process in general. The history of an article is there, and that should be enough, unless a reviewer is lazy and unwilling to work. If this abomination does manage to pass muster within your rank, then you are supporting exactly the same type of thought process that Galileo, Darwin, and others faced when trying to advance science against the will of the Church when science was in it's infancy. Science was held in bondage to the whims of those who only understood arbitrary knowledge. If you absolutely must allow your reviewers to summarily dismiss articles while offering no actionable advice, then you need an escalation path where an article can be put in a different review process based on facts reviewed by people that have an understanding of the field of knowledge that the writing occurs in. Matthewhburch (talk) 18:19, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

• Ideally a reviewer chooses not to re-review an article. This means that, when an article is declined, it is almost always assured a further pair of eyes. The process is iterative. It is the culmination of more than one subjective assessment against policies and guidelines. Many subjective opinions tend towards true objectivity. Such is the Wisdom of Crowds, and on such a foundation Wikipedia is built.

Your suggested alternate review path is thus created every time an article is declined. Your insistence against consensus of inflicting your ownership of the draft and in deleting prior reviews removes this cumulative objectivity. And you refuse to understand this even after may editors have pointed this out to you in whatever words they have chosen.

Perhaps WIkipedia is not for you? What is so important about having your essay accepted? Fiddle Faddle 18:28, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I would say that Wikipedia is perfect for me, provided that I am allowed to follow a meaningful drafting process. When offered actionable advice, I acted. When an editor is presented with arbitrary rejection, like your review, for example, Wiki fails. After your response, I have had many useful and actionable replies, which indicates that other reviewers were actually supplying useful advice, and said advise was acted on. The original statement that the article was an essay is, in fact true, but your simply plonking a rejection notice on it was not a good example of collaborative work. Perhaps the person who has actually worked collaboratively when actionable advice was provided to them has a better understanding of collaboration itself than the person who figuratively stomped his feet and said "no" before turning their back and walking off? Matthewhburch (talk) 18:48, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

@Matthewhburch: I think i should comment a bit on the review process in general. When reviewing a page it would of course be preferable to give each editor advice tailored specifically towards their article. However, the sheer amount of submitted drafts (200-300 new ones every day) makes it nigh impossible to so due to limited available manpower. What also factors in is that some drafts are submitted as fire-and-forget article's: The editor submits the draft but never returns to view the response. In some cases i spend 30-60 minutes on a single draft writing a detailed reply, only to never see the editor return.

Aside from manpower restrains Wikipedia is a volunteer driven project and therefor the knowledge of editors varies quite drastically. There are plenty of drafts made by editors who have never used wiki-like software before or are entirely unfamiliar with "basic" concepts such as the usage of references. This is pretty much where the standard template come into play - those templates explain an issue present in the article and provide a general description of the changes that should be made. This allows for submissions to be reviewed at reasonable speeds while still providing the editor with the basic information they need. Granted, its not perfect but due to manpower constraints it is the best way to ensure editors receive a response in a reasonable time frame.

Due to the way templates are employed it is therefor strongly recommendable not to remove them. If a draft already contains a decline template explaining the lack of reliable sources a second decline using the same rationale would not benefit the submitter. Instead such a situation suggests that the editor is actively working on the draft and has been informed about the issue before. Ergo: It would probably be prudent to write a manual reply for the editor. Using a similar train of thought: If a page had been declined five times due to being outright advertising it may be wise to deal with it differently than one would deal with a new article. Finally, decline templates allow for quality control as well. Reviewers are volunteers like everyone else and at times a reviewer may make mistakes. If a page contains a decline template that does not seem sensible it is often worth checking out the reviewers other reviews for similar issues.

I am aware that this review process is different from the average academic article submission, but the environment itself is vastly different as well. In the vast majority of the cases it is actually beneficial to see previous correspondence regarding a draft in one glance as opposed to having to dig trough an article's history. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 19:48, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

• (edit conflict)Comment I can't remember seeing any new author being sanctioned for removing AfC reviewer templates, therefore I'm not entirely sure how codification which change our actions here. In the specific example of Matthewhburch's essay, if the author continues to remove templates and comments they will be doing themselves a disservice because they will continue to get standard rejection messages (the next reviewer being none-the-wiser about previous advice/discussions). This is just a very extreme and unusual example, rather than the norm. Therefore I've got no great leaning either way on the subject. Sionk (talk) 18:38, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I am not removing templates and comments from the history, I am taking them off the front page. As a reviewer you should recognize the difference. If you find that an editor is not making corrections after actionable suggestions are made, and simply resubmitting the same thing time after time, then that would be grounds for disciplinary action. Part of what has made me spiky and aggressive here is that I am seeing so much support for lazy reviewing practices here. I will apologize for that, but the support for easy-mode laziness in the reviewing process here is shocking. Matthewhburch (talk) 18:55, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

You do realise that you're not under any obligation to go via AfC at all? You're autoconfirmed now, I should think, so if you're happy with it, move it into article space. If you don't like the reviewing process here, don't engage with it. BethNaught (talk) 19:03, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

No, I was not aware of this. After I conclude my interactions with Davidwr, who has provided useful assistance in our most recent discussion, I will move the article into article space. Matthewhburch (talk) 19:14, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Just realize, that due to your Streisand effect like actions, you have focused a great many sceptical eyes on your submission to the point that I would not be suprised if it landed at WP:AfD shortly after you move it to mainspace Hasteur (talk) 19:22, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I find it reprehensible that the article is going up for deletion in a kangaroo court manner, where, based on the completely arbitrary statements already leveled against it, I will clearly not be able to defend it based on science and math. Does this match your expectations about what Wikipedia is intended for? Matthewhburch (talk) 20:02, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I strongly suggest you read Wikipedia:PURPOSE and WP:5P to realize that what you think Wikipedia's purpose is differs greatly from the established policy about what Wikipedia is. Hasteur (talk) 20:06, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Mate, Wikipedia is intended to be an encyclopaedia, that means first and foremost it is a place where notable topics are presented to a wide audience for their perusal. Nothing less, nothing more. If this doesn't fit into your clearly misguided or simply ingnorant notion of what you wished it were, go vent your disgust somewhere else and stop wasting our time. Your article won't exist here, get over it and do something productive. We work hard all day and deserve a minimun of decorum and respect for what we do; your delusional accusations will just get you nothing more than a probable ban if you keep it up. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 21:12, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Here, here and here for example, you say yourself you are "removing" them. I'm not going to discuss semantics, or you for that matter. The discussion here is between reviewers about the codification of the AfC process. Sionk (talk) 19:07, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

• (edit conflict × 4) - Matt, the part of your comment that I'm confused by, is the fact that you think our decline templates and the reasons for the decline which is preventing the draft you have written from being accepted into the encyclopedia are arbitrary. Considering the reviews, based on those templates, are a blocker to a draft being accepted into mainspace, that seems far from arbitrary. However, if you want to keep removing our templates that help us gauge the article's improvement (because if an article draft isn't improving, then there is no reason for it to be here), then you do that. I almost assuredly guarantee you that the draft will end up deleted. If there is no improvement, and no intention to improve the draft (just to be here on this page with a BATTLEGROUND attitude trying to defend your OWNership of the draft in a DISRUPTIVE manner instead of being HERE like you should be), then it will quite simply go do MfD for deletion as a stale draft that is causing unwanted drama to the project and unable to be accepted because it has less than a 50% chance of surviving an AfD. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 19:13, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
• Since there is apparently no intention of improving the draft, it has been listed for deletion. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 19:34, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

@Technical 13:This statement is clearly untrue if one bothers to look at the draft history. When I was provided with actionable advice, I acted on it. The draft has been substantially improved, which should be clear to anyone who actually looks at it. Please apologize. Matthewhburch (talk) 01:13, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

• I'm sorry that you apparently have no clue. At this point, I might suggest that you drop the stick and step away from the dead horse. There will be no climbing the Reichstag building dressed as Spider-Man for you today... What you should probably take away from this experience is this one simple fact... some things are required to edit Wikipedia. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 01:23, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

• Support formal codification although we shouldn't have to. Chris Troutman (talk) 19:35, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
• Our current procedure of leaving the templates and comments in place works fine. Sionk and others above have explained why. Matthewhburch has called the reviews of the draft in question "arbitrary", but in fact they were correct, as various other editors have confirmed, both here on other talk pages. As for Matthew's call for a review with "actionable" content, each removed review template included links to pages with specific information about what kind of changes were needed in the draft. I see no reason why the process needs any change. There are hundreds of drafts up for review, plus thousands of declined drafts waiting to be improved and resubmitted, and I for one am planning to move on. —Anne Delong (talk) 19:49, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

@Anne Delong:You do understand that 'arbitrary' does not mean 'wrong'? When I see a generic rejection template, it tells me absolutely nothing, even if it is right, because the sheer scope of most rejection articles is immense. It provides me no specificity. It provides me no example. So when I see a generic rejection template, it is, by definition, arbitrary, as I cannot understand exactly what it was that made the reviewer reject the article. The reviewer, presumably, saw something that they could point at in their own mind and say 'aha, that's a problem' but if they don't tell me what it is, then I cannot fix it. Matthewhburch (talk) 02:31, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

• Not sure this is needed now, since the only single occasion it has really been a problem is now likely to be deleted within a few days. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:56, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
• Any policy or guidance needs to take into account situations such as WP:MFD#Draft:Thomas_"Tommy" Lieto. One editor created a userspace draft. Another editor moved it to draft space and applied an AFC submission tag. Is the creator of the draft allowed to remove the tag? Thincat (talk) 22:29, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Sure, Thincat, provided that the user moves the draft back into their user space and adds a simple edit summary of "userfication back into user space" or something of that nature so it is clear that they don't intend it to be submitted for review. The spirit of this is to allow reviewers to see if there is progress being made on drafts that have been submitted so that we can guide new editors to the important things they need to read up on to get the draft accepted into mainspace. The real question is, why are people moving drafts from userspace if they're not acceptable drafts? — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 23:27, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
    • Thread commentators (Thincat—Technical 13) or better yet, what was the cause for finding that page and adding the AFC banner over the user's own requests. I think that specific one should have been dealt with using the WP:STALEDRAFT ruberic. Hasteur (talk) 00:03, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
• Support formal codification Later reviewers could miss something that earlier ones caught. There's no reason they shouldn't easily see old reviews. Jackmcbarn (talk) 22:31, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

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

Post closure comments re implementation

• A note regarding implementation, we should strongly assume good faith regarding this rule, as it is not immediately intuitive and we are dealing with very inexperienced users. Reversions to this effect should be accompanied with a polite note along the lines of "We prefer to keep the red boxes from previous reviews visible on drafts as this allows future reviewers to build on previous comments and provide more helpful reviews" rather than any form of reprimand. --LukeSurl ^{t c} 08:34, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

• I am in strong agreement with LukeSurl over this. It must be codified such that it is not a tool with which to beat an editor up for at least the first, perhaps second iteration of replacement, and even then only used 'in anger' so to speak after what passes the duck test of wilful removal. Newbie Biting is not a sport to be encouraged Fiddle Faddle 13:11, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
• Suggested text: "Please do not remove previous AFC review templates and/or reviewer comments. They provide reviewers with a track record of the progress of your efforts and contain useful information and links to various guidance pages for you too." Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:55, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

• I think that sounds too disciplinary. As a "level-1" notice I suggest "An edit to this draft removed Articles for Creation review templates or reviewer comments. As a matter of standard procedure I have restored these to the page. These comments are intended to help with the development of the draft. They also allow future reviewers to build on previous comments and provide more helpful reviews. Thank you."

Dodger67's text could be used a "level-2" warning for a repeat incident. --LukeSurl ^{t c} 15:15, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Do we really need/want to create a formal set of escalating "warnings"? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 15:35, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't see why we shouldn't use those alredy existing. No need to extend red tape. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 15:39, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Probably not. It would be best done on a case-by-case basis. Generally speaking I think we should initially assume that a template deletion is either accidental or due to naivete about the procedures and the comment should be worded as information, rather than a reprimand. If they repeat then the comment should clearly indicate that maintaining the templates is not optional. I think it is at the third strike that we can should consider that there's a problem. --LukeSurl ^{t c} 15:44, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

• I would prefer a simple but clear notice in the beige template to leave the AFC templates alone. I don't see any reason to warn editors on their talk page unless they do it more than once. Most editors will get the clue when their removals are reverted. I do like the idea of a hidden-category applied by a bot that monitors for such removals. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 03:29, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Another irritating question

Hi. Sorry for yet another question, but I'm trying to find my way in all of this. First off, thanks for all of the input I've gotten, not just here in response to my questions, but also the input, direction and correction I've gotten from editors like DGG. Over the past few weeks, I've looked at what other editors have done regarding articles. One of the aspects I've looked regards corporations/organizations, and what folks do and do not seem to feel is advertising. Having done that, I declined an article, Draft:Firebase. The author wrote me a very polite message asking for directions. In preparing my response to them, I looked at other "cloud provider" articles on Wikipedia, and think that either I made a mistake in declining this article, or else other existing articles have left the advertisement angle slide. Would really appreciate your thoughts before I respond to this new editor. Onel5969 (talk) 01:05, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Onel5969. Here's one point: not all articles have come through AfC; some are created directly in mainspace. They may remain promotional for a while until someone comes along and either adds tags or removes the promotional language. The fact that some pages need improvement is not a reason to create more pages like that. —Anne Delong (talk) 01:27, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

@Onel5969: I passed on reviewing that article because it's problematic. Advertising is like pornography: you know it when you see it. This submission sounds promotional but I can't point to actual wording for an example and for that reason I won't decline it for being promotional. I think I'd decline it for notability as I'm not so sure "news websites" connote notability, but again, I passed on it. You're not wrong for declining it but I'd ignore the issue from here. To defend your "advertising" declination, tell the author that a lot of information on what the company does is included but with no "so what" value. The text is written to advertise, not to explain why it's notable. Chris Troutman (talk) 01:42, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Chris troutman and Anne Delong. I think it's clearer to me now. I pass on quite a few articles (either they are too technical in a field I'm unfamiliar with, or they are so poorly written, I don't want to deal with them). I wasn't trying to defend my decision, it is what it is, it is just that the editor of the article was asking politely for direction, and I was going to point him to other articles as examples, but every article I went to seemed to be pretty advertising related. I think I know what direction I need to head in now. Again, thanks. 02:03, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Draft:Inaamulhaq

I noticed that Draft:Inaamulhaq is created in mainspace (by the same user) Inaamulhaq. What is to be done in these cases? --Vigyani_talk^{ਯੋਗਦਾਨ} 04:47, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

I think you can just ignore the draft now. An autoconfirmed user creating an article in mainspace that they've previously drafted is fully permitted. There doesn't seem to be any need for a history merge here as there is only one author on the draft. However if you wouldn't have promoted Draft:Inaamulhaq you should probably send Inaamulhaq to AfD. --LukeSurl ^{t c} 07:37, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

If the article was a cut-and-paste move of the draft, and the draft only had a single author, you can G6 the draft as 'housekeeping'. Revent^talk 13:05, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

History merge needed

See User_talk:Voceditenore#AfC_submission for Draft:Dulce Beatriz. Thanks, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 14:32, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Okay, done. —Anne Delong (talk) 15:02, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Anne! FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 15:26, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

For your consideration

Please chime in. Best way to stop this flood is to force people to read. Chris Troutman (talk) 02:54, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Etiquette question

If I find errors in an article, I try to correct them. If I find errors in a user's own userspace, I ignore them. But what should I do if I find errors in a draft article?

• Correct them, as in a live article?
• Comment on its talk page?
• Nothing?

I am not thinking here of errors of content, so much as of formatting and use of approved style.

At Draft:Felipe_Browne, I made numerous edits in the hope of getting the article into an acceptable state; and the creator thanked me, so I assume he wasn't offended. But he was a SPA, and wouldn't know what to expect. I wondered later if my edits risked being perceived as officious or unhelpful. What should an experienced user, who uses the draft path, expect? And what is the most encouraging way to treat a draft by a new user? Maproom (talk) 21:26, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

• Hi Maproom. You should edit these drafts. It's good for editors to be introduced to Wikipedia as a collaborative project, and nobody WP:OWNs such drafts. The vast majority of editors will be grateful. Plus, if you feel your edits have made a draft suitable for mainspace, promote it. --LukeSurl ^{t c} 22:37, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
• Maproom Draft namespace acutally has an official title of "Collaberative Drafts". After you've made some changes, see if the primary editor reverts them. If they do walk away from the draft as they want to do it their way. If they don't consider it an implicit invitation to continue improving it until the primary editor asks you to stop. Hasteur (talk) 22:46, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

• Maproom, most kinds of edits, such as fixing up section headings, adding references, spelling and grammar, would be welcomed by most editors, new or not. However, if you want to make edits that fundamentally change the article (say, adding some controversial material, heavily restructuring the order of the information in the body, changing the focus of the article, etc.), it may be better to discuss these changes on the talk page first. The problem is, of course, that some new editors don't know enough to look at the talk page, so you may need to call their attention with a talkback template.

• Maproom, WP:BRD applies in Draftspace just as it does in mainspace. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:40, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Bot flagging of Draft pages that may have been abducted from AFC (Straw Poll)

Seeing at best a mixed bag of No Consensus, so I'm going to abandon this idea. Thanks to all who participated in the straw poll Hasteur (talk) 17:24, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Per the consensus above in the Time to codify long-standing practice of restoring removed AFC templates? discussion, I wonder if it is reasonable to have a bot flag pages that are in the Draft namespace that have the AFC submission banners removed for volunteer review to determine if the banners need to be restored or if no action by volunteers is needed. This is only a "show of interest" straw poll. If there is reasonable support, I'll launch a formal RFC with adverts at WT:Draft and VPP to establish consensus for this task before launching the BRFA/Design. Hasteur (talk) 12:48, 26 June 2014 (UTC) Question & Comment I see your caution in bot construction. What I am wondering is how prevalent this situation is? I have my doubts that it is widespread, and I have strong suspicions that there are very few editors with the mindset that occasioned the codification discussion. I see this as being probably more trouble that it is worth though worth keeping in mind for the future. I foresee difficulties when an editor goes against consensus multiple times and starts an edit war with the bot by removing the bot's flag, for example. I think you have raised something well worthy of quiet and contemplative discussion. WIth that in mind I can give the concept cautious support. Fiddle Faddle 13:06, 26 June 2014 (UTC) My conceptual idea is to put a WP:HIDDENCAT on the page that flags it for review by an editor who knows what the purpose of the category and why it's tagging a page. As I discussed in the above if an editor who doesn't hold advanced privileges (Admin, Autopatrolled, Rollbacker, etc.) who isn't on a list of "Yes I know what I'm doing by removing this category" removes the category I think a restoration of the category and a notice to the remover's talk page (that includes an explanation of the purpose of the category and how the remover can go about getting on the list) would be the least offensive way of resolving this. Hasteur (talk) 13:13, 26 June 2014 (UTC) As to how often the event happens, I cannot say, however I would estimate we probably get 2~3 a day and this style of flagging for review will allow volunteers to dip in from time to time to evaluate the best solution for these. Hasteur (talk) 13:16, 26 June 2014 (UTC) Your conceptual idea has merit. It is better than dipping into the history, but the cat will appear at the foot. Is there a way of making it display something at the head, perhaps in the "Please review me" box that we see but that the author probably does not? I suspect not, and I am thinking aloud here, really. What I hope you may be able to achieve is a least fuss, least bother solution for reviewers. Fiddle Faddle 13:24, 26 June 2014 (UTC) Question - There is a category: Category:AfC submissions with missing AfC template which used to be linked on the Submissions/List tab, but I don't see it there. It's empty now, but something used to populate it with draft pages from Wikipedia talk: and Wikipedia: What? I think it was a bot. Maybe it could be reactivated and have a new space added to its list? By the way, it was very useful to me at the time. —Anne Delong (talk) 13:23, 26 June 2014 (UTC) I think you're referring to Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/HasteurBot 5 which populated articles into that category. The downside is that now that we work in Draft space, we can't have AFC banners over every last Draft page and was only populated off a driver list.Hasteur (talk) 14:18, 26 June 2014 (UTC) More caution I feel rather strongly that if an editor wants to withdraw a draft, presumably temporarily, from the AFC process they should be allowed to do so (by removing all the tags?). However, if an editor decides to stay in the process they should abide by its "rules" which could well include not removing comments. Clearly, jumping in and out of the process repeatedly would be disruptive. AFC is not compulsory and editors should be allowed to withdraw to gather their thoughts. I think a bot could and should distinguish the two situations. Thincat (talk) 13:32, 26 June 2014 (UTC) I think that Hasteur has the right idea here that a bot should only flag pages (perhaps by adding them to the Category:AfC submissions with missing AfC template}, and that the reviewers should do the "distinguishing". If a reviewer sees that the AfC templates should be left off, for whatever reason, there should be an agreed upon process of altering the page so that the bot won't re-flag it. By the way, although that category is empty, a "What links here" search shows some pages that were likely intended to be in it. —Anne Delong (talk) 14:02, 26 June 2014 (UTC) I am only concerned when a Decline has been removed. The other styles of template do not matter. They are removed at the editor/author's discretion. Declined and any associated comments form the review history. Fiddle Faddle 14:09, 26 June 2014 (UTC) Anne and Fiddle (Timtrent—Anne Delong) My invisioned plan is that the bot monitors the individual diffs to look for removal of one or more "AFC submission" banners and apply the hidden category. If a editor working the "Missing" category determines there's no action to take with respect to the page, they can drop the category and move on. The page could be flagged again at a later date if it were re-submitted for AFC and removed again. Hopefully this makes my invisioned implemention clearer. Hasteur (talk) 14:18, 26 June 2014 (UTC) Hasteur, Question 1: How will your bot distinguish between pages that it has tagged before so that it won't retag them? Are you planning to check just diffs with timestamps since the last bot run? Question 2: There are a lot of declined pages, and a lot of diffs in each one. Can you comment about server load? I presume that this would be a low priority task and could be designed to run at less busy times. —Anne Delong (talk) 14:38, 26 June 2014 (UTC) Anne Delong The bot would monitor the Recent changes feed for draft namespace from a specific time (in the link the example is from Midnight UTC on June 26 2014) and investigate each diff. If the diff includes removing an AFC submit banner (and we decide on some specific logic about exceptions) then the bot will tag the page with the hidden category. If the bot gets a hit on the page and the page already has the hidden category, it won't add the category again. This doesn't resolve the past history of pages that were enrolled in AFC but have been de-enrolled prior to the bot starting up. It only solves the problem going forward. The only time it'd be investigating the same page more than once during a scan period would be if the page was edit warred multiple times about the AFC submit banner during the scan period. This is getting a little deep into the design/implementation than what I wanted for the simple straw poll. Hasteur (talk) 15:11, 26 June 2014 (UTC) Okay, here's my "poll" comment - Having a way to find pages from which the Afc templates have been removed would be helpful, particularly if it finds pages that have been created through the article wizard and the new users have removed the pre-submit grey template accidentally and so can't figure out how to submit. However, as I said above, I believe that there is already a bot that does this. (Although it likely used a different process, it appeared to be able to pick up old problems as well as new ones.) I would only be in favour of the creation of a new one if the old one can't be reactivated, can't easily be modified to include Draft space, or won't for some other reason do the job. —Anne Delong (talk) 15:29, 26 June 2014 (UTC) @Hasteur: I support your proposal taking into consideration the responses to the people below. @FF: Support could be added to the WP:AFCHRW script that would add a note to the submission template if the page was in the added category which would essentially do what you are asking for. This would only be seen by those who use the script, and therefor would only be seen by AFC reviewers. As for your initial question, I've seen a fair number of people remove the decline banners because they think it is a bad mark on the draft and it will immediately result in a re-decline, I do remember that there was a bot that went around and found these cases and restored them to the page, and I still can't say for sure who that bot owner was (it may have even been Petrb). @Thincat: If an author wants to withdraw their draft from the process, they must take it out of project space. The only logical place for them to put it is in their userspace, and such a bot wouldn't be taking any action on drafts that aren't in project space. As such, there would be no barrier to withdrawl if that was what they wanted to do. My personal thoughts and comments: If all we want to do is tag edits that remove the decline banner, we don't need a bot for this, an AbuseFilter would work well here. If we want to actually prevent these people from removing the banners from any draft in project space, an AbuseFilter could do that as well. If we want to allow them to remove them, but then go back and restore them, then we would need a bot for that. We only need a bot for the fully automated purpose of allowing the template to be removed and then restoring it later. There could be an argument made for this being the process to restore them, and there could be arguments made for preventing the removal in the first place. What I might propose to get a feel for exactly how prevalent this is (and I've seen it enough to know it is a valid concern), is to create the edit filter that just tags these edits for now, and then decide if we want to block that action or permit it and then revert it after we have a couple weeks to a month worth of data to go on. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 16:07, 26 June 2014 (UTC) Technical 13 You are correct in part that it was Petrb's bot that went through and looked at pages that were missing the banner however there some key points different (as I understand them). Almost all pages at the prefix Wikipedia talk:Articles for Creation/ were required to have the the AFC submission banner for tracking purposes (obviously talk page archives and other test pages were exceptions). The bot tagged articles with the above mentioned Category:AfC submissions with missing AfC template hidden category. While the bot did tag the pages, it did not restore a AFC banner on them. That was the job of editors patrolling that category to determine the most accurate solution (Restoring previous declines, Adding a draft mode banner, submitting the page for review). I'm basing the idea off the same mentality that the bot can easily determine if the page qualifies for a review by a set of human eyes. Hasteur (talk) 16:30, 26 June 2014 (UTC) I won't comment on T13's filter vs bot statements, since I haven't looked into this. I'd just like to ask editors to be careful with judgmental language, such as "abducted" and "abuse". Editors are free to remove their draft pages from the AfC process, and AfC doesn't own Draft space. An editor should be able to have a draft in Draft space without it being reviewed - perhaps because they are building a page in collaboration with one or more other editors, or they plan to solicit help at Wikiprojects. The concern here, as far as I can see, is in cases where (1) the draft creator wants a review, but has deliberately removed previous AfC comments and templates, giving an inaccurate picture of the state of the review process, and then resubmits, (2) an inexperienced draft creator has accidentally removed the AfC templates, and may not know how to submit after improvement, (3) the draft creator has removed the templates and then copy-pasted the text elsewhere, leaving an abandoned fragment, and (4) the draft creator has removed the AfC templates and then stopped improving it, creating a WP:FAKEARTICLE which may not conform to Wikipedia policies. —Anne Delong (talk) 16:32, 26 June 2014 (UTC) Basically what Anne said. No autoconfirmed user is required to use AfC and if they want to promote the article themselves or turn it into a regular draft, that's up to them. Gigs (talk) 17:12, 3 July 2014 (UTC)