Hi! As I've recently starting working on this project I would welcome any feedback from other project participants on my performance so far. MSGJ (talk) 14:22, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Well I was a bit disappointed not to receive any response to this message ... I guess we were all busy clearing the backlog! However this is a serious suggestion: now that the backlog is gone and we have some more time on our hands, it might be worth trying to work together a bit more to make sure we're all roughly working to the same criteria. And it would be worthwhile for people who have been working here a while to give feedback to newcomers to the project. What do you think about this? What if the person requesting feedback was to provide diffs for 10 of their last decisions and someone else could come along and review their decisions and say if they would have made the same decision? MSGJ (talk) 18:38, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Let's finish the backlog!
Sign in here if you're working on finishing up the backlog! There's only 10 pages left, so we should be able to finish the backlog soon (finally)! AFC Barnstars to everyone who helps out with this final backlog drive. for more info...Hersfold(t/a/c)16:14, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Go hard boys (and girls)! It would be a momentous accomplishment to be such a busy project with absolutely no backlog Pumpmeup05:43, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I have been chopping away at the backlog for a long time now - since the last drive. But I have limited internet access at the moment. So every now and again I will attack a day. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:18, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I'll do a few. It will be good to say I was there at the end. Much credit to those who created the great reviewing tools. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 07:33, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I've handed out the promised barnstars to all who signed in above - if you forgot to sign in, but reviewed part of the backlog within the past few days, post here and I'll send another pointy thing your way. Congratulations to everyone! Hersfold(t/a/c)22:26, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I just attacked a few articles in the backlogs today, before they were done. If I had more time, I would have done more. Either way, I helped clear them. Also, I cleared a few backlogs a few days ago. Soxred93 | talk bot01:30, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Holy Crap batman! Wow guys, just WOW. Am sorry i dodn't log in before today but i'm amazed at the work everyone put in :) Great work ladies n gents, glad to see the hard work over the last... well forever! was worth it. *Cheers* Chebbs (talk) 21:22, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
WPAFC header
Now that the backlog is done and we have significantly less to do, we may want to try to clean up the organization of created articles, and make sure that all those articles that have been created are properly tagged with {{WPAFC}}. I'm doing some work on the template now to include the categorization of lists, featured lists, disambiguation pages, templates, and project pages, as well as condense the code used for each. Here's a quick listing of all the categories used by this template:
Ok, I've finally finished the changes to the template. Everyone please review the updated documentation for Template:WPAFC, as there are some new classes available. When you accept through AFC a template, category, list, or disambiguation page, use {{WPAFC|class=template/category/list/disambig}}. This is different from before, when they were all either NA or Stubs. NA is now reserved for project pages only. We have, during the history of AfC, accepted at least one of every type of page, so these divisions are necessary. Please also note that notarticle=yes only applies for pages that are not created through AfC. Thanks! Hersfold(t/a/c)02:59, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
General comments / question
I'm relatively new to the project. I haven't put my name in the participants section, but that's just a personal thing (I get too stressed out if I "officially" join too many projects, so I just figure I can still contribute without "joining").
In any event, I did help with the backlog, and jumped into the current process, and now have a few things I'd like to bring up. Nothing major, but things I'm curious about.
The third "Goal of the project" states Repair format issues that occur on the Afc page that prevent easy resolution of requests. I'm not sure how vigorous people are with that objective. Some of the things I've seen, in both the backlogged and the current submissions:
missing section headers, which end up "merging" multiple submissions. I've seen several declined requests which "suck up" those malformed submissions
unbalanced headers, where submitters will use a level-two header inside a submission, like when providing "External sources", which causes this section to appear as a separate submission. And again, declines based on that.
submitter includes text wrapped inside the direction comments of the template (lack of proper terminology, as I think that is not really a WP:Template). This appears as a "blank" entry, and is declined as such, but may contain a valid submission.
The AFC "Start Here" instructions contain a Extra tips for advanced users, which addresses some of those, and from looking at the backlog, the template has evolved over time, but I wonder if there may be some verbiage that could be more standout. I realize that some people will just simply ignore the instructions, so I don't know if any of these things I bring up are even valid.
And finally, this last one should really go at the top. I've also seen several declines based on WP:V, when the material is actually WP:CV. That makes me raise my eyebrows, since WP:CV is a higher enforcement rather than WP:V or WP:RS (CV is pretty much black&white cut&dry, whereas RS maybe judgemental), and may prompt the submitter to re-submit the copyvio'ed material.
Or am I just being overly critical? I enjoy this project, and it appears to be focused on quality. I'm sure others can agree, my new page patrols shown me more than enough "IRTHELULZ" type of articles, which AFC can "siphon out" rather than going thru the (sometimes painful) CSD. Anyways, enough of my hot-air. Yngvarr(c)22:54, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
There are some useful comments here! Regarding the first and second of your 'formatting' concerns, I am always careful to make sure the standard headings are used, i.e. level 2 heading between submissions and level 3 inside submissions. This is generally a bit of a nuisance but should be done, I think. However I've never even considered your third point - do you mean their submission could be in the comment section? I'll certainly think about this in future.
Part of me thinks it would be nice if each submission had its own page like at AfD. However I suspect this might not be technically possible, as then the anon would have to create a page which of course they can't!
Regarding your final point, yes I suppose you are right but I'm not sure how important this is really.
One of my concerns (by the way I'm a relative newcomer to the project as well) is that I suspect we are judging submissions by different standards. In other words I think sometimes the required standard is too high at AfC, which might not be fair to anonymous contributors. MSGJ (talk) 23:24, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
An example of the submitter adding their text inside the comments would be [1]. See how tricky that is? Myself, I personally gloss over the comment markers, parsing them visually until I see the end-of-comment. And if you were using the automated script, the page may reload faster than you can notice. But in this particular example, the submitter started to include their text inside the start-of-comment and end-of-comment. That's a good example, because even tho it was declined, I'd bet if sources were brought forth, it would be suitable. Yngvarr(c)23:35, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Good call, we need to be checking for CV's for every submission, because we need to be removing the offending material, just declining it isn't enough. delldottalk13:42, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Afc double-check
This is a copy of a post I've made a few minutes ago to Graeme Bartlett talk page, it explains the doublechecking i've been doing to most of the archives
Anyway, back in january I was tackling some of the backlog and one time I accidently opened one of the days that had already been marked as completed, to my surprised the green ribbon that goes at the top of completed pages was missing. I decided to check the submissions and found two or three that could be accepted, which led me to believe that someone had wrongly marked that page as completed when it was not. I figured that if it had happened once it might aswell have happened twice or thrice so I decided to double check all of 2007's submissions. The result was that not only did I find other pages that were missing the green ribbon but also a few that had the ribbon but were not complete, and were clearly not mass moderated. (almost none of the 2007 pages were mass moderated).
After a while I kinda of standardized the process like this:
First I check for the green ribbon, if its missing then I review all the submissions that havent been accepted or declined.
If the ribbon is there then I check which one it is, if its the standard one(Ie. not the mass moderated one) then I check the page to see if indeed all the submissions have been accepted/rejected.
If the page has the mass moderated tag at the top then I assume that it was indeed mass moderated and move on.
so thats basically it, I've created over 40 articles as part of the double checking process of the 2007 archives and now I'm starting to double check the 2006 archives, wish me luck :P RIP-Acer (talk) 12:48, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Now that the backlog is cleared, maybe we should go for a FA or FL. Didn't we have we have some sort of backlog drive? Maybe we can have a "featured content" drive. Who's up for the featured redirect? ;) Nousernamesleftcopper, not wood03:50, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I'll go ahead and be bold and create this:
WikiProject Articles for Creation Featured Article Drive
WikiProject AFC is holding a one month long featured article drive!
The goal of this drive is to fill the empty Category:FA-Class AFC articles category. Good articles are welcomed as well.
There are only two GA articles Jay Barbree and On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog, and no A class articles. Do you want to start from one of these. There are 16 B class, 308 Start class, 395 stubs, 419 not assessed! Could there be a FA hidden in there? Somehow I doubt it. AFC work sttracts those with a short attention span, so I ma not surprised that we don't go on to develop the articles. Usuall all I do is wikify, add cats, perhaps find a reference if I wnat some thing to pass that should have failed WP:V.
So the steps I propose is:
assess all the unasssessed wpafc articles to see if there is a FA potential article in that lot.
reassess all the article in the project
Find active projects for as many wpafc articles as we can and add them to the talk pages to get others interested.
I supposes there are some mega projects like WPBiography and schools there the workers are too thin on the ground.
In order to select the article to work up, find what may be a top or high importance article, so that we can get the most enthusiasm for working on it.
Some one who likes double checking can look at afc articles and see if there are project tags on the talk pages. For some old articles the contributers figured out how to create an article themselves, so we will have to look athe work of the embers of the project. Does any one admit to creating articles without tagging the talk page?
OK I am starting to look at the unassessed articles, and guess what, I am partly responsible, hoping that someone would rate them. The best of the unassessed so far is Walking with Monsters. With a bit of fixing up this could make a GA! or FA if you want to go that far! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:32, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
A few comments on this. I always tag the talk page, but I don't really know enough to rate the article. So it gets stub if it's stubby or start if it's a bit longer. Perhaps I should go read the criteria. Secondly I fully support and could get enthusiastic about developing an AfC article to FA status. It would certainly help the reputation of the project and reinforce the idea that it is about quality. Thirdly I'm not sure trawling through the talk pages re-assessing every article is a good use of our time ... if something has potential it will be recognised by someone sometime. MSGJ (talk) 22:12, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
If it's any help, the header template has been updated recently. It should be able to accept these parameters for class= :
Unranked types:
redirect (please tag redirects too, so there's a record of what's been made!)
template
category
disambiguation
Actual article/list rankings:
Stub / Start / B / GA / A / FL / FA
DO NOT use notarticle, even if it isn't an article. This should only be used for pages relating to this WikiProject. Hersfold(t/a/c)21:08, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
I think the template above should be placed onto the main WP:AFCP page, so that people can see it directly. We should also open the talk page so that nominations for the drive can be considered. Yngvarr(c)14:09, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Well, I know replying to ones-self is bad form, but /shrug. I did some (hopefully agreeable) startup work for this. Feel free to run with it in any manner considered more appropriate. Yngvarr(c)14:31, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Wow.... I can't believe that a vital article was AFCed! Going off to work on structure relocation now... Nousernamesleftcopper, not wood
Categories
Guys we need to be carefull when reviewing the daily archives to be sure that Cats are removed. Some of this months pages have mainspace cats. See for example:
I'm going to check the whole bunch of them later on, but its better if the person, who reviews the last submission on a given page, also checks for active cats.. Or perhaps the archiving bot can be modified to automatically remove cats fom pages that are archived? The only cat we used in the archives was the mass moderated one but since all the new submissions are individually checked then we wont be using it anylonger. Acer (talk) 14:47, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Hmm, I checked the edit history of the exampled I gave above, it did remove some cats but for some reason failed to remove others.. Acer (talk) 15:36, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
I got it. That cat was being placed there because of the {future game} template, I've removed it and now the cats gone. I'm guessing that the cats on the other pages are also due to templates. Acer (talk) 15:53, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Maybe the archive bot can {{tl}} templates? The templates used to decline, accept, etc, are all subst:'ed, and don't appear in the raw markup. I'll post a note on User talk:Jitse Niesen, as the owner of the bot... Yngvarr(c)15:57, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Ok good that'll save us some trouble if its doable. As for the archives that exist already, I'll try to fix the templates later tonight. Acer (talk) 16:17, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
On Yngvarr's request, I cooked something up. However, I'm not at all sure whether it works, so please let me know if the bot messes up. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 23:29, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Two things 1. It looks solid but an article was previously deleted as a copyright vio. I can't seem to figure out if this suffers the same problems. 2. The AfC is all messed up in the formatting, can someone with more experience than myself take a look at it and attempt a fix. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Torchwoodwho (talk • contribs) 17:50, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Articles with their notability questioned
Hello,
of the articles that have been created through the "Articles for Creation" process, 14 are currently tagged with notability concerns. I have listed them here. (Note: this listing is based on a database snapshot of 12 March 2008 and may be slightly outdated.)
I would encourage members of this project to have a look at these articles, and see whether independent sources can be added, whether the articles can be merged into an article of larger scope, or possibly be deleted. Any help in cleaning up this backlog is appreciated. For further information, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Notability.
I am wondering if anyone would have any comments on an AFC stats bot or script? Basically count completed days and report the numbers of submissions and the numbers of accepted submissions for each day, or a particular day, or whatever.
I'm looking at some of the completed archive pages, and they're fairly well-structured in terms of consistent data:
A completed day is listed in Wikipedia:AFC/LIST with the {{done}} template.
For each day that is listed as {{done}}, the individual pages are:
existence of {{afc c}} template for verification of completion
the number of level two headings is the number of sumissions
the existence of the parser #switch:accept identifies an accepted submission (as opposed to #switch:|accept for a declined submission)
I'm fairly technically inclined (I'm an admin in Real Life), so could probably learn whatever language involved, but as long as there is no disagreement, I'd probably actually post over at WP:BOTREQ and see if there's some existing bot that can do this, or something similar. Yngvarr(c)13:10, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Not crediting the source
How often do Wikipedians create an article from WP:AFC and not credit the anon who submitted it? Happened today with John Gabriel Jones and Edward Worthington, for example. This is not the first time I've seen someone essentially sign their name to someone else's work by creating an article without mentioning that it actually came from WP:AFC. Does it matter? Does anyone care? —KevinMyers15:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
It matters, not only because it is the right thing to do but because not doing so may violate copyright law if text from the AFC is used in the article. If you see such a thing, there are several options. If the article is fresh with only a single edit, you can blank and re-create the article with the correct attributions in the log file. Another way is to add then undo something like "the following is from an AFC request [link] by Joe Blow on 2008-04-02 01:23:45:" [body of text from AFC] "end text from AFC request." A third way is to add a comment to the Talk page. Typically when I create a page from AFC, the very first edit is a verbatim copy of the AFC text preceeded by an under-construction template and text pointing back to the AFC. I also put the AFC info in the edit history. The second edit is the rewrite to make it suitable for Wikipedia. This isn't the only way to give proper credit, it's just my preferred style.
From a copyright perspective, if you rewrite the article based on sources rather than the text in the AFC, you do not need to attribute the AFC. But it is still a nice thing to do and highly recommended. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 15:11, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
The GFDL license opens with this License preserves for the author and publisher a way to get credit for their work. If you don't credit the initial contributor, which is not the person who actually creates the article, you're taking the credit from the submitter.
I've been doing it in a similar manner that davidwr mentions. I just copy the entire AFC into the new article, remove any boiler-plate text and save it. I just say "created from WP:AFC by Special:Contributions/IP#. I can edit it afterwards, even if it's effectively to re-write.
Also, big peeve of mine that I pointed out above: copyright text needs to be removed from the submission. Don't forget, these pages are indexed via Google, et. al., and if you were to search for the copyright text, you'd get a hit here. Just having the text on Wikipedia may cause issues, even if it's not in mainspace. Yngvarr(c)10:58, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Silly little template
While not very important in the grand scheme of things, I created a new template at Template:UnsignedAFC. My reasoning is on that talk page, but basically, sometimes the IP deletes the boiler-plate signature. I've used template:unsignedIP, but that is for talk pages, so it's not entirely accurate. Just subst: like always. Yngvarr(c)14:37, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
New article guide in Portuguese Wikipedia
Hi,
We at Wiki-pt are trying to implement a wizard very similar (we copied it, actually) to the Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Wizard. However, we haven't been able to implement it yet, because, simply put, we don't know how you did it. We have the wizard pages all done and ready, but I haven't found anyone who knows who to change the MediaWiki pages so that anonymous users are directed to the wizard when they try to create an article. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks! GoEThe (talk) 21:41, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
If you really think it should be deleted, then take it to RFD.
I don't see the harm of having this as a redirect; indeed it seems it might be a helpful one to me.
Removing your comments could be considered bad manners, but any editor is free to overrule any of our rejections and create an article/redirect. MSGJ (talk) 08:28, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
If you search Google for Hoover Bridge, there are several bridges that actually have that name. If Splat5572 does some more of this, would it ultimately be his responsibility for creating the redirects or the IP's responsibility (and he's just acting as a proxy)? --NE208:34, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
Please chime in and feel free to tweak it. My thought here was that there are certain ip submitters that hare hiding behind the AFC process and submitting large amounts of redirect requests. Cheers - GtstrickyTalk or C18:14, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
I am a bit confused by this. If you don't feel the redirects are appropriate then reject them. But I don't think we should be rejecting submissions just because a particular IP address is submitting a lot of requests! (Indeed we have some prolific anonymous editors who have submitted many great articles.) MSGJ (talk) 09:03, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
Here is my thought process but know I am easily persuaded...
1st: It is ARTICLES for creation and I don't consider redirects as articles. My thinking is redirects are created as a courtesy. (might I suggest Redirects for Creation ?)
2nd: It not logical to come here and create 10-20 redirect requests instead of obtaining a user name. (usually my logic is failed anyway)
3rd: Many of these requests are project oriented (highways) and could easily be put on a project talk page for discussion and completion. It seems that some IPs are bypassing due process and consensus by using the AFC process.
If they are good we can accept them. If they are bad we can decline them (eg ambiguous wrong, never used). But if there are too many just leave them, and some one else who is keener can continue the job! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:58, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
Would someone please be willing to approve this article? I have spoken to a couple of admins about getting it submitted, and [Orange Mike] suggested I put int a request this way.
Seemed to be Gtstricky's decline of Anthem Rock that was causing it so I have undone that and it's sorted. MSGJ (talk) 19:31, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
You need to remember to close the tags properly. That usually screws it up and hides everything. Always remember to do {{afc b}} properly. Utan Vax (talk) 19:34, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
NVISION
NVISION was marked for deletion, because it lacked notable sources. Now notable sources are plenty. Please add it back...
"not notable as there is no coverage by reliable sources that are independent of the subject"
"People should re-add this article once its notability can be established"
"of course the article can be created if the Guinness World Record is achieved and/or it receives substantial press attention" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.112.111.122 (talk) 05:09, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.
The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.
Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.
Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable)22:20, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
Articles flagged for cleanup
Currently, 1900 articles are assigned to this project, of which 323, or 17.0%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 14 July 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. Subscribing is easy - just add a template to your project page. If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 18:52, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I have made a minor change to the AFC wizard so that users who want to request a new redirect are given a different template. In my opinion, the standard preloaded template was not very appropriate for redirect requests because it didn't ask for a reason, but it did ask for sources (which are not needed for every redirect request). I have updated the intructions accordingly. Please take a look at WP:Articles for creation/Wizard-Redirects and the edit page. If you don't like it, feel free to revert and discuss here. Cheers, MSGJ (talk) 18:56, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
Proposal to merge discussion pages
At the moment we have two different pages where discussion about the AFC process takes place.
Having two different pages to watch seems unnecessary and it can get confusing if some discussions take place there and some here. I propose to redirect the latter to the former and have all discussions in one place. MSGJ (talk) 10:00, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
True, but there are not many wikipedia processes which are also wikiprojects. I don't really have a preference of which redirects to which, but I really don't think there is any need to have two different talk pages. Discussion about the wikiproject is discussion about the AFC process and vice versa. MSGJ (talk) 17:05, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
I have merged the archives and redirected as proposed. If people feel it should be the other way around then it will be relatively easy to switch. MSGJ (talk) 18:04, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
Do you mean an option in the wizard for a dab page? We get so few requests for dab pages (I can't recall any) that I am not sure if it would be worth it. Can you just use the standard process for articles? MSGJ (talk) 12:43, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
NOINDEX
I think maybe {{NOINDEX}} (which prevents search engines from indexing the pages) should be used on articles for creation pages, as they are not part of the main encyclopedia. Many are not written from a neutral point of view, either with criticism or by making it look like a company is spamming; the pages also contain unsourced information that if it contains errors, is unlikely to be corrected. --Snigbrook(talk)00:39, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
No need to change the bot - this could be added to the {{afc c}} template which is already added to each archive page. MSGJ05:21, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
Though appearing in search engines can help us out when we want to look at stuff from the past. In fact it was a seach result that first made me aware that there is such a process as AFC. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:25, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
There are some anon's around that are very skillful. The series of wrestling articles is one example where the contributor has years of experience with many articles, and there is another anon contributing good legal articles. Some people just don't wish to register. In the case of the wrestling articles, many wrestlers are on the margin of notability, so there have been quite a few deletions based on nonnotability. But with a good looking article - perhaps B class, there is a bigger chance of keeping compares with a stub, or piece filled with poor language.
Credit belongs with the IP who contributed the article, you will get into the history as the mover and fixer upper! We should not claim credit for other's work, we are just facilitating it. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:34, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Hi Wilhelmina, your work has been a great benefit to Wikipedia, so please stay on with AFC. Do you like all those bold Ns next to your id? Do you wish to be credited as the creator of the article? No need to give up, the new process is easier! Your contribution to the AFC project is still basically the same if you follow this new procedure: checking for quality articles and accepting or declining and then cleaning up. Did you actually look at Category:Pending Afc requests? That is where the new contributions hang out. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:09, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Why would that be important to you WW? I agree that you do some great work here, but this is a bemusing attitude of yours. Aren't we all here to improve the encyclopedia? MSGJ15:52, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
You're intelligent so it might be worth continuing this to see where we get.
Why would you think your survival is threatened? And if it was, why would creating pages rather than editing pages make any difference at all? Personally I think that fewer high quality articles is preferable to lots of stubs. If it is recognition you desire, you might do better to help bring some existing articles to GA or FA status.
The contributions you review at AfC are not your articles anyway - as Graeme says, the credit goes to the user who submitted them.
Funny, I always though they were like midwives and midhusbands, while the registered AFC participators would serves as the mothers and fathers of the articles. Am I the only one who views them as children? Furthermore, in answer to the rest of your points:
I do intend to expand the articles after a while, but first I have to get them made so that they don't go to someone else. I even have worked out a daily schedule on what to work on.
My survival as an editor is occasionally threatened. Why just in the middle of this summer... but that would be gossiping.
Can someone give me a reality check here? I find myself creating lots of articles about professional wrestlers. This is because they are generally well written and have loads of references. However I have declined a few requests for high ranking military officers because of notability concerns. But this doesn't seem to be completely right to me. The nature of the profession means that more will be written about wrestlers. Does this mean they are more appropriate than these soldiers with distinguished careers? (See Articles for creation/Submissions/Cecil Lee Clark for an example of one that I can't decide on.) Thanks, MSGJ09:40, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
How about we set some guidelines. Say some one in charge of 1000 people is notable enough. This would cover company and organisation bosses, bureaucrats and soldiers. That number should correspond to some military rank. They could also be famous because they achieved a famous award or had news coverage for some of their activities in at least two important media outlets.
I have declined some military personnel articles which just state they fought in WWII. But if the article is well written then we have a lot more motivation. In the case of the wrestlers, many of these have been deleted in the past due to non notability. Perhaps some authors have been discouraged by deleting of their articles, so they supply them at WP:AFC instead. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:21, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
1000 is a reasonable number, but not supported by any Wikipedia guidelines as far as I know. The primary measure is coverage in reliable sources, which tends to favour wrestlers over soldiers ;) According to Lieutenant colonel (United States), "In the U.S. Army, a lieutenant colonel typically commands a battalion-sized unit (300 to 1,000 soldiers)". Would you create him? MSGJ14:27, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Remember that we are a tertiary source. That means that we are dependent on independent coverage in order for us to have content. So it's entirely reasonable that it will be easier to create articles on professional wrestlers than for soldiers. Our definition of notability is explicitly not equal to the concept of importance. Taemyr (talk) 18:16, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
I was considering using the section title for the title of the new redirect. (Because the page looks a bit strange now because every section is called "Request for new redirect"!)
Agreed. Especially when they're all closed.
Consider minimising the use of comments in the wikicode because it tends to confuse. You might like to tinker with the instructions instead.
If you mean the "<-" that wasn't a comment but part of the instructions; "Type inside the braces" pointing to the braces. Could use a "←".
Unfortunately, many contributors are Americans so instructions would just go unread. (Mea maxima culpa.)
I'm editing Template:AFC_redirect_preload and noticed that the 4-tilde sig is written like "includeonly~~/includeonly~~" (with the <>'s, of course). Is that some magic wiki-stuff? Or are 4-tildes always rendered as sigs? (Not going to change it, never even new about preloads and editintros & such before, just curious.) Thanks. Saintrain (talk) 19:52, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
it is indeed magic. The includeonly separates the 4 tildes so that they don't produce a signature on the template. However when preloading, 4 tildes do appear, which then create the signature where it's wanted. MSGJ21:46, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
Only that the idea of the example is that it reflected exactly what should be in the edit box. (We don't want people to actually type "Please type inside the square brackets, where provided", do we?!) However if people are not following the instructions and you think this would help rather than hinder, feel free to replace it.
Still wondering whether to change it so that the title of the new redirect is the title of the section on the page. In this case, it probably would not be wikilinked as there is no way we can template the subject box. I wonder if I am making any sense here :) MSGJ16:15, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
That's what I was asking about. [This edit] removed the instruction to add the new redirect title to the Subject line. Since it was your suggestion (and I thought it was a good idea before that) I was wondering if you'd had 2nd thoughts. But now I'm really confused. Saintrain (talk) 17:45, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
It was just that I didn't know if we had actually decided to do that and I was a bit confused as to what submitters were supposed to do.
Were they supposed to put the title as "New redirect request: John Smith" or delete the "New redirect request" bit?
Were they supposed to write the title of the new redirect twice? If so, is that unnecessary extra work?
But seriously, the new instruction was "add", and what difference would it make if the Subject doesn't say "New redirect request" but is just the new Title. (Or even blank for that matter. Multiple blank Subjects is just as much information as multiple "New redirect request"s. :-) (It's kinda moot for me anyway since I started using "afc-helper". Thanks for that.) Saintrain (talk) 18:27, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
I think perhaps the AFC helper wouldn't work if the section title was blank. But having the new redirect title as the section title seems to be the most sensible. MSGJ13:26, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
I would put in my vote for the section title being the subject. Looking at the collaped page tells us almost nothing except how many requests were made. Also After processing a request the browser pops back to the first entry with the name, they all have the same section name so it goes back to the top. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:11, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
I just went through the process and left the Subject blank. My (faulty) request was just appended to the previous (good) request. Unfortunately a lot of people either don't see or can't be bothered to use the Subject line in posts. I would suggest there be at least a dummy Subject preloaded. Saintrain (talk) 14:16, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
I suppose you are right. What should it be and should the instructions say to replace the dummy by the title, or add their title to the dummy? Other considerations:
Could the dummy be "New redirect: [[ ]]" or simply "[[ ]]" and the instructions say to put the title inside the square brackets?
InputBox will not preload the title so the old url would have to be used again.
If they leave it blank, how on earth are we supposed to know where they want the new redirect?
I don't think it really matters. This is such a transient page; a "what color should the trash bags be?" kind of problem. :-) Is there ever a need to look at the archived pages? Saintrain (talk) 15:50, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, didn't read the whole question. My hunch is "New redirect : [[ ]]". It shouldn't be blank and all the other fields have instructions. It's hard to tell, I know what the fields are for but I don't know what other users think. (I'm getting more and more anti thinking-for-other-people. There's so much "we should limit WPs capabilities because some other people can't read it on their ipods using a slow modem", ahem, crap. But you never hear complaints from those other people. But I digress.)
To clarify my (throw away) comment about archives, old requests should be archived. It's just hard to imagine that they would ever be used as a reference or that they would be searched by a 3rd party.
Now that this page contains only redirect requests, which are short, I suggest that there is no need to collapse the requests when they are accepted or declined. That would make it a little bit easier for reviewers. Do people agree? MSGJ12:20, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
Agree. Just take the "collapsed" out of the template. Saintrain (talk)
It is a feature we would like and we have discussed it in part on the new proposal page. Perhaps a "bot" could make such a page! For accepted articles we have to rely on a redirect, or talk page template to identify that it came from WP:AFC. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:43, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Um, it would be nice to see have such an overview page. However I am not convinced it would be worth all the janitorial work in maintaining it. AfD only works because people have to follow a bunch of rather complicated instructions in order to nominate an article for deletion. There's no way that our "clients" could be expected to follow such a procedure. A bot maybe, but I'm not sure how practical that would be. It is possible to see what's going on, by looking at the related changes of the various categories. Personally, the reduced clerical work of the new process makes reviewing submissions far more enjoyable than previously. MSGJ16:24, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
C CLass: Criteria:The article is substantial, but is still missing important content or contains a lot of irrelevant material. The article should have some references to reliable sources, but may still have significant issues or require substantial cleanup.
More detailed criteria: The article is better developed in style, structure and quality than Start-Class, but fails one or more of the criteria for B-Class. It may have some gaps or missing elements; need editing for clarity, balance or flow; or contain policy violations such as bias or original research. Articles on fictional topics are likely to be marked as C-Class if they are written from an in-universe perspective.
Reader experience:Useful to a casual reader, but would not provide a complete picture for even a moderately detailed study.
Editing suggestions:Considerable editing is needed to close gaps in content and address cleanup issues.
Well the purpose is to point to the discussion room, and I wasn't aware until right now that anyone still used the discussion room, honestly...Regardless, now that we can discuss submissions directly on the submission, I don't see a need. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:45, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
I reckon we should keep the category, normally it is empty, and only occasionally should have something in it. Not all out procedures have changed yet or completely settled down. So we should not yet be removing the old stuff. It is still of historic value to understand how the system used to work. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:47, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
That was me who requested this category be deleted as I was tidying categories and couldn't see any purpose for this one. I did propose that the discussion room be retired and I don't think anyone commented on it. MSGJ15:16, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
Do we have a category for tough to decide articles? This category sounded like the one. You are right about retiring the discussion room, we don't need to use it any more. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:05, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
redirects page
Is the redirect request page supposed to have every section header identical, or should the instructions include putting the target into the subject line? 70.51.9.124 (talk) 05:33, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
I could imagine that the requester makes an article and types in their request. There have been occasional things like this in the past. I expect that this sort of request would be rare so we should be able to cope without any formal procedure. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:11, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
True, I might look into this if I have time. But as Graeme says this is very rare. I have never known such a request before. MSGJ06:57, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
That is a very biased statement. It also would never have covered a reasonable attempt to delete the GNAA spam that used to plague WikiPedia. 70.55.203.112 (talk) 09:04, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Traffic light for AfC status
I thought the idea of imparting levels of vandalism to vandal-fighters (see Template:wdefcon) could be adapted to provide participants of WikiProject Articles for creation with information on how large the backlog is. I propose three levels -
backlogged (when there are perhaps more than 50 submissions waiting)
The current status can be seen on the left (obtained by transcluding User:Msgj/Sandbox3). This template could be placed on the main AfC page as well as the userpage of participants. The idea is that if the process gets backlogged, more people come along to help! If people like this idea I will move it out of my userarea and document it. MSGJ15:33, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
How about some more different levels for more serious backlogs, eg 100, 200 1000? And a special colour for 0, which may indicate something is broken and no one is contributing? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:14, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
Now moved to template space at {{AFC status}}. I added a level 4 for a severe backlog but now I've run out of colours! It could use some tweaking, e.g. to control where it floats on a page. But it's working for now. MSGJ11:09, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
I added a few links to the bottom of the {{AFC pending}} template that I thought would be helpful for reviewers. Can anyone think of anymore which would be useful? MSGJ18:11, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Looks good, is it possible to have a tool to notify the contributor with the {{afc talk}} template that is too much trouble to add? another possibility is a button to do a search on the subject, wither wikipedia or famous search engines. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:00, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
The google/wikipedia search should be possible, but I don't think the {{afc talk}} is possible. However I could probably provide a link to preload the {{WPAFC}} template on the talk page. MSGJ23:05, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
That {{afc talk}} is a good idea, can you a variant with start class and stub class and a WPBiography|living=yes. I could imagine that this stuff will be invisible once we do the move however! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:08, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
So that's links for google search, wikipedia search and article talk page preload added now. I just tested the latter and it seems to work fine. If you use the link to create the talk page before moving the article (as then the pending template disappears as you said), then do the move, all is well. Of course it only works if the proposed title is the actual place it is created at! MSGJ12:39, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Time to call the new process official
Given the amount of support the new process seems to have, does anyone object to declaring the new method the process for submitting and reviewing articles? In that case, I would like to update the full and abbreviated instructions for reviewers. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:00, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. I've been putting off rewriting the instructions so if you want to make a start on it then great! I have a suggestion: keep Wikipedia:Articles for creation as the "front-end" containing all information for submitters. Move all information pertaining to reviewers to the "back-end" Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation. This would help to keep the front-end less cluttered and put information for the reviewers all in one place. Any thoughts on this? MSGJ12:43, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Oh, I didn't see your message before I updated the instructions (both the quick and the detailed). That's a good idea, but I think there should still be a quick-reference for reviewers somewhere. I don't want new reviewers to be discouraged upon seeing the only instruction for them is 11kb long. Someguy1221 (talk) 20:51, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
It would be nice to have a complete redesign to make it clearer and more welcoming. I'm thinking we could feature some articles recently created through the AfC process as well. I agree about having a short version of the instructions as well as the full page. MSGJ08:08, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
Problem at WP:Images for upload
I've submitted some images to Wikipedia:Images for upload, to go along with a few articles submitted on Afc, however the project seems to be becoming increasingly backlogged. Part of the problem is that there are currently two different "Current request" pages being used. I left a message at the project's talk page, but it doesn't seem to be active at the moment. 71.184.42.203 (talk) 12:21, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
What's your rationale for these two new categories? I noticed that User:Legoktm has taken held requests out of the pending category, which I'm not sure I agree with. Having one category for all pending requests seemed simplest to me ...
What is seeming to happen is that most of the requests are ending up on hold, so for initial review we don't need to look at the Category:Held Afc requests until the contributor has a chance to respond. But then I thought that we need a category for Category:Queued Afc requests, that have not been looked at by a reviewer yet. I am not convinced that :queued" is the best term though. My intention was not to remove the pending category though. As you say held and awaiting initial inspection are both pending, so I think we need that cat too. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:11, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
About the new section thing on the talkpage preload, the only reason it is there is that if the page already exists (e.g. if there is a banner already there for some reason), then preload template will not work unless a new section is added. Anyway in this case the page should be blank anyway, so not much difference!
The problem here was that a heading was inserted before the project tags and they are tacked on the end - that is not the normal practice. Perhaps a section=0 will get the edit at the top! Another option I would like here is to include the WPBiography|living=yes template as well as the WPAFC. This would save even more typing. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:11, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
Are there any other search engines which should be linked from the "reviewers' tools"?
Do you think the reviewers' tools should also appear on the "on hold" template?
Sounds a very good idea. I am finding the log option very useful to spot protected and deleted pages. Some contributors look very persistent trying several avenues to get an article included. Another aspect we should be aware of is that contributors may also be trying out the tool links, so there should not be any negative outcomes from this (I can think of talk pages being created for article that are not accepted). Which makes me think that a plain link to the talk page for the potential article may be good to see if it is red or blue. Earlier there wes a concern about blocked users contribution via AFC. In my opinion this may be acceptatble, but it would be good for use to be aware of it so that we can see if there are still problems and do more thorough checks on the content. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:11, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
The list of redirects is transcluded. It is not broken, it just takes a long time to update. Please click the Articles for creation/Redirects link for the up-to-date list. The old submissions are not updated because that system is not used anymore! MSGJ08:02, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
And the old submissions should be retired (removed), since it's very out of date and not used. (Shouldn't it be used, with a monthly digest instead of a daily one?) 70.55.203.112 (talk) 05:35, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
A transcluded list is not updated till the page it is transcluded to is edited, no? So that means the list will never update, for all practical reasons. 70.55.203.112 (talk) 09:24, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
The new method does not actually work for categories. You cannot move a talk page to a category. Also the tool link to the category in the AFC submission template puts the request in the category rather than linking to the page! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:56, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
Interesting, it tells you that you are blocked when you try to move a page to a category! I would suggest we direct category requests to the Redirect page via a different preload template. There seems to be no advantage in putting them on separate pages like the article requests. MSGJ07:11, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
I think it may be a feature that you cannot move cats. You cannot move a category to another name, instead you have to make a new one and delete the old name. Any way I have figured out what to do - click the category name on the bottom of the article to a new page, and edit, copy text to the new cat. Look at history to credit contributer, but it is still a bit complex. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:31, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.
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Advanced uses
I am seeking support to introduce a page such as Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Wizard-Advanced into the wizard to collect all requests for pages other than articles. It will allow custom preload templates to be used which are more suitable for each request, and give us more control about where the various requests are posted. At the moment, only the redirect page exists; that's why the others are redlinked. If anyone thinks that some of the possible requests are not suitable, or can think of any others we should offer, please say. MSGJ12:41, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
No, I've never heard that, although in most cases unregistered users and trying to stay anonymous which is rather defeated by a user page. MSGJ11:45, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
Here are my proposals of how we deal with each kind of request:
These sound sensible, but since some kinds of things are rare, we can just take the exceptions when they come. Usually only experienced users would request the exotic items, and they are probably registered. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:49, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
In order of commonness they are: articles, redirects, dab pages, categories, templates, and the other two have possible never happened yet. MSGJ10:37, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
Would anyone object to adding an archiving bot to the redirect request page? I know that MiszaBot works for my talk page and may work here as well. Opinions? (Apologies if this has been discussed before) TN‑X-Man22:31, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
To be a little more specific, here is the code for MiszaBot that I would add.
{{User:MiszaBot/config
|algo = old(3d)
|archive = Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Redirects/Archives/%(year)d/%(monthname)s
}}
There are two questions left that I can see. What would be the best way to integrate the existing archives? Secondly, would the bot automatically begin archiving to a new month or would the target of the archiving need to be manually changed? People that are more programming-savvy can view the bot instruction page at User:MiszaBot/Archive HowTo. If I missed something, let me know. Again, any input is appreciated. TN‑X-Man17:45, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Cool! Well, I'll leave this suggestion here for another day or so, in case someone else wants to comment. If no one objects, I'll put the code in after that. I also want to look into sorting Category:Completed Afc requests by the date articles were placed in the category. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know! TN‑X-Man19:50, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
(outdent) OK, I have added the bot to the top of the page. It is currently set to archive requests older than three days. Cheers! TN‑X-Man13:21, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Will this even archive 3-day old requests that have not been reviewed yet? If so I think 3 days is much too short because sometimes this page does not get reviewed in 3 days. Two weeks is probably safer, and with the number of submissions we currently get, I don't think the page will be too long after a fortnight. MSGJ16:35, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Well, three days may be a little short, but I feel that fourteen may be a little long. The oldest unreviewed request (at the moment) is from yesterday. Maybe seven days? TN‑X-Man16:42, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
It looks good to me. It's a lot less imposing and easier to follow this way. I have aligned the text for the instructions to the left. Let me know what you think. TN‑X-Man16:20, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
It looks good. I always thought that page could be made neater. A few points. A template is generally only used if it is used on several pages; I don't think this is the case here, so why not just change the main WP:AFC page? Secondly, I've always found that big red cross rather unfriendly. Thirdly, we need a link to a page for reviewers containing the reviewing instructions, etc. MSGJ08:29, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
I have no objection to moving the text of the template directly to the page. As for the big red X, maybe we could change it to some sort of reminder. Something along the lines of "Are you sure your article doesn't promote anyone? Are you sure you don't want to experiment?" It still makes the point in a friendlier fashion. Cheers! TN‑X-Man16:47, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Deleted accepted submissions
It has just come to my attention that RedirectCleanupBot (talk·contribs) has been deleting the redirects left by submissions accepted then deleted. I was going to ask that the deleted submissions be moved back to WT space, but then realized this may not always be appropriate. I was then going to ask that the redirect be spared, but then realized this would just leave the submitter supremely confused. Anyone have an idea what to do about these? Someguy1221 (talk) 01:18, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
Wait, I'm confused. Which redirects are being deleted? Sorry, I've been up all day and am moving slowly. :( TN‑X-Man01:21, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
When we accept a submission, we move the page into main namespace which then replaces the original location with a redirect to the new location. If the article is subsequently deleted the redirect to it is then broken and should be deleted. I think Someguy is worried that there is then no record of the submission. However I don't think it is worth worrying about. The fact that the page was deleted is contained in the page logs and I don't think there is anything else we can do. MSGJ08:40, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
Is there a template for attention to declined requests when the reason makes no sense? Or is {{AFC submission|P}} used in that case as well? 70.55.200.131 (talk) 03:51, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
Just to make people aware, there is currently a fault with the Inputbox extension which is affecting the last page of the wizard. The two error are:
It says "submit query" instead of "I'm ready to submit my article"
The default prefix WT:Articles for creation/Submissions/ does not appear in the input box. This will probably lead to submissions going to all sorts of places.
The pending banner should now display the date that an article was first submitted. I don't know if people think this is useful? It's currently displaying it in a very long format, e.g. Submitted: 13:11, 30 October 2008 (UTC). This can probably be shortened. MSGJ14:03, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
I should point out that this will only display on new submissions, not those existing before I implemented this. MSGJ14:04, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
Not sure what you mean exactly. You mean you want it to appear underneath the "last edit" time? MSGJ21:01, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
Obsolete templates
We have a lot of templates in Category:Articles for creation templates which are now obsolete with the new system. I'm thinking we can clean up a bit as it will be simpler for people to see which templates are used in the process. The following seem to be redundant to me. The majority have been incorporated into the new Template:AFC submission:
If there are any of these which may still be useful please let me know. Otherwise I plan to tag them with {{Db-t3}} and they may be deleted after seven days. MSGJ21:21, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
Well I took silence to mean consensus ;) These have been tagged for deletion and will be deleted in 7 days if no one objects. MSGJ12:42, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
I will see to it that Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Templates is updated. However the only instances of these transcluded templates are in archive pages which are never going to be looked at again and all that will happen in these few cases is that a red link will appear instead of the template which is not the end of the world. So I'm suggesting that we don't bother ... MSGJ12:38, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
I think we should keep all these templates, as they are a history to show how the system used to work. I used enough of them myself. There is probably still a lot of good stuff in the archives that just needs a few references added. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 13:04, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
I have made a template {{AFC submission/old}} which mirrors what the old templates used to do, just in case you ever want to use them again. For example {{AFC submission/old|web}} produces:
However I can see little advantage in keeping all these obsolete templates and a lot of advantages in cleaning up after ourselves. The instructions can seem overly complicated when there are so many templates available. MSGJ13:13, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
Yes we don't want the instructions telling us to use the old templates. It is quite fair enough to not refer to any old templates, the docco for that can be hidden in the earlier versions. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:34, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
I just reviewed some redirect requests and have managed to confuse myself (not that it's an uncommon occurrence). The template {{afc exists}} (ironically) no longer exists. However, it still referenced in the reviewing instructions. Can the old template still be recreated using the new system? If it cannot, is there a standard template that should be used for declined redirect requests? Also, the reviewing instructions need to be updated as well. Cheers! TN‑X-Man00:32, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
The {{afc exists}} template didn't seem appropriate anymore as it was mentioning articles and not redirects. I propose a template which says something like Declined. The target specified already exists. Please add a hatnote to the page or redirect it as appropriate. Consider discussing your proposal on the article talk page first. Thank you. MSGJ10:49, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
Nowadays we generally have no backlog on Articles for Creation, thanks to the many reviewers here. So maybe we can turn our attention to a project which seems to be lacking attention, Wikipedia:Images for upload. There is a backlog going back months over there and no one is reviewing requests. We could maybe take it under our wing and help clear the backlog there. (IFU is similar to AFC in that it enables unregistered users to do something which they wouldn't be able to do otherwise.) What do people think? MSGJ19:27, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
I would support this, but I can't dedicate the same amount of time to images that I do articles. I do a lot editing at work (shhhh…). Hiding offensive articles is one thing, but offensive images would get me in trouble quick. That being said, I would be willing to help out when I can. TN‑X-Man19:48, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
Any other thoughts on this? I must admit that reviewing images has less appeal than articles, but it is probably an easier task potentially. Tnxman, I wouldn't want you to get into trouble :-) MSGJ13:19, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
WP:IFU does look like it needs help! Does it have a quality set of templates to provide feedback? But are reviewers here really finding that they have spare time? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:09, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
Editnotice for AFC pages
Since a lot of new users edit AFC pages when trying to propose a new article, which led most of them to be semi-protected, we could use editnotices to help them to find the proper way (similarly to the box at the top of the page). The message, placed at MediaWiki:Editnotice-4-Articles for creation, will then be displayed to all subpages of WP:AFC (in particular, the Wizard). For exceptions like Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Redirects, the syntax {{#ifeq:{{PAGENAME}}|Articles for creation/Redirects||Editnotice here}} can be used to place a blank notice instead (or a more specific one). CenariumTalk23:42, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
This came up recently in regards to the edit-notice for AN. If you can't edit a page due to its protection status, then you can't view the edit notice, which only appears while an edit and not view-source window is open. So no one for whom this matters would actually see it...if I correctly understand how these things work. Someguy1221 (talk) 08:13, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
By playing around with the timestamp of the submissions I think I have managed to sort Category:Pending Afc requests chronologically (oldest submissions first) and Category:Completed Afc requests reverse chronologically (newest submissions first). These are under the headings 2 and 1 respectively on the category pages. Of course this only applies to submissions with the timestamp (within the last day) so any other submissions will be sorted alphabetically as before. Hope people like it. MSGJ17:54, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
On further reflection I have sorted the pending requests by their status (P for pending, H for held, etc.). The entries under each of these headings are sorted chronologically. Maybe now we don't need the separate categories Category:Held Afc requests and Category:Queued Afc requests? I'm looking for people's thoughts on this. MSGJ18:23, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
I actually like this more than having them sorted alphabetically. Now I can glance and see which articles need reviewed and which are on hold. Good idea! TN‑X-Man18:30, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
Deletion guidelines
Hi, I'll freely admit that I'm not that familiar with the AfC side of the project, so my apologies if I'm asking a dumb question. However, I looked around and couldn't find an obvious answer to this question: How long are old submissions kept around? Do we keep them indefinitely, or are they deleted after a certain amount of time? I'm asking because I happened to notice some pages in Category:Completed Afc requests. For example, Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Submissions/9999999999999 (number), which has not been edited for over a month. If this were created in article space, it would have been speedy-deleted a long time ago... When will it be deleted in the AfC pipeline? And if there are admin instructions on this that I've missed, please could someone point me at them? Thanks, --Elonka18:58, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
That's a very good question. I'm somewhat new to the project myself, but from what I understand, once an article is declined, it is simply archived. It may be that this needs to change, as having a lot of potential problem articles (vandalism, BLP violations, etc.) hanging around could be a problem. Maybe the articles could be moved to an archive that's cleared once a month? TN‑X-Man19:01, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
All article submissions have been kept since the process began in 2005. All the pages should be excluded from search engine indexes and anything problematic should have been deleted by the reviewer anyway so they are not doing any harm. If anyone comes later and submits an article wth the same title they will be able to see the previous submissions and comments. MSGJ18:21, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
If it's a plausible stub, I have no trouble with letting it hang around, but some pages are clear nonsense or other violations:
My concern is that AfC is being used as a way to plop vandalism or other violations into the project. Perhaps an option can be added for reviewers, to tag an article as, "If no activity, recommend deletion". Or perhaps we could treat "decline" templates, like {{prod}} tags, such that if no activity occurred after a set amount of time, it would automatically go into a deletion queue? --Elonka00:47, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Any really bad stuff should be deleted straight away, but otherwise we should keep it indefinitely as an example, and a possible article to improve. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:59, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
My recommendations: Keep everything unless someone would get hurt or it would cause legal trouble if it stayed. For example, pages more than several hundred KB or which otherwise cause some browsers to crash, copyvios, BLP violations, etc. In the latter two cases, trim out the copyright vios and BLP issues and leave what's left, if anything. As long as search engines aren't seeing it, it doesn't do much harm to leave the poor-quality material around as an example of what not to do. I would've blanked Oluwaloba Afolabi as a BLP violation myself. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 03:12, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Okay, so if I'm understanding the above arguments, it's sort of like allowing these "Articles for creation" pages to be "junk" pages in userspace for people who don't have userspace (or who aren't sure how to create userspace pages). But obvious policy violations, attack pages, spam, copyvios etc. can still be speedy-deleted, just as they would be if they were in someone's userspace. Does that sound like a fair way to handle things? By those standards, of the above five items, we'll go ahead and delete #5 as BLP. I'd personally like to delete #2 and #3 as spam, but I agree that they're borderline if looked at under the "userspace" definition. But we still have the question of, if someone wants to delete one of these, what procedure should be used? Is a {{prod}} okay, or is MfD going to be required? --Elonka21:37, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
About #5, I have just cleared it. That is what I probably would have done if I had originally reviewed it. Obviously it was complete rubbish, but when you say "delete as BLP" what do you actually mean? If that was in mainspace if would be immediately deleted under A7. But article criteria can not be applied to project space where much lower standards are tolerated. The only general criterion which seems relevant is G10 - but I'm not sure it qualifies as an attack page, does it? And no, you can't use WP:PROD because that's only for articles. Martin22:42, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
redirect archival
MiszraBotII is archiving unprocessed requests (neither created nor declined)... this behaviour should be modified, perhaps it would only process threads with the declined or accepted templates, if there were such a way to modify its function... Perhaps a "backlog" subpage should be created as well, for requests over 1 week old that are unprocessed. 76.66.195.63 (talk) 03:12, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
I believe the bot will not archive threads that do not have any response. This normally means it will not archive requests which have not been accepted or declined. MSGJ10:24, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
New templates
In my experience a lot of submissions which are put on hold are never looked at again by the author. With this in mind I created a template which can be used to inform the author that their article is on hold and needs some attention and/or response. It's Template:Afc onhold which takes the title of the submission as a parameter. For example {{subst:Afc onhold|Formula Palmer Audi Season 2008}} produces
I have added a parameter to Template:Afc talk which can be used to inform the author of the quality class that their article has been rated. It links to the grading scheme and might encourage them to improve their article to take it to the next class up. As an example, {{subst:afc talk|Fred Sampson|class=C}} produces
Your nomination at Articles for Creation was a success, and Fred Sampson was created. The article has been assessed as C-Class. You may like to take a look at the grading scheme to see what needs to be done to bring it to the next level. Please continue making quality contributions to Wikipedia. Note that because you are a logged-in user, you can create articles yourself, and don't have to post a request. Thank you for helping Wikipedia!
I'm thinking we could get better about assessing articles and put more focus on the quality of the articles that are created through AfC. MSGJ13:07, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
AfC script
On the old system, we used to have a Java script which helped when reviewing submissions when they were all posted on the same page. It occurs to me that this could still have a use on the redirect and category requests page. Maybe it could be trimmed of all the functions which don't apply to redirects, and possibly a couple of new options added? I don't know anything about Java so I'm just throwing this into the air. Perhaps I could ask User:Henrik who created the script? Martin09:20, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Yes I still use it for the redirects, but I only stray there occasionaly, as it puts in the accepted tags and creates a new article. I thought that you were great at templates Msgj! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:50, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Templates are one thing. This language looks like Martian though :) By the way, does it use the {{AFC submission/old}} form so we can keep all the messages centralised at AFC submission/comments? Martin12:01, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Matt has been completely revamping the IfU process, and it's looking pretty nice (although not finished yet). You might want to take a look. I'm hoping we can get him over here to revamp our wizard when he's finished over there :) Martin12:51, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
Well, since there have been no objections I am pleased to announce that IfU has become part of WikiProject Articles for creation. I'll be making some changes to the project page and banner template to reflect this. Martin12:33, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Take part in the AfC challenge!
Tnxman307 and I are organising a competition called the "AfC challenge" which is designed to encourage us to improve some of the AfC articles and give us a rest from reviewing new submissions. The competition page is at WikiProject Articles for creation/AfC challenge. You can find more information about how you can take part.
I am planning to send a message round to whole list of AfC participants to advertise the competition. I've made a draft at User:Msgj/AfC spam. If there is anything else I should mention please let me know. Thanks, Martin14:40, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
What's the point of having an Articles for Creation process?
Hi. I have read your post. Unregistered users were prevented from creating new pages from 2005 onwards, basically because of the amount of rubbish that was being created. That's when AfC started. So to create a page you basically have two options: register an account (this is the easiest way) or use Articles for Creation. Martin08:09, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
I think a lot of the benefit to having AFC, WP:Drawing board, WP:Requested articles and other features around article creation in addition to a bit of vandalism/quality control is also how it affects people who are uninitiated to Wikipedia. In addition to people like yourself who have a sense of wikipedia and the guidelines for inclusion(I'm assuming) there are also those who don't quite understand the whole idea, especially the inclusion criteria considering WP:other stuff exists. Those individuals may try to create an article, have it speedy deleted, not understand why it got deleted, and do some combination of get angry and fight with the deleting admin and then either never quite get why their article was deleted and possibly try to sneak the article in again, or give up on what could have been a perfectly legitimate article. It is much better to both tell people with articles which aren't quite suitable why without all the unnecessary drama, or to help people create valid articles which should be included. -Optigan13 (talk) 08:48, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, I didn't explain myself too well at the beginning. My main concern is that I find the process of submitting an article to be reviewed cumbersome to use. For example, finding the right page/place to create an article, reading through the manuals, the complicated format of the review pending page, finding the page to find out if a submission was accepted or not.
Then I thought about it a bit more. I now find myself wondering about the need to have an AFC process in the first place. Why doesn't wikipedia just have a policy where only registered users can create an article. Unregistered users will just have to request articles instead.ExitRight (talk) 01:13, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
That's because wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can edit. Could you think of any ways we could improve the system? Feedback from someone who has used the process would be great. Any ways we can make the process simpler to use will go a long way as its not our intention to make this difficult for people :(. We want to encourage people to edit wikipedia and get involved. Seraphim♥01:33, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Because that would encourage creating articles just for the sake of making an article, which would produce more vandalism articles than anything useful. Restricting it to creation via completing redlinks or as a result of a search which came up with nothing and requiring an accountable is reasonable. The only restriction to article creation is creating an account, using articles for creation or any other forum is completely voluntary. Also, with both the speed with which new articles get created around current events and considering wikipedia currently has 6,908,591 articles, we've more than flushed out the basic strucure and core articles of the encyclopedia. -Optigan13 (talk) 04:55, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Popped on to the pending submissions category today...0 submissions? Not 8 hours ago the template read "backlogged" and now we're clear? I don't know who pulled this off, but IMO he/she deserves a barnstar at the least. Robert SkyhawkSo sue me! (You'll lose) 16:38, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Is there a place on Wikipedia where I can provide a source for an image, such as a book or newspaper, rather then submitting one found online at Wikipedia:Images for upload ? I do have photographs and illustrations for a number of articles I've created through Wikipedia:Articles for creation, however I'm unable to scan them. While someone would need to have access to these books as well as a scanner, uploading them should be a formality as all of these were published well before 1923 and should be in the public domain, or at the very least fall under fair use. 72.74.214.76 (talk) 10:33, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
You could add these books to the article as sources (see the {{citation}} template). But it would be even better if you could upload them! Martin09:09, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
Done. Nousernamesleftcopper, not wood 19:41, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Comment: Mentioned article is at Wikipedia:AFC#NVISION. MSGJ 09:30, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Resolved. This is now working again. MSGJ 12:39, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
Declined. {{AFC submission/comments}}.
